Release Date: October 5, 2004

MONMOUTH, Ill. — For 30 years, Monmouth College history professor Bill Urban has been publishing scholarly books and articles about the little-known but historically significant Baltic Crusade in eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.

Now, at a time of heightened public interest in the historic origins of tension between Christianity and Islam, Urban’s scholarship is accessible to a lay audience, through a chapter in a new illustrated history of the Crusades, edited by Professor Thomas F. Madden of St. Louis University.

Published by Duncan Baird Publishers of London, “Crusades: The Illustrated History” is a colorful and comprehensive guide to the centuries-long series of holy wars, written by eight noted historians.

Urban’s chapter, titled “Crusades in Europe: Infidels, Pagans, and Heretics,” covers the conquest of Muslim rulers in Spain and Portugal (the Reconquista), the 12th-century Wendish Crusade by German princes, the crusades of the Eastern Baltic, the Albigensian Crusade in southern France, and the Hussite Crusade in the Czech region.

Urban also chronicles the “crusades” waged by Popes against their political enemies during the 13th and 14th centuries, including a noted campaign by Pope Gregory against Frederick II in 1239. Such incursions caused discontent among many Catholics and helped set the stage for the Reformation of the 16th century.

Madden, a professor of medieval history who has written several important books on the Crusades, asked Urban to contribute a chapter, based on his extensive knowledge of the crusades in the Baltic. Urban said the project, on which he spent three months this summer researching and writing, offered some unique challenges:

“As the editor in England put the book together, he had to ask each contributor to modify sequentially each draft, both to fit space and to make a well-rounded work out of what might have become disconnected essays. Writing a book is comparatively easy—it’s all yours. You

know what goes where. This was different. It was a joint project, and Professor Madden has earned my thanks for his assistance. The result is a beautiful book.”

The Lee L. Morgan Professor of History and International Studies, Urban has been a member of the Monmouth history department since 1966. He is also the former editor of the Journal of Baltic Studies and has published extensively on the northern crusades.

Other contributors to the volume are Alfred Andrea, professor emeritus of history at the University of Vermont; John France, reader in medieval history at the University of Wales; Helen Nicholson, senior lecturer in history at Cardiff University; John Powel;l, professor emeritus of history at Syracuse University; Jonathan Harris, lecturer in Byzanitine history at the University of London; and Carol Hillenbrand, professor of Islamic history at the University of Edinburgh.

Profusely illustrated in color, the 224-page book is currently available from Amazon.com.

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