The Crusades have traditionally been viewed through the lenses of military conflict and the activities—military, religious, or political—of the elite men of action (they were almost always, though not exclusively, men) on both sides. This should be seen as a consequence of the fact that the sources on which we rely for information were almost exclusively written by and, especially, for members of the same elite groups. Furthermore, the circumstances in which they were composed means that conflict, rather than co-operation, is primarily celebrated, and even comparatively tolerant writers such as Ibn Wasil felt the need to clearly justify why his masters were failing to attack the Franks.

However, these attitudes cannot be said to have been shared by the remainder of society, as indeed there is evidence to suggest that those outside the urban and educated elites held very different priorities. The nature of the sources means it is comparatively difficult to see them, but they are there, whether in throwaway remarks in a chronicle or in the various comments of the two writers who provide us with the clearest evidence of day-to-day life in the eastern Mediterranean during this time, Usama ibn Munqidh and Ibn Jubayr. The evidence thus suggests that, alongside the set-piece conflict that dominates the narrative of the crusading period, there was a parallel temporality in which Latin Christians and Muslims lived and worked alongside each other. This meant that, in terms of diplomacy, the exchange of scientific and religious knowledge, everyday life, and religious conversion, there were significant levels of interaction, communication, and relationship building between Latin Christians and Muslims, as well as other groups such as Jews. These interactions, in turn, helped to create conditions for the swift exchange of further mutual knowledge. Accordingly, away from the bombastic propaganda of much of the source material, everyday life in and around the crusader states was as tolerant and mutually co-operative as anywhere else in the medieval world, and perhaps predominantly more so.