British historian
Jonathan Simon Christopher Riley-Smith
GCStJ
FRHistS
(27 June 1938 ? 13 September 2016) was a historian of the
Crusades
,
[1]
and, between 1994 and 2005,
Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History
at
Cambridge
.
[2]
He was a
Fellow
of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
.
[3]
Early life
[
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]
Riley-Smith was the eldest of four children born into a prosperous Yorkshire
brewing family
. His maternal grandfather (to whose memory he later dedicated his book
What Were the Crusades?
) was the
British Conservative Party
MP
,
John Craik-Henderson (1890-1971)
.
[4]
He attended
Eton College
and
Trinity College, Cambridge
, where he took his BA (1960), MA (1964), PhD (1964), and LittD (2001).
[5]
Academic career
[
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]
Riley-Smith taught at the
University of St Andrews
(1964?1972),
Queens' College, Cambridge
(1972-1978),
Royal Holloway College, London
(1978?1994) as well as at
Emmanuel
(1994?2005).
[2]
[3]
His many respected publications on the origins of the crusading movement and the motivations of the first crusaders have deeply influenced current historiography of the crusades:
[6]
in an appreciative obituary, a senior colleague described Riley-Smith as "quite simply the leading historian of the crusades anywhere in the world".
[7]
He was appointed a Knight of Grace and Devotion of the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta
and a Bailiff Grand Cross of the
Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem
.
[8]
Riley-Smith appeared in the documentary series
Crusades
(1995) as an historical authority. However, the series adopted the outdated views of
Steven Runciman
, which were not held by the interviewed experts. The producers then edited the taped interviews so that the historians seemed to agree with Runciman. Riley-Smith said of the producers that "they made me appear to say things that I do not believe!"
[9]
In 2006, he delivered the
Gifford Lectures
on
The Crusades and Christianity
at the
University of Edinburgh
.
[10]
Personal life
[
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]
Riley-Smith was a convert to Catholicism.
[5]
He married Louise Field, a portrait artist, in 1968.
[11]
[12]
Their three children include the singer/songwriter
Polly Paulusma
.
Jonathan Riley-Smith died on 13 September 2016.
[13]
Bibliography
[
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]
- The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c. 1050?1310
(London, Macmillan, 1967, reprinted 2002)
- Ibn al-Furat
(1971).
Jonathan Riley-Smith
(ed.).
Ayyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders: Text
. Vol. 1. Translation by Malcolm Cameron Lyons, Ursula Lyons. W. Heffer.
ISBN
9780852700587
.
- Ibn al-Furat
(1971).
Jonathan Riley-Smith
(ed.).
Ayyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders; selections from the Tarikh al-duwal wa'l-Muluk
. Vol. 2. Translation by Malcolm Cameron Lyons, Ursula Lyons. Cambridge: W. Heffer.
- The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174?1277
(London, Macmillan, 1973, reprinted 2002)
- What Were the Crusades?
(London, Macmillan, 1977, 2nd edition 1992, 3rd edition Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2002)
- The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095?1274
, with Louise Riley-Smith (London, Edward Arnold, 1981)
- The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading
(London and Philadelphia, Athlone/ University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986, paperback US 1990, UK 1993)
- The Crusades: A Short History
(London and New Haven, Athlone/ Yale University Press, 1987, also in paperback, translated into French, Italian and Polish)
- The Atlas of the Crusades
(editor) (London and New York, Times Books/ Facts on File, 1991, translated into German and French)
- The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades
, editor (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995, paperback 1997, now reissued as
The Oxford History of the Crusades
, paperback, 1999, translated into Russian, German and Polish)
- Cyprus and the Crusades
, editor, with Nicholas Coureas) (Nicosia, Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East and Cyprus Research Centre, 1995)
- Montjoie: Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer
, editor, with
Benjamin Z. Kedar
and Rudolf Hiestand (Aldershot, Variorum, 1997)
- The First Crusaders, 1095?1131
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, paperback 1998 and 2000)
- Hospitallers: The History of the Order of St. John
(London, The Hambledon Press, 1999, also in paperback, translated into Russian)
- Al seguito delle Crociate Rome
(Di Renzo: Dialoghi Uomo e Societ?, 2000)
- Dei gesta per Francos: Etudes sur les croisades dιdiιes ? Jean Richard
, editor, with M. Balard and B.Z. Kedar (Aldershot (Ashgate), 2001)
- The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam
(Columbia University Press, 2008)
- The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant 1070?1309
(Basingstoke, 2012)
References
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External links
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