Tales of the Crusaders – Remembering the Crusades in Britain by Elizabeth Siberry

Author:Elizabeth Siberry [Siberry, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367265243
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Recognizing the strong interest amongst his readers in laying claim to such a crusade ancestor, Keightley wisely added that he was not responsible for any errors or omissions in the list, and he also queried some names, such as the inclusion of three Earls of Leicester.

Dansey: The English Crusaders

A much grander and more detailed list of crusaders appeared a quarter of a century later, in 1850. Its full title was The English Crusaders; Containing an Account of All the English Knights who Formed Part of the Expeditions for the Recovery of the Holy Land. Illustrated by Three Hundred Coats of Arms and Various Embellishments, Illuminated in Gold and Colours. The author was James Cruikshank Dansey.

Dansey was born in London in 1818, the son of Major Charles Cornwallis Dansey of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. He was educated at Christchurch, Oxford, and is listed as a member of Lincoln’s Inn in London in 1838, so he may have trained as a lawyer. His only other known publication was a historical romance titled The Persecuted, or The Days of Lorenzo dei Medici and published in 1843.

The list of crusaders (Figure 3.1) was advertised in the journal The Athenaeum as ‘intended to embrace interesting matter connected with the crusades, from whom so many illustrious and noble families are descended’,26 and it was presumably this potential market and his own interest in history that prompted Dansey to put pen to paper. In fact, his work appeared posthumously in 1850, for he died, aged only 29, in 1847.27

It is a splendid and lavishly illustrated work, with coloured pages preceding each crusade, rather like a medieval illuminated manuscript. Only 100 copies were produced and there is no subscriber list, but the frequent references to noble families descended from heroic crusaders may have stimulated the market, and a copy listed in the sale catalogue of the London bookdealers, Quaritch, in 1877 noted that it contained ‘valuable information for the genealogy of many of our English families’.28

Figure 3.1Dansey’s list of crusaders

Source: Author’s photo.

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