THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES
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loginTheinclusion of the subject of the crusades in this series ofOxford histories and the fact that only one of the contributors isfrom outside Britain provide an opportunity to reflect upon thephenomenal rise in the number of British crusade scholars sincethe early 1950s, when there cannot have been more than half adozen, only two of whom were historians, teaching in the uni-versities. By 1990twenty-nine history departments in Britishuniversities and colleges had members of the Society for theStudy of the Crusadeson their staff. The subject’s strength inBritish academic circles probably owes most to a general publicinterest, a fascination with the Near East which has a long his-tory, the reputation of St John Ambulance, which associatesitself with the medieval Knights Hospitallers, and the continuingsuccess of Sir Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades.
