DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Siege of Jerusalem

Michael Livingston editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Medieval Institute Publications

Published:1st Mar '05

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Siege of Jerusalem cover

The Siege of Jerusalem has long confounded readers with its graphic depictions of violence and the relish with which it describes the suffering of Jewish people. Despite the moral and emotional challenges this text presents, its participation in the longstanding “Vengeance of Our Lord” tradition, discussed throughout medieval Christendom and incorporating a combination of legend, miracle, historiography, and chivalric romance, provides modern readers with a wider window into this material’s reception and reuse in medieval England. This Middle English alliterative poem, written anonymously sometime in the fourteenth century, chronicles the Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE, beginning with the crucifixion of Jesus and culminating in the Romans’ destruction of the Second Temple, intended to symbolize the vengeance of Jesus. Michael Livingston’s edition and notes bring out a new dimension of this poem, exploring the ways in which it realizes, rather than glorifies, the brutalities of war.

ISBN: 9781580440905

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

154 pages

New edition