Shirin > Recent Status Updates

"By his nature the feudal lord was a dedicated consumer. His social status imposed a life-style of conspicuous consumption, which in the Middle Ages meant mainly consumption of food and drink. The lord was “the man who could always eat as much as he wished,” says Georges Duby, and also “the man who provided others with food,” and was consequently admired for his openhandedness."

"She was hardly aware that Holy Sepulchre had been won less than a century earlier— that was in the days of her grandfather's grandfather and he had not been a crusader. To her, Jerusalem was rightfully and actually the apanage of a French and Christian king..."

"The major exception to this was crusading, spurred largely by religious motives so far as the monarchy went. Crusading to the Holy Land was fundamentally a French movement, the 'Gesta Dei per Francos'. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was formed mainly from principalities set up by the French in the Holy Land. Its rulers and lords were chiefly of French extraction."