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This project argues that the First Crusade began amidst great eschatological expectation, apparently fulfilled at Jerusalem's conquest in 1099. The massive literary outpouring which followed the crusade was in part an attempt to answer the question raised by this victory: how to understand a successful apocalypse, a prophecy fulfilled? Examining chronicles, exegesis, and theology, the project will suggest that the act of interpreting the crusade affected thought about chivalry and the conduct of war, sin and penance, national identities and governments, and the shape of history more generally. This intermingling of long-surviving apocalyptic hopes and gradual disillusionment shaped fundamentally the character of medieval Western Europe.