Professor Peter Jackson

Contact Details

School of Humanities (History),
Keele University,
Staffs
ST5 5BG 
Tel 01782-583202 (direct line)/583196 (School office)

Background

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

Through reading Runciman (in 1960!)

Who or what sparked your enthusiasm for the subject?

The late Otto Smail, in his final-year course at Cambridge, ‘The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1098-1291’ (in 1970-1)

Education

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

St John’s College, Cambridge (1968-71): 
BA 1st-class Honours, Cambridge (1971);
Postgraduate research at St John’s (1971-5):
PhD (Cambridge, 1977), for thesis entitled ‘The Mongols and India, 1221-1351’ (supervisor Professor JA Boyle, Manchester).

Career History

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

  • Junior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge (1975-9)
  • Lecturer in History, Keele University (1979-91)
  • Senior Lecturer (1991-2000); Reader (2000-2)
  • Professor of Medieval History (2002-)

Influences and Methodologies

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

N/C

Research Outlook

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

  1. Ransacking the Arabic sources for material concerning Frankish activity
  2. Reaching a more nuanced idea of the way Popes distinguished crusades to theatres other than the Holy Land, and against enemies other than the Muslims, in terms of the rewards offered.

Research Output

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

  • ‘The crisis in the Holy Land in 1260’, English Historical Review, 95 (1980), pp 481-513
  • ‘The end of Hohenstaufen rule in Syria’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 59 (1986), pp 20-36
  • ‘The crusades of 1239-1241 and their aftermath’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 50 (1987), pp 32-60; repr in GR Hawting (ed), Muslims, Mongols and Crusaders (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005), pp 217-47
  • The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: his journey to the court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253-1255, translated by P Jackson, introduction, commentary and appendices by P Jackson with DO Morgan (Cambridge, 1990:  Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, 173), pp xvi + 312
  • ‘The crusade against the Mongols (1241)’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 42 (1991), pp 1-18; Hungarian translation as ‘Keresztes hadjárat a mongolok ellen (1241)’ in Nagy Balázs et al (eds), Tatárjárás (Budapest: Osiris, 2003), pp 348-61
  • ‘William of Rubruck in the Mongol Empire: perception and prejudices’, in Zweder von Martels (ed), Travel Fact and Travel Fiction.  Studies on fiction, literary tradition, scholarly discovery and observation in travel writing (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp 54-71
  • ‘Prester John redivivus: a review article’: in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd series, 7 (1997), pp 425-32
  • ‘Marco Polo and his “Travels”’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 61 (1998), pp 82-101; repr in GR Hawting (ed), Muslims, Mongols and Crusaders (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005), pp 263-82
  • ‘The Mongols and Europe’, chap 22 in DSH Abulafia (ed), The New Cambridge Medieval History, V  c 1198-c 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp 703-19
  • ‘The state of research: the Mongol empire, 1986-1999’, Journal of Medieval History, 26 (2000), pp 189-210
  • ‘Medieval Christendom’s encounter with the alien’, Historical Research, 74 (2001), pp 347-69
  • ‘Hülegü Khan and the Christians: the making of a myth’, chap 12 in Peter Edbury and Jonathan Phillips (eds), The Experience of Crusading, II. Defining the crusader kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp 196-213
  • The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410 , Longman’s Medieval World series (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2005), pp xxxiv + 414; Polish translation as Mongołowie i Zachód (Warsaw: Bellona SA, 2007), pp 464
  • ‘The Mongols and the faith of the conquered’, in Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran (eds), Mongols, Turks and Others.  Eurasian nomads and the sedentary world (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp 245-90
  • ‘World-conquest and local accommodation: Threat and blandishment in Mongol diplomacy’, in Judith Pfeiffer and Sholeh A Quinn (eds, with the collaboration of Ernest Tucker), History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in honor of John E Woods (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), pp 3-22
  • (Trans and ed) The Seventh Crusade 1244-1254. Sources and Documents, Crusade Texts in Translation 16 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp xv + 256

Top