The temporal boundaries of the present chapter lie roughly between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. These are centuries immensely rich in primary sources, a fact which is itself a reflection of times considered stirring and even unparalleled by contemporaries. This sense of the uncommonness of the hour will be our starting point, for it serves to demarcate a new attitude to history among its practitioners. Whereas earlier historiography was largely an interpretation of a momentous past, the new historiography boldly projected its own present as being of equal if not greater significance. This tone is well captured in the history of the reconquest of Jerusalem written by Saladin's secretary of state, eImad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani (d. 597/1201):