De expugnatione Lyxbonensi

The siege as imagined by Alfredo Roque Gameiro (1917) based on the Expugnatione and showing the siege tower and the "Welsh cat". This is the mobile covered shelter between the tower and the city walls, used to protect sappers trying to undermine the walls.

De expugnatione Lyxbonensi ('On the Conquest of Lisbon') is an eyewitness account of the Siege of Lisbon at the start of the Second Crusade, and covers the expedition from the departure of the English contingent on 23 May 1147 until the fall of Lisbon on 28 June 1148.[1] It was written in Latin by one Raol, an Anglo-Fleming and probably a chaplain of Hervey de Glanvill in the army from East Anglia.[2] It is an important source for the organisation of the crusade, especially among the middle ranks of society.[3] An English translation by Charles Wendell David appeared in 1936 and was reprinted in 2001.[4]

  1. ^ David Stewart Bachrach, Religion and the Conduct of War, c. 300–c. 1215 (Boydell Press, 2003), 130–34.
  2. ^ For the author's identity, that he was not an Anglo-Norman and not "Osbern", see Harold Livermore, "The 'Conquest of Lisbon' and Its Author", Portuguese Studies, 6 (1990), 1–16.
  3. ^ Christopher Tyerman, England and the Crusades, 1095–1588 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 32–35.
  4. ^ The Conquest of Lisbon: De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi (New York: University of Columbia Press), 2nd ed. with a foreword by Jonathan Phillips.