Professor Yvonne Friedman

Contact Details

Department of General History
Department of the Land of Israel Studies
Bar-Ilan University
Ramat Gan 55200
Israel

Email: yfried@mail.biu.ac.il

Background

When and where did you initially develop an interest in the history of the crusades and/or the Latin East?

I think it was around 1980 in Jerusalem, but it was undoubtedly influenced by the remains of crusader castles in Israel and the modern conflicts in the Middle East.

Who or what sparked your enthusiasm for the subject?

Professor Joshua Prawer and later Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith.

Education

Please provide details of your Higher Education, including dates, institution(s) and the name(s) of your research supervisors.

  • PhD, 1980 - Bar-Ilan University, Department of History.  Thesis topic:  Christian-Jewish Medieval Polemics. 
    Thesis advisor: Professor A. Saltman
  • MA, 1975 - Bar-Ilan University, Medieval history
  • BA, 1968 - Bar-Ilan University, Hebrew Literature and General History; plus teacher’s certification

Career History

Please provide details of your academic career history, including confirmation of your current institutional affiliation and contact details.

  • 2001 – to present Associate Professor, Department of History, Department of the Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan University
  • 2005 Visiting Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, Department of History, Cambridge
  • 1987 – 2001 Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Department of the Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan University
  • 1995 Visiting Scholar, Lucy Cavendish College, Department of Oriental Studies, Cambridge
  • 1988 – 90 Chairman of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan University
  • 1983 – 84 Research Associate, School of Advanced Studies, Jerusalem
  • 1982 – 83 Research Associate, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto
  • 1981 – 84 Lecturer,  Department of History, Medieval History, Bar-Ilan University
  • 1974 – 81 Instructor, Department of History, Bar-Ilan University
  • 1971 – 74 Instructor, Department of History, Bar-Ilan University
  • 1970 – 71 Assistant teacher, Department of History, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
  • 1969 – 70 Research assistant, Department for Comparative Literature, Tel-Aviv University.

Influences and Methodologies

What ideas and/or methodologies have informed your approach to your research?

Too many to enumerate, and changing over the years.

Research Outlook

What do you consider to be the most important avenues for future research in the field of crusader studies?

Comparative studies between crusading societies, such as Medieval Spain and the Latin East. Personally, I am less interested in the warfare and more in the ways of coexistence between the fighting societies and religions. Gender will probably be a fertile vista of research in the coming years.

Research Output

Please provide details of your research output, including publications and other media as appropriate.

Books

  • Encounter between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Leiden: EJ Brill, 2002, xxiii + 295 pp
  • Petri Venerabilis adversus iudeorum inveteratam duritiem, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 58, Turnhout: Brepols, 1985, LXX + 220 pp

Articles

  • "An Anatomy of Anti-Semitism: Peter the Venerable's Letter to Louis VII, King of France (1146)", Bar-Ilan Studies in History I (1978),87-102
  • "When Were Peter the Venerable's Polemical  Works Written?", Bar -Ilan Studies in History II (1981), 122-133
  • "Armenkultur und Literatur- Zur Entwinklung eines Motivs in der antijudische Polemik des 12. Jahrhunderts", Kairos-Zeitschrift fur Religionswissenschaft und Theologie XXVI (1984), 80-88
  • "The 'Biblia pauperum' and the anti-Jewish polemic in the Twelfth Century"(Hebrew)
  • Bar-Ilan Yearbook for Jewish Studies 20-21(1983), 72-84
  • "Peter the Venerable - A Humanist of the Twelfth Century or an Anti-Semite?", Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem 1981, 1-8  
  • "Francescinus of Pontremoli: A Pilgrim's Path to Pardon", Franciscan Studies  43 (1983-1986), 279-297
  • "A Pilgrim between Personal Piety and Christian communitas" (Hebrew), BZ Kedar (ed), The Crusaders in their Kingdom, Jerusalem 1988, 254-266
  • "The Status of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Crusader Period" (Hebrew), Wilnai Book  II (1988), 58-66
  • with Anat Peled," Did the Crusaders Construct Roads?"(Hebrew), Qadmoniot XX (1988), 119-123
  • "Pilgrims and Crusaders: Was there a Change in the Genre of Itineraria in the Thirteenth Century?" (Hebrew), Cathedra XLI (1986), 55-64
  • "Le pelèrinage en Palestine, acte de devotion dans l'optique juive et chretienne", Revue des Etudes juives CXLIX (1990), 33-37
  • "Holy and Profane in the Itineraria of Pilgrims in the Mamluk Period"(Hebrew), J.Drori (ed), Palestine in the Mamluk Period, Jerusalem 1993, 128-141
  • "Acre as a Crossroads in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem"(Hebrew), Sylvia Schein (ed), Acre, A Medieval Metropolis , Jerusalem (in press), 1-12
  • with Anat Peled, "The Map of Roads in Galilee in the Middle Ages" (Hebrew), Y Friedman, Y Schwartz , Z Safrai (eds), Hikrei Eretz, Studies in the History of the Land of Israel, Ramat Gan 1997, 323-341
  • "Pilgrimage to the Holy Land as an Act of Devotion in Jewish and Christian Outlook”, G Dahan et G Nahon (eds), Rashi et la culture juive en France du Nord au moyen âge  Paris, Collection de la Revue des Etudes juives, 1997, 278-301
  • "Immigration and Settlement in Crusader Thought", B-S Albert, Y Friedman, S Schwartzfuchs (eds), Bar-Ilan Studies in Medieval History IV, Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman , Ramat Gan 1996, 121-134.
  • "Women in Captivity and their Ransom in the Crusader Period", M Goodich, S Menasche, S Schein (eds), Cross Cultural Convergences in the Crusader Period, Haifa 1996, 75-87
  • “The City of the King of Kings: Jerusalem in the Crusader Period”, M Porthuis and Ch Safrai (eds), The Centrality of Jerusalem , Historical Perspectives, Den Haag 1996, 190-216
  • “The Ransom of  Captives in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem”, M Balard (ed), Autour de la Première Croisade , Paris 1996, 177-189
  • “Jaemmerliche Versager oder romantischer Held? Gefangengenschaft während der Kreuzfahrer-Epoche.” In In der Hand des Feindes, ed R Overmans, 119-40.  Cologne, 1999.
  • “Anti-Talmudic Invective from Peter the Venerable to Nicholas Donin (1144-1244).” In Le Brûlement du Talmud à Paris, 1242-1244, ed G Dahan, 171-89.  Paris, 1999.
  • “Pilgrims in the Shadow of the Crusader Kingdom.” In Knights of the Holy Land, ed Silvia Rosenberg, 100-110. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1999.
  • “See Jerusalem and Die: Jerusalem as a Last Stop in Crusader Times.” In Jerusalem and Eretz Israel (Arie Kindler Volume), ed J Schwartz, Z Amar, and I Ziffer, 89-99. Tel-Aviv, 2000.
  • “The ‘Great Precept’ of Ransom: The Jewish Perspective.” In La Liberazione dei ‘captivi’ tra Christianità e Islam, ed G Cipollone, 161-72. Collectanea Archivi Vaticani 46. Citta del Vaticano, 2000.
  • “New Challenges on an Old Map: Trends in Developing Interest in Crusader Sites for Target-centered Tourism.” In Challenged Tourism, ed R French, 113-26. Famagusta, 2001.
  • “Did Laws of War Exist in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem?”  In Ex Zion exibitur Lex: Festschrift for Amnon Linder, ed Y Hen, 81-103.  Turnhout, 2001.
  • “Crusades and Settlement: Crossroads and Paths in Research” (Hebrew). Cathedra 100 (2001): 259-86.
  • “Captivity and Ransom: The Experience of Women.” In Gendering the Crusades, ed S Lambert and S Edgington, 121-39. University of Wales Press, 2001.
  • “Gender, Captivity and Ransom in Jerusalem—The Experience of Jewish Women in the Latin Kingdom” (Hebrew). In Women in Jerusalem, ed T Cohen and J Schwartz, Ramat-Gan 2002, 45-62.
  • “Violence and Cruelty toward Captives in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem”, Historia 12 (2003), 21-46.
  • “Miracle, Meaning and Narrative in the Latin East”, Studies in Church History 41 (2005), 123-134.
  • “The Responsibility of the Community toward its Members”, A Holy People, Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Religious Communal Identity, ed Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz, Leiden: Brill 2006, 199-216.
  • "Ransom of Captives- Medieval Women", Margareth Schaus (ed), Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, London: Routledge 2006
  • "Charity Begins at Home? Ransoming Captives in Jewish, Christian and Muslim Tradition", Studia Hebraica 6 (2007),

In Press:

  • “The Latin Community in Mamluk Jerusalem”(Hebrew), Y Friedman, and R Amitai-Preiss, eds The History of Jerusalem: The Mamluk Period, in preparation
  • “Leadership in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem”, Bar-Ilan Studies in History 5 (in press)
  • "Gestures of Conciliation? Peacemaking Endeavours and Cultural Consequences", Festschrift for BZ Kedar (in press)
  • "Peacemaking Processes between Muslims and Christians in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem", War, Peace, Society and international Order in History, ed J Duellfer, Berghahn Books (forthcoming)

 

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