The defence of the Holy Land and the memory of the Maccabees

This article explores the evolving use of Maccabaean ideas in sources concerning the conduct of Christian holy warfare between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. It demonstrates that the memory of the Maccabees and other Old Testament exemplars played an important role in shaping the idea of crusading and its subsequent evolution to encompass new frontiers in the Baltic and Iberia, as well as structural developments in crusading, such as the establishment of the military orders.