The Siege of Antioch Project (“SAP”) presents an original digital edition of a newly edited and translated medieval epic that covers the events of the First Crusade with a heavy emphasis on the taking of Antioch and the subsequent battle. It is a collaborative effort currently being undertaken by U.K. scholars and graduate students in the Fordham Medieval Studies program. By navigating an extensive digital apparatus, biographies of main characters, interactive maps, and a glossary, SAP users will be able to both read and interact with a primary Crusade-era text. This chanson de geste comprises over 400 rhymed laisses (sections of text) and contains about 19,500 lines. Over the next few years the entire poem will be translated and made available on the SAP site for crusades scholars and new readers to explore.
To read the Siège d’Antioche text, visit Text and Translation. Here you will find the current, ongoing translation of the poem presented in English alongside the critical edition in Old French. Using TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), you can explore the Siège d’Antioche fully with a critical apparatus and footnotes from the U.K. team. By hovering your cursor over the colored text, you will see the critical apparatus as well as information on people and places. Dark blue text denotes people, and light blue text denotes places. The red text shows the variations between manuscripts. Our edition uses the two full manuscripts of the poem: Hatton 77 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 77, the base for the edition), and Spalding (London, British Library, Add MS 34114), plus two fragments.
Students and new users curious about the text, and about the literature and history of the First Crusade, will want to explore our Resources page. This contains supplementary material that is designed to give readers the information needed to understand the important people, places, and terms of the poem. These resources are constantly being expanded by the Fordham team, with the goal of making the Siège d’Antioche accessible to students and users with no prior experience in crusades studies or medieval history.
The edition and translation are still a work in progress, and the website is updated regularly to accommodate new laisses.