Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski

Philippe de Mézières (1327-1405), politician, diplomat, traveler, and prolific author, was one of the defining figures of the late Middle Ages. His many works include political allegories, letters to rulers, pious texts, and crusading propaganda. Philippe was both a man of action and a contemplative. Philippe is pivotal for our understanding of attitudes toward the Near East and the waning ideal of the crusade, the ideal of kingship during profound crises (the Hundred Years War; the Great Schism), and of spiritual marriage at a time when that ideal is becoming tarnished by suspicions of heresy. This study sheds light not only on the ideals and ideology that defined and divided late medieval Europe and the Near East but also on our contemporary religious and political divisions.