​The Crusades Studies Forum was originally founded by a group of graduate students in the Department of History at Saint Louis University. The graduate program continues to be a leader in the field of Crusade Studies. Those interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in the history of the Crusades should visit the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies program website for more information.​

Crusade Studies Forum Executive Committee

Thomas Morin, PhD Candidate
Committee Chair

Thomas Morin's academic research interests include aristocratic culture in the Latin East and its intersection with the Latin West during the time of the crusades. His dissertation utilizes narrative and diplomatic sources to examine how the historiography of crusading was used by the Italian maritime republics and the Latin settlers of the Levant as a tool for contesting pivotal spaces as well as for collaboration in cultural and political projects of mutual interest.
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George Summers, PhD Candidate
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George Summers' research interests include the crusades, the military orders, and the cultural and religious history of later medieval Italy. His dissertation focuses on the Knights Hospitaller in northern Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.  

Evan McAllister, PhD Candidate

Evan McAllister's dissertation is titled "Historical Subtexts: Liturgical Quotations in Twelfth-Century Crusade Narratives." The dissertation unites the marginalia and evidence of readership, and offers a new examination of how authors like William of Tyre remembered, borrowed, and selectively engaged elements of the Latin liturgy and the biblical past to shape the cultural memory of the twelfth century. 

Thomas F. Madden

Faculty Advisor

Thomas F. Madden is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University.  As an author and historical consultant he has appeared in such venues as The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and The History Channel. Awards for his scholarship include the Medieval Academy of America's Haskins Medal and the Medieval Institute's Otto Grundler Prize and the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award. He is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Medieval Academy of America.