Crusading and the Ottoman Threat, 1453–1505, by Norman HousleyVisions of the Ottoman World in Renaissance Europe, by Andrei Pippidi

Norman Housley is a leading expert on the crusading movement and religious warfare in the later medieval period, and his previous publications, such as The Later Crusades: From Lyons to Alcazar, 1274–1580 (1992; rev. ante, cix [1994], pp. 109–11) and Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400–1536 (2002; rev. ante, cxix [2004], pp. 189–90), are highly influential works within the field and remain the first ports of call for undergraduates and academics interested in researching this topic. His latest monograph, which focuses on Christendom’s response to the Ottoman Turkish threat in the fifty years following their capture of Constantinople in 1453, is of a similarly high standard and will be the standard work on the topic for many years to come. The challenges of writing a history of the crusading movement once one moves into the fifteenth century are significant. There exists a great deal of source material in various languages and in diverse forms, including chronicles, diplomatic correspondence, orations and financial accounts, to name but a few. The secondary literature can be equally extensive and in numerous modern languages. Nevertheless, Housley has succeeded admirably in producing not only a clear and concise work of synthesis, but one which seeks to put forward new conclusions and reconfigure the way in which historians view the crusading movement in the latter half of the fifteenth century.

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