HY 497: The Crusades

Selected texts in translation.

A collection of translated primary documents.

Treaties, compacts, constitutions, diplomatic materials from world history.

This database brings together information on men and women who took part in the crusades to the Holy Land in the period between the Council of Clermont (1095) and the end of the Second Crusade (1149). It includes information on their identities, social status, titles, geographical origins, finance, family relationships and affiliations to crusade leaders. It can thus be used to gain information on the lives of individual crusaders, as well as on the composition of individual crusades and their contingents and the contribution made to crusading by different families, countries and regions of Europe.

The Center’s primary mission is to preserve and make accessible the written culture of Malta and the Order of Malta. The Center maintains a microfilm collection of more than 16,000 documents from Malta, covering the period of the 12th to the 20th century. The materials include the Archives of the Order of Malta, the Cathedral Museum in Mdina, the Archives of the Inquisition, the ecclesiastical records of the dioceses of Malta and Gozo, and musical compositions. The center also has over 1500 digitized manuscripts from the National Archives of Malta, the Notarial Archives of Malta, the Magistral Library and Archives, and the Palazzo Falson Museum and Library. The Center sponsors digitization projects to preserve the history of Malta and the Order of Malta. The Center also actively acquires rare books and manuscripts related to Maltese history and the history of the Order, which are cataloged, digitized, and studied in the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections.