Four Latin (Catholic) Christian polities were founded in the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia during the First Crusade (1095-1099): the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Principality of Antioch, and counties of Edessa and Tripoli. The Latins retained a foothold on the Levantine mainland until 1291. During the intervening two centuries of Latin rule, two affiliated, longer lived, neighbouring polities – the Latin Empire of Constantinople and Kingdom of Cyprus – were also founded.

These six polities of the ‘Latin East’ were ruled over by small Latin populations. However, Latin rulers and settlers were far outnumbered by their religiously, denominationally, ethnically, tribally and regionally diverse Levantine and Eastern Mediterranean subjects. These populations – which consisted of Syrian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Greek Orthodox, Nestorian and Syriac Maronite Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims, and small denominations of Nizari Muslims, Jews, Samaritans and Druze- pre-existed the Latin conquests and continued to live in the Eastern Mediterranean long after Latin rule ended.

This interdisciplinary project combines History and Legal Studies in order to analyse the complexities of interfaith social relationships in the religiously diverse Latin East. It does so by exploring how members of different Eastern Mediterranean populations were treated and represented in the extensive surviving body of Latin laws and legal texts. In doing so, this project seeks to shed light on nuances of interfaith social hierarchies, integration/segregation and cooperation/conflict in the Latin East, in order to challenge powerfully simplistic misconceptions of interfaith relationships during the crusades, and their modern weaponization by extremist groups against refugees, members of different faiths, and historically disenfranchised groups. Furthermore, it seeks to contextualise and contrast mediaeval European and Mediterranean legislative and judicial developments.