Crusading in Context – serie

The idea of what an "eyewitness" account is here scrutinised through examination of key Crusading texts.Eyewitness is a familiar label that historians apply to numerous pieces of evidence. It carries compelling connotations of trustworthiness and particular proximity to the lived experience of historical actors. But it has received surprisingly little critical attention.This book seeks to open up discussion of what we mean when we label a historical source in this way. Through a close analysis of accounts of the Second, Third and Fourth Crusades, aswell as an in-depth discussion of recent research by cognitive and social psychologists into perception and memory, this book challenges historians of the Middle Ages to revisit their often unexamined assumptions about the place of eyewitness narratives within the taxonomies of historical evidence. It is for the most part impossible to situate the authors of the texts studied here, viewed as historical actors, in precise spatial and temporal relation to the action that they purport to describe. Nor can we ever be truly certain what they actually saw. In what, therefore, does the authors' eyewitness status reside, and is this, indeed, a valid category of analysis?This book argues that the most productive way in which to approach the figure of the autoptic author is not as some floating presence close to historical events, validating our knowledge of them, but as an artefact of the text's meaning-makingoperations, in particular as these are opened up to scrutiny by narratological concepts such as the narrator, focalization and storyworld. The conclusion that emerges is that there is no single understanding of eyewitness runningthrough the texts, for all their substantive and thematic similarities; each fashions its narratorial voice in different ways as a function of its particular story-telling strategies.MARCUS BULL is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The first translation of Baldric's Historia Ierosolimitana, a spirited account of the First Crusade, into modern English.The Historia Ierosolimitana is a prose narrative of the events of the First Crusade written at the abbey of Bourgueil in the Loire Valley around 1105. Its author, the abbot Baldric, used the anonymous Gesta Francorumfor much of the factual material presented, but provided literary enhancements and amplifications of the historical narrative and the characters found therein, in order, as Baldric says, to make the Historia a more worthy account of the miraculous events it describes.This volume provides the first modern-language translation of the Historia, with a full introduction setting out its historical, social, political and manuscript contexts, and notes. It will contribute to a revised exploration of the First Crusade, and facilitate much wider debates about the place of history writing in medieval culture, textuality and manuscript transmission.

First comprehensive study of miracles in Crusade narrative, showing how and why they were deployed by their authors.The medieval Latin Christian narratives of the crusades are replete with references to miracles, visions and signs. Mysterious white-clad knights lead crusader armies to victory in battle, Christ and the saints offer guidance in visions, and great signs are seen in the skies. However, despite the frequent appearance of these themes in the sources, and the evident importance of these ideas to the narratives which describe them, scholars have often analysed examples in isolation.This book represents the first far-reaching examination of the miraculous in crusade narrative, offering an analysis of the role of miracles, marvels, visions, dreams, signs and augury in narratives of the crusades of 1096 to 1204 and produced between c.1099 and c.1250. It argues that the miraculous and its related themes represented a powerful tool for the authors of crusade narrative because of its ability to convey divine agency and will, ideas which were central to the belief held among Latin Christian contemporaries that crusade was divinely inspired and spiritually salvific. Overall, the volume demonstrates how the authors of crusade narrative drew upon various intellectual authorities on the miraculous in the service of their narrative agendas and reveals how the use of the miraculous changed as authors were forced to respond to the challenges of narrating crusade during this period.

A new investigation into the twelfth-century accounts of the First Crusade, showing their complex relationship with the Bible.The Bible exerted an enormous influence on the crusading movement: it provided medieval Christians with language to describe holy war, spiritual models for crusaders, and justifications for conquests in the East. This book adds tothe growing body of scholarship on the biblical underpinnings of crusading, offering a reappraisal of the early twelfth-century narratives of the First Crusade as works of biblical exegesis rather than simply historical texts. Itrestores these works and their authors to the context of the monastic and cathedral schools where the curricula centred on biblical study, and demonstrates how the crusade's narrators applied familiar methods of scriptural commentary to the crusade, treating it as a text which could, like the Bible, be understood through historical, allegorical, and mystical lenses. These glosses of the First Crusade, which collectively constitute one of the greatintellectual achievements of their age, drew upon the Scriptures and earlier Christian theology, pilgrimage guides, and polemic to construct the crusade as a new chapter of sacred history. Within this story, the first crusaders played various biblically inspired roles: as new Israelites, they wrested the promised land from Muslims cast as new Canaanites and Babylonians; as new apostles, they reenacted some of the greatest miracles of the Gospels. By reconstructing the interpretive processes that made such readings possible, this study allows us to better appreciate the crusading movement's relationship to church reform, the apostolic revival, and the growth of anti-Jewish sentiment in twelfth-century Europe. KATHERINE ALLEN SMITH is professor of history at the University of Puget Sound.

The idea of what an "eyewitness" account is here scrutinised through examination of key Crusading texts.Eyewitness is a familiar label that historians apply to numerous pieces of evidence. It carries compelling connotations of trustworthiness and particular proximity to the lived experience of historical actors. But it has received surprisingly little critical attention.This book seeks to open up discussion of what we mean when we label a historical source in this way. Through a close analysis of accounts of the Second, Third and Fourth Crusades, aswell as an in-depth discussion of recent research by cognitive and social psychologists into perception and memory, this book challenges historians of the Middle Ages to revisit their often unexamined assumptions about the place of eyewitness narratives within the taxonomies of historical evidence. It is for the most part impossible to situate the authors of the texts studied here, viewed as historical actors, in precise spatial and temporal relation to the action that they purport to describe. Nor can we ever be truly certain what they actually saw. In what, therefore, does the authors' eyewitness status reside, and is this, indeed, a valid category of analysis?This book argues that the most productive way in which to approach the figure of the autoptic author is not as some floating presence close to historical events, validating our knowledge of them, but as an artefact of the text's meaning-making operations, in particular as these are opened up to scrutiny by narratological concepts such as the narrator, focalization and story world. The conclusion that emerges is that there is no single understanding of eyewitness running through the texts, for all their substantive and thematic similarities; each fashions its narratorial voice in different ways as a function of its particular story-telling strategies.

This collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.The period between the First Crusade and the collapse of the "crusader states" in the eastern Mediterranean was a crucial one for medieval historical writing. From the departure of the earliest crusading armies in 1096 to the Mamlūk conquest of the Latin states in the late thirteenth century, crusading activity, and the settlements it established and aimed to protect, generated a vast textual output, offering rich insights into the historiographical cultures of the Latin West and Latin East. However, modern scholarship on the crusades and the "crusader states" has tended to draw an artificial boundary between the two, even though medieval writers treated their histories as virtually indistinguishable. This volume places these spheres into dialogue with each other, looking at how individual crusading campaigns and the Frankish settlements in the eastern Mediterranean were depicted and remembered in the central Middle Ages. Its essays cover a geographical range that incorporates England, France, Germany, southern Italy and the Holy Land, and address such topics as gender, emotion, the natural world, crusading as an institution, origin myths, textual reception, forms of storytelling and historical genre. Bringing to the foreground neglected sources, methodologies, events and regions of textual production, the collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.

A new investigation into the twelfth-century accounts of the First Crusade, showing their complex relationship with the Bible.The Bible exerted an enormous influence on the crusading movement: it provided medieval Christians with language to describe holy war, spiritual models for crusaders, and justifications for conquests in the East. This book adds tothe growing body of scholarship on the biblical underpinnings of crusading, offering a reappraisal of the early twelfth-century narratives of the First Crusade as works of biblical exegesis rather than simply historical texts. Itrestores these works and their authors to the context of the monastic and cathedral schools where the curricula centred on biblical study, and demonstrates how the crusade's narrators applied familiar methods of scriptural commentary to the crusade, treating it as a text which could, like the Bible, be understood through historical, allegorical, and mystical lenses. These glosses of the First Crusade, which collectively constitute one of the greatintellectual achievements of their age, drew upon the Scriptures and earlier Christian theology, pilgrimage guides, and polemic to construct the crusade as a new chapter of sacred history. Within this story, the first crusaders played various biblically inspired roles: as new Israelites, they wrested the promised land from Muslims cast as new Canaanites and Babylonians; as new apostles, they reenacted some of the greatest miracles of the Gospels. By reconstructing the interpretive processes that made such readings possible, this study allows us to better appreciate the crusading movement's relationship to church reform, the apostolic revival, and the growth of anti-Jewish sentiment in twelfth-century Europe. KATHERINE ALLEN SMITH is professor of history at the University of Puget Sound.

[This] is a book that should become compulsory reading for anyone studying crusading literature or the use of miracles in medieval narratives. - HISTORYFirst comprehensive study of miracles in Crusade narrative, showing how and why they were deployed by their authors.The medieval Latin Christian narratives of the crusades are replete with references to miracles, visions and signs. Mysterious white-clad knights lead crusader armies to victory in battle, Christ and the saints offer guidance in visions, and great signs are seen in the skies. However, despite the frequent appearance of these themes in the sources, and the evident importance of these ideas to the narratives which describe them, scholars have often analysed examples in isolation.This book represents the first far-reaching examination of the miraculous in crusade narrative, offering an analysis of the role of miracles, marvels, visions, dreams, signs and augury in narratives of the crusades of 1096 to 1204 and produced between c.1099 and c.1250. It argues that the miraculous and its related themes represented a powerful tool for the authors of crusade narrative because of its ability to convey divine agency and will, ideas which were central to the belief held among Latin Christian contemporaries that crusade was divinely inspired and spiritually salvific. Overall, the volume demonstrates how the authors of crusade narrative drew upon various intellectual authorities on the miraculous in the service of their narrative agendas and reveals how the use of the miraculous changed as authors were forced to respond to the challenges of narrating crusade during this period.

An exploration of the letters from the First Crusade, yielding evidence for a number of reinterpretations of the movement.The letters stemming from the First Crusade are premier sources for understanding the launch, campaign, and aftermath of the expedition. Between 1095 and 1100, epistles sustained social relationships across the Mediterranean and within Europe, as a mixture of historical writing, literary invention, news, and theological interpretation. They served ecclesiastical administration, projected authority, and formed focal points for spiritual commemoration and para-liturgical campaigns.This volume, grounded on extensive research into the original manuscripts, and presenting numerous new manuscript witnesses, argues that some of the letters are post hoc "inventions", composed by generations of scribe-readers who visited crusading sites from the twelfth century on, adding new layers of meaning in the form of interpolations and post-scripts. Drawing upon this new understanding, and blurring the distinction of epistolary "reality", it rewrites central aspects of the history of the First Crusade, considering the documents in a new way: as markers of enthusiasm and support for the crusade movement among monastic clergy, who copied and consumed them as a form of scribal crusading. Whether authentic letters or literary "confections", they functioned as communal sites for the celebration, commemoration and memorialisation of the expedition.

Considers how elite women could participate in Crusade, their means and motivations.The popular perception of the medieval Crusades is of conflicts spanning from the Holy Land to the Baltic, with huge armies of religious zealots led by knights wearing crosses. However, the reality is far more nuanced. The vast majority of those living in western Europe did not go on crusade at all. But that does not mean that crusading was not on their minds, or that they could not influence the movement. They urged others to take up the cross, provided financial support, and prayed for the campaigns in the Holy Land; for them, this was crusade. This book investigates how English laywomen were encouraged to support crusades and identify with holy war during the Middle Ages, challenging preconceptions of what crusade "meant", and bringing out the diverse ways of their participation. It draws on detailed analysis of cartularies, judicial records, chronicles and lyrical sources; it also examines the rich material culture of commemoration that celebrated the endeavour, alongside the papal propaganda which idealised women's sponsorship of crusade. This study therefore sheds new light not only on the role of women in crusade, but on their influence and piety more generally.

The first critical edition, with facing-page English translation, of a thirteenth-century source, offering insights into crusading, material culture, and aristocratic-monastic relations.In 1152, a knight from the southern Low Countries named Manasses of Hierges returned home after eleven years spent crusading in the Holy Land. He carried with him a precious relic, said to be a fragment of the True Cross that had belonged to the princes of Antioch. Nearly sixty years later, a writer associated with a nearby monastery composed a new Latin narrative, hagiographical, and liturgical textual programme known as Quomodo Sancta Crux ab Antiochia allata sit in Broniense cenobium (How the Holy Cross Came from Antioch to the Monastery of Brogne). It tells the story of Manasses, his career in Europe and the Near East, and of the conflict that broke out over possession of the relic after his death.This volume provides the first critical edition and English translation of a source that contributes greatly to our knowledge of the medieval world, from crusading to material religion to relations between the lay aristocracy and religious communities. The work of a learned author with ambitions to a high literary and homiletic style, it offers a fresh perspective on the question of what motivated crusaders and on the history of the Holy Land under crusader occupation, providing critical new details to the story of the civil war between Queen Melisende of Jerusalem and her son, King Baldwin III. The sustained account of the conflict over a relic provides a window into the importance of sacred objects, and competing notions of sacrality, legal possession, and value. Previously unknown to historians, this work provides a rich illustration of the place of crusading in the memory of a local community. A detailed critical apparatus establishes what can be known about the work's composition and the author's reliance on Classical, Patristic, and Scriptural authorities, while an introduction gives an account of the work's political, cultural, and intellectual context.

Fresh perspectives on one of the largest and most complex crusades ever launched, covering all aspects of the expeditions - from preparation and commencement to results and consequences. Saladin's victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 produced three profound results: a shattered Jerusalem army, a pope falling dead from the news, and the launching of the Third Crusade in response. Under the banners of renowned rulers like Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa, men and women from across Latin Christendom took the Cross and joined in the largest western military expedition since Urban II's call to arms in 1095 for the First Crusade. Long dormant in the renewal of crusade studies in the twenty-first century, the Third Crusade has in recent years begun to attract increased scholarly attention. Adopting a cross-cultural focus that examines both western and eastern societies, this book offers a substantial and timely reappraisal. Chapters shed light on the crusade's causes, context, organization, participants, preparations, commencement, military progress, and short and long-term consequences, and scrutinise well-known sources through new lenses. They also engage with communication theory, the history of emotions, textual criticism and textuality, historiography, archaeology, and topography. Together, they provide both a fresh view of this complex and multifaceted war and a useful survey of its major contours.

An exploration of the letters from the First Crusade, yielding evidence for a number of reinterpretations of the movement.The letters stemming from the First Crusade are premier sources for understanding the launch, campaign, and aftermath of the expedition. Between 1095 and 1100, epistles sustained social relationships across the Mediterranean and within Europe, as a mixture of historical writing, literary invention, news, and theological interpretation. They served ecclesiastical administration, projected authority, and formed focal points for spiritual commemoration and para-liturgical campaigns.This volume, grounded on extensive research into the original manuscripts, and presenting numerous new manuscript witnesses, argues that some of the letters are post hoc "inventions", composed by generations of scribe-readers who visited crusading sites from the twelfth century on, adding new layers of meaning in the form of interpolations and post-scripts. Drawing upon this new understanding, and blurring the distinction of epistolary "reality", it rewrites central aspects of the history of the First Crusade, considering the documents in a new way: as markers of enthusiasm and support for the crusade movement among monastic clergy, who copied and consumed them as a form of scribal crusading. Whether authentic letters or literary "confections", they functioned as communal sites for the celebration, commemoration and memorialisation of the expedition.