Alan V. Murray

Collaborating to Achieve Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability? Possibilities and problems

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possibilities and problems for collaboration in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. The paper explores the nature and concept of collaboration and its forms, and critically evaluates the potential contribution a collaborative approach between agencies might offer to these agendas. Design/methodology/approach: The paper explores different forms of research on collaboration, together with a UK Government report on collaboration, to evaluate how the issue is addressed in theory and practice. Findings: Sustainable development creates extensive challenges for a wide range of agencies, including governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses and civil society. It is unlikely, however, that solutions will be found in any one quarter. Collaboration between agencies in some form would seem a logical step in supporting measures towards a more responsible and environmentally sustainable global economy. Originality/value: The paper offers new insights into developing a research and praxis agenda for collaborative possibilities towards the advancement of CSR and sustainability.

The Saracens of the Baltic: Pagan and Christian Lithuanians in the Perception of English and French Crusaders to Late Medieval Prussia

This paper investigates the use of the term ‘Saracens’ to describe the Lithuanian opponents of the Western crusaders who took part in expeditions launched from Prussia by the Teutonic Order against the grand duchy of Lithuania in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It presents a variety of evidence from narrative and documentary sources to demonstrate that this usage was derived from existing images of Muslim opponents and was reinforced by epic and romance literature. The use of the term Saracens, which by the fourteenth century had become a generic designation for pagans, was both a convenient way for Western crusaders to imbue the Prussian crusades with a value commensurate with campaigns in the Holy Land, but also to blacken their Lithuanian opponents even when they had abandoned paganism.

A Race Against Time—A Fight to the Death: Combatants and Civilians in the Siege and Capture of Jerusalem, 1099

On 15 July 1099, after a siege lasting five weeks, an army of Western European crusaders stormed into the Muslim-held city of Jerusalem. The Holy City—the most sacred location for medieval Christians—was the goal of the expedition which had been proclaimed three and a half years before by Pope Urban at the church council of Clermont, and its conquest had momentous consequences. On the day of the capture and those that followed, the victorious crusaders proceeded to massacre most of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the city. What is remarkable, however, is that the crusade army itself included a large number of participants who had had little or no military experience before leaving their homes in the West. This chapter will examine the comparative experience of defenders and besiegers during the crusader siege. This attempts to demonstrate how the demarcation lines between combatants and non-combatants became blurred in the course of the siege, and then go on to look at the consequences of these developments after the capture of the city.

Livland ‒ eine Region am Ende der Welt? Forschungen zum Verhältnis zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie im späten Mittelalter/Livonia ‒ a region at the end of the world? Studies on the relations between center and periphery in the later middle ages

Livland ‒ eine Region am Ende der Welt? Forschungen zum Verhältnis zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie im späten Mittelalter/Livonia ‒ a region at the end of the world? Studies on the relations between center and periphery in the later middle ages, edited by Anti Selart and Matthias Thumser (eds), Quellen und Studien zur baltischen Geschichte 27, Cologne and Weimar, Böhlau Verlag, 2017, 519 pp., €65.00, ISBN 978-3-412-50805-0

The Grand Designs of Gilbert of Assailly. The Order of the Hospital in the Projected Conquest of Egypt by King Amalric of Jerusalem (1168–1169)

The chronicler William of Tyre is highly critical of the Hospitaller master Gilbert of Assailly, whom he blames for bankrupting the Order of the Hospital through his support for invasions of Egypt undertaken by King Amalric of Jerusalem. This essay attempts to identify and contextualise the concessions made by the king to the Hospitallers in exchange for their military support. It is argued that while the Egyptian campaigns involved a large financial investment for the Order, they promised vast economic gains in the event of a successful outcome, including a large contiguous territory in Lower Egypt and other property situated throughout the country.

Wernher der Gartenaere and the Arthurian Romance: The Intertextuality of Helmbrecht’s Cap

The meaning of the Middle High German poem Helmbrecht, the sole known work of the poet Wernher der Gartenaere, is straightforward and transparent. The young Helmbrecht, son and grandson of peasants (both also named Helmbrecht), aspires to leave his lowly yet ordered and reasonably comfortable life in the country. Against the advice of his father, but with the misguided encouragement of his mother and sister, he takes up with a band of robbers, and after a short career of violence, theft and extortion he is caught, tried and condemned to mutilation by the forces of justice; finally he is seized and hanged by a group of peasants whom he has previously despoiled. He has been punished for attempting to overturn the social order

The Sword Brothers at War: Observations on the Military Activity of the Knighthood of Christ in the Conquest of Livonia and Estonia (1203–1227)

The Knighthood of Christ of Livonia (Militia Christi de Livonia) was the first of the medieval military religious orders to be founded for service outside the Holy Land and Iberia, and thus the first one to be actively involved in warfare anywhere in northern Europe. It was established on the model of the Templars, and indeed the order’s members are referred to as Templars in the earliest correspondence between the church of Livonia and the papacy around the time of its foundation. The vernacular name “Sword Brothers”, by which they later became known, derives from the insignia of the cross and sword that they were given to distinguish them outwardly from their model.1