Crusades [13] 9781472441676, 9781315271507

Table of contents :
Crusades
CONTENTS
Abbreviations
The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade
The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium of “Bartolf of Nangis”
The Jerusalem Conquest of 492/1099 in the Medieval Arabic Historiography of the Crusades: From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative
Geoffrey, Prior of the Templum Domini, On the Seven Books of Josephus
Irish Involvement in the First and Second Crusades? A Reconsideration of the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Evidence
The German Crusade of 1197–1198
Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae: A Newly Discovered Extended Version
A Templar’s Belt: The Oral and Sartorial Transmission of Memory and Myth in the Order of the Temple
Pergamene messinesi due-trecentesche relative all’Oriente latino
Humbert of Viennois and the Crusade of Smyrna: A Reconsideration
REVIEWS
Guidelines for the Submission of Papers

Citation preview

Edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Phillips and Jonathan Riley-Smith with Nikolaos G. Chrissis

Crusades covers seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095–1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) and draws together scholars working on

Ashgate publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Particular attention is given to the publication of historical sources in all relevant languages – narrative, homiletic and documentary – in trustworthy editions, but studies and interpretative essays are welcomed too. Crusades also incorporates the Society’s Bulletin. The editors are Professor B.Z. Kedar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Professor J.S.C. Riley-Smith of the University of Cambridge, Professor Jonathan Phillips of Royal Holloway, University of London, together with Dr Nikolaos G. Chrissis of the University of Athens, as

Volume 13 • 2014

theatres of war, their home fronts and settlements from the Baltic to Africa and from Spain to the Near East and on theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history.

Crusades

Crusades

crusades volume 13 • 2014

associate editor.

An Ashgate Book

Published by Ashgate for the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East www.routledge.com

Crusades Volume 13, 2014

Crusades Edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Phillips and Jonathan S. C. Riley-Smith with Nikolaos G. Chrissis Editorial Board Benjamin Z. Kedar (Editor; Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel) Jonathan Phillips (Editor; Royal Holloway, University of London, U.K.) Jonathan Riley-Smith (Editor; University of Cambridge, U.K.) Nikolaos G. Chrissis (Associate Editor; University of Athens, Greece) Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen (Reviews Editor; Aalborg University, Denmark) Denys Pringle (Archaeology Editor; University of Cardiff, U.K.) François-Olivier Touati (Bulletin Editor; Université François-Rabelais de Tours, France) Michel Balard (University of Paris I, France) James A. Brundage (University of Kansas, U.S.A.) Robert Cook (University of Virginia, U.S.A.) Jaroslav Folda (University of North Carolina, U.S.A.) Stefan Heidemann (University of Hamburg, Germany) Robert B. C. Huygens (University of Leiden, The Netherlands) David Jacoby (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel) Kurt Villads Jensen (University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark) Thomas F. Madden (Saint Louis University, U.S.A.) Catherine Otten (University of Strasbourg, France) Jean Richard (Institut de France) Crusades is published annually for the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East by Ashgate. A statement of the aims of the Society and details of membership can be found following the Bulletin at the end of the volume. Manuscripts should be sent to either of the Editors in accordance with the guidelines for submission of papers on p. 335. Subscriptions: Crusades (ISSN 1476–5276) is published annually. Subscriptions are available on an annual basis and are £65 for institutions and nonmembers, and £25 for members of the Society. Prices include postage by surface mail. Enquiries concerning members’ subscriptions should be addressed to the Treasurer, Dr. Jon M. B. Porter (see p. 290). All orders and enquiries should be addressed to: Subscription Department, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, U.K.; tel.: +44 (0)1252 736600; fax: +44 (0)1252 736736; email: journals@ ashgatepublishing.com Requests for Permissions and Copying: requests should be addressed to the Publishers: Permissions Department, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, U.K.; tel.: +44 (0)1252 736 600; fax: +44 (0)1252 736 736; email: [email protected] The journal is also registered in the U.S.A. with the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers MA 01923, U.S.A.; tel.: +1 (978) 750 8400; fax: +1 (978) 646 8600; http://www.copyright.com/ and in the U.K. with the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS, U.K.; tel.: +44 (0)20 7400 3100; fax: +44 (0)207 7400 3101; https://www.cla.co.uk/

Crusades Volume 13, 2014

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2014 by the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 9781472441676 (hbk) ISBN: 9781315271507 (ebk) ISSN 1476–5276 Typeset by N2productions

CONTENTS Abbreviations ix Articles The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade Jonathan Harris The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium of “Bartolf of Nangis” Susan B. Edgington The Jerusalem Conquest of 492/1099 in the Medieval Arabic Historiography of the Crusades: From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative Konrad Hirschler

1 21

37

Geoffrey, Prior of the Templum Domini, On the Seven Books of Josephus 77 Julian Yolles Irish Involvement in the First and Second Crusades? A Reconsideration of the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Evidence Denis Casey The German Crusade of 1197–1198 Graham A. Loud

119 143

Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae: A Newly Discovered Extended Version Jonathan Rubin

173

A Templar’s Belt: The Oral and Sartorial Transmission of Memory and Myth in the Order of the Temple Kevin James Lewis

191

Pergamene messinesi due-trecentesche relative all’Oriente latino Bruno Figliuolo

211

Humbert of Viennois and the Crusade of Smyrna: A Reconsideration Mike Carr

237

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CONTENTs

Reviews The Seljuqs: Politics, Society and Culture, ed. Christian Lange and Songül Mecit (Alex Mallett)

253

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291, ed. and trans. Denys Pringle (Susan B. Edgington)

254

Templiers. De Jérusalem aux commanderies de Champagne, ed. Arnaud Baudin, Ghislain Brunel and Nicolas Dohrmann (François-Olivier Touati) 256 Kathryn Hurlock, Wales and the Crusades, c.1095–1291 (Philip Handyside) 258 Nicholas L. Paul, To Follow in Their Footsteps: The Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages (Christoph T. Maier)

261

Christiane Sutter, Die Kreuzfahrerrezeption in der deutschen Malerei des 19. Jahrhunderts (Christoph T. Maier)

263

Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen and Helle Vogt (Christopher Tyerman)

264

Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States (Deborah Gerish)

266

M. A. Köhler, Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers in the Middle East: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Period of the Crusades, trans. P. M. Holt, revised, edited and introduced by K. Hirschler (Nicholas Morton)

268

Actes de Famagouste du notaire génois Lamberto di Sambuceto (décembre 1299–septembre 1300), ed. Michel Balard, William Duba and Chris Schabel (Mike Carr)

270

Bullarium Cyprium. Vol. III. Lettres papales relatives á Chypre 1316–1378, ed. Charles Perrat and Jean Richard (Mike Carr)

270

Pierre-Vincent Claverie, Honorius III et l’Orient (1216–1227): Étude et publication de sources inédites des Archives vaticanes (ASV) (Jessalynn Bird) 273

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James Petre, Crusader Castles of Cyprus. The Fortifications of Cyprus under the Lusignans: 1191–1489 (Mathias Piana)

276

Christopher Tyerman, The Practices of Crusading: Image and Action from the Eleventh to the Sixteenth Centuries (Kurt Villads Jensen)

279

Elisabet Crouzet-Pavan, Le mystère des rois de Jérusalem. 1099–1187 (Benjamin Weber)

280

Short Notices Albert of Aachen’s History of the Journey to Jerusalem, trans. Susan B. 

283 283 335 337

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Abbreviations Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana. History of the Journey to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. Susan B. Edgington. Oxford, 2007 AOL Archives de l’Orient latin Autour Autour de la Première Croisade. Actes du colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East: Clermont-Ferrand, 22–25 juin 1995, ed. Michel Balard. Paris, 1996 Cart Hosp Cartulaire général de l’ordre des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, 1100–1310, ed. Joseph Delaville Le Roulx. 4 vols. Paris, 1884–1906 Cart St Sép Le Cartulaire du chapitre du Saint-Sépulcre de Jérusalem, ed. Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, Documents relatifs à l’histoire des croisades 15. Paris, 1984 Cart Tem Cartulaire général de l’ordre du Temple 1119?–1150. Recueil des chartes et des bulles relatives à l’ordre du Temple, ed. Guigue A.M.J.A., (marquis) d’Albon. Paris, 1913 CCCM Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis Chartes Josaphat Chartes de la Terre Sainte provenant de l’abbaye de NotreDame de Josaphat, ed. Henri F. Delaborde, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 19. Paris, 1880 Clermont From Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Societies 1095–1500. Selected Proceedings of the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 10–13 July 1995, ed. Alan V. Murray. International Medieval Research 3. Turnhout, 1998 Crusade Sources The Crusades and their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. John France and William G. Zajac. Aldershot, 1998 CS Crusade and Settlement: Papers read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East and Presented to R. C. Smail, ed. Peter W. Edbury. Cardiff, 1985 CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum EC, 1 The Experience of Crusading 1: Western Approaches, ed. Marcus G. Bull and Norman J. Housley. Cambridge, 2003 EC, 2 The Experience of Crusading 2: Defining the Crusader Kingdom, ed. Peter W. Edbury and Jonathan P. Phillips. Cambridge, 2003 AA

ix

x

abbreviations

Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana (1095–1127), ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer. Heidelberg, 1913 GF Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, ed. and trans. Rosalind M. T. Hill and Roger Mynors. London, 1962 GN Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos, ed. Robert B. C. Huygens CCCM 127A. Turnhout, 1996 Horns The Horns of Hattin, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar. Jerusalem and London, 1992 Kreuzfahrerstaaten Die Kreuzfahrerstaaten als multikulturelle Gesellschaft. Einwanderer und Minderheiten im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, ed. Hans Eberhard Mayer with Elisabeth Müller-Luckner. Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 37. Munich, 1997 Mansi. Concilia Giovanni D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica MO, 1 The Military Orders: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. Malcolm Barber. Aldershot, 1994 MO, 2 The Military Orders, vol. 2: Welfare and Warfare, ed. Helen Nicholson. Aldershot, 1998 MO, 3 The Military Orders, vol. 3: History and Heritage, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes. Aldershot, 2008 Montjoie Montjoie: Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan RileySmith and Rudolf Hiestand. Aldershot, 1997 Outremer Outremer. Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem Presented to Joshua Prawer, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Hans E. Mayer and Raymond C. Smail. Jerusalem, 1982 PG Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Latina PL PPTS Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society Library RHC Recueil des Historiens des Croisades  Darm  Documents arméniens  Lois  Les assises de Jérusalem  Oc  Historiens occidentaux  Or  Historiens orientaux RHGF Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France RIS Rerum Italicarum Scriptores  NS  New Series ROL Revue de l’Orient latin RRH Reinhold Röhricht, comp., Regesta regni hierosolymitani. Innsbruck, 1893

FC



RRH Add RS Setton, Crusades SRG WT

abbreviations xi

Reinhold Röhricht, comp., Additamentum. Innsbruck, 1904 Rolls Series A History of the Crusades, general editor Kenneth M. Setton, 2nd edn., 6 vols. Madison, 1969–89 Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. Robert B. C. Huygens, with Hans E. Mayer and Gerhard Rösch, CCCM 63–63A. Turnhout, 1986

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The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade Jonathan Harris Royal Holloway, University of London [email protected] Abstract Over the past sixty years, scholars have consistently argued against the idea that the excommunication of the patriarch of Constantinople by three papal legates in July 1054 marked the final break between the Churches of East and West. Rather the breach between Catholic and Orthodox should be dated to after 1096 when the crusades increased tension and misunderstanding between Latins and Greeks. While that broad conclusion is probably correct as far as dogmatic and liturgical matters are concerned, the ideological significance of the events of 1054 has been neglected. This article argues that they were both a symptom and, to some extent, a cause of a process of change whereby the ideological claims of the Byzantine emperor became unacceptable to an ever wider section of influential western European opinion. That change manifested itself very strongly at the time of the First Crusade but it had been developing long before that as a result of the widely disseminated propaganda of the reforming papacy.

The year 1054 was an ominous one for the Byzantine empire. During the summer, a terrifying hailstorm struck the empire’s capital city, Constantinople, killing several people, and there was an outbreak of plague so severe that, according to the chronicler John Skylitzes, “the living were unequal to the task of carrying away the dead.” In the corridors of power, tensions were rising. The emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55), was visibly ailing and his increasingly erratic behaviour led two of his closest advisers, Michael Psellos and John Xiphilinos, to resign and retire to a monastery. To make matters worse, there was no obvious successor to the childless Constantine and it would not have been difficult to predict the instability that would follow once he died. Out on the frontiers, the empire was under attack. In southern Italy, Byzantine hopes of stemming the encroachments of the Normans were in disarray following the Norman victory at Civitate the previous year. Henceforth there was little that could be done to save the Byzantine footholds in the area, the last of which, Bari, was to fall in 1071. In the east, the Seljuk sultan Tuğrul (ca. 1016–63) led his forces into Byzantine-ruled Armenia. The danger was averted when the Turks suffered a minor reverse but ironically the engagement took place outside the town of Manzikert where the Byzantines were to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of Tuğrul’s successor, Alp Arslan (1064–72), sixteen years later.1 1 

John Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, ed. J. Thurn, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 5 (Berlin and New York, 1973), 462–64, 477; English translation by John Wortley, A Synopsis of 1

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Jonathan Harris

The summer of 1054 saw another drama played out in Constantinople. In June, three papal legates led by Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida arrived in the city. They had had been sent by Pope Leo IX (1048–54), partly to negotiate an alliance with the Byzantine emperor against the Normans but also to investigate the conduct of Michael Keroularios, the patriarch of Constantinople (1043–58). Keroularios had recently closed the Latin-rite churches in Constantinople in reprisal for the Norman imposition of Latin practices, such as the use of unleavened bread in communion, on Greek churches in southern Italy. When the patriarch refused to meet the legates or to co-operate with them, Humbert and his colleagues lost patience. On 16 July they walked into the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and publically deposited on the altar a bull excommunicating the patriarch and his associates. When the contents of the bull were translated and made known to Keroularios, he summoned the synod and proclaimed an anathema against the legates and their supporters in the most forthright terms. In theory, these mutual denunciations marked a break or schism between the Byzantine and Western Churches. In spite of all the harsh words, it is noticeable that while the other ill-omened events of 1054 such as the hailstorm, the plague and the Seljuk incursion, were carefully recorded by contemporary or near-contemporary Byzantine chroniclers, the papal embassy and the excommunications are scarcely mentioned. Michael Psellos, who as a prominent counsellor must have been aware of the visit of the legates, makes no allusion whatsoever to the incident in his memoirs, the Chronographia. Some manuscripts of the work of the late-eleventh century historian John Skylitzes contain a garbled account of Keroularios crossing swords with the Latins but the passage is probably a later interpolation.2 The only detailed account in Greek is Keroularios’s own version of events which he sent to the patriarch of Antioch.3 The implication is that, in the midst of all their other troubles, the Byzantines did not consider the episode to be of much importance. Consequently, while the past three generations of scholars have paid a great deal of attention to these events, they have consistently played down their significance, arguing against any idea that they marked some final break between the Churches Byzantine History, 811–1057 (Cambridge, 2010), 432–34, 445; Michael Psellos, Chronographie, ou histoire d’un siècle de Byzance (976–1077), ed. E. Renauld, 2 vols. (Paris, 1926–28), 2:65–66; English translation by E. R. A. Sewter, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers (Harmondsworth, 1966), 254–58: Michael Attaleiates, The History, ed. and trans. Anthony Kaldellis and Dimitris Krallis (Cambridge MA and London, 2012), 81–82; Graham A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow, 2000), 118–30; Jonathan Shepard, “Scylitzes on Armenia in the 1040s and the Role of Catacalon Cecaumenos,” Revue des Études Armeniénnes, New Series 11 (1975–76): 269–311. 2  Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, 433–34; trans. Wortley, A Synopsis, 408. In general, see Tia M. Kolbaba, “The Legacy of Humbert and Cerularius: The Tradition of the ‘Schism of 1054’ in Byzantine Texts and Manuscripts of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Porphyrogenita: Essays on the History and Literature of Byzantium and the Latin East in Honour of Julian Chrysostomides, ed. Charalambos Dendrinos, Jonathan Harris, Eirene Harvalia-Crook and Judith Herrin (Aldershot, 2003), 47–61, at 49–50. 3  PG 120:781–96; Cornelius Will, Acta et Scripta quae de Controversiis Ecclesiae Graecae et Latinae Saeculo Undecimo Composita Extant (Leipzig and Marburg, 1861), 155–68.



The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade 3

of East and West and the beginning of the division between Catholic and Orthodox. In an influential article published in 1954, Richard Mayne (1926–2009) showed how the mutual excommunications were not regarded as permanent or far-reaching at the time and the only significance of the incident lies in the failure of the legates to conclude an anti-Norman alliance with the Byzantine emperor.4 Subsequent authors expanded on this theme. It has been pointed out that the legates’ bull of excommunication, while denouncing Keroularios and his associates, stresses that the Byzantine emperor and the rest of the citizens of Constantinople were “most Christian and orthodox.” The episode could therefore be seen simply as a personal quarrel between the two main protagonists: Cardinal Humbert and Michael Keroularios.5 Steven Runciman (1903–2000), Joan Hussey (1907–2006) and others argued that the schism should rather be dated to the period after 1096 when the crusades placed strains on Byzantine–Western relations, culminating in the sack of Constantinople in 1204.6 These views have gained general acceptance and have fed through into textbooks and more general works.7 This article does not aim to quarrel with the broad conclusion that, as far as dogmatic and liturgical matters are concerned, the mutual excommunications of 1054 did not amount to a permanent schism between the Roman and Byzantine Churches. It will, however, explore another aspect of their significance and that of the events surrounding them that has been neglected or explicitly denied. As stated above, it has been argued that the East–West schism arose not in 1054 but as a consequence of the growth of popular animosity in the period of the crusades. 4 

Richard Mayne, “East and West in 1054,” Cambridge Historical Journal 11 (1954): 133–48, at 146. Donald M. Nicol, “Byzantium and the Papacy in the Eleventh Century,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 12 (1962): 1–20, at 10; Mahlon H. Smith III, And Taking Bread … Cerularius and the Azyme Controversy of 1054 (Paris, 1978), 35; Francis Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, 2nd ed. (New York, 1979), 134–35; Michael Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025–1204: A Political History, 2nd ed. (London, 1997), 52–53; Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford, 1989), 138–39; Michel Kaplan, “La place du schisme de 1054 dans les relations entre Byzance, Rome et l’Italie,” Byzantinoslavica 54 (1993): 29–37. 6  Steven Runciman, Eastern Schism (Oxford, 1955), 40, 44; J. M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford, 1986), 132–33; H. E. J. Cowdrey, “The Gregorian Papacy, Byzantium and the First Crusade,” Byzantinische Forschungen 13 (1988): 145–69, at 166–69; Axel Bayer, Spaltung der Christenheit: das sogenannte morgenländische Schisma von 1054 (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2004), 5–7. 7  See, for example: George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, trans. J. M. Hussey, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1968), 336; Warren Treadgold, History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford, CA, 1997), 596, 689; Henry Chadwick, East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church (Oxford, 2003), 217–18; Alfred J. Andrea, “Christendom and the Umma,” in Crusades: The Illustrated History, ed. Thomas F. Madden (London, 2004), 13–31, at 30; Jane Baun, “Church,” in Palgrave Advances in Byzantine History, ed. Jonathan Harris (Basingstoke and New York, 2005), 100–118, at 114; Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Harmondsworth, 2007), 47. For two recent contributions to the debate, see Brett E. Whalen, “Rethinking the Schism of 1054: Authority, Heresy and the Latin Rite,” Traditio 62 (2007): 1–24, which stresses the importance of azymes over other issues, and Judith R. Ryder, “Changing Perspectives on 1054,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35 (2011): 20–37, which argues that Byzantine behaviour in 1054 was provocative. These both address different questions from that under consideration here. 5 

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Prior to that, the argument runs, apart from exceptions like the irascible behaviour of Humbert, “Westerners were prepared to take Eastern men and institutions much as they found them.”8 Very often that was indeed the case but the events of 1054 marked an early stage of a process of change. Those events were both a symptom and to some extent a cause of that process. Moreover, since the change can already be detected by 1095, it cannot be seen as a consequence of the Crusades. It will be argued that what was new in 1054 was that the attitude of the reforming popes towards the Byzantine empire and its ideological claims was becoming that of an influential section of western European opinion. The first step towards appreciating this significance is to establish how the Byzantines had interacted with the Christian West in previous centuries. In framing relations with all foreign peoples, Christian or not, the rulers of the Byzantine empire had always operated within the context of a strongly defined political ideology. The main tenet of that ideology was that the Byzantine emperor was a kind of deputy of God, placed on Earth to ensure the welfare of true believers. As a deacon of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia informed the emperor in about 530, God “gave you the sceptre of earthly power after the likeness of the heavenly kingdom.”9 Two aspects of this political theory are noteworthy in this context. First, the divine origin of the office of emperor meant that it was perceived as a holy one, something that was marked visually in surviving portrayals of Byzantine emperors. They were almost invariably depicted with a halo whatever their personal reputation for piety, and Christ or the Virgin Mary were often included in the portrait, placing their hand on the emperor’s crown to impart their blessing and to emphasize the origin of his power. The emperor was not shown as a tiny, insignificant figure grovelling at Christ’s feet but as much the same size, except that Christ might be raised slightly above him on a dais.10 Thus in Byzantium, the division between clerical and lay was slightly blurred in the case of this particular layman. The emperor on occasion took on roles that elsewhere might be regarded as more properly belonging to priests, such as presiding over ecclesiastical councils and pronouncing on matters of doctrine. The emperor was not a priest: the division of labour between the imperial and priestly offices was enshrined in Byzantine law, in Novel Six of the Corpus Juris Civilis.11 Nevertheless, the emperor had no need of the mediation of the Church to attain his august position: 8 

Cowdrey, “Gregorian Papacy,” 146; Runciman, Eastern Schism, 67–68. Agapetus in PG 86:1153–86, at 1164–65; English translation by Ernest Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium from Justinian I to the Last Palaeologus (Oxford, 1957), 54–55; Donald M. Nicol, “Byzantine Political Thought,” The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350–c.1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge, 1988), 51–79, at 52–53. 10  Thomas Mathews, Byzantium: From Antiquity to the Renaissance (New Haven and London, 1998), 35–39; Paul Magdalino and Robert Nelson, “The Emperor in Byzantine Art of the Twelfth Century,” Byzantinische Forschungen 8 (1982): 123–83, Plates V and VIII. 11  Corpus Iuris Civilis III: Novellae, ed. Rudolf Schoell and Wilhelm Kroll (Berlin, 1912), 35– 36; trans. Barker, Social and Political Thought, 75–76; Steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy 9 



The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade 5

he received it directly from God. A coronation ceremony might be a public affirmation of his accession but it did not make him emperor. The second noteworthy aspect of Byzantine political ideology was its insistence that the emperor’s commission was universal. He was not just one Christian ruler among many but the Roman emperor, the successor of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great (306–37), who had ruled over the whole Roman empire, east and west. He was therefore in theory the guardian and sovereign of all Christians even though the borders of his empire were considerably smaller than those of Constantine’s day. He remained, as one patriarch of Constantinople put it in about 1398, “basileus and autokrator of the Romans – to wit, of all Christians.”12 That notion was implicit in one of the Greek words that the Byzantines used to describe their state. It could be called simply basileia, the “realm” or “dominion” but it was also the oikoumene. It is almost impossible to translate this word which is the root of “ecumenical.” The basic meaning was “the world” but in the sense of the inhabited or civilized world and so by extension the right-believing or Christian world.13 It thus reflected Byzantine universalist ideology by equating the Byzantine empire with the whole of Christendom. These ideas were not merely pious wishful thinking for internal consumption. They dictated and influenced Byzantine foreign policy. They did not prompt the Byzantine emperor to attempt to extend his physical authority to what it had been under Constantine as that was clearly impossible.14 But it did mean that the Byzantines constantly sought recognition of the emperor’s unique position. The way in which they went about this varied, depending on with whom it was they were dealing. The clearest example is, perhaps, the unsophisticated Slavs and Turkic peoples whose territories lay to the north. The Byzantines had long been in the habit of paying one group to attack another as the easiest way to protect their borders. Thus in 966, an envoy was dispatched to Svjatoslav, ruler of Kiev, with a large quantity of gold coins or nomismata to induce him to attack the Bulgarians who were threatening the empire’s frontiers.15 Such transactions were not merely financial, however. They were almost invariably accompanied by some kind of acknowledgement on the part of the allies being enlisted of the superiority of the Byzantine emperor. The Pechenegs, (Cambridge, 1977), 46; Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 2003), 13–24. 12  Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi Sacra et Profana, ed. F. Miklosich and W. Müller, 6 vols. (Vienna, 1860–90), 2:188–92, at 190; trans. Barker, Social and Political Thought, 194–96, at 194; Nicol, “Byzantine Political Thought,” 54–45; Hélène Ahrweiler, L’idéologie politique de l’empire byzantin (Paris, 1975), 46–59. 13  A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Oxford, 1961), 944. 14  On this point, see Telemachos C. Lounghis, “Die byzantinische Ideologie der ‘begrenzten Ökumene’ und die römische Frage im ausgehenden 10. Jh.,” Byzantinoslavica 56 (1995): 117–28, who argues that the Byzantines were well aware of the limits of their territorial claims. The principle of ecumenical authority remained strong, however. 15  Leo the Deacon, Historiae Libri Decem, ed. C. B. Hase, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn, 1828), 63; English translation in Alice-Mary Talbot and Denis Sullivan, The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century (Washington DC, 2005), 111–12.

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whose lands lay on either side of the River Dnieper, were an ideal counterweight to the Russians. They were regularly sent large quantities of gold to keep them on side but in return they were expected to take an oath.16 The exact wording of such oaths is not known but it would appear from surviving evidence that whenever possible the Byzantines extracted an admission from their allies that they were in some nebulous way also subjects of the emperor, thus mirroring the oaths taken by the emperor’s own subjects which in turn reflected the theory of the divine origin and universality of his power. To be an ally or mercenary of the emperor, therefore, you had to some extent to recognize his ideological claims.17 This element appears very clearly in a treaty made with the Serbs in around 874. In this case, the Byzantines were in a stronger position than they were with their Pecheneg mercenaries, for the Serbs had sent envoys to Constantinople asking to be placed under imperial authority. Nevertheless, the approach was much the same. The main terms of the treaty were that the Serbs would accept Christianity from missionaries sent from Constantinople and consider themselves to be under the authority of the Byzantine emperor. They would, however, continue to be ruled by their own princes. Recognition of the Byzantine emperor’s theoretical claim was enough: no attempt was made to annex the lands of the Serbs. Such satellite rulers could then be fitted in to Byzantine political ideology which conceived a hierarchy of Christian authority with the universal Roman emperor at the top.18 The model used with the Serbs and Pechenegs would hardly work in the case of Muslim powers such as the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad, the Fatimid caliphate of Egypt or the Umayyad caliphate of Spain. These regimes were as rich and powerful as Byzantium itself, often more so, and they possessed their own distinct religious ideology. There was no hope of converting them to Christianity and integrating them into the Byzantine conception of the world order. That did not mean that the Byzantines dropped their foreign policy aim, only that they used other means to pursue it. In their dealings with Muslim powers the language of equals was employed. A tenth-century patriarch of Constantinople told the caliph of Baghdad that he and the Byzantine emperor were the two lordships which ruled the earth, “brothers superior to and preferred above their brethren.”19 This letter is not the example of Byzantine 16 

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, De Administrando Imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik, trans. R. J. H. Jenkins, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 1 (Washington DC, 1967), 54–57. 17  Dimitri Obolensky, “The Principles and Methods of Byzantine Diplomacy,” in Dimitri Obolensky, Byzantium and the Slavs (New York, 1994), 12–22, at 16–17; N. G. Svoronos, “Le serment de fidélité à l’empereur byzantin et sa signification constitutionelle,” Revue des Études Byzantines 9 (1951): 106–42, at 117–22. 18  Theophanes Continuatus, Chronographiae quae Theophanis continuati nomine fertur liber quo Vita Basilii Imperatoris amplectitur, trans. Ihor Ševčenko (Berlin and New York, 2011), 195–97; Dimitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453 (London, 1971), 134–35; André Grabar, “God and the ‘Family of Princes’ Presided over by the Byzantine Emperor,” Harvard Slavic Studies 2 (1954): 117–23, at 118–19; George Ostrogorsky, “The Byzantine Emperor and the Hierarchical World Order,” Slavonic and East European Review 25 (1956–7): 1–14, at 3–5. 19  Nicholas Mystikos, Letters, ed. and trans. R. J. H. Jenkins and L. G. Westerink, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 6 (Washington DC, 1973), 3. On the complex and contradictory relations between



The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade 7

broad-mindedness towards Islam that it is sometimes taken to be. Rather it was a carefully worded piece of flattery which nevertheless reminded the caliph of the supremacy of the Byzantine emperor in his own sphere, the Christian world, just as the caliph was supreme in his. That basic idea was put into practice in treaties with whichever Muslim power seemed best positioned to give the Byzantines what they wanted. During the eleventh century, the emperor made a series of agreements with the Fatimid caliph which dealt not only with practical matters such as prisoner exchanges and non-aggression pacts but also the ideological claims of the respective rulers. The Byzantines agreed that the Friday bidding prayer in the mosques in Constantinople which were provided for the use of visiting Muslim merchants would be said in the name of the Fatimid caliph rather than of his Sunni rival in Baghdad, thus boosting the Egyptian ruler’s claim to leadership in the Muslim world. In return, the emperor secured the right to act as protector of Christians in Jerusalem, which the Fatimids controlled, and to rebuild the church of the Holy Sepulchre there. In this way, the Byzantines secured recognition of the emperor’s universal role as the protector of Christians.20 When it came to diplomatic dealings with the Latin West, the methods had to be varied once again. On the face of it, western rulers were an easier proposition. They were Christians and they seldom constituted a direct threat to the existence of the empire in the way that Muslim and Slav powers did. Thus, in many cases, they were handled in much the same way as the Pechenegs. Lavish gifts were often dispatched to entice a western ruler to become an ally: for example, 144,000 gold pieces and 100 purple silk cloths were sent to the king of Germany in 1081 to cement an alliance against the Normans of southern Italy.21 As in the case of the northern neighbours of the Byzantine empire, however, these gifts often had a message attached to them. Those sent to King Géza I of Hungary (1074–77) included three gold enamel plaques. One depicts Constantine the Great, one the then reigning Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas (1071–78) and one Géza himself. But the portraits are not equal. While Constantine and Michael stare straight ahead at the viewer and have haloes around their heads, Géza has no halo and his eyes look to the right, as if in deference to his superiors.22 Byzantium and the world of Islam, see Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge MA, 2004), 100–111. 20  Yvonne Friedman, Encounter between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Leiden, 2002), 33–47 (on prisoner exchanges); Abbas Hamdani, “Byzantine-Fatimid Relations before the Battle of Manzikert,” Byzantine Studies 1 (1974): 169–79, at 173; Stephen W. Reinert, “The Muslim Presence in Constantinople, 9th–15th Centuries: Some Preliminary Observations,” in Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, ed. H. Ahrweiler and A. E. Laiou (Washington DC, 1998), 125–50, at 135–40. 21  Anna Komnene, Alexias, ed. D. Reinsch and A. Kambylis, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 40, 2 vols. (Berlin and New York, 2001), 1:112–14; English translation by E. R. A. Sewter, Anna Komnene: The Alexiad, revised by Peter Frankopan (Harmondsworth, 2009), 102. 22  Henry Maguire, “Byzantine Art History in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century,” in Byzantium: A World Civilisation, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou and Henry Maguire (Washington DC, 1992), 119–55, at 132–34. In general, on Byzantine dealings with the wider world, see Jonathan Shepard,

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The same message was built into treaties. That drawn up in August 1074 between Michael VII and the Norman Duke, Robert Guiscard, laid down not only that Robert was to respect Byzantine frontiers and to defend them, but also that he was to show the emperor the “submission and good intentions” that he was due. He was, like the Pechenegs, expected to confirm the agreement with an oath.23 Similarly, the treaty made between Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118) and Venice in the later eleventh century stipulated not only that the Venetian fleet should help the Byzantines against the Normans, but also that they should maintain “a correct attitude towards the Roman empire and Our Imperial Majesty.”24 Byzantine universalist ideology was thus built into its relations with its Christian neighbours in the west just as it was with those to the north. That similarity aside, there were particular problems in extending this kind of approach to western Europe. That was because there existed a rival Christian universalist ideology, one that had been developed in Rome by the popes. As the successors of St. Peter, they had always laid claim to a special position among the five patriarchates and claimed an authority over the whole Church, east and west. During the eighth and early ninth centuries, they had taken this claim further by producing the text known as the Donation of Constantine or Constitutum Constantini. The Constitutum had no historical basis whatever but it purported to be a grant by the first Christian emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester I (314–35) in gratitude for the pope having healed him from leprosy. The emperor handed over his palace in Rome and wide but unspecified lands in Italy and the western empire and then, not wishing to reign where the priestly power was supreme, had departed to rule the eastern half of the Roman empire from his new city of Constantinople. Initially the Constitutum had mainly proved useful as a tool for persuading the kings of the Franks to give support to the pope’s claim for land in Italy. Its implication that Constantine had somehow resigned imperial power in the west in favour of the pope, however, was a direct challenge to Byzantine political theory. Taken to its logical conclusion, the Donation of Constantine entitled the popes to bestow imperial power in the west on whomsoever they chose. On Christmas day 800, Pope Leo III had done exactly that by crowning Charlemagne and having him proclaimed as imperator Romanorum. “Byzantium’s Overlapping Circles,” in Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London 21–26 August 2006, ed. Fiona K. Haarer and Elizabeth Jeffreys, 3 vols. (Aldershot, 2006), 1:15–55. 23  P. Bezobrazov, “A Chrysobull of Emperor Michael VII Doukas” [in Russian], Vizantijskij Vremennik 6 (1899): 140–43, at 141: “Καὶ σὺ μὲν συμφωνεῖς ἐμοὶ συνεισενεγκεῖν τὴν πρέπουσαν ὑποταγήν τε καὶ εὔνοιαν”; French translation in Hélène Bibicou, “Une page d’histoire diplomatique de Byzance au XIe siècle: Michel VII Doukas, Robert Guiscard, et la pension des dignitaires,” Byzantion 29–30 (1959): 43–75, at 45; Angeliki E. Laiou, “The Emperor’s Word: Chrysobulls, Oaths and Synallagmatic Relations in Byzantium (11th–12th c.),” Travaux et Mémoires 14 (2002): 347–62, at 348–52. 24  Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, ed. G. L. F. Tafel and G. M. Thomas, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1856–57), 1:51–54, at 53: “rectum animum erga Romaniam et Imperium meum.” On the treaty and its date, see Peter Frankopan, “Byzantine Trade Privileges to Venice in the Eleventh Century: The Chrysobull of 1092,” Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004): 135–60.



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Charlemagne himself may have been unhappy with the idea that his title could be conferred upon him by the pope rather than directly from God as was the case with the Byzantine emperor but in the years after his death it became accepted in the west that no ruler could claim the title of emperor unless he had been crowned by the pope. Charlemagne’s successors duly made their way to Rome for the ceremony and, after a lapse in the tenth century, the title was conferred on the East Frankish king Otto I in 962.25 Since these imperial coronations openly challenged the Byzantine ruler’s unique status, in theory they might have made the usual requirement for an acknowledgement of the supremacy of the Byzantine emperor difficult to obtain from western Christians. There are certainly examples from the tenth and eleventh centuries of resistance to Byzantine universalist claims. Perhaps the most famous is the incident that occurred in August 968 when Pope John XIII (965–72) sent a letter to Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (963–69) addressing him as “emperor of the Greeks” but describing Otto I as “emperor of the Romans.” Faced with an explicit denial of the emperor’s universal status, the Byzantine officials who received the letter in his absence reacted with fury and threatened to throw its bearers into the sea.26 It would seem too that some western rulers were unhappy about the terms demanded for an alliance with the Byzantine emperor. Not surprisingly one of them was the western emperor Henry IV (1056–1106) who, after all, was making a rival claim to universal Christian authority. When the alliance against the Normans was discussed in 1081, Henry apparently dragged his feet in giving the oath required to cement the treaty. His envoys to Constantinople declined to give such an undertaking on his behalf, claiming they had no mandate to do so. Constantine Choirosphaktes was then dispatched to the German court to receive the oath, bearing with him gifts, including a gold pectoral cross inlaid with pearls.27 Ultimately, there is no way of knowing whether Henry ever swore the oath or not or what its exact wording was. The same uneasiness with Byzantine universalist pretensions can be discerned in western literature. Some writers sought to belittle the Byzantines and dismiss their claims to “Romanness,” portraying them instead as effeminate and decadent Greeks, accustomed to achieving their ends through craft rather than military valour.28 A common theme was how some westerner outdid the “Greeks” in a show of 25  Walter Ullmann, Medieval Political Thought (Harmondsworth, 1970), 59–62; Joseph Canning, A History of Medieval Political Thought, 300–1450 (London and New York, 1996), 67–81; Janet Nelson, “Kingship and Empire,” The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350–c.1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge, 1988), 211–51, at 212–13, 231–34. 26  Liudprand of Cremona, “Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana,” in Opera Omnia, ed. P. Chiesa, CCCM 156 (Turnhout, 1998), 185–218, at 207–08; English translation by Paolo Squatriti, The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona (Washington DC, 2008), 267–68. 27  Komnene, Alexias, 1:113; trans. Sewter and Frankopan, Anna Komnene, 102–03. 28  See, for example: Widukind of Corvey, Rerum gestarum Saxonicarum libri tres, ed. Paul Hirsch, MGH SRG 60 (Hanover, 1935), 148; Liudprand, “Relatio,” 192–93; trans. Squatriti, The Complete Works, 246–47; Thietmar of Merseburg, Die Chronik, ed. Robert Holtzmann, MGH SRG 9 (Berlin, 1955), 127; English translation by D. A. Warner, Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (Manchester, 2001), 145.

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magnificence. Notker the Stammerer claimed that Byzantine envoys to the court of Charlemagne at Aachen were so impressed by the opulence of everything they saw that they believed that the official in charge of the stables was the Frankish emperor and dropped to their knees before him. An envoy of Otto III to Constantinople in 1002 allegedly rode into the city on a horse shod in gold to demonstrate that his master’s wealth was in no way inferior to that of the Byzantine basileus. The story was repeated for other visitors to the Byzantine capital.29 Such tales should not be taken too seriously. They were mostly produced by clerks attached to the court of the western emperor and were designed to vindicate the status of their own paymaster. They do not necessarily provide a guide to western attitudes as a whole. Some powerful western rulers were perfectly happy to take the oath to the Byzantine emperor. The Norman Robert Guiscard did so in 1074 and so did Robert, Count of Flanders (1071–93) in 1089 or 1090. If the submission it implied was unpalatable, it was sweetened by the usual generous largesse in the form of gold and silk vestments.30 Western mercenaries who took service with the Byzantine emperor were likewise required to take the oath. In the second half of the eleventh century, there was an influx of English refugees to Constantinople as they fled the Norman Conquest. Many took service with the emperor and became some of his most trusted and honoured personal guards. It is inconceivable that they would have achieved this position without swearing the usual oath. They and other “Varangians” apparently regarded “loyalty to the emperors and the protection of their persons as a family tradition, a kind of sacred trust.”31 The willingness of many westerners to take the oath to the Byzantine emperor was partly the result of generous payments but there can be no doubt that the Byzantines were also very active in meeting the ideological challenge presented by the papacy. They sought to counter the Donation of Constantine by laying greater stress on Translatio imperii, the idea that the capital of the Christian world, the oikoumene, had irrevocably been transferred by Constantine the Great from Rome to Constantinople in 330. Henceforth only emperors resident in the imperial city could rightly claim the special status of “Roman.” An envoy of Otto I to Constantinople was informed in no uncertain terms that the pope was an idiot for failing to appreciate this self-evident fact.32 At the same time, a skilful rearguard 29  Notker the Stammerer (Monk of St. Gall), De Gestis Karoli Imperatoris, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH Scriptores 2 (Berlin, 1829), 726–63, at 750; English translation in Lewis Thorpe, Two Lives of Charlemagne (Harmondsworth, 1969), 141; Krijnie N. Ciggaar, Western Travellers to Constantinople: The West and Byzantium, 962–1204. Cultural and Political Relations (Leiden, 1996), 214–15. Cf. William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. and trans. E. M. C. Van Houts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992–95), 2:79–85. 30  Bezobrazov, “Chrysobull,” 141; trans. Bibicou, “Page d’histoire,” 45; Komnene, Alexias, 1:218; trans. Sewter and Frankopan, Anna Komnene, 199. 31  Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969–80), 2:202–05; Komnene, Alexias, 1:79; trans. Sewter and Frankopan, Anna Komnene, 71–72; Jonathan Shepard, “The Uses of the Franks in Eleventh-Century Byzantium,” Anglo-Norman Studies 15 (1993): 275–305, at 304–05. 32  Liudprand, “Relatio,” 209; trans. Squatriti, The Complete Works, 270; Nicol, “Byzantine Political Thought,” 54, 58–60.



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action was fought against western claims to universal Christian authority. An initial, grudging recognition of Charlemagne’s imperial title was given in 812 although the envoys who granted it were apparently careful not to admit that he was a “Roman” emperor.33 Thereafter, once Charlemagne was dead, the concession could be slowly watered down: a letter sent in 824 to Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious (814–40), addressed him rather cuttingly as “king of the Franks and Lombards and called their emperor.” His grandson, Louis II (855–70), was simply “king of Francia.”34 Later, the Byzantines even managed to turn the Donation of Constantine to their advantage, using it to refute papal claims.35 In the following century, Byzantine diplomacy worked hard to neutralize the claims of the Ottonians and their Salian successors. In 972 a Byzantine princess, Theophano, was married to Otto I’s son and her presence in the western empire had the effect to some extent of reinforcing Byzantine imperial prestige. Both Theophano’s son Otto III (983–1002) and the Salian Henry III (1024–56) were admirers of Byzantine style and court culture, even adopting Byzantine dress.36 It would appear that many laypeople in western Europe in that period were perfectly happy to accept the Byzantine emperor’s own estimate of his status. Far beyond the empire’s borders, its image and ceremonial were imitated by local rulers who wished to enhance their own power and prestige, such as the English king Athelstan (925–39) who took to describing himself as basileus in his charters to mark his rule over all the English kingdoms.37 For all his pretensions, the western emperor was never able to secure that kind of recognition and prestige beyond his borders in the tenth and eleventh centuries. For example, while there were marriage ties between the western emperors and the kings of England, there is no indication of any ceremony or oath demonstrating the subordinate status of the latter. Moreover, the uneven nature of his rule and the lack of a regular tax revenue meant that the western emperor could never distribute the kind of largesse that his Byzantine counterpart regularly deployed. Hence, he could be described simply as an “enhanced king.”38 33 

Annales Regni Francorum, ed. F. Kurze, MGH SRG 6 (Hanover, 1895), 136; English translation in Bernhard Walter Scholz, Carolingian Chronicles (Ann Arbor, 1970), 94–95. 34  MGH Legum III, Concilia II, Concilia Aevi Karolini I.ii, ed. Albert Werminghoff (Hanover and Leipzig, 1906), 475–80: “dilecto et honorabili fratri Hludowico glorioso regi Francorum et Langobardorum et vocato eorum imperatori …”. Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, 147; trans. Wortley, A Synopsis, 143. 35  Paul J. Alexander, “The Donation of Constantine at Byzantium and its Earliest Use against the Western Empire,” Zbornik Radova Vizantoloskog Instituta 8 (1963): 11–26. 36  Ciggaar, Western Travellers, 214, 221; Karl J. Leyser, “The Tenth Century in Byzantine–Western Relationships,” in Relations between East and West in the Middle Ages, ed. Derek Baker (Edinburgh, 1973), 29–63, at 44. 37  Jonathan Harris, “Wars and Rumours of Wars: England and the Byzantine World in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries,” Mediterranean Historical Review 14 (1999): 29–46, at 33. 38  Karl J. Leyser, “England and the Empire in the Early Twelfth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 10 (1960): 61–83, at 62; idem, “Theophanu divina gratia imperatrix augusta: Western and Eastern Emperorship in the Later Tenth Century,” in The Empress Theophano:

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It would seem that the Byzantines even had some success in persuading the papacy to concede a measure of recognition of the emperor’s universal claim. According to the Frankish chronicler Rodulfus Glaber, in 1024 Pope John XIX (1024–32) was visited by some ambassadors from Constantinople. Their mission was to secure the pope’s acceptance that the patriarch of Constantinople was “universal in his sphere” (universus in suo orbe), just as the pope was throughout the world. Swayed by the generous gifts heaped on him by the envoys, the pope weakly gave way.39 It is difficult to know what to make of this episode, especially as Glaber’s account is somewhat terse. It would be tempting to dismiss the whole thing as a fabrication, were it not that certain elements have the ring of truth. The issue of universality under discussion was authentic. Since the sixth century, the patriarchs of Constantinople had sporadically styled themselves as “ecumenical” (oikoumenikos) which translates into Latin as Glaber’s universus. The popes had never approved of the title and had on occasional protested vociferously to the emperor about it. Glaber’s description of the “rich and varied gifts” fits in with standard Byzantine diplomatic practice and it is known that plans were being made at this time by Emperor Basil II (976–1025) to lead an expedition against the Saracens of Sicily. Glaber’s story may therefore reflect a genuine dialogue between the pope and the Byzantine emperor who had sent an embassy with the primary object of sealing an alliance against the common Muslim enemy.40 If that was indeed the case, it was only to be expected that, as always, alliance would be accompanied by some form of acknowledgement of the emperor’s exalted position. But because they were dealing with a cleric rather than a king, the Byzantines appear to have altered the terms slightly and demanded recognition of the status of the patriarch, rather than the emperor. After all, the word oikoumenikos is derived from oikoumene and reflects the universality of Byzantine political thought. Nor is it surprising that John XIX was happy to agree to Byzantine demands on the ecumenical title. In the turbulent years of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, some popes looked to Constantinople for support in their struggles for power with their rivals in Rome. In 974, the recently elected Boniface VII arrived in the Byzantine capital having been ejected by a rival, Benedict VII (974–83), and was apparently given asylum. After ten years in exile in Constantinople, Boniface returned to Rome and overthrew John XIV (983–84), who was subsequently murdered in Byzantium and the West at the Turn of the First Millennium, ed. Adelbert Davids (Cambridge, 1995), 1–27, at 2; Hanna Vollrath, “The Western Empire under the Salians,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 4: c.1024–c.1198, Part II, ed. David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge, 2004), 38–71, at 44. 39  Rodulfus Glaber, Opera, ed. and trans. John France, Neithard Bulst and Paul Reynolds (Oxford, 1989), 172–75; Runciman, Eastern Schism, 35–37; Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, 129–30; Anton Michel, “Die Weltreichs- und Kirchenteilung bei Rudolf Glaber (1044),” Historisches Jahrbuch 70 (1951): 53–64; idem, Humbert und Kerullarios (Paderborn, 1924), 25–26. 40  Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, 368; trans. Wortley, A Synopsis, 348; Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, 79–81; Jeffrey Richards, Consul of God: The Life and Times of Gregory the Great (London, 1980), 217–21.



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the Castel Sant’Angelo. Boniface himself then reigned as pope for fifteen months, before he too was murdered.41 It could well have been that a pope whose position was insecure would make ideological concessions to the Byzantine emperor in return for financial or military support. All in all then, in spite of the western ideological challenge, it would seem that at the end of the tenth century and the early decades of the eleventh the Byzantine emperor was not unsuccessful in propagating an image of himself as superior to other Christian monarchs well beyond his own borders and even into the Latin West. However, that image was to be increasingly questioned as the eleventh century went on. The change was driven by the reform movement in the Western Church that developed during the tenth century from monastic centres such as Cluny in Burgundy and Gorze in Lorraine. The aim of the reformers was primarily to promote a stricter observance of the rule of St. Benedict but it would seem that they also took a very uncompromising line towards Byzantine universalist claims. According to Glaber, when one reforming abbot, William of Saint-Bénigne at Dijon, heard about John XIX’s negotiations with the Byzantines in 1024, he wrote an angry letter to the pope, criticizing him for watering down the prerogatives of his office. Significantly, William reveals that he regarded the pope’s authority as superior not only to that of the patriarch of Constantinople but to that of the emperor as well: For although the power of the Roman empire, which once ruled over the whole earth, is now divided in various areas under numerous sceptres, the power of binding and loosing in heaven and earth is attached by inviolable gift to the office of St. Peter. And we have said this so that you may perceive that it is from nothing but vain glory that the Greeks have made these demands on you of which we have heard.42

In 1046 the northern European reformers took control of Rome and the papacy. At the Council of Sutri Emperor Henry III had deposed three rival claimants to the office of pope and appointed a series of Germans instead, culminating in his own close relative Bruno, bishop of Toul in Alsace, who became Leo IX. The character of the papal court changed too with northern Europeans such as Humbert, who was also from Alsace, being appointed as cardinals. Under Leo IX, the papacy adopted the reform agenda and took it upon itself to restore the morals of the Western Church, and particularly to root out the sins of clerical marriage and simony, the purchase of ecclesiastical office. In the course of this campaign, Leo and his circle were responsible for two developments that were to have profound implications for western perceptions of Byzantium. In the first place, in order the better to equip themselves to root out 41  Liber Pontificalis: De Gestis Romanorum Pontificum, ed. L. Duchesne, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Paris, 1955–57), 2:259. 42  Glaber, Opera, 174–75.

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abuses, the reformers laid increasing stress on the doctrine of papal supremacy over the whole Church. Acceptance of papal authority was inseparable from accepting the stricter moral guidelines that were now being laid down. One of the most enthusiastic proponents of this idea was Cardinal Humbert. In his De Sancta Romana Ecclesia, he insisted that the moral health of the whole Church depended on that of Rome and that Christians “rejoice or languish in union with it.”43 Moreover, just as the reformers were placing more emphasis on the doctrine of papal primacy, so they were making greater use of the Donation of Constantine. It was probably in this period that the text of the Constitutum Constantini received a number of emendations to suggest more clearly that the emperor Constantine had handed over not only lands and cities to Pope Sylvester but imperial authority in the west as well.44 Secondly, the reforming curia deliberately set out to propagate its message not just in Rome itself but throughout western Europe. Within three months of his consecration, Leo had left the city and during his five-year pontificate spent less than six months there. Instead he toured France and Germany, holding synods to root out unworthy clergy and giving the papacy a local presence that it had never possessed in the past. Particularly dramatic was the synod held by Leo at Reims in October 1049 when the corrupt bishop of Langres was compelled to confess his sins publicly and to ask for the pope’s absolution.45 At a later stage, when developments prevented the pope from travelling outside Italy, dissemination of papal claims and policies was achieved through letters rather than personal presence. Those of Pope Gregory VII (1073–85) were copied in various monasteries and widely circulated.46 In this way the ideals of the reforming papacy came to be known throughout Europe and became those of a wide section of European opinion far beyond Italy. Papal authority had always been admitted in theory in the past but it now became much more widely applied on the ground far from Rome. That remained the case even when later, in the eleventh century, the western emperor Henry IV came into conflict with the reformed papacy and expelled Gregory VII from Rome in 1084. Although the supporters of Henry IV directed a barrage of criticism against Gregory VII, it was not his strident championing of papal authority that they 43 

Humbert of Silva Candida, “De Sancta Romana Ecclesia,” in Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio, ed. Percy E. Schramm, 2 vols. (Leipzig and Berlin, 1929), 2:128–33, at 128; Walter Ullmann, “Cardinal Humbert and the Ecclesia Romana,” Studi Gregoriani 4 (1952): 111–27, at 112. 44  H. E. J. Cowdrey, “The Reform Papacy and the Origins of the Crusades,” in Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade. Actes du colloque universitaire international de ClermontFerrand (23–25 Juin 1995), ed. André Vauchez (Rome, 1997), 65–83, at 68–69; Johannes Fried, Donation of Constantine and Constitutum Constantini: Misinterpretation of a Fiction (Berlin and New York, 2007), 16–18. 45  PL 143:457–510, at 492–93; English translation by I. S. Robinson in Papal Reform of the Eleventh Century: Lives of Pope Leo IX and Pope Gregory VII (Manchester, 2004), 97–157, at 138–39; Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (London, 1968), 74; Morris, Papal Monarchy, 82–89. 46  I. S. Robinson, “The Friendship Network of Gregory VII,” History 63 (1978): 1–22, at 7–9; idem, “The Dissemination of the Letters of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Contest,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 34 (1983): 175–93, at 188–89.



The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade 15

attacked but his supposed “violence” and division of the Church.47 The universal nature of his authority in spiritual matters was not at issue. Both these factors, the more strident voicing of the doctrine of papal supremacy and the wider dissemination and implementation of that doctrine, were to play their part in ensuring that the events of 1054 were very different from other, past disagreements between Rome and Constantinople. The effect of the constant pushing of the doctrine of papal supremacy can be seen at work at the very beginning of the dispute. Although there were many issues, such as the imposition of Latin practices on the Greek churches of southern Italy and the closure of Latin churches in Constantinople, the main bone of contention was brought to the fore by a letter of Michael Keroularios which reached Pope Leo IX in about January 1054. The letter itself does not survive and we only know about its contents from the pope’s reply. It is clear, however, that Keroularios had caused great offence, as great as that provoked at the Byzantine court by the arrival of the letter addressed to the “emperor of the Greeks” in 968. Much of the outrage seems to have been caused by Keroularios signing himself “ecumenical patriarch,” a title which the pope denounced as “a detestable, lamentable and sacrilegious usurpation.”48 Many scholars, keen to show the unimportance of the events of 1054, have played down this letter and the outrage at Keroularios’s title. It was, they claim, merely a mistranslation. Humbert had rendered the Greek word oikoumenikos into Latin as universalis. Keroularios had meant solely that he was patriarch of the area ruled by the Byzantine emperor, the oikoumene but the pope and his advisers misunderstood and believed that Keroularios was laying claim to authority over the whole Church.49 Neat though this explanation is, it is unconvincing. Universalis is not an unreasonable translation. By styling themselves oikoumenikos, Keroularios and his predecessors were reflecting Byzantine political theory that their emperor was not just the ruler of a particular patch of territory but had God-given authority over the whole of the Christian world. It was the same theory the vindication of which was one of the main aims of the empire’s foreign policy. The significance of the pope’s reaction lies in the atmosphere of Rome under the reformed papacy where traditional Byzantine ideology now appeared to be a direct challenge to papal supremacy and hence to the main prop of its mission to reform the morals of the Western Church. Thus there was no misunderstanding here. From the papal viewpoint there were good grounds for objecting very strongly to Keroularios’s letter, and those objections were partly behind the fateful decision to send Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople in the summer of 1054. The use of the title “Ecumenical patriarch” 47  I. S. Robinson, “Reform and the Church, 1073–1122,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. 4: c.1024–c.1198, Part I, ed. David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge, 2004), 268– 334, at 276–79. 48  PL 143:773–77, at 774; Will, Acta et Scripta, 89–92, at 90. 49  Runciman, Eastern Schism, 43; Hussey, Orthodox Church, 133; J. T. Gilchrist, “Humbert of Silva-Candida and the Political Concept of Ecclesia in the Eleventh-Century Reform Movement,” Journal of Religious History 2 (1962): 13–28, at 23–25.

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was one of the charges levelled against Keroularios in the bull of excommunication left in Hagia Sophia.50 The centrality of the issue of universalism is also suggested by another aspect of Leo IX’s response to Keroularios’s letter. The pope prepared a libellus to send to the patriarch although it does not appear in the end to have been dispatched. This “little book” was based on the Constitutum Constantini and was clearly designed to refute Byzantine universalist claims.51 Turning to the second factor, the wider dissemination of papal ideology, what really made 1054 significant was the way in which one particular view of those events was spread throughout western Europe and came to influence a large section of western opinion, clerical and lay. In Byzantium, as has been pointed out, the incident was scarcely recorded. In the west, by contrast, Humbert’s legation to Constantinople was widely reported. No sooner was he back than Humbert wrote a short account in Latin of the affair, and this provided the version of events that appears in later writings of members of the papal curia.52 It was incorporated into the chronicle of Cardinal Leo of Ostia and the Life of Leo IX, supposedly written by Wibert, archdeacon of Toul, but probably in fact the work of Humbert himself.53 What is more striking is the way in which Humbert’s version of events was widely circulated far beyond Rome and the curia, both among the supporters of Gregorian reform and their enemies. It appears in an anonymous Saxon chronicle and in the chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux (ca. 1030–1112), a native of Flanders and an opponent of the Gregorian papacy.54 Moreover, the tale grew in the telling. By the time it was incorporated into the chronicle of the German monk, Lampert of Hersfeld (ca. 1025–81/5), it had changed from being an account of a condemnation of a few errant clerics to a full-blooded vindication of papal authority. According to Lampert, who was also in the imperial rather than the Gregorian camp, so shocked and repentant were the Byzantine emperor and the patriarch after the excommunication that they and the entire clergy and people of Constantinople donned sackcloth and ashes and solemnly submitted to the apostolic authority of the legates.55 Not only were German and Flemish chroniclers accepting the Roman

50 

Will, Acta et Scripta, 153–54, at 154. “Epistola ad Michaelem Constantinopolitanum Patriarcham adversus eius et Leonis Achridani episcopi inauditas praesumptiones et nimis vanitates,” in Will, Acta et Scripta, 65–85; Hans-Georg Krause, “Das Constitutum Constantini im Schisma von 1054,” in Aus Kirche und Reich: Studien zur Theologie, Politik und Recht im Mittelalter. Festschrift für Friedrich Kempf, ed. Hubert Mordek (Sigmaringen, 1983), 131–58; Fried, Donation of Constantine, 16–18. 52  PL 143:1001–04; Will, Acta et Scripta, 150–52. 53  PL 143:1001–04; Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, ed. Hartmut Hoffmann, MGH Scriptores 34 (Hanover, 1980), 333–34; PL 143:498–99; trans. Robinson, Papal Reform, 146–49. On the authorship of the latter work, see Hans-Georg Krause, “Über den Verfasser der Vita Leonis IX Papae,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 32.1 (1976): 49–85. 54  Sigebert of Gembloux, Chronographia, ed. L. C. Bethmann, MGH Scriptores 6 (Hanover, 1844), 268–374, at 359–60; Annalista Saxo, ed. G. Waitz, MGH Scriptores 6 (Hanover, 1844), 688–89. 55  Lampert of Hersfeld, Annales, ed. L. F. Hesse, MGH Scriptores 5 (Hanover, 1844), 134–263, at 155–56: “tantum terrorem omnibus Constantinopolitanis incussit, ut imperator et patriarcha cum clero 51 



The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade 17

version of events, therefore, they were also, to some extent, incorporating the theory of papal authority into their work. This development should be carefully distinguished from any growth of animosity. On the contrary, the reformed papacy showed every sign in the later eleventh century of wishing to normalize relations with the Byzantine emperor. On hearing news that the Seljuk Turks had invaded Asia Minor, Gregory VII called for volunteers to go out to defend Constantinople and even proposed to lead the expedition himself.56 In 1089, the newly-elected Urban II, keen to strengthen his hand against his rival Clement III, entered into negotiations with Alexios I Komnenos with a view to restoring amity between the Eastern and Western Churches. Six years later, the pope preached a sermon at Clermont, urging faithful Christians to take up arms to defend Constantinople and so launched the First Crusade.57 Yet while there is little sign of animosity in the relations between Rome and Constantinople in the later eleventh century, there is every indication of a growing reluctance to accept the Byzantine emperor’s universalist claim both among the reforming popes and their adherents and among other western Europeans. A letter dispatched from Gregory VII to Michael VII Doukas, for example, addresses him as “emperor of Constantinople.” There is no record of any outraged reaction in Constantinople as there had been to the 968 letter but that was probably because the empire was at that time in crisis with the Seljuk Turks overrunning much of Asia Minor. When Michael VII was overthrown in 1078, Gregory VII excommunicated his successor, Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078–81) and publicly gave his blessing to the expedition being organized by the Norman duke Robert Guiscard purportedly to restore Michael.58 These actions suggest an assumption of moral authority and a belief that the affairs of the eastern empire were subject to the pope’s jurisdiction. Typical is the western interpretation of the embassy sent by the Byzantine emperor Alexios I to the pope at the council of Piacenza in Italy in March 1095. It has been assumed, probably rightly, that the aim of the embassy was to ask the pope to encourage western knights to serve as mercenaries in the Byzantine army, although Alexios may also have been deliberately trying to manipulate western religious sentiments with regard to Jerusalem.59 It would seem that Alexios had et populo sequenti die, sacco et cinere obvoluti, ad eum procederent et apostolicam auctoritatem in eo proni in terram adorarent.” 56  Cowdrey, “Gregorian Papacy,” 156; idem, “Pope Gregory VII’s ‘Crusading’ Plans of 1074,” in Outremer, 27–40. 57  Walther Holtzmann, “Die Unionverhandlungen zwischen Kaiser Alexios I und Papst Urban II im Jahre 1089,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 28 (1928): 38–67, at 60–62; Runciman, Eastern Schism, 61–62; Cowdrey, “Gregorian Papacy,” 162–63. For the background to Urban’s election, approach to Alexios and subsequent relations, see Alfons Becker, Papst Urban II. (1088–1099) (Stuttgart, 1964), 97–113; Peter Frankopan, The First Crusade: The Call from the East (London, 2012), 16–23, 87–100. 58  Register of Gregory VII, 1073–1085, trans. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 2002), 20, 281–82, 371–72. 59  Jonathan Shepard, “Cross-Purposes: Alexius Comnenus and the First Crusade,” The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. Jonathan Phillips (Manchester, 1997), 107–29, at 119–22; Jonathan Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 2014), 55-58.

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used the pope in this way before: his daughter Anna Komnene wrote that, at the time of his war against the Pechenegs four years earlier, Alexios had expected mercenaries from Rome to join his armies.60 If this was so, the embassy would no doubt have wanted to recruit on the usual terms: generous payments in gold in return for loyal service and recognition of the status of the emperor. That was what had been offered in the treaties with the Normans in 1074 and the Venetians some years later. Matters are represented in a very different light in the Latin sources which record these events. According to the pro-Gregorian chronicler, Bernold of St. Blasien, Alexios “humbly implored the Lord Pope and all Christ’s faithful people to give him some help against the pagans,” a complete reversal of the usual lordly tone of Byzantine diplomacy.61 Even more striking in this regard is the language of the proimperial writer Ekkehard, abbot of Aura. Like Bernold, he presents the emperor’s embassy not as a business transaction but as a humble and desperate supplication for help. He goes further, however, and claims that Alexios “deplored his inability to defend the churches of the east,” thus explicitly denying the emperor’s claim to leadership in the Christian world.62 The same set of priorities explains the conduct of many of the leaders of the First Crusade when they arrived at Constantinople in 1097. The Byzantine officials who received them made the usual demand that they swear an oath to the emperor. Seven years before, Count Robert of Flanders had done so quite happily and even now there were some among the crusade leadership who complied readily. One of them was Bohemond, the son of Robert Guiscard, perhaps because his south Italian roots made him well acquainted with Byzantine customs. The Normans of that area had a long history of fighting as mercenaries in Byzantine armies and his father had made a similar submission in his treaty with Michael VII Doukas in 1074.63 Those from France and Flanders, on the other hand, reacted very negatively to the demand and were most unwilling to swear. Tancred of Hauteville was allegedly unimpressed by the readiness of his kinsman Bohemond to do the emperor’s bidding and did his best to avoid doing so himself by secretly crossing the Bosporus. Godfrey of Bouillon, a vassal of Henry IV who had supported him loyally in the investiture dispute, fought a pitched battle on the issue outside the land walls of Constantinople. Raymond of Toulouse was also ready to resort to arms but was finally persuaded by the other leaders to back down. 60 

Komnene, Alexias, 1:245; trans. Sewter and Frankopan, Anna Komnene, 224. Bernold of St. Blasien, Chronicon, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH Scriptores 5 (Hanover, 1844), 385– 467, at 462. English translation by I. S. Robinson, Eleventh Century Germany: The Swabian Chronicles (Manchester, 2008), 245–337, at 324. On Bernold, see Robinson, “Friendship Network,” 21; idem, “Dissemination,” 185–86. 62  Ekkehard of Aura, Chronicon universale, ed. G. Waitz, in MGH Scriptores 6 (Hanover, 1844), 33–245, at 213; English translation by Peter Charanis, “Byzantium, the West and the Origin of the First Crusade,” Byzantion 19 (1949): 17–36, at 27–28. 63  Jonathan Shepard, “When Greek meets Greek: Alexius Comnenus and Bohemond in 1097–98,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 12 (1988): 185–277, at 256–59. 61 



The “Schism” of 1054 and the First Crusade 19

Perhaps inevitably the Latin accounts are not as specific as they might be in explaining this violent reaction to something that earlier generations of Byzantine allies had accepted without demur. Nevertheless, the basic grounds for objection are clear. The Gesta Francorum asserts that the leaders complained that the oath was unworthy of them and that the demand for it was unjust. Raymond of Toulouse allegedly declared that that he had no other lord than God for whom he had abandoned his property and homeland. In the words of Ralph of Caen, it was not possible to serve both the common good and the “king of the Greeks.”64 The basis of the objection then was the oft-repeated boast that the crusade had no leader other than God.65 In that atmosphere, the kind of ideological submission expected by the Byzantine emperor was indeed likely to be viewed as inappropriate. There has been a great deal of discussion and debate as to the nature and wording of these undertakings because contemporary accounts give different versions of what they contained. Anna Komnene stresses that the crusaders promised to return to the emperor any towns, lands or forts that they conquered which had previously belonged to the Byzantine empire, while the Gesta Francorum asserts that the oaths involved promises by the emperor to supply the crusade army and make good its losses.66 These variations were, of course, calculated to fit in with the axe each author was grinding: Anna Komnene wished to highlight the faithlessness of the crusaders in omitting to return Antioch to Byzantine rule, the Gesta to emphasize Alexios’s later failure to relieve the crusaders at the siege of Antioch. There are good reasons for supposing, however, that these oaths were much the same as those which the Byzantines had always demanded from their allies and mercenaries with, perhaps, a few amendments for the occasion. All the sources agree that lavish gifts were bestowed on those who swore, in line with time-honoured practice and the use of phrases such as sacramentum fideliter facere by the author of the Gesta and other Latin writers to describe what was demanded suggests that some form of acknowledgment of the emperor’s sovereignty was involved. Other Latin writers even assert that the oath included accepting adoption as the emperor’s son “as is the custom in that land,” strongly suggesting the kind of ceremony where Christian allies were slotted into the hierarchy of rulers headed by the Byzantine emperor.67 At the end of the day, it would appear that what the crusade leaders reluctantly swore 64  GF, 11–12; Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi, trans. B. S. and D. S. Bachrach (Aldershot, 2005), 40–41; Raymond of Aguilers, Le ‘Liber’ de Raymond d’Aguilers, ed. John Hugh Hill and Laurita L. Hill (Paris, 1969), 41–42: “Respondit comes, se ideo non venisse, ut dominum alium faceret, aut alii militaret, nisi illi propter quem patriam et bona patrie sue dimiserat.” 65  On this point, see Jay Rubenstein, “Godfrey of Bouillon versus Raymond of Saint-Gilles: How Carolingian Kingship Trumped Millenarianism at the End of the First Crusade,” in The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages: Power, Faith, and Crusade, ed. Matthew Gabriele and Jace Stuckey (New York, 2008), 59–75, at 59. 66  Komnene, Alexias, 1:313; trans. Sewter and Frankopan, Anna Komnene, 289; GF, 5. 67  AA, 86: “non solum se ei in filium, sicut mos est terre, sed etiam in uassallum iunctis minibus reddidit;” Ekkehard of Aura, Chronicon universale, 216; Jonathan Shepard, “‘Father’ or ‘Scorpion’? Style and Substance in Alexios’s Diplomacy,” in Alexios I Komnenos, ed. Margaret Mullett and Dion Smythe (Belfast, 1996), 68–132, at 80–82, 108–13.

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was the kind of oath that had always been expected. The exception was Raymond of Toulouse who swore only to not sully the life or honour of the emperor or to permit anyone else to do so. Consequently he received fewer and less valuable gifts than the other leaders.68 This reluctance to accept the claim of the Byzantine emperor to be the leader of Christendom can be discerned again and again throughout the twelfth century. Given that he played no part whatsoever in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, he was increasingly widely regarded as ineffectual and weak. In a forged version of an early letter sent by Alexios I to the count of Flanders, that was probably concocted in about 1106, the emperor purportedly complained that “albeit I am emperor, [I] can find no remedy or suitable counsel, but am always fleeing in the face of the Turks and Pechenegs.”69 The forger of the letter even has the emperor suggest that it would be better if the Latins came and took over Constantinople as that was the only way the place would be saved from the Turks. Much the same message comes across in the work of William of Tyre (ca. 1130–ca. 1185), the chronicler of the Frankish east who was by no means entirely hostile to the Byzantines. He recounts the triumphs of Emperor Heraclius (610–41) and his recovery of Jerusalem from the Persians but also makes it clear that after 1071 the Byzantine ruler was no longer able to protect the Holy Places and therefore yielded the role to the Franks.70 It was the culmination of a process that had begun about a hundred years earlier. The existing literature on 1054 has done a very good job in getting rid of the notion that Humbert’s excommunication of Keroularios was the end product of centuries of increasing tension and the “final break” between the Churches of East and West. It has helped to discredit the idea of centuries-old antagonism ultimately leading to the sack of Constantinople in 1204. In doing so, however, the ideological significance of the event has been neglected. By challenging the universal claims of Byzantine political ideology and by disseminating his version of his embassy across Europe, Humbert both contributed to and reflected a process by which Byzantium’s traditional foreign policy could no longer be applied to the west.

68 

Raymond of Aguilers, Le ‘Liber’, 42. Others interpret the oaths differently: J. H. Pryor, “The Oaths of the Leaders of the First Crusade to the Emperor Alexius I Comnenus: Fealty, Homage – Pistis, Douleia,” Parergon, new series, 2 (1984): 111–32; Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, 1095–1204, trans. J. C. Morris and J. C. Ridings (Oxford, 1993), 24–26; J. H. Hill and L. L. Hill, “The Convention of Alexios Comnenus and Raymond of Saint-Gilles,” American Historical Review 58 (1952–53): 322–27; Frankopan, First Crusade, 118–37. 69  Alexii I Comneni Romanorum imperatoris ad Robertum I Flandriae comitem epistola spuria, ed. Paul E. D. Riant (Geneva, 1879), 9–20. English translations of different versions of the letter in Robert the Monk, History of the First Crusade, trans. Carol Sweetenham (Aldershot, 2005), 215–22; Guibert of Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos, trans. Robert Levine (Woodbridge, 1997), 42–45; Einar Joranson, “The Problem of the Spurious Letter of Emperor Alexius to the Count of Flanders,” American Historical Review 55 (1949–50): 811–32, at 814–15. 70  Bernard Hamilton, “William of Tyre and the Byzantine Empire,” in Porphyrogenita, 219–33, at 220.

The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium of “Bartolf of Nangis” Susan B. Edgington Queen Mary University of London [email protected] Abstract The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium ascribed to Bartolf of Nangis has long been dismissed as no more than an abridgement of the Historia of Fulcher of Chartres. This is understandable, given that the writer acknowledged Fulcher as his source. However, a close reading of the text reveals that, while the writing method was generally to abbreviate or omit religious content and to convert Fulcher’s first-person narrative to third-person, yet there are also passages which are much fuller in their treatment of events about which Fulcher was terse. These passages could have been drawn from other sources, but it is argued that a more likely explanation is that the author was working from Fulcher’s first recension of his Historia, now lost, and therefore the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium merits attention as a witness to the Historia’s content as it was first written in 1106. To support this hypothesis a series of case studies is adduced, including the desertion of Stephen of Blois, the Easter Fire of 1101, the patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the part played by the Pisan fleet in the earliest conquests of the coastal cities. In conclusion, it seems probable that Fulcher of Chartres edited his own work quite radically in the 1120s to reflect political changes, and that the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium is a truer witness to the politics of the early 1100s.

This account of the First Crusade and the early years of Latin settlement has long been known and was published in Bongars’ collection and in the Recueil des historiens des croisades.1 It has customarily been regarded as no more than an abridgement of the much better known history written by Fulcher of Chartres, therefore having no independent value for the events it describes. Heinrich von Sybel, for example, dismissed the work summarily as “in no respect important.”2 The author himself is partly responsible for this view. He acknowledged his exemplar near the beginning of his work:

A shorter version of this paper was given at the SSCLE conference at Cáceres, 2012. I thank the audience there for an encouraging response, and the editors and referees of Crusades, especially Jay Rubenstein, for suggestions for its improvement. 1  Jacques Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos (Hanau, 1611), 561–93; RHC Oc 3:491–543 (references to BN hereafter are to the RHC Oc edition). 2  Heinrich von Sybel, Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzugs (Düsseldorf, 1841), 56: “Wichtig ist die Copie in keiner Beziehung.” 21

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Now, therefore, let us move on to the beginning of our narrative, and, with God’s inspiration, let us try to elucidate that which brother Fulcher of Chartres saw with his eyes, or the deeds which were told him by those who did them and which he brought together from memory and gathered into one little book. But we, who are thoroughly informed both by the content of the little book, and by the accounts of others, and by penetrating investigation, avoiding a prolix narrative, content only with those things which we feel are relevant to the matter, have taken care conscientiously to modify the text of this volume.3

Passing over the writer’s hints that he discerned prolixity, irrelevance, and even confusion in Fulcher’s work, there is some indication that he was aware of other sources, and that he undertook additional research. The question addressed below is whether this is sufficient to explain some passages which are not more concise than Fulcher, but more detailed. It is well established that Fulcher’s history was written in stages. As we have it, the narrative covers the years 1095–1127. The first version was finished in 1106, or a little later, and although no copy is extant it was used by Guibert of Nogent and by the author of the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium, as will be demonstrated below. It has been argued on internal evidence that Fulcher started writing again in 1109 or 1110 and took the narrative forward to about 1115, adding book three after Baldwin I’s death in 1118.4 However, there is no surviving manuscript to support this theory, and if indeed adding and revising was going on in the 1110s, then it is probable that Fulcher’s autograph was never circulated or copied.5 Two groups of manuscripts do survive which include book three: the first ends in 1124 and represents the first redaction. Then Fulcher evidently revised the whole text, and manuscripts of the second redaction, which continues to 1127, contain modifications, some slight and some more significant. There are two important points to note: Fulcher is known to have revised his work, and we have no manuscripts representing the first stage of composition, finished in 1106. There is no doubt that it was a manuscript of this first recension that was used for the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium. At the point where Fulcher closed in 1106 with a personal statement, the author wrote, ‘And here is the end.’6 Both authors had just written of the events of 1105, and both followed their explicit with descriptions of an earthquake and some astronomical manifestations which happened in 1106.7 It has been conjectured that the copyist was writing before 1109 (and even that he died before then) on the grounds that he recorded that Tripoli, 3 

BN, chapter 2, p. 492. FC, pp. 46–47 (in the introduction by Heinrich Hagenmeyer). 5  I am grateful to Jay Rubenstein for his thoughts on this, and for allowing me to see his forthcoming essay, “Guibert of Nogent, Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres: Three Crusade Chronicles Intersect,” in Writing the Early Crusades: Text, Transmission and Memory, ed. Marcus Bull and Damien Kempf (Woodbridge, 2014), pp. 24–37. 6  BN, chap. 71, p. 541; cf. FC, 1.5.12, p. 153. 7  BN, chap. 72, pp. 542–43; FC 2.34–35, pp. 503–09. 4 

The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium 23



attacked by William Jordan in 1105, was still unconquered: “it will perhaps fall in future to another’s attack.”8 (Tripoli was captured in 1109.) This deduction depends on another conjecture: that he copied Fulcher’s work in Jerusalem and was therefore in a position to be up to date with political events. Heinrich Hagenmeyer contended that this was the case and the writer was an eyewitness to the events of 1100–1105. He called him a good, sound source for these years, because he was in Jerusalem and knew Fulcher personally. This he postulated on the grounds that the copyist called him “Brother Fulcher of Chartres.”9 Claude Cahen accepted the idea that the author knew Fulcher’s work in Outremer, as did Runciman.10 However, both Fulcher and the author of the abridgement were, presumably, clerics so “brother” would be a natural form of address, and there are strong indicators, discussed below, that the writer of the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium found his exemplar in the West. The work was published for the first time in 1611 in Bongars’ collection Gesta Dei per Francos, at which point he noted it as anonymous. However, his contemporary Kaspar von Barth, the German philologist and Latinist (1587–1658), identified the writer as “Bartolfus quidam peregrinus de Nangeio, Germanus,” but nowhere revealing how he arrived at this identification.11 Later editors have been understandably sceptical.12 Nangis is not unlikely for the author’s place of birth: it is a town in the Île de France (dép. Seine-et-Marne), which does not itself have a monastery or abbey. Barth deduced German nationality on philological grounds: he cited just four examples of phrasing that he considered Germanic.13 If the author was not French – and Barth’s evidence is not conclusive – it is possible that the writer was Flemish rather than German, since Bongars’ edition of the text appends some lines of verse celebrating the genealogy of Godfrey and Baldwin, concluding: “The patriarch, king and guardian of the Sepulchre, from Flanders, possess the regalia in the captured city of Solomon.”14 It is likely that these lines were written before 1108, referring respectively to Evremar, Baldwin I and Arnulf, perhaps by the same author as the preceding history. In short, and in the absence of other evidence, no aspect of Barth’s identification of the author is especially convincing. Since, however, there is already an anonymous Gesta Francorum, it is convenient to use the name “Bartolf” for the author of the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium.

8 

BN, chap. 68, p. 539. BN, chap. 2, p. 492; FC, p. 72 (Hagenmeyer’s introduction). 10  Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1951–54), 1:329; Claude Cahen, La Syrie du nord à l’époque des croisades et la principauté franque d’Antioche (Paris, 1940), 11, note 1. 11  J. P. von Ludewig, Reliquiae manuscriptorum, 12 vols. (Frankfurt, 1720–41), 3:500. 12  RHC Oc 3:489, note a; FC, p. 71, note 5. 13  Ludewig, Reliquiae manuscriptorum, 3:500. 14  Bongars, Gesta Dei, 593, reproduced in RHC Oc 3:543: “Patriarcha, rex et custos Sepulchri, de Flandria, / In urbe capta Salomonis, obtinent regalia.” 9 

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Bongars used two manuscripts to establish his edition: one belonged to Pithou15 and the other to Marquard Freher (1565–1614).16 The latter manuscript had come from the library of Philipp Ludwig of Pfalz-Neuburg (1547–1614).17 Bongars’ edition was utilized by the editors of volume 3 of the Recueil des historiens des croisades: historiens occidentaux (where it was allocated siglum D).18 This edition used four manuscripts: the base manuscript (A) was twelfth-century and originated in the abbey of Marchiennes.19 This same codex also contains Fulcher in the 1127 recension, so can be no earlier than the second quarter of the twelfth century. The Recueil’s B was a fourteenth-century manuscript from the archives of the medical faculty at Montpellier.20 The codex contains no other crusade texts. It originated in Troyes, and had formerly belonged to Pithou. Since it shares almost all its variants with D (Bongars edition), it is very probable that it was one of his two exemplars. Manuscript C, a thirteenth-century copy, came from Copenhagen library.21 Interestingly, and perhaps significantly, in this manuscript the last lines of Bartolf’s Gesta were replaced by a fragment of Fretellus’s Description of the Holy Places, a work that immediately follows the Gesta in manuscript A from Douai.22 Since manuscripts A and C appear to share most readings, then these two copies are probably closely related. The Recueil’s manuscript E was from the abbey of Saint Bertin in Saint-Omer.23 It is also dated from the twelfth century and is of interest not only for its early date, but because it is very probably related (if not identical) to the manuscript used by Lambert of Saint-Omer in his encyclopaedic Liber floridus. Lambert’s autograph manuscript of 1121 is extant.24 The Recueil edition reproduces “un curieux plan de Jérusalem,”25 which was almost certainly the exemplar for one in Lambert’s Liber floridus. The latter does not survive, but there are copies in manuscripts in Leiden 15  Probably the writer Pierre (1539–96), but could be one of his brothers, all jurists: Jean (1524–1602), his twin Nicolas (1524–98), or François (1543–1621). Pierre’s library contained many manuscripts, most later transferred to the Bibliothèque Nationale. 16  Bongars’ preface: “Nonum scriptorum anonymum dedit Fr. Pithœus, cui exemplum accessit etiam vetus a Marquardo Frehero,” reprinted in RHC Oc 3:487. 17  Ibid: “ex bibliotheca Laugingana illustrissimi principis Philippi Ludovici, ducis Bavariæ etc.” (Laugingana is Lauingen, Bavaria.) 18  RHC Oc 3:xxxvi–xxxvii (editors’ preface). 19  Douai MS 882 (formerly 838): Catalogue des manuscrits des Bibliothèques des Départements, 7 vols. (Paris, 1849–85), 6:637–43. The same manuscript was used for the Recueil edition of Fulcher. 20  Montpellier MS 139: Catalogue des manuscrits, 1:337. 21  Copenhagen MS 2159: Catalogus Codicum Latinorum medii aevi Bibliothecae Regiae Hafniensis, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen, 1926), 381. 22  See RHC Oc 3:542–43, where the fragment is printed as a footnote. 23  Saint-Omer MS 776: Catalogue des manuscrits, 3:352–53. 24  Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 92. A transcription is available: Lambert, Liber Floridus: Codex Autographus Bibliotheca Universitatis Gandavensis, ed. Albert Derolez and Egied Strubbe (Ghent, 1968). See also Jay Rubenstein, “Lambert of Saint-Omer and the Apocalyptic First Crusade,” in Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity, ed. Nicholas Paul and Suzanne Yeager (Baltimore, MA, 2012), 69–95. 25  RHC Oc, between 3:510 and 3:511; see editors’ preface, p. xxxvii.



The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium 25

and Paris.26 If this interpretation of the relationship is correct – that is, that Lambert used the Saint-Omer manuscript – then this must be the earliest extant copy, since the Liber floridus is dated 1121. Presumably it was not used by the Recueil editors as the basis for their edition because the Saint-Omer manuscript is incomplete at the end.27 Bartolf’s account of the First Crusade (1095–99) was heavily dependent on Fulcher, as he openly acknowledged. A side-by-side comparison of the two accounts shows Bartolf’s working method. He abbreviated drastically, or omitted altogether, sermons and religious digressions, including Urban’s speech at Clermont, Fulcher’s eulogy of Urban II, and references to anti-pope Clement III.28 He consistently converted passages which Fulcher wrote in the first person into third-person narrative, but also summarized them: for example, Fulcher’s journey to Constantinople, including his shipwreck and the miracle of crosses.29 In the same way, Bartolf dealt much more briefly with Baldwin’s diversion from the main crusade, which took Fulcher with him to Edessa and meant that Fulcher was not, in fact, an eyewitness to the sieges of Antioch and Jerusalem.30 Fulcher also has a much longer account of the discovery of the Holy Lance, into which he added a brief account of the ordeal by fire of its discoverer; Bartolf is much briefer on the discovery and describes the ordeal separately.31 Because Fulcher was absent from the crusading armies during crucial events from the siege of Antioch to the battle of Ascalon, he himself had to rely on information from others to describe these events. He probably had some oral information, but also used the accounts of Raymond of Aguilers and those in the anonymous Gesta Francorum.32 Bartolf has more (and not less) detailed accounts of the sieges and battles of 1098 and 1099,33 and also different descriptions of Antioch and Jerusalem from those found in Fulcher: he includes particulars of churches within Antioch, and the gates of Jerusalem, for example.34 Both Sybel and Hagenmeyer claimed that Bartolf, like Fulcher, based passages on the Gesta Francorum and possibly Raymond of Aguilers.35 This is possible, but would mean the two authors used these sources independently and differently, so another explanation is suggested below. 26  Rubenstein, “Lambert of Saint-Omer,” 69–70: Leiden, MS Voss. 31, fol. 84v; Paris, BNFr., MS Latin 8865, fol. 133r. 27  RHC Oc 3:xxxvii (editors’ preface). 28  FC, 1.2–3, pp. 123–38; 1.4–5, pp. 138–53. 29  FC, 1.6–8, pp. 153–76. 30  FC, 1.14, pp. 203–15. 31  FC, 1.18, pp. 235–41; BN, chap. 18, pp. 502–03 (discovery); chap. 26, p. 507 (ordeal). 32  FC, p. 69 (Hagenmeyer’s introduction). 33  BN, chaps. 10–21, pp. 497–505 (sieges of Antioch); chaps. 34–36, pp. 512–15 (capture of Jerusalem). 34  BN, chap. 23, pp. 505–06 (Antioch); chaps. 31–33, pp. 509–12 (Jerusalem, cf. FC, 1.26, pp. 281–92). 35  Sybel, Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzugs, 56; FC, p. 72 (Hagenmeyer’s introduction).

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Just as Bartolf’s and Fulcher’s descriptions of Antioch and Jerusalem differ, so do their accounts of the wonders of Constantinople, but possibly for different reasons. Bartolf’s description is long, detailed and admiring;36 Fulcher’s is a brief paragraph, ostensibly no less laudatory, but it concludes with the ambivalent statement that there were twenty thousand eunuchs there – probably to insinuate effeminacy and oriental decadence among the Greeks.37 Bartolf’s positive attitude to the Byzantines is established in his very first sentence, when he included “Alexius of Greece” among the rulers named in his dating clause.38 He also depicted the emperor as a supportive ally after the siege of Nicaea, unlike Fulcher and the other eyewitness accounts.39 An even more striking variance, though, is between the two writers’ accounts of Stephen of Blois’s departure from the siege of Antioch. Fulcher reports it as a disgraceful case of desertion, but he omits “the embarrassing statement from the anonymous Gesta that Stephen met the Emperor Alexius at Philomelium … and advised him to turn back.”40 Bartolf told the whole story and made it clear that Stephen was guilty not only of desertion, but also of treachery: It came about that when the aforesaid count in the course of his flight met Alexios the emperor of Constantinople, who was hurrying with all his army to reinforce the Christians at Antioch, he made him return to Constantinople, saying that he was being troubled in vain, since the Christians had lost their lives and all had perished. Alas, servant of deceit, servant of treachery, in his view he did not think that God was powerful; but, as he had imagined in his mind, either God had fallen asleep, or he thought that he was subject to human laws, and he claimed that God’s people had perished. The falsehood of this wretch’s lies harmed the emperor greatly, since if he had arrived at the siege, he would have obtained God’s favour and human praise; and perhaps the city of Antioch would have been subjected to his power. And it harmed him not only in this matter, but also the emperor ordered that those regions of Romania which were already subject to him, and were peaceful from all enemy attack, were to be stripped of their inhabitants, and the emperor took them away with him, fearing lest they might once more be subjected to the enemy; and thus he abandoned that land, fertile and abundantly rich in all good things, devastated and deserted, and uncultivated until this very day.41

Factually, this agrees closely with Albert of Aachen, Anna Komnene, and the Gesta Francorum, but the tone, and especially the understanding of the emperor’s position, is unique among the sources.42 It is certainly absent from Fulcher and it is unlikely 36 

BN, chap. 5, p. 494. FC, 1.9.1, pp. 176–77. 38  “In Graecia Alexio;” cf. FC, 1.1.1, pp. 119–20. FC also refers to the German emperor as “socalled” (dicto), in accordance with his pro-papal stance noted above. 39  BN, chap. 7, p. 495. 40  Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, ed. Harold S. Fink and trans. Frances Rita Ryan (Knoxville, TN, 1969), 97, note 4; FC, 1.16.7, p. 228. 41  BN, chap. 17, pp. 501–02. 42  AA, pp. 310–13; Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, trans. E. R. A. Sewter, revised Peter Frankopan, 2nd ed. (London, 2009), 312–13; GF, pp. 63–65. 37 

The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium 27



that Bartolf, who claimed to be approaching Fulcher’s text “conscientiously” (diligenter),43 changed the bias of his exemplar to such a radical extent. The most probable explanation for Bartolf’s pro-Byzantine stance is that he imported it from his source: that is, that Fulcher wrote the first version of his history before relations with Byzantium became inimical, and Bartolf had access to a copy of this text. This has the implication that the three-book version of Fulcher (1095–1127) now accepted as reliable eyewitness testimony has in fact been extensively revised and edited as a response to political changes. Hence, we should reject the cosy picture offered by Hagenmeyer, who imagined the writer not only in conversation with Fulcher, but also using his library in Jerusalem,44 in favour of a copyist resident in western Europe, where he had access to a version of the history as it was first written in 1106. This hypothesis can be tested by comparing the two accounts for the early years of Latin settlement. On the simplest level, there are the same sorts of abbreviation and conversion to third-person narrative: for example describing events before Christmas 1099, when Fulcher accompanied Baldwin from Edessa to Jerusalem and they worshipped in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.45 There are also numerous passages where Bartolf has more detail, including a longer description of the battle of Ramla (September 1101), and a much more detailed and circumstantial account of the 1101 crusading expeditions.46 Probably the best-known passage that is in Bartolf but not Fulcher is his description of the failure of the Easter Fire in 1101: it occupies less than a sentence in Fulcher, but three chapters in Bartolf.47 Caffaro was in Jerusalem at the time of the failure in 1101, as was Ekkehard of Aura.48 It was clearly a deeply disturbing experience: Caffaro describes a sermon by Daibert claiming that God produces miracles not for the faithful but the infidel, which seems to have been a masterpiece of improvisation.49 Ekkehard reports a speech by a certain “Bishop Hermann” which described the grief, a series of penitential activities undertaken, and finally the spontaneous lighting of the lamps on the ensuing day which was followed by a veritable son et lumière as more and more lit up.50 Guibert of Nogent’s account is the most interesting, at least for the purpose of this argument. In outline it is similar to Bartolf’s, with a prominent part played by Daibert of Pisa. But it features a role in the drama for Fulcher himself: “Meanwhile Fulcher of Chartres, taking with him Patriarch Daibert’s chaplain, set out for the Mount of Olives, for it was in that place 43 

BN, chap. 2, p. 492. FC, pp. 72–73 (Hagenmeyer’s introduction). 45  FC, 1.33.1–21, pp. 322–34; BN, chap. 40, pp. 518–19. 46  BN, chaps. 51–52, pp. 527–29 (Ramla); chaps. 55–58, pp. 531–35 (1101 crusade). 47  FC, 2.8.2, pp. 395–97, cf. BN, chaps. 46–49, pp. 523–26. 48  Caffaro, Annales Ianuenses, in Annali Genovesi, ed. L. T. Belgrano, Fonti per la storia d’Italia 11 (Genoa, 1890), 3–75, at 7; Ekkehard, Hierosolymita, RHC Oc 5:36. 49  Caffaro, Annales Ianuenses, 8. 50  Ekkehard, Hierosolymita, RHC Oc 5:36. 44 

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that the divine light used to arise, if ever it was not present in Jerusalem.”51 This is in Guibert’s seventh book, and in the pages which he acknowledges he drew from Fulcher’s history.52 Guibert is therefore witness to the presence of at least one manuscript of Fulcher’s Historia in France by 1109, for he came across it when he was writing book seven of the Dei gesta.53 (Notably, he condemned it as “fallacious and in rough language,” and its content as “lurid.”)54 This was not necessarily the same manuscript as that used by Bartolf, of course, but it certainly had in it a long and detailed account of Fulcher’s own experience of the failure of the Easter Fire in 1101 which, it can be deduced, Fulcher omitted from his final version.55 A further witness to the inclusion of the full story of the failure in the first recension of Fulcher is its treatment in the Recueil’s manuscript L (Cambridge UL MS KK.vi.15). Manuscript L is a reworking of the 1124 version of Fulcher’s chronicle, apparently by another writer.56 It paraphrases Fulcher more or less closely throughout, but appears to have used a copy of the early (1106) recension as well as the later one. It includes a more vivid description of the events surrounding the failure of the Holy Fire, including two first-person references. A fair hypothesis is that Bartolf excised these in line with his usual practice of third-person narration, while Guibert of Nogent garbled them (he has Fulcher hurrying up the Mount of Olives instead of Mount Calvary), and the later Fulcher glosses over the whole incident. The reasons for the omission are not hard to conjecture: the failure of the Easter Fire caused widespread dismay and unease, not only among the Latins, but also among the Greek, Syrian and Armenian Christians for whom it was unprecedented and (presumably) therefore ominous. Bartolf makes it clear that it was the combined prayers and hymns of all four groups which were finally successful, twenty-four hours after the miracle should have occurred.57 This was Baldwin’s first Easter as king in Jerusalem and the Latin clergy seem to have had little control over events. Small wonder that twenty years later, when he might hope that the event was forgotten, Fulcher chose to suppress the details. Fulcher also seems to have become more guarded on the subject of the Jerusalem patriarchate and clerical politics. Bartolf states clearly that as early as 1099 Arnulf of Chocques was appointed to the patriarchate on a temporary and provisional basis, while Fulcher says that the crusaders decided not to create a patriarch until they had consulted the pope in Rome.58 Since both the author of 51 

GN, p. 342. GN, pp. 329–34. 53  GN, p. 329; for the dating of the Dei Gesta, see GN, pp. 51–52 (Huygens’ introduction). 54  GN, p. 329. 55  Again, I thank Rubenstein, “Guibert of Nogent, Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres” (see n. 5 above), for this. He and I are in broad agreement, at least on matters relating to the Holy Fire and manuscript L. 56  FC, pp. 75–78 (Hagenmeyer’s introduction). 57  BN, chap. 49, p. 526. 58  BN, chap. 37, p. 516; FC, 1.30.2, p. 308. 52 

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the Gesta Francorum (an admirer of Arnulf) and Raymond of Aguilers (who was emphatically not) state that Arnulf was chosen as patriarch, and both of them were in Jerusalem at the time, it seems that this is another detail that Fulcher glossed over in his final recension.59 Incidentally, Albert of Aachen says that there was no one worthy of the patriarchate, but in the interim Arnulf was appointed chancellor of the church in Jerusalem, procurator and almoner “until a patriarch acceptable to God and the people was elected,” an interpretation which is close to Bartolf’s, although (not unusually) Albert omits any reference to the pope.60 Hamilton believes Arnulf was elected patriarch, but pending papal ratification.61 This is exactly Bartolf’s position (although Hamilton does not seem to have consulted the Gesta Francorum expugnantium Iherusalem). In the event, Urban II had already appointed a legate to replace Adhémar of Le Puy, and Archbishop Daibert of Pisa reached Outremer in September 1099. On the subject of Daibert, the Fulcher of 1127 was reticent. He says of Daibert’s election that he was chosen by Godfrey and the other leaders.62 Later he observes, only to explain Daibert’s absence from a celebration in November 1100, that Daibert had been deprived of the patriarchate on account of accusations by some of Baldwin’s men, which had caused bad feelings.63 Within weeks Daibert and Baldwin were reconciled, in time for the latter’s coronation.64 The next time Daibert is mentioned he was on his way to Italy with Bohemond to complain to the pope about an (unspecified) injury done to him by the king.65 Another reference to Daibert’s recovery of the patriarchate and his death, and a passing mention of his presence at the battle of Harran, complete Fulcher’s treatment of the scandals surrounding Daibert, which, by way of comparison, are described over several chapters in book seven of Albert of Aachen’s Historia.66 Bartolf reflects the situation as it appeared in 1106, after Daibert had been deposed and had left for Rome, and before his reinstatement and return journey to Jerusalem, in the course of which, in 1107, he died. His account makes interesting reading: But the enemy of the human race, because he never ceases lying in ambush for the head of the Church, which is Christ, and its limbs, sent such disagreement between Patriarch Daibert and the church entrusted to him, and sowed such hatred, that he was loved neither 59 

GF, p. 93; Raymond of Aguilers, Le “Liber” de Raymond d’Aguilers, ed. John H. Hill and Laurita L. Hill, Documents relatifs à l’histoire des croisades 9 (Paris, 1969), 154. 60  AA, pp. 452–55. 61  Bernard Hamilton, The Latin Church in the Crusader States: The Secular Church (London, 1980), 12–14. 62  FC, 1.33.20, pp. 333–34. 63  FC, 2.3.14, pp. 368–69. 64  FC, 2.5.12, pp. 383–84. 65  FC, 2.26.2, p. 467. 66  FC, 2.37.1 and 2.27.2, pp. 512–14 and 470–71; cf. AA, 7.7 (Daibert’s appointment), 7.46–51 (Daibert’s conspiracy with Tancred and dispute with Baldwin), 7.58–63 (deposition and departure for Rome), 8.15 (reinstatement), 8.17 (Evremar).

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by the clergy, nor by the king, nor by the people; and this great individual, this great pillar of the Church, this devout shepherd and this outstanding teacher – alas – was hated by all as if he were a wolf, and he was evicted from the doors of the church, under the cloak, as it were, of Roman process, with Cardinal Robert presiding, and Arnulf the archdeacon of the Holy Sepulchre striving for the prosecution with others of his accomplices. And so this distinguished man, remarkable for every good quality, being unable to bear their ferocity, appealed to the Roman see, and soon he set out for Rome.67

The following chapter associates Daibert closely with Bohemond, with whom he travelled, and shows them presenting their grievances before the pope together and each receiving a favourable response: Daibert the restoration of his patriarchate, and Bohemond the right to raise an army against the Byzantine emperor under the banner of St Peter.68 According to this account, Daibert accused Cardinal Robert, as well as the clergy and king of Jerusalem, of injustice against him, and in the following chapter Bartolf claims that it was rumoured that Robert wanted the patriarchate for himself.69 About Daibert’s successor (or usurper, depending on point of view) Evremar (1102–08), who merits only one mention in Fulcher, Bartolf is also more explicit, calling him uneducated but an imposing and religious individual.70 According to Bartolf, Evremar was sponsored by Arnulf to ensure that Daibert would give up hope of regaining his see. The chapter ends with a lament about the ills which then befell the Church in Jerusalem, deprived of its shepherd, teacher and comforter. Bartolf’s account of the Jerusalem patriarchate should be compared with Guibert of Nogent’s.71 Firstly, Guibert insists that Arnulf was patriarch “in name only.”72 He describes the arrival of Daibert and his part in Arnulf’s deposition, introducing a twist whereby it was Arnulf who nominated Daibert as his successor.73 Guibert passes directly to the deposition of Daibert after Godfrey’s death, and Arnulf’s nomination of Evremar to replace him, because “he would in no way detract from his power.”74 Evremar disappointed Arnulf by behaving religiously, and he too was accused at the Apostolic See.75 Following this, Arnulf was deprived of his role in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Daibert returned.76 This account is included, apparently, to illustrate the depths of Arnulf’s iniquity. There is no discussion of Daibert’s character, or the rights and wrongs of the accusations made against him. He is mentioned by Guibert only at this point, and in relation to the failure of the 67 

BN, chap. 64, pp. 537–38. BN, chap. 65, p. 538. 69  BN, chap. 66, p. 538. 70  Ibid. 71  GN, pp. 290–93. 72  GN, p. 291, line 666: “solo nomine.” 73  GN, p. 292, lines 679–87. 74  GN, p. 292, line 693. 75  GN, p. 293, lines 696–700: “Quo postmodum sese religiose agente et ad eius ad integrum, ut putamus, nequaquam vota gerente, apud apostolicam sedum eum nuperrime accusaverunt …” 76  GN, p. 293, lines 703–05. 68 

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Easter Fire (above), and briefly when he departed for Rome with Bohemond.77 The accounts of Bartolf and Guibert are therefore not identical in their interpretation of events, and it is difficult to argue that they necessarily draw on the same source, but both are much fuller than Fulcher, and they share the same factual outline. It seems likely that the version Fulcher originally wrote, before Daibert’s reinstatement and death, was less discreet than his final redaction. Quite credibly, the same process of self-revision also accounts for the absence of the Pisans from Fulcher’s history of the kingdom of Jerusalem. They are prominent in Bartolf’s narrative. When he describes the election of Daibert as patriarch of Jerusalem, Bartolf claims: There was also another more important reason why they [Godfrey, the clergy and people] held him back: for Daibert had Pisans and Genoese, with whom he had come, who were as if in his power, so that whatever he wanted, they wanted and did. And so they [Godfrey etc.] brought something indispensable and very advantageous to their government, if they had such a man by whose industry and ingenuity they might capture the cities situated on the sea by naval means.78

After Baldwin succeeded his brother, in 1100, and became king of Jerusalem, he continued and strengthened Godfrey’s policy of expansion. In place of Fulcher’s lyrical chapter on the weakness of the early kingdom, Bartolf explains Baldwin’s policy to deal with the situation: King Baldwin, wishing to increase the boundaries of his kingdom, which then extended for scarcely twelve miles [from Jerusalem], discussed with those who were present with him for the feast day the state of the kingdom and its size, and the proximity of enemies, and their attacks from every direction, and he consulted them as to what needed to be done. He took their advice and decided to wait for the fleet of the Genoese and Pisans to arrive, who were over-wintering in the port of Laodicia.79

The established academic position is that the Genoese occupied a uniquely privileged position in the kingdom of Jerusalem as a result of formal agreements made with the crown.80 If Pisan ships were involved in Jerusalem’s campaigns to capture the maritime cities, it was in a private capacity: “In the spring of 1100 the fleet returned home, and after Daibert’s deposition (October 1102) no further official Pisan initiatives in the Holy Land are known for several decades. However, private ship owners and pilgrims from Pisa continued to come and to join the campaigns for the conquest of further Palestinian towns.”81 Bartolf challenges this received wisdom, for he records in advance of the siege of Arsuf, 1101: 77 

GN, p. 340, line 1909. BN, chap. 40, pp. 518–19. 79  BN, chap. 45, pp. 522–23. 80  See, for example, Marie-Luise Favreau-Lilie, “Genoa,” in The Crusades: An Encyclopedia, ed. A. V. Murray, 4 vols. (Santa Barbara, CA, 2006), 4:501–06, at 502, 503. 81  Michael Matzke, “Pisa,” in The Crusades: An Encyclopedia, 3:964–66, at 964. 78 

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And so when the celebration was over, the king set out for Jaffa with all his army; and calling together the senior Genoese and Pisan naval officers, he made an agreement with them that whatever cities or strongholds he might subdue through their help, he had granted to them a third part of the gains, whether in plunder, or prisoners, or spoils. And when this had been confirmed on both sides by a pledge of good faith and an oath, they surrounded the nearest town, which they call Arsuf, from all sides by land and sea.82

Fulcher also records an agreement, but in his case only the Genoese were involved.83 Albert of Aachen does not record any formal agreement, but states clearly that both the Pisans and the Genoese contributed fleets (classes, plural) to the siege.84 Similarly, there is a disagreement between Fulcher and his remanieur with regard to the sieges of Acre in 1103 and 1104. Fulcher explains the failure of the 1103 siege by the strong defence put up by the inhabitants.85 Bartolf explains it plausibly thus: But because it was strongly fortified by a wall and an outer rampart, and without a fleet he was unable to blockade it on every side, when he had laid waste the crops and the copses and their ploughlands, he returned home, putting off the conquest of the city until he had the fleet of the Genoese and the Pisans, for which he was waiting.86

Duly, in 1104 Baldwin set out to besiege Acre again, this time with naval assistance from the Italians – Genoese only in Fulcher; Genoese and Pisans according to Bartolf.87 Bartolf also describes the looting of the city, in contravention of the surrender terms, and in this as well as the composition of the Italian fleet his account is confirmed by Albert of Aachen.88 Thus, on the one side, we have substantial agreement between Albert and Bartolf; on the other side Fulcher’s account is supported by the Genoese annalist Caffaro, who confirms the participation of his co-citizens: Hearing all this being said by those who had come back from the expedition, the Genoese … fitted out forty galleys and went to the Eastern lands. They captured the city of Acre along with Jubayl, fighting alongside King Baldwin and Count Raymond. There King Baldwin implemented and confirmed the concession to the Genoese in … 1105. The Genoese made an agreement with King Baldwin that they would have one street of Acre next to the sea and one garden as representing a third of the city, and they would take 600 besants annually. In addition they would have a third of the land outside the walls up to a distance of one league … With this all completed, the Genoese went home in triumph.89 82 

BN, chap. 50, p. 527. FC, 2.8.2–3, pp. 395–98. 84  AA, pp. 562–63. 85  FC, 2.22, pp. 456–57. 86  BN, chap. 61, p. 536. 87  FC, 2.25, pp. 462–64; BN, chap. 63, p. 537. 88  AA, pp. 670–75. 89  Caffaro, De liberatione civitatum Orientis liber, ed. L. T. Belgrano, Fonti per la storia d’Italia 11 (Genoa, 1890), 99–124, at 121–22; translation in Caffaro, Genoa and the Twelfth-Century Crusades, 83 



The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium 33

So what of the Pisans? There is no substantial charter evidence for Pisan participation, and only a hint of documentary evidence of a Pisan quarter in Acre before the 1180s.90 Should we therefore dismiss the testimony that includes the Pisans? There is a disparity between Caffaro’s forty ships and the seventy of Fulcher which would be explained if Pisan ships were there too. Crucially, Pisa had no Caffaro to compose his city’s annals. The nearest is Bernardo Maragone, a generation younger (1104–75). He started writing in the 1130s, so did not have Caffaro’s first-hand experience, but the events of the First Crusade were still well within living memory. Here is his entry under the year 1099: The Pisan people, at the command of the lord pope Urban II, set out in 120 ships to liberate Jerusalem from the hands of the pagans. Their ruler and leader was Daibert archbishop of the city of Pisa, who afterwards was made patriarch of Jerusalem and stayed on. On their journey they attacked Lucata and Cefalonia, very strong cities, and plundered them, because they used to hinder the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Moreover, on that same journey the Pisan people captured Maida, a very strong city, and besieged Latakia with Bohemond, and Jubayl with him and Raymond, count of Saint-Gilles.91

Two things to note: firstly, although the entry is under the date 1099, it is actually the whole story of Pisan involvement in the First Crusade, including the siege of Jubayl (1104). In the Pisan memory, at least, the commune’s fleet was involved in all these engagements. Support for this comes, unexpectedly, from the displacement of the parallel passage in the Alexiad of Anne Komnene to events of 1104: When the Franks set out for Jerusalem with the intention of conquering the towns of Syria, they made fine promises to the bishop of Pisa, if he would help them to attain their goal. He was convinced by their arguments and incited two of his colleagues living by the sea to the same course of action. There was no delay. He equipped biremes, triremes, warships and other fast vessels to the number of 900, and set off for Syria. A fairly strong squadron of this fleet was sent to ravage Corfu, Leukas, Kephalenia and Zakynthos. [Alexios then raised a fleet and defeated the Italians.]92

trans. Martin Hall and Jonathan Phillips (Farnham, 2013), 123. 90  Kedar has noted that “the inclusion of the domus Gandulfi Pisani filii Fiopie among the beneficiaries of the privilege which Baldwin I granted the Genoese in 1104 makes some Pisan participation plausible”: B. Z. Kedar, “Genoa’s Golden Inscription in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: A Case for the Defence,” in I comuni italiani nel regno crociato di Gerusalemme, ed. G. Airaldi and B. Z. Kedar (Genoa, 1986), 318–55, at 328. For the text of the charter, see Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, ed. H. E. Mayer, 4 vols. (Hanover, 2010), 1:142–44, no. 29; for additional observations on the 1104 treaty, see B. Z. Kedar, “Again: Genoa’s Golden Inscription and King Baldwin I’s Privilege of 1104,” in Chemins d’Outremer: Études d’histoire sur la Méditerranée Médiévale offertes à Michel Balard, ed. D. Coulon et al., 2 vols. (Paris, 2004), 2:495–502. 91  Bernardo Maragone, Vetus chronicon Pisanum, ed. Michele Lupo Gentile, RIS NS 6.2 (Bologna, 1936), 3–71, at 7. 92  Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, xi.10, pp. 323–24.

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Fisher, writing on the Pisan annalists, observes that, “Anna Comnena placed the battle some four years later than it should be.”93 Frankopan, in his note to this episode in the revised translation of Anna Komnene, also finds it odd that in 1104, “Anna now returns to the dispatch of the Pisan fleet in 1099.”94 That is, Anna, like the Pisan chronicler, confused or conflated events of 1099 and 1104. Or, just possibly, there was a second battle between the imperial navy and the Pisans in 1104. The second detail refers to the mysterious city of “Maida.” In juxtaposition to the sieges of Jubayl and Latakia, it seems obvious that this is Ptolomaida, also known as Acre, a powerful city captured in the same year as the siege of Jubayl. Maragone’s testimony, along with Albert’s, is strongly persuasive that a Pisan fleet did assist in the 1104 siege of Acre. Its absence from Caffaro’s account is easily explained, for he wrote much later, when the two cities were rivals, and he had no interest in raising the possibility that the Pisans might be able to claim trading rights in Acre or elsewhere. In Fulcher’s case the reasons for suppressing Pisan involvement probably lay in the alliance formed, no later than 1109, between the Pisans and Alexios Komnenos. On 18 April 1110, the Pisans took an oath of fealty to the Byzantine emperor.95 In return, Alexius issued a chrysobull with trading privileges which granted yearly payments, the protection of the law, and a privileged position in the eastern empire.96 The anti-crusader tendency of this treaty is clear from the wording, by which the Pisans swore to defend the emperor’s interests “usque in Alexandriam.” This territory would include the crusader states. Fulcher writing his first draft of his history in 1106 or 1107 could not, of course, have foreseen this development; it seems entirely probable that ten or twenty years later, when relations with the Byzantines and the Pisans had steeply deteriorated, he chose to edit the Pisans out of his narrative. Thus a comparison of Fulcher’s history with the “abridgement” written by Bartolf and with other contemporary sources, strongly suggests that Fulcher subjected his work to extensive revision in the 1120s, and that Bartolf had access to the more accurate and impartial account that Fulcher had written in 1106. It is unlikely that Bartolf had access to Fulcher and his “libellus” in Jerusalem. Guibert of Nogent is witness to the presence of at least one manuscript of Fulcher’s Historia in France around 1109, for he came across it when he was writing book seven of the Dei gesta.97 The two earliest (twelfth-century) extant manuscripts of Bartolf originate in Marchiennes and Saint-Omer, in the same area of northern France as Nogent-sous-Coucy, Guibert’s abbey. Furthermore, Lambert of Saint-Omer used 93  C. B. Fisher, “The Pisan Clergy and an Awakening of Historical Interest in a Medieval Commune,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3 (1966): 143–219, at 158, note 51. 94  Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, 518, note 36. 95  Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, 1096–1204, trans. J. C. Morris and Jean E. Ridings (Oxford, 1993), 87–90, at 88, note 110. See also Matzke, “Pisa,” 964. 96  October 1111: Lilie, Byzantium and the Crusader States, 88, note 111. 97  GN, p. 329.

The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium 35



Bartolf’s Gesta as a source for his encyclopaedic Liber floridus, and Lambert’s autograph manuscript of 1121 is extant. This suggests that Bartolf may well have been active in northern France (Nangis is about 150 kilometres south of Nogent and 300 kilometres from Saint-Omer). In conclusion, I contend that the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium, far from being “in no way important,” was based on Fulcher’s first recension of the Historia, and that it should be considered a valuable witness to the content of this. It therefore goes some way towards addressing a problem raised by Jean Flori in discussing Fulcher of Chartres’s work: “Il convient donc de déterminer d’abord quels sont ces éléments idéologiques vehiculés par l’ensemble de l’ouvrage dans sa forme définitive et d’apprécier ensuite quels sont ceux qui peuvent être déjà présents dans la première rédaction qui s’arrêtait en 1105–1106.”98 Further, its content, and Fulcher’s modifications of that content, offer an important insight into the politics of the early years of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem.

98 

Jean Flori, Chroniqueurs et propagandistes: introduction critique aux sources de la première croisade (Geneva, 2010), 226.

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The Jerusalem Conquest of 492/1099 in the Medieval Arabic Historiography of the Crusades: From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative Konrad Hirschler SOAS, University of London [email protected] Abstract This article discusses the reports on the conquest of Jerusalem in 492/1099 in Arabic chronicles. It argues that the reports on this event developed in three distinct and very diverse regional traditions in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. On the basis of the early Egyptian and Syrian evidence, it is highly unlikely that the conquest of Jerusalem was accompanied by a large-scale massacre of the entire population. This evidence shows furthermore that contemporaries did not see the fall of the town as a momentous event. The later Iraqi tradition, by contrast, introduced not only a new dimension to the massacre of the town’s inhabitants, but developed two further narrative strands which were largely unknown to earlier reports: the plundering of the Dome of the Rock and the subsequent delegation to Baghdad. The development of these strands must be seen within the political and intellectual setting of Baghdad, most importantly the conflict between Sultanate and Caliphate and the profile of the Hanbalite traditionalist milieu of the city. Ibn al-Athir’s famous report from the early seventh/thirteenth century almost exclusively goes back to this Iraqi strand and was an “Islamic narrative” in that it sidelined all previous regional traditions and reframed the conquest as a momentous event in terms of eschatology, martyrdom and divine intervention. This development of the Arabic reports on the fall of Jerusalem reflects the broader transformation of how relationships with crusaders and Franks were conceptualized from a pre-jihādī landscape to one where jihād propaganda moved to the centre of political discourse.

In 2004 this journal published Benjamin Kedar’s seminal article on the Jerusalem massacre in the Western historiography of the crusades. His article discussed reports ranging from eyewitness accounts to modern studies and tried to establish along the way a historically accurate picture of the events. On the basis of the medieval Latin (and also to some extent the Arabic) sources, Kedar concluded that “the massacre in Jerusalem was considerably more extensive than in other towns.”1 I thank Bernard Hamilton and the anonymous readers for their insightful and very detailed comments on this article. The argument has greatly benefited from discussions with students in the course “The Middle East in the Period of the Crusades” at SOAS (University of London) over the last years. Further helpful comments came from participants in the “Crusades and The Latin East” seminar (Institute of Historical Research, London) where a version of this paper was presented in March 2013. 1  Benjamin Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre of July 1099 in the Western Historiography of the Crusades,” Crusades 3 (2004): 15–75, here 74. 37

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The present article examines the reports in (mostly Muslim) Arabic chronicles written between the early sixth/twelfth century and the end of the Mamluk era in 923/1517 to ask firstly what factual material these texts contain and secondly in what ways the authors ascribed meaning(s) to the conquest of Jerusalem.2 The argument in the following pages will thus be twofold. Firstly, it will suggest that the early Arabic sources do not imply that the conquest of Jerusalem was accompanied by a massacre that was more extensive than those in other towns. A number of contemporary or near-contemporary Arabic texts leave no doubt that a massacre did take place, but they contain no evidence of large-scale carnage of the town’s population that was any greater than that which took place in cities and towns such as Antioch, Caesarea or Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān. The article’s second argument is that the conquest of the town only started to be remembered on a significant level several decades after the event itself.3 It was only from this point onwards that the fall of Jerusalem gradually became a meaningful part of the region’s indigenous history and that it was described as a full-scale massacre. As previous scholars have remarked, especially Carole Hillenbrand, Arabic representations of the initial crusader conquest are highly diverse and do not present a uniform picture.4 With reference to Jerusalem, I argue more specifically that three different conquest traditions developed, quite independently of one another, in Syria, Egypt and Iraq during the sixth/twelfth century. These traditions rarely agreed on what happened in the hours and days after the fall of Jerusalem and also disagreed on other issues such as the identity of the (Frankish/Byzantine) conquerors and their (Egyptian/Turkish/Muslim) opponents. It was only in the early seventh/thirteenth century with the chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1233) that a non-regional conquest narrative emerged which became the hegemonic way to present the events. Ibn al-Athīr’s evocative account of full-scale massacre and plunder as part of a Frankish–Muslim confrontation, hereafter termed the “Islamic narrative,” has remained popular until the present for the work of those scholars who argue that the conquest was indeed accompanied by a massacre.5 However, 2 

For an overview of the Arabic sources on the conquest of 492/1099 and their major common elements, as discussed in this article, consult Table 1 at pp. 40–41. 3  On the formation of this period’s historiographical discourses within their historical contexts, see Konrad Hirschler, Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors (London, 2006). 4  Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999), 63–66, and eadem, “The First Crusade: The Muslim Perspective,” in The Origins and Impact of the First Crusade, ed. Jonathan Phillips (Manchester, 1997), 130–41, discusses many of the relevant sources and hints at the development of these narratives over time. 5  Ibn al-Athīr’s account features prominently, for example, in Jill N. Claster, Sacred Violence: The European Crusades to the Middle East, 1095–1396 (Toronto, 2009), 88–89; Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford and New York, 2004), 376; M. A. Hiyari, “Crusader Jerusalem 1099–1187 AD,” in Jerusalem in History, ed. K. J. Asali (London and New York, 1989), 130–76, here 138; Kaspar Elm, “Die Eroberung Jerusalems im Jahre 1099. Ihre Darstellung, Beurteilung und Deutung in den Quellen zur Geschichte des Ersten Kreuzzugs,” in Jerusalem im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter. Konflikte und Konfliktbewältigung – Vorstellungen und Vergegenwärtigungen, ed. K. Herbers et al. (Frankfurt, 2001), 31–54, here 41.



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 39

as it will be argued, his account is, to say the least, of limited value for a historical reconstruction of the conquest of Jerusalem: After [the Franks’] arrival they besieged the town for some forty days.6 They constructed two towers, one on the Mount Zion side, but the Muslims burned it and killed all those inside it. After they had burned it, a call for help came as the town had been taken from the other side. They took it in the morning of Friday, seven days remaining of Shaʿbān [= 23 Shaʿbān/15 July]. The population was put to the sword, and the Franks remained in the town killing the Muslims for one week. A group of Muslims barricaded themselves into David’s Tower and fought on for three days. The Franks granted them safe-conduct and they surrendered it. The Franks honoured their word, and the group left by night for Ascalon where they remained. The Franks killed more than 70,000 people in the Aqṣā Mosque, among them a large number of Muslim imams and scholars as well as devout and ascetic men who had left their homelands to live lives of pious seclusion in this venerated place. The Franks stripped the Dome of the Rock of more than forty silver lanterns, each of them weighing 3,600 dirhams, and a great silver lamp weighing forty Syrian pounds, as well as a hundred and fifty smaller silver lanterns and more than twenty gold ones, and a great deal more booty. Refugees from Syria reached Baghdad in Ramadan, accompanied by the judge Abū Saʿd al-Harawī. They held in the dīwān a speech that brought tears to the eye and wrung the heart. On Friday they went to the principal mosque and begged for help, weeping so that their hearers wept with them as they described the sufferings of the Muslims in this venerated town: the men killed, the women and children taken prisoner, the homes pillaged. Because of the terrible hardships they had suffered, they were allowed to break the fast.7

The Syrian Tradition Ibn al-Athīr’s report is not only very evocative but, more importantly for our purposes, it frames the conquest of the town with three main narrative elements: a whole-scale massacre with more than 70,000 victims in the Aqṣā Mosque, plunder of the Dome of the Rock with exact figures on numbers and weights, and a Syrian delegation that was subsequently sent to Baghdad to plead for support against the conquerors. In line with his overall approach, Ibn al-Athīr did not cite any sources for this tripartite report so we have to turn to Syrian sources that were contemporary or almost contemporary to the conquest. It is this tradition that was closest to the events in geographical and chronological terms and it is here that we might expect the origins of Ibn al-Athīr’s narrative. As is well known, the fifth/eleventh and early sixth/twelfth centuries were the veritable dark centuries of Syrian historiography 6  D. S. Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi ‘l-ta’rikh, part 1: The years 491–541/1097–1146 (Aldershot, 2006), 21, erroneously translates “they erected forty trebuchets.” 7  Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī al-ta ʾrīkh, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Beirut, 1965–67), X, 282–86. “Miḥrāb Dāwūd” could refer to at least four different sites in Jerusalem (see Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage (Leiden, 1995), 131–38), but the identification with David’s Tower is, in this context, unambiguous.

Turks

Muslims

Muslims

Ibn Ẓāfir

Ibn Shīth

Ibn al-Athīr

Ibn al-ʿAdīm

Army of Aleppo

Ibn Abī al-Damm Muslims

Ibn Naẓīf

Muslims

Armies of Egypt/ of the coast

Egyptians

ghuzz

Ibn al-Jawzī

al-Iṣfahānī

Ibn al-Qalānisī

Ibn al-Azraq

al-ʿAẓīmī

Ibn al-ʿArabī

Ibn al-Qulzumī

enemies/victims of Franks

ca. 40 days

siege, length

X

X

>70,000

>70,000

>70,000

3,000

Tower of victims, David number

Table 1 Arabic accounts of the conquest of Jerusalem

X

X

X

X

ca. 40

ca. 40

X

X

X

victims, massacre, silver tannūr 40 burned Baghdad Jews one week qandīl pounds books delegation

X

ca. 40 days

Al-ʿUlaymī

al-Ḥarīrī

ca. 40 days

Ibn Taghrībirdī

100,000

>70,000

100,000

>70,000

ca. 40 days

al-Maqrīzī

>70,000

>70,000

>70,000

>70,000

>70,000

>60,000

Muslims

X

X

>70,000

>70,000

100,000

Ibn Kathīr

ca. 40 days

al-Maqdisī

Muslims

ca. 40 days

Muslims

Ibn al-Wardī

Ibn al-Dawādārī

ca. 40 days

Al-Nuwayrī

ca. 40 days

ca. 40 days

ca. 40 days

Muslims

Muslims

Abū al-Fidāʾ

Ibn Wāṣil

Ibn Muyassar

Bar Hebraeus

Ibn Khallikān

Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

2,040

42

ca. 40

ca. 40

50

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

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Konrad Hirschler

prior to its spectacular development in the Ayyubid and especially early Mamluk periods. Citations in later works, especially by Ibn al-ʿAdīm, show that some chronicles were written in Syria during this period. These included the lost works of little-known authors such as Yaḥyā Ibn Zurayq (b. ca. 442/1051), ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Masʿūd (presumably from Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān, fl. 527/1132–33), the judge ʿAbd al-Qāhir b. ʿAlawī (presumably from Maʿarrat Maṣrīn close to Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān, fl. 571/1176) and Abū Manṣūr Hibat Allāh (presumably from Aleppo).8 Regrettably, it is impossible to re-establish the narratives on the conquest of Jerusalem for any of these obscure authors. However, there are at least three early Syrian sources at our disposal, the wellknown texts by Ibn al-Qalānisī (d. 555/1160), al-ʿAẓīmī (d. after 556/1161) and Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī (d. after 572/1176–77). It has to be stressed that none of these authors was an eyewitness or claimed to rely on eyewitnesses in their reports as was the case in the Latin historiography of the Jerusalem-conquest with the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum, Peter Tudebode and Raymond of Aguilers.9 Al-ʿAẓīmī’s chronicle is the earliest surviving Syrian source, completed in 538/1143–44. The author, who spent most of his life in Aleppo, states in his reports on the year 492/1099: “Subsequently [the Franks] turned to Jerusalem and wrested it from the hands of the Egyptians. Godfrey took possession of it and they burned the synagogue.”10 This passage is not only strikingly concise, but it has none of the three constitutive elements – massacre, plunder and delegation – that were to structure Ibn al-Athīr’s report a century later. Al-ʿAẓīmī includes the burning of the town’s synagogue which can be taken (in light of what the author’s contemporary, Ibn al-Qalānisī, had to say on this issue) as a reference to a massacre of Jewish inhabitants. However, this short reference hardly inspired Ibn al-Athīr’s report on the carnage of the town’s entire Muslim population. The Damascene historian Ibn al-Qalānisī wrote a substantial part of his chronicle in the late 530s/early 1140s and his report might be contemporary with that of al-ʿAẓīmī or slightly later. In his local chronicle the author went into some more detail than al-ʿAẓīmī: [The Franks] attacked the town and took possession of it. Some of the inhabitants withdrew to David’s Tower and many were killed. The Jews assembled in the synagogue and they burned it over their heads. They took possession of David’s Tower under safe8  Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughyat al-ṭalab fī ta ʾrīkh Ḥalab, ed. S. Zakkār (Beirut, 1988), for instance II, 741, V, 2421, VI, 2699, VII, 3357. On earlier Syrian historiography, see Carole Hillenbrand, “The Arabic Sources,” in Byzantines and Crusaders in Non-Greek Sources, 1025–1204, ed. Mary Whitby (Oxford, 2007), 283–340; al-ʿAẓīmī, Muḥammad, Ta ʾrīkh Ḥalab, ed. I. Zaʿrūr (Damascus, 1984), 14–18; Sami Dahan, “The Origin and Development of the Local Histories of Syria,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. B. Lewis and P. Holt (London and Oxford, 1962), 108–17. 9  See Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre,” 16–19, for these accounts. 10  Al-ʿAẓīmī, Ta ʾrīkh, ed. Zaʿrūr, 360; Claude Cahen, “La Chronique abrégée d’al-Aẓīmī,” Journal Asiatique 230 (1938): 335–448, here 373.



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 43

conduct on 22 Shaʿbān [14 July] of this year. They destroyed the shrines and the tomb of Abraham.11

This report resembles al-ʿAẓīmī’s account with the Jewish population having a prominent place and being clearly identified here as victims of the conquerors’ massacre. The main difference is that Ibn al-Qalānisī added more detail, most importantly that (presumably Muslim) inhabitants fled to David’s Tower, that “many were killed” (probably referring to the town’s population in general and not only those who had tried to flee to David’s Tower) and that holy sites, such as the Tomb of Abraham, were destroyed. However, if we compare this report with Ibn al-Athīr’s version, the three constitutive elements are again either lacking or virtually unrecognizable. Ibn al-Qalānisī did not mention the delegation to Baghdad at all and he referred to the destruction of unspecified holy sites instead of the plunder at the Dome of the Rock. The only named holy site was the Tomb of Abraham, which in turn Ibn al-Athīr did not mention. The massacre, finally, seems to be on a far more modest scale and Ibn al-Qalānisī did not establish any link with the Aqṣā Mosque nor did he give a concrete number of victims. The third surviving chronicle from the area affected by the crusades is even more striking in its extreme brevity in reporting the conquest of Jerusalem. This is the pro-Artuqid chronicle by Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī on the history of the town of Mayyāfāriqīn. This author makes only a brief reference to the conquest when describing the Artuqid Najm al-Dīn Ghāzī’s rise to power in northern Mesopotamia in the early sixth/twelfth century: In the year 491 the Franks appeared. They attacked and took Antioch and Tripoli. In the year 492 they took possession of Jerusalem as well as nearby Tyre and Acre. In 498 they took possession of the remaining coast so that they became more powerful. Subsequently they took Edessa and the nearby castles on the Euphrates.12

Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī’s work was not a Syrian chronicle in a narrow sense, as it centred on the Artuqid realms in northern Mesopotamia which might explain the confused chronology in this passage. Yet this does not satisfactorily explain why the author did not include more detail on the conquest of Jerusalem, but limited himself to this brief reference. Jerusalem was of special importance to this chronicler of the Artuqid realms as the dynasty’s founding figure, Artuq b. Ekseb, had governed Jerusalem and died there. The dynasty only moved to northern Mesopotamia after Artuq’s sons had been unable to hold the town against the Fatimids. The passage on the Frankish conquest of Jerusalem was thus part of the early history of the dynasty itself and one would have expected some more detail if this event was of 11  Ibn al-Qalānisī, Dhayl Ta ʾrīkh Dimashq, ed. H. Amedroz (Beirut, 1908), 137. David’s Tower is here merely called “the miḥrāb.” 12  Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī, Aḥmad, Ta ʾrīkh al-Fāriqī, ed. B. ʿAwaḍ, rev. M. Sh. Ghurbāl (Cairo, 1959), 268. On this author see Carole Hillenbrand, A Muslim Principality in Crusader Times: The Early Artuqid State (Leiden, 1990).

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outstanding significance. In addition, the author displayed considerable interest in the regions neighbouring northern Mesopotamia. He included events in Syria, Iraq and Armenia as far as they were relevant to the Artuqids, and this is especially true for southern Syria, as Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī had held an administrative position in Damascus during his career. Syrian historiographical accounts of the conquest of Jerusalem are thus characterized by the low importance that they ascribed to this event and by a tendency to single out Jews as victims. Only Ibn al-Qalānisī mentioned Muslim victims, but did so in passing (“and many were killed”). That this author did not report a large-scale massacre in his Jerusalem narrative is crucial, as he did provide more detail when describing the fall of other towns and cities. For instance, he reported for the conquest of Antioch that “innumerable men, women and children of the city were killed, taken prisoner or enslaved,”13 and he unequivocally stated on the conquest of Caesarea that “they killed its inhabitants and plundered what was in it.”14 The only near-contemporary Syrian source that mentioned a massacre in Jerusalem beyond the Jewish population did thus not imply in any way that there was carnage more extensive than in other cities and towns. A third common element of the Syrian historiographical tradition is that these authors, in contrast to Ibn al-Athīr’s Islamic narrative, did not conceptualize the conquest as part of a broader Frankish–Muslim clash.15 Rather they tended to see the arrival of the crusaders in general and the conquest of Jerusalem in particular as part of the regional political landscape. For these authors, the conquest was seemingly not dissimilar to what had happened in the previous decades when the town repeatedly changed hands between Artuqids, Saljuqs and Fatimids. Al-ʿAẓīmī for instance considered the conquest of Jerusalem very much a Frankish–Fatimid affair and the former “wrested it from the hands of the Egyptians,” not “of the Muslims” as it became the later standard formulation in the Islamic narrative. In the same vein, Ibn al-Qalānisī did not write of “the Muslims” reacting to the fall of Jerusalem. Rather he described the military forces as the “Egyptian armies,” i.e. the Fatimid forces, and, taking into account the highly regionalized political landscape of Syria, the “armies of the coast.”16 In Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī’s text, in turn, the Franks do not attack the “lands of Islam,” as Ibn al-Athīr was to conceptualize it, but the conquered lands were simply “the coast.”17 Owing to this rather pragmatic 13 

Ibn al-Qalānisī, Dhayl, 135. Ibid., 139. 15  The case is evidently different for the Syrian preacher al-Sulamī (d. 500/1106) (see below, “The Islamic Narrative”), who wrote in a very different genre (jihād-treatise) and acted in a different social context from the historians discussed here. In addition, his isolation “suggests a level of indifference among some of the Damascene Sunni religious establishment towards the Frankish invasion”: S. A. Mourad and J. E. Lindsay, The Intensification and Reorientation of Sunni Jihad Ideology in the Crusader Period (Leiden, 2013), 36. On the basis of this article one might argue that this indifference was even more widespread. 16  Ibn al-Qalānisī, Dhayl, 137. 17  Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, X, 272; Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī, Ta ʾrīkh, 268. 14 



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 45

outlook towards the crusaders’ advances, the authors of this Syrian tradition also did not use curses, such as “May God forsake them” and “May God curse them,” after mentioning the Franks, as became standard in later texts. Ibn al-Qalānisī was the first historian to make systematic use of these curses, but he only started to do so from the account of the year 552/1157–58 onwards.18 That the early Syrian authors still refrained from setting the conquest into a history of Frankish–Muslim confrontation was an expression of the pre-jihādī political landscape in which they were writing their works. They spent most of their life in a period, the lā maqām (“no place”) era, when diplomatic relations between Frankish and Muslim lordships were rather close and when jihād had not yet become a meaningful term for conceptualizing the interaction with the Frankish lordships. The numerous Frankish and Muslim local lordships in Syria and northern Mesopotamia rather engaged in a plethora of alliances and truces that regularly crossed the religious divide.19 Ibn al-Qalānisī probably penned his report when Burid Damascus was still entertaining close diplomatic relationships with the kingdom of Jerusalem against the Zangid advances from the north. Al-ʿAẓīmī, who lived in Aleppo and Damascus, was composing his chronicle during the same period. Aleppo under its Saljuq rulers was, as much as Damascus in this period, striving to repel the Zangid expansion from northern Mesopotamia and repeatedly turned to Frankish Antioch for support. Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī probably wrote his chronicle later, when the political landscape in Syria had changed with the subjugation of most local Muslim principalities by the newly emerging Zangid state. However, he wrote in northern Mesopotamia, in one of those principalities that had succeeded in retaining its independence. The principal concern of these Artuqid rulers was certainly not jihād against Frankish principalities that were not posing a substantial threat to the existence of their polity. The link between the political landscape and the low importance ascribed to the fall of Jerusalem as it emerges from the Syrian chronicles is also evident in the writings of Usāma b. Munqidh (d. 584/1188). In his Kernels of Refinement he discussed the First Crusade and ascribed rather ambitious projects to the newly arrived conquerors, but strikingly there is no reference to Jerusalem. Most importantly, the defining conquest in the early crusading period was in his eyes the fall of Antioch, not Jerusalem: When the Franks – may God confound them – came in the year 490 [/1096–97] and conquered Antioch and were victorious over the armies of Syria, they were seized with

18 

Niall Christie, “The Origins of Suffixed Invocations of God’s Curse on the Franks in Muslim Sources for the Crusades,” Arabica 48 (2001): 254–66. 19  M. A. Köhler, Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers in the Middle East: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Period of the Crusades, trans. P. M. Holt, rev., ed. and intr. Konrad Hirschler (Leiden, 2013) [= M. A. Köhler, Allianzen und Verträge zwischen fränkischen und islamischen Herrschern im Vorderen Orient (Berlin, 1991)].

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greed and gave themselves up to fancies of possessing Baghdad and the lands of the east. So they mustered and collected themselves, and marched forth, making for those lands.20

This outlook has to be set against Usāma b. Munqidh’s northern Syrian background. Hailing from the castle of Shayzar, the crusader conquest of nearby Antioch was certainly more relevant from the perspective of the Munqidhite family than the fall of Jerusalem in southern Syria. The fall of Antioch had considerable repercussions for the small lordship of Shayzar as it had to adapt to a new diplomatic landscape to secure its survival. Overall, it is evident that, for the early Syrian chroniclers, Jerusalem did not hold any outstanding religious significance that by itself would have warranted a more detailed description of its conquest. With this argument I do not intend to return to previous lines of scholarship, such as that by Emmanuel Sivan. While his work has been ground-breaking in many ways, it tended to underestimate the religious significance and importance of pre-crusader Jerusalem.21 As has been amply demonstrated, Jerusalem had played a more important role in Muslim writings from the early Islamic period onwards.22 However, it is important to emphasize that the role of Jerusalem was not static but underwent continuous fluctuations of intensity. The example of the early Syrian chroniclers shows that, at least in their cultural milieu, Jerusalem played a very limited role and that the fall of the town did not raise religious sensibilities on a significant level. These Muslim chroniclers were not prominent religious scholars but emerged rather from the ranks of the military elite (Usāma b. Munqidh) or were administrators (Ibn al-Qalānisī was the “mayor,” ra ʾīs, of Damascus, al-ʿAẓīmī was a primary schoolteacher whose father had been the ra ʾīs of Aleppo, and Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī held various administrative offices during his career). While the later Islamic narrative expressed a very different attitude towards Jerusalem, it is paramount not to project its vision of Jerusalem onto the earlier Syrian reports. However, the Islamic narrative of a Frankish–Muslim confrontation with a large-scale massacre and plunder in Jerusalem was to marginalize and supplant this early Syrian tradition. None of this tradition’s three characteristic thematic elements – ascribing a low importance to the conquest, emphasizing Jewish victims, and setting the conquest into a regionalized political landscape – found an echo in Ibn al-Athīr’s report. Yet, it is important to underline that some of these elements were 20 

Usāma b. Munqidh, Lubāb al-adāb, trans. P. M. Cobb, Islam and the Crusades: The Writings of Usama ibn Munqidh (London, 2008), 255. 21  Emmanuel Sivan, “Beginnings of the Faḍāʾil al-Quds Literature,” Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): 263–71, and idem, L’Islam et la croisade: idéologie et propagande dans les réactions musulmanes aux croisades (Paris, 1968). His “The Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam,” in Emmanuel Sivan, Interpretations of Islam (Princeton, 1985), 75–106, ascribes more importance to Jerusalem. 22  Suleiman Mourad, “The Symbolism of Jerusalem in Early Islam,” in Jerusalem: Idea and Reality, ed. T. Mayer and S. Mourad (London, 2008), 86–102; Elad, Medieval Jerusalem; Izhak Hasson, “The Muslim View of Jerusalem: The Qurʾān and Ḥadīth,” in The History of Jerusalem: The Early Muslim Period, 638–1099, ed. J. Prawer and H. Ben-Shammai (New York, 1996), 349–85.



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 47

to survive in parallel with the Islamic narrative for another one hundred years, well into the late seventh/thirteenth century. Several later Syrian authors opted to discuss the fall of Jerusalem not exclusively in terms of the new Islamic narrative, but continued to use at least some typically Syrian elements. For instance Ibn Naẓīf (d. after 634/1236–37), a native of the northern Syrian town of Hama, used curses in the same vein as the change that had taken place in Arabic historiography, but his report is still strikingly concise and very much reminds one of the text of al-ʿAẓīmī: “The Franks – may God curse them – took Jerusalem.”23 Similar to Ibn Naẓīf is the Bustān al-Jāmiʿ by ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī (not to be confused with Saladin’s secretary of the same name) who also did not yet ascribe an outstanding importance to the event. This chronicle was written in 592–93/1195–97, most probably in Aleppo: “492. The Franks took Jerusalem and al-Maʿarra. … In this year the Franks received Edessa and Saruj.”24 A third example for the low importance ascribed to the conquest in some later Syrian texts is the chronicle of Ibn Abī al-Damm (d. 642/1244) who, like Ibn Naẓīf, lived in Hama: “The Franks conquered Jerusalem. It is said that they killed in the Aqṣā Mosque more than 70,000 people.” The number 70,000 is alien to this tradition and shows the increasing influence of the Islamic narrative, but this author still maintained a clear distance from the massacre report (“it is said”).25 That some later Syrian authors retained a specific regional perspective even on the issue of the massacre is exemplified by a brief passage by Ibn al-ʿAdīm (d. 660/1262), who reported that “[i]n this year they conquered Jerusalem and they did in it as they had done in Maʿarrat [al-Nuʿmān].”26 Certainly, the author indirectly referred to a substantial massacre in the town by comparing it with the events in Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān. However, in contrast to the Islamic narrative, this historian from Aleppo saw the events in nearby Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān – which he described in much detail – to be of much more relevance than what happened subsequently in Jerusalem. The characteristically Syrian perspective on the massacre is also evident in the universal chronicle by Ibn Abī al-Damm’s nephew Ibn Wāṣil (d. 697/1298), another native of Hama: After they had taken possession of al-Ramla they besieged Jerusalem and attacked it ferociously. They took possession of it and assembled the Jews of the town in a synagogue and set it on fire. They killed more than 70,000 of the Muslims and took from the Dome of the Rock more than forty silver lanterns, each of them weighing forty Syrian pounds, and more than twenty gold ones. The Muslims had never been afflicted by anything worse than this.27 23 

Ibn Naẓīf, al-Ta ʾrīkh al-Manṣūrī, ed. P. Grjaznevic (Moscow, 1960), 159. Al-Iṣfahānī, ʿImād al-Dīn, al-Bustān al-jāmiʿ, ed. ʿU. Tadmurī (Sạydā and Beirut, 2010), 308. 25  Ibn Abī al-Damm, Kitāb al-Shamārīkh fī al-ta ʾrīkh, in S. Zakkār, al-Mawsūʿa al-Shāmīya fī ta ʾrīkh al-ḥurūb al-ṣalībīya (Damascus, 1995), XXI, 9674. 26  Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Zubdat al-Ḥalab, ed. S. Dahhān (Damascus, 1954), 507. 27  Ibn Wāṣil, Kitāb al-ta ʾrīkh al-ṣāliḥī: sīrat al-nabī wa-al-anbīyāʾ wa-al-khulafāʾ wa-al-mulūk wa-ghayrihim, ed. ʿU. Tadmurī (Sạydā and Beirut, 2010), II, 154–55. 24 

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Owing to the increasing hegemony of the Islamic narrative, Ibn Wāṣil’s report was more detailed than those of his Syrian predecessors. He included two crucial elements of the Islamic narrative, the massacre of (more than) 70,000 and the plunder taken from the Dome of the Rock, and he represented the conquest as part of a Frankish–Muslim clash. However, the Syrian tradition is still traceable as the author mentioned the Jewish victims that had appeared neither in the other regional traditions nor in the Islamic narrative. Ibn Wāṣil’s text was the last that can be described in any meaningful sense as “Syrian” and the Syrian tradition with its three characteristic elements entirely disappeared from the historiographical field in the late seventh/thirteenth century. Subsequent Syrian works ascribed an outstanding importance to the conquest, did not mention the Jewish victims, always set the conquest into a framework of Frankish–Muslim confrontation and, most importantly, generally adopted the tripartite structure of the Islamic narrative. Significantly, remnants of the Syrian tradition only appeared in texts on the margins of scholarship that never acquired an authoritative status. The Jewish victims, for instance, were only mentioned again in the earliest surviving Arabic work specifically dedicated to the crusades, The Exposition and Explanation of the Cursed Franks’ Departure to the Muslim Lands, most probably authored by a Syrian writer. This marginal work, written in 920/1514, was, in contrast to the authoritative scholarly works, composed in Middle Arabic with strong dialectical elements.28 The expanding influence of the Islamic narrative was thus to entirely supplant the low importance that the Syrian tradition ascribed to the conquest of Jerusalem and its refusal to give much prominence to a massacre. The Egyptian Tradition As there are very few traces of Ibn al-Athīr’s three constitutive elements in the Syrian tradition, the next step is to turn to the contemporary or near-contemporary texts of the Egyptian tradition in order to reconstruct the genesis of the Islamic narrative. This tradition is less extensive than its Syrian counterpart and its regional background is somewhat more complicated, as its most interesting author, Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148), exemplifies. Although this author was an Andalusian scholar, his text belongs, as I will argue below, to the Egyptian tradition.29 Ibn al-ʿArabī, a scholar from Seville, stayed in the central Islamic lands and visited Mecca, Damascus and Baghdad between 485/1092 and 493/1100. He also dwelled 28 

Aḥmad al-Ḥarīrī, al-Iʿlām wa-al-tabyīn fī khurūj al-Firanj al-malāʿīn ʿalā diyār al-muslimīn, ed. S. Zakkār (Damascus, 1981), 25–26. 29  Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Naṣṣ al-kāmil li-kitāb al-ʿAwāṣim min al-qawāṣim, ed. ʿA. Ṭālibī (Cairo, 1997), 371–72. This passage was first discussed by Joseph Drory, Ibn al-‘Arabi of Seville: A Journey in Palestine (1092–95) [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1993), who cites Ibn al-ʿArabī’s work in the edition al-ʿAwāṣim min al-qawāṣim (Algiers, 1981), II, 498–99 (cited in Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre,” 73). See also Joseph Drory, “Some Observations during a Visit to Palestine by Ibn al-Arabi of Seville in 1092–1095,” Crusades 3 (2004): 101–24.



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 49

in Jerusalem for a while shortly before the crusader conquest. Back in al-Andalus he penned several works, among them The Rightly-Guided Protection from the Disasters of Delusion. In this work he criticised al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) approach to Sufism as well as “extreme” Shiite groups and outlined his own positions and the way to salvation. The main aim of this book was to warn his contemporaries of the dangers of wrong belief that would inevitably lead to social instability and spiritual doubts.30 He placed his remarks on the conquest of Jerusalem in the book’s final chapter where he developed his concept of an ideal syllabus for becoming a scholar. When discussing the choice of teachers he acknowledged that it was impossible for most students to study each subject with the supreme authority of their time and that it was perfectly acceptable to take a single teacher for various disciplines. He then underlined that this held true in particular for those who were studying in the far-away regions and the distant border lands. They are in turmoil as they are far from the Caliphate and the source of the imamate. If you had seen Syria and Iraq in the 490s you would have witnessed splendid religiosity, ample knowledge as well as all-encompassing and well-ordered security. It would be impossible to describe the splendour of its affairs and the flowering of its perfection. Then strokes of fate blew over it like winds from the north and from the south. Syria became a deserted past and the word of Islam became extinguished in the Aqṣā Mosque. On early Friday morning, twelve days before the end of Shaʿbān 492 [= 18 Shaʿbān/10 July], 3,000 were killed in these events,31 among them worshippers and scholars, men and women as well as famous ascetics and renowned pious individuals. In these events the Shīrāzī scholar was killed in the Dome of the Chain32 among the group of women. On account of the death of al-Malik al-ʿĀdil [the Saljuq Sultan Malikshāh] in [4]86 [sic: 485/1092] and [the Caliph] al-Muqtadī bi-Allāh [in 487/1094] a revolt broke out in Khurāsān and the Bāṭinīya rose up. Al-Malikshāh’s sons disagreed and so the Byzantines (Rūm) could attack Syria and take possession of the third holy site of Islam.33

The Egyptian background of this report is evident from this tradition’s two characteristic elements, namely interpreting the crusades as a Byzantine endeavour and blaming Saljuq disunity for the invasions. The Fatimids in Egypt initially understood the crusaders to be Byzantine troops and it was only when the crusaders 30 

Fatima Tahtah, “El sufismo en al-Andalus entre la aceptación y el rechazo a través del libro del cadí Ibn al-‘Arabi al-Išbīlī, Al-ʻawāṣim min al-qawāṣim’,” in El sufismo y las normas del Islam. Actas del IV Congreso Internacional de Estudios Jurídicos Islámicos: Derecho y Sufismo, (Murcia, 7–3 Mayo 2003), ed. A. Carmona (Murcia, 2006), 35–45; Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh, 1998), 8 and 18. 31  The text reads “wa-qatala fīhā,” “killed in it.” In contrast to the interpretation in Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre,” 73, the feminine pronoun cannot refer to the Aqṣā Mosque as is also evident from the use of the same “fīhā” when describing the death of the scholar in the Dome of the Chain. 32  “Baqiyat al-silsila” reads “bi-qubbat al-silsila.” This dome is to the east of the Dome of the Rock; see Andreas Kaplony, The Haram of Jerusalem 324–1099: Temple, Friday Mosque, Area of Spiritual Power, Stuttgart 2002. 33  Ibn al-ʿArabī, ʿAwāṣim, 371–72.

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arrived in southern Syria that the Fatimid elite became aware of their different character.34 Ibn al-ʿArabī had been staying in Egypt when Jerusalem fell and shortly after he returned to Spain in 493/1100. Presumably, he initially received the news of the crusades with their specific Egyptian interpretation as a Byzantine campaign. Not being overtly interested in history in this polemical work, he retained this erroneous label. The second Egypt-specific characteristic of his text, blaming Saljuq disunity, reflected Fatimid perceptions of the events in Syria and further to the east. In contrast in the Syrian tradition – mostly written in regions ruled by Saljuq princes and Atabegs or subsequently by the post-Saljuq dynasties of the Zangids and Ayyubids – blaming the Saljuqs was virtually absent. The Iraqi tradition, as will be seen below, did blame the Saljuqs for the fall of Jerusalem in the framework of the rivalry between the Abbasid Caliphate and the Saljuq Sultanate. Yet, this tradition emphasized Saljuq passivity rather than disunity. Comparing Ibn al-ʿArabī’s version with Ibn al-Athīr’s report, it is evident that two of the Islamic narrative’s constitutive elements, the plunder of the Dome of the Rock and the delegation to Baghdad, are again missing. However, in contrast to the contemporary or near-contemporary Syrian authors al-ʿAẓīmī, Ibn al-Qalānisī and Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī, Ibn al-ʿArabī’s text does mention a large-scale massacre among Muslims. It is here that we find some similarity with Ibn al-Athīr’s text as the author also named groups of those killed, “worshippers and scholars, men and women as well as famous ascetics and renowned pious individuals.” Although Ibn al-Athīr’s “Muslim imams and scholars as well as devout and ascetic men” were not identical, this is the main element from the Syrian and Egyptian traditions that indicates some (direct or indirect) influence on Ibn al-Athīr’s text. In addition, Ibn al-ʿArabī was the only author of the Syrian and Egyptian traditions who gave, as did Ibn al-Athīr, a figure for those killed – although the concrete number of 3,000 remained unique to his text and did not appear in any other texts. As this number is relatively new to modern scholarship and seems to be more realistic than the inflated 70,000 it is worth to briefly discuss it. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s account in general is problematic in factual terms as he was not particularly concerned with numerical accuracy and, for instance, got the date of the conquest and the death date for the Saljuq sultan wrong. This is clearly distinct from the later Islamic narrative that generally gave a correct (or almost correct) date for the conquest, 22 or 23 Shaʿbān/14 or 15 July. A more specific second problem in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s account is that the number of 3,000 victims is exactly the figure that was also cited for the massacre that had taken place in the town under Atsız some twenty years earlier.35 After Atsız, a Turcoman commander of the Saljuqs, suffered defeat against the Fatimid troops in Egypt in 469/1077 he faced a revolt in Jerusalem. He subsequently took the town by sword and suppressed the revolt ruthlessly killing 34 

H. A. R. Gibb, “Notes on the Arabic Materials for the History of the Early Crusades,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 7/4 (1933–35): 739–54, here 740–41, and Köhler, Alliances and Treaties, 44–54. 35  Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre,” 73, n.190, briefly hints at this.



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 51

numerous civilians, forcing the population to flee to the Aqṣā Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.36 Those sources that gave a number for the victims agree on 3,000.37 It is thus possible that Ibn al-ʿArabī combined elements from the two main conquests that took place in the town in the late fifth/eleventh century. That Ibn al-ʿArabī probably combined these two conquests is not entirely surprising when we consider the framework in which he placed the conquest of 492/1099. His text did not conceptualize it as part of a Frankish–Muslim conflict, but rather described the conquerors – in the characteristically Egyptian way – as Byzantines. The main point of the passage was furthermore to describe how internal strife (fitna) or disunity among the Saljuq rulers in the east had destroyed the learned world. The “details” of this conquest, such as its date and the exact identity of the conquerors, were obviously of little interest to Ibn al-ʿArabī to make his general point on scholarship.38 The second Egyptian text displaying this tradition’s characteristic two elements – crusades as a Byzantine endeavour and Saljuq disunity – was the composite chronicle Biographies of the Holy Church, the so-called History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church. The year 492/1099 falls within the passage written by the Cairene author Ibn al-Qulzumī (fl. 521/1127) and composed before the fall of Tyre in 518/1124. It is therefore, together with Ibn al-ʿArabī’s text, one of the earliest Arabic reports that we have on the conquest: In the days of the afore-mentioned Patriarch Michael, armies of the Byzantines (Rūm) and the Franks arrived from the Byzantine and Frankish lands in Syria in great multitudes. They gained possession of Antioch and its district and most of Upper Syria. It was at that time in the hands of the Khurasanian Ghuzz, and nothing remained of it [Syria] in the hands of the Ghuzz except Damascus and its district. Then they gained possession of the venerated town of Jerusalem and its district in the month of Ramadan in the lunar year 492 [= 23 July–21 August 1099]. We, the Community of the Christians, the Jacobites and the Copts did not join in the pilgrimage to it, nor were we able to approach it, on account 36  Shimon Gat, “The Seljuks in Jerusalem,” in Towns and Material Culture in the Medieval Middle East, ed. Y. Lev (Leiden, 2002), 1–39. 37  Al-Dhahabī, Ta ʾrīkh al-islām wa-wafayāt al-mashāhīr wa-al-aʿlām, ed. ʿU. Tadmurī (Beirut, 1987–2000), 461–70, 34; Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī ta ʾrīkh al-aʿyān, ed. A. Sevim (Ankara, 1968), 186. 38  The figure 3,000 is also problematic as it appears in so many Arabic conquest narratives. For instance, al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, Saladin’s brother, quelled a revolt in Qifṭ (the ancient Coptos in Upper Egypt) in 570/1176–77 and the early chronicles merely mentioned that he killed “a great number” in the town (Ibn Shaddād, al-Nawādir al-sulṭānīya wa-al-maḥāsin al-Yūsufīya, ed. J. al-Shayyāl (Cairo, 1964), 48: “khalq ʿaẓīm”; the chroniclers Imād al-Dīn and Ibn Abī Ṭayy, as cited in Abū Shāma, Kitāb al-rawḍatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-Nūrīya wa-al-Ṣalāḥīya, ed. I. al-Zaybaq (Beirut, 1997), II, 337–39, also do not give any numbers). Later chronicles suddenly gave the number of victims as 3,000 (Al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-al-iʿtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa-al-āthār, ed. A. Sayyid (London, 2002), I, 633). The same number also appeared as the number of Muslim prisoners that were being held in Jerusalem when Saladin reconquered the town (Ibn Shaddād, Nawādir, 82). Beyond the crusading period we encounter it in contexts as diverse as the number of those the Byzantines enslaved when they took the northern Mesopotamian town of Ra ʾs al-ʿAyn in 332/943 (Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī ta ʾrīkh al-mulūk wa-al-umam, ed. M. ʿAṭā and M. ʿAṭā (Beirut, 1992), XIV, 34) and the number of Byzantine troops executed in 285/898–99 by the Muslim troops (Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, XII, 378).

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of what is known of their hatred of us as well as their false belief concerning us and their charge against us of impiety.39

This passage offers, irrespective of its Coptic background, a clearly Egyptian outlook on the conquest that has none of the Islamic narrative’s three constitutive elements.40 The most prominent Egyptian element in Ibn al-Qulzumī’s text is the role of the Byzantines who were named as among the invaders, and in the entire subsequent passage “they” probably referred as much to the Byzantines as to the Franks. The second Egyptian characteristic, blaming Saljuq disunity, is at first glance absent. Yet the author made clear that the opponents of the invaders were not “the Muslims,” but he employed the pejorative term “ghuzz”. This term was originally used for the non-Muslim Turks on the borders of the Islamic world but in the Egyptian context denoted Turcoman mercenaries and here the author was alluding to the Ghuzz precursors of the Saljuqs. Up to the end of the Fatimid dynasty, pro-Fatimid authors used this term for the Saljuq and post-Saljuq rulers of Syria, directing it for instance against the Zangids when they started to play a prominent role in Egyptian politics under Nūr al-Dīn. In this period, no Syrian author would have used this term to describe the Zangid troops.41 Ibn al-Qulzumī further emphasized the otherness of the Syrian rulers by adding the adjective “Khurasanian,” depicting them as alien to the lands they ruled as the new set of Byzantine/Frankish invaders. He introduced these Ghuzz merely as victims of the conquests who lose their lands while he subsequently praised the Fatimids for mounting resistance – though unsuccessfully. An important point emerging out of the two distinctive characteristics of the Egyptian tradition as evident in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s and Ibn al-Qulzumī’s text is that they – similar to the Syrian tradition and in contrast to the Islamic narrative – did not set the conquest of Jerusalem into the framework of a Frankish–Muslim conflict. Certainly, “Islam” features as a prominent category in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s text but, compared to the Islamic narrative, the blurred profile of the conquerors and the disunity of the local lords gave his text a very different feel from what was to come. However, in another aspect this tradition anticipates the Islamic narrative and differs from the Syrian tradition. Both the Muslim Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Copt Ibn al-Qulzumī considered the fall of Jerusalem to be the defining event of the First Crusade. While the early Syrian chroniclers ascribed little significance to Jerusalem, it is evident that for a religious scholar such as Ibn al-ʿArabī Jerusalem was of central religious importance. 39  Ibn al-Qulzumī, Yūḥannā b. Ṣāʿīd, Siyar al-bīʿa al-muqaddasa (History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church), ed. and trans. A. S. Atiya et al., vol. II, part 3 (Cairo, 1959), ar. 249/engl. 398–99 (translation slightly modified). 40  Later Egyptian Muslim authors who did not take up the Islamic narrative, such as Ibn al-Dawādārī (fl. 736/1335), had no problems in relying on this passage from a “Christian” chronicle (Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar wa-jāmiʿ al-ghurar, ed. H. Römer et al. (Cairo, 1960–94), VI, 451–52). 41  Köhler, Alliances and Treaties, 191.



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 53

Yet, the Egyptian tradition in the Arabic historiography of the crusades suffered in most aspects very much the same fate as its Syrian counterpart: It was hardly taken up by later authors and its characteristic elements had little influence in subsequent centuries. The emphasis on the Byzantine character of the conquests disappeared and putting the blame as squarely as these two authors on the Ghuzz or Saljuq disunity was not a prominent feature of later reports. Even the salient elements of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s report on the massacre fell into oblivion as later authors neither took up the number of 3,000, nor mentioned the women killed in the Dome of the Chain. Yet, as with the Syrian tradition, some traces of the Egyptian tradition were to survive before the increasing role of the Islamic narrative entirely discarded them. For instance, a century after the conquest the Egyptian chancery secretary and man of letters Ibn Ẓāfir (d. 613/1216 or 623/1226) wrote in his chronicle: Under his reign [the Caliph al-Mustaʿlī] their [the Fatimids’] dynasty weakened and most cities in Syria slipped from their control. The lands were divided between the Turks (atrāk) and the Franks – may God curse them. … In Shaʿbān they took Jerusalem by the sword, because al-Afḍal had taken it from Salmān b. Artuq on Friday, five days remaining of Ramaḍān [5]91, and appointed a governor. Yet, he had not the strength to resist the Franks. It would have been better for the Muslims if [al-Mustaʿlī] had left it in the hands of the Artuqids. When the Franks – may God curse them – conquered Jerusalem he had regrets. However, this was of no profit to him because he had looked favourably upon their arrival hoping that they would prevent the Turks gaining influence in Egyptian lands.42

Although this text was written before the Islamic narrative became hegemonic, it clearly shows the conceptual changes that had taken place since Ibn al-ʿArabī and Ibn al-Qulzumī had written their reports. Most importantly, this text unequivocally identified the conquerors as Franks and generously employed curses when mentioning them. In addition, as an administrator of the Ayyubid dynasty Ibn Ẓāfir obviously had little sympathy for the Fatimids and employed this section to show the Fatimid Caliph’s inaptitude in dealing with the challenge. Yet the framework for this report was still to some extent a Fatimid one and the author did not – like Ibn al-ʿArabī and Ibn al-Qulzumī – conceptualize the crusades as the Frankish– Muslim conflict that was to become central to the Islamic narrative. The enemies of the Franks were not yet “the Muslims,” but rather “the Turks,” basically Ibn al-Qulzumī’s Ghuzz. As this was a pre-Ibn al-Athīr text, it is of little wonder that the author had, like his Egyptian predecessors, nothing to say on massacre, plunder or the delegation to Baghdad. Coming back to this article’s two main questions – factuality and meaning – the Egyptian tradition is of as limited factual value as the Syrian tradition and provides little data on the conquest except the problematic figure of 3,000 victims. Ibn al-Qulzumī was not interested at all in any details of these events in faraway 42 

Ibn Ẓāfir, Akhbār al-duwal al-munqaṭiʿa: dirāsa taḥlīlīya li-l-qism al-khāṣṣ bi-al-Fāṭimīyīn, ed. A. Ferré, (Cairo, 1972), 82.

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Syria and he neither gave the slightest indication of how the town was conquered, nor referred to any subsequent massacre. However, the Egyptian tradition as reflected in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s and Ibn al-Qulzumī’s text is of interest, as it was as contemporary to the events as the Syrian tradition. What we see here is thus a bifurcation of the historiographical field at its very beginnings. These two traditions hardly agreed upon any details except that invaders coming from the north took Jerusalem at some point in Shaʿbān (Ibn al-ʿArabī/Ibn al-Qalānisī) or Ramaḍān (Ibn al-Qulzumī) 492/June-August 1099 in the morning (Ibn al-ʿArabī) or in the evening (Ibn al-Qalānisī). These Frankish or Byzantine conquerors carried out a massacre of the town’s Jewish (al-ʿAẓīmī?), Jewish and Muslim (Ibn al-Qalānisī) or Muslim (Ibn al-ʿArabī) population and according to some authors destroyed Jewish (al-ʿAẓīmī) or Jewish and Muslim (Ibn al-Qalānisī) sacred places in the town. Even on the details of the massacre there is no overlap between the two traditions as Ibn al-ʿArabī had nothing to say about the Jewish victims, but singled out the Dome of the Chain as a place where a massacre took place – a detail which was entirely absent from the Syrian (or any other) tradition. Moving on to the formation of the Islamic narrative, it is evident that the only factual element that Ibn al-Athīr’s Islamic narrative could have taken from these contemporary and nearcontemporary texts originating in Syria and Egypt was the massacre. Yet, apart from Ibn al-ʿArabī’s categories of those killed, most of the concrete details (Jews, Dome of the Chain) were excluded from Ibn al-Athīr’s work. In terms of ascribing meaning to the conquest, it is evident that the Syrian and Egyptian traditions again could not have been the texts where the Islamic narrative originated from. Both traditions, the Syrian more so than the Egyptian, were very reluctant to frame the conquest into a Frankish–Muslim conflict and both traditions ascribed a low importance to it. It was only the Egyptian emphasis on Jerusalem as the constitutive element of early crusader conquests which prefigured to some extent the Islamic narrative’s outlook. The Iraqi Tradition While Ibn al-Athīr could not have built on the Syrian and Egyptian traditions to frame his narrative, the case is different for the Iraqi tradition. The first account that not only contains Ibn al-Athīr’s three broad constitutive narrative elements – massacre, plunder and the delegation – but whose details also overlap to a large extent came from this rather unlikely quarter. The author of this account was the Baghdadi scholar and preacher Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200).43 Ibn al-Jawzī wrote his chronicle several decades after Ibn al-Qulzumī, Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-ʿAẓīmī, and Ibn al-Qalānisī put their reports down on paper. Consequently, he did not belong to the 43 

On Ibn al-Jawzī’s views on the early crusades, see Joseph Drory, “Early Muslim Reflections on the Crusades,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001): 92–101.



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 55

same category of contemporary or near-contemporary authors. However, as argued below, his report was most likely the first written version of an earlier Iraqi tradition that had started to develop with the fall of Jerusalem and that is in chronological terms comparable to the Syrian and Egyptian traditions: The Franks took Jerusalem on Friday 13 Shaʿbān [5 July] and they killed more than 70,000 Muslims there. The Franks stripped the Dome of the Rock of more than forty silver lanterns, each of them weighing 3,600 dirhams, and a great silver lamp weighing forty Syrian pounds, as well as more than twenty gold ones and innumerable items of clothing and other things. Refugees from Syria came and reported what had happened to the Muslims. The Damascene judge Abū Saʿd al-Harawī rose in the dīwān, spoke and brought those present to tears. One of those present in the dīwān was sent to the army to inform them of this calamity, but nothing was undertaken. Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Abīwardī thus recited a poem on this matter: [seven verses follow].44

In a radical departure from the Syrian and Egyptian sources of the sixth/twelfth century, Ibn al-Jawzī ascribed a very different meaning to the conquest. To underline the conquest’s outstanding importance he positioned this report at the very beginning of the year’s events in his chronicle. In contrast to the succinct comments in the other two traditions, Ibn al-Jawzī thus framed the conquest as the central event of that year, which entirely overshadowed all other developments. The more important contribution of Ibn al-Jawzī’s report in changing the meaning ascribed to the town’s conquest was to firmly frame it as a Frankish–Muslim conflict. While some pertinent elements had existed in other reports, it was only in his text that the conquerors were now facing a homogeneous group of Muslims. He replaced “Egyptians” (Fatimids) and “Turks” (Saljuqs) with “Muslims” as those being attacked, as much as “Muslims” were the victims of the massacre and those who sent a delegation to Iraq. The Dome of the Rock, as one of the two central Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem besides the Aqṣā Mosque, was introduced as a crucial setting. Finally, he gave a religious scholar, Abū Saʿd al-Harawī, a central role and he cited lines of poetry that were entirely absent from both the Syrian and the Egyptian tradition to emphasize the conquest’s religious framework: This is war and he who lies in the tomb at Medina [the Prophet Muḥammad] Raises his voice and cries: “O sons of Hashim! [addressing the Caliphs]” I see my community slow to raise the lance against the enemy; I see the faith resting on feeble pillars45

As much as his report constituted a break in conceptual terms, it suggested a new set of factual details. The Muslims were now subject to a large-scale massacre with more than 70,000 victims, plunder became a crucial narrative element described in considerable detail, and a Syrian delegation of refugees headed by al-Harawī 44 

Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, XVII, 47–48. Ibn al-Jawzī’s chronicle ends with the year 574/1179. Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, XVII, 48.

45 

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appeared and took up most of the space in this report. The few concrete details that the Syrian and Egyptian traditions had mentioned – the withdrawal to David’s Tower, the destruction of shrines and the Tomb of Abraham, as well as the killing of the women, including the Shīrāzī scholar, in the Dome of the Chain – were entirely missing. This report thus emerged out of a historiographical void, obliterating to a large extent what had been reported previously and adding material that had been non-existent in earlier sources. The Syrian and the Egyptian traditions had hardly agreed on anything except for the bare outlines of the event. With Ibn al-Jawzī we see a third tradition that again has few overlapping areas with the other traditions. He agreed with the Syrian texts on the conquerors’ Frankish identity, but apart from that one has the impression that one is reading a report on an entirely different event that is even dated differently. Ibn al-Jawzī’s radical departure from the other two traditions in terms of factual material as well as conceptual framework goes back to two main factors. On the one hand, his text must be seen as a firmly Iraqi text that had developed in Baghdad, partly in response to the political conflicts between Caliphate and Sultanate. On the other hand, this text’s shape and content were closely connected to the oral tradition of popular preaching out of which it emerged. The Iraqi character of Ibn al-Jawzī’s narrative must be seen against the background of his biography. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, Ibn al-Jawzī was a surprisingly sedentary scholar who never travelled to other cities in order to study with a wider pool of scholars. He was born in Baghdad in 511/1117, died in this city and remained in it throughout his life except for two pilgrimages to Mecca and his exile in the city of Wāsiṭ, southeast of Baghdad, from 590/1194 to 595/1199. Most importantly, he never visited Syria or even northern Mesopotamia. Even his chronicle, despite pretending “to be universal, is in reality above all Baghdādī”46 and belonged first and foremost to the genre of local chronicles. The influence of Ibn al-Jawzī’s Iraqi background on his conquest narrative is evident in a number of its features, among them the inclusion of al-Abīwardī’s (d. 507/1113) poetry.47 These lines became firmly attached to the Islamic narrative and most later authors quoted them as if they were the words of an eyewitness. Yet they were composed in Baghdad in response to news of the conquest by a poet born in Khurāsān. Al-Abīwardī probably never visited Syria and made his career in Baghdad and further to the east where he died, in Isfahan. The Syrian historians of the sixth/twelfth century seem either to be oblivious to his lines or at least to have decided not to include them in their works. That al-Abīwardī’s focus on Jerusalem

46 

Claude Cahen, “The Historiography of the Seljuqid Period,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. B. Lewis and P. Holt (London, 1962), 59–78, here 62. 47  On al-Abīwardī see Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-abnāʾ al-zamān, ed. I. ʿAbbās (Beirut, 1968–72), IV, 444–49 (with wrong death date); al-Dhahabī, Ta ʾrīkh, 501–20, 182–87. G. J. van Gelder, “al-Abīwardī’,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition, ed. K. Fleet et al., http://referenceworks. brillonline.com.ezproxy.soas.ac.uk/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam–3 (5 April 2012).



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 57

was arguably a specifically Iraqi phenomenon shows in the work of the second early poet writing on the crusades, Ibn al-Khayyāṭ (d. 517/1123?). This poet was, in contrast to al-Abīwardī, a native of Damascus and spent his entire life in Syria. However, he included no reference whatsoever to the conquest of Jerusalem in his Dīwān (at least in the shape as it has come down to us) and the town played in his poetry a marginal role compared to Damascus and even Tripoli.48 The report on the delegation that was led by the Damascene judge al-Harawī (d. 518/1124) from Damascus to Baghdad exemplifies even more clearly the Iraqi background of Ibn al-Jawzī’s text and also spells out its implication for local politics. The delegation is the most innovative element in Ibn al-Jawzī’s version as it was entirely absent from the Syrian and Egyptian traditions, whereas we find at least some vague references to massacre and plunder in these texts. That this delegation was absent from the Egyptian texts might be explained by their authors’ limited interest in specifically Syrian events and Fatimid hostility towards the Caliph in Baghdad. One would expect, however, that Syrian authors would have shown some interest, however slight, in this delegation. This absence of the delegation from their conquest reports is all the more remarkable as al-ʿAẓīmī and Ibn al-Qalānisī included al-Harawī’s obituary in their chronicles and they could have at least briefly referred to the delegation within these obituaries.49 This absence was also not the product of Syrian authors disregarding such delegations to Baghdad: Ibn al-Qalānisī, for instance, included considerable detail on the delegation of prominent citizens from Aleppo who went to Baghdad five years later in order to call for support, and al-ʿAẓīmī mentioned the delegation from Tripoli to Baghdad some nine years later.50 The main reason for the absence of the Damascene delegation from sixth-/ twelfth-century Syrian chronicles and its inclusion in Ibn al-Jawzī’s report is that this delegation was not a specifically Syrian event, but rather relevant in the context of Iraqi politics. Ibn al-Jawzī firmly placed al-Harawī’s delegation, his speech and its consequences within the political scene of Baghdad in the sixth/twelfth century. This delegation was only meaningful to the Iraqi author Ibn al-Jawzī, while the Syrian authors, and even more so the Egyptian ones, ascribed no significance to the event. Even the description of al-Harawī as a “Damascene judge” is somewhat misleading as it implies a local attachment that this scholar never had. Al-Harawī originated from the eastern Islamic lands and during his career served as a judge in 48  Ibn al-Khayyāṭ, Dīwān, ed. Mardam Bek (Damascus, 1958). On the development of jihād-poetry see Osman Latiff, “Qur’anic Imagery, Jesus and the Creation of a Pious-Warrior Ethos in the Muslim Poetry of the Anti-Frankish Jihad,” in Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen et al. (Odense, 2013), 135–51; Carole Hillenbrand, “Jihād Poetry in the Age of the Crusades,” in Crusades – Medieval Worlds in Conflict, ed. Thomas Madden et al. (Aldershot, 2011), 9–23; Hadia Dajani-Shakeel, “Jihād in Twelfth-Century Arabic Poetry,” Muslim World 66 (1976): 96–113. 49  Al-Harawī’s obituary: Ibn al-Qalānisī, Dhayl, 210; al-ʿAẓīmī, Ta ʾrīkh, ed. Zaʿrūr, 375, ed. Cahen, 395. 50  Ibn al-Qalānisī, Dhayl, 173; al-ʿAẓīmī, Ta ʾrīkh, ed. Cahen 379.

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many different cities, especially in the Persian-speaking lands. He came to Damascus as a preacher and was subsequently appointed judge over Syria. However, his spell in Syria was brief and he soon returned to Baghdad and moved further east where he was killed in the principal mosque of Hamadhān (Persia).51 The political function of the delegation in the report is closely linked to Ibn al-Jawzī’s influential political role in the city. At the height of his career Ibn al-Jawzī was the Caliph’s court preacher, headed an organized campaign against “heresy” and, quite exceptionally, held five professorial chairs in different madrasas simultaneously.52 Parallel to his stellar rise as the most distinguished preacher, he became closely involved in the Caliphate’s attempts to regain some autonomy. During the sixth/twelfth century Abbasid Caliphs repeatedly tried to escape the tutelage of the Saljuqs and other Turkish military commanders in order to re-emerge with an independent military and political power base.53 In the framework of these policies they also drew on public preachers to secure popular support against the Saljuq Sultans. They forged an especially close alliance with the Hanbalite traditionalist milieu of the city, of which Ibn al-Jawzī was one of the most prominent representatives.54 This is also evident from his chronicle in general, which systematically paid particular attention to the institution of the Caliphate throughout Islamic history.55 Ibn al-Jawzī’s report on the delegation must be read against this background of the bitter conflicts and fierce competition between the Caliphate and the Sultanate in Baghdad of his period. The anti-Saljuq function of Ibn al-Jawzī’s report appears in particular at the moment when, after al-Harawī had delivered his speech, one of those present went to the “ʿaskar,” that is the Saljuq military, to urge them to take action. However, as expected, the Saljuq military did not bother to move and “nothing was undertaken.” To drive the point home this central aspect of the report is taken up in the first lines that al-Abīwardī recited, as reported by Ibn al-Jawzī: How can the eye sleep between the lids at a time of disasters that would waken any sleeper? While your Syrian brothers can only sleep on the backs of their chargers, or in vultures’ bellies! 51 

Al-Dhahabī, Ta ʾrīkh, 501–20, 428–29. On Ibn al-Jawzī as preacher, see Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-quṣṣāṣ wa-al-mudhakkirīn, ed. Merlin L. Swartz (Beirut, 1986); Angelika Hartmann, “Les ambivalences d’un sermonnaire ḥanbalite: Ibn al-Ǧawzī (m. en 597/1201), sa carrière et son ouvrage autographe, le Kitāb al-Ḫawātīm,” Annales Islamologiques 22 (1986): 51–115; eadem, “La prédication islamique au Moyen Age: Ibn al-Ğauzī et ses sermons (fin du 6e/12e siècle),” Quaderni di Studi Arabi 5–6 (1987–88): 337–46; Stefan Leder, Ibn al-Ǧauzī und seine Kompilation wider die Leidenschaft: Der Traditionalist in gelehrter Überlieferung und originärer Lehre (Beirut, 1984). 53  Eric J. Hanne, Putting the Caliph in his Place: Power, Authority, and the late Abbasid Caliphate (Madison, NJ, 2007). 54  Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-quṣṣāṣ, ed. Swartz. Leder, Kompilation wider die Leidenschaft, 15–42. 55  Joseph de Somogyi, “Ibn al-Jauzī’s School of Historiography,” Acta Orientalia (Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae) 6 (1956): 207–14. 52 



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 59

Must the Byzantines (al-Rūm) feed on our ignominy while you trail behind you the train of a pleasant life, like men whose world is at peace?56

With his report and these lines Ibn al-Jawzī emphasized that the Saljuq Sultanate had failed in the past to live up to its foremost obligation, to protect the Muslim community, and thus had little legitimacy to claim supreme political and military authority in the present. As Ibn al-Jawzī had set the conquest into a firmly Frankish– Muslim framework, the main point was not lost on his audiences in late sixth-/ twelfth-century Baghdad: against the background of the vicious conflicts that were taking place between Caliphate and Sultanate in Ibn al-Jawzī’s period, his report delegitimized the claims of the principal non-Caliphal contender to monopolize military might. As religious prestige and authority was one of the most important elements of the Caliphate’s claims, Ibn al-Jawzī framed the report on the Jerusalem conquest accordingly and employed al-Abīwardī’s poetry to underline his point. The link between the crusaders’ successes and the Saljuq passivity was so important to him that he had even made the same point in his reports on the previous year, 491/1097–98. When mentioning the arrival of the crusaders, he did not fail to implicitly blame Saljuq inertness for their success and introduced already at this point the 70,000 killed in Jerusalem.57 Ibn al-Jawzī’s innovative report did not only develop out of the background of Iraqi politics, but should also be set within the field of scholarly activity for which he was primarily renowned in his own time, preaching. He published widely on homiletics and a large number of his works were paraenetic in nature.58 More importantly he was a practising preacher and throughout his life Ibn al-Jawzī held public preaching sessions that attracted large audiences, commoners and members of the political elite alike. Although the number of 300,000 given for the audience of his famous session in 569/1173–74 was merely symbolic, it shows the esteem in which Ibn al-Jawzī was held. The Baghdad of his period did not lack public preachers but he was arguably the most influential and popular among his contemporaries. When Ibn Jubayr, for instance, visited Baghdad in 580/1184, he devoted a long passage to the preaching sessions of Ibn al-Jawzī, which deeply impressed him: Eyes poured forth their tears, and souls revealed their secret longings. Men threw themselves upon him, confessing their sins and showing their penitence. Hearts and minds were enravished, and there was great commotion. The senses lost their understanding and discernment, and there was no way to restraint. … Unceasingly he repeated these verses, his emotion visible upon him, tears almost preventing the issue of words from his mouth, until we feared he would be choked. He hastened to rise and descended from the pulpit 56  Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, XVII, 47 (translation in Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, trans. E. J. Costello (Berkeley, 1984), 12). 57  Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, XVII, 43. 58  Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb al-quṣṣāṣ, ed. Swartz; Hartmann, “Les ambivalences d’un sermonnaire ḥanbalite.”

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speedily, but in a haze. He had inspired hearts with fear and left men on burning coals. They accompanied him with red eyes, openly weeping, and some were rolling in the dust. Oh what a sight!59

During the sixth/twelfth-century, the crusades played an increasing role in preaching activities in general60 and Ibn al-Jawzī was surely part of this trend. His report on the conquest of Jerusalem itself embodies the link between Ibn al-Jawzī’s historiographical interests, on the one hand, and his preaching activities, on the other. Owing to the report’s paraenetic nature, Ibn al-Jawzī reproduced exactly the same version of it in his treatise on the merits of Jerusalem (Faḍāʾil al-Quds).61 It would thus be highly arbitrary to describe this report as “historiographical” without taking into account the fact that it easily reappeared in other genres. While the background of Iraqi politics explained why Ibn al-Jawzī included the delegation, the two other salient features of his report – the 70,000 victims and the plunder of the Dome of the Rock – can best be explained with reference to the paraenetic nature of the report. The number of 70,000 for the victims of the massacre experienced an impressive career as Ibn al-Athīr and many subsequent authors such as Abū al-Fidāʾ, al-Nuwayrī and Ibn al-Wardī picked it up.62 Only a few authors altered this number further, such as Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī (d. 654/1256) and subsequently Ibn Taghrībirdī (d. 874/1470) in the ninth/fifteenth century who wrote of 100,000 victims and a further 100,000 prisoners.63 The figure of 70,000 is rather implausible for a minor town such as Jerusalem and there are few modern historians who take this number seriously. The figure is even more unlikely to be accurate given that later chroniclers, following Ibn al-Athīr, tended to give it for the victims in the Aqṣā Mosque alone and stated that women and children were enslaved, not killed. However, the main point here is not the factual inaccuracy of this number but rather that it was used for didactic and symbolic purposes typical of sermons. As Lawrence Conrad argued, Arabic-Islamic culture adopted the symbolic value of the number seven from its late antique environment in order to express a general idea of

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Ibn Jubayr, Riḥla, trans. R. J. C. Broadhurst, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr (London, 1952), 229–33. Daniella Talmon-Heller, “Islamic Preaching in Syria during the Counter-Crusade (Twelfth– Thirteenth Centuries)”, in In laudem Hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture in Honour of Benjamin Z. Kedar, ed. I. Shagrir, R. Ellenblum, and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot, 2007), 61– 75; Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146–1260) (Leiden, 2007); Jonathan P. Berkey, Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East (Seattle, 2001), 58–59. On preaching, see also Linda G. Jones, The Power of Oratory in the Medieval Muslim World (Cambridge, 2012). 61  Ibn al-Jawzī, Faḍāʾil al-Quds, ed. J. Jabbūr (Beirut, 1979), 125–28. 62  Abū al-Fidāʾ, al-Mukhtaṣar fī akhbār al-bashar (Cairo, 1907), II, 211; al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (Cairo, 1923–2002), XXVIII, 257; Ibn al-Wardī, Ta ʾrīkh Ibn al-Wardī (Beirut, 1996), II, 11. 63  Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān fī ta ʾrīkh al-aʿyān, in Zakkār, al-Mawsūʿa al-Shāmīya, XV, 6903–06, and Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, V, 148–49. 60 



From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative 61

magnitude. Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406), for instance, stated that “[n]umbers are not at all to be taken literally; the intended sense is rather that of magnitude … Among the Bedouins [seventy] is used for ‘many’ (kathīr).”64 Ibn al-Jawzī’s figure of 70,000 should thus be read in the same way as Ibn al-Qalānisī’s statement that “many of them were killed.” A quick glance at other conquest narratives shows the topos-like character of this number: The Ghaznawid ruler Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd (d. 433/1041) supposedly took 70,000 slaves when he conquered Gurgān and Ṭabaristān in 426/1035,65 the eunuch Yāzmān killed 70,000 when he inflicted a crushing defeat on Byzantine troops in 270/883,66 and the general Khāzim b. Khuzayma massacred 70,000 rebels in Khurāsān when he put down a revolt in 150/767.67 While the use of such figurative numbers did sometimes merely express notions of magnitude, they can often be read in more specific ways to understand how authors endowed reports with additional layers of meaning. With regard to the conquest of Jerusalem, it is most likely that this number developed in the Baghdadi preaching milieu for its eschatological connotations. Michael Lecker argued that the 70,000 victims at the battle of Ṣiffīn in 37/657, to cite another example, originated in an eschatological report establishing that ʿAlī’s supporters were in the right and showing that this battle “was part of a scheme of world history, the understanding of which was beyond human grasp.”68 Such eschatological connotations were especially relevant for Jerusalem due to the town’s role in salvation history. For instance, 70,000 prophets were said to have died of starvation on the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem and been buried there.69 The eschatological dimension is particularly evident in other reports, such as those that God had 70,000 killed with John the Baptist (in Jerusalem), and that He would kill “70,000 and 70,000” with the son of Muḥammad’s daughter (i.e. with Ḥusayn at Ṣiffīn).70 As this figure had become so closely tied to Jerusalem, its use in the Iraqi tradition reframed the fall of the town from the local incident in the Syrian tradition to a decisive event in the history of the Muslim community. As much as the 70,000 victims of the massacre endowed the report with new eschatological layers of meaning, the number forty in describing the plundering 64 

Lawrence I. Conrad, “Seven and the tasbīʿ. On the Implications of Numerical Symbolism for the Study of Medieval Islamic History,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 31 (1988): 42–73, here 45 (Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, ed. Kh. Shaḥada (Beirut, 2001), I, 129: “wa-laysa al-ʿadad fī jamīʿihā maqṣūdan bi-al-dhāt wa-innamā al-murād al-kathīra fī tafāwut hādha al-marātib bi-dalīl dhikr al-sabʿīn … wa-huwa li-l-kathīr inda al-ʿarab.” (trans. Franz Rosenthal, An Introduction to History: The Muqaddimah, abr. ed. N. J. Dawood (London, 1967), 81). 65  Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, XV, 246. 66  Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, XII, 229. 67  Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, VIII, 122. 68  Michael Lecker, “Ṣiffīn,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman et al., http:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam–2 (27 March 2012). 69  E. Honigmann-[C. E. Bosworth], “al-Ṭūr,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, http:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam–2 (27 March 2012). 70  Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, V, 346. On John the Baptist see Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, 122.

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of the Dome of the Rock played a comparably important role.71 Ibn al-Jawzī used this number in order to substantiate his reports on plunder, which, except for Ibn al-Qalānisī’s brief statement on the conquerors’ destruction of shrines, were absent in the previous Syrian and Egyptian narratives. With Ibn al-Jawzī, by contrast, the conquerors take “forty silver lanterns … and a silver lamp weighing forty Syrian ratls.” His usage of the number forty is closely tied to the prominent position of the lanterns in the Dome of the Rock. The importance of these qanādīl’ in his text is arguably linked to the fact that they are a crucial feature of the “birds-ḥadīths,” an important set of texts on the status of martyrs.72 In one version, Muḥammad stated that the martyrs’ souls will be in the bellies of birds who are free to forage in paradise and who nest in lanterns hung under the throne of God.73 For a contemporary audience the reference to the forty lanterns in the Dome of the Rock, positioned in the text right after the 70,000 victims-martyrs of the massacre, would have immediately raised the concept of martyrdom and reinforced the sacrilege of the Franks’ intrusion into the Muslim sacred spaces of Jerusalem. Yet, the plunder report as we have it in Ibn al-Jawzī’s version goes beyond tying the fall of Jerusalem into notions of martyrdom, and brings in direct divine intervention. The second striking element in Ibn al-Jawzī’s report on the plunder of the Dome of the Rock was that according to him a lamp, tannūr, had been taken. The tannūr repeatedly appears in early Islamic texts, as either “oven” or “lamp.” Most importantly, in the Koran the Deluge begins with the tannūr gushing with boiling water (11.40). That audiences during the crusading period were aware of the theological implications of the report on the plunder of the lamp in the Dome of the Rock is evident in texts beyond Ibn al-Jawzī. In the early seventh/thirteenth century, a treatise on the merits of Jerusalem reinvented the lamp as a portent for the arrival of the crusaders: “According to some reports, a silver lamp (tannūr) in its mosque, holding 500 lanterns, crashed in the year 452 [/1060]. Those residing in Jerusalem regarded it as an evil omen and said: ‘Certainly, a great calamity will befall Islam!’ Then the Franks attacked Bilād al-Shām and remained there until the [re]conquest of Jerusalem [under Saladin].”74 It was certainly not by coincidence 71  On the symbolic function of “four” in Arabic-Islamic historiography and other fields of knowledge, see Lawrence I. Conrad, “Abraha and Muhammad: Some Observations Apropos of Chronology and Literary Topoi in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50 (1987): 225–40. 72  W. Raven, “Martyrs,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. J. D. McAuliffe, http://referenceworks. brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran (27 March 2012). 73  Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, ed. M. ʿAbd al-Bāqī (Beirut, 1978), III, 1502. On underlying concepts of martyrdom see also Etan Kohlberg, Medieval Muslim Views on Martyrdom (Amsterdam, 1997). See also Daniella Talmon-Heller, “Muslim Martyrdom and Quest for Martyrdom in the Crusading Period,” Al-Masaq 14 (2002): 131–40. 74  Ibn Shīth, Miftāḥ al-maqāṣid wa-miṣbāḥ al-marāṣid fī ziyārat Bayt al-Maqdis, in Faḍāʾil Bayt al-Maqdis fī makhṭūṭāt ʿarabīya qadīma, ed. M. Ibrāhīm (Kuwait, 1985), 255–68, here 266–67. The section’s heading “The Frankish Conquest of Jerusalem” was not part of the original text but is an insertion by the text’s modern editor. On Ibn Shīth (d. 625/1227), see al-Dhahabī, Ta ʾrīkh, 621–30, 231–32.



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that according to this version the catastrophe announced by the crashing tannūr took place after exactly forty (lunar) years. Ibn al-Jawzī’s substantial reframing of the conquest report by introducing notions of eschatology (70,000 victims), martyrdom (qanādīl) and divine intervention (tannūr) set the conquest into the wider scheme of Islamic salvation history. The numbers and the lanterns/lamp should thus be read in a similar way as the famous statement in Raymond of Aguilers’ chronicle that the crusaders rode into the Aqṣā Mosque in blood “up to the bridles of their horses” – a phrase borrowed from Apocalypse 14.20 and clearly tapping into an eschatological conceptualization of the events.75 In order to understand the genesis of these elements and their theological connotations in Ibn al-Jawzī’s report, the Syrian and Egyptian traditions are of no help as they did not introduce any such elements. Taking into consideration the peculiar profile of the Iraqi tradition, the most useful approach to explain this report is to connect it to Ibn al-Jawzī’s background as a preacher. Arguably, the report as we find it in Ibn al-Jawzī’s works was the crystallization of a transmission that was, from its early beginnings, closely associated with preaching activities in Baghdad. While his report thus did, indeed, emerge out of a historiographical void, one has to turn to the field of popular preaching in order to understand its history of transmission. Since the arrival of the delegation by al-Harawī in Baghdad, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, reports on the conquest most probably circulated in the preaching milieus. These preaching activities were a thoroughly oral practice – one of the main challenges for modern scholarship on popular preaching is precisely that these sermons were hardly ever put into writing. The oral background of the Iraqi tradition is also reinforced by its emphasis on number symbolism, which is a typical feature of oral cultures in general.76 It took an author such as Ibn al-Jawzī, deeply rooted in the preaching milieu of Baghdad and closely involved in the politics of his day, to develop the basic elements of the Islamic narrative out of the local oral line of transmission. He artfully interweaved political concerns on the position of the Caliphate, as expressed in the delegation element, with a broader outlook on the fall of the town setting it into the community’s salvation history. What used to be a rather marginal conquest in the Egyptian and Syrian traditions was now repositioned as one of the central events of the period’s history. Especially because his ‘universal’ chronicle was de facto more of a local chronicle, the detailed report on the fall of Jerusalem (representing some two-thirds of all the events reported under that year) ascribed an outstanding importance to it. This new importance ascribed to the conquest shows even more in his treatise on the merits of Jerusalem where he had more liberty to position the report within the work, in contrast to the rather rigid structure of his annalistic work. In this treatise, he positioned the fall of Jerusalem to the crusaders right after 75 

Raymond of Aguilers, Le “Liber” de Raymond d’Aguilers, ed. J. Hill and L. Hill (Paris, 1969), 150, n. 2. See also Thomas Madden, “Rivers of Blood: An Analysis of One Aspect of the Crusader Conquest of Jerusalem,” Revista Chilena de Estudios Medievales 1 (2012): 25–37. 76  Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison, 1985), 132.

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the report on the Islamic conquest of the town under the Caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 23/644). The fall of the town had not only become a major event, but it was now repositioned in a long line of Christian–Muslim confrontation. The central role of Ibn al-Jawzī in developing what was to become the dominant version of the event is evident in the silence of chronicles contemporary to him. Other chronicles that were written in Baghdad around his time have simply no interest whatsoever in the fall of Jerusalem. Ibn ʿImrānī’s History of the Caliphs, for example, was probably written in Baghdad and emerged out of the same political background as Ibn al-Jawzī’s chronicle. Yet, this work, finished between 555/1160 and 560/1165 and thus some two decades earlier than Ibn al-Jawzī’s chronicle, said nothing of the conquest of Jerusalem.77 The same goes for The Reports on the Saljuq Dynasty, a composite chronicle that probably originated in the eastern Islamic lands and was written in 622/1225. Its second part, dealing with the period into which the conquest of Jerusalem fell, relied on earlier sources but also had nothing to say on this event.78 Overall, the Iraqi historiography made only some brief allusions to the crusades while the historiography of the Grand Saljuqs in Iran remained completely silent on them.79 In addition to the silence in Iraqi chronicles, Ibn al-Jawzī’s crucial role appears even more clearly when taking into account the silence of those texts contemporary to him where, first and foremost, one would expect to see references to any full-scale massacre/plunder: the cluster of panegyric texts on Saladin produced in late sixth-/ twelfth-century Syria and Egypt. None of these texts covered the year 492/1099, as they all focused on Saladin’s biography, but they all discussed in detail Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem in 583/1187 and one might have expected that the fall of Jerusalem some ninety years earlier would have featured prominently. However, even though ʿImād al-Dīn devoted considerable space to Saladin’s conquest, the main reference to the fall of Jerusalem in 492/1099 is a brief allusion in the Sultan’s rejection of the first requests for a negotiated surrender: “I will take Jerusalem the way they took it from the Muslims ninety-one years ago. They inundated it with blood, leaving it not a moment’s peace. I will annihilate their men and take their women prisoner.”80 77 

Ibn ʿImrānī, al-Inbāʾ fī ta ʾrīkh al-khulafāʾ, ed. Q. al-Sāmirāʾī (Leiden, 1973). Al-Ḥusaynī, Akhbār al-dawla al-saljūqīya, ed. M. Iqbāl (Lahore, 1933). 79  Claude Cahen, Orient et Occident au temps des croisades (Paris, 1983), 79. 80  Cited in Abū Shāma, Rawḍatayn, III, 340. In the same vein, in those sections that have survived of the Syrian Bolt, the 492/1099 conquest of Jerusalem is not employed as a central element: ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, al-Barq al-Shāmī, vols. 3 and 5, ed. F. Ḥusayn (Amman, 1987). See also the relevant passages in his al-Fatḥ al-qussī fī al-fatḥ al-qudsī. Conquête de la Syrie et de la Palestine, trans. H. Massé (Paris, 1972), 44–63, ed. M. Ṣubḥ (Cairo, 1965), 116–49. The conquest of Jerusalem in 492/1099 is not mentioned at all in his chronicle of the Saljuqs, Nuṣrat al-fatra, as abridged by al-Bundārī, Ta ʾrīkh dawlat Āl Saljūq (Beirut, 1978), 81ff. The transmission history of ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī’s and al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil’s texts is problematic and any statement on them must be seen in light of the fact that ʿImād al-Dīn’s Syrian Bolt has only been partially preserved and that al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil’s writings have often been preserved only as citations in other texts. 78 



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What is most striking is the absence of references in the introduction to ʿImād al-Dīn’s Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem that celebrated Saladin’s reconquest of the town. In these pages, the author strove to build up the uniqueness of this event, famously even describing it as the second hijra and the start of a new calendar. He employed a multitude of other historical comparisons but he did not make a single reference to the fall of Jerusalem.81 This certainly had nothing to do with airbrushing the defeat out of history. By contrast, his reference to the hijra implied exactly the opposite: after the period of ignorance and darkness, the jāhilīya, dawn breaks again with the rise of Saladin. The failure of previous rulers to defend Jerusalem and the barbarity of the Franks as it emerged from the accounts of Ibn al-Jawzī would have fitted this historical outlook very well. In general, the richness of the post-Ibn al-Jawzī sources on the conquest of Jerusalem shows that there was no tendency to avoid the topic in order to write the victory of these non-Muslim enemies out of history. The development of the conquest’s remembrance rather shows that it could be easily employed in order to celebrate the Muslim community’s superiority, but few authors saw this to be a meaningful interpretation during the decades following the First Crusade. It took the Iraqi tradition and Ibn al-Jawzī to reformulate and reshape the remembrance of the fall of Jerusalem. That Ibn al-Jawzī’s account was so successful in framing how later authors beyond Baghdad presented the conquest of Jerusalem goes back to the changing political landscape of the late sixth/twelfth century. This report struck a chord in the environment of jihād propaganda after the Zangids and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn had framed themselves for several decades as the champions of the Muslim cause.82 In this new milieu the previous Syrian and Egyptian narratives of the Jerusalem conquest, so typical of the lā maqām-period, seemed out of place. Their brief and pale descriptions as well as the absence of conceptualizing the conquest as part of a wider Frankish–Muslim conflict were now utterly outdated. Ibn al-Jawzī’s evocative text, by contrast, adapted the reports on the conquest of the town to new political realities and newly emerging perspectives on the early history of the crusades. In addition, his text reflects that Jerusalem had started to play (or had continuously played) a more prominent role in the religious sensibilities of religious scholars, in contrast to the indifference displayed by the Syrian administrative authors. The Islamic Narrative While Ibn al-Jawzī’s report constituted a major stepping stone in the development of the conquest reports, it was Ibn al-Athīr who reworked the report into its authoritative form. With his report it becomes impossible to speak of regional 81 

ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, Fatḥ, trans. Massé, 1–12, ed. Ṣubḥ, 41–58. See Hillenbrand, Islamic Perspectives, on this issue.

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traditions any more, as this version became hegemonic in all regions and virtually uncontested within Arabic historiography. It is thus appropriate to speak from this point onwards (i.e., the early seventh/thirteenth century) of an “Islamic narrative.”83 A broad trans-regional consensus had emerged on what happened in Jerusalem in 492/1099 and how to interpret these events. Ibn al-Athīr partly changed Ibn al-Jawzī’s report for a very mundane reason, namely that he clearly placed the report in a historical work, his universal chronicle, while Ibn al-Jawzī’s version appeared in both the author’s chronicle and his paraenetic treatise on the merits of Jerusalem. Ibn al-Athīr thus included, for instance, considerable factual details on the siege that would have been irrelevant for Ibn al-Jawzī’s narrative. Where previous sources such as Ibn al-ʿArabī (morning) and Ibn al-Qalānisī (one siege tower, evening) offered sparse and contradictory information, he now gave a detailed account, including the length of the siege (some forty days), the siege engines used (two towers), details of the siege (burning of siege tower) and the place where the wall was climbed (north). The same attention to detail shows in his passage on the events around David’s Tower, which had been absent from all earlier sources except for Ibn al-Qalānisī, who briefly referred to this element. Ibn al-Athīr provided additional detail (the siege lasted three days, the Franks granted safe-conduct, the Muslims subsequently moved to Ascalon). Most importantly, he decisively expanded the massacre-narrative giving the location (the Aqṣā Mosque) and naming the categories of those killed, possibly relying on Ibn al-ʿArabī. On both the plunder and the delegation he also gave greater detail, but these changes did not stray from Ibn al-Jawzī’s narrative framework. The vast majority of subsequent authors, with the exception of the remnants of the Syrian and Egyptian traditions discussed above, did adopt Ibn al-Athīr’s broad outline. The spectacular success of his report is even evident in his minor additions such as “the Franks remained for a week in the town killing the Muslims.” It was Ibn al-Athīr who first introduced this one-week element and all of the subsequent authors who cited a time period for the massacre took it up, including Ibn Khallikān and Bar Hebraeus in the seventh/thirteenth century, Abū al-Fidāʾ, al-Nuwayrī and Ibn al-Wardī in the eighth/fourteenth century, and al-Maqrīzī in the ninth/fifteenth century. However, it has to be pointed out that some of his changes had little influence in the subsequent medieval and early modern historiographical field. For instance, Ibn al-Athīr’s addition that the members of the delegation to Baghdad were allowed to break the fast because of the hardships they had suffered was only taken up by one medieval author, Abū al-Fidāʾ.84

83 

The term is slightly misleading as Christian authors writing in Arabic also tended to adopt this narrative; see for example Ibn al-ʿIbrī (Bar Hebraeus), Ta ʾrīkh mukhtaṣar al-duwal, ed. Khalīl al-Manṣūr (Beirut, 1997), 171. 84  Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, X, 284; Abū al-Fidāʾ, Mukhtaṣar, II, 211.



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The popularity of the Islamic narrative stretches well beyond the early modern period and is evident until the present day.85 For instance, the breaking-the-fast element was revived only in the twentieth century, but then started to enjoy considerable popularity in depictions of the crusades. This was particularly due to Amin Maalouf’s loose adaptation of this passage in his chapter on “The Cannibals of Ma’arra,” where he rewrote events as if the delegation broke the Ramadan-fast in order to cause a scandal (inventing along the way an angry crowd and soldiers) and to alert the people of Baghdad to their plight.86 Quite surprisingly, even the 70,000 figure has some prominence in modern texts – although often tucked away in footnotes. A recent history of the First Crusade, for instance, ascribes to the number the same degree of veracity as to Ibn al-Qalānisī’s report.87 Sometimes this number is slightly altered to a range as if this would give a more exact estimate, as for instance: “Of the sixty or seventy thousand estimated to have been within the city’s walls, only a small portion escaped massacre.”88 In addition, we still find an outright credulous approach where the number is simply taken as an undisputed fact: “A horrifying massacre followed during which the crusaders spent a week slaughtering Muslims, killing at least 70,000 people.”89 The Islamic narrative as framed by Ibn al-Athīr was not only very influential in Arabic historiography and beyond, but remained also impressively stable. While some later authors decided to reshape specific elements, this was to be the exception and it often merely involved exchanging or introducing the symbolically relevant figures four and seven. Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī (followed by Ibn Taghrībirdī), for instance, wrote of seventy lanterns robbed from the Dome of the Rock and the Aqṣā Mosque while Ibn al-Jawzī, Ibn al-Athīr and all other authors have some forty silver and some twenty gold lanterns.90 A similar example where number symbolism was involved is al-Maqrīzī’s statement that those besieged in David’s Tower surrendered after some forty days, while Ibn al-Athīr and all later authors give the period as three days.91 To give a final example, Mujīr al-Dīn al-ʿUlaymī (d. ca. 927/1521), stated that the town had been in the hands of the Muslims for 477

85 

On modern historiography, see Hillenbrand, Islamic Perspectives, 589–616; Anne-Marie Eddé, Saladin, trans. J. M. Todd (London, 2011), 463–509; Emmanuel Sivan, “Modern Arab Historiography of the Crusades,” in Sivan, Interpretations of Islam, 3–43. 86  Amin Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab Eyes, trans. J. Rothschild (London, 1984), 52–53. 87  Asbridge, First Crusade, 76, n. 35: “Ibn al-Athir, p. 197, numbered the dead of Jerusalem at 70,000. Ibn al-Qalanisi, p. 48, indicates that a large proportion of Jerusalem’s Jewish population were also slaughtered.” 88  Hiyari, “Crusader Jerusalem,” 138. 89  Maher Abu-Munshar, “Fāṭimids, Crusaders and the Fall of Islamic Jerusalem: Foes or Allies?”, Al-Masaq 22/1 (2010): 45–56, here 47. The source cited is the seventh-/thirteenth-century universal history by Ibn al-ʿIbrī (Bar Hebraeus), Ta ʾrīkh mukhtaṣar al-duwal. 90  Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt, in Zakkār, Mawsūʿa, XV, 6905, and Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, V, 148–49. 91  Al-Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ al-ḥunafāʾ bi-akhbār al-a ʾima al-fāṭimiyīn al-khulafāʾ, ed. J al-Shayyāl/M. Aḥmad, (Cairo, 1996), III, 23.

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lunar years before the crusader conquest, delaying the Caliph ʿUmar’s conquest of Jerusalem by some fourteen years.92 After the Islamic narrative had become dominant, only two entirely new elements entered Arabic historiography until the end of the Mamluk period some three centuries later. The Egyptian Ibn Muyassar (d. 677/1278) was the first to write that the conquerors burned copies of the Koran and other books.93 Seemingly, this retained some regional specificity as those authors who subsequently picked it up, Baybars al-Manṣūrī and al-Maqrīzī, were both Egyptian. Arguably Ibn Muyassar embellished his report of the conquest by drawing on the topos of the destruction of libraries and book collections that conquest narratives, in general, used widely.94 Al-ʿUlaymī introduced the second post-Ibn al-Athīr element at the end of the period considered here: After that [the initial massacre] they confined all [remaining] Muslims of Jerusalem in the Aqṣā Mosque and informed them that all those who had not left it within three days would be killed to the last man. The Muslims thus started to hasten and hurry to leave. On account of the crush at the gates of the Mosque many of them were killed.95

The three-day ultimatum recalls the three-day siege of David’s Tower in Ibn alAthīr’s version, an element that al-ʿUlaymī did not include in his report. It is probable that al-ʿUlaymī fused the Aqṣā and the David’s Tower reports into one single event. However, in general he remained as faithful to the tripartite Islamic narrative as most other authors of his period. Arguably al-ʿUlaymī’s introduction of a new element hints at the political and historiographical watershed that was in the making in the early tenth/sixteenth century. This is also why the last two works of the period under consideration are the two most unusual surviving medieval secondary sources for the history of the crusades. Al-ʿUlaymī’s work on Jerusalem (and Hebron) was the only local chronicle on the town composed during the medieval period. The second work written in 920/1514 by Aḥmad al-Ḥarīrī is the earliest surviving work in Arabic explicitly devoted to the crusades.96 The development of the Islamic narrative of the conquest of Jerusalem in the Ottoman “secondary” sources is beyond the scope 92 

Al-ʿUlaymī, al-Uns al-jalīl bi ta ʾrīkh al-Quds wa-l-Khalīl (Amman, 1973), 306. Ibn Muyassar, Akhbār Miṣr (Annales d’Égypte: Les Khalifes Fâtimides), ed. H. Massé (Cairo, 1919), 39; Baybars al-Manṣūrī, Zubdat al-fikra fī l-ta ʾrīkh al-hijra, quoted in: al-ʿAynī, ʿIqd al-Jumān (Zakkār, al-Mawsūʿa al-Shāmīya, XXIV, 11010); al-Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ, III, 23. 94  On the destruction of book collections in Arabic conquest narratives, see Konrad Hirschler, The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices (Edinburgh, 2012), 129–32. 95  Al-ʿUlaymī, Uns, 307–08. This seems to be a late-Mamluk/early Ottoman Syrian addition as it also appears in the treatise on the merits of Jerusalem by al-ʿUlaymī’s contemporary al-ʿAlamī, al-Mustaqṣā fī faḍāʾil al-masjid al-Aqṣā, in Ibrāhīm, Faḍāʾil, 497–520, here 502. 96  Al-Ḥarīrī, Iʿlām, 25–26. The other crusade-specific work is the lost work by Ḥamdān b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (d. after 554/1159), Sīrat al-afranj al-khārijīn ilā bilād al-Shām fī hādhihī sinīn (The Way of the Franks Who Left for Syria in Those Years): Hillenbrand, Islamic Perspectives, 258. 93 



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of this article, but would promise fascinating insights into the genesis of modern perceptions of the crusades.97 The success of the Islamic narrative in the pre-Ottoman period went well beyond the historiographical genre and also appeared forcefully in a wide variety of other texts, such as jihād-treatises and works belonging to the merits-of-Jerusalem genre (faḍāʾil al-quds). The earliest example of a jihād-treatise composed in reaction to the crusades is the famous Kitāb al-jihād by the Syrian preacher al-Sulamī (d. 500/1106). Written six years after the conquest, this author included a number of references to Jerusalem, but most strikingly the conquest did not play a salient role.98 By writing a jihād-treatise on the subject, al-Sulamī was evidently setting the crusades into a clear framework of a religious conflict between Franks and Muslims and he also was the first author to use curses when mentioning the Franks, decades before this became standard practice in historiography.99 Despite his references to Jerusalem, it seems – at least judging from the surviving parts of his work – that the conquest had not yet started to be seen as an indispensable element of this narrative. Yet, if we turn to Ibn Kathīr’s eighth-/fourteenth-century jihād-treatise, the situation has changed. The conquest now played a considerable role and the author framed it in the very familiar terms of the Islamic narrative, including the 70,000-victims element.100 The merits-of-Jerusalem genre reflects the same development. Ibn Shīth (d. 625/1227), for instance, had composed his treatise before Ibn al-Athīr completed his chronicle. In the vein of his time, he already started to ascribe considerable importance to the conquest and framed it as a Frankish–Muslim clash: They [the Franks] had planned to attack the Muslims and succeeded on Friday, the 22nd of Shaʿbān. The Muslims were performing the Friday prayer while the Jews were preparing for their Sabbath. The Franks attacked the town swiftly and found it undefended and did not encounter an equal. They spilled blood and enslaved those who were free as well as those who had been slaves. They massacred in particular the Jews.101

However, the Islamic narrative had not influenced his report, so the plunder and delegation were absent. In the same vein, he reported the massacre in 97  The question of the Ottoman-period remembrance of the crusades is barely researched yet; one of the first attempts is Diana Abouali, “Saladin’s Legacy in the Middle East before the Nineteenth Century,” Crusades 10 (2011): 175–89. 98  Niall Christie, “Jerusalem in the Kitab Al-Jihad of Ali ibn Tahir Al-Sulami,” Medieval Encounters 13 (2007): 209–21. On al-Sulamī, see also Mourad and Lindsay, Sunni Jihad Ideology, esp. 33–36, and Emmanuel Sivan, “La genèse de la contre-croisade: un traité damasquin du début du XIIe siècle,” Journal Asiatique 254 (1966): 197–224. 99  Niall Christie, “‘Curses, Foiled Again!’ Further Research on Early Use of the Ḫaḏalahum Allāh Invocation during the Crusading Period,” Arabica 58 (2011): 561–70. My thanks to Niall Christie for his advice on this passage. 100  Ibn Kathīr, Kitāb al-ijtihād fī ṭalab al-jihād, in Arbaʿat kutub fī al-jihād min ʿaṣr al-ḥurūb alṣalī bī ya, ed. S. Zakkār (Damascus, 1984), 413–36, here 430. 101  Ibn Shīth, Miftāḥ, 267.

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specifically Syrian terms, in particular with the emphasis on Jewish victims and the characteristic elements of Ibn al-Athīr’s report (70,000 victims, Aqṣā Mosque) were still unknown to this author. Moving on a century, the situation has entirely changed with al-Maqdisī (d. 765/1364) whose treatise on the merits of Jerusalem exhibited no Syrian characteristics, though the author was a native of Jerusalem. Rather, his text includes a faithful summary of Ibn al-Athīr’s Islamic narrative, except for getting the date wrong: In the year 482 [1089–90] the Franks besieged Jerusalem for 40 days. They took possession of it in the morning of Friday in that year. During one week they killed many Muslims in it. In the Aqṣā Mosque they killed more than 70,000 and they took from the Dome of the Rock innumerable golden and silver objects.102

From now onwards references to the conquest of Jerusalem in these texts followed Ibn al-Athīr’s model with only slight variations.103 Thanks to the work by Suleiman Mourad, the conquest-specific transformation of the merits-of-Jerusalem genre can be set into the wider framework of this genre’s development. It is noteworthy that the conquest of 1099 did not fuel a significant rise in the interest in Jerusalem and more specifically in the production of merits works. The number of these works only started to rise in the late sixth/twelfth century, i.e. the period that this article highlights as the turning-point when the conquest started to be remembered on a significant level. More interestingly, while the authors in this genre had been, before the crusader period, rather minor scholars closely connected to the city, they now started to be prominent scholars who had no immediate relation to it – in this sense their profiles fit those of the main protagonists of the trans-regional Islamic narrative. In addition, pre-crusader works were rather long treatises, while their later counterparts were generally short manuals that were presumably used for preaching purposes; i.e. they might have emerged in the same milieu that produced crucial strands of the Islamic narrative.104 The development of jihād-treatises and treatises on the merits of Jerusalem thus mirrored the development in historiographical texts, where the increasingly hegemonic Islamic narrative replaced the previously broad range of perspectives. Ibn al-Athīr’s artful combination of Ibn al-Jawzī’s report with important additions from other traditions set the tone for the centuries to come well beyond the historiographical field.

102  Al-Maqdisī, Muthīr al-gharām fī ziyārat al-quds wa-al-Shām, in Ibrāhīm, Faḍāʾil, 337–418, here 349–50. 103  A final example is al-ʿAlamī, Muḥammad (fl. 948/1541), al-Mustaqṣā fī faḍāʾil al-masjid alAqṣā, in Ibrāhīm, Faḍāʾil, 497–520, here 501–02. 104  On the merits of the Jerusalem-genre, see Suleiman Mourad, “Did the Crusades Change Jerusalem’s Religious Symbolism in Islam?”, al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā – The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists 22 (2010) [publ. 2014]: 3–8. See also Zayde Antrim, “A Thirteenth-Century faḍāʾil Treatise on Syria and Damascus,” al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā – The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists 21/1–2 (2009) [publ. 2012]: 5–7.



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Arabic and Latin Sources Faced with the high diversity of the early traditions and the subsequent dominance of the Islamic narrative the question arises of to what extent the Arabic historiography of the crusades informs us about the actual events that took place during the conquest of Jerusalem. As the Syrian and Egyptian reports include little detail, the most interesting account to compare with the contemporary Latin sources discussed by Benjamin Kedar is Ibn al-Athīr’s tripartite Islamic narrative. The overlapping areas between the Arabic and the Latin reports are few due to the early Arabic sources’ brevity. In addition, the Arabic sources took no interest in a number of issues that featured prominently in Latin sources, for instance the role of individual leaders such as Tancred, Raymond of Saint-Gilles and Gaston of Béarn. While the reason for this absence is self-evident, there is another set of silences in the Arabic texts that is more interesting. A number of Latin sources (Gesta Francorum, Peter Tudebode, Fulcher of Chartres, Albert of Aachen, Guibert of Nogent, Baudri of Bourgueil and Robert the Monk) ascribed an important role to the fact that many Muslims sought refuge on the roof of Solomon’s Temple/the Aqṣā Mosque where they were subsequently massacred. This element was entirely absent in the contemporary and near-contemporary Arabic sources of the Syrian and Egyptian traditions. The Aqṣā Mosque only started to play an important role from Ibn al-Athīr onwards. A similar example would be the siege of David’s Tower: Ibn al-Qalānisī had reported it, but it was Ibn al-Athīr who added a number of details, most importantly the length of the siege (three days), the safe-conduct and the subsequent move to Ascalon. Virtually all Latin sources referred to the siege and safe-conduct with some mentioning that those who surrendered moved to Ascalon (such as Gesta Francorum, Peter Tudebode and Fulcher of Chartres). Ibn al-Athīr also gave a number of other details on the siege that had been absent from earlier Arabic sources (the Muslim defence focused on the southern wall, a siege tower on this side was destroyed by fire, the town was taken from the north) but were well established in the Latin sources. The peculiar shape of Ibn al-Athīr’s factual information raises the question as to the nature of his source(s) for these details and here the Latin historiography might come in. Despite the crucial role that the Iraqi tradition played in forming Ibn al-Athīr’s text, all those factual details where Ibn al-Athīr’s version overlaps with Latin sources are not to be found in the Iraqi tradition. As there was almost complete silence on these matters in the Syrian and Egyptian traditions as well, Ibn al-Athīr must have relied on a source that has not come down to us. A number of early Syrian sources have been lost and it is thus mere speculation which one(s) contained such details. However, as the overlap with Latin historiography is striking, it is at least a possibility that Ibn al-Athīr used Ḥamdān b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm’s The Way of the Franks or a similar Arabic text written by an author in close contact with the Frankish communities of Syria. As Ḥamdān must have had knowledge of the reports circulating in Latin sources, his text might have played a role in linking the two historiographical traditions.

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Many of the seemingly most interesting and original factual details in Ibn al-Athīr’s text are thus arguably not so much independent Arabic material but might be a reworked version of Latin reports that were included at this point into the Islamic narrative. The suggestion that Ibn al-Athīr’s report might indirectly rely on Latin sources is less counterintuitive as it might seem at first glance. While little research has been done on this issue, a case like that of Ibn Wāṣil shows that such lines of transmission were possible. Ibn Wāṣil spent several months as Mamluk envoy to the Hohenstaufen court in southern Italy. His chronicle bears witness to his close interaction with the local non-Muslim society as he makes repeated references to the political conflicts between Papacy and Emperor.105 One of the few instances in his main chronicle, The Dissipater of Anxieties, where he reported an event that actually took place after the year in which his text ended is a report on the Battle of Benevento between Charles of Anjou and Manfred in 1266 (misdated by him by one year to 663/1264–65).106 Ibn Wāṣil was also the only medieval Arabic author who contributed his own anecdote to the rich material that originated in Normandy, Byzantium, France and Germany on disputed elections in the Holy Roman Empire.107 The close interaction between Latin and Arabic traditions is finally evident from Ibn Wāṣil’s reference to an unknown Latin knight when reporting on the alleged correspondence between Frederick II and al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb during the Seventh Crusade.108 In the same vein, Ibn al-Athīr’s report on the correspondence between Roger II of Sicily and a fictive Baldwin in order to explain the course of the First Crusade hints at similar lines of transmissions. Whereas his report is very much aimed at depicting the Sicilian ruler as a primitive barbarian, it shows an awareness of geo-political dynamics in the Latin Mediterranean that goes beyond the polemical level.109 Virtually all those factual details in Ibn al-Athīr’s text that do not overlap with the Latin tradition go back to Ibn al-Jawzī’s report. The information on the delegation is obviously absent from Latin sources as it was firmly embedded within the context of Iraqi politics and was of little relevance for the authors of the Latin texts. The plundering of the Dome of the Rock is more interesting because Ibn al-Athīr clearly drew on Ibn al-Jawzī and this plundering was also mentioned in the Latin tradition: specifically, Albert of Aachen and Ralph of Caen both report this.110 105 

Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb, vols. I–V, ed. J. al-Shayyāl, Ḥ. al-Rabīʿ and S. ʿĀshūr (Cairo, 1953–77); vol. VI, ed. M. Rahim (Wiesbaden, 2010); here IV, 248–51. 106  Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij, IV, 251. 107  Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij, IV, 249–50. On this issue, see Björn Weiler, “Tales of Trickery and Deceit: The Election of Frederick Barbarossa (1152), Historical Memory and the Culture of Kingship in Later Staufen Germany,” Journal of Medieval History 38/3 (2012): 295–317. 108  Peter Jackson, The Seventh Crusade, 1244–1254: Sources and Documents (Aldershot, 2007), 47; Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij, III, 247–48. 109  Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, X, 272–73. 110  Albert of Aachen, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. S. Edgington (Oxford, 2007), 432–34; Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi, RHC Oc 3:695–96. My thanks to Conor Kostick for helping me with these passages.



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In contrast to the details of the siege, where Ibn al-Athīr might have relied on the Latin tradition, it is evident that this original Iraqi report is entirely independent from Latin texts. Neither Albert nor Ralph has any of the elements of the plunder (forty lanterns and lamp/tannūr) that were to be crucial for the Islamic narrative. If we turn to the topic that was central to Kedar’s article, the massacre, the positive evidence of the Arabic sources is of little help with clarifying the contradictory picture that emerges from the Latin sources. Neither the Syrian, Egyptian and Iraqi traditions, nor the Islamic narrative have any of the evocative detail of the Latin sources, such as slicing and burning corpses in search for gold (Fulcher of Chartres and Bartolf of Nangis), the town filled with corpses (for instance, Gesta Francorum and Peter Tudebode) or the killing of those Muslims who were forced to drag the corpses out of town after the first massacre (Guibert of Nogent). Even such basic information as the length of the massacre – given in the Latin sources as either one day (Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, Bartolf of Nangis, Baudri of Bourgueil and “Baldwin III”), two days (Gesta Francorum, Peter Tudebode, Guibert of Nogent and Robert the Monk), or three days (Albert of Aachen) – is entirely absent from the Arabic sources. Only Ibn al-Athīr has something to say on this, yet he introduced a fourth time span for the massacre: one week. Finally, on the issue of the massacre’s extent the Arabic sources have little to add. Ibn al-Jawzī’s number of 70,000 is of as little factual value as Ibn al-ʿArabī’s figure of 3,000. The most important tradition for this would be the Syrian texts, but they are either silent or have only Ibn al-Qalānisī’s “many” victims. In other words, the most informative Arabic text on the fall of Jerusalem, Ibn al-Athīr’s report, is either identical to the Latin tradition or relies on Ibn al-Jawzī’s text – a source that is debatable, to say the least. That Ibn al-Jawzī used terminology and imagery drawn from the Koran and ḥadīth is not by itself problematic, just as the employment of biblical imagery does not in itself invalidate the Latin reports on massacres. The main problem is rather that a text written in Baghdad more than half a century after the events – hardly a convincing “primary” source – introduced out of a historiographical void two elements (plunder and delegation) and significantly expanded upon a third (massacre). The wealth of information that Ibn al-Jawzī, and following him Ibn al-Athīr, had at their disposal is particularly dubious if compared with the little information that the surviving contemporary and near-contemporary texts by Ibn al-Qulzumī, Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-ʿAẓīmī, Ibn al-Qalānisī and Ibn al-Azraq al-Fāriqī provided. Overall, a comparative reading of the Arabic sources on the conquest of Jerusalem with the Latin sources yields little reliable factual material that is clearly independent from the Latin tradition.

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Conclusion The development of the Arabic historiography on the conquest of Jerusalem from (regional) diversity in the sixth/twelfth century to the dominant Islamic narrative in the early seventh/thirteenth century problematizes, on the one hand, the factuality of the accounts and, on the other, contributes to the history of perceptions of the events. In factual terms, the above discussion has shown that Ibn al-Athīr’s narrative cannot be quoted as a primary source for most aspects of the conquest. It is an artful reworking of several regional traditions, perhaps even, though indirectly, Latin historiography. The most important of the “original” Arabic traditions, the Iraqi tradition, can also claim little historicity. Beyond doubt, massacre, plunder from the Dome of the Rock, and the delegation to Baghdad did take place after the town had fallen. Yet, Ibn al-Jawzī’s version of these events cannot be taken as an authoritative account. With Ibn al-Jawzī’s and Ibn al-Athīr’s later accounts largely discarded, we are left with the very brief – and highly contradictory – texts from the Syrian and Egyptian traditions. These texts offer contemporary and near-contemporary versions of the events that are far more credible than the polished texts of the Iraqi tradition and the Islamic narrative. When one considers these reports, it is beyond doubt that there was a massacre, as Ibn al-ʿArabī, Ibn al-Qalānisī and, arguably, al-ʿAẓīmī all reported that it did take place. Presumably, this massacre targeted the Jewish population in particular but also parts of the Muslim population. Yet, the absence of more information on the Jerusalem conquest is evidence that contemporary authors did not consider the Jerusalem massacre to be beyond what was the usual practice of medieval warfare when a town or city was taken by sword. Only the emphasis of al-ʿAẓīmī and Ibn al-Qalānisī on the burning of the synagogue indicates that this was seen to be beyond the usual practices of warfare. That Jerusalem witnessed a large-scale massacre as brutal as the one described in the Latin sources, without contemporary and nearcontemporary Arabic sources recording it, simply beggars belief. The question why Latin chroniclers chose to insert the full-scale massacre into their narratives is beyond the scope of this article. Yet, the Arabic sources make it impossible to claim that it took place. The Latin reports on the fall of Jerusalem are strikingly similar to Byzantine reports of the Sasanian conquest of the city some six centuries earlier, and it might be most fruitful to read the reports on 1099 in a comparative light. Contemporaneous (especially Byzantine) Christendom saw the Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 as an unparalleled calamity. Byzantine reports described the comprehensive destruction and profanation of Jerusalem’s Christian shrines, the large-scale massacres of its Christian population and the deportation of the survivors. Yet, as Yuri Stoyanov has recently pointed out, the archaeological evidence draws a very different picture, namely that the impact of the conquest of 614 on the city was negligible. The Byzantine reports fell back on biblical typology in describing the conquest, especially apocalyptic and eschatological material, and drew heavily



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on standard topoi of anti-Sasanian writings. The discrepancies between narrative sources and archaeological evidence allow thus to re-read the Byzantine conquest narratives as attempts to set the Sasanian conquest in the framework of paradigmatic biblical events.111 In the same vein, the Latin reports on 1099 should probably be read less as the expression of “a new level of violence, leading to battles that in scale and character were truly apocalyptic,”112 and rather as attempts to set the First Crusade into such a narrative framework. The reports were arguably embellished to underline the ritual cleansing of the Holy Land and to further the cause of crusading – tellingly “it was in revisions of such accounts by Western chroniclers who had never visited the Levant that the massacre stories achieved their most gruesome form.”113 As for the second implication of this article, the history of perceptions of the conquest, the development of the conquest narratives is a classic example of the extent to which the importance and meanings ascribed to the crusades fluctuated over time in the Arabic sources. It was only in Iraq in the later sixth/twelfth century that the fall of Jerusalem started to be remembered as meaningful on a significant level, and the refined Islamic narrative of continuous Frankish–Muslim confrontation only emerged in early seventh-/thirteenth-century northern Mesopotamia and Syria. Authors of historical works contemporary and near-contemporary to the fall of Jerusalem, by contrast, were not overly concerned with the conquest of the town. Kedar argued with regard to the Jerusalem massacre in Western historiography that “for a historian’s perception of the massacre, basic values and attitudes may be more important than exposure to sources ….”114 The findings of the present discussion show that the situation is similar in medieval Arabic historiography: new perspectives on the fall of Jerusalem emerged not because new sources became available, but because the attitude towards crusading and the Frankish presence in Syria had changed. The remembrance of the fall of Jerusalem in Arabic historiography thus showed diversity along the chronological and the regional axes. The latter argument is not intended to resurrect the old assumption in the study of early Arabic historiography that rigid regional historiographical “schools” existed.115 Rather, it is meant to underline this article’s central contention that twelfth-century Arabic historiography is not part of some ahistorical “Muslim” discourse, but has to be studied in its 111  Yuri Stoyanov, Defenders and Enemies of the True Cross: The Sasanian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 and Byzantine Ideology of anti-Persian Warfare (Vienna, 2011). 112  Jay Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse (New York, 2011), 203. 113  Rory Cox, “Asymmetric Warfare and Military Conduct in the Middle Ages,” Journal of Medieval History 38/1 (2012): 100–125, here 118–19. See on this also David Hay, “Gender Bias and Religious Intolerance in Accounts of the ‘Massacres’ of the First Crusade,” in Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, ed. M. Gervers and J. M. Powell (Syracuse, 1991), 3–10. 114  Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre,” 75. 115  As already refuted by Albrecht Noth, “Der Charakter der ersten großen Sammlungen von Nachrichten zur frühen Kalifenzeit,” Der Islam 47 (1971): 168–99.

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specific historical contexts. This historical context is best expressed with regional markers as these usefully highlight that Ibn al-ʿArabī’s text, for instance, emerged in a radically different context compared to Ibn al-Jawzī’s text. This is not to argue that such regional categories are essential for studying medieval Arabic historiography in general. Rather, these are useful categories with regard to the specific example discussed in this article, the conquest of Jerusalem. However, this case study draws attention to the fact that regional categories should not be entirely discarded in the study of Arabic historiography. The paradigm of the cosmopolitan and ever-mobile medieval scholar might have obscured the parochialism and localism of a number of authors of historiographical texts. Finally, the changes and transformations within Arabic historiography reiterate the importance of not overstating the role of the crusades even in those societies in the Arabic lands that were directly affected by them. In particular, the extent to which the conquest of Jerusalem played an outstanding role in the early crusading period is debatable, as is the extent to which large sections of Muslim societies perceived it to be a major event.116 There is little indication in Syrian and Egyptian historiography that the fall of Jerusalem caused “shock and outrage amongst Muslim intellectuals, religious leaders and politicians over the next century and a half,”117 or that the “Muslim world was profoundly shocked by this Christian barbarity.”118 A reading of the texts discussed in this article shows that it is also counter-inductive to argue that “the massacre of July 15, 1099 was an event that provoked horror in … the Islamic world, and was not forgotten.”119 The process worked rather in the opposite direction, as the conquest of Jerusalem was only discovered as an important place of remembrance several decades after it took place. Until the early seventh/thirteenth century the “Muslim world” apparently had very divergent ideas about what had happened on that day and what was the meaning of these events.

116 

See for instance Daphna Ephrat and Mustafa D. Kabha, “Muslim Reactions to the Frankish Presence in Bilād al-Shām: Intensifying Religious Fidelity within the Masses,” Al-Masaq 15 (2003): 47–58; Hadia Dajani-Shakeel, “A Reassessment of Some Medieval and Modern Perceptions of the Counter-Crusade,” in The Jihād and Its Times, ed. H. Dajani-Shakeel and R. A. Messier (Ann Arbor, 1991), 41–70; Nikita Elisséeff, “The Reaction of the Syrian Muslims after the Foundation of the First Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,” in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. M. Shatzmiller (Leiden, 1993), 162–72; Hadia Dajani-Shakeel, “Jerusalem and the First Crusade,” in Jerusalem’s Heritage: Essays in Memory of Kāmil Jamil Asali, ed. Ṣ. Hamarneh (Amman, 1996), 39–55; Osman Latiff, “The Place of Faḍā’il al-Quds (Merits of Jerusalem) Literature and Religious Poetry in the Muslim Effort to Recapture Jerusalem during the Crusades,” (PhD thesis, Royal Holloway University of London, 2011). 117  Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London, 2006), 158. 118  H. E. Mayer, The Crusades, trans. J. Gillingham (Oxford, 1988), 56. 119  Nikolas Jaspert, The Crusades, trans. P. Jestice (New York and London, 2006), 45.

Geoffrey, Prior of the Templum Domini, On the Seven Books of Josephus Julian Yolles Harvard University [email protected] Abstract This article presents an edition of a twelfth-century versification of Josephus’ Jewish War composed by Geoffrey, prior and later abbot of the Templum Domini in Jerusalem. The versification is the third and final poem in a three-part collection, the first of which was composed by Achard of Arrouaise, Geoffrey’s predecessor as prior of the Templum Domini, while the second poem comprises a versification made by Geoffrey of 1 and 2 Maccabees. The present edition is preceded by a brief discussion of the available prosopographical evidence surrounding Geoffrey, who played an important role in Jerusalemite politics in the mid-twelfth century. A more detailed overview of the manuscript evidence and affiliations of the manuscripts follows, concluding with a short discussion of the sources used by Geoffrey in his versification and a brief statement on the editorial principles underlying the edition.

Introduction In 1941, Paul Lehmann edited the first of three long poems on the Templum Domini in Jerusalem, composed by Achard of Arrouaise, prior of the Templum Domini, and his successor Geoffrey, who would later be abbot of the Templum.1 Despite Lehmann’s valuable work in not only editing the first of these poems, but also in identifying the historical and literary significance of these works, the two remaining poems, composed by Geoffrey, received little to no scholarly attention in the subsequent decades, for it was not until 2010 that the second poem was edited by Eyal Poleg.2 After more than seventy years since the appearance of the edition of the first poem, I am pleased to present here a critical edition of the third and final poem. I am deeply appreciative of the helpful suggestions of the Textual Criticism Workshop of the Department of the Classics at Harvard University: Charles Bartlett, Coleman Connelly, Tom Keeline, David Ungvary, and especially Justin Stover, who offered invaluable comments and helped transcribe some of the more difficult glosses. Finally, I am very grateful to Prof. Richard Tarrant (Harvard University) for his guidance throughout. 1  Paul Lehmann, “Die mittellateinischen Dichtungen der Prioren des Tempels von Jerusalem Acardus und Gaufridus,” in Corona Quernea, Festgabe Karl Strecker zum 80. Geburtstage dargebracht, MGH Schriften 6 (Leipzig, 1941), 296–330. 2  Eyal Poleg, “On the Books of Maccabees: An Unpublished Poem by Geoffrey, Prior of the Templum Domini,” Crusades 9 (2010): 13–56. 77

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The first poem, composed by Achard of Arrouaise in fifteen-syllable lines with end rhyme, deals with the history of the Templum Domini, as presented in the Old Testament. The acrostic in the first 30 lines of the poem (BALDVINO REGI PRIOR TEMPLI ACARDVS) indicates that the poem was addressed to King Baldwin, which could refer to either Baldwin I of Boulogne or Baldwin II of Bourcq. The second poem, composed by Geoffrey in sixteen-syllable lines with internal or leonine rhyme, is a versification of 1 and 2 Maccabees. The third poem, also written by Geoffrey in sixteen-syllable leonine lines, presents a versification of a Latin translation of Josephus’ Jewish War. While not a widely diffused text, of the three poems the third poem is contained in the largest number of manuscripts, ranging from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, indicating that there was interest in copying this text in particular across a span of several centuries. One of the manuscripts (L, see below) wrongly attributes all three poems to Geoffrey, instead of only the last two poems, and presents the incipit of the collection as Incipit opus Gaufridi prioris de templo super libros Machabeorum (“The work of Prior Geoffrey of the Temple on the Books of Maccabees begins”), while giving the incipit of the third poem as Incipit tertius de septem libris Iosephi (“The third [book], on the seven books of Josephus, begins”), which I have adopted as the title for the third poem. Selections of the poem were printed first by Dom Germain Morin in 1914, who knew the poem only through the version contained in a fifteenth-century manuscript in Cambridge (D, see below).3 Morin considered the poem to be a versification of Ps.-Hegesippus, and printed those portions that appear to be original contributions on the part of the poet: ll. 1–11, 411–36, 627–43, 726–45, 952–70. Based on the fact that the extended praise of the Gauls (ll. 726–45) does not appear in Ps.-Hegesippus, Morin suggested that it may be possible that the poet was of French origin.4 This section does, however, appear in Ps.-Rufinus’ translation of Josephus,5 and contributes to the evidence that Geoffrey made use of Ps.-Rufinus in addition to Ps.-Hegesippus’ paraphrase, as will be argued more extensively elsewhere.6

3 

Germain Morin, “Hégésippe en rimes latines,” Revue Bénédictine 31 (1914): 174–78. Ibid., 176. 5  Bellum Iudaicum 2.16, p. 684 in the early modern printed edition: Flavii Iosephi, Patria Hierosolymitani, religione Iudaei, inter Graecos historiographos cum primis facundi, opera quaedam Ruffino presbytero interprete (Basle, 1524), 593–852. 6  I am currently preparing for publication a companion piece to the present edition (with the provisional title “Prolegomena to a New Edition of Geoffrey, Prior of the Templum Domini, On the Seven Books of Josephus”), dealing more extensively with the sources used by Geoffrey and the intended audience and purpose of the poem; this is based on a paper I presented at the Eighth Quadrennial Conference of the SSCLE (25–29 June 2012, Cáceres, Spain). 4 

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The Poets Achard of Arrouaise was an Augustinian hermit at Saint-Nicolas d’Arrouaise, who, upon becoming archdeacon of Thérouanne, travelled to the Holy Land with Kuno, cardinal legate and bishop of Praeneste, in the year 1108.7 Achard is first mentioned in charters as the prior of the Templum Domini in 1112.8 He is mentioned for the last time in a charter dating between Christmas 1135 and September 1, 1136,9 and since his successor Geoffrey is mentioned in two charters dating between September 24 and December 24 of 1137, he must have died sometime in the period between late 1135 and the end of 1137.10 Little is known about our poet Geoffrey:11 he is first mentioned in a charter of the Templum Domini dating to the period of September 24 to December 24 of the year 1137, where he is listed as prior Templi Domini.12 From the same period dates a charter where Geoffrey is listed as abbas Templi Domini,13 indicating that the institutional change of priory to abbey must have occurred at some point in the fall of 1137. We are also fortunate to possess a letter by Geoffrey to Count Geoffrey of Anjou, where he refers to himself as dominici ac sanctissimi Templi quod est in Ierusalem prior.14 From this, combined with the fact that the incipit of one of the manuscripts (L) attributes all three books of the poem to “Prior Geoffrey,” we may conclude that Geoffrey succeeded Achard as prior of the Temple before its status changed from a priory to an abbey, and that he probably wrote the poems in this period – that is, between late 1135 and December 24 of 1137. Geoffrey ceases to be mentioned in charters after 1160,15 and in April of 1166 we find his successor Hugh as a witness in charters.16 Geoffrey is mentioned twice by William of Tyre, both times as an envoy sent on an embassy to the Byzantine Emperors John II Komnenos and Manuel I Komnenos, in 1142 and in 1159, respectively, for which task he was 7 

Lehmann, “Die mittellateinischen Dichtungen,” 299–300. Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, ed. H. E. Mayer, MGH Diplomata regum Latinorum Hierosolymitanorum (Hanover, 2010), vol. 1, no. 52. 9  RRH, no. 167; edited in Cart St Sép, no. 61. 10  RRH, nos. 172 and 173. 11  For what little information we have about the life of Geoffrey, see Rudolf Hiestand, “Gaufridus abbas Templi Domini: An Underestimated Figure in the Early History of the Kingdom of Jerusalem,” in EC, 2, pp. 48–59; Amnon Linder, “An Unpublished Charter of Geoffrey, Abbot of the Temple in Jerusalem,” in Outremer, 119–29. 12  RRH, no. 173; edited in Cart Tem, no. 141, where it is incorrectly dated to September 1, 1137 – April 2, 1138. On the dating, see H. E. Mayer, Die Kanzlei der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, Schriften der MGH 40 (Hanover, 1996), 2:857. The significant fact that Geoffrey is listed here as prior rather than abbas appears to have gone unnoticed by scholars. 13  RRH, no. 172; edited in Cart St Sép, no. 23, where it is wrongly dated between January 1 and February 5 of 1138. For objections to this dating, see Mayer, Die Kanzlei, 2:856–57, where the charter is dated to September 24 – December 24 of 1137. 14  See Hiestand, “Gaufridus abbas,” 52–53, 58. 15  Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, vol. 1, no. 260. 16  Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, vol. 2, no. 316. 8 

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well-suited because of his proficiency in Greek, on which William remarks with some admiration.17 The Manuscript Evidence Lehmann noted the existence of five manuscripts containing Achard’s poem, three of which contain all three poems while the remaining two contain portions of the first poem only. In his edition of the second poem, Poleg identified a twelfth-century manuscript that contains a short fragment of the end of the second poem. To these manuscripts a further four manuscripts need to be added, three of which contain the third poem only, while the fourth contains a short fragment of the end of the third poem. As these manuscripts have hitherto escaped the attention of scholars, I will first offer a more extensive description of them before giving a brief overview of those manuscripts already mentioned by Lehmann. For the sake of brevity, I will limit myself here to those manuscripts that contain the third poem, and refer those interested in the fragments of the first and second poems to Lehmann and Poleg, respectively. Manuscripts Containing the Third Poem only18 A British Library, Royal 8 F.ix, fol. 1v. Vellum. Late twelfth-century fragment containing the last 19 lines of the poem as well as the final 10 dactylic hexameters. No explicit. The use of the tironian abbreviation for et points to a dating of at least the second half of the twelfth century, while a late-twelfth-century dating is probable due to the closed lobe of the letter g and the smaller size of the lower lobe of the g in l. 970 compared to the upper lobe – but contrast the larger lower lobe in l. 978, which would favor a late-twelfth-century dating over a thirteenth-century one. The fragment is used as a fly-leaf for a collection of three different gatherings in various hands dating to the fourteenth century, containing (1) a fragment of the anonymous Interpretationes nominum Hebraicorum, (2) three unidentified sermons, (3) the French metrical romance of Guy of Warwick. The poem is copied as poetry, with line breaks corresponding to verse endings. Catalog entry in G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (London, 1921), 267–68. C Carpentras, Bibliothèque municipale (Inguimbertine), MS 168, fols. 73v–82v. Parchment. Late twelfth century. No incipit or explicit. The poem is copied in 17 

WT, 15.21, 18.24. For background on the following palaeographic discussions, consult Albert Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 2003). 18 



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two columns as poetry, with line breaks corresponding to the ends of verses. The presence of both open and closed lower lobes of the g indicates a hand of the second half of the twelfth century, while the occasional occurrence of the halfuncial, upright d makes a thirteenth-century dating unlikely. The abbreviation for con- in the shape of a figure 9 on the baseline, as well as the angular treatment of h with a lengthed limb in combination with the general round features of the script point to an early form of a Southern Textualis from southern France. The manuscript comprises a collection of various texts of various dates: canons of the Fourth Lateran Council (thirteenth century), unidentified sermons (twelfth century), unidentified sermons in various hands (thirteenth century), sermons on Easter attributed to Augustine (twelfth century); after Geoffrey’s poem follows a brief extract of Isidore’s Chronicle in the same hand, directly followed by an unidentified sermo de tempore in a later hand; the remainder of the manuscript contains a number of thirteenth-century sermons in various hands. Catalog entry in Léopold Duhamel, Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France (Paris, 1901), 34/1:98–100, where it is mistakenly listed as a “histoire de la Bible.” D Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 1.3.3, James 56, fols. 128r–139v. Vellum. Fifteenth century. Title: Continuacio novi et veteris testamenti. No explicit. The ten lines of hexameters at the end are lacking. The use of initial figure 6-shaped round s identifies this cursive hand as a Cursiva Recentior of the Anglicana type, while the use of single-compartment a dates the hand to the fifteenth century. The manuscript contains three parts, all of which contain works of Jerome and Ps.-Jerome. Geoffrey’s poem is written in the second part and is preceded (in the same hand) by Ps.-Jerome’s Commentary on Mark.19 For a brief description, which focuses on the first part of the manuscript, see Libri de nativitate Mariae, ed. R. Beyers, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 10 (Turnhout, 1997), 65. Catalog entry in M. R. James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emmanuel College (Cambridge, 1904), 48–49. Discussed, with selections printed, in Germain Morin, “Hégésippe en rimes latines,” Revue Bénédictine 31 (1914): 174–78. E Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS 6121, fols. 18r–25r. Vellum. Late twelfth century. Title: Continuatio veteris et novi testamenti. No explicit. The ten lines of hexameters at the end are lacking. Note the general avoidance of fusion or biting, except in the case of double p, the lateral compression of o, forking of ascenders, the consistent use of the ampersand, and the inconsistent use of straight and round s in final position, all of which points to a littera praegothica of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Initials are executed in alternating red and blue decorative penwork. There are seventeenth-century marginalia throughout. Other 19  A critical edition is found in Expositio Evangelii secundum Marcum, ed. Michael Cahill, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 82 (Turnhout, 1997); an English translation can be found in The First Commentary on Mark: An Annotated Translation, trans. Michael Cahill (New York, 1998).

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texts (all in the same hand): Ps.-Jerome’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark, which immediately precedes Geoffrey’s poem, as well as a number of sermons and treatises attributed to Augustine. Part of the Borthwick of Crookston Medieval Manuscripts Collection. Provenance: the Cistercian Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire, England. Brief description in N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries (Oxford, 1969–2002), 2:527. Catalog entry in Catalogue of Manuscripts Acquired since 1925 (Edinburgh, 1938–92), 4:103–04. Manuscripts Containing All Three Poems20 L Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laudianus misc. 406, fols. 1r–65r, bk. 3 fols. 43r–65r. Parchment. Late twelfth, early thirteenth century. Possibly from northern France. Provenance: from the last donation of Archbishop Laud of Canterbury. Incipit: Incipit opus Gaufridi prioris de templo super libros Machabeorum. Incipit of the third poem: Incipit tertius de septem libris Iosephi. Explicit: Explicit liber tercius: Alius tractatus de eadem materia. The poem is copied as poetry, with line breaks corresponding to the ends of verses. Other works (in the same hand): poems of Ps.-Damasus (Psallere qui docuit)21 and Eugenius of Toledo (Nescit mens nostra),22 as well as numerous works ascribed to Jerome. Between Ps.-Damasus and Eugenius are inserted four leaves (fols. 66–69) containing an unedited poem by Domenico Mancini (d. before 1514) on the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 174 rhythmic fourteen-syllable lines in a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century hand (Patet in hoc speculo gestorum res horrenda).23 Catalog entry in H. O. Coxe and R. W. Hunt, Laudian Manuscripts. Reprinted from the edition of 1858–85, with corrections and additions, and a historical introduction by R. W. Hunt, Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae, Quarto Catalogues 2 (Oxford, 1973), 298–99. O Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS 603 (Western MS 2394), fols. 72v–118v, bk. 3 fols. 103v–118v. Parchment. Circa 1200. French provenance. No title or incipit. The poem is copied as poetry, with line breaks corresponding to the ends of verses. Other works: the poems of Ps.-Damasus (Psallere qui docuit) and Eugenius of Toledo (Nescit mens nostra) are copied in the same hand immediately afterward, 20 

For detailed palaeographic descriptions of the following manuscripts, see Poleg, “On the Books of the Maccabees,” 15–17. 21  Damasi Epigrammata, ed. M. Ihm, Anthologiae Latinae Supplementa I (Leipzig, 1895), no. 63; H. Walther, Initia carminum ac versuum Medii Aevi posterioris Latinorum (Göttingen 1959), no. 14885; D. Schaller, Initia carminum Latinorum saeculo undecimo antiquiorum (Göttingen, 1977), no. 12730. 22  Eugenius of Toledo, Nescit mens nostra, PL 87:360; Walther, Initia, no. 11749; Schaller, Initia, no. 10177. 23  Other manuscripts containing this poem are: Munich Clm 12115, fols. 298–300; Bibl. nat. Paris lat. 692, fols. 108–110 (it was added later in this manuscript by a fifteenth-century hand, with the name Willelmus Pateryk occurring at the end).

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where Ps.-Damasus is appended to the poem without any separation; a number of unedited rhythmical poems on various themes precede Achard and Geoffrey’s poems. Detailed manuscript description in A. G. Rigg, “Medieval Latin Poetic Anthologies (III),” Mediaeval Studies 41 (1979): 468–505, at 488–96. Catalog entry in F. Madan and H. H. E. Craster, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Oxford, 1895–1953), 2/1: 345–46. Only the 299 lines of bk. 1 lacking in R were edited by A. C. Clark, “Poème sur le temple de Salomon par Achard d’Arrouaise,” ROL 12 (1911): 263–75. V Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 187, fols. 109–130, bk. 3 fols. 123r–130r. Parchment. Second half of the twelfth century. Provenance: the Benedictine abbey of Saint-André de Ville Neuve (Avignon), as indicated in a fourteenth-century hand on fol. 1: Iste liber est monasterii sancti andree, dyocesis avinionensis. No title or incipit. The poem is copied as poetry, with line breaks corresponding to the ends of verses. Other works: immediately preceding the poems is copied, in the same hand, a treatise titled De ecclesie ordinibus (fols. 69r–76v, Inc. Legitur in historia ecclesiastica),24 and an excerpt of Ps.-Jerome’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark (fols. 77r–92v), as well as Ps.-Jerome’s Libellus de nativitate sanctae Mariae (fols. 93r–95r),25 and sententiae excerpted from various works of Augustine, while following the poems (fols. 130r–v) is an excerpt from Zacharias Chrysopolitanus’ In unum ex quatuor (a commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron), dealing with the dedication of Solomon’s Temple (this text is not listed in the catalog below).26 The presence of this particular text may be of significance for the dating of this manuscript, in that its author died after 1157, which would make a dating early in the second half of the twelfth century very early and unlikely.27 A brief description of the manuscript (which does not mention Achard and Geoffrey’s poems) can be found in Daniel S. Taylor, “A New Inventory of Manuscripts of the ‘Micrologus de ecclesiasticis observationibus’ of Bernold of Constance,” Scriptorium 52:1 (1998): 162–91, at 173–74; see also the description in Beyers, Libri de nativitate Mariae, 47. Catalog entry in A. Castan, Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France. Départements (Paris, 1897), 24 

This is text is attributed in some manuscripts to Amalarius of Metz, and elsewhere has the incipit Legitur in ecclesiastica historia Nabuchodonosor regem Babilonie Ierusalem bellando destruxisse. See Clavis scriptorum latinorum Medii Aevi: auctores galliae 735–987, ed. M.-H. Jullien and F. Perelman, CCCM (Turnhout, 1994), vol. 1, Amalarius Metensis Ps. 4, p. 140. The text is edited in Liber Quare, ed. G. P. Götz, CCCM 60 (Turnhout, 1983), App. II, add. 63, p. 201. 25  For a critical edition of this text, see Libri de nativitate Mariae, ed. R. Beyers, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 10 (Turnhout, 1997). 26  Zacharias Chrysopolitanus, In unum ex quattuor, PL 136:11–620. 27  For more on Zacharias Chrysopolitanus (also known as Zachary of Besançon), see G. R. Evans, “Zachary of Besançon and the Bible’s Contradictions,” Analecta Praemonstratensia 58 (1982): 319–23, and more recently Lesley Smith, The Glossa ordinaria: The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary (Leiden, 2009), 199. Zachary’s work Unum ex quatuor has been provisionally dated to ca. 1140–45 by Damien van den Eynde, “Les Magistri du commentaire Unum ex quatuor de Zacharias Chrysopolitanus,” Antonianum 23 (1948): 3–32, 181–220.

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32/1: 128–30. The first poem was edited by E. G. Ledos, “Un nouveau manuscrit du poème d’Achard d’Arrouaise sur le Templum Domini,” Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 77 (1916): 58–73. Manuscript Affiliations Although V is the oldest manuscript, possibly copied within a few decades of the composition of the poem, the slightly later L clearly presents the best text with the fewest errors. V does not appear to be particularly closely related to the other manuscripts, although it clearly has closer affinity with LO (in its readings as well as by the notable fact that it contains all three poems) and sometimes C than with DE. Particularly illustrative in this regard is the clearly erroneous reading of uxore for uxori at l. 78 in LOV, as well as the additional reading of qui quibus congerrimini [sic] at l. 833 that has been supplied in the margin of V, closely resembling qui quibus congredimini in CL (the main text in V presents the majority reading cum quibus congredimini), which suggests that both variants were in the exemplar from which V was copied. On a rare occasion, V preserves a correct reading not found in any other manuscript, as in the reading in luto seu in latere at l. 843, where the other manuscripts omit the second in, thereby rendering the line unmetrical. O must have been written at around the same time as L, and agrees with the reading of L in most cases. A. G. Rigg suggests that O was copied from L, which also contains the poems of Ps.-Damasus (Psallere qui docuit) and Eugenius of Toledo (Nescit mens nostra) in the same order immediately after the poem, and contains marginal paragraph marks corresponding to the decorated initials in O, but adds that the frequent variant readings and transpositions in O suggest that another manuscript was used in conjunction with L when O was copied.28 The paragraph marks and initials in LO, in fact, correspond to the paragraph marks in V, as well as to most of the rubrics found in DE, indicating that this is likely a feature that goes back to the archetype. In this light, it may be that the relation between L and O is not vertical, as suggested by Rigg, but rather horizontal, where LO share the same exemplar. C offers a markedly inferior text with frequent errors and confused orthography of names in particular (see especially the reading Cato for the Emperor Otho in l. 515). E is written in a careful hand with few errors, and presents a text that is clearly of a tradition separate from that of CLOV. D, a much later manuscript from the fifteenth century, agrees with E in all major divergences from the majority readings, so much so that it stands to reason that it was copied directly from E. The most marked of these instances are: discedere for descendere in l. 121, occurrerat for occurrebat in l. 124, inaccessibele for inexpugnabile in l. 169, 28 

at 489.

A. G. Rigg, “Medieval Latin Poetic Anthologies (III),” Mediaeval Studies 41 (1979): 468–505,

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cespite for lapide in l. 173, natus for natu in l. 221, inde for unde at l. 342, Brazas rane for Brazafrane at l. 370, quoddam for quidem in l. 411, natura for nature in l. 438, egrotasset for egrotaret in l. 462, the omission of ob in 493 (but note that O also omitted it, then added it in superscript), nil for hoc in l. 586, itidem for eadem in l. 598, fuerit for dictum sit in l. 622, obiit for obit in l. 648, precepit for preceperit in l. 711, montis for maris at l. 765, the unmetrical quo nullus duxit exercitum for nec rupes celsas Alpium at l. 765 (the scribe here looked ahead to l. 767), quid for que and fieret for fierent in l. 824, rubrum for rubri in l. 919, quoque for namque in l. 924, and inestimabilis for ineffabilis in l. 968. In several instances, DE also share a different word order from the other manuscripts, such as ipsius duos for duos ipsius in l. 218, cum ingenti for ingenti cum in l. 290, perturbata re publica for re perturbata publica at l. 349. There are several other signs that point to a closely related transmission between D and E. Both manuscripts are the only ones to give the title of the poem as a Continuatio (E has Continuatio veteris et novi testamenti, whereas D has Continuacio novi et veteris testamenti). Both manuscripts, moreover, are unique in presenting the poem as prose rather than poetry, with line breaks that do not correspond to verse endings. Furthermore, both manuscripts are the only ones to omit the ten hexameters at the end of the poem. One final piece of evidence is the fact that in both manuscripts the poem is preceded immediately by Ps.-Jerome on the Gospel of Mark (both times copied in the same hand as the poem). Here it may also be worth remarking that V, too, contains this text, although it does not precede the poems directly. It is copied in the same hand, however, which may indicate that the hyparchetype contained Ps.-Jerome’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark.29 DE also share a number of readings with C over against the majority reading, most notably inde for unde in l. 135, tamen for tantum in l. 145, dum for cum in l. 156, providus for optimus in l. 230, trecene for trecente in l. 736. These agreements, however, are not numerous or significant enough to establish a close relation between C and DE. Interesting and somewhat puzzling is the shared reading of perducti for adducti at l. 222 in CDV. In summary: LOV form a group (with LO clearly being a more closely related subgroup), whereas C is at least one copy further removed from the hyparchetype of these three manuscripts; DE form a group distincty removed from the other manuscripts, where E was probably copied from a manuscript that introduced variants from the hyparchetype at an early stage, and where D was probably copied from E; A is too short a fragment to be placed securely into any one of these groups.

29 

V also shares Ps.-Jerome’s Libellus de nativitate sanctae Mariae with D (see n. 25). This text, however, is written in a different, earlier hand in D, and is located in a different section of the manuscript.

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Glosses There are seventeenth-century marginal glosses in a different hand from that of the main text throughout E. These glosses paraphrase and summarize certain passages, often using the same phrases as those in the main text. In order to present the reader with the fullest information possible as to the use and reception of the poem, I have transcribed these glosses, along with the occasional gloss in V and C, and presented them in a separate apparatus. A superscript “1” has been added to the appropriate siglum to indicate a gloss in the same hand as that of the main text, while a superscript “2” indicates a different scribe. Editorial Principles Since the manuscript evidence of the third poem is both more extensive and complex than that of the other two poems, I have decided not to omit any variant readings from the apparatus, apart from purely orthographical variants. Orthography is always a problematic issue when dealing with medieval texts, since scribes tended not to reproduce faithfully the spelling of words and especially proper names as they appeared in their exemplar – or at least not in any consistent manner. It is because of this that no single manuscript containing our poem is internally consistent in its orthography. For the purpose of readability, however, I have decided to present a consistent orthography, even when in some cases there is no manuscript evidence to support the spelling of a word in a particular instance. Like Poleg before me, I have generally adopted the orthography of L, which appears to preserve the largest number of correct readings and to represent the archetype most faithfully. Due to the inconsistent approach to orthography generally found among medieval scribes, such orthographical variants are, most of the time, of little import and do not bear on manuscript affiliations. These variants, which do not alter meaning or meter, I have relegated to an appendix orthographica so as to render the apparatus criticus more perspicuous. However, a rare instance of a complex orthographical issue merits discussion here, which could not be dealt with extensively in the apparatus. At l. 515, the name of the Roman Emperor Otho is rendered in various ways, from Otto to Octo to Cato. It would appear that here DL preserve the archetype’s reading of Otto. At l. 958, however, there is a majority reading of Octonis in ACDELV against Otonis in O. In the latter instance, I have decided to reject both the majority reading of Octonis as well as the reading Otonis in O, and to print the here unattested spelling of Ottonis. One can easily see how an original spelling of -tt- could be corrupted into the hypercorrect spelling with -ct-. As indicated above, we are fortunate to have corresponding paragraph marks in LOV, which in most cases correspond to the rubrics in DE. The fact that this structural division of the poem is so consistent across the various manuscript

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traditions indicates that this division goes back to the archetype, which has been my rationale for dividing the poem into paragraphs. The punctuation in the following edition, however, does not necessarily follow the manuscripts, some of which are lacking in punctuation altogether. Instead, I have opted to punctuate so as to provide as much clarity as possible for a modern readership. There are a few instances where Morin’s transcription of selections from D differs from that of my own; where this occurs, I have indicated it in the apparatus criticus. Sources There were two Latin translations of Josephus’ Jewish War that Geoffrey could have utilized. The first is an epitome in five books likely dating to the fourth century and attributed either to a certain Hegesippus (which may or may not be a bastardization of the name Josephus via Josippus) or to Ambrose in the Middle Ages (which is also where this epitome is to be found in the Patrologia Latina).30 Although it follows the sequence of the original quite closely, the author has introduced some of his own, often Christianizing, interpolations, and refers to Josephus as a separate author. The second translation also dates to the fourth century, and comprises a more faithful translation of the Greek in seven books, which was traditionally attributed to Rufinus of Aquileia in the Middle Ages, although the attribution in this case, too, is probably spurious.31 Both Latin versions of Josephus could have been available to Geoffrey: they are both utilized by William of Tyre, writing in the 1180s,32 and the epitomizing nature of Ps.-Hegesippus might have made it a particularly logical choice for Geoffrey. However, Geoffrey indicates in the beginning of his poem (l. 3) that he is abbreviating the “seven books of Josephus on the destruction of the city,” not five. In spite of this, however, there is evidence that Geoffrey made use of both translations: the opening is clearly reminiscent of the prologue in Ps.-Hegesippus,33 and the description of the Parthians (ll. 286–91), made arrogant by their victory over Crassus, clearly looks toward Ps.-Hegesippus rather than Ps.-Rufinus (where this description is absent); moreover, the use of the name Ionathen in l. 409 is a sure sign that Geoffrey used Ps.-Hegesippus in this passage instead of Ps.-Rufinus, who only gives Jonathan’s second name, Aristobulus. The episode describing Herod’s rise to power (ll. 325–37), on the other hand, is clearly indebted to Ps.-Rufinus, as is the extended praise of the Gauls in ll. 726–45, which does not occur in Ps.-Hegesippus. 30 

Ps.-Hegesippus, Hegesippi qui dicitur historiae libri quinque I–II, ed. V. Ussani, CSEL 66 (Vienna, 1932–60); PL 15:1961–2206. 31  For a brief discussion, see H. Schreckenberg and K. Schubert, Jewish Historiography and Iconography in Early and Medieval Christianity (Assen, 1992), 71–73. 32  They are both mentioned as sources in William’s description of Jerusalem: WT, 8.2.18. 33  This observation was first made by Morin, “Hégésippe,” 174–75.

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It is tempting to consider that, given Geoffrey’s remarkable facility in Greek as noted by William of Tyre,34 he may even have utilized the original Greek text of Josephus. However, I have not been able to find any evidence that he may have done so; in fact, the close verbal parallels to Ps.-Hegesippus and Ps.-Rufinus make this suggestion highly improbable. I have indicated the corresponding sections in both Ps.-Hegesippus and Ps.Rufinus (abbreviated in the apparatus as Heg. and Ruf., respectively); unfortunately, since there is currently no modern critical text available, I have had to make references to the following printed edition of Ps.-Rufinus: Flavii Iosephi, patria Hierosolymitani, religione Iudaei, inter Graecos historiographos cum primis facundi, opera quaedam Ruffino presbytero interprete (Basle, 1524), 593–852.

34 

WT, 15.21, 18.24.



On the Seven Books of Josephus 89

On the Seven Books of Josephus Continuare volumus Cum his que iam superius Nam libri septem Iosephi Consequenter incipiunt Qui digerunt fortissima Iudeorum pontifices Quos describit prolixius Videtur satis utile Ut quivis possit facile Qui, quot, vel quales fuerint, Donec per Tytum Cesarem Post mortem quidem Symonis Qui fuit unus optimis Quem Ptolomeus occiderat Iohannes eius filius, Sacerdos summus factus est, Totius factus denique Novit multa prophetice Antiochus rex Syrie Quam passus est a Symone, Venit iratus nimium At ille sepulchrum David Et inventis interius Trecenta regi tribuit Hic, post annos triginta tres Relictis quinque filiis, Defuncto primogenitus Matrem fratremque pariter Mater post dira vincula Frater occisus gladio Dicebatur Antigonus Sed nec pepercit ceteris At iustus iudex Dominus Tanto pollutum scelere

quedam que dicit Iosephus de Machabeis scripsimus, civitatis excidii ubi libri deficiunt Machabeorum prelia. et Romanorum principes, idem hystoriographus, brevi stilo percurrere, legentium cognoscere qui vel quibus successerint, subversa est Ierusalem. Iudeorum pontificis, de Matathie filiis, qui gener eius fuerat, vir prudens et iustissimus, qui et Hyrcanus dictus est, princeps gentis Iudaice, post ventura predicere. non inmemor iniurie cum magna multitudine ut impugnaret filium. velociter aperuit, talentis tribus milibus, et rex ad sua rediit. ex quo pontifex factus est, dierum plenus obiit. succedens Aristobolus interfecit crudeliter: consumpta est inedia, in loco obscurissimo adolescens egregius. quos tenebat in vinculis. non est passus diutius impunitum relinquere:

5

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15

20

25

30

25–71 Hyr: 33 Aristo: [1] Alexander: 37 Alexandra: 9 in lower marg. f. 18r. E2 1–11 Heg. prol. 1.  15–18 Ruf. 1.3, p. 599.  19–24 Ruf. 1.2, p. 598; Heg. 1.1.8. 25–26 Ruf. 1.3, p. 599; contrast trigesimo et primo anno in Heg. 1.1.10.  28–29 Ruf. 1.3, p. 599; Heg. 1.2.1.  30 Ruf. 1.3, p. 600.  30–31 Ruf. 1.3, p. 600; Heg. 1.6.3. 1  ] Continuacio novi et veteris testamenti add. D Continuatio veteris et novi testamenti E Incipit tertius de septem libris Iosephi L | Continuare] Contaminare O  2 his] hiis DO | iam] om. O 5 digerunt] degerunt D  6 et ] ac O  8 Videtur] Videntur C  15 iustissimus] fortissimus O  18 prophetice] prophetie V  20 cum magna] venit cum O  24 Trecenta] Trescenta CO tribuit] tradidit C  | rediit] re C  25 pontifex … est] factus est pontifex C  28 fratremque] fratremque que D  29 post] †vero† D  34 relinquere] relinguere corr. V

90

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Statim corrupto viscere Donec lapsis visceribus Unius anni spatio Nam cum patri successerat, Sic parricida mortuo Soluti sunt a vinculis Quorum rex unus factus est Sed potestate preditus Nam alterum contendere Statim iussit interfici, Quem tractans inhumanitus Tunc multis modis regia Nam quinquaginta milia Interfecit de populo Octingentos preterea Suspendit in patibulis, Que fierent cernentibus Dehinc matres et filios Cum concubinis recubans Delectabatur sedulo Triginta septem exinde Ex quo regnare ceperat Vi quartanarum febrium Relinquens regnum coniugi Nam pietate predita Divini cultrix numinis Hec Alexandro genitos Hyrcano primogenito Nolebat Aristobolum Hoc ex benivolentia Nam matri visum fuerat Si potestate preditus Quod regia clementia Paterno more subditum Sed rex erat modestior Nec eius ulla populo

cruorem cepit vomere, inveniretur mortuus. regni eius explicito— se regem constituerat— fratres eius continuo et a squalore carceris, qui Alexander dictus est. debachatur in fratribus: nitentem de regimine vitam reservans alteri, rebus privavit omnibus. abusus est potentia. crudelitate nimia annorum senum spatio. in civitate media coniugibus ac filiis ac graviter lugentibus. interfecit innoxios, et vino multo estuans. tam crudeli spectaculo. annorum lapso tempore et tam crudelis fuerat, consequitur interitum, sibi multum dissimili: simul et sapientia, cunctis fuit amabilis. enixa duos filios, donato regni solio, haberi regni socium. fiebat non malitia, (sed nec in hoc erraverat), fuisset Aristobolus, maturius post habita sibi vexaret populum. et etate maturior, mala fuit suspicio.

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

54 mortis dire et [di…] crudele spectaculum in right marg. f. 73v C¹ 35–36 Ruf. 1.3, p. 600; Heg. 1.7.2–1.8.1.  37–45 Ruf. 1.3, p. 601.  39–45 Ruf. 1.3, p. 601; Heg. 1.9.1.  47–48 Ruf. 1.3, p. 601; Heg. 1.9.4.  49–54 Ruf. 1.3, p. 602; Heg. 1.10.3– 1.11.1.  55–57 Ruf. 1.4, pp. 602–03; Heg. 1.12.1.  58–64 Ruf. 1.4, p. 603; Heg. 1.12.2. 35 viscere] vulnere C  39 parricida] parricidịa D  41 rex unus] unus rex O | est1] om. V 43 regimine] regmine V  45 tractans] tactans C  46 multis modis] modis multis V 49 media] mēdia D  50 ac] et O | filiis] liberis C  56 Ex … fuerat] transposed to l. 63 O 57 Vi] In D  59 predita] predicta D  64 benivolentia] benevolentia corr. C  65 matri] matẹṛ corr. E  66 preditus] predictus D  67 post] primo D



On the Seven Books of Josephus 91

Sic Alexandra mulier Summa rerum disposita Frater etate iunior Mox ut mater occubuit, Conflictu ergo habito Hyrcanus fugam iniit Fratrisque nactus coniugem Subivit pacis federa Hyrcanus Aristobolo Fungebatur solummodo Eodem vero tempore Armis belloque strenuus Dicebatur Antipater, Hyrcanum restituere Per manum regis Arethe, Persuadebat itaque Ad Arethamque pergere, Cum potens esset, facile Tum quoniam Arabia Tum quia rex exercitum Et Arethe similiter Ut Hyrcanum reciperet Antipater hic coniugem Exortam in Arabia Idcirco erat maxime Ac propter hoc quod voluit Dehinc fiducialiter Egressi Ierosolimam Tunc Arabs pugnatoribus Et conglobati pariter Adversus Aristobolum Cum suis Aristobolus Nec ausus est contendere Sed spem in fuga posuit Et perfecisset Aretha Quod disponebat facere, Non advenisset ilico Qui cum Tygrane prelia Uterque frater obvios

annis novem feliciter mortis persolvit debita. sed viribus prestantior, Hyrcano bellum intulit. in regione Iericho Ierusalemque rediit, sue salutis obsidem uxore fratri reddita. non sponte regno tradito pontificis officio. vir Ydumeus genere consilioque providus qui conabatur iugiter fratremque regno pellere. qui rex erat Arabie, Hyrcano clam recedere qui ipsius iniurie, posset ultor existere, Iudee est contigua, posset habere plurimum. persuadebat Antipater regnoque restitueret. despondit sibi Cypridem de nobili prosapia. familiaris Arethe, mox impetrare potuit. Hyrcanus et Antipater venerunt in Arabiam. cum quinquaginta milibus Hyrcanus et Antipater conveniunt ad prelium. exivit eis obvius, cum tanta multitudine, Ierusalemque rediit. obsessa Ierosolima si Scaurus illo tempore directus a Pompeio, gerebat in Armenia. direxit Scauro nuntios

75

80

85

90

95

100

105

71–80 Ruf. 1.4, p. 604.  81–87 Ruf. 1.5, p. 605; Heg. 1.14.1.  93–94 Ruf. 1.6, p. 608; Heg. 1.22.1.  99 Ruf. 1.5, p. 604; Heg. 1.14.1.  104–114 Ruf. 1.5, p. 604; Heg. 1.14.1–2. 71 Alexandra] Alexandri O  72 disposita] disposta V  75 Conflictu ergo] Conflictuque sic O 78 uxore] uxori LOV corr. E  82 providus] previdus L  83 conabatur] conobatur D 85 Per … Arabie] om. C  89 Iudee] Iudea L  90 Tum] Tunc C | plurimum] populum C 91 Arethe] Aretha C | persuadebat] suadebat L  93 despondit] dispondit V  94 nobili] noboli D  96 voluit] noluit D | mox] rex O  101 conveniunt] convenerunt L | ad] in V 102 eis] ei O  104 fuga] fugua C  108 Qui … Armenia] om. C

92

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Ut alteri in alterum At ille pro pecunia Nam illum Aristobolus Romanorum potentiam Intentans regi Arethe Hyrcanus sic Arabico Pompeius interea Cum pertransisset Syriam, Sed occurrit Pompeio Et super his conquestus est Pompeius Aristobolo Quantocius descendere Sed mandatum Pompeii Nam fidens adiutorio Corruperat non modico, Ornatus cultu regio Sed cum timore animi Ascendit Alexandrium Unde sine discrimine De omni suo commodo Vel cum ipso confligeret, Hiis auditis Pompeius Cum haberet fortissimum Collecta tamen undique Secutus Aristobolum Unde iussus descendere Sed qui cum ipso populus Magna pressus formidine Et prudenti consilio Quorum devictus precibus Sed quamvis vultu placido Tandem relicto oppido Regreditur Ierusalem Aperto iam certamine Veruntamen Pompeius

conferret adiutorium. postposita iusticia, corruperat muneribus, Pompeiique gloriam fecit eum recedere. privatus est auxilio. subiugata Armenia tendebat Ierosolimam, Hyrcanus cum Antipatro que tam iniuste passus est. iussit de regni solio fratrique suo reddere. spernens pendebat nichili, Scauri, quem nuper precio occurrebat Pompeio et stipatus obsequio, reversus est ad Iospoli. in monte celso positum, fisus loci munimine, tractaret cum Pompeio, si ita res exigeret. iratus vehementius, Romanorum exercitum Syrorum multitudine, obsedit Alexandrium. nolebat adquiescere, claudebatur interius, suggerebat descendere obedire Pompeio. descendebat inferius, turgente tamen animo. Pompeioque tradito nullamque nactus requiem conabatur confligere. subsequitur celerius,

110

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125

130

135

140

115 Ruf. 1.5, pp. 604–05.  117 Cf. Ruf. 1.5, p. 605, and Heg. 1.15.1, where Damascus is mentioned instead.  126 Diospoli in Ruf. 1.5, p. 605, Diopoli in Heg. 1.15.1 (but note that Diospoli is listed as a variant reading). The city meant is Dium.  131–160 Ruf. 1.5, p. 605; Heg. 1.15.2– 1.16.3. 110 conferret] conferrent C  113 Pompeiique] Pompeique DL  115 Arabico] Arabio O auxilio] axilio C  116 Armenia] Armania D  119 his] hiis DO  121 descendere] discedere DE  124 modico] modica C | occurrebat] occurerat DE  126 timore] tumore L | est] om. DV illegible C  128 loci] loqui C  129 De] parchment damaged C | commodo] quo modo DE  130 Vel] parchment damaged C | exigeret] ~ etc. D  131 Hiis] parchment damaged C His EL  132 Cum] parchment damaged C  134 Secutus] sectus C 135 Unde] Inde CDE  138 obedire] obediere D  139 descendebat] decendebat C 144 Pompeius] Popeius V



On the Seven Books of Josephus 93

Et noctis tantum spacio Mox discurrente nuntio Adventus eius subitus Unde nimis perterritus Cui maximam pecuniam Se redditurum pactus est, Nam premissus Gabinius Ut obsides acciperet Ab ingressu prohibitus Ut se delusum comperit, Et vinculis mox traditum Cum autem circumspiceret In civitate subito Nam quedam pars de populo Sed Hyrcano pars maxima Pars victa Aristoboli Pars autem que prevaluit, Pompeius ingressus est Quod civitatem regiam Sine suorum sanguine Vallis erat altissima Pons quoque tantum fuerat Hunc in vallem deiecerant Ipsum muris fortissimis Circumvallatum undique Mansisset cunctis gentibus Sed Romanorum probitas Nil reputabat arduum, Ligno simul ac lapide Cupiditate glorie At hostes stantes desuper Et magna cum audacia Romani die Sabbati Iudei die septimo Nam nec resistunt hostibus Binis elapsis mensibus Imponunt turres ligneas

dum moraretur Iericho, fit notus Aristobolo et insperatus impetus, processit illi obvius. et civitatem etiam sed nichil horum factum est. Pompeianus nuntius pecuniamque tolleret, ad castra redit vacuus. Pompeius infremuit servabat Aristobolum. qua parte castra poneret, exorta est seditio. favebat Aristobolo, conferebat auxilia. fugit in Templum Domini; statim portas aperuit. votique compos factus est, eamque munitissimam obtinuisset facile. Templi circumdans munia; per quem adiri poterat. qui in Templum evaserant. et turribus altissimis semper inexpugnabile ubicumque degentibus, et glorie sublimitas sed adhibendo studium coadunato undique replebat vallem aggere. repugnabant viriliter, impediebant opera. magis instabant operi; vacant iure perpetuo, nec insistunt operibus. vix constructis aggeribus et super turres machinas.

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162–164 Pompeius expugnat templum in right marg. f. 19r. E2 166–167 Ruf. 1.5, pp. 605–06; Heg. 1.16.3.  173–214 Ruf. 1.5, p. 606; Heg. 1.16.4–1.17.2. 145 tantum] tamen CDE | spacio] spācio C | moraretur] immoratur C  147 insperatus] inspiratus corr. L  150 Se] Sed C | redditurum] rediturum V | horum] orum CV 153 Ab] At C | ingressu] ingresso C | redit] reddit V  156 Cum] Dum CDE 158 pars] parars D  163 munitissimam] munitisimam C  164 obtinuisset] obtinuisse C 165 munia] menia DEV  166 Pons] Mons C | quem] quod C  167 Hunc] Hanc O 169 inexpugnabile] inaccessibele DE  170 Mansisset] Manserat O  173 lapide] cespite DE 175 At] Et O  179 Nam] om. O | resistunt] recistunt D

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Admotis ergo machinis Muros turresque quatiunt Mense necdum explicito Deiecta una turrium Primus Faustus Cornelius, Ausus murum transcendere Quem Furius et Fabius Hi cum suis agminibus Effuso multo sanguine Dehinc intrat Pompeius Sed erat novum cernere Nam sacerdotes victimas Nec dimittebat populus Cum hostes nulli parcerent Bis sena namque milia Que vel ignis incendio Patefactis aditibus Et gentibus incognita Mensas sive candelabra, Et instrumenta cetera, Pecunie preterea Sunt in gazophilatio Nec tamen quicquam rapuit Iudeis vero gravius Videbatur quod hactenus Occultatum detectum est Soli namque pontifici Licebat sanctuarium Pro se offere Domino In die autem crastino Edituos Pompeius Et celebrare solita Hyrcano vero deinde Iudaicoque populo Regendam hanc et alias Captivum Aristobolum Custodieque traditos Eduxit ab Ierusalem Qui dum Romam revertitur, Natu minor Antigonus

et instrumentis ceteris et plures interficiunt. obsidionis tercio Templi irrumpunt atrium. Lucii Sille filius, cum suo intrat agmine, subsecuntur celerius. in fugam versis hostibus Templum circumdant undique, et reliquus exercitus. spectaculum mirabile: immolabant et hostias, quicquam de sacris ritibus, sed omnes interficerent. inventa sunt cadavera, consumpta sunt vel gladio. intrat Templum Pompeius cuncta videt misteria: vasa quoque quamplurima, que cuncta erant aurea; talenta duo milia inventa a Pompeio; de omnibus que repperit. cunctis calamitatibus archanum illud gentibus extraneisque visum est. per annum semel ingredi ibique sacrificium ac deinde pro populo. Templum simul cum atrio iussit mundare sordibus permisit sacrificia. declarato pontifice effecto tributario linquens Scauro provincias, victorie indicium duos ipsius filios cum filiabus totidem. Alexander elabitur. cum patre vel sororibus

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186 I.e. Lucius Cornelius Sulla.  203 Cf. 2 Kings 12:9–10.  215–222 Ruf. 1.5, p. 607; Heg. 1.17.3. 183 quatiunt] catiunt V  188 subsecuntur] subsecuuntur L  189 Hi] Hii O  190 Effuso] Et fuso E  191 Dehinc] Dein O  197 vel ignis] ignis vel O  205 gravius] gravibus C 208 Soli] Solum O  209 Licebat] Decebat O | sanctuarium] sancuarium L 215 Iudaicoque] Iudaico sed C  218 duos ipsius] ipsius ~ DE  219 ab] a CDE 221 Natu] Natus DE



On the Seven Books of Josephus 95

Triumpho reservati sunt Elapso vero tempore Alexander, ut diximus, Patris sui fautoribus Adiunctis quoque plurimis Iudeam sperans facile Depredabatur omnia Ipsumque suum patruum Interea vir optimus Missus Scauro succedere Hunc Alexander metuens Muniebat Hyrcanium Cinxit muro similiter Hec namque tria oppida In montibus sunt posita Gabinius ut comperit Premisit mox Antonium Et sibi post hec addito Totum ducens exercitum At Alexander veritus Dispositis presidiis Ierusalem refugium Anticipare satagit, Nam in ipso itinere Sex milibusque perditis Tunc demum supplex nuntium Se deliquisse confitens Munitiones reddere, Quas mandavit Gabinius Ne ibi esset hostibus Deinde Aristobolus Cum ipso quoque filius Hic statim multitudine Que a Romanis eruta Omni rursus conamine Quo cognito Gabinius Direxit tres: Antonium, Qui committentes prelium Antigonumque filium

et ad urbem adducti sunt. reversus ex itinere congregatis quam pluribus suis quoque comitibus, novarum rerum cupidis, sibi posse subigere, Hyrcano pertinentia provocabat ad prelium. supervenit Gabinius, provinciasque regere. trans Iordanemque fugiens, simul et Alexandrium, Macheronta velociter. Arabie contigua et ideo fortissima. quo Alexander fugerit, cum quadam parte militum, Hyrcano et Antipatro subsequitur Antonium. tanti robur exercitus, in supra dictis oppidis sperans fore tutissimum sed a spe tanta decidit. coactus est confligere: vix evasit cum ceteris. direxit ad Gabinium, et sine dolo pollicens nec distulit hoc facere. adequari solotenus, refugium ulterius. ab urbe Roma profugus revertitur Antigonus. magna collecta undique iam dudum erant oppida temptabat muris cingere. sui duces exercitus Sisennam, et Servilium. captivum Aristobolum perducunt ad Gabinium,

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228–246 Ruf. 1.6, p. 607; Heg. 1.19.1–2.  247–270 Ruf. 1.6, p. 608; Heg. 1.19.3, 1.21.1. 222 adducti] perducti CDV  226 Adiunctis … plurimis] Adiunctisque quamplurimis O 227 Iudeam … subigere] om. C  229 suum] om. D  230 optimus] providus CDE Gabinius] Sabinius C  233 Hyrcanium] Hyrcanum D  238 Antonium] Antoniṭum C Antịnium corr. E  242 in] ut D  245 est] om. O | confligere] confugere D  246 milibusque] milibus DE  247 direxit] dixerit D  248 sine] sino C  252 Roma] Romanum D 256 temptabat] tendebat C | temptabat … cingere] cingere temptabat muris with construe marks O muris] muros C  257 Gabinius] Sabinius C

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Quos misit Romam denuo Retento Aristobolo Dimittitur Antigonus, Pepigerat hoc coniugi Qua suggerente oppida Gabinius tunc aberat Reprimere Ptolomeum Hyrcanus et Antipater Romanis necessaria Et in omni negotio Pro discessu Gabinii Mutationis cupidi, Conveniunt et iterum Gabinius hoc audiens, Occurrit illis subito Ibique pugna habita De Alexandri sociis Dispersit fuga ceteros Ecce Crassus adveniens, Intravit Templum nimia Et omnia diripuit, Primo quidem Pompeius Sed transito Eufrate Totum simul exercitum Cum quo et ipse periit Crasso succedens Cassius Nam Crassi post interitum, Elati in superbiam Totam vastare Syriam Quos Cassius a transitu Prohibuit Eufratis, Romam Cesar interea Rebus potitur omnibus; Sed quia hec hystoria Discurrimus ad alia,

senatorum arbitrio. custodieque tradito ut scripserat Gabinius. iam dudum Aristoboli, tria fuere reddita. et in Egyptum ierat commotionis cupidum. administrabant iugiter militie stipendia erant eis auxilio. ad Alexandrum plurimi ut sepe solet fieri, renovantur ad prelium. iam ex Egypto rediens, sub monte Hitabirio. virorum decem milia interierunt gladiis. fugientes et saucios. aurum plus iusto sitiens, succensus avaritia que tangere non voluit nec post eum Gabinius. volens Parthos subigere demersit in interitum. dum fervens aurum ebibit. Parthis processit obvius, post contritum exercitum, moliebantur etiam plebem quoque Iudaicam. ingenti cum exercitu multum famosi fluminis. regrediens a Gallia effugatur Pompeius. est per Lucanum edita, que multis sunt incognita.

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279–285 Crassus Templum diripuit ipse a Parthis fervens auro coactus est ebibere in lower marg. f. 20r. E2  286–291 Cassius post mortem Crassi et in confusionem exercitus Romani cum ingenti exercitu prohibuit Parthos a transitu Euphratis in right marg. f. 20r. E2 271–286 Ruf. 1.6, p. 609; Heg. 1.21.1–3.  275 Hitabirio] Mount Tabor.  287–291 Nam … fluminis] Heg. 1.21.3.  292–293 Ruf. 1.7, p. 609; Heg. 1.22.2. 265 Qua … reddita] transp. to l. 287 O | reddita] tradita C redita D  269 Romanis] Romane C 271 discessu] descessu D dicessu L  273 renovantur] reṃovantur D  279 adveniens] cupiens C  280 Templum] Teplum V  285 fervens] ferves V  288 Elati] Erecti V  290 a] ạ C transitu] transsitu D | ingenti cum] cum ~ DE  292 Gallia] Galilea O  295 ad] et L



On the Seven Books of Josephus 97

Rome iubente Cesare Captivus Aristobolus Et missus est celerius Ut ad Iudeam pergeret, Sed periit continuo Pompeii fautoribus Mox Alexander, filius Cum esset Antiochie, Quem interfecit Scipio Tunc nepos atque patruus Continuo certamine Sed occiso Pompeio Cum Cesar solus omnium Ydumeus Antipater In clientelam Cesaris Qui dum esset promptissimus Pro voluntate Cesaris, Satis placebat Cesari Nam semper in assiduis Pre ceteris militibus Erantque multa vulnera Tandem Cesar dispositis Revertitur ad Syriam, Antigonus et plurimum Maioris amicitie Nam cum illi opponeret Fideliter sed subdole Ostensis cicatricibus In argumentum fidei Mox procurator patrie Phaselum primogenitum Quem deputans presidio Herodem adhuc puerum Ut Galileam regeret Nam regionem undique Latrones devastaverant

solutus est a carcere et libertati redditus, cum duabus cohortibus quam Cesari subigeret. hausto veneni poculo, hoc illi propinantibus. ipsius primogenitus, perit truncato capite, sic iubente Pompeio. Hyrcanus et Antigonus contendunt de regimine. in littore Egyptio, obtineret dominium, Hyrcanum iuvans iugiter se contulit cum filiis. in exsequendis omnibus pater una cum filiis et eius exercitui. opponens se periculis vulnerabatur sepius, probitatis indicia. in Egypto presidiis cui processit obviam conquestus in Antipatrum causam dedit et glorie. quod Cesarem non coleret, ille nudato corpore multis quoque vulneribus acceptior fit Cesari. constitutus a Cesare magistrum fecit militum. Iudee territorio misit cum manu militum et incolas defenderet. cum Ezechia principe multosque captivaverant.

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325

330

325 Antipater procurator Iudeae a Cesare constitutus. in left marg. f. 20v. E2  328–329 Herodes filius Antipatris a patre Galileae prepositus. in left marg. f. 20v. E2 296–304 Ruf. 1.7, p. 609; Heg. 1.22.2–3.  309–318 Ruf. 1.7, p. 610; Heg. 1.24.2–3. 319–324 Ruf. 1.8, pp. 610–11; Heg. 1.25.1–2.  325–342 Ruf. 1.8, p. 611; Heg. 1.25.4–1.26.1. 296 carcere] care V  300 veneni] veni D  301 Pompeii] Pompei E  302 ipsius] illius C 303 perit] periit D  309 Ydumeus] Ydẹmeus corr. O | iuvans] vivans L 315 Pre] Pro C  320 causam] causa V  321 opponeret] apponeret D | coleret] colleret D 325 constitutus] constitus C  329 Galileam] Galeam C  330 cum] om. C 331 multosque] et multos C

98

Julian Yolles

Quos persecutus ilico Qui postquam victor rediit, Ut per plateas canerent Quod liberata patria Sed et a Sexto Cesare Propinquo magni Cesaris, Erat tamen Antipater Et adversus Antigonum Quamvis tanta potentia Cepit ergo cotidie Hyrcanus unde tacita Anno transacto tertio Post obitum Pompeii Rome Cesar occiditur; Similiter in Syria Occiso Sexto Cesare Quem Bassus interfecerat, Rome morte Cesarea Potentes quique propriis Quod erat cuique commodum, Octavianus Iulio Qui una cum Antonio Interfectores Cesaris, Sed Cassius per Syriam Obsessam dudum liberat, Herodem sibi maxime Ut eum regem faceret, Interfecit et Malicum, Qui per veneni poculum Dehinc utrimque cuneis Hinc Cesar et Antonius, Circa Philippos prelium Cesar victor effectus est

peremit omnes gladio. tam gratus Syris extitit, Herodem, atque dicerent eius esset industria. procuratore Syrie, dilectus est plus ceteris. cum Hyrcano fideliter prebebat adiutorium, polleret atque gloria. Herodis fama crescere, mordebatur invidia. unaque mense septimo Bruti dolis et Cassii bellum civile geritur. magna fuit discordia, procuratore patrie, qui Pompeium dilexerat. re perturbata publica insistebant negotiis: hoc estimabat optimum. successit in imperio, persequebatur sedulo ultor propinqui sanguinis. diffugiens Apamiam Bassumque sibi sociat. tali coniunxit federe, si fidus ei fieret. virum nequam et subdolum, extinxerat Antipatrum. constipati fortissimis illinc Brutus et Cassius, commiserunt gravissimum. et Cassius occisus est.

335

340

345

350

355

360

336–337 Erodes charus Sexto Cesari in left marg. f. 20v. E2  343 Transactis annis tribus 7 mensibus post obitum Pompeii Cesar occiditur in left marg. f. 20v. E2  347–348 Sextus Caesar procurator Syriae a C Basso interfectus in left marg. f. 20v. E2  359–360 Antipater Malaci [sic] veneni popi poculo extinctus. in upper marg. f. 20v. E2 343–345 Ruf. 1.9, p. 612; Heg. 1.27.  346–348 Ruf. 1.8, p. 612; Heg. 1.27.  349–351 Ruf. 1.9, p. 612.  355–360 Ruf. 1.9, p. 613.  359–360 Ruf. 1.9, p. 613; Heg. 1.28.2–3. 362–368 Ruf. 1.10, p. 615; Heg. 1.28.6–7. 336 et] om. V | Sexto] septimo C quinto D | Syrie] ysirie C  337 magni] magno corr. D 340 Quamvis] Quatenus D | tanta] tali O | atque] atque atque C  342 unde] inde DE 344 dolis] doli corr. DE doli O  349 re … publica] perturbata re publica DE  352 Octavianus] Octovianus CDELO  354 Cesaris] Cesaras C  355 Apamiam] Apariam V Appaniam O 357 coniunxit] coniungit DEV  361 utrimque] utrụmque corr. D | fortissimis] fortissimi corr. D



On the Seven Books of Josephus 99

Sed Cesar post victoriam Antonius per Syriam Cuius fretus non modica Tetrarcha constituitur Eodem vero tempore Qui fuerat rex Parthie Pertransitoque Eufrate Hos promissis muneribus Ut Hyrcanum deponerent Advenientes itaque Utramque partem fallere Colloquebantur itaque Sed Hyrcanum dispositis Frater Herodis etiam Simul cum illo captus est A Parthis autem tradita Aures Hyrcani dentibus Ne fungi posset amodo Si forsitan a barbaris Nam non nisi per integrum Phaselus hec prospiciens Statim eliso capite Excussit sibi cerebrum, Herodes vero fugiens In Masada dispositis In Egyptum profectus est, Ibique ab Antonio Octaviano Cesari Rex Iudeorum protinus Inde reversus pignora Recepit, que Antigonus

repetiit Italiam, tendebat Ierosolimam. Herodes amicitia, et Iudee preficitur. quidam Prochorus nomine, cum satrapa Brazafrane, dominabatur Syrie. conduxerat Antigonus eique regnum redderent. cum magna multitudine, nitebantur et perdere. quasi de pacis federe, mox capiunt insidiis. Phaselus per fallaciam compedibusque vinctus est. verberandi licentia: detruncavit Antigonus, pontificis officio, absolveretur vinculis, hoc fiebat officium. et ultro mortem appetens, in adiacenti lapide adeptus sic interitum. ad Ydumeam veniens coniugibus et filiis unde Romam delatus est. receptus amicissimo, fit notus et senatui; declaratur ab omnibus. que liquerat in Masada obsederat diutius.

365

370

375

380

385

390

395

365–390 Sed … est2] Post victoriam circa Philippos Octavianus Italiam repetiit Antonius per Syriam ad Hierosolimam tendebat a quo tetrarcha constituitur Herodes et Judeae preficitur eodem tempore Parthi transgresso Euphrate dominabantur Syriae. Antigonus sollicitat Parthos contra Hyrcanum qui fallaciter advenientes Hyrcanum et Phaselum dispositis capiunt insidiis elapsus Herodes se Romam contulit in lower marg. f. 20v. E2  393–397 Ubi rex Judeorum ab onibus [sic] declaratur reversus in Judeam liberat Massadam ab obsidione Antigoni qui raptus ab Sosio Antonii iussu perimitur. in upper marg. f. 21r. E2 369–373 Ruf. 1.11, p. 615; Heg. 1.29.1–2 (the name is Pacorus in both).  374–379 Ruf. 1.11, p. 616; Heg. 1.29.4–5.  380–389 Ruf. 1.11, p. 617; Heg. 1.29.6–8.  390–393 Ruf. 1.11, pp. 618–19; Heg. 1.29.10–1.30.1.  394–395 Ruf. 1.12, p. 620; Heg. 1.30.3. 368 Tetrarcha] Tetraca L | Tetrarcia C  369 vero] trans. after nomine V  370 Parthie] Parhie C | Brazafrane] Bazafrane V Brazas rane DE Buhasrane C  371 Pertransitoque] Pertransito CEV  378 fallaciam] audaciam C  379 illo] eo corr. E ipso O  382 fungi] ffungi C  387 cerebrum] celebrum D  391 ab] cum DE  392 Octaviano] Octoviano ̣ DEO Octaviano corr. to Octoviano L  394 Masada] Madasa V

100

Tandem captus a Sosio Puniendus deducitur Hyrcanus dum per Syriam Ereptus a Iudaico Ad patriam revertitur, Habebat enim maximam Qui iam dudum Mariamnem Que ex ipsius filia Sed hic alienigena, Privaretur aliquando, Hunc solum cernens vivere Qui secum de regimine Cogitabat occidere, Interfecit et Ionathen, Nam solus hic residuus Tunc quidem adimpletum est Tunc sceptrum Iude desiit, Tunc expectatus gentibus Herodis enim tempore Verbum patris altissimi Virgo mater in Bethleem Enixa est in stabulo Creaturarum omnium Mox ceteris syderibus Nativitatis nuntia, Ferentes dona mistica Cum autem urbem regiam Percunctantur: “rex ubi est Nos enim stellam ipsius Ad adorandum venimus Herodes rex hoc audiens, Clam magos ad se convocat, Que eis apparuerat, Quem adorare simulat

Julian Yolles

Antigonus Antonio et securi perimitur. deducitur in Parthiam, illic degente populo sed vana spe seducitur. in Herode fiduciam, acceperat in coniugem, extiterat progenita. ne regia potentia si qua foret mutatio, de Iudeorum semine iuste posset contendere, quod et complevit opere. dudum factum pontificem, erat Hyrcano filius. quod per Iacob predictum est: tunc in Iuda dux defuit, advenit dei filius. natum Maria virgine dignatur homo fieri. Dominum verum et hominem reclinans in presepio, creatorem et dominum. refulsit stella clarius que magos ad cunabula perduxit cum leticia. intrarent Ierosolimam, Iudeorum qui natus est? in oriente vidimus. cum misticis muneribus.” sibimetipsi metuens stelle tempus interrogat sed iam de nece cogitat se velle, si reperiat.

400

405

410

415

420

425

398–410 Hyrcanus a Parthis Judaico populo ereptus ad patriam revertitur vana Herodis amicitiae ductus fiducia qui et ipsum et Ionathen filium eius qui solus relictus erat occidit ne aliquando secum post regimen contenderent. in lower marg. f. 21r. E2 illegible gloss in right marg. f. 21r. E2 396–397 Ruf. 1.13, pp. 625–26; Heg. 1.31.3.  398–403 Ruf. 1.17, p. 633; Heg. 1.36.2. 409–410 Ibid. Ruf. only has Jonathan’s second name, Aristobulus, whereas Heg. reads Ionathan. 411–413 Tunc1 … filius] Gen. 49:10.  419–432 Matth. 2:1–11. 396 Sosio] Socio D  397 securi] securus corr. C  398 deducitur] deducatur D 399 Ereptus] Ereotus C | degente] de gente L  400 seducitur] deducitur DE 402 Mariamnem] Mariamna D  403 extiterat] fuerat C | progenita] proienita V 404 regia] regga corr. C  409 Ionathen] Ionathan DO  411 quidem] quoddam DE 412 Iude desiit] Iudesiit V  420 nuntia] n̄ẹcia C  424 enim] autem D  425 adorandum] orandum D  426 hoc] hec corr. E | sibimetipsi] semetipsi D  429 se velle] sed evelle C



On the Seven Books of Josephus 101

Sed magi de Ierusalem Illic invento puero Adorant eum mistica Aurum quidem, quo regia Thus, quod in sacrificio Figurat ei debitam Myrram quoque, qua mortua Ne valeat putrescere Corpus designat hominis In quo tamen nullo modo Nam solvens mortis vincula Sic adorato Domino Magi per viam aliam Ob hoc Bethleemiticos Abstractos matrum gremio Ut cum illis infantibus Sed occidi non poterat Delatus enim fuerat Herodes his et aliis Exercuit tyrannidem Sororis enim Salome Cum Mariamne coniuge Sed sine audientia Erat ei suspicio Sed memor pulchritudinis Dilapsus in amentiam Et putabat superstitem Multoque post vix potuit Sic quoque duos filios Quos Mariamne genuit, Postremo primogenitum

perducuntur in Bethleem. magno replentur gaudio. donantes ei munera: signatur excellentia; offerri solet Domino, sacerdotalem gloriam; deliniuntur corpora, lita caro hoc unguine, nature corruptibilis, inventa est corruptio, surrexit die tertia. magno repleti gaudio regressi sunt ad patriam. Herodes furens pueros occidit omnes gladio occideretur et Iesus. qui vitam dare venerat; in Egyptum nec aderat. interemptis extraneis in propriam progeniem. virum Iosippum nomine nullo convictos crimine cesos misit ad Tartara; falsa de adulterio. sic interfecte coniugis, alloquebatur mortuam redactam iam in pulverem. advertere quid egerit. adolescentes strenuos, iniuste neci tradidit. interfecit Antipatrum,

430

435

440

445

450

455

460

451–453 Herodes Mariamnem conjugem suam cum Josippo sororis suae viro occidit suspitione adulteri falsa instigatus in lower marg. f. 21v. E2  458–464 duos etiam filios matris Mariamne occisos et primogenitum suum Antipatrem 37 anno sui regiminis periit Jericho in left marg. f. 21v. E2 433–440 Cf. Ambrose, Expositio evangelii secundam Lucam 2.619, De viduis 5.29.6, and Jerome, In evangelii Matthaei commentarium 1.5.  441–442 Matth. 2:11–12.  443–449 Matth. 2:14–16. 450–457 Ruf. 1.17, pp. 633–34; Heg. 1.37.5–7.  458–459 Ruf. 1.17, p. 643; Heg. 1.42.1–2. 460–473 Ruf. 1.21, p. 654; Heg. 1.45.9–12. 434 Thus] Thus quoque C Thus quoque quod DEV  435 debitam … gloriam] gloriam sacerdotalem debitam C  436 Myrram] Myrra O | qua] quo CLV | deliniuntur] deliniantur C diliniuntur D  437 valeat] valeant D  438 nature] natura DE | corruptibilis] corruptibile D 439 In … corruptio] om. D  442 aliam] alteram O  443 Herodes] Herodens C Herodeṇs D 448 his] hiis DO | interemptis] interemis corr. V  449 progeniem] proieniem C 450 nomine] om. D  451 Mariamne] Marianne CO | nullo] nullo modo C | convictos] convinctos D  452 misit] miserat corr. O  453 de] a corr. L  455 amentiam] amentia C 456 iam] om. D  457 egerit] ægerit V

102

Quem habebat ex Doside Tandem confectus senio Correptus morbo pessimo Anno sui regiminis Sed antequam occumberet, Consuete malitie, Ex hac vita discedere, Sororis sue Salome Ipso mortis articulo Primos gentis Iudaice, Cum interemptis plurimis Sed soror fratre mortuo Dissolvit a custodia Post hunc regnavit filius Veruntamen ob nimiam Directus est a Cesare Et periit, perpetuo Per tetrarchias postea Pilato namque Pontio A Cesare commissa est, Herodis regis filio Qui patri fuit opere Nam et Herodes patrio Hic tulit Herodiadem Hic precursorem Domini, Ut mereretur fieri Dum vox patris intonuit Quem in columbe specie Hunc positum in carcere Herodes idem ipse est

Julian Yolles

priore sua coniuge. cum egrotaret Iericho, tricesimo et septimo perit admixtus mortuis. nequid illius deforet nolebat sine sanguine sed advocato coniuge precepit interficere reclusos in ypodromo ut in ipsorum funere lugeretur ab aliis. reclusos in ypodromo et remisit ad propria. annis novem Archelaus. ipsius insolentiam apud Viennam Gallie condempnatus exilio. divisa est provincia. Iudee procuratio sed Galilea data est virorum impiissimo, consimilis et nomine, dicebatur vocabulo. Philippi fratris coniugem. virum tanti preconii baptista dei filii, et spiritus apparuit, promeruit conspicere, truncari fecit capite. ad quem Christus directus est

465

470

475

480

485

490

462–471 Jussit paululum ante eius mortem seniores Judeorum in Hyppo [?] in left marg. f. 21v. E2 474–477 Post hunc filium Archelaus regnavit annis 7 ob nimiam insolentiam a Caesare ad Viennam Galliae perpetuo auxilio [sic] condemnatus est. in left marg. f. 21v. E2  478–498 Per tetrarchias provincia divisa est. Pontio Pilato Iudea datur Herodi Herodis filio Galilia. Traco et Itrurea Philippo fratri eius Aby Abilina Lysania in left marg. f. 21v. E2 474–477 Ruf. 2.6, p. 663; Heg. 1.46.1–2, 2.2.3–4.  478–483 Ruf. 2.8, p. 668; Heg. 2.5.1. 484 Hic1 … coniugem] Matth. 14:3; Mark 6:17; Luke 3:19.  484–494 Hic1 … Herodias] Heg. 2.5.2–4.  485–488 Matth. 3:16–17; Mark 1:9–11; John 1:32–33.  489 Matth. 14:1–12; Mark 6:14–29; Luke 3:19–20, 9:7–9.  490–492 Luke 23:6–16. 461 habebat] habeat corr. L | Doside] Dosile O  462 egrotaret] egrotasset DE  464 perit] original erased periit D | admixtus] permixtus O  465 nequid] nequis V  468 Salome] Salomo corr. V  471 aliis] alienis V  473 ad] a C  475 ipsius] suam D  476 est] om. C | Viennam] Vienna V  477 periit] petiit L  478 Per] Et per C | tetrarchias] tetrarcas C provincia] provinciam D  479 Iudee] Iude V  480 data] dada C  481 regis] om. DE 485 tanti] tati V  486 baptista] bapstista V  488 columbe] columbem V | conspicere] prospicere C



On the Seven Books of Josephus 103

Pilato eum preside Nam ipse Ierosolimis Sed Rome post ob nimiam Confugit ad Hispanias At tetrarchiam terciam, Philippus frater habuit, Et quarta pars provincie Que Abilina dicitur Augusto Rome mortuo, Edicta est descriptio, Secundum Lucam legimus, Romano sublimatus est, Post hunc regnavit Gaius, Nero successit Claudio, Est supergressus omnia Matrem fratrem cum coniuge Postremo cesis patribus Romam excellentissimam Petrum Paulum precipuos Petrum crucis patibulo, Qui tandem ad permaximam Ut luderet in theatro, Sic anno quartodecimo Ex quo sumpsit imperium Post cuius mortem protinus Annorum trium spatio Vespasianus deinde Subrogatur imperio Veruntamen tunc temporis, Una cum Tyto filio Iudeis renuentibus Statuerat persolvere, Agros, vicos cum urbibus, In Galilea siquidem

iudicante dimittere, morabatur tunc temporis. dampnatus avaritiam et post eum Herodias. Traconem et Ituream, cuius uxorem abstulit, concessa est Lisanie, et Libano conectitur. sub quo nascente Domino sicut in evangelio imperio Tyberius sub quo salvator passus est. post Gaium vero Claudius; sed potitus imperio crudelitatis genera: non veritus occidere fere consumpsit ignibus totius orbis dominam; interfecit apostolos: Paulum consumens gladio. devenit ignominiam scurra factus et hystrio. plene necdum explicito consequitur interitum. Galba, Otto, Vitellius succedunt in imperio. Romane dux militie a senatu vel populo. cum esset Ierosolimis exercituque valido, tributa que Pompeius devastabat assidue viros cum mulieribus. devicit Tyberiadem,

495

500

505

510

515

520

493–494 Herodes Romae post nimiam avaritiam damnatus confugit ad Hispanias et post illum Herodias in left marg. f. 21v. E2 493–494 Ruf. 2.8, p. 669; Heg. 2.5.4.  495–502 Luke 3:1.  504–508 Ruf. 2.11, p. 674; Heg. 2.6.1.  509–510 Petrum1 … gladio] Heg. 3.2.  511–512 Ruf. 2.11, p. 674. 513–518 Ruf. 5.6, pp. 761–62.  521–522 Ruf. 2.11 p. 674, 2.16, p. 687. 493 ob] ss. O om. DE  495 tetrarchiam] tetrarcham D tetrarhiam C | Ituream] Itruream L Ytuream O  498 Abilina] Alina V  500 sicut] sicut et C  502 passus est] original erased, passus est in right marg. V  504 potitus] potutus ss. c [?] C  508 orbis] uorbis L 510 Paulum] Paulo V  513 plene] pene C  514 quo] c ss. V  515 cuius mortem] mortem ~ V | Galba] Gaba V Galla C | Otto] Cato C Octo EV Oto O  516 in] om. C 517 militie] milice D  518 populo] a populo V  520 exercituque] exercitoque C exercituique D

104

Taracheam, Iotapatam Urbes excellentissimas Et subiugatis omnibus Ad civitatem regiam A Roma missi nuntii Orantes ut celerrime Redacte iam ad nichilum Predicti namque principes Gula luxuque nimio Relicto Tyto filio Receptus honorifice Et rexit per decennium At Tytus, cum exercitu Iudaicam provinciam, Tunc quidem adimpletum est Videlicet cum Dominus Cunctarum rerum prescius, Tunc Tytus eam undique Ne foret clausis aliqua Exterius obsidio, Et fames cum incendio Et intestino prelio Frumenti namque copia Que habundasset populo Unius hore spatio Cepit ergo cotidie Et periit inedia Nec erat tabescentia Fetor intolerabilis Et aeris corruptio Qui prevalebant viribus Et cadebant cotidie Sepe Tytus misertus est Ut sibimet consulerent Nec paterentur destrui Sed expertes consilii Obliti iam que antea In quibus apertissime

Julian Yolles

et Gliscalim et Gamalam, olimque munitissimas. Galileorum finibus perrexit Alexandriam. ei fuerunt obvii, Romane reipublice conferret adiutorium: elati sive desides abusi sunt imperio. Romam petit navigio. fit rex et pater patrie, feliciter imperium. devastans in circuitu obsedit Ierosolimam. quod antea predictum est: civitatem intuitus, ruinam fleret ipsius. circumvallavit aggere, fugiendi licentia; interius seditio, vastabat eos sedulo, se trucidabant mutuo. coadunata maxima, totius anni circulo, consumpta est incendio. horrenda fames crescere pars populi non modica. qui sepeliret corpora; et aspectus horribilis, stravit multos de populo; decertabant cum hostibus, armorum omni genere. eosque deprecatus est et ut in pace viverent, urbem Templumque Domini. totum pendebant nichili, previderant prodigia, potuerunt perpendere

525

530

535

540

545

550

555

560

525 The town of Gischala is meant.  529–533 Ruf. 5.10, p. 767; Heg. 4.26.1–2. 534–536 Ruf. 5.12, p. 768; Heg. 4.33.2.  539–541 Tunc … ipsius] Luke 19:41–44. 542–543 Ruf. 6.13, pp. 799–800; Heg. 5.8.1.  544–556 Ruf. 6.14, pp. 800–801; Heg. 5.8.2. 557–559 Ruf. 6.11, pp. 791–92; Heg. 5.15.  561–621 Ruf. 7.12, pp. 820–21; Heg. 5.44.1–3. 525 Taracheam] Tetrarcheam CDE | Gliscalim] Gliscalum V  526 excellentissimas] exelentissimas C  528 Alexandriam] Ierosolimam O  531 conferret] conferet L 534 Tyto filio] filio Tito V  535 fit] fuit C | pater patrie] pacifice C  537 At Tytus] Atitus C 541 Cunctarum] Cuntarum corr. V  542 circumvallavit] circumvalleret D  545 sedulo] gladio O  549 hore] noctis O  552 sepeliret] sepelere C  560 expertes] expertis C



On the Seven Books of Josephus 105

Esse tempus excidii Nam dependentem gladium Conspexerant in aere Et res valde mirabilis Que post nec ante contigit, Conspiciente populo In templo voces edite “Cedamus istis sedibus Templique porte eree, Vix a viginti fortibus Diruptis seris ferreis In hora noctis medie Exorta est hinc questio Utrum hoc omen pessimum Quidam divine gracie Portarum hec apertio Illorum liberatio Quidam (quod erat verius) Urbem quoque cum populo Quadam die prodigium Apparuit horrificum: Per nubes et per aera, Sunt visa cunctis agmina, Prodigiisque omnibus Quod quidam vir plebeius, Per totum quadriennium Diebus atque noctibus Dicens: “Ab oriente vox, Et quattuor a ventis vox, Vox super Ierosolimam, Vox super omnem populum.” Correptus autem sepius Et laceratis carnibus Deterreri non potuit, Et coram magistratibus Dicens, “Ve ve Ierosalem,” Adhuc nulla calamitas

civitatis et populi: super urbem et populum unius anni tempore. apparuit tunc temporis, nam agnam vacca peperit, admota sacrificio. sunt non audiri solite: nec hic moremur amplius!” que sui magnitudine claudebantur hominibus, et fortibus repagulis patuerunt spontanee. magnaque dubitatio, eis esset an optimum. conabantur ascribere, quod esset sine dubio de Romanorum gladio; patere Templum hostibus, exterminandam subito. ante solis occubitum nam urbis per circuitum, cum armis discurrentia futurorum presagia. hoc fuit mirabilius cui nomen erat Iesus, ante belli principium magnis clamabat vocibus, ab occidente quoque vox. super sponsos sponsasque vox. vox super Templum etiam: Hoc dicebat ad ultimum. tam minis quam verberibus pene nudatis ossibus sed idem clamans perstitit. multo clamabat amplius, et repetebat eadem. nondum obsessa civitas,

565

570

575

580

585

590

595

563 excidii] exidii C  565 tempore] tepore L  566 tunc] in left marg. D  569 voces] voce corr. E  570 istis] ab ss. D | sedibus] cedibus D | nec] ne C  571 Templique porte] Templi porteque O | magnitudine] magni[/ne] D  572 claudebantur] clauderentur O 573 Diruptis] Disruptis CDEV Diṣruptis L | seris] seṛris L | fortibus] fortis C 574 spontanee] spontane D  575 Exorta] Exhorta E | est hinc] hinc ~ C | dubitatio] dupbitacio D  576 omen] illegible D | an] at D aut CEL  580 patere] patēre O ̣ 582 die] doe corr. C  586 Prodigiisque] Et predigiisque D | hoc] nil DE  587 vir] om. O plebeius] plebius V | erat] fuerat DELV  588 totum] totam C  590 Dicens] Dicensṭẹ D vox1] vox ss. D | vox2] vox ss. D  591 vox1] vox ss. D | sponsos] sponso corr. O sponsasque] sponsaque corr. O  592 Vox] Ṿọx ̣ D  596 perstitit] restitit O  598 ve] om. V eadem] itidem DE  599 nulla] nullịa D | nondum] necdum DE | obsessa] possessa D

106

Nondum pressura populi, Erat depopulatio Dum hec incessabiliter Sed postquam urbs obsessa est Hic dum per murum curreret Iacto de funda lapide Et fuso cadens cerebro Hoc vulnere procubuit Iam septimus transierat Annus cum quinque mensibus In quibus nulli restitit Nec cibum offerentibus Preterea presagio Ad bellum hinc cotidie Scriptum erat antiquitus Quod pro certo tunc temporis De Iudeorum finibus Et verum quidem fuerat: Romani namque Cesarem Vespasianum sumpserant Secundum hoc presagium Iudei vero dubio Cum dictum sit de patria, His signis et prodigiis Non est compunctus populus Deprecabatur Dominum A civitate pelleret Enumeratis hactenus Sicut supra promisimus, Nunc ad reges Iudaici Postquam cum Herodiade

Julian Yolles

nondum famis aut gladii vel populi seditio, declamaret ac fortiter. et plebs intus turbata est, et “ve ve michi” diceret, percutitur in vertice, de muri propugnaculo, et tunc clamare desiit. ex quo clamare ceperat usque ad diem obitus, qui ei malum intulit, benedixit ullatenus. seducebantur dubio; incitabantur maxime. in ipsorum codicibus futurus esset aliquis totius orbis dominus. iam enim sic contigerat, de finibus Ierusalem eumque constituerant totius orbis dominum. decepti sunt oraculo, non autem de prosapia. et aliis innumeris nec lacrimis aut precibus ut tam fortem exercitum et obsitam protegeret. Romanorum principibus, ad Tytum usque venimus. vertamus stilum populi. Herodes ad Hispanie

600

605

610

615

620

625

630

630–649 Post fugam Herodis in Hispaniam filius Herodes ei suus successit tres qui Herodes infantium p interfector Herodes qui Johannem decollavit sub primo Christus natus est sub secundo passus. tertius Herodes sub ex Aristobulo natus est. primi Herodis filio erat autem binomius. nam et Agrippa vocabatur at enim Johannem Jacobum interfecit gladio. vinxitque Petrum. eius Herodis qui fugerat et Philippi qui obierat tetrarchiam concessit Gaius. Claudius secundum in omnem divisionem avi sui Herodis sublimavit super Abilinam [?] et in exilio tertius Caesareae consumptus est a vermibus in lower marg. f. 22v. E2 630–631 Cf. l. 494. 600 famis] fames C  601 Erat] Nec era C  602 Dum] Cum DE  603 ] Sed pleps C urbs] ss. E urs C | et] om. C | turbata] conturbata C  605 de funda] | defunda CDL 608 septimus] septimo C  610 malum] nullum C maium corr. V  612 Preterea] Pre cetero V seducebantur] se ducebantur L  613 hinc] nam O  614 ipsorum codicibus] codicibus eorum O  622 dictum sit] fuerit DE  623 His] Hiis DO  626 obsitam] obsessam C 627 Enumeratis] Numeratis V | hactenus] actenus corr. L  628 venimus] pervenimus O 629 reges] regem O



On the Seven Books of Josephus 107

Partes perrexit profugus, Successit in regimine Uno eodem itaque Herodes, innocentium Primus Herodes extitit, Qui Iohannem in carcere Qui tulit Herodiadem Sub primo Christus natus est Natus ex Aristobolo, Herodes fuit tertius; Nam quem Agrippam Iosephus, Herodem regem nominat, Ipsius quem de Actibus Hic interfecto Iacobo Vinxit Petrum in carcere, Sed eductus ab angelo Aperta porta ferrea Primus obit in Iericho, Cesareeque tercius Hunc clauserat aliquando Sed Gaius Tyberio Solutum eum nexibus Nam et regem constituit Philippi, qui obierat, Sed et occiso Gaio Multum enim senatui Iam dudum commendaverat; Quamobrem regno patrio Cui Abilinam addidit, Cunctisque ei traditis Que Herodes possederat, Magnificavit gloriam Ob hoc elatus nimium Cesaream profectus est

Herodes ei tertius Iudaice provincie. tres appellantur nomine: interfector infantium, qui et Herodem genuit, truncari fecit capite, Philippi fratris coniugem. et sub secundo passus est. Herodis primi filio, erat autem binomius: hunc Lucas noster medicus ut nobis liber indicat Apostolorum legimus. fratre Iohannis gladio volens eum occidere. de carceris ergastulo, reversus est ad solita. secundus in exilio, consumptus est a vermibus. Tyberius ergastulo, succedens in imperio multis ditavit opibus. et tetrachias tradidit et Herodis, qui fugerat. dilectus est a Claudio. promotionem Claudii tunc enim Romam venerat. sublimatur a Claudio, quam Lisanias habuit. in regione Calcidis qui avus eius fuerat, ipsius et potentiam. post interfectum Iacobum ac taliter defunctus est:

635

640

645

650

655

660

641 Herodes in right marg. f. 127v. V¹  642 Agrippa in right marg. f. 127v. V¹

634–635 Cf. ll. 443–45.  636–637 Qui1 … coniugem] Cf. ll. 484–89.  641–643 Acts 25:13–26:32.  644–647 Acts 12:1–11.  649 Acts 12:19–23.  650­–654 Ruf. 2.8, p. 669; Heg. 2.3.4.  655–664 Ruf. 2.10, p. 672; Heg. 2.5.6. 633 itaque] tempore Morin  637 tulit] tuli corr. E | Herodiadem] corr. O original illegible 638 Christus] Christi Morin Christo V | et] om. O  639 primi] primo C  640 Herodes] Herodis corr. O  641 Nam quem] namque D | Agrippam] Agripa V  642 nobis] vobis C 644 fratre] fratrem DV fratris C  646 Sed eductus] Seductus C | ergastulo] ergastitulo C corr. O original illegible  647 solita] propria O  648 obit] obiit DE  653 tradidit] reddidit O 654 Herodis] Erodis corr. V  659 habuit] om. C  660 Cunctisque] Cunctis C | regione] regionem C  663 elatus] letatus O relatus corr. V

108

Julian Yolles

Tribunal sibi fieri Ut de sublimi solio Festus dies advenerat, Ascendit et ad populum Indutus veste regia, Auri splendore nimio Turbatur visus omnium Et hebetato lumine Voces eius non hominis His applaudebat laudibus Languore sed multimodo Dum deus esse voluit, Huius Agrippe filius Sed iam adultus fuerat Cum patre suo populum Tyto contemporaneus Cum esset fortis viribus Suggerebat frequentius Modo blandis sermonibus, Ut civitatem redderent Sed et priusquam menia Essent a Tyto Cesare, Commotionem populi, “Quid facis o gens misera? In quo tibi refugium? Diligenter recogita Romanorum potentie Iam totum orbem domuit, Ad orientem respice, Medos, Parthos, Armenios, Bellatores fortissimos Arabs figens tentoria Est a Pompeio domitus Devicta tu aliquando Romanorum dominio Nunc nimis est difficile Quod facere debueras Certe quingente Asie

iussit in loco celebri, videretur a populo. tribunal quod construxerat contionatur plurimum auro gemmisque fulgida; fit solis repercussio. in eum intuentium, auri solisque iubare, concrepabant sed numinis. sibi non pertinentibus, percussus mox ab angelo: quod erat homo perdidit. Agrippa fuit parvulus. quando Tytus advenerat debellare Iudaicum. et comes individuus, et lingua disertissimus, tam plebi quam principibus, nunc etiam terroribus, tributum quoque solverent. civitatis circundata putans posse comprimere his verbis cepit eloqui: In quo tibi fiducia? Quis conferet auxilium? contra quos geris prelia: quis valuit resistere? fecit quodcumque voluit. et poteris perpendere Chaldeos, et Assyrios Romanis esse subditos; per desertum et invia et factus tributarius. ab eodem Pompeio, obedisti usque modo. collo iugum excutere, quando collum submiseras. civitates fortissime

665

670

675

680

685

690

695

700

676 perdidit] etc. in right marg. f. 136v. D¹ 688–811 Ruf. 2.16, pp. 682–87; Heg. 2.9.1. 667 tribunal] tribunall D | construxerat] paraverat O  668 contionatur] concianatur C 671 Turbatur] Turbatus C  674 His] Hiis DO  681 lingua] linga V  687 his] hiis DO eloqui] loqui e erased O  688 misera] misara corr. C  693 respice] prospice O 694 Parthos] Partos corr. V  696 Arabs] Arabas D  701 debueras] debue ras L



On the Seven Books of Josephus 109

Romanis nunc rectoribus Xerses per terram navigans Cum primitus exercitum A Grecis fuit postmodum Ut fugeret per equora, Grecorum sapientia, Armis quoque vel viribus Sub Alexandro principe Velit, nolit, nunc perficit Numquid Atheniensibus Sive Lacedemoniis Hos rerum affluentia De Romanorum manibus Philippenses Achaici Et Galathe gens valida Dalmatia vel Dacia, Provinciaque Scithie, Riget estivo tempore Iugum ferre non renuit, Quid pontum et Pamphiliam, Commemorem, vel Bosforos? Ad occasum convertere, Cerne captam a Iulio, Si gens deberet aliqua Cum Romanis contendere, Contra hostes assurgere, Clauduntur tamen undique Nam Alpium sublimibus Simulque a meridie Pyreneorum montium Ab occasu Occeano Ab Aquilone deinde Sic premunitos aliquo Nemo potest: sunt etenim

obediunt in omnibus. et super fretum ambulans, habuisset innumerum, sic redactus ad nichilum vectus una navicula. divitiis, et gloria, precellens cunctis gentibus, post quoque multo tempore quicquid Roma preceperit. aut certe Macedonibus te comparare poteris? vel pugnandi peritia eripuit nullatenus. Tracesque pugnacissimi Romanis servit subdita. gens etiam Meotida que glaciali frigore multoque magis hieme, sicut Romanis placuit. Ciliciam et Liciam Romanos habent dominos. et insulam Britannie quamvis clausam Occeano. pro libertate patria Gallos deceret maxime qui cum sint fortes robore, naturali munimine: ab oriente montibus, miranda celsitudine pene nubes tangentium, procelloso ac turbido, vallantur Reno flumine. hos computare numero gentes trecente quindecim.

705

710

715

720

725

730

735

727–734 Gallia sublimibus ab oriente montibus simulque a meridie miranda celsitudine Pyreneorum montium ab occasu Oceano ab Aquilone Reno flumine in left marg. f. 23v. E2  734 Teno flumine in right marg. f. 128r. V¹  736 Gentes Gallorum trecente quindecim in left marg. f. 23v. E2 703 nunc] non C  704 Xerses] Xirses corr. V | terram] mare O  705 innumerum] fortissimum O  707 fugeret] fugerte V  709 cunctis] cuntis C  711 nolit] nolie C preceperit] precepit DE  713 Lacedemoniis] Lace demoniis L Lacedemonis C | Lacemoniis corr. V  714 pugnandi] pugnanda C  717 Galathe] Galatee V  718 Dalmatia] Dalmatica DV  719 Provinciaque] Proviciaque C Provincieque corr. O | glaciali] gliciali corr. O  721 ferre] fere C  722 Ciliciam] Sciliciam V  724 insulam] insusulam C 725 quamvis] quavis E | clausam] clausis O  726 deberet] haberet D | libertate] libertanda O  728 assurgere] consurgere O  731 meridie] a meredie D  732 Pyreneorum] Pirenearum C Pireneṇeorum V  733 occasu] ocaso V | ac] et C  735 premunitos] permunitos Morin  736 trecente] trecene CDE trescente O

110

Abundantes in omnibus Terras habent fructiferas Ac eas irrigantia Persolvit tamen annua Hoc animi mollitia Nam octoginta circiter Pro libertate patria Victi tandem ab hostibus Mille ducentis hactenus Quis Germanorum corpora Attamen virtus animi Mortis contemptrix anima His comparari bestie Parent tamen in omnibus Hyberis et Pyreneis, Subactis atque populis Ipsum quidem Occeanum Donec sue potentie Quamvis non sine maximo Et non parvo dispendio Numquid muri Ierusalem, Occeani tumentibus Urbem Cartaginiensium Non valuit protegere Cum ducem invincibilem Cuius tanta superbia, Ut sue multitudini Romanos parvipenderet Ille nec maris transitum Exhorruit sed pervias Quo ante eius transitum Ac post hec in Italia A Romanis aliquando Apud Cannas Apulie, Interfectis nobilibus Et post abstractis anulis Tres cumulavit modios,

Julian Yolles

vite felicitatibus, et vineas uberrimas, fontes dulces et flumina. Romanis vectigalia, non faciente aliqua, annos satis viriliter exercuere prelia. plus fortuna quam viribus sunt subditi militibus. non miretur tam grandia? est preferenda corpori: parvipendit pericula. non possunt ferocissime. Romanis legionibus. Lusitanis et Cantabris, ultra columpnas Herculis, non posuere terminum, subigerentur insule, hoc fieret periculo in apparatu nautico. in quibus tibi ponis spem, sunt fortiores fluctibus? Romanos emulantium virtus totius Africe, habuisset Hannibalem, tanta fuit et gloria, fidens innumerabili et cum eis confligeret. nec rupes celsas Alpium Alpes fecit asperrimas, nullus duxit exercitum. multa commisit prelia, victus vincebat ilico uno tantum certamine tribunis et consulibus. ab occisorum digitis et post eosdem anulos

740

745

750

755

760

765

770

742–743 80 annis cum Romanis pro libertate contendebant in left marg. f. 23v. E2 745 200000 militibus subditi in left marg. f. 23v. E2 739 Ac] Et E  740 Persolvit] Persolvunt Morin Persolvuntur O  741 Hoc] om. D 742 annos] annis O  743 libertate] libtate V  744 Victi] Victa DE  747 Attamen] Et O 748 parvipendit] parvipendet C  749 His] Hiis DO  750 Parent] Parcete C | legionibus] regionibus D  751 Hyberis] Hyrenis C  753 quidem] quoque O  Occeanum] occeani CDELO  759 Cartaginiensium] Cartaginensium CEOV  760 totius] in right marg. with signe de renvoi V  761 Hannibalem] Annibalem, H ss. L  765 maris] montis DE | nec2 … Alpium] quo nullus duxit exercitum DE  767 nullus] nemo O  768 Ac] At DE Hac LV



On the Seven Books of Josephus 111

Indicium victorie Roma tamen Cartaginem Egyptus, Ethiopia, Romanorum principibus Urbs potens Alexandria, Protense longitudinis Bis binis panem mensibus Nec minus tamen annua Que colligit per singula Sic quidem tota Africa, Nam a mari Athlantico Orientalem terminum Servit tamen cum omnibus Annonam octo mensibus Numquid tante potentie Si fugere volueris, Orbem totum circumspice Si plus mori desideras In te converte gladium, Occidat patrem filius, Interimantur parvuli, Urbem Templumque Domini Nec erit eis postea Sed forsitan ad ultimum Vobis adesse creditis, Illi quoque Dominico Nam res Romana publica Certe tam longo tempore Sed dicite, quemadmodum Impetrare poteritis, Pugnantes die Sabbati Vacare si nitimini, Hoc etenim experti sunt Hec ubi rex locutus est, Sed indurata nimium Corripientis monita Ipsum quoque, quamplurimis Affectum primo, postea Iosippus quoque postea,

transmisit primis Africe. subvertit et Hannibalem. Pentapolis, et Libia obediunt in omnibus. habens triginta stadia et decem latitudinis, Romanis donat omnibus, persolvit vectigalia, habitatorum capita. cum sit orbis pars tertia, occidentali termino, sortitur mare rubeum, suis habitatoribus, prebens Romanis civibus. sola vales resistere? evadere non poteris. plenum Romano milite. quam ut Romanis servias, occidat pater filium, non parcatur coniugibus, trucidentur et famuli, consumat vis incendii, victorie materia. divinum adiutorium cum ipsi defeceritis. proteguntur auxilio, sine divina gratia nequisset consistere. divinum adiutorium si Deum offenderitis? legem transgrediemini; quam cito capiemini! qui a Pompeio capti sunt.” ubertim lacrimatus est. gens, habens cor lapideum, contempsit salutaria. verborum contumeliis propellit extra menia. cum esset urbs circumdata,

775

780

785

790

795

800

805

810

810–811 Illegible gloss in upper marg. f. 24r. E2  812–903 Ruf. 6.11, pp. 791–95; Heg. 5.16.1. 774 transmisit] trans ss. V  775 subvertit] vicit O  776 Egyptus] Egiptus V 778 Alexandria] Alexandrie V  779 decem] ss. D  781 minus] in right marg. with signe de renvoi V  785 Orientalem] Orientale C  790 Orbem] Urbem O | totum] totam O plenum] plenam O  791 Romanis] Romani corr. L  792 occidat pater] pater ~ E 793 Occidat … coniugibus] om. DE  795 consumat] consumet O  804 legem] leges L 805 si] ss. D  809 Corripientis] Corripientes C corr. L Corripipientis E | salutaria] salutifera O 811 propellit] propellunt O  812 urbs] ubrs V

112

Julian Yolles

Nec esset ambiguitas Homo Iudeus genere Ut civitati parcerent, Iam enim duo diruta Murusque iam cum turribus Iam obsessorum viscera Insepulta cadavera Plateas, vicos, domata, Si sepulture tradere Misertus vellet aliquis, Moriebatur omnibus Nec latebat exterius Hortante tamen Cesare Iosippus, ut Iudaicus Salutis sue monita, At illi vehementius Appetere non veriti, Iosippus postquam plurima Nichil proficientia Hystorias gentilium Et “O,” inquit, “miserrimi, Numquid vos invincibiles Patres nostri frequentius Non tam armis aut viribus Cum rex Egypti pharao Saram tulisset Abrahe, Non tam magnam iniuriam Sed in conspectu Domini Sara secunda vespera Rex insuper non modica In luto seu in latere Patres nostri cum filiis Cumque eis impositum In colligendis paleis Invocaverunt Dominum Quorum clamorem Dominus Et misit eis principem

quin caperetur civitas, dixit eis Hebraice nec sese morti traderent. erant antemuralia, expugnabatur tercius, marcescebant inedia, loca replebant omnia: cunctaque diversoria. quemquam de suo genere admixtus ipse mortuis exhaustis fame viribus. que fierent interius. loquebatur Iudaice vel sic amaret populus materna lingua cognita. hunc telis et lapidibus totum pendebant nichili. verba deprecatoria profudit sed inania, proferebat in medium cum quibus congredimini? subicietis principes? pugnavere cum hostibus, quam fusis Deo precibus. copulatam coniugio de cuius sumus semine, est armis ultus Abraham, effusa prece supplici est incorrupta reddita; donavit ei munera. detenti longo tempore servierant Egyptiis. iugum foret gravissimum laboribusque plurimis, dominatorem omnium, exaudivit propitius dilectum sibi Moysen,

815

820

825

830

835

840

845

841 Sara secunda vespera reddita Abraham in lower marg. f. 24r. E2 843–844 Ex. 1:14.  845–849 Ex. 5:1–23. 817 cum] ss. V  821 quemquam] quem C  824 que] quid DE | fierent] fiebant O fieret DE 827 materna] paterna L | cognita] edita O  829 veriti] verici C  833 cum] qui CL qui quibus congerrimini add. in right marg. V  834 subicietis] subiectis in right marg. V subicientis C 835 Patres] Petres C | nostri] vestri C  836 Non tam] Natam C | precibus] prec ̣cibus C 838 Saram] Sarṛam O  841 incorrupta] incorrūpta C | reddita] signe de renvoi in right marg., l. 842 written in lower marg. O  842 non] non non C  843 in latere] in om. CDELO 845 foret] esset C  847 dominatorem] donatorem D



On the Seven Books of Josephus 113

Qui regis in presentia Ut Dominum agnosceret Sed induratus pharao ‘Non novi,’ dixit, ‘Dominum, Inmisit ergo Dominus Egyptiorum finibus, In domibusque singulis Eduxit eos Dominus Non arcu sive gladio, Sic quoque dum allophili Est cum Dagon reposita, Dagon precisis manibus Ingemuit Geth, Ascalon, Nam populus ac satrape Digerebant extalia Festinaverunt itaque Hoc faciente Domino, Sennacherib et Rapsaces, Obsederant Ierusalem Adducentes exercitum Sed Ezechie precibus Occidit una noctium Et persequente nemine Magna cum ignominia Quotienscumque regibus Videbatur utilius Armis suisque viribus Dampnabantur exilio Rex noster hoc expertus est Captivus ab Assyriis, Epiphanes Antiochus Dum spem in armis ponerent De Templo sancto rapuit Asportavit preterea Nunc saltim intelligite Romanis urbem reddite Que iam ex longo tempore Romani certe principes

multa fecit prodigia, et populum dimitteret. crudeliorque solito, et non dimitto populum.’ decem plagas in omnibus in viris et pecudibus. occisis primogenitis Egyptiis cernentibus, sed in virtutis brachio. cepissent archam Domini: sed mane die crastina inventus est pro foribus. Gaza, Azotus, Accaron. turpi percussi vulnere cum cibo putrescentia. archam cito remittere non arcu neque gladio. Assyriorum principes, secum innumerabilem tam militum quam peditum, a Deo missus angelus fere totum exercitum. Sennacherib cum Rapsace reversus est ad propria. nostris sive principibus decertare cum hostibus, quam fusis Deo precibus, vel interibant gladio. Sedechias, dum ductus est exul cecatus oculis. urbe capta cum civibus, nec se Deo commiterent, que preciosa repperit; totius urbis spolia. quod vobis extat utile: tributa quoque solvite, consuevistis solvere. in fide semper stabiles,

850

855

860

865

870

875

880

885

850–858 Ex. 7:1–13:22.  859–866 1 Sam. 5:1–6:22.  867–873 2 Kings 18:13–19:37. 878–883 2 Kings 25:1–17. 851 agnosceret] cognosceret O  856 domibusque] ~ nam O  859 Domini] domina corr. C 860 reposita … crastina] in left marg. D  861 Dagon] om. D | pro] pre C  862 Azotus] Atotus L  867 principes] princẹpes D  868 Obsederant] Obsiderant C  870 Sed Ezechie] Sedechie O  874 principibus] princi[]pibus D  878 Rex … 883 spolia] in right marg. O 880 Epiphanes] Epiphates D Epiphantes E | urbe] in ~ C | capta] hac C | civibus] ostibus C 884 saltim] saltem DEO  885 reddite] redite L  886 solvere] reddere O  887 in … semper] semper ~ O

114

Ad ignoscendum prompti sunt Nec me loqui dixeritis Aut mea pro familia, Me ipsum interficite Urbi Temploque parcite, Si aliter feceritis, Nam cuncta vestra opera Urbem igne succenditis, Templi fecistis ambitum In vestro Deum opere Ad celos usque pessima Dum hec et his similia Clamaret audientibus Corde simul et auribus Verborum contumeliis, Ut inimicum impetunt, Tytus ut vidit nimiam Precepit exercitui Armorum omni genere Constructis ergo machinis Murum turresque pariter Arietum inpulsibus, Septembris die septima In die autem crastina Aprilis mensis fuerat, Tam turbam que convenerat, Hoc mense dies azimos Observant annis singulis Quando per ducem Moysen Patres eorum Dominus, Pharaonis oppresserat, Quibus et dedit transitum Hinc inde stante latice Qui eos persecuti sunt Hoc festum pascha dicitur,

Julian Yolles

cum hostes se subiciunt. pro coniuge, pro filiis, que est in urbe plurima: cum filiis et coniuge, vobis ipsis consulite. salvari non poteritis. Deo sunt odibilia: innocentes occiditis, latronum receptaculum. irritatis cotidie; vestra creverunt opera.” Iosippus voce publica cunctis in muro stantibus, duriores lapidibus lapidibus et iaculis ut proditorem arguunt. ipsorum insolentiam, munimen muri tertii viriliter appetere. et prope murum positis concutiebant fortiter saxorum crebris ictibus; sunt menia pessundata, intrant per loca plurima. quando Tytus obsederat quam incolas quos oderat. Iudei celeberrimos memoriale temporis, eduxit de terra Gesen quos nimis dira servitus ex quo Ioseph obierat. per rubri maris alveum. muri similitudine in fluctibus demersi sunt. quod et nunc usque colitur.

890

895

900

905

910

915

920

912–925 Mense Aprili Tytus obsedit Jerusalem quo dies azymos Iudei celebrant in memoriam temporis in quo eos Dominus ex Egipto eduxit per Moysen ducem Tytus Iudeorum qui ad Templum undique confluxerant obsedit in Jerusalem centena milia ter decies recensita in lower marg. f. 25r. E2 904–911 Ruf. 7.16, p. 826; Heg. 5.1.49. 889 pro2] vel OV  891 ipsum] autem O  892 ipsis] om. L  894 Nam … 901 lapidibus] in right marg. O  897 irritatis] irritastis O  899 his] hiis DO  902 Verborum … 903 arguunt] in lower marg. O  903 arguunt] argunt C  905 muri] muro L magno V | tertii] fieri V  907 Constructis] Constrictis D | positis] potēns C  908 concutiebant] concuciebat D  909 inpulsibus] impulsubus D  910 septima] tercia V  912 mensis] mensuis L 914 dies] die DV  916 Gesen] Gersen DEV Iessen O  919 rubri] rubrum DE 921 persecuti] prosecuti D | in fluctibus] ịṇ f̣ḷ̣ục ̣ṭịṣ in fluctibus V | demersi] dimersi OV



On the Seven Books of Josephus 115

Inermes plures aderant, Centena namque milia In civitatis menibus At illi muro perdito, Huc et illuc diffugiunt, Tres miro turres opere Que preminebant ceteris Et dicebantur Phaselon, Prima de fratris nomine, Et ab amico tercia He quamvis fortitudine Essent inexpugnabiles, Una cum defensoribus Mixtique fugientibus Delitescebant clanculo, Has turres nec peritia Tytus tamen has destrui Possent animadvertere Quod ipsius potentie Victores victos lanceis Plures cremabant ignibus In Templo multi fugerant, Quamvis frustra, vel ultimum Nam ipsum cum porticibus Quidam, qui vivi capti sunt, Mulieres et parvuli At bestiis sunt plurimi In ludis quoque scenicis Multitudo non minima Adeptam post victoriam Tytus Romam revertitur, Occurrit pater filio Domitianus etiam Que post Neronis obitum Cum re Romana publica Ottonis et Vitellii Contra duces et populum

qui adorare venerant. ter decies recensita obsessa sunt ab hostibus. nullo freti consilio, nichil tutum repperiunt. ab Herode composite, et Romanorum machinis, Mariamnes, et Ippicon: secundaque de coniuge, hec habuere nomina. simul et altitudine his deputati vigiles relictis tantis turribus, in cloacarum sordibus, omni pudore perdito. nec vi ceperunt aliqua. non est passus, ut posteri post eum multo tempore nichil posset obsistere. persecuntur et gladiis; resistentes in domibus; nam illic se speraverant, habituros refugium: consumptum est ab ignibus. triumpho reservati sunt; sunt alienis venditi; ad devorandum traditi. et aliis spectaculis ludibrio est habita. et civitatem dirutam cum gaudio recipitur. cum universo populo. subegerat Germaniam, considerans imperium pro principum desidia per omnia pessumdari, levaverat calcaneum.

925

930

935

940

945

950

955

928–932 Ruf. 6.6, pp. 779–80; Heg. 5.1.49.  942–951 Ruf. 7.10–11, pp. 818–19; Heg. 5.49.4. 955–962 Ruf. 7.23, pp. 833–34. 923 aderant] fuṛerant O  924 namque] quoque DE  930 Mariamnes] Marianne C 933 He] Hee CO  934 his] hiis DO  935 turribus] viribus O  936 cloacarum] clocarum ss. D  941 potentie] potetie C | obsistere] recistere D  943 Plures … 944 speraverant] parchment damaged O  946 cum] ss. V  947 triumpho … 948 sunt] in left marg. D  952 Adeptam] Adepta D | victoriam] victoria Morin | civitatem] civitate D | dirutam] diruta Morin  957 Cum … desidia] transp. to l. 958 O | pro] per D | principum] principium corr. D | desidia] dissidia Morin  958 Ottonis] Octonis ACDELV Otonis O | Vitellii] Vitelli D  959 levaverat] leverat (va ss.) V | calcaneum] calcaneneum V

116

Post adeptum imperium, Domitianum mittere Idoneum reprimere Tytus Iudea subruta, Senatui vel populo Nam videbatur omnibus Cum post diram tyrannidem Bellorum peritissimum Triumphus ineffabilis Qualis nec visus antea, Iam finis erit operi,

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Vespasianus filium acceleravit concite, superbiam Germanie. frater eius Germania, complacebant omnimodo: quod esset orta nova lux hunc habuissent principem, et pacis amantissimum. tam patri fit quam filiis, nec est auditus postea. legenti ne sit oneri.

Annus erat millesimus et centesimus atque Sexagesimus exactus septem quoque menses Terquinique dies ex quo Templum Salomon Rex In Moria monte cepit prius edificare, Cum Tytus totam cum Templo subruit urbem. Nec tamen hoc Templum factum fuit a Salomone: Illud enim Nabugodonosor subverterat ante, Hocque sub Aggeo constructum tempore Cyri Persarum regis fuerat cum de Babilone Princeps Zorobabel Hesdras quoque scriba redirent.

960

965

970

975

980

963–969 Ruf. 7.24, pp. 734–37.  971–980 Ruf. 7.10, p. 819.  976–980 Cf. Ezra 5:12, 6:14, 2:1–2. 963 subruta] subrupta A  964 vel] cum Morin | complacebant] complacebat Morin 965 Nam] Iam AD Tam E  966 hunc] nunc ACDE  967 peritissimum … pacis] om. D 968 ineffabilis] inestimabilis DE | fit] sit D  969 est auditus] auditus ~ with construe marks O 970 erit] est O | operi] huic ~ O  971 Annus … 980 redirent] om. DE 973 Terquinique] Terquini V  974 Moria monte] monte ~ with construe marks O 975 Cum … 976 Salomone] parchment damaged O  980 ] Explicit liber tercius Alius tractatus de eadem materia add. L



On the Seven Books of Josephus 117

Appendix orthographica For the sake of clarity, I have opted to ignore orthographical variants as the result of palatizations (i.e. c for t after i). Abrah-: Habrah- C abundantes: habundantes EO Accaron: Accharon E Acharon CD admixtus: ammixtus DE adquiescere: acquiescere CD Afric-: Affric- DELO Agripp-: Agrip- V Antiochus: Antiocus V apostolorum: appostolorum D applaudebat: aplaudebat V aquilone: achilone V archam: arcam CDEOV archanum: arcanum C Aristobul-: Aristobol- CDEOV Aristobil- CV Ascalon: Aschalon O Asie: Asye DEOV Assyri-: Assiri- CDLV Asiri- V Atheniensibus: Ateniensibus L Babilone: Babylone CDEO Britannie: Britanie C Brittannie L Chaldeos: Caldeos CDEOV cib-: cyb- L circundata: circumdata O cohortibus: coorthibus C choortibus V columpnas: columnas C colupnas DV commendaverat: comendaverat L commiserunt: comiserunt CV commisit: comisit V committentes: comittentes C commodo: comodo C commodum: comodum C commotionem: comotionem CL commotionis: comotionis C condempnatus: condemnatus C condepnatus V conectitur: connectitur CDO consumpsit: consumsit C consumptum: consuptum D contempsit: contemsit L contepsit D contemptrix: contemtrix CL conteptrix D Cypridem: Cyprydem D dampnatus: dapnatus D dimitteret: dimiteret L

Egypt-: Egipt- CDLV Epiphanes: Epifanes CL Ethiopia: Etyopia C exhorruit: exorruit CV exsequendis: exequendis L Gabinius: Guabinius C gazophilatio: gazofilacio CDO Geth: Get V Ghet C habuere: abuere V habundasset: abundasset EO hactenus: actenus LV Hannibalem: Annibalem V hausto: austo V hebetato: ebetato V Hebraice: Ebraice V Herode-: Erode- C Hesdras: Esdras AO hieme: hyeme DE hieime O Hispani-: Ispani- CV Hyspani- D Hitabirio: Hycabinio C Hytabirio DEO Hitaberio L Hytabirio DEO hore: ore E horrenda: horenda L horribilis: orribilis V corr. L horrificum: horificum CD orrificum V host-: ost- C hostibus: ostibus C Hyberis: Yberis DE Hyrcan-: Hircan- CDEV Yrcan- C Ircan-V Hyrchan- V hystoria: historia DV hystoriographus: istoriografus C istoriographus V hystrio: histrio CE idcirco: iccirco EO idoneum: ydoneum D Iericho: Ierico CV Iherico DEV Ericho L Ierosolim-: Iherosolum- D Iherosolim- DO Ierusolim- V Iherusolim- V Ierusalem: Ierosalem CELO Iherosalem DV Iherusalem DV Iesus: Ihesus CDEOV ignominiam: ignomimiam C

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impiissimo: impiisimo V ineffabilis: inefabilis C inpulsibus: impulsibus E interemptis: interemtis C Iohannem: Ihoannem D Ionathen: Ionaten C Iosippu-: Ioseppu- C Iosipphu- C Iosyppu- L Iosipu- V Iotapatam: Iotapatram CV Iothopatam DE Ippicon: Ypichon E Ypocon C Yppicon O Ypychon D Italia: Ytalia D Italiam: Ytaliam D languore: langore DV Libia: Lybia E Lisanie: Lysanie DEO littore: litore DV Mariamne-: Marianne- CLOV Masada: Massada DE Matathie: Mathathie DE Mathatie O Meotida: Meatida C Meodita D Meothida O Mirram: Myrram CDEO misteri-: mysteri- CO mistic-: mystic- EO Nabugodonosor: Nabogodonosor L necessaria: neccessaria D nichili: nihili C numquid:nunquid EO obsedit: osedit D obtineret: optineret C occeano: oceano C occultatum: ocultatum C officium: oficium D oneri: honeri AC oppid-: opid- CDLV oppon-: obpon- OV oppresserat: obpresserat O optimu-: obtimu- V Parthie: Partie V Parthos: Partos C parvul-: parvull- D pascha: pasca V persecutus: persequtus L persecuntur: persequuntur L pessunda-: pessumda- CDELV pesumda- V Philipp-: Philip- CV Phylipp- DELO

Philippenses: Philipenses CLV Philippus: Philipus C Phylippus L Pilato: Pylato D Pompeio: Popeio CV Pompeyo D Prochorus: Procorus LV prompti: promti V promptissimus: promtissimus V Ptolomeus: Ptholomeus DEO Tolomeus V publica: puplica C pubplica C pulchritudinis: pulcritudinis CDEV Pyrene-: Pirene- CDLV quadriennium: quadrennium D quattuor: quatuor CDLOV Rapsaces: Rapscaces C regimine: rigimine C Reno: Hreno O repperi-: reperi- CDEOV Sabbati: Sabati C Scithie: Sithie V secutus: sequutus L sed: set D Sennacherib: Senacherib LV sepulchrum: sepulcrum CDV squalore: scalore CV sublim-: sullim- E succedens: sucedens L successit: succesit C sumpsit: sumsit V supplex: suplex LOV supplici: suplici COV syderibus: sideribus V Symon-: Simon- CV Syri-: Siri- CV Siry- C Syry- D Taracheam: Taratheam L theatro: teatro C Tyberi-: Tiberi- C Tyberiadem: Tiberiadem C Tygrane: Tigrane E tyrannidem: tirannidem CEOV Tyto: Tito V uberrimas: uberimas D vacca: vaca CV veruntamen: verumtamen CDLV verumptamen O verumtamen CDLV Ydume-: Idumi- C Idume- E Ideme- V ypodromo: ipodromio C ipodromo V

Irish Involvement in the First and Second Crusades? A Reconsideration of the Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Evidence Denis Casey Independent scholar, Dublin [email protected] Abstract The issue of Irish involvement in the crusades prior to the English invasion of Ireland (1160s), which has hitherto received scant attention in both crusader and Irish historiography, is examined here. A critique is offered of two important articles dedicated to this subject (Costello 1970 and Kostick 2003), both of which primarily utilized crusader chronicles to argue the case for Irish participation in the early crusades. A detailed, critical examination of the sources used in these articles demonstrates that those texts cannot be depended upon to provide reliable evidence for such involvement. Sources that have been largely or wholly ignored with regard to this topic are then scrutinized, including Irish annalistic texts and documents emanating from the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem; these too are shown to lack solid evidence for Irish crusaders. It is suggested that a differentiation should be made between Irish knowledge of, and active participation in, the crusades: although convincing evidence for pre-invasion Irish involvement in the crusades is wanting, Irish sources nonetheless display awareness of crusader actions. It is also argued that Irish Church reform in the twelfth century was an important link between Ireland and the world of the crusaders, and that crusader ideology may have had an influence upon Irish society. Finally, it is proposed that literary sources emanating from the reform movement should form an important component of future studies of Ireland and the crusades.

The extent, or even existence, of Irish involvement in the early crusades has been largely unexplored in both Irish and crusader historiography. Historians of medieval Ireland who study the period prior to the English invasion (traditionally dated to 1169), have mainly investigated late eleventh- and twelfth-century contacts between Ireland and continental Europe in terms of Irish Church reform I would like to thank Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC), University of Cambridge) and Ben Vertannes (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge), who read over earlier drafts of this article and provided many useful comments, Jonathan Grove (Clare Hall, University of Cambridge), for discussing Sigurðr Magnússon with me and Natalia Petrovskaia (Department of ASNC) for providing me with a copy of her article. I am also grateful to the Society for Renaissance Studies for a postdoctoral fellowship during the 2011–12 academic year, during which time I was able to revise this article, and for the support I received from the Department of ASNC and the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Needless to say, none of the above may be held responsible for any of my mistakes, omissions or misinterpretations. 119

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and its international contexts.1 Source-based reasons may partially account for the avoidance of Ireland in studies of the early crusades and of the early crusades in Irish studies. The principal records of political events in eleventh- and twelfthcentury Ireland are found in collections of annals and not narrative histories and chronicles. The Irish annalists were not given to discursiveness and were largely introspective, dealing primarily with the careers of important Irish ecclesiastical and secular figures within Ireland. Consequently, when searching for evidence of Irish involvement in the crusades, scholars have generally looked to texts written outside of Ireland. Two of the few (and most recent) attempts to probe the question of Irish involvement in the early crusades by looking at such external evidence were undertaken by Con Costello, published in The Irish Sword (the journal of the Military History Society of Ireland) in 1970, and Conor Kostick, in History Ireland in 2003.2 Costello focused his study primarily on the period after the English invasion (1169), which is unsurprising as it is only from that period that evidence for Irish (both Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Irish) participation in the crusades survives in any appreciable quantity.3 In his article, Costello posed the question: “Were the people of Ireland aware of what was happening in the East at this time, or were they surrounded by an impenetrable Irish mist, totally ignorant of Continental affairs?”4 In answer to his own question, Costello provided a brief catalogue of evidence for Irish participation in the crusades prior to 1169; unfortunately, this evidence does not stand up to close scrutiny. In support of his argument he drew upon works by the medieval chroniclers Guibert of Nogent and Robert of Gloucester, the Renaissance/ early modern writers Torquato Tasso and Thomas Fuller, and two modern writers, John Campion and Edward Doherty. As Costello’s article is the only detailed point of reference for scholars interested in Irish involvement in the early crusades, I have considered it necessary to engage with his arguments in detail, in order to 1 

The literature concerning church reform is now voluminous. For important compilations of essays on Irish Church reform in the twelfth century, see the collected essays of Aubrey Gwynn: Aubrey Gwynn, The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, ed. Gerard O’Brien (Dublin, 1992); and Damian Bracken and Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel, eds., Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century: Reform and Renewal (Dublin, 2006). More recently reform has been discussed in Marie Therese Flanagan, The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Studies in Celtic History 29 (Woodbridge, 2010). 2  Con Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” The Irish Sword 9 (1970): 263–77. This article was reprinted, with only one substantial change to the section relevant to this discussion (see below, n. 32), in Con Costello, Ireland and the Holy Land: An Account of Irish Links with the Levant from the Earliest Times (Dublin, 1974), 26–46. Quotations and references in this article are from “Ireland and the Crusades”. Conor Kostick, “Ireland and the First Crusade,” History Ireland 11/1 (2003): 12–13. 3  For example, no evidence exists for the presence of the Hospitallers or Templars in pre-invasion Ireland and it seems likely that they first came to Ireland with the new settlers. See Caesar Litton Falkiner, “The Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in Ireland,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 26C (1907): 275–317, at 276–81; and Herbert Wood, “The Templars in Ireland,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 26C (1907): 327–77, at 330–31. 4  Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” 263.



Irish Involvement in the First and Second Crusades? 121

demonstrate the unsustainability of his thesis. In this article, each of Costello’s sources will be examined in turn and it will be demonstrated that there is actually little or nothing to substantiate his claims that these sources support his theory of Irish involvement in the early crusades. Kostick’s short article (approximately 1,400 words), in which he drew on different annalistic and chronicle sources, also answered the same question in the affirmative. Each of the sources upon which he drew will also be investigated, and it will be argued that these, too, cannot be depended upon to provide reliable evidence for Irish involvement in the crusades. In order to further explore the possibility of Irish participation in the early crusades, attention will then be focused on internal Irish annalistic sources (which were not used by Costello or Kostick), as well as documents emanating from, and church dedications in, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Contemporary Irish literary sources will also be briefly examined for traces of crusader influence. Finally, it will be suggested that, although reliable evidence for Irish involvement in the crusades during the pre-invasion period is wanting, a differentiation should be made between knowledge of, and active participation in, the crusades; some Irish sources actually display an awareness of, or were influenced by, crusader actions. These sources are primarily literary and should form an important element of future studies of Ireland and the crusades. Costello’s Sources Guibert of Nogent Guibert of Nogent was an eleventh-/twelfth-century abbot in Picardy who wrote a highly stylized history of the early crusades. Guibert’s account, Gesta Dei per Francos (“Deeds of God through the Franks”), was essentially a rewriting of the anonymous Gesta Francorum (“Deeds of the Franks”), in an attempt to render the crusades more theologically acceptable, through use of the language of monastic endeavour. Guibert’s Gesta (as he states in his preface) was an effort to improve the style of the earlier Gesta Francorum, which itself was probably an eyewitness account of the First Crusade.5 Costello twice quoted Guibert in translation, regarding ferocious, naked, savage fanatics “from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland” who fought in the crusades.6 Costello took his translation from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the magnum opus of the great Enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon.7 Costello, however, rather injudiciously edited Gibbon’s text. Whereas Gibbon used the words “the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland 5 

GN, preface, 79–84. Guibert de Nogent, The Deeds of God through the Franks: A Translation of Guibert de Nogent’s Gesta Dei per Francos, trans. Robert Levine (Woodbridge, 1997), 24. 6  Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” 263–64. 7  Ibid., 275, n. 1 and n. 5.

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or Scotland,” Costello cut Gibbon’s translation short and omitted his qualifier.8 Furthermore, Costello appears to have overlooked or ignored the footnote (on the same page) of that edition, which included Guibert’s Latin original and highlights the fact that Scotorum could refer to either the Irish or the Scots.9 With regard to the ambiguity contained in the term Scot, it appears that Guibert was most likely referring to the Scots of Scotland, not the Irish.10 Although “Scot” was originally a label that designated the Irish (and in the eleventh and twelfth century could still be so used), it became applied increasingly to the inhabitants of what is now known as Scotland.11 It seems clear that Guibert considered the Scots the inhabitants of Scotland, not Ireland, as may be seen in his reference to William the Elder (the Conqueror) as conqueror of the kingdoms of the English and Scots (William had, after all, gained nominal overlordship over the latter at the Peace of Abernethy in 1072).12 Similarly, Guibert’s English contemporary, William of Malmesbury (d. after 1142), in his description of popular responses to Urban II’s appeal at Clermont, appears to have used Scot to designate the inhabitants of Scotland rather than Ireland: Nam non solum mediterraneas prouintias hic amor mouit, sed et omnes qui uel in penitissimis insulis uel in nationibus barbaris Christi nomen audierant. Tunc Walensis uenationem saltuum, tunc Scottus familiaritatem pulicum, tunc Danus continuationem potuum, tunc Noricus cruditatem reliquit piscium.

8 

Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J. B. Bury, 7 vols. (London, 1896–1900), 6:293 (my emphasis). 9  Ibid., 6:293, n. 80. Guibert’s text (GN, I.111–15, p. 89) reads: Videres Scotorum, apud se ferocium, alias imbellium, cuneos, crure intecto, hispidia clamide, ex humeris dependente sitarcia, de finibus uliginosis allabi et quibus ridicula, quantum ad nos, forent arma, copiosa suae fidei ac devotionis nobis auxilia presentare (“There you would have seen the military formations of Scots, savage in their own country, but elsewhere unwarlike, their knees bare, with their shaggy cloaks, provisions hanging from their shoulders, having slipped out of their boggy borders, offering as aid and testimony to their faith and loyalty, their arms, numerically ridiculous in comparison with ours”: Guibert de Nogent, The Deeds of God through the Franks, 1, p. 29). 10  Similarly Kostick agrees that “it is more likely that Guibert’s crusaders were Scots rather than Irish”: Kostick, “Ireland and the First Crusade,” 12. 11  For example, Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his early-eleventh-century history of the Norman dukes, differentiated between Scoti and Hibernes: Dudo of Saint-Quentin, De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum 103, ed. Jules Lair, Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie 23 (Caen, 1865), 265. For a discussion of the use of the term “Scot” in personal names, see Matthew H. Hammond, “The Use of the Name Scot in the Central Middle Ages Part 1: Scot as a By-Name,” The Journal of Scottish Name Studies 1 (2007): 37–60. 12  GN, 2.701–03, p. 132: Huic sagacissima feminarum uxor accesserat, quae Guillelmi senioris regis, qui Anglorum Scotorumque sibi regna subegit (“His wife was the wisest of women, the daughter of King William the elder, who had conquered the kingdoms of the English and the Scots”: Guibert de Nogent, The Deeds of God through the Franks, 2, p. 54). For further arguments that Guibert’s Scots were from Scotland, see A. A. M. Duncan, “The Dress of the Scots,” Scottish Historical Review 29 (1950): 210–12.



Irish Involvement in the First and Second Crusades? 123

The central areas were not alone in feeling the force of this emotion: it affected all who in the remotest islands or among barbarian tribes had heard the call of Christ. The time had come for the Welshman to give up hunting in his forests, the Scotsman forsook his familiar fleas, the Dane broke off his long drawn-out potations, the Norwegian left his diet of raw fish.13

That William meant Scotland seems clear from his description of early medieval kingdoms in Britain: reges Northanimbrorum dominabantur in omni regione quae est ultra Humbram fluuium usque ad Scottiam (“the kings of the Northumbrians ruled over the whole region beyond the river Humber as far as Scotland”).14 William used Hibernia to indicate Ireland, as seen in his description of the Irish king Muirchertach Ua Briain (d. 1119), as Hibernensium regem Murcardum (“Muirchertach, king of the Irish”).15 Robert of Gloucester The second medieval chronicler Costello quoted was Robert of Gloucester, an English monk who appears to have flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century. Robert wrote a metrical chronicle that its nineteenth-century editor, W. A. Wright, scathingly condemned on grounds of content and style (or rather lack thereof): As history, it will have been seen from the foregoing analysis that the Chronicle possesses no original value except for the period of the barons’ war in the reign of Henry the Third, when the narrative becomes that of a contemporary. As literature, it is as worthless as twelve thousand lines of verse without one spark of poetry can be. Here and there we find a trace of the quiet humour in which gentle dullness delights, but of this the instances are rare and widely scattered.16

Robert simply mentioned Yrlond (Ireland) among a list of nations that sent people to the First Crusade.17 Wright observed that Robert seems to have taken his account of the crusades almost entirely from Henry of Huntingdon (d. ca. 1157).18 Henry, however, appears to have based his information of the crusades on earlier 13 

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings 4.348, ed. and trans. Roger Aubrey Baskerville Mynors, Rodney Malcolm Thomson and Michael Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998–99), 1:606–07. 14  Ibid., 1.104 (1:148–49). 15  Ibid., 5.409 (1:738–39). 16  Robert of Gloucester, The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ed. William Aldis Wright, RS 86, 2 vols. (London, 1887), 1:xxxix–xl. 17  Ibid., 2:581. It appears that Costello thought he was quoting directly from Robert’s chronicle when he was actually quoting John Salmon’s note on Ireland and the crusades: Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” 264 and 275, n. 7. For Costello’s source, see John Salmon, “Ireland and the Crusades,” Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 2nd series, 4 (1898): 131–32, at 131. 18  Robert of Gloucester, The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, 1:xxvi.

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sources (probably indirectly upon the Gesta Francorum19) and did not include the Irish among the crusading peoples.20 Considering Robert’s lack of independent information regarding the early crusades, it is highly likely that he simply expanded his list, possibly to maintain the rhythm of his metrical chronicle. In contrast to Henry (who probably died prior to the invasion of Ireland), Ireland may have loomed larger in Robert’s world view, as the latter was writing during a period when Ireland had been part of the English political sphere for almost a century and Irishmen had certainly taken part in later crusades by the time he wrote his chronicle. Torquato Tasso Moving on to Renaissance sources, Costello quoted (in translation) the poet Torquato Tasso, regarding the presence of Irishmen in the army that captured Jerusalem in 1099.21 Admittedly, Costello acknowledged Tasso as a later source. Tasso was a late sixteenth-century poet (1554–95) and his greatest poem, La Gerusalemme Liberata (“Jerusalem Delivered”), was a highly imaginative account of the First Crusade written almost five hundred years after the events it purports to describe (ca. 1580). Consequently, La Gerusalemme Liberata can hardly be taken as concrete evidence for Irish involvement in the crusades. Thomas Fuller Sandwiched between Costello’s references to Robert of Gloucester’s chronicle and to Irish delegates at a general council of the Church in 1095–96 is the following: “It has been said that the Irish were too busy fighting at home to take part in the Crusades – but even that writer admits that ‘all the concert of Europe would have made no music if the Irish harp had been absent’.”22 This misquotation is taken from a seventeenth-century work by Thomas Fuller (1593–1667), an English clergyman who may be considered one of the first modern historians of the crusades. His Historie of the Holy Warre, from which the above quotation was taken, was first published in 1639. Fuller, however, clearly thought that the Irish did little in the early crusades. In Book 1, chapter 13 (“The Adventurers Sorted According to their Severall Nations”), he noted: England (the Popes pack-horse in that age, which seldome rested in the stable when there was any work to be done) sent many brave men under Robert Duke of Normandy, 19 

Henry of Huntingdon, Henry Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum, the History of the English People, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1996; repr. 2007), xciii–xcix. 20  Ibid., 7.6 (pp. 424–25). 21  Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” 264. Costello claimed to be quoting from John Hoole’s eighteenth-century translation but he actually quotes from Jeremiah Wiffen’s nineteenth-century translation (ibid., 275, n. 6). 22  Ibid., 264.



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brother to William Rufus; as Beauchamp, and others, whose names are lost. Neither surely did the Irishmens feet stick in their bogs, though we find no particular mention of their atchievements.23

In a section that Costello appears to have quoted somewhat out of context, Fuller made quite clear that he regarded Irish participation in the crusades as a postEnglish invasion phenomenon: Ireland also putteth in for her portion of honour in this service. Indeed, for the first fourescore yeares in the Holy warre, Ireland did little there, or in any other countrey. It was divided into many pettie Kingdomes; so that her peoples valour had no progressive motion in length, to make any impression in forrein parts, but onely moved round in a circle at home, their pettie Reguli spending themselves against themselves, till our Henry the second conquered them all. After which time the Irish began to look abroad into Palestine: witnesse many houses for Templars, and the stately Priorie of Kilmainam nigh Dublin for Hospitallers; the last Lord Prior whereof at the dissolution, was Sir John Rawson. Yea, we may well think, that all the consort of Christendome in this warre could have made no musick if the Irish Harp had been wanting.24

If we take the “first fourscore years” of the Holy warre to designate 1095–1175, then Fuller was implying that the Irish had little or no involvement in the crusades prior to the increased English presence in Ireland from 1169 onwards; a point he then explicitly makes, when he claims that it was only after Henry II’s invasion that “the Irish began to look abroad into Palestine.” John Thomas Campion Costello quoted Campion’s Traces of the Crusades [recte Crusaders] in Ireland as: “Finally an historian tells us that ‘there was a single Irishman under Godfrey de Bouillon’ – but he does not mention who he was.”25 Campion was a nineteenthcentury writer of romances, such as Alice, a Historical Romance of the Crusaders in Ireland. His Traces of the Crusaders in Ireland, although it included a collection of his poems, was a non-fiction work of historical inquiry in which Campion set out his intentions clearly: The aim of the following pages is no more than to show that zeal and faith, as well as science and art, co existed lovingly in our native country, and that, whilst Europe rang with the chivalry of religious ardour, Ireland bore a fair and prominent part in the glorious brother-hood, and echoed the religious war-cry through the length and breadth of her holy island.26 23 

Thomas Fulller, The Historie of the Holy Warre, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, 1647), 20 (my emphasis). Ibid., 269. 25  Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” 264. 26  John Thomas Campion, Traces of the Crusaders in Ireland; with Notes and some Poems (Dublin, 1856), 5. 24 

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Costello’s use of Campion’s Traces of the Crusaders in Ireland, however, bears a resemblance to his injudicious quoting of Guibert of Nogent from Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. When considering that Irish historians and sources had little to report on the crusades, all Campion actually said (in a footnote) was that “Tasso makes miserable mention of a single Irishman under Godfrey of Bouillon.”27 Apart from that “miserable mention,” Campion made no further reference to Irish involvement in the crusades prior to 1169, despite his stated aim of demonstrating Irish involvement in that “glorious brother-hood.” Edward Doherty As mentioned above, Costello alleged that Irish delegates were present at a general council of the Church in Spain in 1095/6. He claimed that “all participating delegates agreed to send troops to fight the infidel – but this may have been in Spain itself.”28 His source, he claimed, was Edward Doherty’s Here and There Through Palestine.29 Doherty’s Here and There Through Palestine is a twentyeight-page pamphlet, consisting of descriptions of his journey, as part of an Irish pilgrim group, to Palestine, then under the British mandate, in 1935.30 Doherty, pilgrim though he was, was no Chaucer; his itinerary is, for the most part, a dull, pious and credulous account of the places that he and his group visited, interspersed with alternating romantic and bigoted accounts of the peoples they saw.31 At no point in his narrative did Doherty mention a general council of the Church or Irish involvement in the First Crusade and it must be concluded that Costello was in error on this point. Kostick’s Sources Conor Kostick rightly rejected Guibert of Nogent as a source for Irish involvement in the crusades and suggested that attention should be focused on the testimony of Ekkehard of Aura, Otto of Freising, Orderic Vitalis and the Cronica Regum Mannie et Insularum.32 27 

Ibid., 4 (note marked with a †). Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” 264. 29  Ibid., 275, n. 9. 30  Edward Doherty, Here and There Through Palestine (Dublin, 1935). 31  For example, when describing the sites along the Via Dolorosa he claims: “A sense of distress fills the heart at the thought that so sacred a spot as this one, consecrated by the last spasm of anguish He endured before He reached Calvary should be crowded with Arabs and Mahomedans, with Copts, Abyssinians and squalid Jews who glare at the Christians with eyes of scorn and hatred” (ibid., 16). 32  In History Ireland Kostick was writing for a popular, rather than scholarly, publication and the requirements of the format probably prevented the publication of a lengthy, in-depth analysis of the sources. In his reprint of “Ireland and the Crusades,” Costello did draw attention to Ekkehard of Aura in passing, saying “Abbot Ekkehard of Aura, writing about 1115 also mentions Irish participation in the First Crusade”: Costello, Ireland and the Holy Land, 28. 28 



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Ekkehard of Aura Undoubtedly, the strongest element to the case for an Irish presence at the First Crusade is the testimony of Ekkehard of Aura, who appears to have participated in the crusade of 1101 (though not the First Crusade proper).33 Ekkehard claimed in his chronicle that people came: ex Aquitania scilicet atque Normannia, Anglia, Scotia et Hibernia, Britannia, Galicia, Wasconia, Gallia, Flandria, Lotharingia ceterisque gentibius christianis, quarum nunc minime occurrunt vocabula. from Aquitaine and to be sure, Normandy, England, Scotland and Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Gascony, Gaul, Flanders, Lorraine and other Christian peoples, the names of the least of whom do not now come to mind.34

As Kostick points out, Ekkehard is particularly important as he was a contemporary of the crusades, took part in an early crusade, and distinguished between Scots and Irish.35 As will be seen below, however, such lists are a common feature of crusader chronicles and cannot be unreservedly accepted. Otto of Freising The testimony of Otto of Freising is less reliable than that of Ekkehard. Otto’s Two Cities, written in the 1140s, was, as Kostick notes, indebted to Ekkehard’s chronicle; indeed, Otto appears to have copied the names and order of Ekkehard’s crusading peoples, as he claims they came: ex Aquitania atque Nortmannia, Anglia, Scotia, Hibernia, Brittannia, Galicia, Gaschonia, Gallia, Flandria, Lotharingia, ceterosque populos non solum terram, sed insulas maris ac ultimum oceanum inhabitantes.36 from Aquitaine, Normandy, England, Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Gascony, France, Flanders, Lorraine and the other peoples – not only those that lived on the continent but also those that dwelt in the islands of the sea and the farthest ocean.37

33 

Kostick, “Ireland and the First Crusade,” 12. Ekkehard of Aura, Frutolfs und Ekkehards Chroniken und die anonyme Kaiserchronik 1099, ed. and trans. Franz-Josef Schmale and Irene Schmale-Ott, Ausgewählte Quellen zur Deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters. Freiherr vom Stein–Gedächtnisausgabe 15 (Darmstadt, 1972), 138 (my translation). 35  Kostick, “Ireland and the First Crusade,” 12. 36  Otto of Freising, Ottonis Episcopi Frisingensis Chronica sive Historia de duabus Civitatibus 7.2, ed. Adolf Hofmeister (Hanover and Leipzig, 1912), 311. 37  Otto of Freising, The Two Cities: A Chronicle of Universal History to the Year 1146 A.D. 7.2, trans. Charles C. Mierow (New York, 1928), 406. 34 

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Otto’s claims that some of these people were said to subsist on bread and water and some to use only silver for their utensils does not inspire confidence in his account. In his list he may also have intended to draw a contrast between the supposedly united north-western European peoples (Continental and Insular) of the First Crusade and the Eastern Franks, Saxons, Thuringians and Bavarians, who were less inclined to fight in the Levant, owing to – Otto claims – schism between state and Church. Orderic Vitalis Orderic Vitalis was a Shropshire-born monk, who wrote at Saint-Evroul in the 1120s and 1130s. His account, as Kostick notes, appears to rely on Baldric of Dol’s rewriting of Gesta Francorum.38 Like Otto, Orderic made reference to Insular peoples: Apostolicae iussionis fama per totum orbem perniciter uolauit, et de cunctis gentibus predestinatos ad summi Messiae militiam commonuit. Ingens nempe illud tonitruum Angliam quoque aliasque maritimas insulas nequivit latere; licet undisoni maris abissus illas remoueat ab orbe. News of the papal command spread rapidly all over the world, and aroused the men of all nations who were predestined to join the army of the almighty Messiah. Its great thunder did not fail to reach England and the other islands of the ocean, though the depths of the sounding sea separated them from the remainder of the world.39

Although Orderic identified England as an island in this passage (probably an indication of his world view, rather than a geographical statement), he was nonetheless perfectly capable of distinguishing Ireland from Britain and even Ireland/the Irish from Scotland/the Scots.40 Orderic, despite his ability to differentiate between these peoples on occasion, is a dubious source for Irish history. Marjorie Chibnall (who edited and translated Orderic’s substantial Ecclesiastical History) noted that, while his evidence was invaluable for the reigns of Henry I and Stephen, “he was, however, never wholly at home outside of the Norman world; he never understood the politics of Rome, his account of Irish affairs is mostly legendary, and his misrepresentation of German history is so grotesque that it frequently parts company even with legend and become pure fantasy.”41 Indeed, Orderic does not appear to have always been fully aware of (or, perhaps, even interested in) the actions of the Norman kings in Britain, as can be seen in his treatment of 38 

Kostick, “Ireland and the First Crusade,” 12. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis 9.4, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, Oxford Medieval Texts, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969–80), 5:30–31. 40  Orderic generally uses Hibernenses/Irenses for the Irish. See, for example, ibid. 7.8 (4:42) (Hibernenses) and 11.8 (6:48–51) (Irenses). 41  Ibid., 6:xix. 39 



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contemporary Welsh politics.42 Furthermore, Orderic’s limited knowledge of the islands near Britain appears flawed, as may be seen by his erroneous claim that the Isle of Man was uninhabited when the Norwegian king Magnus Barelegs (Magnús Berfœttr) arrived there in the early twelfth century, during Orderic’s own lifetime.43 It is possible that Orderic intended aliasque maritimas insulas to include Ireland, but what he intended his readers to understand and what he knew or what actually happened are not necessarily the same thing, and it appears doubtful whether he had any reliable evidence concerning Irish involvement in the First Crusade.44 There is an inherent danger in relying on lists of peoples (such as those quoted above) for evidence concerning the origins of participants in the crusades. Such lists may have been composed (and expanded) in order to demonstrate writers’ erudition. This may even be seen in the accounts of eyewitness to the First Crusade, such as Fulcher of Chartres. Fulcher, in his description of the crusaders’ arrival at Antioch, depicts a scene outwardly reminiscent of Nimrod’s tower: sed quis unquam audivit tot tribus linguae in uno exercitu, cum ibi adessent Franci, Flandri, Frisi, Galli, Allobroges, Lotharingi, Alemanni, Baioarii, Normanni, Angli, Scoti, Aquitani, Itali, Daci, Apuli, Iberi, Britones, Graeci, Armeni? quod si vellet me aliquis Britannus vel Teutonicus interrogare, neutro respondere sapere possem.45 And whoever heard such a mixture of languages in one army? There were present Franks, Flemings, Frisians, Gauls, Allobroges, Lotharingians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Normans, English, Scots, Aquitanians, Italians, Dacians, Apulians, Iberians, Bretons, Greeks, and Armenians. If any Briton or Teuton wished to question me I could neither reply nor understand.46

Fulcher, although he was a participant in the First Crusade, largely based his account on the Gesta Francorum and was not present at Antioch during the siege.47 His list, his translator suggests, is somewhat contrived: This list of names is in part rhetorical and exhibits Fulcher’s knowledge of geography, partially classical. By Franci he meant men from northern France (his own area); by 42 

For example, Orderic did not mention the royal expeditions into Wales in 1114 and 1121: Christopher Piers Lewis, “Gruffudd ap Cynan and the Normans,” in Gruffud ap Cynan: A Collaborative Biography, ed. Karen Lesley Maund, Studies in Celtic History 16 (Woodbridge, 1996), 61–77, at 63–64. 43  Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History 10.5 (5:222–3): “Insulam Man quae deserta erat inhabitauit.” 44  Similarly, his account of Edgar Ætheling’s crusading exploits is less reliable than that of William of Malmesbury: Alan Macquarrie, Scotland and the Crusades, 1095–1560 (Edinburgh, 1985), 13. 45  FC, 1.13.4 (pp. 202–03). 46  Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem 1095–1127 1.13.4, trans. Frances Rita Ryan (translation edited by Harold S. Fink) (Knoxville, TN, 1969), 88. Fulcher did not elaborate on the origin of these Scots (i.e. whether they came from Scotland or Ireland). Since Fulcher was referring to languages at this point, it would probably have mattered little to him which people his readers believed was being discussed, as both the Scots and Irish spoke Gaelic. 47  Conor Kostick, The Social Structure of the First Crusade, The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500 76 (Leiden, 2008), 40–41 and 48–49.

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Galli, men from central France, by Allobroges, men from Dauphine and Savoy; by Alemanni, south Germans and Swiss; by Daci, men from Romania and eastern Hungary.48

Ryan’s neat allocation of peoples to territories may not be entirely accurate, and such lists were probably not intended to be a crusader roll call but rather a means of emphasizing the unity of purpose among diverse groups of crusaders; from a theological perspective this counter-Babel theme helped stress the power of Christian unity.49 Furthermore, it is unlikely that the authors of such lists were such accomplished polyglots that they could recognize all the languages spoken by the crusaders, especially those spoken by acknowledged minority participants. Through accentuating differences between the assembled peoples and languages, chroniclers like Ekkehard, Otto and Fulcher made the crusaders’ achievements appear all the more remarkable.50 Cronica Regum Mannie et Insularum Lastly, the thirteenth-century Cronica Regum Mannie et Insularum (“Chronicles of the kings of Man and the Isles”) must be considered. According to this source, Lagmann, son of Godred Crovan, king of Man and the Isles, voluntarily gave up his kingship in repentance for blinding and castrating his brother, Harald, and signo crucis dominicae insignitus (“marked with the sign of the Lord’s Cross”) he travelled to Jerusalem, where he died.51 Such an occurrence may not have been uncommon; a similar exculpatory pilgrimage was performed by the Welsh dynast Morgan ap Cadwgan, who went to Jerusalem after killing his brother and who died in Cyprus on his return journey, in 1128/9.52 48 

Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 88, n. 3. For example, Alemanni could mean Germans more generally, even within Fulcher’s own works: Fritz Vigener, Bezeichnungen für Volk und Land der Deutschen vom 10. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert (Heidelberg, 1901), 245. (I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for this reference and to Ben Vertannes for discussing these lists with me.) 50  Alan Murray has drawn attention to the varying treatments of national identity and language in early crusader chronicles. For example, he notes that, in contrast to Fulcher’s understanding of the crusades as an enterprise uniting Christians, Guibert of Nogent stresses national divisions by exalting the French: Alan V. Murray, “National Identity, Language and Conflict in the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1096–1192,” in The Crusades and the Near East, ed. Conor Kostick (Abingdon, 2011), 107–30, at 108–09. (I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for this reference.) 51  George Broderick and Brian Stowell, eds. and trans., Chronicle of the Kings of Mann and the Isles (Recortys Reeaghyn Vannin as ny hEllanyn) Part 1 (Edinburgh, 1973), p. 62 (text), p. 8 (English translation) and p. 9 (Manx translation). 52  Welsh annals will be cited in this discussion by siglum and sub anno (for example, ByS s. a. 1128). The following sigla and editions will be used: ByS = Thomas Jones, ed. and trans., Brenhinedd y Saesson or the Kings of the Saxons: BM Cotton Ms. Cleopatra B v and the Black Book of Basingwerk NLW Ms. 7006, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales History and Law Series 25 (Cardiff, 1971); ByT RB = Thomas Jones, ed. and trans., Brut y Tywysogyon or the Chronicle of the Princes: Red Book of Hergest Version, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales History and Law Series 16 (Cardiff, 1955); ByT Pen = Thomas Jones, ed., Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth Ms. 20 (Cardiff, 1941), and Thomas Jones, trans., Brut y Tywysogyon or the Chronicle of the Princes: Peniarth Ms. 20 Version, Board of 49 



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As Kostick rightly points out, Lagmann had “very strong Irish connections,”53 (though Alan Macquarrie has somewhat anachronistically deemed Lagmann the only named Scottish participant of the First Crusade).54 Lagmann’s father, Godred (d. 1095), had temporarily been king of the Hiberno-Norse kingdom of Dublin during the early 1090s, until he was expelled by Muirchertach Ua Briain in 1094 and died in Islay (according to the Cronica Regum). It is reasonable to assume that Lagmann may have spent at least part of his youth in Dublin. Lagmann’s abdication was triggered by specific personal reasons (according to Cronica Regum) and there is no suggestion in the text that his journey to Jerusalem was part of a larger crusading movement from Man and the Isles, and certainly not from the HibernoNorse settlement of Dublin, over which Lagmann never exercised control. There are, as Kostick notes, severe difficulties in using the thirteenth-century Cronica Regum as a source for late-eleventh- and early-twelfth-century history. These have been summed up by Benjamin Hudson: Until the middle of the twelfth century, the chronicle’s chronology is often inaccurate in one of three ways. First, there is misdating as in, for example, the Battle of Stamford Bridge placed sub anno 1047, nineteen years before the true date of 1066. Second, events from several years are compressed into a single year, such as the successive reigns of Godred Crovan and his son Lagmann, both given sub anno 1056, thirty-nine years before Godred’s death in 1095. Finally, events are out of order. Immediately following the notice of Lagmann’s death is an entry sub anno 1073 recording the death of the Scottish king Máel Coluim Canmore, who died two years before Godred Crovan. The chronological confusion eases by the second quarter of the twelfth century, when the chronicle’s dating is basically accurate with only slight errors. As the Manx Chronicle [Cronica Regum] shows, determining the sequence of events for Viking history could be as confusing for medieval writers as for later historians.55

Although the chronology is unclear, Lagmann appears to have reigned as king of Man and the Isles from 1103 (after the death of the Norwegian king Magnus Barelegs) to 1108 (or possibly 1110/1156), after which he abdicated and died in Jerusalem (not ca. 1095, as Kostick, following the Cronica Regum, argues).57 Celtic Studies, University of Wales History and Law Series 11 (Cardiff, 1952); AC = John Williams ab Ithel, ed., Annales Cambriæ, RS 20 (London, 1860), and Paul Martin Remfry, trans., Annales Cambriae: A Translation of Harleian 3859; PRO E.164/1; Cottonian Domitian, A 1; Exeter Cathedral Library Ms. 3514 and Ms Exchequer DB Neath, PRO E.164/1 (Shrewsbury, 2007). Morgan’s pilgrimage is recorded in ByS, ByT Pen, ByT RB and AC s. a. 1128. The drowning of later Welsh pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem is recorded in ByS, ByT Pen, ByT RB and AC s. a. 1144. 53  Kostick, “Ireland and the First Crusade,” 13. 54  Macquarrie, Scotland and the Crusades, 11, 13 and 122. Macquarrie, however, contradicts himself by acknowledging that Man and the Isles were not part of the kingdom of the Scots: ibid., 20. 55  Benjamin T. Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion, and Empire in the North Atlantic (Oxford, 2005), 9. 56  R. Andrew McDonald, The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland’s Western Seaboard, c.1000–c.1336, Scottish Historical Review Monograph Series 4 (East Linton, 1997), 37. 57  Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes, 189 and 198.

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Magnus Barelegs had made the kingdom of Man and the Isles subject to Norway, and Lagmann’s crusade (if such it was) was probably part of the great Scandinavian crusade led by his nominal superior, Sigurðr Magnússon, king of Norway; thus, it should probably not be considered an Irish affair.58 In all likelihood, Lagmann was not a crusader who took up the cross as an act of repentance (as suggested by Jonathan Riley-Smith),59 but rather (as argued by Steven Runciman) someone who was part of the growing trend of seeking pardon through pilgrimage to Jerusalem.60 Evidence from Irish Annals for the Crusades61 In light of this refutation of Costello’s and Kostick’s evidence for Irish involvement in the early crusades, the question Costello posed seems even more pertinent, namely “Were the people of Ireland aware of what was happening in the East at this time, or were they surrounded by an impenetrable Irish mist, totally ignorant of Continental affairs?”62 Both before and since Costello wrote his article, a wealth of scholarship has elucidated Irish connections with continental Europe during the late eleventh and early twelfth century, such that it is not practical to examine all those links in detail here.63 Rather, since scholarly enquiry has hitherto been focused upon external chronicle evidence, it will be demonstrated that the Irish annals contain references apparently pertaining to the crusades, which have hitherto been largely overlooked as sources for Irish crusader history. Alternative sources (both internal and external) will then be examined, with the aim of shedding light on Irish interaction with the crusades, prior to the English invasion. Irish annals, as inwardly focused as they appear, offer ample evidence for Irish contact with western Europe and even the Levant. The following are just two examples of such contact. In the late eleventh century, approximately fifteen years before the First Crusade, a contemporary Munster text known as the Annals of Inisfallen, records the journey of an Irish king, most likely on pilgrimage, to Jerusalem: Hua Cind Fhaelad, rí na nDésse, do dul (do) Hierusalem (“Ua Cinn Fhaelad, king of the Déisi, went to Jerusalem”).64 Unfortunately, nothing else is 58 

Ibid., 198. Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997), 83 and 214. 60  Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades: Volume 1. The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1951), 47; idem, The First Crusade (Cambridge, 1980), 30. 61  Subsequent to the writing of this article, Kathryn Hurlock has published an article on the crusades in Irish annals, focusing mainly on the post-invasion Anglo-Irish annals. She briefly covers some of the material discussed in this section: Kathryn Hurlock, “The Crusades to 1291 in the Annals of Medieval Ireland,” Irish Historical Studies 37/148 (2011): 517–34, at 522–23. 62  Costello, “Ireland and the Crusades,” 263. 63  See n. 1 above. 64  Annals cited in this discussion will be cited by siglum, year and entry number (for example, AI 1080.3), except where the chronological apparatus is uncertain, in which case entries will be cited by siglum and sub anno (for example, CS s. a. 1147). The following sigla and editions will be used: AU = Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, eds. and trans., The Annals of Ulster (to A.D. 1131). 59 



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known of Ua Cinn Fhaelad’s motivation and journey, or whether he returned.65 Twenty years before his journey, however, the same source records that Domnall Déssech, cenn crabuid ocus dérce na nGoedel, ocus is he ro imthig do neoch imdeochaid Crist i talmain, quieuit in Domino hi Tich Munnu (“Domnall Déisech, chief of the Gaedil in piety and charity – and it is he who travelled all [the journeys] which Christ travelled on earth – rested in the Lord in Tech Munnu”).66 As Domnall died in Tech Munnu (Taghmon, Co. Wexford), it is clear that he did return. Although Domnall and Ua Cinn Fhaelad were members of the Déisi, this is insufficient evidence to suggest that the Déisi had a particularly strong tradition of pilgrimage to the Middle East.67 The Irish were also ecclesiastically active in Europe. In the year that Urban II preached his famous sermon at Clermont, the Annals of Inisfallen recorded the death of Eogan, cend manach na Gaedel hi Roim (“Eógan, head of the monks of the Gaedil in Rome”).68 Although nothing else appears to be known about this Eógan, it seems clear that he was the head of an Irish community in Rome. Furthermore, this community was apparently in contact with Ireland (either directly or indirectly), hence the Irish annalist heard of Eógan’s death.69 A substantial number of Irish communities were in existence on the Continent during the eleventh century: for example, the Annals of Inisfallen also record that Ailill, cenn manach, hi Colaine quieuit in Domino (“Ailill, head of monks, rested in the Lord in Cologne”) and Aaron of Cologne, another Irish monk, became bishop of Krakow in the middle of the eleventh century.70 The Irish were also influential in Toul and Metz at this time, though the most prominent of these Irish expatriate communities during the eleventh and twelfth centuries were the so-called Schottenklöster (a group of approximately a dozen Benedictine houses), in Southern Germany.71 It is clear from writings like Part 1 Text and Translation (Dublin, 1983); AI = Seán Mac Airt, ed. and trans., The Annals of Inisfallen (MS. Rawlinson B. 503) (Dublin, 1951); ATig = Whitley Stokes, ed. and trans., “Annals of Tigernach,” Revue Celtique 16 (1895): 374–419; 17 (1896): 6–33, 119–263 and 337–420; and 18 (1897): 9–59, 150–97 and 267–303 (repr. Felinfach, 1993, 2 vols.); CS = Gearóid Mac Niocaill, ed. and trans., Chronicon Scotorum http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100016/index.html (edition) and http://www. ucc.ie/celt/published/T100016/index.html (translation), (accessed 23 July 2012). The Déisi were located in what is now Co. Waterford and the above entry is taken from AI 1080.3. 65  In the eleventh century, some Irish pilgrims are recorded returning from their destinations. For example, Flaithbertach Ua Néill, king of Cenél nEógain, went to Rome (AU 1030.4) and returned the following year (AU 1031.1). 66  AI 1060.5. 67  For brief discussions of long-distance Irish pilgrimage, particularly to Jerusalem and (primarily) Rome, see Peter Harbison, Pilgrimage in Ireland: The Monuments and the People (London, 1992), 29–32; and Flanagan, The Transformation of the Irish Church, 227–33. 68  AI 1095.13. 69  It may have been among this community that Donnchad mac Briain, king of Munster, died on pilgrimage or in exile in the monastery of Santo Stefano Rotunda (ATig, CS s. a. 1064). 70  AI 1042.9. Francis John Byrne, “Ireland and her Neighbours, c.1014–c.1072,” in A New History of Ireland 1: Prehistoric and Early Ireland, ed. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Oxford, 2005), 862–98, at 886. 71  For a discussion of the Irish at Ratisbon, see Pádraig Anthony Breatnach, “The Origins of the Irish Monastic Tradition at Ratisbon (Regensburg),” Celtica 13 (1980): 58–77. For a discussion of

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those of the chronicler Marianus Scottus (Máel Brigte), an Irish inclusus at Mainz, that information concerning the great events of the age transferred back and forth between Ireland and the Irish houses on the Continent during the eleventh century. The continued existence of the Schottenklöster, the success of Gregorian reform in Ireland, the appointment of a number of papal legates,72 the introduction of reformed orders (such as the Cistercians and Augustinians), the vibrant engagement with European intellectual culture73 and the gift of a camel by Edgar, king of Scots, to Muirchertach Ua Briain (presumably obtained from crusaders),74 all testify that twelfth-century Irishmen cannot have been “surrounded by an impenetrable Irish mist.”75 With regard to the crusades themselves, there is no record of the First Crusade in Irish annals, though the decrees of the council of Clermont relating to secular clergy appear to have informed those of the synod of Cashel (1101) and possibly influenced Gillebertus, bishop of Limerick, author of De Statu Ecclesiae.76 Two subsequent events reported in the Irish annals may, however, be linked to the crusading movement. In 1123, according to the Annals of Tigernach: Croch Crist a nErinn isin bliadain sin, co tucadh mor-chuairt di la ríg nErenn .i. la Tairrdelbach Húa Concobair, ocus cor’ chuindigh ni di d’fhastadh a n-Erinn, ocus ro leced do, ocus do cumdaighedh laís hí a Ros Coman. Christ’s Cross in Ireland in this year, and a great tribute was given to it by the king of Ireland, Tairdelbach Ua Conchobair, and he asked for some of it to keep in Ireland, and it was granted to him, and it was enshrined by him at Roscommon.77 Munster links with Germany, see: Donnchadh Ó Corráin, “Foreign Connections and Domestic Politics: Killaloe and the Uí Briain in Twelfth-Century Hagiography,” in Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe: Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, Rosamond McKitterick and David Norman Dumville (Cambridge, 1982), 213–31; and, recently, Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel, “Cashel and Germany: The Documentary Evidence,” in Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century: Reform and Renewal, ed. Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel and Damian Bracken (Dublin, 2006), 176–217. More generally, see Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel, “Aspects of the Promotion of Irish Saints’ Cults in Medieval Germany,” Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 39 (1982): 220–34. 72  These included native papal legates such as Gilla Críst Ua Connairche and Máel Máedóic Ua Morgair (St. Malachy) and the Italian cardinal, Giovanni Paparo. 73  For a recent discussion of some aspects of Irish engagement with trends in European thought, see Elizabeth Boyle, “Neoplatonic Thought in Medieval Ireland: The Evidence of Scéla na Esérgi,” Medium Aevum 78 (2009): 216–30. 74  AI 1105.7. 75  Indeed many of the contacts regarding reform testify to the outward orientation of churchmen in Ireland, rather than a desire of outsiders to spread reform to Ireland: Flanagan, The Transformation of the Irish Church, 243–47. 76  Ibid., 47–48, 81, n. 236, and 91. The silence of the Irish annals may be contrasted with the account of popular English support found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s. a. 1096: Susan Irvine, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Volume 7 MS. E (Cambridge, 2004); and Dorothy Whitelock (with David C. Douglas and Susie I. Tucker), trans., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation, revised ed. (London, 1965). 77  ATig s. a. 1123.



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The closely related text known as Chronicon Scotorum also records Croch Crist i g-Connachta in hoc anno (“The Cross of Christ came into Connacht in this year”).78 Marie Therese Flanagan has suggested, in a discussion of Irish kingship of the period, that the presence of the Cross in Ireland may have been part of the promotion of the crusades: His [Tairdelbach’s] now paramount position in Ireland may be said to have secured some measure of external recognition when he obtained a fragment of the True Cross, brought on circuit to Ireland in 1123 in the wake of the first Lateran council, as a means of promoting Irish participation in the papally-fostered crusading movement. That he was thus favoured was exploited, no doubt, by Toirdelbach as an endorsement of his high-kingship.79

Flanagan has suggested that it is likely that such funds may have been raised under the auspices of the patriarch of Constantinople or the Byzantine emperor, who is known to have given a relic of the Cross to Matilda, wife of Henry I of England.80 It is possible, however, that Pope Calixtus II may have been responsible for sending the relic to Ireland. Calixtus attempted to kindle support for the struggling crusader states at the First Lateran Council (1123) and threatened papal sanctions against those who had taken crusading vows and had not set out for their destinations by Easter 1124. It is conceivable that the presence of the Cross (or at least a fragment of it) in Ireland, in 1123 (the year of the Council), was part of Calixtus’s attempts to elicit support for a renewed bout of crusading.81 Neither Calixtus nor the origin of this fragment of the Cross is mentioned in the Irish annals and it seems that during the eleventh century, prior to the setting out of the First Crusade, there were a substantial number of supposed relics of the Cross in Europe.82 Nonetheless, it is possible that the fragment present in Ireland was sent there by Calixtus. It is not known what use was made of the tribute raised during the circuit of the Cross in Ireland. Some may well have been channelled into papal crusading coffers, while part of it may have been used to enshrine the relic. The shrine (cumdach) mentioned in the Annals of Tigernach is very likely that which is now known as the Cross of Cong. This elaborately decorated cross, now housed

78 

CS s. a. 1123. No other compilation of Irish annals mentions this incident. Marie Therese Flanagan, “High-Kings with Opposition, 1072–1166,” in A New History of Ireland 1: Prehistoric and Early Ireland, 899–933, at 917. 80  Flanagan, The Transformation of the Irish Church, 224. 81  Similarly, Christopher Tyerman has suggested that the appeals of Calixtus in 1123, for aid against the Moors of Spain, were designed to attract foreign assistance: Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 668. 82  For example, Abbot Richard of Saint-Vanne of Verdun returned from pilgrimage to Jerusalem with a piece of the Cross in 1026–27: ibid., 70. Indeed, Urban II carried relics of the Cross with him while preaching the First Crusade in 1096: ibid., 63–64. 79 

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in the National Museum of Ireland, bears a number of inscriptions, two of which definitely link the shrine with the Cross and with Tairdelbach.83 The Second Crusade also appears to be mentioned in two cryptic references found in the same two closely related sets of annals, under the year 1147. According to the Annals of Tigernach Nert Iudhaidhe do thoirned lasna Cristaidhib (“The might of the Jews was abated by the Christians”).84 Whitley Stokes, the editor and translator of the Annals of Tigernach, suggested that this entry referred to “the persecution preached in 1147 by the monk Rodolph.”85 There were outbreaks of anti-Semitism in the Rhineland during 1147, just as there had been in 1096, when the First Crusade had been preached. However, the other text, Chronicon Scotorum, states: Coimtionol morshloighedh lasna Cristaighibh go h-Ierusalem do ionnarbadh nert Iúdaighe (“An assembly of great armies by the Christians to Jerusalem to expel the power of the Jews”).86 There was certainly an assembly of great armies in 1147, as Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France led a large force (which included sizeable peasant contingents) overland, through Hungary and Byzantine territory, to the Levant. Contrary to the claims in Chronicon Scotorum, their destination was not Jerusalem, which had been a Christian city for almost fifty years and was then ruled by Baldwin III, nor were Jews their intended opponents.87 Unfortunately, while the annalistic entries for 1147 appear to show a muddled awareness of the launch of the Second Crusade, they do not tell us whether Irishmen actually participated in that event. New Onomastic Sources Since crusader chronicles and Irish annals have been demonstrated to lack reliable evidence for Irish participation in the early crusades, alternative sources which may shed light on the issue ought to be examined. One possibility is to examine crusader documents for Irish personal names, dedications to Irish saints, or references to the Irish or Ireland. An impressively large body of personal names existed in medieval Ireland, which survive principally in compendia of genealogies. Brian Ó Cuív estimated that down to ca. 1100 there are 12,000 persons listed in these genealogies, using more than 3,500 separate names. Nonetheless, over 4,000 (i.e. a quarter) of these people share only 100 of the names (leaving the remaining 3,400 names spread among less than 83 

For the inscriptions, see Perette E. Michelli, “The Inscriptions on Pre-Norman Irish Reliquaries,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 96C (1996): 1–48, at 26–28 and 44–47. 84  ATig s. a. 1147. 85  Stokes, “Annals of Tigernach,” Revue Celtique 18, p. 169, n. 3. 86  CS s. a. 1147. 87  Going to Jerusalem, however, may simply be shorthand for going to the Levant. See, for example, the Welsh annals which claim that Jerusalem was the destination of the armies of the Second Crusade: ByS, ByT RB and ByT Pen s. a. 1147.



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8,000 people).88 The most common names were: Áed (250), Eochu, Eochaid (220), Fiachna, Fiachra, Fiachu (170), Ailill (150), Fergus (140), Cairpre (130), Lugaid (130), Conall (110), Cormac (100), Domnall (100), Flann (100), Cellach (90) and Muiredach (90).89 The eleventh and twelfth centuries also saw the development of lineage-based surnames in Ireland, which usually incorporated the Irish words mac (“son”) or ua (later ó) (“grandson”).90 Attempts to identify potentially Irish names in eleventh- and twelfth-century crusader documents are hampered by the contemporary processes through which Irish names were Latinized, which camouflaged the originals by coining Latinate pronunciations and spellings for Irish names or equating names with known similar-sounding alternatives. The examples of Muirchertach becoming Murcardus and Máel Brigte becoming Marianus have already been cited. Similarly, Áed became Edanus, while the name of the twelfth-century saint Máel Máedóic was equated with the Hebrew Malachias (Malachy). In addition, hypocoristic name forms and devotional names were quite common in Ireland, the latter often formed by prefixing máel (“tonsured”/“devotee”) or gilla (“servant”) to a religious name, for example the aforementioned Máel Máedóic’s brother was named Gilla Críst (“Servant of Christ”). The Latinate forms of such names frequently jettisoned these initial features, thus Gilla Críst was Latinized as Christianus, though sometimes the second element was removed and only a form based on Gilla was retained. Fortunately, there is no shortage of evidence for the Latinate forms of common Irish names; they are recorded in pontifical documents,91 in records from the Schottenklöster,92 and in contemporary Irish charters,93 to name but three bodies of sources. For example, Pope Gregory VII addressed the Irish king Tairdelbach ua Briain as “Terdelvachus” in the late eleventh century;94 the list of abbots and priors of the Schottenklöster show that there was an Abbot Dermitius (Diarmait) in Regensburg in the 1130s and an Abbot Declanus (Declán) at Nürnberg in the 1140s.95 Similarly, the necrology kept at the monastery of St. Jakob at Würzburg (ca. 1100–ca. 1300) contains names like Rodericus (Ruaidrí), Malachias (Máel Ísu) 88 

Brian Ó Cuív, “Borrowed Elements in the Corpus of Irish Personal Names from Medieval Times,” Nomina 3 (1979): 40–51, at 40. 89  M. A. O’Brien, “Old Irish Personal Names: M. A. O’Brien’s ‘Rhŷs Lecture’ – Notes, 1957,” ed. Rolf Baumgarten, Celtica 10 (1973): 211–36, at 232. I have standardized these names in accordance with the forms used in the index to M. A. O’Brien, ed., Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae 1 (Dublin, 1962). 90  For a discussion of the emergence of Irish surnames, see Francis John Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, revised ed. (Dublin, 2001), xxxi–xliii. 91  Maurice P. Sheehy, ed., Pontificia Hibernica: Medieval Papal Chancery Documents Concerning Ireland, 640–1261, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1962–65). 92  For example, see Helmut Flachenecker, Schottenklöster: Irische Benediktinerkonvente im hochmittelalterlichen Deutschland, Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiet der Geschichte, Neue Folge, Heft 18 (Paderborn, 1995), 379–91. 93  Marie Therese Flanagan, ed. and trans., Irish Royal Charters: Texts and Contexts (Oxford, 2005). 94  Sheehy, ed., Pontificia Hibernica, 1:7–8 (§2). The form used there is “Terdelvacho.” 95  Flachenecker, Schottenklöster, 382 and 387.

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and Mauritius (Muiredach).96 Within Ireland, Latin charters like those of Diarmait Mac Murchada in the 1160s contain name-forms such as Laurentius (Lorcán) and Celestinus (Cináed).97 Having identified the Latinized forms of common names and processes of Latinization, the most obvious body of crusader records in which to search for such names is the corpus of charters and decrees from the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. These have hitherto been unexplored for the presence of Irish individuals and connections and might even be expected to contain references to people of a lower social standing than would normally feature in the Irish annals or crusader chronicles. The present author carried out a survey of Reinhold Röhricht’s Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani (including his Additamentum) and Hans Mayer’s recently published edition of the charters of the kingdom of Jerusalem, in an attempt to identify Irish personal and place names and references to Ireland or the Irish.98 A “Iohannes Patricius” was present in Jerusalem between the 1130s and the 1160s, but his second name is probably the epithet “patrician,” rather than the proper name Patrick.99 Irishmen of this period did not usually bear two initial names, nor the names of prominent saints like Patrick, except in devotional form, for example Gilla Pátraic (“Servant of Patrick”). Neither did Iohannes’s children, Thomas100 and Eustachius,101 bear Irish names or names common in Ireland. A “Johannes Scotus” is mentioned in 1289, but this is well outside our timeframe and by that period “Scot” is increasingly unlikely to designate an Irishman.102 A Hospitaller castellan of Margat, referred to as “Petrus Scotai” in 1198 and 1199, may be a corruption of Petrus de Scutai or Petrus d’Escurai, but I have been unable to determine an alternative origin for him.103 The name Gilla also appears, but as in the case of “Gilla uxor Roardi” in the 1140s×60s, it may be a variant of Gisla, Gislia or Geltidis.104 Furthermore, Gilla names in Ireland were exclusively masculine (though they could 96 

Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel, “Irish Kings and Bishops in the Memoria of the German Schottenklöster,” in Irland und Europa (Ireland and Europe): Die Kirche im Frühmittelalter (The Early Church), ed. Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter (Stuttgart, 1984), 390–404, at 392 (§3), 394 (§6) and 395 (§10). 97  Flanagan, ed. and trans., Irish Royal Charters, 53–61 (§1: charter to Felix, abbot of Osraige, 1162×5) and 283–90 (§4: charter to St. Mary’s abbey, Ferns, 1160×2). 98  RRH, RRH Add, and Hans Eberhard Mayer, ed., Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Diplomata regum Latinorum Hierosolymitanorum 1–4 (Hanover, 2010). These documents will be cited simply by document number (for example, §150). 99  Mayer, ed., Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, §§150 [RRH §200], 168, 179 [RRH §268], 236 [RRH §306], 238 [RRH §309], 258 [RRH §354] and 310 [RRH §400]. 100  RRH §§369 and 391; Mayer, ed., Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, §§150 [RRH §200], 179 [RRH §268], 236 [RRH §306], 349 [RRH §488] and 363 [RRH §516 and RRH Add §516]. 101  RRH §391; Mayer, ed., Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, §§150 [RRH §200], 179 [RRH §268] and 236 [RRH §306]. 102  RRH §1486. 103  RRH §§742, 757 and 759. 104  Mayer, ed., Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, §§143, 184, 214, 237 and 263.



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incorporate the names of female saints), so these examples are certainly not Irish. Perhaps more promising is the “Johannes Brien” recorded in 1175, whose second name might be a form of the Irish name Brian (though in this case it is unlikely to be a form of the surname Uí Briain).105 Johannes’s second name, however, like that of Adam Brion (in 1191),106 may represent a place name, as in the case of Willelmus de Brion (1135) (possibly near Mont Saint Michel).107 Unfortunately, a survey of 239 pages of personal and place name indices in these three works did not produce a single, unequivocal Irish personal-, population- or place-name. If Irishmen did join the crusades during the period under discussion, they do not appear to have left their mark on the documentary record of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Another possible indicator of an Irish presence in the Levant might be the dedication of churches, hospitals or other religious foundations to Irish saints; a similar investigation, however, once again produced little evidence. Among the crusader churches in the kingdom of Jerusalem listed in Denys Pringle’s fourvolume corpus, only one establishment dedicated to an Irish saint is recorded. The earliest mention of that foundation – the Church and Hospital of St. Brigid, in Acre – dates from 1258×64 and it was probably established after the Third Crusade.108 Even so, the cult of St. Brigid was not confined to Ireland and that church – located in a part of Acre with a strong English character – need not have been founded by Irishmen.109 Alternative Sources and Methods: Literary Approaches Approaches to the study of Ireland and the crusades have primarily involved trawling external chronicles for references to the Irish (as a collective) or to individual Irishmen in crusading contexts. An attempt has been made in the present study to broaden the scope of that method of enquiry through examining documents emanating from the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem; there too evidence for Irish participation in the early crusades has been found wanting. Therefore, alternative approaches to Irish interaction with the crusades need to be considered, for although it is difficult (if not impossible) to identify Irish 105 

RRH §534. RRH §701; see also RRH Add §740a. 107  RRH Add §161a. 108  Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1993–2009), 4:72 (§398). 109  English interest in Brigid during the previous century is evinced by Lawrence of Durham’s Vita S. Brigidae Abbatissae Kildariensis. For this Life, see W. W. Heist, ed., Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae ex Codice olim Salmanticensi nunc Bruxellensi, Studia Hagiographica 28 (Brussels, 1965), 1–37. For a letter from Lawrence to Aelred of Rievaulx that forms a preface to this Life, see A. Hoste, “A Survey of the Unedited Work of Laurence of Durham with an Edition of his Letter to Aelred of Rievaulx,” Sacris Erudiri: Jaarboek voor Godsdienstwetenschappen 11 (1960): 249–65, at 263–65. (I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for bringing Lawrence of Durham to my attention.) 106 

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participants in the First and Second Crusades, this does not imply that the Irish were unaware of the crusades or that the crusades did not have an effect on Irish life. As we have seen, the Church in Ireland was in the process of reforming itself, with considerable Continental involvement, during the twelfth century. Twelfth-century church reform and crusades could be (and often were) closely linked. For example, one of the most fervent preachers who lent weight to the Second Crusade, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was the author of the rule of the Knights Templar, one of the prime movers in the spread of the Cistercians and involved in the reform of the Irish Church. In 1148, while the Second Crusade was underway, Bernard was visited at Clairvaux by his friend, Máel Máedóic Ua Morgair (St. Malachy), the reforming archbishop of Armagh and papal legate, who fell ill and died in Bernard’s presence. Bernard subsequently wrote a Life of Malachy and was also a correspondent of Diarmait Mac Murchada, king of Laigin (Leinster), who sponsored reformed houses in his kingdom.110 Further investigation of sources for church reform may yet prove to be one of the best ways to approach the question of Irish knowledge of, and possible involvement in, the crusades. Greater understanding of the impact of the crusades on Ireland may possibly be obtained by examining Irish literature of the period. For example, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh has suggested that crusading ideology had an influence on works such as Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh (“The War of the Irish with the Foreigners”), which may have been produced during the reign of Muirchertach Ua Briain (1086– 1119), high-king of Ireland, and which was a biography of Muirchertach’s greatgrandfather, Brian Bóroma (Brian Boru) (d. 1014).111 Brian had been enormously successful in making his kingdom of Dál Cais into an Ireland-wide power and was killed at the battle of Clontarf on Good Friday 1014, while trying to subdue the Laigin and their Dublin-based Hiberno-Norse allies. In Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh Brian was portrayed as a devout and holy Christian king, who attempted to defend his patrimony against his heathen Viking enemies. Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh, however, ought to be read as a later work of propaganda, rather than as an account of the career of the tenth-/eleventh-century Brian or an accurate exposition of his motives. A key aim of the text was the glorification of Brian, in order to add lustre to his descendants’ reputations, who had adopted the surname Uí Briain (descendants of Brian).112 The historical Brian spent much more time 110  For Bernard’s Life of Malachy, see Bernard of Clairvaux, “Vita Sancti Malachiae,” ed. Aubrey Gwynn, in Sancti Bernardi Opera III: Tractatus et Opuscula, ed. J. Leclercq and H. M. Rochais (Rome, 1963), 295–378; and Bernard of Clairvaux, The Life and Death of Saint Malachy the Irishman, trans. Robert T. Meyer, Cistercian Fathers Series 10 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1978). For twelfth-century Irish royal charters granted to reform houses prior to the English invasion (including four issued by Diarmait), see Flanagan, ed. and trans., Irish Royal Charters. 111  J. H. Todd, ed. and trans., Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh: The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill or the Invasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen, RS 48 (London, 1867). 112  For a discussion of the date and commissioning of Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh, see Denis Casey, “A Reconsideration of the Authorship and Transmission of Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 113C (2013): 139–61.



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battling against other Irish kings than against the Hiberno-Norse kingdoms, with whom he was occasionally allied and who were probably largely Christian by that time.113 In Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh, however, the Norse were portrayed as an unrelenting heathen foreign enemy, who constantly preyed upon the churches and people of Ireland. As Ní Mhaonaigh has pointed out: [the] portrayal is of a native–Viking conflict couched in terms of a mighty struggle between Christian royal saviour and implacable heathen foe. As the holy leader of a righteous Christian army emerging triumphant over a ferocious barbarian foe, Brian’s depiction in the Cogadh reflects an awareness of the crusading spirit prevalent elsewhere in the early twelfth century when the text was being composed.114

This portrayal is made even more explicit in the identification of the Irish with the Franks and Israelites during the former’s struggle with the ostensibly pagan Vikings.115 Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha has advocated similar approaches, suggesting that Irish apocalyptic visionary literature may be utilized to investigate the influence of the crusades on Ireland. For example, she draws parallels between use of the Book of Revelation in crusading sermons and in Irish apocalyptic writing.116 Re-examination of the hagiographic output of the period might also provide a more nuanced understanding of the influence of the crusading movement. For example, the mid-twelfth-century Betha Coluim Cille (Life of St. Columba) takes the form of a homily on pilgrimage, with references to that saint’s supposed desire to visit Jerusalem.117 The flow of literary influence may not have been all one way; future investigation may well demonstrate the influence of Irish writers upon those writing about the crusades and locations in the Near East. For example, when the twelfth-century writers Hugh of St. Victor, Peter the Deacon and Aymar the Monk wrote of a church in Nazareth marking the site of the house where Jesus supposedly was raised, they 113 

Over thirty years before Brian fell against the Hiberno-Norse of Dublin, one of their kings, Amlaíb Cuarán (Óláfr Kváran), had died as a penitent or in exile at the Church of Iona (ATig, CS s. a. 980). The Dubliners were certainly largely Christian by the time Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh was written. For a discussion of their conversion, see Lesley Abrams, “Conversion and the Church in Viking-Age Ireland,” in The Viking Age: Ireland and the West. Papers from the Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress, Cork, 18–27 August 2005, ed. John Sheehan and Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Dublin, 2010), 1–10. 114  Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Brian Boru: Ireland’s Greatest King? (Stroud, 2007), 85–86. For a somewhat similar approach applied to one Middle Welsh romance, see Natalia Petrovskaia, “Oaths, Pagans and Lions: Arguments for a Crusade Sub-Narrative in Historia Peredur fab Efrawc,” Poetica: An International Journal of Linguistic-Literary Studies 77 (2012): 1–26. 115  Ní Mhaonaigh, Brian Boru, 78. Franks, however, also feature among Brian’s enemies; see ibid., 152–53. 116  Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, “Seeing Things: Revelation in Gaelic Literature,” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 53/54 (2007): 103–12, at 112. 117  Flanagan, The Transformation of the Irish Church, 229.

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were actually indirectly drawing upon De Locis Sanctis (through the medium of Bede), a work by the Irishman Adomnán of Iona (d. 704).118 Conclusion The surviving texts of eleventh- and twelfth-century Irish annals, though they each contain their own regional biases, collectively offer an impressive record of events in almost all parts of Ireland. If Irish notables had participated in the early crusades then it appears quite odd that their activities were not recorded in the Irish annals. This does not appear to be from want of attention to the lives of individuals, as the annals contain the names of hundreds of Irishmen who lived during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Many of the external sources that have been cited in favour of Irish involvement in the crusades have been misinterpreted or are unreliable. In the earliest accounts, the Irish only appear as part of lists of crusading peoples (at best) and even the lists supplied by early crusaders, such as Fulcher of Chartres (who does not mention the Irish), are not beyond reproach. If Irishmen did participate in the early crusades it must be concluded that trustworthy evidence for such participation cannot be found in either Irish annals or crusader chronicles. Likewise, when the onomastic net was cast wider and the charters and administrative documents issued by crusaders in the Latin East and their church dedications were examined for Irish and Irish-sounding names, positive evidence was also absent for the period under consideration. Although there may be no concrete evidence for Irish participation in the early crusades this is not to suggest that the Irish were unaware of the eastward expansion of western Christendom during this period. Further investigation of the voluminous vernacular literature of twelfth-century Ireland, along the lines adopted by Ní Mhaonaigh and Ní Dhonnchadha, may yet uncover further evidence for the intellectual, artistic, religious and social influence of the crusades upon Ireland.

118 

Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, 2:148 (§173).

The German Crusade of 1197–1198 Graham A. Loud University of Leeds [email protected] Abstract This article reconsiders the significance of the German Crusade of 1197–98, often dismissed as a very minor episode in the history of the crusading movement. It examines the results of the expedition and some of the problems which dogged it on its arrival in the East, and which eventually led to its abandonment, especially the relations of the crusaders with the Franks of Outremer. However, this study devotes most attention to the process of calling the crusade, and to its composition and recruitment, placing this within the context of late twelfth-century Germany. Despite political problems which hampered its recruitment, the eventual expedition was on a considerable scale and probably not much smaller than that led by Frederick Barbarossa in 1189–90. The genesis of the expedition also throws a revealing light on Staufen rule over Germany, and in particular on the relations of the emperor with his princely subjects, especially in the way the preparation for the crusade was connected to Henry VI’s plans for securing the succession for his dynasty. It is also suggested that the crusade was far more significant to the policy of Henry VI than has hitherto been realized.

The German Crusade of 1197–98 has been largely ignored by Anglophone historians, or regarded at best as little more than a minor incident in the aftermath of the Third Crusade. Admittedly, like so many other crusading expeditions, it was in the end something of a damp squib, concluding in confusion and ignominious retreat in the face of an aroused and at least temporarily united Islam, and with most of the participants returning in haste to their homeland in the wake of the death of the Emperor Henry VI. Yet contemporaries did not necessarily agree, considering it to be on a par with the earlier expeditions of Frederick Barbarossa and Richard the Lionheart.1 And one might suggest that, even in terms of the Holy Land, it was by no means unimportant, for the recovery of Beirut was a considerable success; I am grateful to Professors John Gillingham and Karl Borchardt for their comments on this article, and to Dr. Benjamin Pohl for his help in obtaining literature not easily available in the UK. Part of an earlier draft was presented as a paper to the Eighth Quadrennial Conference of the SSCLE at Cáceres in June 2012. 1  This would seem to be the sense of Otto of St. Blasien’s description of it as the “third overseas expedition.” Arnold of Lübeck called it a second pilgrimage, after the first of the Emperor Frederick, while to William of Newburgh it was “the second expedition to Syria of the German and Italian races”: Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, ed. Adolf Hofmeister, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1912), 66; Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, ed. Johann M. Lappenberg, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1868), 195; Historia Regum Anglorum, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. Richard Howlett, RS 82, 4 vols. (London, 1884–90), 2:487. One modern historian who has viewed this crusade as a more 143

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and while this was apparently counterbalanced by the loss of Jaffa to al-Ādil in September 1197 – shortly before the main body of crusaders arrived in the Holy Land – this was only a temporary setback, since Jaffa was subsequently regained through diplomacy in 1204.2 In addition, it was while the German crusaders were in the East that the Teutonic Knights were formally constituted as a military monastic order, at Acre in March 1198.3 The recapture of Beirut in November 1197 continued the process begun by the Third Crusade whereby the embattled Christian states in the East were once again established on a viable footing, even if on a significantly smaller scale than before the disaster of 1187. By itself the success at Beirut did not completely solve the problem that the crusader states at the end of the twelfth century comprised a series of coastal enclaves, separated one from another rather than forming one continuous, even if narrow, strip of territory. Admittedly the more-or-less simultaneous recapture of Gibelet [Jubail], by the local Franks, once again linked the territory of Beirut with the county of Tripoli,4 while Bohemond III’s recapture of Lattakiah [Laodiciea] regained an important stronghold in the south of the principality of Antioch.5 However, between Lattakiah and the county of Tripoli lay Jabala, which remained in Muslim hands, while Beirut was separated from the rest of the kingdom of Jerusalem by Sidon and its territory, which the Franks only regained in 1227.6 Thus when Jacques de Vitry, the new bishop of Acre, wished to travel northwards to Beirut and from there on to the county of Tripoli early in 1217 he was able to traverse the territory of Sidon only with a large military escort.7 Here the failure of the German Crusade properly to follow up its success at Beirut was a serious setback, especially given the high hopes with which it had been invested at the time. Indeed, the Duke of Brabant, who several sources suggest was chosen as the acting military commander of the expedition (at least until the arrival of the emperor), could even write home late in 1197: “we hope that the holy city of Jerusalem will be captured in a little while; for the Saracens, knowing that our army is united and strong, never dare to put in an appearance.” In the event, such optimism proved to significant endeavour is Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London, 2006), 488–94. 2  Resumé de l’histoire des croisades tiré des Annales d’Abou ‘l-Fedâ, in RHC Or, 1:83. 3  De Primordiis Ordinis Theutonici Narratio, in Scriptores Rerum Prussicarum, ed. Theodor Hirsch, Max Töppen and Ernst Strehlke (Leipzig, 1861), 1:220–25. 4  Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, ed. M. L. de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1871), 305. 5  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.27, p. 204. 6  For Jabala: Chronique d’Ernoul et Bernard le Trésorier, 341; for Sidon: The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh, Part 3. The Years 589–629/1193–1231: The Ayyubids after Saladin and the Mongol Menace, trans. Donald S. Richards (Farnham, 2008), 290. The Franks and Muslims had earlier in 1204 agreed to share the revenues from Sidon: ibid., 79. 7  Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, ed. R. B. C. Huygens (Leiden, 1960), 79–97, no. 2, at 91–92. A few years earlier Willibrand of Oldenburg noted that the city’s walls had been destroyed, but Muslims were in the majority among its few inhabitants, Denys Pringle, “Willibrand of Oldenburg’s Journey to Syria, Lesser Armenia, Cyprus and the Holy Land (1211–12): A New Edition,” Crusades 11 (2012): 109–37, at 118 (ch. 4).



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be sadly unfounded; and even in this letter, the duke continued in a more realistic frame of mind to request the recipient, the archbishop of Cologne, to force those within his province who had not yet done so to fulfil their vows, which certainly hints at one reason why the expedition did not in the end achieve greater success.8 Similarly, in the first few days of February 1198, soon after his election as pope, Innocent III wrote to the duke and the other leaders of the crusade, urging them to continue the good fight and not to contravene their vow by abandoning the Holy Land, but to “smite the Philistines.”9 Yet within not much more than a fortnight of this letter being written, and long before they could have received it, the Germans raised the siege of Toron, which had at one point seemed about to succeed, and retreated in haste and confusion, short of food and hampered by torrential rain, back to Tyre, and thence to Acre, from where they started to sail for home relatively soon afterwards. A few may indeed already have departed earlier, for the duke of Bavaria is known to have been back in Germany at this time (March 1198).10 Peace was once again concluded with the Muslims in June 1198, by which time many of the German crusaders had already returned home.11 Opportunities were undoubtedly missed during the course of the expedition, which, had they been exploited, might well have led to a more effective consolidation of Christian territory in the northern part of the kingdom of Jerusalem. According to Arnold of Lübeck, who provided the most detailed contemporary account of the crusade, the army had found Sidon abandoned as it marched north towards Beirut, but after doing what damage they could the troops marched on and left it deserted. (Al-Ādil subsequently had his forces carry out further destruction there, and it was to be thirty years before the Franks finally reoccupied and rebuilt the town.12) In addition, nearly all the contemporary accounts agree that the Germans could have captured the castle of Toron, which was on the verge of surrender after some two months’ siege, but the failure to agree terms with the Muslim garrison led the latter to renew their resistance, until the arrival of a relieving army from Egypt led the crusaders to withdraw. And as both Arnold of Lübeck and the author of this section

8  Chronica Regia Coloniensis, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1880), 161. For Henry as the military commander: Baldwini Ninovensis Chronicon, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger, MGH SS 25 (Hanover, 1880), 538. According to the Eracles continuation of William of Tyre, the Count Palatine Henry was the marshal of the army and the Duke of Brabant the “master justiciar”: La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184–1197), ed. M. R. Morgan (Paris, 1982), 187 (English translation in Peter W. Edbury, The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade (Aldershot, 1996), 140). 9  Die Register Innocenz‘ III. 1 Pontifikatsjahr 1198/1199, ed. O. Hageneder and A. Haidacher (Graz and Cologne, 1964), no. 13, pp. 21–22. 10  He was one of those who elected Philip of Swabia king on 6 or 8 March 1198: Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, 72–73; Regesta Imperii (online edition at www.regesta-imperii.de), Philip, no. 15a. 11  Claudia Naumann, Der Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI. (Frankfurt am Main, 1994), 199–204. Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim was, for example, back in Germany on 21 May, although he had still been at Acre in early March. Waleran of Limburg had returned by 18 June, and Bishop Berthold of Naumburg by 25 July. Duke Frederick of Austria died while still in the Holy Land on 15 April. 12  Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, 3:29 and 290.

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of the Estoire d’Eracles noted, had Toron been captured, then it was probable that Beaufort and other castles nearby might also have been secured.13 Furthermore, the unity about which Duke Henry of Brabant boasted in his letter to Adolf of Cologne seems to have been conspicuously absent. Arnold suggests that most of the army’s leaders concurred in granting the garrison of Toron their lives in return for the surrender of the castle and the Christian captives held there; but there was certainly a faction in the army which wished to storm the castle and massacre the Muslims: “If we violently attack these men,” they said, “we shall have nobody willing to resist us in future, since the overthrow of this most strong castle will strike abject fear into them – it will reverberate in the ears of all those who seek to resist us.”14

The subsequent delays and their worries as to whether the Christians were going to keep their word, as well as the obvious signs of dissension in the crusade ranks, encouraged the hitherto demoralized garrison to fight on, even at the expense of the hostages they had given the Christians. Arnold, who was notably well-informed, and writing no later than ca. 1209, but was not an eyewitness, was studiously vague as to quite who wanted to put the Muslims of Toron to the sword, although the implication of his account is that there was pressure for this from the rank and file, which led to skirmishes with the garrison even while peace negotiations were taking place. The author of the Estoire d’Eracles, meanwhile, while broadly corroborating Arnold’s account, was critical of the intransigence of the Germans as a whole, who, he claimed, far from taking advantage of the surrender offer, and especially the chance to recover Christian captives, became “puffed up by pride” and demanded unconditional surrender. They relied, this author concluded, too much on an inflated opinion of their own strength, while the Muslims feared the Germans’ “cruelty.” It may be that the Eracles author simplified the issue, omitting that there was disagreement among the Germans, although he suggested (as did Arnold) that the imperial chancellor Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim, the political leader of the expedition, was willing to accept a surrender on terms. But he certainly implied disapproval of German intransigence from the Franks of the East, a view which was made explicit in the so-called Historia Brevis, an anonymous tract from the Holy Land incorporated 13 

Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.28, p. 208; Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 195–97 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 144–45). Peter Edbury has recently argued, in a series of as yet unpublished papers, that at least in their current form, the various versions of the Estoire d’Eracles, are relatively late, from shortly before 1250. However, given the amount of circumstantial detail therein, and the fact that the account of the 1197–98 crusade in Eracles is considerably more detailed than that in the (allegedly earlier) Chronique d’Ernoul, one might well consider that the continuation was based upon older, and perhaps relatively contemporary, sources. But until the publication of the new edition of the continuation by Edbury and his team at Cardiff the whole issue must remain conjectural. 14  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.28, p. 208.



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into the Swabian history of Burchard of Ursberg.15 However, in describing the siege of Toron, the Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir went considerably further than the Western accounts. He said that the local Franks warned the garrison that the chancellor had no intention of keeping his word, and urged them to resist if they wished to save their lives.16 Whatever the exact truth of the events at Toron, and it would seem that, as with other notable reverses in the East (like the siege of Damascus in 1148) various lurid rumours were circulating in the West as to who was responsible for the failure – including that the Templars and others had connived with the Muslims to bribe Conrad of Hildesheim to withdraw – there would appear to have been considerable tensions between the native Franks and the German crusaders; and that these left their mark on how the crusade was remembered. Otto of St. Blasien, who recounted the tale of the Templars’ corruption (admittedly hardly the most reliable of contemporary chroniclers), went so far as to allege that the inhabitants of the Holy Land became so afraid of the Germans, and so suspicious of their zeal in upholding their vows and fighting for the faith, that they plotted with the Muslims to kill them, and it was while engaged in discussions of this sort that Henry of Champagne fell to his death, which accident was appropriate Divine punishment for his treachery. (Here, as elsewhere in his chronicle, Otto played fast and loose with the chronology, for he suggested that this happened after the siege of Toron, which in fact only commenced nearly two months after Count Henry’s death.) Otto also claimed, somewhat more plausibly, that the German crusaders disapproved of the “way of life” of the military orders and the barons of the kingdom, and were suspicious of the locals’ trade with the Muslims and “secret friendship” with them.17 Here, of course, we have the classic contrast between the wish of newcomers to the Holy Land to fight the Muslims and the realization by the locals that a modus vivendi with their Muslim neighbours was necessary if the enfeebled crusader states were going to survive. The Eracles chronicler adds further detail to our understanding of these tensions. When the Germans first arrived at Acre, they maltreated the inhabitants, seizing lodgings and forcibly ejecting those who lived there. Indeed, this author suggested that a military clash was only averted when the Germans agreed to move out of the city and set up camp outside (it was probably some knowledge of these incidents that lay behind the more lurid and unlikely account of Otto of St. Blasien). Subsequently, the Eracles author accused the Germans of cowardice, in that their 15  Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 195–97 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 144–45). Burchardi Praepositi Urspergensis Chronicon, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger and Bernhard von Simson, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1916), 73. The Historia Brevis described the Germans as “warlike, cruel, careless of expense, and shrewd, considering what they wanted to be right, invincible with their swords, trusting in nobody except people of their own race.” 16  Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, 3:30. 17  Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, 67–68; the story that Conrad of Hildesheim had been bribed also occurs in the Thuringian Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger, MGH SS 30.1 (Hanover, 1896), 562.

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leaders were prepared to flee and leave the rank and file to their fate when a raid from Acre ran into overwhelming Muslim forces. The Christians were saved, we are told, only by the wise advice and steadfastness of Hugh of Tiberias. And while the Eracles chronicler laid the blame for the loss of Jaffa on the actions (or rather inaction) of the Cypriot baron Reynald Barlais, whom as an erstwhile supporter of Guy de Lusignan he (or rather his earlier source) had good reason to dislike, rather than on the Germans; some other accounts from the West blamed Waleran of Limburg, one of the earliest crusaders to arrive, for prematurely breaking the truce with the Muslims, before the main body of the crusaders had arrived.18 There is thus abundant evidence pointing to dispute between the Germans and the Franks of the East, and also perhaps suggesting internal tensions within the crusade itself, something to which previous quarrels between the participants in Germany may conceivably have contributed.19 One could, of course, examine the course and consequences of the crusade, and the events in the East, in considerably greater depth but, since there is a careful analytical account of the crusade available (at least to those who read German) by Claudia Naumann,20 it would seem more useful here to take another approach. What has been said so far should be viewed as no more than preliminary remarks. Let us, therefore, leave aside the impact of the 1197–98 crusade in the Holy Land, and devote the remainder of this article rather to the crusade within its German context; for analysis of the recruitment and composition of the expedition, as well as of the political circumstances surrounding this, reveals a great deal, both about Staufen Germany at the end of the twelfth century, and concerning the significance of the crusade within German society at that time. And within the latter context, one needs to make an express comparison between the crusade of 1197 and the earlier crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, which had for a time promised so much, before coming to grief at Antioch in the summer of 1190. The Emperor Henry VI apparently took the cross, in secret, on Good Friday (31 March) 1195, while he was at Bari in southern Italy, three months after his coronation as king of Sicily. While not as yet (seemingly) revealing his own intentions, he had the expedition to the Holy Land publicly announced on Easter Sunday. Ten days 18  Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 187–91 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 140–42). Reineri Annales, ed. L. C. Bethmann, MGH SS 16 (Hanover, 1859), 653 [from Liège]; Chronica Rogeri de Hoveden, ed. William Stubbs, 4 vols., RS 51 (London, 1868–71), 4:25–26. The Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, 306–07, blamed the fall of Jaffa on the death of Henry of Champagne, although the town had already fallen before his death on 10 September: Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI., 173–74. 19  For example, between the Count Palatine Henry and Count Adolf of Holstein, an old enemy of his family: Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.7, p. 154; as well as between the archbishop of Mainz and the landgrave of Thuringia in 1193: Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:552–53, although these two seem to have been reconciled thereafter. 20  Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, esp. 130–210.



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later, he sent out a circular letter, or series of letters, to the prelates of Germany informing them of the expedition, telling them that he would send 1,500 knights to the East at his own expense, for one year, each to be accompanied by two sergeants, and with generous financial and logistical support – each knight would receive 30 ounces of gold as well as food. He asked the German bishops and abbots to procure volunteers. If we are to believe the generally well-informed Marbach annalist, writing not long after the event from one of the Staufen heartlands in Alsace, it was Henry who requested Pope Celestine III to despatch two cardinals to Germany to preach the crusade, which Celestine duly did, notwithstanding his often difficult relations with the emperor. He announced this legation on 1 August 1195, ordering the prelates of Germany to preach the crusade.21 Henry, meanwhile, after spending Easter at Bari, set off northwards on his way back to Germany by relatively slow stages along the Adriatic coast, crossing the Alps in mid to late June and reaching Frankfurt by 8 July.22 Towards the end of the year he held two major councils, one at Gelnhausen in late October, attended by the nobles of Saxony and Thuringia, where cardinal John of Salerno preached the crusade; and a second one at Worms in the Rhineland in early December, where the other cardinal, Peter of Piacenza, preached.23 They were assisted in this recruitment especially by Archbishop Conrad of Mainz. One contemporary waxed lyrical, if rather unconvincingly, about the enthusiasm that greeted this call for a renewed crusade: All without exception heard this encouragement both avidly and devotedly, so that nobody was held back by love for their dear ones or their possessions; not the father because of his wife and children, nor duke, margrave or count was mindful for the glory of his land. No archbishop, bishop, prior, nor any sort of cleric, nor layman, was so attached to or mindful of “their pleasant houses” [Micah, 2:9] that they could be prevented from undertaking this road of pilgrimage.24

The most detailed list of those who took the cross at the two councils late in 1195, or immediately thereafter (once again provided by the Marbach annalist), is, 21 

Henry’s letter: Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 157 (sent from Trani, 12 April 1195). Celestine’s letter: Urkundenbuch des Hochstifts Hildesheim und seiner Bischöfe, ed. K. Janicke, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1896), 1:483–85 no. 510. Annales Marbacenses, ed. H. Bloch, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1907), 65–66, supported by Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 187 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 139). For the pope, see Peter Edbury, “Celestine III, the Crusade and the Latin East,” in Pope Celestine III (1191–1198): Diplomat and Pastor, ed. John Doran and Damian J. Smith (Farnham, 2008), 129–43, esp. 132–34, and see also below, n. 85. 22  Regesten des Kaiserreiches unter Heinrich VI. 1165-(1190)–1197, ed. Gerhard Baaken, after J. F. Böhmer Regesta Imperii IV.3 (Cologne, 1972) (henceforth Reg. Henry VI), no. 462. 23  For the careers of the two cardinals: Werner Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216 (Vienna, 1984), 85–86, 107–09. 24  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” in Quellen zur Geschichte des Kreuzzugs Kaiser Friedrichs I, ed. A. Chroust, MGH SRG (Berlin, 1928), 111. The later part of this source would appear to have been written before the death of Henry VI. The translation is from G. A. Loud, The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa: The History of the Expedition of the Emperor Frederick and Related Texts (Farnham, 2010), 131–32.

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however, impressive. According to this account those who took the vow included two archbishops (Mainz and Bremen), seven bishops, five dukes and the son of another, the count palatine of the Rhine, the landgrave of Thuringia, the margraves of Brandenburg and Meissen, both of these along with one of their brothers, a dozen named counts and the sons of two more, “along with a great host of others, both clerical and lay.”25 Other sources confirm many of the names on this list and add a few more who either then or subsequently took the cross, including at least one imperial prince, Duke Bernhard of Saxony, as well as Archbishop Adolf of Cologne, although, if either of these actually did take crusading vows, he did not fulfil them.26 In scale, therefore, the initial recruitment for the new crusade was slightly smaller but not far short of that for Barbarossa’s expedition of 1189, in which some dozen bishops, two dukes, two margraves and 26 counts had taken part, as well as the duke of Austria and the landgrave of Thuringia who had travelled separately by sea.27 Although the number of counts to pledge themselves in 1195 was only half that of 1189, the recruitment among the major princes of the empire was actually considerably greater than for the previous expedition. But, of course, the difference 25 

Annales Marbacenses, 66–67: “Before the feast of All Saints, the emperor held a general meeting at Gelnhausen with all the leading men of Saxony and Thuringia, and after the preaching of Cardinal John almost all the princes of these regions took the cross. Afterwards Cardinal Peter preached on the feast of St. Nicholas at Worms, and other princes and almost all the barons (proceres) from Swabia and elsewhere took the cross, either now or at other moments. The names of these were [as follows]: Conrad, [Arch]bishop of Mainz, the archbishop of Bremen, the bishop of Halberstadt, the bishop of Verden, the bishop of Hildesheim, who was the chancellor, the bishop of Zeitz, the bishop of Regensburg, the bishop of Passau, the bishop of Prague, who was [also] the duke of Bohemia, Abbot Manegold of Tegernsee, the duke of Merania and his son, the duke of Austria, the duke of Carinthia, the duke of Louvain, the son of the duke of Limburg, the count palatine of the Rhine, the landgrave of Thuringia, the margrave of Brandenburg and his brother, the margrave of Landsberg and his brother, the margrave of Meissen, the son of the landgrave of Habsburg, the count of Oettingen, the count of Bogen, the count of Ortenberg, the count of Schaumburg, the count of Querfurt, the count of Mansfeld, the count of Lauterberg, the count of Käfernberg with his two sons, two sons of the count of Daun, the count of Beichlingen and his brother the count of Beilstein, the count of Wartenburg, and the count of Wertheim. There were also many others among the princes, counts, barons and nobles, whose names we have omitted to write down, who were signed with the cross, along with a great host of [other] men both clerical and lay.” Cf. for confirmation of those talking the cross at Gelnhausen: “Chronica S. Petri Erfordensis Moderna,” in Monumenta Erphesfurtensia, Saec XII, XIII, XIV, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1899), 198, and the most important figures were also listed in the “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 112. 26  These cases must remain doubtful; the Continuatio Admuntensis, ed. Wilhelm Wattenbach, MGH SS 9 (Hanover, 1851), 587, named the duke and Archbishop Philip [sic] of Cologne as being among those who took the cross in the councils of late 1195. Was this simply a mistake on the author’s part? On the other hand, the contemporary French historian Robert of Auxerre also named the duke of Saxony as one of the leading figures in the crusade recruitment: Roberti Canonici S. Mariani Autissiodorensis Chronicon, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger, MGH SS 26 (Hanover, 1882), 257. Theodor Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI (Leipzig, 1867), 389, suggested that Archbishop Ludolf of Magdeburg also took the cross, but this seems to have been derived solely from his known presence at the Gelnhausen council, for which see Reg. Henry VI, nos. 478, 482. He was present at Philip’s election in March 1198, and was thus unlikely to have joined the crusade. He was not among those named as having taken the cross. 27  Loud, The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, 47–57. Tyerman, God’s War, 491, draws attention to the considerable size of the 1197 expedition.



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was that in 1189 all these prelates and nobles actually took part in the expedition, and only a relatively few others who had vowed to go in the end failed to do so, while in the event several of the most important men who took the crusade vow in 1195 failed to fulfil it. These included two of the most prominent participants in Barbarossa’s crusade, Bishop Herman of Münster and Duke Berthold of Merania. Duke Berthold, one of the heroes of the 1189–90 expedition, and whose family were close allies of the Staufer, was still in Germany in October 1197, while Bishop Herman was one of those trying to negotiate between the supporters of the rival claimants to the throne in February–March 1198.28 Bernhard of Saxony was also in Germany over the winter of 1197–98; he was present at the initial meeting of the German princes to discuss the choice of a new king at Andernach (where there are hints that his own candidature for the throne was briefly mooted) at the end of 1197, at the subsequent meeting of the Saxon princes at Erfurt, and at the formal election of Philip of Swabia as king at Ichterhausen in Thuringia in early March 1198. Meanwhile, Archbishop Adolf of Cologne, who can be clearly attested in Germany after the crusade had set off, was the moving force behind the opponents of the Staufer from as soon as the news of Henry VI’s death reached Germany. He summoned an initial meeting at Cologne on 1 March 1198, and was responsible for the eventual election of Otto of Brunswick as king in June 1198.29 Duke Bernhard’s nephew, Margrave Otto of Brandenburg, was another who failed to fulfil his vow, for he too can be attested in Germany while the expedition was in the East, in November 1197, although unlike some of the others he was apparently granted formal dispensation from his vows by the pope.30 None of these princes can therefore have taken any part in the crusade. In some cases there were good reasons for the failure to participate. Duke Ulrich of Carinthia apparently set off, but then fell ill and received dispensation from his vows. This suggests that whatever his illness was, it was serious, since he was a young man, not much more than twenty, and thus seemingly an obviously suitable recruit for the crusade.31 (He died in August 1202, aged about twenty-six, and since for several years before that his younger brother had been acting alongside him as co-ruler of the duchy, this illness may therefore have marked the beginning of a long-term crisis in his health.32) The Bavarian Count Albrecht of Bogen was 28 

Monumenta Historica Ducatus Carinthiae, ed. A. von Jaksch, 4 vols. (Klagenfurt, 1896–1906), 1:271–73, no. 269; Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 162, recension II. 29  Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 162, recension I. For Adolf in Germany during this period: Urkundenbuch für die Geschichte des Niederrheins, ed. Theodor J. Lacomblet, 4 vols. (Düsseldorf, 1840–58), 1:387–92, no. 555–61. 30  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.25, p. 195. 31  Reinhold Röhricht, Die Deutschen im Heiligen Lande (c.650–1291) (Innsbruck, 1894), 85; Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 258. 32  For his death on 10 August 1202, MGH Necrologia Germaniae, 2. Diocesis Salisburgensis, ed. S. Herzberg-Fränkel (Berlin, 1904), 335, 420. For Bernhard as co-ruler, Monumenta Historica Ducatus Carinthiae, 3:578–89 no. 1481 (March 1199), 581–82 no. 1491 (April 1200); earlier charters before 1196 were issued only in Ulrich’s name: e.g. ibid., 541 no. 1412, 556–67 no. 1436.

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another who was granted dispensation, but since he died on 19 December 1197 it is probable that this too was on grounds of ill-health, even though aged thirty-two he was also still relatively young and – according to the historian of Niederaltaich, a monastery of which he was the advocate – “a fierce and warlike man” (homo ferus et bellicosus).33 Henry Bretislaw, the bishop of Prague from the ruling Přemyslid dynasty, whom the emperor was promoting as his candidate to be duke of Bohemia, and who was another who had taken the cross at Worms in December 1195, was apparently delayed by his political problems, but still intended to go – although another and perhaps better-informed source claimed that he secured a dispensation. Nevertheless, he died in June 1197, so that, if he did request a dispensation, this too was probably because of his health.34 However, two Thuringian nobles, Meinhard of Mühlberg and Poppo of Wasungen, who departed on their way to the East and then turned back, either (we are told) deterred by the expense or fearful of the perils of the unaccustomed sea voyage, incurred the scorn of the contemporary historian of the landgraves of Thuringia, who said that they acted “effeminately and disgracefully” (effeminate ac turpiter). This author was writing in the consciousness that his protagonist, Landgrave Herman, was one of those who had fulfilled his vow.35 It also appears that after the initial burst of recruitment, under the emperor’s direct supervision, there was a considerable cooling of enthusiasm. The reasons for this were in part – perhaps in large part – political. The emperor, who had finally, after eight years of marriage, been presented with a son on 26 December 1194 (a day after his coronation as king of Sicily) was naturally anxious to secure the succession – particularly if it was his intention actually to take part in the crusade in person. (One should note that Conrad III had taken similar precautions in 1147 and Barbarossa in 1188 before his crusade.36) Henry may initially have sought simply to have his baby son elected as king (much as he himself had been elected at the age of three in 1169), something to which most of the princes were prepared to assent.37 However, perhaps encouraged by their apparent malleability, the emperor soon 33 

The monks disliked him because of his exploitation of the abbey and alienation of its property: De Advocatis Altahensibus, ed. P. Jaffé, MGH SS 17 (Hanover, 1861), 373–74. For the dates of his birth and death: Monumenta Boica 14 (Munich, 1784), 34, 107, from the archives of the Augustinian canons of Windberg. Cf. MGH Necrologiae Germaniae, 3. Dioceses Brixinensis, Frisingensis, Ratisbonensis, ed. F. L. Baumann (Berlin, 1905), 240, 404. Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 257. His widow Ludmilla subsequently married his former enemy Duke Ludwig of Bavaria. 34  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 112–13; Continuatio Gerlaci Abbatis Milovicensis [to the annals of Vincent of Prague], ed. Wilhelm Wattenbach, MGH SS 17 (Hanover, 1861), 706–08. Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 257. Bishop Henry was a grandson of Duke Vladislav I (d. 1125): Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI, 241. 35  Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:559. 36  Rudolf Hiestand, “Kingship and Crusade in Twelfth-Century Germany,” in England and Germany in the High Middle Ages: In Honour of Karl J. Leyser, ed. Alfred Haverkamp and Hanna Vollrath (Oxford, 1996), 253–55. 37  Annales Marbacenses, 67. For Henry’s election in June 1169, see Ulrich Schmidt, Königswahl und Thronfolge im 12. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 1987), 180–82, and the sources there cited.



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decided on a more ambitious plan, for in another council, the third within a few months, held at Mainz in February or in the first few days of March 1196, he sought the approval of the princes for the German monarchy to be vested hereditarily in the Staufer family. This was, as the Marbach annalist described it, “a new decree that was unknown to the Roman kingdom” – that Henry now sought to introduce it may also have been influenced by his recent takeover of the hereditary Sicilian monarchy.38 Although the Staufer had now been ruling for almost sixty years, and Henry was the third successive monarch from that family, his intention to confirm their authority in perpetuity was distinctly unwelcome, and the Mainz court was anyway not well-attended. Those who were there asked for a delay for consultation. A month later Henry tried again, holding a further council at Würzburg, which did consent to his plan, albeit reluctantly, and in the face of intense pressure from the emperor. As the Reinhardsbrunner chronicler noted, many of those who did agree did so out of fear or under protest. One should note, however, that there was use of carrot as well as stick to secure this consent; in particular, Henry offered to those who were about to set off on crusade that in the absence of male heirs, they could leave their hereditary properties to a daughter or collateral heir. This was particularly significant to two of those who had previously taken the cross: Duke Henry of Brabant and Landgrave Herman of Thuringia, neither of whom at this time had a son.39 He also offered to surrender his regalian right to the personal goods of deceased prelates, in a bid to secure the support of the episcopate for his scheme.40 Notwithstanding these concessions, the fragility of the Würzburg agreement soon became clear, and once Henry had set off once again for Italy – he crossed the Alps in mid-July, probably by the Mont Cenis pass – opposition became overt.41 The Saxon nobles met at Merseburg soon after his departure and made their hostility clear, in alliance with – or encouraged by – Archbishop Conrad of Mainz, who had not only taken the cross himself but had probably already been designated as the papal legate for the expedition, and who had hitherto taken a prominent part in the recruitment campaign.42 At least three of those who had taken the cross were present at this meeting: Landgrave Herman of Thuringia, Duke Berthold of 38  Annales Marbacenses, 68.The Liège annalist expressly related this scheme to the conquest of Sicily: Reineri Annales, MGH SS, 16:652. The literature on the so-called Erbreichsplan is vast, but see especially Peter Csendes, Heinrich VI (Darmstadt, 1993), 171–78; Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 106–19; and (in more detail) Schmidt, Königswahl und Thronfolge, 225–60. 39  Chronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:556. Herman of Thuringia eventually had a son, Ludwig, in 1200 (ibid., 563), while Henry of Brabant, who had four daughters, only finally sired a son in 1207: Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 111. 40  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 113–14. 41  Henry was at Besançon from 6 to10 July; he is next attested at Turin on 25 July: Reg. Henry VI, nos. 529–34. 42  For his use of the legatine title in May/June 1196, Mainzer Urkundenbuch, 2. Die Urkunden seit dem Tode Erzbischof Adalberts I (1137) bis zum Tode Erzbischofs Konrads (1200), Teil II, 1176–1200, ed. Peter Acht (Darmstadt, 1978), 1042 no. 640.

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Merania and Bishop Berthold of Naumburg – all of whom had previously been closely connected with the Staufer; Herman, indeed, being the emperor’s first cousin.43 While we have no evidence for their individual views, their presence at such an assembly was surely an ominous sign. Perhaps at the same time Archbishop Adolf of Cologne, another who may have taken the cross, emerged as a public opponent of the plan.44 In the end, some months later, Henry was forced to give way and abandon his plan for the formal installation of a hereditary monarchy, in return for the princes’ agreement that they would elect his infant son as king: a compromise in which Archbishop Conrad seems to have played a major part.45 As it turned out, and given Henry’s own premature and unexpected death little more than a year later, this political setback was of extraordinary long-term significance for the destiny of the German monarchy. But what we should note here is the effect that this political wrangling seems to have had on the preparations for the forthcoming crusade. Not long after his arrival in Italy, the emperor despatched one of his closest confidants, Gebhard of Querfurt, the burgrave of Magdeburg, to urge the participants to speed up their preparations. Gebhard was instructed, in particular, to remind Herman of Thuringia of his obligations, but he achieved little. The landgrave, we are told, said (in effect) that he would depart when he was good and ready and not before. The other princes agreed with him. Furthermore, the emperor caused further annoyance (“lasting irritation,” according to the Reinhardsbrunner Chronicle) by another message urging the plan for hereditary succession, which he had clearly not as yet abandoned.46 But there were other factors at work as well. The expense of the journey was beginning to hit home, and (again we are told this by the Reinhardsbrunner chronicler) this was affecting the princes as well as lesser men. Those who had taken part in the invasion of Sicily in 1194–95 had already faced heavy expenditure, which they had not recouped.47 Nor were the economic conditions propitious. The autumn of 1195 had been a time of heavy rains and poor harvest, and the summer of 1196 was no better. Prices were high, and the winter of 1196/7 saw real famine. A contemporary Liège annalist claimed that “a multitude of the poor died of hunger.” The shortages continued into the summer of 1197, with prices even 43 

The Gesta Episcoporum Halberstadensium, MGH SS 23 (Hanover, 1874), 111, accused Archbishop Conrad of conspiring with the Saxons against the emperor. The meeting is known about from a charter of Bishop Berthold of Naumburg, dated 7 August 1196, confirming a sale by his chapter to the monks of Walkenried, but witnessed by two other bishops, the duke of Merania, Landgrave Hermann, Margrave Conrad of Lausitz, and other nobles, who we are told were meeting “pro negotiis imperii”: Origines Guelficae 3, ed. Christian Ludwig Scheidt (Hanover, 1752), 562–63 no. 96. Schmidt, Königswahl und Thronfolge, 244; Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 115–16. 44  Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 159. 45  Annales Marbacenses, 69. 46  Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:556–57. This meeting probably took place in early October 1196, Smidt, Königswahl und Thronfolge, 251. 47  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 110.



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higher than before.48 We cannot be certain that these conditions affected the whole of the Reich – our most detailed evidence for the agrarian crisis comes largely from Lotharingia. Nevertheless, food shortages were also recorded in Swabia and Austria, and one contemporary source reported famine throughout Germany.49 Furthermore, similar travails were affecting both France and England, and even Rome, at this same time – the shortages there prompted Celestine III to ask the emperor to have grain sent to the Eternal City.50 While it is possible that landowners who received income through rents in kind might have profited from high prices, it appears more probable that they too were affected by falling yields; and, anyway, by this period most German lords relied on monetary rents and renders for the majority of their income.51 It seems clear, therefore, that this dearth must have exacerbated the expense and difficulty of preparing for the crusade. Nevertheless, despite the problems and delays, and for all the various highprofile defections, the expedition did eventually commence, albeit in fits and starts rather than as one unified operation. Probably the first to set off was Archbishop Conrad of Mainz, accompanied by a large number of Franconians, who must have crossed the Alps around Christmas, and who arrived in Rome at the end of January 1197. His role as legate, and the diplomatic missions with which he had been entrusted by the emperor, may well have encouraged his early departure.52 He and his contingent probably sailed east in early April – the abbots of Michaelbeuren and Wörth drowned in a shipwreck in the Mediterranean on 9 April, and it would seem that they had been among those who accompanied Conrad.53 Other early departures included those of the counts Dietrich of Weissenfels and Waleran of Limburg – the former seems to have left home no later than about February, while Count Waleran certainly arrived in the Holy Land before the main body of crusaders got there in late September, and at least a few of the German peregrini had reached Sicily in time to assist the emperor suppressing the Sicilian rebellion in May of that year.54 Others took considerably longer to set off: the bishop of Regensburg left only on 27 April, while Bishop Gardolf of Halberstadt had not yet departed on 3 May, although he must have set off very soon afterwards since he took part in the dedication of 48 

Reineri Annales, MGH SS, 16:653. Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 159; Baldwini Ninovensis Chronicon, MGH SS, 25:538, ad. an. 1196; Annales Mellicences, MGH SS, 9:506, ad. an. 1195: “Terra ista pestilentia et incendio et inundatione aquarum miserabiliter humiliatur”; Continuatio Cremifanensis, MGH SS, 9:549, ad. an. 1197: “tota annona et sterilitas magni in diversiis mundis partibus”; Annales Ottenburani Minores, MGH SS, 17:316–17 (general famine throughout the kingdom). 50  William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, V.17, 26, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, 2:460, 484. For Rome: Epistolae Pontificum Romanorum Ineditae, ed. S. Löwenfeld (Leipzig, 1885), 263–65. 51  Benjamin Arnold, Power and Property in Medieval Germany (Oxford, 2004), 35–46. 52  Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 87, 133. 53  Continuatio Cremifanense, MGH SS, 9:549. Naumann, Kreuzzug Heinrichs VI, 169. 54  Annales Marbacenses, 69, although this passage lays emphasis on how few men the emperor had with him: “coadunatis paucis tam de suis quam de peregrinis.” For Dietrich, see below n. 110; for Waleran, above n. 18. 49 

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the church of St. Nicholas at Bari on 22 June.55 Most of the others must also have left at about the same time, or only a little later. Thus Duke Ludwig of Bavaria was with the emperor in Sicily on 2 July, and Duke Frederick of Austria and Count Otto of Henneberg a week later. By the end of the month they had been joined by the bishops of Passau and Verden and the margrave of Landsberg.56 All of these, it should be noted, travelled to southern Italy, there to take ship for the Holy Land. According to the (possibly Austrian) continuator of the principal account of his father’s crusade, Henry’s decision to launch his expedition from southern Italy by sea had been taken on “the advice of the princes,” and because, with southern Italy under his rule, this was “easier and more practical” than the land route used by previous German expeditions.57 The south Italian kingdom provided not only suitable ports but shipping and above all money for the crusade. It seems probable that the imperial chancellor Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim, who had been sent as governor to the kingdom of Sicily early in 1196, had spent much of the previous year making preparations for the expedition.58 On the other hand, a large contingent from northern Germany, including the archbishop of Bremen, the duke of Brabant and the new count palatine of the Rhine, Henry of Brunswick, preferred to travel all the way by sea – these only departed in mid-May, and stopped at Lisbon in midJune, before reaching Sicily early in August.59 The combined forces left Messina on 1 September and arrived at Acre three weeks later.60 By this time, however, the emperor himself was already ill and, even had he wished to do so, was in no fit state to accompany them.61 Despite the problems of its genesis, the crusade of 1197 was therefore still a significant and large-scale operation. But how large the expedition actually was is 55 

Annales Ratisponenses, MGH SS, 17:590; Urkundenbuch des Hochstifts Halberstadt, ed. Gustav Schmidt (Leipzig, 1883), 1:340–41 no. 379; Gesta Episcoporum Halberstadensium, ed. Ludwig Weiland, MGH SS 23 (Hanover, 1874), 112. The date of this ceremony is recorded by an inscription, Gerardo Cioffari, Storia di S. Nicola di Bari, 1. L’Epoca normanno sveva (Bari, 1984), 186. 56  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 598–99, 602 (Dione Clementi, “Calendar of the Diplomas of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Henry VI concerning the Kingdom of Sicily,” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 35 (1955): nos. 117–18, 121). 57  “Historia de expeditione Friderici,” 113. 58  German sources lay a lot of emphasis on the extraordinary wealth found in the Sicilian royal treasury, notably Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.20, pp. 184–85. The Sicilian fleet may well have been badly damaged during Richard I’s conflict with King Tancred at Messina in the winter of 1190–91, as is argued by Charles Stanton, Norman Naval Operations in the Mediterranean (Woodbridge, 2011), 164–65; but Robert of Auxerre reported large-scale preparation of shipping “along the shores of Apulia and Sicily” before the crusade set off: Chronicon, MGH SS, 26:257–58. Cf. Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 181: “Et l’empereur meismes fist faire grant apareillement en Pulle de navie et de vitailles.” The south Italian sources reveal little about this, although in March 1197 Bishop Conrad agreed to exempt the men of St. Nicholas, Bari, from galley service – which he had hitherto clearly been trying to enforce: Codice diplomatico barese, 6. Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari. Periodo svevo (1195–1266), ed. Francesco Nitti di Vito (Bari, 1902), 8–9 no. 3. 59  Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 140–41. 60  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.26, p. 198. 61  According to the Annales Marbacenses, 70, he fell ill around the feast of St. Sixtus (6 August).



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a good question. We can clearly dismiss as fantasy Arnold of Lübeck’s claim that the whole army was 60,000 strong – he simply meant that it was a large force.62 However, the Eracles chronicler estimated that there were 4,000 knights, and “so many footsoldiers and sergeants that they could not be counted.”63 It will be remembered that Henry’s original plan, in April 1195, had been to send 1,500 knights and 3,000 sergeants, although it is probable that in the end recruitment exceeded this plan. The contingent which had sailed from north Germany by sea arrived at Messina in July or August 1197 in 44 ships.64 If each carried on average 60–70 passengers, which other sources suggest is not unlikely,65 this would imply that the north German force alone comprised something approaching 3,000 men, and this contingent would seem to have been considerably smaller than the main body who had travelled south by land to the kingdom of Sicily. The emperor himself allegedly contributed 500 paid knights (stipendiarii milites) to the force which set off from Sicily.66 Claudia Naumann has suggested that the combined forces of the army may have totalled some 2,500 knights, and a total force of about 16,000.67 Again, this last figure is probably too high, given that the best estimate for Barbarossa’s 1189 expedition suggests that this had in total between 12,000 and 15,000 participants, including about 3,000 knights,68 and a comparison of the known major participants would suggest that the earlier expedition was somewhat larger than that of 1197. By way of further comparison, Frederick Barbarossa had some 1,800 knights with him on his first Italian expedition of 1154/5.69 We should also remember how large followings individual princes could sometimes muster for such expeditions.70 Hence, given the number of princes, bishops and counts who did take part in the 1197 expedition, accompanied, so we are told, by “every noble, ministerialis and ordinary knight whom they could enlist in their following,”71 it may not have been that much smaller than the earlier crusade of Frederick Barbarossa. Furthermore, in addition to the princes and nobles and their immediate following, we can often 62 

Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.26, p. 198. Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 187 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 139). Cf. Chronique d’Ernoul et Bernard le Trésorier, 304: 4000 knights and a very large force of infantry. 64  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.26, p. 198. 65  Loud, Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, 203. 66  Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, 64. 67  Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrich VI, 156–59. 68  Ekkehard Eickhoff, Friedrich Barbarossa im Orient. Kreuzzug und Tod Friedrichs I. (Tübingen, 1977), 47. 69  Otto von Freising und Rahewin, Die Taten Friedrichs, ed. F.-J. Schmale (Darmstadt, 1965), 88–89. 70  Thus Archbishop Christian of Mainz had recruited 500 knights and 800 sergeants for Barbarossa’s Italian expedition of 1167: Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, 23. Would his successor Conrad’s following on the crusade have been much if any smaller? Landgrave Ludwig II of Thuringia was alleged also to have led 500 knights on the Italian expedition of 1161: Das Geschichtswerk des Otto Morena und seiner Fortsetzer, ed. Ferdinand Güterbock, MGH SRG (Berlin, 1930), 147. On this issue see also Benjamin Arnold, German Knighthood 1050–1300 (Oxford, 1985), 19–20, 23. 71  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 112. 63 

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forget about those lesser men, not part of noble households or clientelia, who also took part, through piety, peer pressure or enthusiasm. According to the chronicler Arnold, some 400 men from Lübeck joined the expedition, and at the siege of Toron a key role was played by a contingent of silver miners from the Harz Mountains, who used their expertise to undermine the walls.72 However, as in previous expeditions, there were also volunteers who lacked the resources and capability to contribute militarily, and whose participation was discouraged.73 While the motives of the rank and file must, in the last resort, remain obscure, analysis of the more prominent figures reveals a considerable amount both as to why men may have gone on the expedition, and of how political ramifications within the Reich may have impacted upon the crusade. Why indeed did German princes and nobles enlist in 1195 and thereafter? Virtually all the extant sources make clear that the crusade was a personal project of Henry VI’s and something very dear to the emperor’s heart. In the words of the continuator of the principal account of his father’s expedition: he “burned with an inner desire to come to the aid of the knighthood of Christ.”74 It was hardly surprising, therefore, that several of the expedition’s leaders had close connections with the emperor. This was particularly the case with some of the bishops, and reflected the fact that even at this relatively late date the Staufen emperors still exercised a very considerable influence over the Church in Germany. Four of the bishops who took part, all from sees in north Germany, had previously been court chaplains: Gardolf of Halberstadt, Conrad of Hildesheim, Berthold of Naumburg and Rudolf of Verden. Conrad was the brother of Gebhard of Querfurt, whom the emperor had sent back to Germany to hasten preparations for the expedition in the autumn of 1196. He had been a royal chaplain from 1188 and soon after his election as bishop in 1194 Henry had appointed him as his chancellor. In the early months of 1196 Conrad had acted as the emperor’s legate and de facto governor of the kingdom of Sicily, and was one of the emperor’s closest and most trusted advisers. After the emperor’s death he continued to act as chancellor for his brother Philip and was one of the latter’s most active supporters in Germany. The rival king, Otto of Brunswick, was so enraged by his opposition that he denounced him to the pope as “a scandalous person,” unfit to be a bishop.75 Gardolf of Halberstadt was a relative (consanguineus) of Conrad – although we do not know exactly how – and much favoured by Henry VI. According to the bishop’s biographer: 72 

Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.25, 28, pp. 195, 205–06. The Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:555, had a story of a beggar at Höxter (Westphalia) to whom Cardinal John of Salerno reluctantly gave the cross, having at first refused him because of his poverty. 74  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 112. 75  Ingeborg Seltmann, Heinrich VI. Herrschaftspraxis und Umgebung (Erlangen, 1983), 147–54; Bernd Schütte, König Philipp von Schwaben. Itinerar, Urkundenvergabe, Hof, MGH Schriften 51 (Hanover, 2002), 497–501; Enno Bünz, “‘Eiferer der Gerechtigkeit’ oder ‘schändliche Person’? Konrad von Querfurt, ein Reichsbischof der Stauferzeit (1194–1202),” in Konrad von Querfurt und die Zeit der Staufer, ed. Johanna Rudolph (Querfurt, 2003), 10–31, esp. 27. 73 



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he found such grace and favour in the eyes of the Emperor Henry … that when he was elected and went to the emperor to receive his regalia, his election was welcomed and accepted, and the emperor promised that he would always benefit the church of Halberstadt and grant it imperial patronage.76

He regularly attended Henry’s court when the emperor was in Germany, and at the Würzburg diet in the spring of 1196, at which the issue of the succession came to a head, the emperor granted him a privilege confirming the rights of his church and freeing the merchants of Halberstadt from tolls in all royal markets.77 But while Gardolf was clearly an imperial supporter, this was not just because of imperial favour to him personally. During the conflict between the emperor’s father and Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony in 1179, the cathedral and much of the town of Halberstadt had been burned down by the duke’s troops, with heavy loss of life, and Gardolf’s predecessor Bishop Ulrich had been taken prisoner.78 The cathedral was only rededicated by Gardolf in 1195, and the bishop also took advantage of Duke Henry’s death in that year to recover an important castle which the latter had seized from the see in 1179.79 As bishop of this particular see, Gardolf thus had every reason to look to the emperor for support against the Welf family; and even more so since he had been a member of the chapter, as well as a royal chaplain, before his election. Rudolf of Verden was another important royal supporter in a part of north Germany otherwise dominated by the Welfs. He had been an imperial chaplain and chancery notary under Barbarossa, and had been one of the young King Henry’s following in Italy in 1186–87.80 The emperor made a donation to his church in November 1192 as a reward for the bishop’s good service to him and his father, and at the Würzburg diet of March 1196 he freed his see from exactions previously levied on it by Archbishop Hartwig of Bremen.81 All four of these bishops were later to be subscribers to the letter of the German princes to Innocent III asking him to accept Philip of Swabia as king in May 1199.82 Berthold (II) of Naumburg

76 

Gesta Episcoporum Halberstadensium, MGH SS, 23:110–11, and ibid., 113, for his relationship to Conrad. Gardolf was present at Henry’s court at Würzburg as electus on 2 January 1193; by 28 February of that year he had received consecration: Reg. Henry VI, nos. 330, 336. For his earlier career, Schütte, König Philipp von Schwaben, 455. 77  Reg. Henry VI, no. 503. 78  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, II.14–15, pp. 52–55. It was claimed that more than 1,000 men, and three canons of the cathedral died during the sack: Annales Pegavenses, MGH SS, 16:262–63; Annales Stederbergenses, ibid., 213. 79  Gesta Episcoporum Halberstadensium, 111. 80  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 5d–e, 6–7, 9, 14–16, 19, 22–24, 27–28, 31, 33, 35, 42–43, 46–47. For his background and career, Die Urkunden Friedrichs I, ed. Heinrich Appelt, 5 vols., MGH Diplomatum Regum et Imperatorum Germanie 10 (Hanover, 1975–90), vol. 5, Einleitung, Verzeichnisse, 24; Seltmann, Heinrich VI, 77–79, 91; Schütte, König Philipp von Schwaben, 541. 81  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 264, 501. 82  Regestum Innocentii III Papae super Negotio Romani Imperii, ed. F. Kempf (Rome, 1947), 33–38, no. 14.

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eventually chose, or was forced, to resign his see, in 1206, because of his support for King Philip.83 Of the other bishops, Wolfger of Passau was also a loyal supporter of the Staufer. He regularly attended the emperor’s court,84 had taken part in the later stages of the Sicilian expedition of 1194–95, and the emperor had sent him as his envoy to the papal court during the early months of 1195, a mission that may well have been linked with the plans for a new crusade.85 He was a warlike prelate who was later to be one of the most active partisans of Philip of Swabia, and was a key figure in the latter’s efforts to secure papal recognition throughout his reign.86 And as we have already noted, the emperor supported Bishop Henry of Prague as his candidate for the disputed duchy of Bohemia: this after the bishop had spent the last two months of 1192 at the imperial court. (He made a further visit – this time as “duke and bishop” – early in 1194.)87 There were also several among the lay participants in the crusade who were allies and connections of the Staufer. The Wittelsbach dukes of Bavaria had acquired their dignity from Frederick Barbarossa in 1180 after the fall of Henry the Lion, and Duke Ludwig had taken part in the invasion of southern Italy in 1194.88 He was subsequently to be one of those who elected Philip of Swabia as king of Germany in 1198. The Babenberg dukes of Austria were cousins of the Staufer. Duke Frederick’s father, Leopold, had handed Richard I of England over to the emperor in 1193, while his uncle, Henry of Mödling, had taken part in the unsuccessful south Italian

83 

Schütte, König Philipp von Schwaben, 430–31. Thus he was with Henry at Nordhausen in December 1192, and at Regensburg in January and at Speyer in March 1193: Reg. Henry VI, nos. 269, 272, 277, 283, 285–86 85  Gerhard Baaken, “Die Verhandlungen zwischen Heinrich VI. und Coelestin III. in den Jahren 1195–1197,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 27 (1971): 479–80, suggests that Henry’s decision to announce the crusade had been communicated in advance to Celestine III. Wolfger had returned by Easter 1195, when he was with the emperor at Bari, and he was also with him at Ascoli Piceno in early May: Reg. Henry VI, nos. 413, 418–19, 434, 436 (Clementi, “Calendar,” nos. 65–66, 84). Chronicon Magni Presbiteris Continuatio, ed. Wilhelm Wattenbach, MGH SS 17 (Hanover, 1861), 523. Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 77. 86  He led Philip’s embassy to the papal court in the winter of 1207/8: Regestum Innocentii III Papae super Negotio Romani Imperii, 330–32, no. 140. For his warlike propensities, Chronicon Magni Presbiteris Continuatio, 525, describing his conflict with Count Henry of Ortenburg in 1199, in which, according to the chronicler, “almost the whole of the province of Bavaria” was laid waste. 87  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 257, 260–61, 265–66, 330–31, 339. Henry as bishop already enjoyed excellent relations with Frederick Barbarossa, who in 1187 had decreed that he and his see should be directly subject to the emperor and freed from all subjection to the then duke, Frederick: Hartmut Hoffmann, “Böhmen und das deutsche Reich im Hohen Mittelalter,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Mittelund Ostdeutschlands 18 (1969): 1–62, at 57. As Hoffmann argues, this episode should be seen within the context of Bohemia’s growing integration within the Reich during the twelfth century. See also Martin Wihoda, Die Sizilischen Goldenen Bullen von 1212. Kaiser Friedrichs II. Privilegien für die Přemysliden in Erinnerungsdiskurs (Vienna, 2012), 131–33. 88  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 357–58, 362–64, 375–77, 379–80 (Clementi, “Calendar,” nos. 22–23, 25: it should be noted here that Clementi’s register only lists documents directly dealing with the kingdom of Sicily, and is less comprehensive than that of Baaken). 84 



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expedition of 1191.89 Waleran of Limburg was another who was an active supporter of Philip of Swabia in 1198, although he later changed sides. Henry VI had enlisted this family as allies when he had appointed Waleran’s brother Simon as bishop of Liège in 1194.90 Among lesser but still important figures, Count Gunther (III) of Käfernberg, from Thuringia, had also been with the emperor in southern Italy in 1191, and accompanied him once again to Italy in 1196, although it is possible that he may have died before he fulfilled his vow.91 Rudolf, the only son of Count Albrecht of Habsburg, was a cousin of the emperor, through his mother, and his family had been loyal supporters and considerably favoured by the Staufer. His grandfather Werner had died during the disastrous Roman expedition of 1167, and Barbarossa had allowed his father to succeed to the lands and title of his relatives, the counts of Lenzburg, the last of whom had died in 1172, and had later appointed Albrecht as landgrave of Alsace.92 Count Adolf III of Holstein, who was expressly described by Arnold of Lübeck as being among the amici imperatoris, was one of the dynasty’s principal allies in northern Germany.93 His desertion of Henry the Lion had played a crucial role in the duke’s downfall in 1180, from which he had profited considerably; and his lands had been attacked by the ex-duke while he was absent on the Third Crusade, something about which Adolf had complained to the emperor.94 He had also been holding some of the lands of the see of Bremen on imperial orders, or at least with the emperor’s permission, for which Adolf had been excommunicated by Archbishop Hartwig. The emperor eventually brokered a peace in October 1195, shortly before both count and archbishop took the cross, which allowed the count to keep a substantial share of the disputed county of Stade.95 Another who might be included in this group was Count Albrecht of Bogen, who took the cross in 1195 even if he did not fulfil his vow. He had taken part in the 1194 invasion of the kingdom of Sicily, although, or perhaps because, he was apparently in disfavour. (This may have been the result of a recent and bloody local conflict with Duke Ludwig of Bavaria.) However, Albrecht had been swiftly restored to the emperor’s grace when he brought him the news of his son’s birth.96 A more surprising figure who might be considered as an imperial connection was Henry, count palatine of the Rhine, who was the eldest son of the displaced Henry 89 

Reg. Henry VI, nos. 138, 144, 147, 152–53, 158, 162 (Clementi, “Calendar,” nos. 2, 4, 7, 13); “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 95. 90  Burchardi Chronicon, 82; Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 156, 164, 175. 91  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 155–56, 162, 542–43, 551, 579 (Clementi, “Calendar,” nos. 7–8, 13, 99). He was last attested at Gioa in Apulia on 15 January 1197: Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 251. 92  Die Regesten der Grafen von Habsburg bis 1281, ed. Harold Steinacker (Innsbruck 1905), nos. 70, 72, 75; Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, 29. Albrecht was landgrave before 1187, and was so styled, “comes provincialis,” by the Annales Marbacenses, 66, in 1195. 93  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.17, p. 172. 94  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, II.13, 16, 21, V.7, pp. 51–52, 55–57, 65, 153. 95  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.22, pp. 186–87; Reg. Henry VI, no. 477: full text in Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, ed. Johann M. Lappenberg (Hamburg 1842), 270–71, no. 307. 96  Hermanni Altahensis Annales, MGH SS, 17:385. For the conflict with Duke Ludwig ca. 1193: De Advocatis Altahensibus, ibid., 374.

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the Lion. But while his father had never been fully reconciled to his humiliation in 1180, the younger Henry seems to have been working his way back into favour with Henry VI, and perhaps the emperor was trying to extend an olive branch to the Welfs, offering the younger Henry a chance to recover his grace and – if not his father’s duchies and the lands confiscated in 1180, which were gone beyond recall – at least a place among the Reichsfürsten once again. The younger Henry had taken part in both the 1191 and 1194 south Italian expeditions, and late in 1193 he had married Agnes, the daughter and heir of Conrad, count palatine of the Rhine, the half-brother of Frederick Barbarossa – a union which the emperor had at first opposed, but to which he had relatively quickly been persuaded to give his sanction in return for the Welf’s participation in the 1194 expedition.97 Henry duly succeeded to Count Conrad’s lordship and princely position on the latter’s death in November 1195, very shortly after he too had taken the cross.98 Admittedly, this case is ambiguous, and Count Henry’s return to favour had not been easy – he may well have been taken to Italy in 1190/1 as a hostage for his father’s good behaviour; at that stage the emperor was still very suspicious of him, and he seems to have abandoned this first expedition and returned home as soon as he could.99 Furthermore the emperor’s consent to his marriage had initially been reluctant – one pro-Welf source suggested that he would have preferred to marry the heiress to Duke Ludwig of Bavaria.100 Moreover, even after his succession to the palatinate, the count still claimed to be the rightful duke of Saxony, which can hardly have been to the emperor’s taste.101 But he cannot have succeeded to his father-inlaw’s lordship without the emperor’s consent – and one may wonder whether his participation in the crusade was the quid pro quo for this. Certainly, at his first public appearance at the imperial court as count palatine, at Würzburg in April 1196, he was accompanied by several other future crusaders: the archbishop of Bremen, the bishops of Verden and Naumburg, the duke of Bavaria, the landgrave of Thuringia and Margrave Conrad of Landsberg.102 All of these allies, protégés and connections of the imperial family may well therefore have been influenced by the emperor to undertake the crusade. We cannot, 97  Annales Stederbergenses, MGH SS, 16:227–29. Henry and his father-in-law both witnessed an imperial charter on 29 January 1194 (Reg. Henry VI, no. 332), so one may presume that the emperor had become reconciled to the marriage by then: Seltmann, Heinrich VI, 170. 98  Bernd Schneidmüller, Die Welfen. Herrschaft und Erinnerung (Stuttgart, 2000), 236–38. Henry attended the Gelhausen diet in October 1195, which was presumably where he received the cross: Reg. Henry VI, no. 482. 99  Annales Stederbergenses, MGH SS, 16:222; Annales Stadenses, ibid., 352. For his involvement in the Italian expeditions, see also Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.20, p. 183; Reg. Henry VI, nos. 138, 148, 368, 377 (Clementi, “Calendar,” nos. 2, 23). 100  Hugonis et Honorii Chronicorum Continuationes Weingartenses, ed. Ludwig Weiland, MGH SS 21 (Hanover, 1869), 479. 101  Württembergische Urkundenbuch 2 (Stuttgart, 1858), 312 no. 494. 102  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 503–04. Andrea Briechle, Heinrich von Braunschweig. Bilder eines welfischen Fürsten in der Umbruchszeit des späten 12. und frühen 13. Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg, 2012), esp. 36–50 for his marriage to Agnes, although she does not discuss the crusade in this context.



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of course, assume that this was the case for all those who went on the expedition; similarly in the crusade of 1189–90, there were some leading men with close links to the emperor, but others who would appear to have had little or no contact with the imperial court.103 And one of the most important figures among the 1197 crusaders was someone who had previously been very definitely out of favour and at odds with the emperor, Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen. Hartwig, who unusually for a German prelate came from a ministerial family, had previously been a chaplain of Henry the Lion, who had been very pleased with his election as archbishop. Henry VI, however, had been reluctant to accept him as archbishop, had forced him into exile for a year in 1190–91, and had subsequently in 1192 taken advantage of a rift between Hartwig and the canons of Bremen to support a rival candidate for the see put forward by the chapter, Bishop Waldemar of Schleswig, a cousin of the king of Denmark. The emperor had only reluctantly been persuaded to accept Hartwig once again through a compromise negotiated by the archbishop of Cologne in 1194, after Bishop Waldemar had been imprisoned by Knut VI.104 Thereafter Hartwig seems to have been restored to favour, a peace was settled with the count of Holstein, and the archbishop was with the emperor at Gelnhausen in March and Würzburg in April 1196.105 But interestingly, although he was one of those recorded as taking the cross at the end of 1195, he may not have attended in person either the Gelnhausen or the Worms diets where the major recruitment took place. In the event, Hartwig went to the Holy Land by sea in 1197, stopping en route in Portugal.106 While this may have been simply a matter of convenience or choice – a contingent was going by sea anyway, and travelling from north Germany to the Alps would have added at least a month to the journey107 – one wonders whether he may have wanted to distance himself from the emperor and those more closely associated with him, at least until the later stages of the expedition, for there was apparently some argument about the choice of route, “with the Saxons reluctant to follow the emperor.”108 Hartwig was accompanied on the sea voyage by another man who had little cause to love Henry VI: Duke Henry of Brabant, the assassination of whose brother Albert, Bishop of Liège, in 1192, was widely rumoured to have been on the emperor’s orders; certainly, the emperor had done nothing to punish the murderers, and his guilt was widely suspected.109 That the Count Palatine Henry 103 

Loud, Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, 23–24. Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.21, pp. 185–86. Hans-Joachim Freytag, “Der Nordosten des Reiches nach dem Sturz Heinrichs des Löwen. Bischof Waldemar von Schleswig und das Erzbistum Bremen (1192/93),” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 25 (1969): 471–530. Bishop Waldemar was a son of King Knut V of Denmark, who had been murdered in 1157, and was thus potentially a rival claimant to the Danish throne. He was to remain in prison until 1206. 105  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 477, 500, 502–03. 106  Annales Stadenses, MGH SS, 16:353. 107  Descriptio Theutoniae, ed. Philipp Jaffé, MGH SS, 17:238. 108  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 113: “Saxonibus renitentibus sequi imperatorem.” 109  Raymond H. Schmandt, “The Election and Assassination of Albert of Louvain, Bishop of Liège, 1191–92,” Speculum 42 (1967): 639–60. 104 

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accompanied them on the sea route may indeed suggest that his reconciliation with the emperor had been fairly superficial, although we should also remember his and his family’s long-standing links with the archbishop. Finally, another important person who was at odds with the emperor may have left with the advance party, or very soon afterwards. Count Dietrich of Weissenfels was the younger half-brother of Margrave Albrecht of Meissen, who had died in June 1195. The emperor, who had suffered from a good deal of trouble with the Wettins, refused to allow him to succeed to the march, which he took into his own hands. Dietrich was last recorded in Germany in January 1197, when he announced his imminent departure “to fight for the cross,” and he was still in Acre in March 1198, when he was one of those present at the creation of the Teutonic Order.110 With Archbishop Hartwig’s involvement in the crusade, however, another factor had probably played its part. He had taken the cross before the Third Crusade, but we have no evidence that he actually went – indeed, while it was going on he was in exile in England – and hence in 1195 he may well have been anxious to redeem a long-delayed vow.111 And, for many of those who took part in the expedition of 1197–98, links with the previous crusade or family connections with the Holy Land may have been just as important as any encouragement or pressure from the emperor, if not more. Several of the participants in 1197 had already taken part in the earlier expedition, notably Bishop Conrad of Regensburg, Count Adolf of Holstein, Count Henry of Oldenburg, who died during the second expedition,112 and Bernhard of Horstmar, a Westphalian noble who, along with Count Adolf, distinguished himself in the fighting outside Beirut.113 Count Adolf had returned very speedily from the earlier expedition, probably because of fears for the safety of his lands in his absence, and may therefore have regarded the crusade as unfinished business.114 Others followed in the footsteps of close relatives. Herman of Thuringia had succeeded his elder brother Ludwig, who had died at Acre during the Third 110 

Codex Diplomaticus Saxoniae Regiae, 1.3 Urkunden der Markgrafen von Meissen 1196–1234, ed. Otto Posse (Leipzig, 1898), 13–14 no. 14; De Primordiis Ordinis Theutonici Narratio, 224, which describes Dietrich as margrave of Meissen, a usage which suggests that this text was written somewhat later than the events it describes. Cf. Chronicon Montis Sereni, ed. Ernst Ehrenfeuchter, MGH SS, 23:166, which suggests that Dietrich was already overseas when his brother died, which cannot have been correct. He was back in Germany by November 1198: Urkunden der Markgrafen 1196–1234, 29–30 no. 31. For the context: Jorg Rogge, Die Wettiner. Aufstieg einer Dynastie im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 2009), 47–49. 111  For his exile, see Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.3, p. 150; Freytag, “Der Nordosten des Reiches,” 497. It must have been shortly before his departure in May 1196 that Hartwig consecrated the Cistercian Berthold as the second bishop of Livonia: Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.30, p. 214; Annales Stadenses, ad. an. 1195, MGH SS, 16:352; Henrici Livoniae Chronicon, ed. Leonid Arbusow and Albrecht Bauer, MGH SRG (Hanover, 1955), 8. 112  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 18, 20; Historia Monasterii Rastadensis, MGH SS, 25:512; cf. Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, IV.15, p. 141. Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 238. 113  Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.27, p. 201. Röhricht, Die Deutschen im Heiligen Lande, 63–64. 114  He had returned to Germany by 24 December 1190: Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, 258–59 no. 292; cf. Arnoldi Chronica Slavorum, V.7, p. 153.



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Crusade.115 Burchard of Querfurt, the brother of Gebhardt and Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim, had also perished on that expedition, as had the father of Count Otto of Henneberg – this last from an important noble family on the border between Franconia and Thuringia who had been loyal supporters of the Staufer.116 Count Ludwig (II) of Oettingen (in Swabia), who took the cross in 1195, was following his brother Conrad, who had gone on Barbarossa’s crusade, although in Ludwig’s case we have no clear evidence that he actually fulfilled his vow. (He had also been in Italy with Henry VI during at least the later stages of the 1191 expedition.)117 Two of the most important leaders of the crusade may well have been seeking to atone for the sins, of omission or commission, of their fathers. Duke Godfrey of Brabant, who died in 1190, had been one of those who had vowed to go on crusade in 1188 but had failed to do so.118 Was his son Henry now going in his place? Furthermore, the latter’s murdered brother Albert had also taken the cross, but had never gone.119 Much more explicit was the motivation of Duke Frederick of Austria, whose father Leopold had only been freed from excommunication on his deathbed, as a consequence of his role in the imprisonment and ransom of Richard the Lionheart. Frederick, we are told, intended to go on crusade “for the salvation of his father’s soul.”120 One might also note that among the others who had failed to fulfil their vow in 1189–90 had been Duke Henry of Limburg and his sons Henry and Waleran, who had, wrote Gilbert of Mons, “tossed this aside quickly and caused many evils and wars throughout the empire.”121 Waleran was one of the first to reach the Holy Land in 1197. Otto of Henneberg, bishop of Speyer, whose nephew Count Otto took part in the 1197 expedition, was another who had earlier failed to fulfil his vows.122 Again, one wonders whether this may have been a possible influence on his relative. For some, indeed, a family connection with the Holy Land, either by pilgrimage or crusade, had existed for several generations, as for example with the Welfs, the family of the Count Palatine Henry. His ancestor Welf IV had died in Cyprus on his way back from the 1101 crusade, his great-uncle Conrad, a cleric, had died in southern Italy while on his way to Jerusalem ca. 1150, his uncle Welf VI had taken part in the Second Crusade, while his father had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1172.123 115 

Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:546–47. Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:545; Monumenta Erphesfurtensia, 196. 117  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 19, 77; Annales Marbacenses, 66. Reg. Henry VI, nos. 174–76, 178, 191 118  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 23. 119  Le Chronique de Gislebert de Mons, ed. Léon Vanderkindere (Brussels 1904), 206. 120  Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, 67. 121  Chronique de Gislebert de Mons, 207. 122  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 23. Duke Henry (III) of Limburg, however, remained in Germany in 1197, and there is no suggestion that he took the cross again: Urkundenbuch für die Geschichte des Niederrheins, 1, nos. 557–59. He was an early supporter of Otto IV: ibid., 1:392–93 nos. 562–63. 123  Frutolfs und Ekkehards Chroniken und die anonyme Kaiserchronik, ed. F.-J. Schmale and I. Schmale-Ott, Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelaters, Freiherr vom Stein 116 

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Duke Frederick of Austria’s grandfather and great-uncle had taken part in the Second Crusade, while his father had gone to Jerusalem as a pilgrim in 1182 and been one of the leaders of the Third Crusade. While his primary motivation was undoubtedly concern for his father’s soul, the duke was also upholding family tradition.124 In addition, we should note the influence on others, not just of the emperor, but of the leaders of the expedition. These were, of course, accompanied by their own military households, about whom we are, with rare exceptions, sadly ill-informed.125 But some of the most important figures also exercised a conspicuous influence on other lords. In particular, there was Archbishop Conrad of Mainz, who we know to have been actively involved in preaching the crusade – one source suggests he was a much more effective preacher than the Italian cardinals because he used the vernacular rather than Latin.126 He set off, probably in December 1196, “with many inhabitants of Franconia and the Rhineland,”127 and appears to have acted as a leader to the nobles of Franconia: for example, Count Werner of Wittgenstein, a regular witness of the archbishop’s charters in the years before the crusade, seems to have travelled to the East with him;128 and probably also Count Poppo of Wertheim, who witnessed charters of Conrad at Mainz in August 1195 and November 1196.129 (We should note, however, that Count Poppo had also taken part in the expedition to Italy in 1191.130) Lambert and Ernst, the two sons of the count of Gleichen in Thuringia, who were among those who took the cross at the end of 1195 were frequent witnesses of the charters of Archbishop Conrad during 1195/6, and may well also have accompanied him on the expedition.131 Frederick of Austria was, hardly surprisingly, accompanied by several nobles from his duchy, including Otto of Ramsberg, who had earlier taken part in Barbarossa’s crusade, and who witnessed a charter of the duke on 26 April 1197 (for the soul of Duke Leopold) just before the latter’s departure;132 and Conrad of Aspern, who “being about to go to Jerusalem” received a substantial sum of money from the canons of Klosterneuburg Gedächtnisausgabe, 15 (Darmstadt, 1972), 170; Historia Welforum Weingartensis, ed. E. König, Schwäbische Chroniken der Stauferzeit 1, 2nd ed. (Sigmaringen, 1978), 22, 26–28, 54, 66. 124  His brother Leopold VI was later to take part in the Albigensian Crusade, the 1212 campaign in Spain and the Fifth Crusade: Georg Scheibelreiter, Die Babenberger. Reichsfürsten und Landesherren (Vienna, 2010), 244, 247–52, 286–90. And while Count Albrecht of Bogen never reached the Holy Land in 1197, two of his sons accompanied Duke Leopold on the Fifth Crusade: Röhricht, Die Deutschen im Heiligen Lande, 100. 125  One of the few about whose followers we do know something is Bishop Conrad of Regensburg, but those named as accompanying him by the Annales Ratisponenses, MGH SS, 17:590, were clerics. 126  Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:554–55. 127  Continuatio Garstensis, MGH SS, 16:594–95; cf. “Chronica S. Petri Erfordensis Moderna,” 198: “multis sibi signatis sociatis.” 128  Mainzer Urkundenbuch 2.2, nos. 606, 617, 637–38, 640, 645. 129  Mainzer Urkundenbuch 2.2, nos. 623, 655–56. 130  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 174–78, 183–84, 191. 131  Mainzer Urkundenbuch 2.2, nos. 618–19, 652–54, 669. 132  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 21; Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Babenberger in Österreich, 1. Die Siegelurkunden der Babenberger bis 1215, ed. Heinrich Fichtenau and Erich Zöllner (Vienna, 1950), 134–35 no. 100.



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in return for abandoning his claim to a property that his father had given to the house, this being done in the presence of Duke Frederick.133 No doubt this financed his journey. Similarly, an Austrian ministerialis, Otto of Puchberg, mortgaged two properties to Klosterneuburg “for his soul” before he set out for Jerusalem, though with the proviso that he could redeem them on his return. His brother Hugo had accompanied Duke Leopold on crusade in 1190 and died in the Holy Land.134 Otto was presumably also part of Duke Frederick’s entourage. The last group who should be considered is those who were in direct attendance upon the Emperor Henry in Sicily in 1197, either as members of his household or nobles who had been with him since his entry into Italy the previous summer. Henry’s following when he entered Italy in July 1196 had been a small one, and it did not increase significantly until the arrival of the main body of the crusaders in the kingdom of Sicily, in (probably) June 1197.135 Those who accompanied him throughout this period included Conrad of Urslingen, duke of Spoleto, Count Albrecht of Spanheim, who came from Swabia, the Franconian free noble Arnold of Hornberg,136 several of the imperial ministeriales on whom Henry heavily depended, notably his marshal Henry of Kalden and butler Henry of Kaiserslautern, as well as the former ministerialis, and the emperor’s right-hand man, Markward of Annweiler, duke of Ravenna.137 This was very much the emperor’s inner circle – Henry of Kalden and Markward had been part of the emperor’s household since his youth – and all of these men had taken part in the conquest of the kingdom of Sicily in 1194.138 Henry and Markward were shown alongside the emperor and the chancellor Conrad in one of the illustrations to Peter of Eboli’s poem celebrating that conquest.139 These men were also key figures in his diplomacy. Markward and Arnold acted as his representatives with the Pisan naval squadron that took part in the 1194 invasion.140 Conrad of Spoleto was entrusted with an embassy to the papal 133 

Codex Traditionum Ecclesiae Collegiatae Claustroneoburgensis, ed M. Fischer, Fontes Rerum Austriacarum II.4 (Vienna, 1851), 98, no. 149. Conrad also witnessed a privilege of Duke Frederick for the nuns of Erla in September 1196, and he survived the crusade: Urkundenbuch der Babenberger, 1:132, no. 98, and no. 149. 134  Codex Traditionum … Claustroneoburgensis, 99, no. 453. “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 97. 135  Annales Marbacenses, 67. 136  His principal castle was near Neckarzimmern, in the district of Mosbach, today in the northern part of Baden-Württemberg. 137  Innocent III’s biographer said that Henry “favoured him above all his other familiares”: Gesta Innocentii III ch. 9, PL 214, col. 23. 138  Arnold, German Knighthood 1050–1300, 214–16; Thomas Ertl, Studien zum Kanzlei- und Urkundenwesen Kaiser Heinrichs VI. (Vienna, 2002), 88. For Markward, Thomas C. Van Cleve, Markward of Anweiler and the Sicilian Regency (Princeton, 1937), is still useful: see 17–34 for his early career; also Karl Bosl, Die Reichsministerialität der Salier und Staufer, MGH Schriften 10 (Stuttgart, 1951), 228–30, 588–98; and Seltmann, Heinrich VI, 134–39. Both Markward and Henry of Kalden can be attested in Henry VI’s entourage from the autumn of 1185: Reg. Henry VI, nos. 4b, 5. 139  Petrus de Ebulo, Liber ad Honorem Augusti. Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. Eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, ed. Theo Kölzer and Marlis Stähli (Sigmaringen, 1994), 243. 140  Reg. Henry VI, no. 378 (Clementi, “Calendar,” no. 24).

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curia early in 1197 – he may also have been accompanied by Markward.141 Henry of Kalden was sent as the emperor’s envoy to Constantinople over the winter of 1196/7, had returned to Sicily by May 1197, where he and Markward had played a leading role in the suppression of the revolt which had broken out on the island, but he then set off for Syria, presumably with the main body of the crusaders at the beginning of September.142 The others remained with the emperor in Sicily until his death at Messina on 28 September: Conrad of Spoleto, Markward and Count Albrecht all witnessed privileges granted in the days immediately before his death. (Albrecht also received a fief in Germany as a reward for his services.143) By this time they had also been joined by Bishop Hartwig of Eichstätt, a prelate who had not hitherto been noted as taking the cross, but had probably come south accompanying the main army of crusaders, for he was first attested in Sicily on 3 August. However, unlike them, he did not sail to the East at the beginning of September, since he was still in Messina on the 24th, a few days before the emperor’s death.144 The presence of this group may shed some light on the intentions of Henry himself, which were cut short by his premature death at the age of only thirtytwo. Both Arnold of Lübeck and the well-informed Marbach annalist made clear that when Henry first mooted the new crusade, he did not himself publicly take the cross, although the Marbach annalist claimed that he had done so in private, and Arnold that he was “spiritually signed.” The Marbach annalist claimed that he would have announced his taking of the cross had the princes agreed to choose his son as king before he left Germany, and that subsequently he wanted to receive the cross from the pope, if the latter agreed to anoint his son as king, but the latter refused, and the emperor went off into the kingdom of Sicily “in a very bad temper” (this would have been in November 1196).145 He would seem from this account, therefore, still not to have publicly pledged to go on crusade himself. The Estoire d’Eracles alleged that Henry told the pope: that he would give supplies and shipping to all those who wanted to help in the conquest of the kingdom of Jerusalem so that it would cost them nothing, and that he himself would never leave the Regno until the kingdom of Jerusalem had been conquered.146

141 

Baaken, “Die Verhandlungen zwischen Heinrich VI. und Coelestin III,” 475–76. For the revolt, see especially Annales Marbacenses, 69–70. The last time Henry can be attested in Sicily with the emperor was on 3 August, when he received a grant of various fiefs and properties in Germany as a reward for his loyal service against the Sicilian rebels: Reg. Henry VI, no. 605 (Clementi, “Calendar,” no. 124). His presence in the East was noted by Burchard of Ursberg, Chronicon, 74; and he was one of those who witnessed the conversion of the Hospital to a knightly order at Acre, on 5th March 1198. For his career: Seltmann, Heinrich VI, 140–46. 143  Reg. Henry VI, no. 609 (Clementi, “Calendar,” no. 128), 12 September 1197. 144  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 605, 610 (Clementi, “Calendar,” nos. 124, 130). 145  Annales Marbacenses, 67–68. Baaken, “Die Verhandlungen zwischen Heinrich VI. und Coelestin III,” 505. 146  Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 187 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 139). 142 



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This surely implies that the emperor had never intended himself to go on crusade, although we must remember that this account was written some time after the event, and represents the light of hindsight, from the viewpoint of Frankish Syria. Modern historians have nonetheless tended to follow this view.147 However, the Reinhardsbrunner chronicler suggests that, at least towards the end of 1196, Henry was in fact keeping an open mind on the issue. As part of his attempt to repair his relations with the German princes and to secure their consent to Frederick’s election, he sent a letter which was read out at a meeting at Frankfurt, in which he said that he had taken the cross, but offered to be guided by the princes’ decision as to whether he should lead the forthcoming crusade in person or remain in the kingdom of Sicily to provide logistical support for the expedition, adding that “he promised that he would do not what was more convenient for himself but rather what seemed to everyone the more useful [course of action].”148 Here, of course, Henry was trying to appear emollient, and such a diplomatic offer does not give any guidance as to which option he may actually have preferred: it does, however, suggest that by this stage he had publicly taken the cross, and was at least contemplating leading the crusade in person. Furthermore, the backgrounds of the men closest to Henry in his last months might well imply that the emperor would have preferred to lead the expedition. Both Markward of Annweiler and Henry of Kalden had taken part in and, indeed, played prominent roles during Barbarossa’s crusade.149 Arnold of Hornberg had also been on the 1189–90 expedition, and (although not mentioned in the Marbach account) had been present at the councils of Gelnhausen and Worms in 1195, which had been at the centre of crusading recruitment.150 Albrecht of Spanheim had also attended the Gelnhausen diet, and two of his brothers had taken part in Barbarossa’s expedition to the East.151 Markward, Henry of Kalden, Conrad of Urslingen, Arnold of Hornberg and Albrecht of Spanheim had all been with Henry in Apulia in April 1195 when he had first announced the crusade, and (probably) privately taken the cross.152 Bishop Hartwig’s brother, Count Gebhardt of Dollnstein, had also been a member of Barbarossa’s crusade, although he was one of those participants who had returned quite early from that enterprise, for he also participated in the invasion of southern Italy in 1191.153 And another who joined Henry in the last few months of his life and remained with him to the end was his cousin William, margrave of Montferrat, the

147 

Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 195–96. Cronica Reinharsbrunnensis, MGH SS, 30.1:558: “Non quod ipsi commodius, sed quod universis videretur utilius se per omnia facturum pollicetur.” 149  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 45, 54–55, 61, 64, 71, 81. Van Cleve, Markward, 32–34. 150  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 22; Reg. Henry VI, nos. 477–78, 480, 482, 487. 151  Reg. Henry VI, no. 482. “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 19; Loud, The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, 49–50. 152  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 412–13, 416, 422, 426–34. 153  “Historia de Expeditione Friderici,” 20. He was with Henry at Pisa on 1 March 1191: Reg. Henry VI, no. 138; cf. ibid., nos. 152–53, 155–57, 162. 148 

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brother of Conrad, the hero of the siege of Tyre.154 These crusading links among the group of councillors who accompanied Henry in Sicily during 1197 might indeed suggest that he intended to go east himself, had not first the suppression of the Sicilian rebellion that summer, and then his own demise, prevented this. As the Eracles author said at another point in his account: calling to mind the good work that the emperor Frederick had begun, but had not been able to finish. He would gladly have accomplished them (it?) himself, had not God required of him his life.155

Furthermore, another crucial and hitherto-neglected piece of evidence also points to Henry intending personally to take the lead in the expedition, or at least to a well-informed contemporary believing that he would. Towards the end of his long and sycophantic poem glorifying the emperor and celebrating his conquest of the kingdom of Sicily, and which was apparently finished early in 1197 and intended for presentation to the emperor, the south Italian Peter of Eboli inserted an acrostic predicting future victories that he would achieve. Peter concluded this verse by saying: When confronting no enemy, he will pitch his camp with Jove, Victorious when Sion is cleansed, David’s citadel redeemed, Sicily he will seek again, to wield the golden sceptre of Rome.156

Not only this, but Peter went on to describe the decoration of an imperial palace. Whether this was anything other than the product of his imagination is a good question. But, according to Peter, one of the rooms of this palace was decorated with frescoes showing scenes from the crusade of Emperor Frederick, described as fervidus in Christo miles.157 Even if these palace decorations never actually existed, Peter’s poem points to the importance of the crusade within the court circle, and shows that someone who was at least on the fringes of that circle believed that Henry intended to lead the expedition in person. 154 

Reg. Henry VI, nos. 596, 605, 609, 613 (Clementi, “Calendar,” nos. 115, 124, 128, 133). His brother Boniface had taken part in the conquest of 1194 and remained with Henry for several months until the emperor left the kingdom in April 1195: ibid., nos. 387, 389, 394–95, 403–04, 412–13, 416, 422, 426, 428, 430–31. 155  Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 181 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 136). 156  Liber ad Honorem Augusti, ed. Kölzer and Stähli, 217, lines 1467–69; also in Liber ad Honorem Augusti di Pietro da Eboli, ed. G. B. Siragusa, Fonti per la storia d’Italia (Rome, 1906), 103: “Cum non hostis erit, sua ponet cum Iove castra. Vicerit ut mundum Syon, David arce redempta, Siciliam repetens, Rome reget aurea sceptra.” The translation above is taken from: Book in Honor of Augustus (Liber ad Honorem Augusti), by Pietro da Eboli, trans. Gwenyth Hood (Tempe, AZ, 2012), 321. 157  Liber ad Honorem Augusti, ed. Kölzer and Stähli, 233, lines 1580–1605 (quote from line 1583, ed. Siragusa, 109–11). I am grateful to Sebastian Brenninger (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München), for reminding me about this passage.



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We tend to view Henry VI’s involvement in the eastern Mediterranean as an essentially political engagement, with the emperor keen to vaunt his imperial pretensions by granting crowns to, and securing overlordship of, Cyprus and Armenia, and perhaps seeking similarly to subordinate the Byzantine empire, as was suggested by Otto of St. Blasien, who claimed grandiloquently that: His death was a disaster for the race of the Teutons and all the people of Germany, since he had rendered them distinguished through the riches of other lands, had made all the nations round about fear them through their warlike courage, and shown them to be undoubtedly more eminent than other races. Had he not been cut down by death, he would through his courage and energy have restored the honour of the empire to its ancient height.158

Yet one should remember that the groundwork for a relationship with Armenia had been laid during Barbarossa’s crusade, or perhaps even before that; that the initiative for the recognition of the Cypriot crown came seemingly from Aimery de Lusignan, not Henry;159 and that his concern with Byzantium was rather to secure financial, naval and logistical assistance for his crusade than to enforce any lordship over it, let alone to conquer the empire as Otto of St. Blasien’s overwrought imagination and the other highly coloured accounts of Henry of Kalden’s embassy suggested.160 We also may underestimate quite how strong an influence the crusading ethic was at the Staufen court: certainly vernacular poetry associated with the court circle (even if hard to date) suggests that these ideals were deeply imbued, both in terms of religious endeavour and as service to God by his Christian vassals.161 We should also note the emperor’s considerable patronage of the (admittedly as yet unmilitarized) Teutonic Order during the last months of his life.162 It is thus time that we take a cooler view of Henry VI’s imperial ambitions, and instead bring Henry the crusader into the foreground of our analysis.

158 

Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, 71. Annales Marbacenses, 67. Naumann, Kreuzzug Kaiser Heinrichs VI, 39–46; Loud, The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, 17–18; Edbury, “Celestine III, the Crusade and the Latin East,” 141–42. 160  Jonathan Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades (London, 2003), 148–49. For the embassy: Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, 180–85 (trans. Edbury, Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 137–39); O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates, trans. Henry Magoulias (Detroit, 1984), 261–62. 161  W. H. Jackson, Chivalry in Twelfth-Century Germany: The Works of Hartmann von Aue (Cambridge, 1994), 182–93. 162  Reg. Henry VI, nos. 593, 601, 709, 727. Kristjan Toomaspoeg, Les Teutoniques en Sicile (1197– 1492) (Rome, 2003), 29–34. 159 

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Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae: A Newly Discovered Extended Version Jonathan Rubin Open University of Israel [email protected] Abstract With over a hundred surviving manuscripts and around twenty printed editions dating to before 1746, Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae is a text of extraordinary importance. And yet, many questions concerning the author and the text remain unresolved to this day. This article explores for the first time a hitherto unknown extended version of Burchard’s Descriptio, shedding much light on this important figure and his activities and travels. This version, provided by MS London, British Library, Add. 18929, includes: (A) a text roughly parallel to that which appears in the modern critical edition by Laurent, albeit with numerous phrases lacking in the latter and providing significant information about Burchard; (B) a version of the description of Burchard’s journey from Armenia to Egypt which is much more elaborate than its parallel in Laurent’s edition; (C) a description of Burchard’s visit to Egypt which has been printed several times but whose authorship remained hitherto questionable; (D) a completely unknown continuation. Exploring this version, this article shows, inter alia, that Burchard was a person of high standing rather than a simple pilgrim, that he was sent, more than once, on diplomatic missions and that he travelled – and described experiences he had – not only in the eastern Mediterranean but also in places like Sicily and Rome. It has also been possible to provide exact dating for his travels, using evidence from this version. Two appendices provide editions of sections (B) and (D).

Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae is a text of extraordinary importance. It has been recently described as the most detailed account of the Holy Land to have come down to us from the thirteenth century, and as belonging to a class of its own among the many medieval descriptions of the Holy Land.1 Furthermore, over a hundred surviving manuscripts and around twenty printed editions dating to before 1746 testify to the Descriptio’s immense popularity in I would like to express my gratitude to Charles Burnett, Denys Pringle, Iris Shagrir, Cornelia Linde and Ilya Dines for their help with various aspects of my work on this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers for their valuable corrections and suggestions. The work on this paper was made possible by the generosity of the Yad Hanadiv Foundation and the Open University of Israel. 1  Denys Pringle, Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291, Crusade Texts in Translation 23 (Farnham, 2012), 46; Paul D. A. Harvey, Medieval Maps of the Holy Land (London, 2012), 94. These two works, as well as Ingrid Baumgärtner, “Burchard of Mount Sion and the Holy Land,” Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture 4.1 (2013): 5–41, include references to earlier literature with regard to Burchard and his Descriptio. 173

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medieval and early modern times.2 And yet, many questions concerning the author and the text remain unresolved to this day. It is usually proposed that Burchard was a Dominican, but that identification has hitherto been based only on rubrics and colophons.3 It had sometimes been suggested, but remained questionable up to now, that Burchard served as a diplomatic envoy or a member of a formal embassy.4 The dating of his travels has also been very difficult to establish and, in the most recent attempt to solve this problem, Pringle concluded that the text was written between 1274 and 1285 “even though Burchard could have begun his travels before that.”5 Even the scope of the original work remains a complicated matter. In some versions Burchard’s text ends with a section which describes a journey in Egypt. It has not been established, however, whether this was really an authentic part of the Descriptio or a later addition.6 Clearly, the existence of these open questions is strongly related to our very limited knowledge of the Descriptio’s textual tradition. In fact, almost everything we know about this tradition goes back to J. C. M. Laurent, who published a critical edition of the Descriptio and identified two recensions of the text: a short and a long one. Laurent provided the text of the long version, which is now widely accepted as closer to the original, while the short one is considered to be its abridgement.7 The main problem with Laurent’s work is that he used a very limited number of manuscripts: only six according to the introduction to his edition – two from Hamburg, one from Berne and three from Wrocław. Additionally, an appendix to the edition includes variants from a manuscript at Basel. Of these, however, the Berne manuscript includes only a part of the Descriptio, and the Wrocław manuscripts, as noted by Pringle, provide the short version of Burchard’s work, so that their value for this edition is questionable.8 It is thus clear that, as has been stated by several prominent historians in the last few years, a thorough study of the manuscript tradition is necessary in order to advance our knowledge of Burchard and his work. This article, which should be seen as a first step in that direction, explores for the first time a hitherto unknown extended version of Burchard’s Descriptio, which

2 

Pringle, Pilgrimage, 46–47. Pringle, Pilgrimage, 47; Harvey, Medieval Maps, 94; Baumgärtner, “Burchard,” 12. 4  Pringle, Pilgrimage, 47, 50; Baumgärtner, “Burchard,” 14–15. 5  Pringle, Pilgrimage, 51. 6  Baumgärtner, “Burchard,” 14–15. Harvey does not discuss this problem, but refers to this section as if it were a part of Burchard’s work: Harvey, Medieval Maps, 95. 7  Johann C. M. Laurent, ed., Peregrinatores medii aevi quatuor (Leipzig, 1864), 3–94. For the short version see, for example: Jacques Basnage, ed., Thesaurus monumentorum ecclesiasticorum et historicorum, sive Henrici Canisii lectiones antiquae, vol. 4 (Amsterdam, 1725), 9–26. For recent discussions of the relation between the two versions, see: Harvey, Medieval Maps, 98–99; Pringle, Pilgrimage, 47–49; John R. Bartlett, “Burchard’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae: The Early Revision,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 145.1 (2013): 61–71. 8  Laurent, Peregrinatores, 5–7, 100; Pringle, Pilgrimage, 48–49; Harvey, Medieval Maps, 99–100. 3 



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sheds light on many of the above-mentioned questions.9 This version appears in MS London, British Library, Add. 18929 (referred to below as “MS London”), a quarto manuscript, written on vellum, which should be dated to 1380–1420. This manuscript, which seems to have been produced in Germany, previously belonged to the monastery of Saint Peter in Erfurt. The Descriptio appears in this manuscript on fols. 1r–50v with a diagram on fol. 51r.10 In order to facilitate the discussion, it would be expedient first of all to present the basic structure of Burchard’s text as provided by this manuscript and define the basic units with which we shall be concerned: A. Fols. 1r – 42r (up to the words “Multa alia vidi”): This part of the manuscript includes Burchard’s text in a manner that generally corresponds to that published by Laurent. We shall therefore refer to this part of the text as “the standard section.” As we shall see, however, this section does include, in several places, readings which differ considerably from those which appear in Laurent’s edition, and which shed considerable light on Burchard’s biography and travels. B. Fols. 42r (“Multa alia vidi”) – 42v (“hostia Nili fluminis”): This short section, referred to below as “the journey to Egypt” section, describes Burchard’s voyage from Armenia to Egypt via Cyprus and the Syrian coast. It is much more elaborate than its parallel in Laurent’s edition (p. 93, “multa alia vidi” – p. 94, “usque ad ostia Nili fluminis”). The London manuscript is also considerably more detailed here than its parallel as provided by Omont.11 An edition of this section is therefore provided in Appendix 1. C. 42v (“hostia Nili fluminis”) – 44v (“dixi supra”): This section, referred to below as “the description of Egypt,” includes an account of Egypt which is not included in Laurent’s edition, but which has been previously published in

9  Obviously, a wider study of the Descriptio’s manuscript tradition will enable us to gain even more knowledge with regard to Burchard and his work. My intention is to advance in this direction in the future. 10  For discussions of the diagram (in which, however, the unique text provided by this MS is not discussed), see: Baumgärtner, “Burchard,” 8, 16, 21, 22; Harvey, Medieval Maps, 95–96. I am very grateful to Ilya Dines for his help with the description of this manuscript. For additional information, see the British Library’s online manuscript catalog, which dates the MS to the fourteenth century: http:// searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=1&dstmp=1347625228936&vid= IAMS_VU2&fromLogin=true (last accessed: January, 2014). This manuscript is also mentioned in: Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, 4 vols. (Rome, 1970–93), 1:258; Reinhold Röhricht, Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae (Berlin, 1890), 56. 11  Henri Omont, “Manuscrits de la bibliothèque de sir Thomas Phillipps récemment acquis pour la Bibliothèque nationale,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 64 (1903): 490–553, at 498–99. Omont’s text is easily accessible online: http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bec_03736237_1903_num_64_1_452327 (last accessed: July 2014).

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several versions.12 While the authorship of this section has hitherto remained doubtful, its inclusion in the London manuscript, between sections which were clearly composed by Burchard, makes it clear that this account was authored by him.13 The London manuscript’s version of this section is very close to that published by Omont, so that its inclusion here is unnecessary.14 It would, however, be worthwhile to describe here the last two paragraphs of Omont’s text, which are absent from this section as it appears in MS London. Following the words “quod alias non fieret ullo modo,” which appear, in slight variations, in both Omont’s text and in MS London,15 the latter includes only one additional phrase before moving on to the next section: “De hiis bubus quomodo feriam servant in dominica dixi supra.” Omont’s text, on the other hand, includes two paragraphs. The first of these refers to two phenomena related to the Balsam garden which Burchard visited. He recounts that the oxen used there refuse to work between Saturday at midday and early morning on Monday, and that the Saracens baptize (this is the word he uses) themselves and their children in the garden’s fountain in order to eliminate their stench. Clearly, the above-cited phrase from MS London refers to the first of these two phenomena which, in fact, is described in Laurent’s edition (p. 61) and in MS London (fol. 22r) where, discussing Eingedi, Burchard mentions his visit to the Balsam garden. The second phenomenon is not mentioned in Laurent’s text or in MS London. The second paragraph, in which the custom of putting a relic chest in the Nile is described, is found in MS London in a slightly different place, and is included in the section edited below (fols. 44v–45r, here Appendix 1). These are, in all likelihood, traces of a process in which Burchard edited his own work. D. 44v (“De Babylonia recedens”) – 49v (“sollempniter procurabar”): This part of the manuscript provides a completely unknown continuation of Burchard’s work. It is edited here as Appendix 2, and will be referred to below as “the continuation.”

12 

Basnage, Thesaurus, 4:25–26; Veridica Terre Sancte (Venice, 1519) [no page numbering in this section]; Novus orbis regionum … (Basel, 1537), 327–29; De dimensione terrae … autore Casparo Peucero et Descriptio locorum … autore quodam Brocardo Monacho (Wittenberg, 1587), T2–T4; Descriptio Terrae Sanctae et regionum finitimarum auctore Borchardo Monacho (Magdeburg, 1587), P–P3. 13  The development and reception of this section cannot be explored here but certainly merit a study of their own. 14  Omont, “Manuscrits,” 499–503. Omont’s parallel text begins with “hostiam Nili fluminis.” 15  MS London, fol. 44v provides the phrase as cited above. Omont, “Manuscrits,” 503, has: “quod non fieret alias ullo modo.”

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E. 49v (“Terram x tribuum”) – 50v (“quindecim dietarum”): This part of the manuscript provides a text roughly parallel to that included in Laurent’s edition under the heading “De longitudine et latitudine Terre Sancte.”16 The Continuation: A Preliminary Description As has already been stated, the continuation that is included in the London manuscript has never been described or published. It would therefore be useful to give here a general description of its content. The first part of the continuation includes information about Burchard’s visit in Egypt which is not included in the already known “description of Egypt” section. It starts with Burchard’s account of animals he saw in what seems to have been a kind of zoo. Particularly detailed is the account of the giraffe, which Burchard must have encountered there for the first time. The author then goes on to discuss various matters related to Egypt, paying particular attention to the presence of Christians there, to the country’s economic characteristics and to various archaeological monuments. Having left Egypt, Burchard sailed to Sicily where he describes several sites he visited in Palermo. Recounting his voyage from there to Naples, he focuses mainly on volcanic sites he explored, describing in great detail the islands of Vulcano, Lipari and Stromboli. Burchard then goes on to relate his travels in Italy, first along its western coast up to Naples, then to Rome and, eventually, Bologna. His descriptions of Baia and Rome are particularly detailed. In Bologna he met the head of the Dominican order who received him very well but rejected his request to travel to Germany. Burchard then returned to Naples, and from there sailed via Crete, Rhodes and the coast of Asia Minor to Acre. From there, equipped with letters from the King of the Romans (Rudolf I, r. 1273–91), Burchard travelled to Armenia, in order to meet the Armenian king, who, at the time, was Levon III (r. 1269–89). Burchard describes the generosity of the king towards him, and informs us that he provided him with 70 Muslim captives in order to help him with the matter for which he had come, of which we unfortunately remain ignorant. Perhaps they were to be used for the ransom of Christian captives. Having completed his business there, Burchard sailed to Cyprus, where, he tells us, he was kindly received by the king, by which he must be referring to Henry II (r. 1285–1324). The continuation ends with his comment that he spent many days there in the Dominican house (he most probably refers to the Dominican convent in Nicosia) and that he was formally looked after by the royal court (de curia regis sollempniter procurabar).17

16 

Laurent, Peregrinatores, 85–86. It is possible, of course, that this is not the end of the text as Burchard wrote it and that another, as yet unknown, manuscript includes a further continuation. 17 

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New Evidence Concerning Burchard’s Life and Travels The Descriptio, as transmitted by the London manuscript, reveals much that was hitherto unknown about Burchard. Firstly, while, as was mentioned above, the evidence for Burchard’s attachment to the Dominican order was thus far open to question, our version leaves no doubt that he was a Dominican friar. Near the beginning of the “standard section,” in a phrase that describes the circumstances in which the text was composed, Burchard simply refers to himself as “ego burchardus ordinis predicatorum.”18 Furthermore, in the continuation, while describing his visit to Rome, Burchard mentions two places as “ubi stant fratres.” These are Sancta Maria in Minerva and Sancta Sabina in monte Aventino, both of which are well known as Dominican houses. Additionally, Burchard tells us that when he was in Bologna, the magister ordinis refused to send him to Germany (Teutonia) despite his request. Although Burchard does not tell us to which ordo the magister belonged, it is most likely that he is referring to the Dominican order since in 1285 the general chapter of the order was held in that city, and therefore the master of the order must also have been there.19 Burchard’s connection with the Dominicans of Magdeburg, hitherto based solely on the dedication of the short version of the Descriptio as edited by Canisius/ Basnage,20 is also strengthened by a phrase which appears in the continuation provided by the London manuscript. Describing the giraffe, Burchard writes that he is certain that this animal is so tall that it could touch, with its mouth, “the roof of your church in Magdeburg.”21 This is noteworthy, because it means that at least at some stage, the long version of Burchard’s Descriptio was also addressed to a friar from Magdeburg. The new text also teaches one much about Burchard’s social status. While Laurent’s text includes several pieces of information which present Burchard as a person of high standing rather than an ordinary pilgrim,22 and while some scholars have proposed that Burchard travelled as a formal envoy,23 it has been impossible to state with any certainty that he indeed held some formal office.24 Numerous 18 

MS London, fol. 2r. Georgina R. Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order, 1216–1360 (Manchester, 1925), 254. For the dating of his travels, see pp. 180–81, below. 20  “Dilectissimo in Christo Jesu Patri, fratri Burchardo, Lectori Ordinis Praedicatorum in Maydenburch …”: Basnage, Thesaurus, 4:9; See also: Pringle, Pilgrimage, 47; Baumgärtner, “Burchard,” 12. 21  MS London, fol. 44v. 22  For example, Burchard tells us that he visited the sultan of Egypt (Laurent, Peregrinatores, 61); that he heard the Greek patriarch talking (Ibid., 89); that he spent 13 days with the Armenian Catholicos (Ibid., 91); and that he attended Mass with the Catholicos and the king and queen of Armenia (Ibid., 92). 23  Pringle, Pilgrimage, 47, 50; Kaeppeli, Scriptores, 1:257; Reinhold Röhricht, Die Deutschen im Heiligen Lande (Innsbruck, 1894), 129. 24  Baumgärtner (“Burchard,” 15) wrote that “it is not hard to believe that the later transcripts and early printed books produced new biographical details that seem more and more removed from the lifestyle of a modest travelling Dominican friar.” Pringle (Pilgrimage, 50) is very careful in attributing 19 



Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae 179

readings found in the “standard section” of the London manuscript but missing in Laurent’s edition provide significant additional evidence of Burchard’s prominent status. One passage shows that he was considered a sufficiently eminent member of the clergy to celebrate Mass in the presence of the queen of Jerusalem – by which he must be referring to Isabella of Ibelin (d. 1324), wife of Hugh III (r. 1269– 84) – and an archbishop (probably that of Tyre).25 In another place, the reading offered by MS London supports the impression that Burchard visited Egypt as an envoy on a diplomatic mission: where Laurent’s text reads “Hanc similiter vidi, cum venissem in Egyptum ad Soldanum,” the parallel text in the manuscript reads “Similiter vidi in egypto cum fuissem missus ad soldanum.”26 Two other readings which appear in MS London tell us that Burchard was also personally acquainted with Jerusalem’s Latin patriarch who provided him with information on the great number of prostitutes found in Acre,27 as well as with the Greek patriarch with whom he discussed the dimensions of the Dead Sea.28 Another paragraph provides further evidence regarding Burchard’s relations with the Armenian Catholicos and the Armenian king. Whereas Laurent’s text portrays Burchard as someone who on several occasions attended events at which the king and the Catholicos were present, MS London shows that he also communicated with them: Astante rege habui collationem cum domino katholico de sacramentis ecclesie … et non inveni in eis aliquam dissensionem que mihi videretur periculosa quantum ad salutem. Quesivi in ipsa collatione rege annuente ab ipso domino katholico quos doctores maxime sequerentur … Multum regi placuit collatio illa et fuit plurimum consolatus.29

This impression is corroborated by several pieces of information included in the continuation. As we have seen, Burchard tells us that he brought letters to the king of Armenia, Levon III, from the King of the Romans, Rudolf of Habsburg, and that the king of Armenia provided him with 70 Muslim prisoners in order to facilitate the matter for which he had come (“lxx sarracenos captivos mihi dedit in subsidium negocii pro quo veneram”).30 We have also seen that the continuation reveals

any special office to Burchard, writing that “it is not impossible that Burchard made the journey … as a member of the embassy sent to Cairo …”. 25  See the quotation below, p. 181. 26  MS London, fol. 21v; Laurent, Peregrinatores, 61. 27  MS London, fol. 38r: “Dixit enim mihi patriarcha et verum fuit quod suo tempore inventa sunt et descripta 16 milia meretricum in sola civitate Acconensi preter alias et occultas et similes in matrimonio constitutas quarum statum solus novit deus.” 28  MS London, fol. 21r: “Creditur tamen a quibusdam continuari cum mari rubro per aquas illas que in Exodo aque marath dicuntur et idem dixit mihi patriarcha Jerosolimitanus grecus qui sepe in partibus illis fuit.” 29  MS London, fol. 41v. The parallel section is in Laurent, Peregrinatores, 93, where a variant of some of this description is provided: “Quesivi ab ipsis monachis, quos doctores maxime sequerentur …”. 30  MS London, fol. 49r.

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Burchard’s strong connections with the Cypriot court.31 This is further supported by a phrase which appears, in MS London in the “Journey to Egypt” section and which is not included in either Laurent’s or Omont’s texts: “navigavi Cyprum et applicui Salomine [i.e. Salamis]. Peractis negociis apud regem Cypri navigavi in Syriam.”32 Thus, on the basis of the text provided by MS London, one can conclude that Burchard was by no means a simple pilgrim. He was certainly sent, more than once, on diplomatic missions, and enjoyed personal relations with several major ecclesiastical and lay leaders. The new version contains also important information on the dating of Burchard’s travels. The only place in which the Descriptio, in some versions, has been known to refer to the years in which Burchard travelled has to do with an anecdote he recounts when he describes his visit to the mountains of Gilboa.33 While Laurent’s text does not include the reference to the year in which this took place, he does refer in a note to early printed editions which mention that Burchard visited the mountains of Gilboa in 1283.34 The text transmitted by MS London is quite close, in this case, to that provided by the 1519 and 1593 editions cited by Laurent:35 Nec est verum quod dicunt quidam, quod nec ros nec pluvia veniat super Montes gel[17v]boe, quia cum in die beati Martini ibi essem, venit super me pluvia ita quod usque ad carnem fui madefactus sed et vallis de ipsis pluviis repleta fuit aquis. Alia etiam vice per noctem dormivi in eodem monte sub divo cum aliis multis et fuimus omnes infusi rore supra modum. Hoc fuit anno domini 1283.

In other words, we have here evidence from a relatively early manuscript that at least some of Burchard’s travels in the Holy Land took place in 1283.36 That Burchard spent Saint Martin’s Day (11 November) 1283 on Mount Gilboa is highly probable, but not certain, since it is possible that the mention of the year refers to the second incident rather than to both. Fortunately, MS London enables one to explore further the exact period in which Burchard visited the East, as it provides several additional precise dates. Thus, in the “Journey to Egypt” section one reads:37 “Anno domini 1284 in die nativitatis beate virginis (8 September) intrans Egiptum veni in Pharamiam …”. 31  MS London, fol. 49v: “et steti ibidem in domo fratrum nostrorum per plures dies et de curia regis [Cypri] sollempniter procurabar.” 32  MS London, fol. 42r. Cf. Laurent, Peregrinatores, 93: “et inde navigavi Cyprum, et perambulavi pro magna parte regionem. Inde navigavi in Syriam …”; Omont, “Manuscrits,” 498: “et inde navigavi Cyprum et veni in Salaminam, et perambulavi pro magna parte regionem. Inde navigavi in Syriam…”. 33  Harvey (Medieval Maps, 95), who cites Pringle’s attempt to date Burchard’s work, mentions this reference. Pringle makes no mention of it. 34  Laurent, Peregrinatores, 52. 35  MS London, fols. 17r–17v. 36  This confirms Harvey’s suspicion that “it seems more likely that it [the mention of 1283] is to be found in manuscripts that Laurent did not see”: Harvey, Medieval Maps, 99. 37  MS London, fol. 42r. It is noteworthy that the parallel text in Omont’s edition includes no reference to the date in which Burchard entered Egypt.

Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae 181



Another paragraph, which does not appear in Laurent’s edition, but is in the “standard section” as provided by MS London, presents additional information. In this paragraph Burchard mentions a chapel built by the lord of Tyre in 1283 in the place where, according to Luke 11.27, a woman from a crowd raised her voice to Christ.38 Burchard’s phrasing indicates that the chapel was dedicated on the third Sunday in Lent (in Dominica oculi mei) and that he celebrated Mass there a number of times before Palm Sunday, three weeks later. This must mean that Burchard was also there in 1283, between 21 March and 11 April:39 Anno tamen domini 1283 Dominus Tyri edificavit capellam in eodem loco, et posuit lapidem illum recepto altare super columpnam quandam marmoream multum honeste, et fuit dedicata ipsa capella in dominica oculi mei semper, et ego ante ramos palmarum in eodem loco pluries dixi missam presente regina iherusalem et domino Tyri et archiepiscopo cum multis aliis.

Consequently, assuming that, as the text implies, the travels described in the continuation directly followed Burchard’s journey to Egypt, one can propose a detailed chronological sketch of his journey: 21 March–11 April 1283 11 November 1283 6 May–20 July 1284 1 September 1284 8 September 1284 2 April 1285 25 April 1285 13 May 1285 24 June 1285

Present in the vicinity of Tyre Visits Mount Gilboa Visits Armenia Boards a ship in Acre Enters Egypt Leaves Messina Arrives in Acre Sarepta Sidoniorum Armenia

To conclude, the London manuscript provides a version of Burchard’s work which, in many cases, is much more detailed than that presented by Laurent’s edition. Furthermore, it includes a substantial hitherto unknown continuation. Consequently, this text sheds much new light on this important author and his travels. Obviously, however, what is presented above is only a first step towards a better acquaintance with the Descriptio. Given the findings of this study, it is most 38 

Laurent’s edition does mention the place outside the city where this occurred and the stone on which Jesus stood, but not the chapel: Laurent, Peregrinatores, 25. It should be noted that the account in Luke 11.27 implies that this event took place not near Tyre but somewhere along Jesus’ way from Galilee to Jerusalem. The tradition described by Burchard may have resulted from some confusion with the Canaanite/Greek woman of Matthew 15.21–28 and Mark 7.24–30. One also wonders whether this chapel is the same one that several sources mention as having been built in the 1130s (see: Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1993–2009), 4:220– 27). If so, Burchard is perhaps referring to its rebuilding. 39  MS London, fol. 5r. In 1283, the Dominica oculi mei was celebrated on March 21 and Palm Sunday on April 11.

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likely that the exploration of other manuscripts will provide additional information not only on Burchard and his travels, but also, and no less importantly, concerning the processes by which the text was edited and re-edited by Burchard, as well as by later scribes and publishers. Such studies will reveal, inter alia, how it came about that so much information concerning Burchard lay hidden for so long. Editorial Note I closely followed the readings provided by the manuscript. [ ] = my addition; < > = redundant letters/words in MS; * = a letter/symbol I was unable to decipher. My choice between “c” and “t” is in some cases based on the standard Latin spelling rather than on what the MS seems to provide. When the form of a word, as provided by the manuscript, is clearly corrupted, I provide its standard form in the text and its actual form in a footnote. The manuscript includes both Roman and Arabic numerals; they are presented here as they appear in the manuscript.

Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae 183



Appendix 1: The Journey to Egypt (MS London, BL, Add. 18929 fol. 42r–v) [fol. 42r] … Multa alia vidi et perambulavi in terra illa que per omnia scribere longum esset. Steti autem hac ultima vice apud regem a festo Iohannis ante portam lat[inam]1 usque in crastinum Margarete2 et sic redii in Aycium3 civitatem maritimam, et ascensa navi processi iuxta Mamistram4 in Mallotam5 civitatem opinatissimam,a de qua legitur in Iudith,6 et inde per Adenam7 et Tharsum Cilicie8 veni Kurcum9 ubi habundat crocus bonus. De Curco veni Seleuciam Maritimam que est in Capadocia, transitaque Capodocea navigavi Cyprum et applicui Salomine.10 Peractis negociis apud regem Cypri navigavi in Syriam. Veni Thyrum et inde Ptholomaidem transactis 7 ebdomadibus postquam de Armenia navigavi. In kalendis Septembris ascensa galea ut navigarem in Egiptum de Ptholomaide veni ad montem Carmeli in Caypham inde Dothan que nunc Castrum Peregrinorum dicitur, inde Cesaream Palestine. [Inde navigavi] per Antypatridem et Ioppem et Iamniam,11 per Azotum12 et Ascolonem, per Gazam et Dorre,13 que est principium solitudinis, et inde ad gulfum Larisse,14 ubi est primus portus Iudee. De gulfo isto in Rasencasse,15 que est prima civitas Egypti in solitudine Pharan, et inde Pharamiam civitatem pulcram et munitam, sed non habitat in ea homo quia serpentes eiectis habitatoribus eam penitus possederunt. Anno domini 1284 in die nativitatis beate virginis,16 intrans Egiptum veni in Pharamiam ubi sunt [fol. 42v] hostia Nili fluminis.

1 

May 6. The feast of St. Margaret is July 20. 3  Ayas. 4  Mopsuestia, Misis. 5  Mallos, Karatas, port 49 km south of Adana. 6  Cf. Iudith 2.13: “… effregit autem civitatem opinatissimam Meluthi …”. 7  Adana. 8  Tarsus. 9  Corycos. Cf. Patrick Gautier Dalché, Carte marine et portulan au XIIe siècle (Rome, 1995), 131, 171. 10  Salamis. 11  Yavne, Yibna, Ibelin. 12  Ashdod. 13  Al-Darum? 14  Al-Arish. 15  Ras Kasrum, olim Casius mons. See Gautier Dalché, Carte, 124, 125. 16  September 8. 2 

a 

MS: operiatissimam?

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Appendix 2: The Continuation (MS London, BL, Add. 18929, fols. 44v–49v) [fol. 44v] … De Babylonia recedens ductus sum ad locum ubi erant 6 leones et 6 elephantes et 60 strutiones in curia et onageri plures. Vidi etiam ibi quoddam mirabile animal, quod scraph1 Arabica [sic] dicitur, dispositionis mirabilis super modum. Habet enim in longitudine pedes 16 vel amplius, pellem sicut iuvenis capreolus maculosam, s[cilicet] rubeum colorem albo permixtum. Priores pedes et crura ita sunt alta, et collum ita longum, quod pro certo dico quod tectum ecclesie vestre in Magedeburc tangere posset ore. Posteriora vero crura demissa sunt, et corpus similiter, ita ut modico ibi sic altius quam camelus. Est autem animal in multis terris rarum et invisum. Item vidi ecclesiam Sancti Iohannis Baptiste ibidem, in qua sunt reliquie eius. Istas tollunt sarraceni cum soldano singulis annis in festo eius, et portant eas ad v leucas infra civitatem Babiloniam, et astante soldano ponunt eas in fluvium Nilum, qui est inpetuosus supra modum, et mox, ipso soldano cum toto populo vidente, scrinium in quo sunt ipse reliquie cum tanta celeritate contra impetum aque [fol. 45r] currit usque in Babyloniam in pristinam ecclesiam redeundo, quod nec soldanus cum suis potest tam cito in equis illuc currere ullo modo. In hoc facto Sarraceni praenosticantur fluvium amplius crescere et terram uberius irrigare. Multi christiani sunt in Egypto, et dixerunt mihi 8 sacerdotes Christiani in Ramesses2 presentibus Sarracenis, et Sarraceni hoc verum esse fatebantur, quod essent ibi pro certo 6000 milia Christianorum, qui sunt devoti satis et multe abstinentie, et pro nomine Ihesu multi in Egypto hodie martirio coronantur. Quidam videlicet nolentes negare nomen Christi usque ad mortem flagellantur. Quidam et crucifiguntur, quidam comburuntur, quidam decollantur, perfodiuntur et ceteris suppliciis affecti regna celestia assecuntur. Videtur autem mihi et idem est iudicium plurium quod Babylonia duplo excedit magnitudinem Parisiensis civitatis adiuncta Kayro preter campum qui coniungit eas. In populositate non est comparatio, nec credo sub celo in una civitate tantum esse populum sicut in Babylonia. [I]mmo dicunt mercatores pro certo quod tota Tuscia non habet tantum populum, et miror quod tota Egiptus potest tantum populum sustentare. Certissimum tamen est quod nec ipsa posset subsistere si non esset subsidium aliarum regionum. Nichil autem habundat in Egipto nisi panis et aqua et fructus et sal. Fructus dico poma, arangia, lemones, poma paradisi, cucurbite,a cucumeres, cytrulli, pepones, cepe et allium. Ceterum, pira, poma, nuces, cerasa,b brunella penitus non sunt ibi. Ligna pro edificiis vel pro navibus fabricandis non sunt ibi, nec posset tota Egiptus de suis lignis construere navem unam, nisi ligna ab extraneis portarentur, vel etiam ipse naves, et ideo lata est sententia contra tales. Lapides penitus non sunt ibi, nisi in Babylonia [fol. 45v] et in Kayro, nec habet tota Egiptus domum lapideam nisi ille due civitates. Tamen edificia sunt ibi quantum ad apparentiam pulcra nimis, sed materia eorum vilis est. Sunt enim parietes edificiorum in civitatibus facti de harundine et calce optime liniti intrinsecus et extrinsecus supra lutum et desuper picti auro et lazurio et opere musivo ita pulcre quod stupor est videre, et domus que foris apparet vilissima, postquam intraveris eam crederes paradysum. Monete auri,

1  2 

a 

Giraffe. The Arabic term is zarāfa. This city, mentioned in Exodus 1.11, is usually identified with the village of Qantir.

MS: cocrobite. MS: cerusa.

b 

Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae 185



argenti, stagni,c plumbi, ferri, cupri, non sunt ibi. Oleum, mel, vinum, panni lanei non sunt ibi. Certissimum est quod nisi mercatores de Veneciis, Pysis, Genua, Massilia, Messana, Brundusio, et civitatibus aliis maritimis ista apportarent, Egyptus non posset habitari, et si isti cohiberentur non posset subsistere uno anno. Hoc mercatores ipsi fatentur. Ville non possunt habere domos harundineas, sed de luto in modum clibani faciunt sibi domos, nec est in tota Egypto aliqua municio civitatis vel castri quod c militibus posset resistere dimidio die, nisi Alexandria, Babylonia et Kayrum, et una ex istis capta, Egiptus perdita esset tota. Horrea Ioseph ibi vidi excelsa supra modum ita ut ad dietam et ad ½ miliare videantur. Incole vocant ea Horrea Ioseph, sed mihi videntur esse sepulcra sive tytuli sepulcrorum. Sunt enim pyramides triangule tres in uno loco habentes ab angulo usque ad angulum 180 cubitos virilis stature et tante altitudinis quod nullo modo potest arcus usque ad summum iacere licet sit sepius attemptatum. Ego credo esse pyramides Alexandri Magni qui in veritate ibi fuit mortuus et sepultus et quorumdam regum aliorum. Horrea tamen Ioseph credo iuxta [fol. 46r] eundem locum fuisse quia adhuc apparent ibi signa quedam edificii amplissimi que sunt fere arena obruta, vento eam illuc iaciente de deserto Thebaydos, quod ibidem incipit ad unum miliare. In quo sancti patres antiquitus morabantur. Facte sunt pyramides de maximis lapidibus ita quod non vidi maiores in edificio unquam poni. Distat autem a Babylonia fere per 3 miliaria teutonica.3 Multa miranda alia vidi in Egipto que scribere longum esset. Lege Ultra. Accedentes ad Siciliam venimus in Panormium.4 Ibi vidi sepulcrum Friderici inperatoris et uxoris et patris et matris eius et avi materni, facta de conchis porfireticis pretiosa valde; ecclesiam pulcram nimis; castrum et palatium in eo pulcherrimum et capellam de opere musivo totam, quorum omnem ornatum non possum facile explicare; domum et locum nativitatis beate Agathe. Inde per Tephaludum,5 Melacium6 et per Farum7d intravimus Messanam.8 Tunc non erat tuta navigatio, eo quod esset Novembere mensis, nec ibi poteramus hiemare propter paupertatem fratrum. Ascensa galea quadam de Portu Veneris9 ut veniremus in terram laboris in Neapolim, navigantes per [S]cillam, hora diei nona flante austro valide, cum non possemus niti in ventum ut apprehenderemus Calabriam, data flatibus galea, proiecti sumus subito vento contrariam in ollam Vulcani10 circa horam noctis tertiam, ubi stetimus nocte illa et vidimus tota nocte fumum et ignem usque ad celos ascendentem. Mane cum sociis fere xx reptando manibus et pedibus ascendi summitatem montis eiusdem unde exiit flamma. Est autem insula maris mons idem, distans a terra firma per miliaria 60, altus valde et rotundus, dispositus in aspectu, quasi sit aptus pro castro maximo construendo, et [fol. 46v] cum ad sumitatem perveneris videbis vallem preruptam in medio, profundam nimis, que fere habet i miliare per dyametrum, ubi vidi torrentes sulphuris decurrere, qui perforato monte in mare fluunt. In hac valle sunt campi Elisii de quibus scribunt poete. Stridorem magnum ignis 3  The use of this measurement obviously supports the argument that Burchard was of German origin. 4  Palermo. 5  Cefalù. 6  Milazzo. 7  Capo di Faro. 8  Messina. 9  Porto Venere, see Gautier Dalché, Carte, 162. 10  Vulcano, the southernmost of the Aeolian Islands. c 

MS: stangni. MS: perfarum. e  MS: Noverber. d 

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et aque et sulphuris invicem pugnancium audivi ibidem. Sulphur nobilissimum collegimus in monte eodem, et est mons totus concavus, quia pulsatus quasi tympanum resonat, et ignis de ipso in diversis locis erumpit. In medio vallis est bucca quedam, cuius diameter quasi iactum lapidis habet. De hac exit fumus et ignis usque in celum, ita ut per c miliaria videatur ignis per noctem et fumus in die, et si ruptus fuisset mons sub pedibus nostris, credo quod descendissemus viventes in infernum, quod etiam plurimum timebamus. Fetor est maximus ibi et intolerabilis. Duobus diebus steti ibi et consideravi locum totum quantum potui diligenter. Vidi ibi rupes maximas que ita erant combuste quod de vehementia caloris lapides erant resoluti et confluxera[n]t quasi plumbum. Multa pertranseo que possent de loco isto dici. Ad dimidium miliare de loco isto est mons alius qui dicitur Vulcanellus,11 cui adheret rupes quedam que navigantibus periculosa erat valde. In qua beatus Gregorius legitur demonium relegasse in penam, quod in periculum ibi multos miserat, precipiens illi ut ipsum exspectaret de Sicilia redeuntem. Qui usque hodie ibi stat et cum navis aliqua appropinquat loco in quo est periculum, premuniendo clamat, querens an sit cum eis Gregorius monachus et cum responderint quod non, “O O” inquit “wardate vos de monacho et non credatis monacho quia monachus me decepit.” Inde ad unum miliare est Lipparis insula,12 que ignem similiter evomebat sed ante annos [fol. 47r] xiiii terre motu concussa subsedit et modo fere tota est deserta. Comedi tamen in ea cum monachis dicta missa ad Sanctum Bartholomeum. Ibi terribile est videre quomodo ignis similis Vulcano totam insulam concavam reddiderit, et pars insule maior introrsumf ceciderit quoniam scissi sunt montes. Hyatus terre maximi pateant. Insula ista cum terremotu caderet totum mare replevit lapidibus maximis, qui de nimia combustione leves facti sunt adeo et porosi quod super aquas natant sicut spuma, et adhuc in presenti multi occurrerunt nobis in medio mari. De istis lapidibus pro maiori parte edificate sunt civitates maritime in Sicilia. De terre motu illo, ut dixerunt indigene Lipparis, multe ville et anime hominum absorte sunt. De vapore vero terre motus illius 4 milia hominum subito perierunt. Pisces etiam in mari quamplurimi mortui sunt, et super aquas fluebant. De Lippari navigantes per miliaria lx venimus in Strongoli13 qui est mons altus valde et rotundus in medio mari, distans de terra firma per c miliaria. Iste similiter evomit ignem et altius eum proicit quam cetera loca. Ibi stetimus duabus noctibus et uno die. Sed non ascendi montem propter eius altitudinem nimiam. Testatus est nobis dominus galee in qua navigamus, Brigatus nomine, et cum eo plures alii in eadem navi, quod eis circa eundem montem nocte navigantibus anime defunctorum, que ipsa nocte migraverant de seculo, locute sunt, quos etiam viventes noverant, quorum unus dicebatur Thalanario et erat de partibus Lucanorum, alter erat de confinio Januen[si],g mandantes per eos uxoribus et amicis ut pro eis satisfacerent lesis ut possent liberari, quia in penitentia hoc eis iniunctum fuerat, sed morte preventi non fuerant exsecuti. Propter devotionem tamen quam ad beatam virginem habuerant [fol. 47v] hoc eis concessum erat, ut ibi loqui possent et per eorum adiutorium liberari. De monte

11 

Vulcanello, at the northern end of the island of Vulcano. Lipari. 13  Stromboli, Greek: Strongule. 12 

f 

MS: introssum. MS: Jenuen.

g 

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isto similiter ignis eicit lapides multos parvos et magnos, qui levitate sua volantes per aera videntur nocturno tempore esse ignis. Isti lapides colligunt[ur] in mari ab incolis Calabrie et Sicilie pro edificiis quia sunt dolabiles valde et apti pro testudine in domibus. De Strongoli igitur moventes vela et sperantes nos tenere propositum, iterum vento contrario proiecti sumus in Calabriam ad portum qui dicitur Paranoria14 et inde in Scaleam civitatem Calabrie contra quam in ipso mari est insula Scarioth, de qua, ut ibi dicitur, proditor ille Iudas Scharioth appellatur. Inde intravimus principatum Salerne ubi vidimus corpus beati Mathei apostoli. Inde venimus in A[ma]lphiam ubi vidih corpus beati Andree apostoli, et sequenti die venimus Puteolos,15 quo dicit etiam Lucas in actibus se venisse,16 ibi fiximus anchoras ad manendum. Egressi itaque de galea venimus Boyas17 de quo loco dicit Oracius “nullus in orbe sinus bays prelucet amenis.”18 Quod utique verum est, secundum quod tunc fuit sed hodie non est ita, quia tanta et talia edificia non credo fuisse in orbe terrarum sicud adhuc ruine ostendunt. Roma quidem habet magis sumptuosa sicut capitolium, palacium maius, fornicem triumphalem, coliseum, sed magis delicata et amena et commoda videntur mihi fuisse Bays. Est autem situs eius talis: mare sinum quemdam facit cuius semicirculus habet miliare et ½ teutonicum, et iste sinus circumdatur montibus altis, inter quos et ipsum mare est campus spaciosus et delicatus valde et habundans commodis indefinitis. In pede montium istorum per totum circuitum et in latere eorundem usque ad summitatem erant pa[fol. 48r]lacia multa marmorea et su[m]ptuosa valde, fontes scaturientes in si[n]gulis, et aqueductus nu[n]c de aquis calidis nunc de frigidis in singulis officinis. [Habebat Boyas etiam] pomeria, ortos, oliveta, ficeta, vineas, aerem saluberrimum, prospectum in mare, et de mare iocundissimum, templa ydolorum in rupibus maris, et in littore multa valde et su[m]ptuosa balnea Virgilii numero 45 medicabilia contra omnium infirmitatem, de quibus factus est unus liber metrice breviter dicendo. Accedentibus de mari ad istum locum videtur locus fuisse pulcherrimus quam umquam habuit mundus. Nec credo quod tam rara tam pretiosa et inaudita habeat totum residuum huius mundi sicud ab isto loco usque in Neapolim poterunt vel tunc poterant inveniri.i ** est perforatus habens *** mille et 80 passus ut ego mensuravi. Ibi sunt porte Averni per quas Sibilla duxit Eneam ad inferos. In Neapoli, in Castro Salvatoris, vidi Ovum Virgilii in phiala vitrea que habet os strictum et fundum latum et amplum super quem est tabula lignea rotunda interius, et super tabulam nidus quasi de graminibus et in eo est ovum minus ovo galline sed modico maius columbe et pendet ad trabem per kathenam ferream. In Neapoli steti X diebus. Inde per Aversam,

14 

I am not sure to what port Burchard referred here. Possibly, he had Palinuro in mind, but that does not fully fit the direction in which he was travelling. See Gautier Dalché, Carte, 114, 158, 159, 176. 15  Pozzuoli. 16  See Acts, 28.13–14; which, however, refers to Paul rather than to Luke. 17  Baia. 18  See Horace, Epistles, Book i, ed. Roland Mayer (Cambridge, 1994), 57. h  “Vidi” is followed by the letters “mus” which have been expunged. In other words, the manuscript originally had “vidimus,” later corrected into “vidi.” i  Following the word “inveniri,” the rest of the line was left empty.

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Montem Cassinum, Sanctum Germanum,19 Aquinum,20 Cyperanum,21 Ferentinum,22 Anagniam,23 Montem Fortinum,24 veni Romam.25 Ibi primo visitavi Sanctum Iohannem in laterano, Sanctam Crucem, Sanctum Sixtum, Iohannem ante portam latinam, palatium Antonini, Sanctum Sebastianum in cathacumbis, Domine quo vadis, Palacium Vespasiani, Sanctum Paulum, pyramidem Remi, Sanctam Sabinam in monte Aventino ubi stant fratres, Alexium, palatium maius, coliseum, ypodromium,26 Clementem, Papissam Parientem,27 Sanctam Mariam de nive, scilicet Mariam maiorem, Laurentium, et Stephanum, Agnetem cum annulo, Constan[fol. 48v] ciam filiam Constantini, Petrum ad vincula, palacium Dyocleciani, Iohannem et Paulum, Gregorium, columpnam saxonum nimis mirabilem,28 omnia gesta saxonum continentem, Sanctam Mariam rotundam que et pantheon, Sanctam Mariam in Minerva ubi stant fratres, capitolium cum suo monte, forum Traiani, castrum crescentis, pyramidem Romuli. Ultra Tyberim: Sanctum Crisogonum, Ceciliam,29 Cosmam et Damianum, Anastasiam, Sanctam M[ari]a[m] ubi fluxit oleum.j Inde veni ad Sanctum Petrum super cuius corpus dixi missam. Palacium pape ibidem. Breviter, non reliqui locum in civitate quem non viderim, preter Aquas Salvias que tamen sunt extra. De Roma per Arecium30 et Florentiam31 veni Bononiam32 ad magistrum ordinis qui benigne me recepit et quidquid ab eo petivi, totum fecit, excepto quod ad Teutoniam me ad 19 

San Germano. Aquino. 21  Ceprano. 22  Ferentino. 23  Anagni. 24  Monte Fortino, Artena. 25  The next paragraph includes the list of sites Burchard visited in Rome. It can be studied against the background of the numerous descriptions of pilgrimage to Rome that have reached us from the medieval period. References to the great majority of the sites mentioned here can easily be found using an online searchable database devoted to medieval descriptions of Rome: http://romamedievale. italianistik.unibas.ch/. Concerning these, I do not refer the reader to parallels in other texts. I have included references with regard to sites which I have been unable to find in the database. 26  The hippodrome, also referred to as Circus Maximus, or, in the abovementioned database, Circus Prisci Tarquinii. 27  For “Clementem, Papissam Parientem,” not found in the abovementioned database, cf. Edward Maunde Thompson, ed. and trans., Chronicon Adae de Usk, A.D. 1377–1421 (London, 1904), 90, where one reads: “Ad detestacionem tamen pape Agnetis, cujus ymago de petra cum filio suo prope Sanctum Clementem in via recta existit …”. 28  I have been unable to find this term in contemporaneous descriptions of Rome. It could refer either to the column of Marcus Aurelius or to Trajan’s column. 29  San Crisogono and Santa Cecilia, not found in the abovementioned database, are referred to in the itinerary of Archbishop Sigeric in 990. See Massimo Miglio, ed., Pellegrinaggi a Roma (Rome, 1999), 50. 30  Arezzo. 31  Florence. 32  Bologna. 20 

j  The word “oleum” is followed by the words “papissam parientem” crossed out. This is followed by a line left empty, and then almost three lines which were crossed out. While these are not entirely legible, they seem to be saying: “Papa, pater *** papisse dicito partum et tibi tunc eadem de corpore quando recedam.” These lines are clearly related to the myth of the lady-pope giving birth. See a very similar phrase in Sabine Baring Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (London, 1877), 176.

Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae 189



presens remittere noluit. Quinque diebus aput eum mansi circa festum Lucie.33 Recedens de Bononia per Pistorium34 veni Lucam.35 Ibi vidi crucem Lucanam que dicitur dedisse iaculatori calceum aureum, cuius ymaginatio utinam in tenebris mihi non occurrat, quia posset utique me terrere, nec aliqua mulierum civitatis illius quia sunt teterrimek laruel quas habet mundus. De Luca iterum redii Romam et de Roma veni Albanum36 ab Enea constructum. Inde per Velletrum,37 Terrathynam,38 Fossam Novam,39 Nymphas40 et Fundonam41 veni Gaietum,42 Sessam,43 Capuam, Aversam. Redii Neapolim et sic per mare veni Messaniam. Unde post octavas pasche44 navigantes, dimisimus Calabriam ad sinistram et altum mare legentes preter navigavimus quandam insulam que vocatur Cauda,45 et venimus Cretam ad locum qui [fol. 49r] vocatur Calolimena,46 i. boni portus, et sic dimittentes Salmonem47 ad sinistram et Scarpant48 et Rodum, venimus Turkyam et Frigiam et A[n]thaliam.49 Et cum venissemus contra Cyprum dimittentes eam ad sinistram, venimus contra Tyrum et inde Tholomaydam que est Akkon, in xxiii diebus de Messana. Deinde in vigilia penthecostes, iturus ad reges Armenie et Cypri, iterum veni Tirum et in die sancto50 Sareptam Sidoniorum. Inde per Sydonem, Beritum et Nephin,51 Tripolim, Archas ante Rodum,52 Margat, Valaniam, Laodiciam Sirie ubi stetit beatus Allexius, quando est locuta ymago paramonariom ecclesie, quem etiam locum vidi.53 Inde per Anthiochiam veni ad montana magna que sunt promunctoriumn Sicilie quod dicitur Ratzgenerz, i. caput porci,54 et sic applicuimus in portu Pal[lorum]55 et venimus ad Ayaz. Rex autem Armenie et Cilicie cum adhuc essem 33 

December 13. Pistoia. 35  Lucca. 36  Albano Laziale. 37  Velletri. 38  Terracina. 39  Fossanova. 40  Ninfa. The order of the last four locations seems to be wrong. One would have expected to find: Velletri, Ninfa, Fossanova and Terracina. 41  Fondi. 42  Gaeta. 43  Sessa Aurunca. 44  April 2. 45  Gavdos. 46  Kali Limenes. 47  Cape Sidero. 48  Karpathos. 49  Antalya. 50  May 13. 51  Enfeh. 52  Tall ‘Arqa, Antaradus. 53  Cf. Acta Sanctorum, July 17. 54  Ras el-Khanzir. See Gautier Dalché, Carte, 112, 130, 131. 55  Regarding this identification, see: T. S. R. Boase, The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia (London, 1978), 177. 34 

k 

MS: tererrine. MS: laxue. m  MS: paramenareo. n  MS: promuctorium. l 

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in Ackon audierat quod venturus essem ad eum, cum litteris reg[is] romanorum et iam scripserat fratribus hospitalis Sancti Iohannis in Mallota, que est non longe a Tharso Cilicie, ut ubicumque applicarem sollempniter me reciperent, ad suam presenciam me deducentes.56 Ego vero in Ayacio, sicut dictum est, applicui, quod statim capitaneus civitatis scripsit regi. Rex autem statim scripsit fratri **** domus theutonice ut mihi occurreret et me reciperet in Manistra. Misit etiam militem unum et equos quibus duceret usque Sysam.57 Deinde post duos dies venimus ad ipsum ubi erat in venatione constitutus. Qui me recepit honorifice, et reverenter per iiii septimanas me tenuit, et lxx sarracenos captivos mihi dedit in subsidium negocii pro quo veneram. Expensas largissimas mihi dedit, cottidie iiii equos in hospitio presentari fecit ut mane et vespere, quando placeret, possemus sollaciario per campos et iardinos equitando. Inde in die Ioh[annis] bap[tiste]58 celebravi missam sollempniter coram eo, presente preside et vicario Tartarorum.59 Qui etiam vicarius [fol. 49v] inmediate post regem optulit et statim ad pedes meos procidens, et genibus meis osculatis et manibus, ipsas devotissime super oculos et caput suum posuit. Prandium cum rege et ipso Tartaro feci. Deinde rex mihi et socio meo nongentas dracmas argenti misit et xeniis aliis pluribus nobis datis optime dimisit nos et usque ad mare in equis per nunctios suos misit. De Ayacio itaque navigantes legimus litus Cilicie et venimus Malatam60 deinde Thorsum61 deinde Kurkum62 et cum apparuissemus Seleucie maritime irruerunt in nos pyrate lx in medio mari. Qui nobis visis et salutatis abierunt. Attamen post paucos dies capti sunt a rege Cypri omnes et suspensi. Cum autem venissemus Seleuciam maritimam, inde navigantes sicut et beatus Paulus fecisse legitur, pervenimus Salaminam Cypri, et milites Cyprenses qui ibi era[n]t statim regi Cypri me venisse nuncciavit [sic]. Qui statim mihi transmisit equos ut venirem et benigne me recepit et steti ibidem in domo fratrum nostrorum per plures dies et de curia regis sollempniter procurabar.

56  The Hospitallers were granted the casale of Vaner, in the territory of Mallos, by Levon II in 1214: Cart Hosp, 2:1426. 57  Sis, now Kozan. 58  24 June. 59  I have been unable to find a reference for this specific visit of a Mongol official to the court of Levon III. However, such an occurrence fits neatly into what is known concerning the relations between Levon and Il-Khan Arghun: Levon visited Arghun in 1285 and was well received in his court. Furthermore, Arghun sent missions to the Latin West jointly with Levon. For a detailed discussion of the Mongol–Armenian relations at the time, see: Bayarsaikhan Dashdondog, The Mongols and the Armenians, 1220–1335 (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 179–84. 60  Sic. This in all likelihood refers to Mallos. 61  Tarsus. 62  Corycos. o 

MS: sollaciani.

A Templar’s Belt: The Oral and Sartorial Transmission of Memory and Myth in the Order of the Temple Kevin James Lewis Hertford College, University of Oxford [email protected] Abstract St. Bernard of Clairvaux is the most prominent figure in the history of the Templar Order, although no dedicated study of his place within the Templars’ own historical traditions has been produced to date. The relevant historiography, as it stands, either concerns his impact upon the institution during his lifetime or only mentions his legacy in passing, in support of another argument entirely. This article concerns the specific issue of Bernard’s reputation within Templar institutional history, with a particular focus on how the largely illiterate brothers of a medieval religious order preserved the memory of their saintly founder for almost two centuries and why their historical understanding changed over time and was militated in response to different contexts, local and general. Finally, the case is made that the non-written traditions of the order, such as the monastic belt worn by all Templars, may preserve the memory of Bernard’s involvement more comprehensively and accurately than the surviving written texts.

The precise extent of St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s “actual” role in the formative years of the Templar Order has been debated by modern historians. For Francesco Tommasi, Bernard played a critically important role in the composition of the Benedictine-inspired rule given to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, with the Templars’ subsequent self-image and public image defined in specifically Cistercian and Bernardine terms.1 Anthony Luttrell believes that the Council of Troyes “contaminated” the order’s regulatory codes and the historical commentaries of outsiders, making it difficult to see past the Cistercianized regulations and narrative to the organization’s pre-1129, loosely Augustinian organization.2 Contradicting Tommasi and Luttrell is Dominic Selwood, who argues that Bernard’s I would like to thank the readers for their constructive criticism and helpful advice. I am grateful to Dr. Alan Forey, who kindly allowed me to use his personal copy of Amatuccio’s edition of the Templars’ regulatory texts. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Helen Nicholson for all of her invaluable assistance and generous support throughout the writing of this article. 1  Francesco Tommasi, “‘Pauperes commilitones Christi’. Aspetti e problemi delle origini gerosolimitane,” in ‘Militia Christi’ e Crociata nei secoli XI–XIII: Atti della undecima Settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola, 28 agosto–1 settembre 1989 (Milan, 1992), 472–75. 2  Anthony Luttrell, “The Earliest Templars,” in Autour, 194–202. 191

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interactions with the early Templars were entirely inconsequential and irrelevant.3 Meanwhile, Malcolm Barber takes the more moderate view that Bernard was not the author of the rule per se, but was “essential” in editing, systematizing and clarifying a regulatory code originally drafted by Hugh of Payns, the first Templar Master.4 This debate revolves largely around the prologue to the Latin Rule as given at Troyes: the main source to record Bernard’s presence at the council, but also Hugh of Payns’ initiative in founding the “knighthood.”5 Other sources from this early period necessarily enter into the discussion, including De laude novae militiae – an exhortatory treatise written by Bernard for the order, probably in the 1130s – and various letters to and from Bernard from 1125 onwards, concerning the order as a whole and as individual brothers, especially his uncle and important early Templar, Andrew of Montbard.6 These sources obviously only cover the period up until Bernard’s death in 1153. For a fuller appreciation of Bernard’s legacy within the Templar Order throughout its entire history, it is necessary to turn elsewhere. In 1202, the Master of the Temple, Philip of Plessis, sent a letter to the abbot of Cîteaux, Arnold Amalric, in which he claimed that the Templars’ “house” (domus) had its origins in the Cistercian Order – Bernard’s order – with the Templars and Cistercians consequently locked in a bond of mutual affection.7 Bernard was also mentioned on a number of occasions throughout the notorious trial of the Templars, appearing in the testimonies of various brothers and associates across Europe, often as the originator of all or some of the Templars’ regulations and customs.8 For Tommasi, such sources prove the lingering importance – even “omnipresence” – of Bernard within the historical traditions of the Templar Order.9 A further source, apparently unknown to Tommasi, is Bernard’s appearance in a hagiographic altarpiece created around 1290 for a Templar chapel in Palma de Majorca – now 3 

Dominic Selwood, “Quidam autem dubitaverunt: The Saint, the Sinner, the Temple and a Possible Chronology,” in Autour, 221–30. 4  Malcolm Barber, “The Origins of the Order of the Temple,” Studia Monastica 12 (1970): 231. 5  “Regula Pauperum Commilitonum Christi Templique Salomonici,” PL 166:858–59; Henri de Curzon, ed., La Règle du Temple (Paris, 1886), 13–18; Giovanni Amatuccio, ed., Il Corpus normativo templare: Edizione dei testi romanzi con traduzione e commento in italiano (Galatina, 2009), 2–6. 6  Bernard de Clairvaux, Éloge de la nouvelle chevalerie; Vie de Saint Malachie; Épitaphe, hymne, lettres, ed. and trans. Pierre-Yves Emery (Paris, 1990), 17–133; J. Leclercq and H. M. Rochais, eds., Sancti Bernardi Opera, 8 vols. (Rome, 1957–77), 7:393; 8:4 (assuming “Frater Andrea” is his Templar uncle, Andrew of Montbard), 65, 170–71, 203–04, 205, 344, 363. 7  Marie Luise Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae Domus Militiae Templi Hierosolymitani Magistri: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Templerordens 1118/19–1314 (Göttingen, 1974), Anhang 1, no. 2, p. 361. 8  Jules Michelet, ed., Le procès des templiers, 2 vols. (Paris, 1987), 1:121, 122, 145, 603, 613, 615–16; 2:223, 228, 231, 232; Telesforo Bini, ed., “Dei Tempieri e del loro processo in Toscana,” Atti della Reale Accademia Lucchese 13 (1845): 499; The Proceedings Against the Templars in the British Isles. Volume 1: The Latin Edition, ed. Helen J. Nicholson (Farnham, 2011), 43, 45, 62, 193, 248; The Proceedings Against the Templars in the British Isles. Volume 2: The Translation, trans. Helen J. Nicholson (Farnham, 2011), 44, 45, 59, 206, 276. 9  Tommasi, “Pauperes,” 472–73.



Transmission of Memory and Myth in the Order of the Temple 193

Fig. 1 Templar altarpiece of St. Bernard, ca. 1290. © Museu de Mallorca, Palma.

housed in Palma’s Museo Diocesano – which Sebastián Salvadó believes was intended to remind onlookers of the Templars’ Bernardine and Cistercian heritage (see Fig. 1).10 Each of these sources presents the historian with some serious obstacles when attempting to reconstruct the Templars’ own historical and devotional traditions. Specialists such as Helen Nicholson and Thomas Krämer have analysed closely the records of the Templar trial, in reference to other contemporary heresy trials as well as studies in the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and have demonstrated the recorded testimonies to be a highly problematic body of source material, with the information provided more likely to reflect what the inquisitors wanted or expected to hear, as extracted under duress from fearful, forgetful and desperately compliant Templars.11 The Majorcan altarpiece is also problematic in that it is a unique artefact: seemingly the only surviving piece of Templar art to depict Bernard and, as Salvadó acknowledges, possibly more indicative of the local prominence of the Iberian Cistercian Order than of the allegedly “Cistercianized” character of the 10 

Sebastián Salvadó, “Interpreting the Altarpiece of Saint Bernard: Templar Liturgy and Conquest in Thirteenth-Century Majorca,” Iconographica: Rivista di iconografia medievale e moderna 5 (2006): 51, 58. 11  Proceedings, 2:xl–lx; Thomas Krämer, “Terror, Torture and the Truth: The Testimonies of the Templars Revisited,” in The Debate on the Trial of the Templars (1307–1314), ed. Jochen Burgtorf, Paul F. Crawford and Helen J. Nicholson (Farnham, 2010), 71–85.

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Templar Order more generally.12 Indeed, the main argument of Jochen Schenk’s recent assessment of the topic is that the Templar–Cistercian bonds were usually personal and familial, not institutional, and exploited regionally, not generally.13 As for Master Philip’s letter in 1202, no explicit mention is made of Bernard personally and it is conceivable that Philip was simply exaggerating the importance of the bond between the Templars and Cistercians for the benefit of his audience, none other than the abbot of Cîteaux.14 He may not have been under duress but his motives are clear nonetheless. Counter-arguments to these problems can be made. Philip of Plessis, for example, is likely to have had Bernard in mind, simply because the main surviving source to record Cistercian involvement with the foundation of the Templars is the prologue to the rule, which lists Bernard at Troyes alongside three other Cistercian abbots, those of Cîteaux, Pontigny and Trois-Fointaines.15 Furthermore, Philip’s decision to emphasize Templar–Cistercian relations must have been made in the knowledge that the highest-ranking Cistercian would be able to recognize any falsehood. Similarly, it is likely that the significance of Bernard to the Templar Order more generally would have been known by the Majorcan brothers, even without local Cistercian influence. In terms of the trial evidence, the nature of the Bernardine references are defensive, with the brothers deflecting accusations of heresy and apostasy by claiming that certain suspected irregularities had originated with their undeniably orthodox patron, St. Bernard.16 Certainly the inquisitors were dictating the brothers’ responses to a large extent, simply through their choice of questions. For example, one charge against the brothers was that they wrapped their belts around the head of a pagan idol, and so one oft-repeated assertion – that the belts were in fact instituted by Bernard – cannot be taken as information offered spontaneously or freely, but rather reactively.17 Nevertheless, such evidence does not reflect the brothers complying with the inquisitors’ fantasies and prejudices – as is the major pitfall with the trial evidence according to Nicholson and Krämer – but rather obstinately refuting them.18 The brothers were plainly not telling the inquisitors what they wanted to hear. Moreover, Bernard is not mentioned explicitly in any of the charges against the brothers and so the active decision of the brothers to emphasize him, to the exclusion of other figures in the order, such as the actual founder, Hugh of Payns, remains worthy of further consideration, whatever the weaknesses of the trial evidence as a whole. 12 

Salvadó, “Interpreting,” 52–53. Jochen Schenk, Templar Families: Landowning Families and the Order of the Temple in France, c.1120–1307 (Cambridge, 2012), 85–94. 14  Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae Domus, Anhang 1, no. 2, p. 361. 15  “Regula,” PL 166:859; La Règle, 17–18; Il Corpus, 6. 16  Le procès, 1:121, 122, 145, 603, 613, 615–16; 2:223, 228, 231, 232; Bini, “Dei Tempieri,” 499; Proceedings, 1:43, 45, 62, 193, 248; 2:44, 45, 59, 206, 276. 17  Le procès, 1:92. 18  Proceedings, 2:xli–xlviii; Krämer, “Terror,” 74–76, 78–79, 82–85. 13 



Transmission of Memory and Myth in the Order of the Temple 195

The actual content of the brothers’ testimonies is crucial to this discussion, perhaps providing an insight into their extra-textual historical beliefs. A number of Templars in France made the bold claim that Bernard had founded their order.19 Support for this is not forthcoming from the written documents. As already noted, the rule’s prologue explicitly states that Hugh of Payns founded the “knighthood.”20 This supports Tom Licence’s observation that Hugh “had been forgotten” and replaced by Bernard as the order’s founder by the time of the trial.21 Less directly, it parallels the disappearance of the Augustinian heritage of the protoTemplars from the written historical traditions produced by non-Templars after the “Cistercianizing” event of Troyes, as observed by Luttrell.22 In fact, the greatest role ascribed to Bernard in the prologue is the claim made in the Latin original – although, intriguingly, not the later vernacular translation – that Bernard had personally convened the Council of Troyes, which is demonstrably false on the basis of one of Bernard’s own letters to the actual convenor, Cardinal Matthew of Le Remois.23 This is a modest exaggeration compared to that in the trial evidence. Not all Templars at the time of the trial went so far as to claim explicitly that Bernard had founded the order. John of Whaddon, a chaplain brother in England, told his interrogators that Bernard had given the order its rule.24 This again is known to be false from the prologue, which indicates that Hugh of Payns brought a draft set of regulations to Troyes.25 According to Barber and Cerrini, this suggests that Bernard did not write the rule, at least not without some prior guidance.26 A similar belief is apparent in the testimony of the Italian Brother James of Pighazzano, who asserted on 22 October 1309 that most of the many reception ceremonies which he had witnessed had taken place “according to the rule given to them by the Blessed Bernard.”27 Brother James may not have believed that Bernard had founded the order – although the evidence does not preclude this – and it is possible that Bernard did contribute some of the rule’s contents, but it does seem that this Templar lacked a thorough understanding of the development of the regulatory text over time. The so-called Primitive Rule, which was given or confirmed at Troyes, does include a very brief outline of how knights were to be received into the order, but this is simply too brief to be the detailed regulations discussed by Brother James.28 The earliest detailed regulations concerning the reception of brothers do not appear until the “Penances” section of the rule, 19 

Le procès, 1:121, 122, 145. “Regula,” PL 166:858; La Règle, 13–14; Il Corpus, 2. 21  Tom Licence, “The Templars and the Hospitallers, Christ and the Saints,” Crusades 4 (2005): 51. 22  Anthony Luttrell, “The Earliest Templars,” in Autour, 201. 23  “Regula,” PL 166:859; Sancti Bernardi Opera, 7:71–72. 24  Proceedings, 1:248; 2:276. 25  “Regula,” PL 166:858; La Règle, 13–14; Il Corpus, 2. 26  Barber, “Origins,” 231; Simonetta Cerrini, “A New Edition of the Latin and French Rule of the Temple,” in MO, 2, 212. 27  Bini, “Dei Tempieri,” 498–99. 28  “Regula,” PL 166:870; La Règle, 22–23; Il Corpus, 10–12. 20 

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dated to around 1165, some twelve years after Bernard’s death, whilst the most extensive description of the reception ceremony was not written until after the loss of Jerusalem in 1187.29 In short, Brother James could not have known that the rule as it existed at the beginning of the fourteenth century did not date back to 1129 in its entirety. One crucial piece of independent evidence is Philip of Plessis’s 1202 letter to Arnold Amalric of Cîteaux, which pre-dates the trial by over a century and in which is found the assertion that the Templars’ “house” originated from Cîteaux.30 This letter suggests that even the Master, the highest authority within the order, was willing to trust and promote a distinctly “Cistercianized” version of history that did not match that of the order’s written documents; the prologue’s list of attendees at Troyes includes a number of prominent non-Cistercian prelates in addition to the four Cistercian abbots.31 It is not surprising to find that these oral traditions of the Templars apparently did not match those of the written texts. Alan Forey has shown that the overwhelming majority of Templars were functionally illiterate in Latin, and even in the vernacular in terms of reading and writing, something that was unusually poor for a contemporary religious order and perhaps even for a military order specifically.32 Indeed, the Templars’ relatively poor literacy in the early fourteenth century may have been exceptional for western European society more generally, following Michael Clanchy’s thesis that literacy and the use of written documents – rather than non-written and ritualistic modes of commemoration – increased and spread throughout society, particularly if not exclusively between the Norman conquest of England (just a few decades before the Templars’ emergence) up until the death of Edward I in 1307 (the same year as the Templars’ arrest).33 Illiteracy would have prevented most Templars from reading the texts from which modern historians draw their knowledge of the order’s early history. This would have been compounded still further by the injunction in the rule itself that no brother could possess a copy of the rule without special permission from his convent.34 What is surprising is that the brothers mentioned in the examples above were likely to have been literate and to have had access to the rule. Brother John of Whaddon was a chaplain brother, and therefore functionally literate in at least liturgical Latin, and he did imply that he had read the rule.35 The seemingly learned 29  La Règle, 167–68, 337–50; Il Corpus, 146–48, 376–94. New brothers were asked in this section to devote all of their energies to the conquest – rather than the protection – of the Holy Land of Jerusalem (conquerre … la sainte terre de Jerusalem). This also excludes the period of Christian rule over Jerusalem in the thirteenth century (1229–44). La Règle, 344; Il Corpus, 384–86. 30  Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae Domus, Anhang 1, no. 2, p. 361. 31  “Regula,” PL 166:858, 859–60; La Règle, 13–14, 16–18; Il Corpus, 4–6. 32  Alan Forey, “Literacy and Learning in the Military Orders during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in MO, 2, 185–97. 33  M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 2013). 34  La Règle, 92; Il Corpus, 170–72. 35  Proceedings, 1:248; 2:276 and n. 62.



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Brother James of Pighazzano’s testimony indicates that he too had read the rule, as he commented with some accuracy on its contents, whilst Master Philip – or perhaps his scribe – must have been literate since he personally issued the very document under discussion here and it seems unlikely that the Master would have been unable to access the rule had he so wished.36 This may suggest that the nonwritten narratives of the Templar foundation, complete with their stronger emphasis on Bernard, influenced even the literate members of the order. Hostile outsiders at the time of the trial evidently saw the Templars’ Bernardine heritage as a legitimate obstacle, requiring demolition or evasion when striving to undermine the order’s orthodoxy. Already the fact that the Templars had once received papal approbation was problematic for the inquisitors and was countered conveniently by the accusation that the various errors had entered the order at a later date, thereby sparing the Holy See of any blame.37 Most intriguingly, a Templar in Florence, Bernard of Parma, agreed and introduced a Bernardine element to this chronology by noting that his “order had been instituted in the greatest sanctity and religion, in the time of the Blessed Bernard,” only to become corrupted later through the faults of the brothers themselves, thus exonerating his namesake St. Bernard and damning his fellow Templars.38 A more direct assault upon the Templars’ orthodoxy by association with Bernard was led by a certain Brother Hugh of Doncelee, purportedly a former preceptor of the Order of St. Thomas on Cyprus, who claimed to have discussed beliefs and practices with a Templar brother sometime before the trial.39 This witness provided the inquisitors with an inverted version of the Templars’ origin tale, in which Bernard was recast as a staunch opponent of the foundation of the order, actively resisting its confirmation for forty years and even prophesying that the order would become an abomination and a scandal to other orders.40 Although this coincidentally matches Selwood’s view of Bernard’s attitude towards the Templars, Helen Nicholson notes that Hugh’s account is simply untrue, at best a garbled recollection of the customary protestations of inadequacy and affected modesty with which Bernard opens De laude.41 Moreover, Hugh’s testimony is highly suspicious for a number of reasons. Hugh’s identity and rank cannot be firmly confirmed by any document outside of the trial, appearing in no Levantine source despite his alleged prominence within his own order.42 Even if he was who he claimed to be, he would have felt an acute 36 

Bini, “Dei Tempieri,” 495–501; Anne Gilmour-Bryson, “A Look through the Keyhole: Templars in Italy from the Trial Testimony,” in MO, 3, 129; Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae Domus, Anhang 1, no. 2, p. 361. 37  Le procès, 1:94. 38  Jules Loiseleur, ed., La doctrine secrète des Templiers: Étude suivie du texte inédit de l’enquète contre les Templiers de Toscane et de la chronologie des documents relatifs à la suppression du Temple (Paris and Orléans, 1872), 187. 39  Proceedings, 1:193; 2:205–06. 40  Ibid., 1:193; 2:206. 41  Selwood, “Quidam,” 227–29; Proceedings, 2:206, n. 119. 42  Proceedings, 2:205, n. 116.

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need to distance himself and the Order of St. Thomas from the Templars; the two orders had been very close in recent history, even to the brink of a merger in the face of financial crisis.43 More generally, Hugh may have been influenced by the increasing hostility towards the entire concept of exempt religious orders in the early thirteenth century, fuelled largely by the power-hungry King Philip IV of France and erupting with particular malice against the Templars.44 Members of other such organizations, often with only distant connections to the Templar Order, also felt it necessary to distance themselves from the Templars during the trial, lest they suffer the loss of their own exemptions and privileges, or worse.45 Selfishness and cowardice were not the only motives; some clergy joined the attack on exempt orders because they truly did believe that such institutions, directly dependent on the extraterritorial authority of the pope, were dangerous perversions of the divinely instituted episcopal hierarchy of the Church.46 Whatever his motives, Hugh was more than willing to provide the inquisitors with whatever incriminating statement was needed to undermine the Templars’ Bernardine origin stories. The inclusion of this particular statement highlights the importance accorded to such tales by the inquisitors in their quest to delegitimize the order. After all, Bernard was unassailably orthodox, so the inquisitors would have been forced to adopt one of two strategies: either to refine their accusations chronologically, arguing that corruption entered the order only after Bernard’s involvement, or to undermine the validity of the Templars’ account entirely by introducing this inverted narrative, implying that the Templars were liars whose order had been corrupt from the very beginning. It remains necessary to explain why Bernard should have come to enjoy a position of exaggerated importance amongst the Templars, at the expense of figures such as Hugh of Payns, since it is not self-evident. Certainly, the Templars received support from Bernard and remained in communication with him throughout his life, but this was not particularly noteworthy or unusual for a religious community at the time.47 John Sommerfeldt has listed the various other religious orders and communities which received some form of “help or encouragement” from Bernard, including the Cluniacs, the Premonstratensians, the Victorines, the Gilbertines

43 

Alan J. Forey, “The Military Order of St. Thomas of Acre,” English Historical Review 92 (1977): 494–95. 44  William Chester Jordan, Unceasing Strife, Unending Fear: Jacques de Thérines and the Freedom of the Church in the Age of the Last Capetians (Princeton, 2005), 22–32, 41–42, 51–55, and passim. 45  Anne Gilmour-Bryson, “Testimony of Non-Templar Witnesses in Cyprus,” in MO, 1, 211. The Order of St. Thomas had accumulated privileges from the papal curia throughout the thirteenth century, perhaps even to the point of enjoying full exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. They can therefore be classified amongst those orders that stood to lose much from anti-exemptionists: Forey, “The Military Order of St. Thomas of Acre,” 491–92. 46  Jordan, Unceasing Strife, 42. 47  Bernard de Clairvaux, Éloge de la nouvelle chevalerie, ed. and trans. Emery, 17–133; Sancti Bernardi Opera, 7:393; 8:4, 65, 170–71, 203–04, 205, 344, 363.



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and the Carthusians.48 Nor were the Templars the only military order to enjoy support from Bernard, with Riley-Smith noting that the Hospitallers received his encouragement when undergoing militarization in the years leading up to the Second Crusade, pre-empting Selwood’s later claim to the contrary.49 Bernard’s vast network is depicted in a striking visual fashion in a sixteenth-century stainedglass window from the Cistercian abbey of Altenberg in modern Germany, in which Bernard is surrounded by many of the lay and ecclesiastical recipients of his letters, including two Templars kneeling expectantly in one corner.50 Yet, with the obvious exception of the Cistercians, none of these organizations came to be as closely associated with Bernard as were the Templars: in terms of self-identity, image amongst contemporaries, or modern historical interpretation. What sets the Templars apart then is that their order’s early relationship with Bernard was remembered and retained as an integral part of their identity, far beyond the period when Bernard was still alive and in contact with the order. One explanation for this peculiarity may be that there was no Templar of comparable prestige to Bernard: no equivalents to contemporaries like Cluny’s Peter the Venerable, Chartreuse’s Master Bruno or Prémontré’s Norbert. Hugh of Payns and the other early Templars were never beatified or sanctified, and so it was natural for the brothers to turn to more prestigious outsiders as patrons, both for their own spiritual identity and for combating the accusations of heterodoxy in the fourteenth century. Bernard was not the only outsider to be appropriated in such a way, with Licence identifying a heightened emphasis upon the inspiration of the Virgin Mary in the trial testimonies.51 The lack of beatified or sanctified Templars cannot fully explain Bernard’s prominence. The Hospitallers did have a beatified founder in the person of Gerard, but nevertheless he had his role minimized in favour of somewhat outlandish biblical-era origin myths of greater antiquity and prestige.52 Indeed, the Hospitallers and many external contemporaries claimed or believed genuinely that the Hospital in Jerusalem had been the site of various Old and New Testament events.53 This was part of a general trend amongst medieval religious orders to project their institutional histories back into the sacred past, with the Carmelites tracing their descent as far back as the Prophet Elijah and with the Order of St. Lazarus claiming

48 

John R. Sommerfeldt, “The Social Theory of Bernard of Clairvaux,” in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History Presented to Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan, Cistercian Studies Series 13 (Shannon, 1971), 37–38. 49  Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c.1050–1310 (Basingstoke, 1967), 55, 58, 58 n.7; Selwood, “Quidam,” 229. 50  James France, The Cistercians in Medieval Art (Stroud, 1998), fig. 12. 51  Licence, “The Templars,” 47–51. 52  Anthony Luttrell, “Preface,” in Les Légendes de l’Hôpital de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, ed. and trans. Antoine Calvet, Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherche d’Oc 11 (Paris, 2000), 8–9. 53  Ibid., 7–11.

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Judas Maccabeus as a direct ancestor.54 Compared to other religious orders, the Templars’ emphasis upon Bernard over Hugh of Payns was notably restrained. As Nicholson notes, the Templars fostered “no such clear-cut pseudo-history;” although Templar material does sometimes suggest a more ancient and prestigious history, with vague allusions to the Temple itself and its founder King Solomon, the Levites of the Book of Judges, and the Maccabees, the Templars ultimately seem to have been unconcerned with developing these more or less tenuous associations to their full potential, as did many of their contemporaries.55 Perhaps the Templars’ relatively poor literacy contributed to the lack of ancient, scriptural allusions. Additionally, Luttrell proposes that St. Bernard himself may have inadvertently restricted the myth-making of the Templar Order, by placing such great emphasis on the novelty of the Templar vocation as a reformed knighthood in his writings of the 1120s and 1130s.56 Certainly his emphasis on their status as a “new knighthood” influenced the writings of numerous favourable contemporaries, including Anselm of Havelberg, Otto of Freising and Richard of Poitou.57 Meanwhile, one of the order’s critics, Bernard’s fellow Cistercian Isaac of Stella, also underlined the element of novelty in his condemnation of the new vocation as unchristian and a corruption of the monastic ideal.58 In other words, the Templars could not escape the essential novelty of their vocation, perpetuated by supporters and detractors alike, and any attempt to promote ancient origins would never have been credible. Deprived of the opportunity to construct more elaborate myths following other religious orders, the Templars were forced to exaggerate the role of Bernard, the only figure of widely recognized greatness in their actual history. It is worth bearing in mind that the need to compete with rival orders for recruits and donors, despite comparatively inauspicious origin myths, would have pre-dated the need to satisfy or deflect the inquisitors of the fourteenth century, which, together with the Cistercianized character of Philip of Plessis’s letter of 1202 and the Bernardine altarpiece on Majorca of ca. 1290, suggests further that Bernard enjoyed exaggerated prominence in the Templars’ own histories before the unique circumstances of the trial. 54 

Robert A. Koch, “Elijah the Prophet, Founder of the Carmelite Order,” Speculum 34 (1959): 547–60; Joachim Smet, The Carmelites: A History of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Volume I: ca. 1200 until the Council of Trent, revised ed. (Darien, 1988), 7–8, 15–16, 52–55; Emanuele Boaga, “La storiografia carmelitana nei secoli XIII e XIV,” in The Land of Carmel: Essays in Honor of Joachim Smet, O.Carm., ed. Paul Chandler and Keith J. Egan (Rome, 1991), 125–54; Andrew Jotischky, “Gerard of Nazareth, John Bale and the Origins of the Carmelite Order,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 46 (1995): 216–18, 225, 233; Helen Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights: Images of the Military Orders, 1128–1291 (Leicester, 1993), 115, 168, n. 77. 55  Nicholson, Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, 113–15. 56  Luttrell, “Preface,” 10. 57  Anselm of Havelberg, “Dialogi,” PL 188:1156; Otto of Freising, “Chronicon,” ed. Roger Wilmans, MGH SS 20:252–53; Richard of Poitou, “Chronica,” ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SS 26:80. 58  Dániel Deme, ed., The Selected Works of Isaac of Stella: A Cistercian Voice from the Twelfth Century (Aldershot, 2007), 133.



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The dislodging of Hugh by Bernard should not be seen necessarily as a conscious and cynical corruption of institutional history on the part of the Templars, even if it later proved useful. James Fentress and Chris Wickham point out that memory – particularly “social memory” – is the outcome of a conceptualization of actual events, tending towards simplification of detail and often involving remarkable historical revisionism as groups and individuals come to remember events in a manner reflecting current concerns and self-image, rather than historical accuracy, often unconsciously.59 It is easy to imagine how the subtleties of Bernard’s actual involvement with the Templars – an editor of the rule at Troyes and author of a handful of other minor works for or about the Templars – could have been reconceived in simplified terms. The belief that he wrote the rule single-handedly and even founded the order personally was certainly simpler than the reality of his contributions. As for perceived propriety, a saintly founder would always have been more “appropriate” than a humble layman, both before and during the trial. Licence believes that the Templars’ written and oral traditions, particularly in relation to the Virgin Mary, were disrupted and disconnected from one another by one of two traumatic events in the order’s history: the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 or the fall of Acre in 1291.60 The Cistercianized narrative of Philip of Plessis in his letter of 1202 may indicate the former, at least in terms of specifically Bernardine and Cistercian traditions. Fentress and Wickham note that facts are lost at an early stage of the process by which events become memory, suggesting further that the Templars’ myths would have diverged from the written record sooner rather than later.61 Indeed, an even earlier “traumatic event” not considered by Licence was the period in which Bernard and the first generation of Templars died, around the middle of the twelfth century. It is known that Bernard kept in contact with the brothers after Troyes, right up until his death in 1153, composing De laude probably in the first half of the 1130s, as well as various supportive letters to or about the Templars, especially his maternal uncle Andrew of Montbard.62 In his final letter to Andrew, sent in the year of his death, Bernard greeted the Master, Bernard of Tremelay, and all the brothers of the Temple.63 This first generation of Templars presumably had an accurate idea of Bernard’s involvement with their order throughout this early period, simply because it was still current; but Bernard’s death, followed soon after by that of his uncle, by then Templar Master, in 1156, henceforth necessitated the memory of Bernard to be preserved and transmitted to future generations in a less direct fashion, as history not current events. 59 

James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford, 1994), 32, 58–59, 88. Licence, “The Templars,” 47–50, esp. 51. 61  Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, 73–74. 62  Malcolm Barber, “Introduction,” in Bernard of Clairvaux, In Praise of the New Knighthood: A Treatise on the Knights Templar and the Holy Places of Jerusalem, trans. M. Conrad Greenia (Kalamazoo, 2000), 12–13; Sancti Bernardi Opera, 7:393; 8:4, 65, 170–71, 203–04, 205, 344, 363. 63  Sancti Bernardi Opera, 8:204. 60 

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Purely oral communication was presumably of great importance in the transmission and perpetuation of such historical information and legend within the Templar Order after Bernard’s death. Unfortunately the bulk of oral evidence has been lost entirely, with only the problematic records of the trial providing any indication as to the nature of these oral traditions. Obviously written texts would have remained an important source and mode of transmission of institutional history. One brother during the trial confirmed that De laude – “writings of the blessed Bernard, in which he comforted those of the order” – had remained in circulation within the order right up until this point, claiming to have once owned a copy.64 Similarly, Salvadó believes that a book depicted in the hand of St. Bernard on the Majorcan altarpiece a few decades earlier (see Fig. 1) may have been intended as the very same text, although it could also have been interpreted as the rule, the more prominent in the trial evidence.65 Yet their importance should not be overestimated, given that most Templars had never read these texts, and given the discrepancies between their content and the apparent thrust of later sources. If anything, the rule and De laude are more likely to have been treated by the largely illiterate brothers as material artefacts rather than written texts per se. These were mysterious, even sacred tomes: unintelligible and inaccessible products of a saintly founder, but nonetheless physical and tangible objects, sometimes depicted in the devotional context of altarpieces and perhaps akin to relics. In this sense they would still have served to reinforce the memory of Bernard, but in a rather different way to the usage of modern historians. Historians should view the content of the Templars’ written texts as providing only a partial and misleading account of what the brothers actually believed. Other commemorative and mnemonic techniques were employed in the preservation of Bernard’s memory, in addition to oral tradition, written texts and historical artefacts; and visual imagery was prominent amongst them. The seemingly unique altarpiece of the Templar chapel in Palma de Majorca is the most obvious example, requiring no literacy on the part of the observer to understand and reinforce the message that Bernard and the Cistercians were of some importance to the Templars. Salvadó has picked out a number of features in this piece which would have reminded the Templars of their connection to Bernard and the Cistercians more generally, such as the “characteristically Cistercian type of Marian devotion” apparent in the lactatio scene of the top-left-hand corner and the aforementioned copy of what is possibly De laude, if not the rule.66 Salvadó also suggests that the depiction on the altarpiece of Bernard wearing the Cistercians’ famous white habit would have struck a chord with the Templars, whose knights wore similar garments.67 For Salvadó the habit as depicted on the 64 

Le procès, 1:389. Salvadó, “Interpreting,” 55. 66  Ibid., 51, 55, 58. 67  Ibid., 55. 65 



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altarpiece is of local and immediate import, but the broader relevance is apparent. The Primitive Rule instructed all knights of the order to wear the white habit as a symbol of chastity, rendering the garment ubiquitous.68 When informed by the non-textual origin myths indicated in the trial evidence, this spiritual symbolism would have acquired historical significance, since the brothers would have assumed that Bernard – supposedly the author of the rule – had personally ordained that they wear these habits. These garments were white and identical to Bernard’s own, thereby reinforcing the belief amongst the brothers that their primordial connection to Bernard was rather more special than any of the links he had fostered with other religious orders, excepting of course the original “white monks” of Cîteaux, whose very existence would have reminded Templars like Philip of Plessis still further of the two institutions’ shared saint. This is what could be termed the “sartorial” transmission of historical memory. One other obviously Cistercian or monastic feature of Bernard’s appearance on the Majorcan altarpiece is worth noting. This is his tonsure, perhaps the most important legal and symbolic signifier of clerical status at the time.69 Since most Templars were lay brothers, with only a minority within the order receiving ordination, it might have been expected that the majority would not have worn tonsures, but there exists some evidence to the contrary. First and foremost, the Templars’ regulations on haircuts allow for a certain ambiguity of interpretation. The Latin Rule as given at Troyes specified that the brothers’ hair ought to be trimmed regularly so as to appear either “ordered” or “ordained” (ordinate).70 The modern translators of the rule into English, Barber and Bate, opt for “ordained.”71 Meanwhile, the medieval translator of the rule into French seems to have preferred “ordered” or “neat,” although much rests upon orthography here: “ordered” in contemporary French (ordeneement) differed from “ordained” (ordenement) by the repetition of a single letter.72 If Barber and Bate are correct in their translation, this regulatory clause would represent one of the most important pieces of evidence for Bernard and his fellow abbots at Troyes “monasticizing” or “Cistercianizing” the Templars, giving these lay brothers pseudo-clerical status. Other sources suggest that the Templars were tonsured for at least some of their order’s history. The “Templars’ tonsure” seems to have been a widely recognized distinguishing feature of the brothers around the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth, as is evident in two versions of a moralizing tale found in two possibly related sources: the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi and one of the sermons of James of Vitry, bishop of Acre. Beginning with 68 

“Regula,” PL 166:864; La Règle, 28; Il Corpus, 14. Robert Mills, “The Signification of the Tonsure,” in Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, ed. P. H. Cullum and Katherine J. Lewis (Cardiff, 2004), 111–13. 70  “Regula,” PL 166:865. 71  “Latin Rule of 1129,” in The Templars: Selected Sources, trans. Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate (Manchester, 2002), 42. 72  La Règle, 32; Il Corpus, 16. 69 

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the earlier of the two, the Itinerarium describes the execution of the Templars captured during the battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187, in line with Saladin’s policy of executing Templars and Hospitallers without a thought for ransoming them.73 From this premise of automatic execution, the story claims that a number of non-Templar Christians, captured with some Templars, voluntarily and zealously chose to take the “Templars’ tonsure” (templariorum tonsura) so that their Muslim captors would think that they were Templars as well; all the captives were executed, with the pseudo-Templars becoming both martyrs and true Templars in the process.74 Nicholson believes that this story probably originated with the Templars themselves, circulating in a now-lost newsletter or perhaps orally.75 As for James of Vitry, he recounted a very similar anecdote in a sermon addressed to the brethren of the military orders. This time just one crusader, a secular noble from France, was captured with some Templars in an unidentified military engagement. The Muslim captors wrongly identified the layman as a Templar, not because he had deliberately shaved himself, but because he already had a bald head (perhaps natural male pattern baldness affecting the crown like a tonsure) and a beard – incidentally an identifier of lay status in both the Templar and Cistercian Orders.76 After a brief attempt at convincing his captors otherwise, the noble accepted the Templar identity thrust upon him by his hair and thus was executed as a martyr and true Templar.77 Presumably James of Vitry, if not familiar with the Itinerarium itself, was drawing upon a Templar source similar to that used by the Itinerarium’s author. What the Itinerarium and James of Vitry together tell us is that a key component of a Templar’s appearance – the projected identity making him recognizable as a Templar instantly and non-verbally, even to non-Christians – was his possession of a clerical tonsure in spite of his lay status, which in turn was indicated by his beard. The “Templar’s tonsure” must have been widely known, since the two authors – and the hypothetical author of the inferred Templar newsletter – must have written expecting their audiences to understand such a reference. 73 

William Stubbs, ed., Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, RS 38 (London, 1864), 1:16; Hans Eberhard Mayer, ed., Das Itinerarium peregrinorum: Eine zeitgenössische englische Chronik zum dritten Kreuzzug in ursprünglicher Gestalt (Stuttgart, 1962), 259–60. 74  Stubbs, Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 1:16; Mayer, Itinerarium peregrinorum, 260. 75  Chronicle of the Third Crusade: A Translation of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, trans. Helen J. Nicholson (Aldershot, 1997), 34, n. 34. 76  James of Vitry, “Sermo XXXVII ad fratres ordinis militaris, insignitos charactere Militiae Christi,” in Joannes Baptista Pitra, ed., Analecta novissima: Spicilegii Solesmensis, altera continuatio, 2 vols. (Paris, 1888), 2:412–13. Templar beards were important symbols of Templar corporate identity and vocation: Jonathan Riley-Smith, Templars and Hospitallers as Professed Religious in the Holy Land (Notre Dame, 2010), 13. The few ordained chaplain brothers in the Templar Order were explicitly instructed to shave their beards: La Règle, 165; Il Corpus, 144. Meanwhile, Cistercian lay brothers were “usually depicted” in art “with flowing beards of considerable length” and were sometimes referred to as “bearded ones” (barbati): Chrysogonus Waddell, ed., Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter (Cîteaux, 2002), 635; France, The Cistercians in Medieval Art, 124. 77  James of Vitry, “Sermo XXXVII,” 2:413.



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Fig. 2 Burning tonsured Templars in Paris in 1314.

© The British Library Board (BL Ms Royal 20 C. VII, fol. 48).

Most medieval illustrations of Templars do not depict them with tonsures, but this is primarily because the crown of the head tends to be concealed under headwear of various styles, from helmets to pilei.78 However, one manuscript does depict the Templars with tonsures on two occasions, as when arrested in 1307 and stripped and burnt at the stake in 1314 (see Fig. 2).79 This is a late fourteenthcentury manuscript, and elsewhere depicts some Templars without tonsures and others wearing the black and white habit of the Hospitallers, so it is evidently a 78  Two famous thirteenth-century examples are Matthew Paris’s illustration of two helmeted Templars sharing a horse (BL Ms Royal 14, fol. 42v) and the depiction of two Templars playing chess whilst wearing fabric caps in Alfonso X of Castile’s Libro de Ajedrez (Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, Ms T. I 6, fol. 25). 79  BL Ms Royal 20 C. VII, fols. 42v, 48.

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confused source, although the problematic status of this late source does not preclude the possibility that the actual Templars did wear tonsures.80 The custom of tonsuring Templars possibly died out in the thirteenth century, sometime after James of Vitry wrote his sermon. This could explain why the corresponding clause in the French translation, which survives only in thirteenthcentury manuscripts, appears to prefer “neat” hair over “ordained.”81 Perhaps the tonsures were phased out following the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which made a much greater distinction between the clerical and lay castes, as demonstrated by canons fourteen to eighteen.82 Most relevantly, canon sixteen ordered all clerics to be tonsured.83 Although the brethren of the military orders were not specified in this canon, it could have raised doubts over the propriety of Templar lay brothers wearing tonsures, a concern not necessarily shared by those gathered at Troyes a century before. In any case, no other military order is known to have encouraged its lay brethren to wear tonsures at any point in history. This unique feature of the Templars would have served to reinforce and preserve the memory of their supposed spiritual and institutional descent from Bernard. Wearing white habits and tonsures, the Templars would have closely resembled their Cistercian counterparts, at least when not armed for war, and so it seems fair to say that the Templars were constantly reminded of their Cistercian and Bernardine roots. Given these observations on the “Cistercianized” physical appearance of the Templars, Philip of Plessis’s claim that the Templars originated in the “house” of Cïteaux would have seemed more convincing than it does now to the critical eyes of modern historians.84 One further distinguishing feature of a Templar’s appearance was his belt, which reminded him again of his order’s Bernardine history. At the time of the trial, a number of brothers in France told their interrogators that Bernard had instructed them to wear cords or belts around their waists when sleeping, sometimes with the explanation that this was done to signify chastity.85 Three Templars in England, Brother Thomas of Tholouse (sic), Brother Hugh of Tadcaster and Brother John of Moune, also claimed proudly that the belts had been Bernard’s personal innovation, specifically refuting the accusation that they used the belts to venerate an idol.86 The belt is the only item of clothing linked directly with Bernard in the trial evidence. The belts are a perfect case study of the divergence between the Templars’ written and unwritten history. As with the provenance of the rule and the foundation of the order, the Templars’ beliefs about their belts as expressed in the trial evidence do not correspond to the content of the surviving written documents. Nicholson 80 

Ibid., fols. 42v, 44v. La Règle, 32; Il Corpus, 16; Cerrini, “A New Edition,” 212. 82  Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume One: Nicaea I to Lateran V (London, 1990), 242–44. 83  Ibid., 243. 84  Bulst-Thiele, Sacrae Domus, Anhang 1, no. 2, p. 361. 85  Le procès, 1:603, 613, 615–16; 2:223, 228, 231, 232. 86  Proceedings, 1:43, 45, 62; Proceedings, 2:44, 45, 59. 81 



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points out that the Benedictine-inspired clause 21 of the French translation of the Primitive Rule did instruct the Templars to wear belts whilst sleeping so as to preserve chastity, as the aforementioned brothers claimed.87 However, the belts are mentioned specifically in just one of the four surviving manuscripts of the French Rule, merely added in the margin as an afterthought.88 Likewise, the corresponding clause in the Latin as given at Troyes does not mention belts specifically, but rather undefined nocturnal clothing.89 The belts do not seem to have become prominent in the written regulations until the composition of additional material in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as in a humiliating penitential ritual in the sole surviving fragment of the Catalan Rule and in the fragmentary report of a chapter meeting held at Villa Mausonii under Master James of Molay, where its use to preserve chastity was reaffirmed, just a few years before the trial.90 It is also mentioned in the full text of the reception ceremony, composed some decades after Troyes.91 Thus the written evidence alone would suggest that the belts were not instituted at Troyes in 1129, thus reducing the likelihood of Bernard’s personal responsibility for this particular garment. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to believe that Bernard was responsible for instituting the belts and that the trial evidence preserves elements of an oral historical tradition of greater accuracy than the surviving written tradition, bearing in mind the important point that written texts in this period were still seen as adjuncts to, rather than substitutes for, human memory.92 Katherine Allen Smith has recently brought attention to the use of such “chastity belts” within monastic communities and orders, arguing that the belt was “the most important component” of a monk’s “spiritual armour” – the clothing he wore to symbolize his metaphorical role as a “warrior” against sin – although she seems unaware of the use of the belts within the genuinely militant monastic Templar Order.93 Monastic belts of chastity appear in the writings of various authors prior to and contemporary with the Templars, including John Cassian and Baldwin of Forde, who referred to the “belt of the Cistercian militia,” particularly relevant here to the Cistercianized Templar “militia.”94 The belts also make an appearance in Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel’s “enthusiastically read” commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, from which the 87 

Helen J. Nicholson, The Knights Templar on Trial: The Trial of the Templars in the British Isles 1308–1311 (Stroud, 2009), 98; La Règle, 32, n. 6; Il Corpus, 16 n. 88  La Règle, 32; Il Corpus, 16. 89  “Regula,” PL 166:872. 90  Il Corpus, 82, 84, 86, 150, 164, 260, 294, 372, 398; The Catalan Rule of the Templars: A Critical Edition and English Translation from Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Cartas Reales, MS 3344, ed. and trans. Judi Upton-Ward (Woodbridge, 2003), 6–7. Upton-Ward asserts that the belt in the Catalan penitential ritual was indeed the same belt intended to ensure chastity in the French Rule: ibid., 7, n. 7. For the dating of the Villa Mausonii fragment, see Il Corpus, xxviii. 91  La Règle, 347; Il Corpus, 386–88. 92  Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, 9–10. 93  Katherine Allen Smith, War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture (Woodbridge, 2011), 91. 94  Ibid., 91, 185.

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nocturnal clothing clause is ultimately derived.95 Despite being widespread and long-established amongst monks, this practice was perhaps little known outside of the monastic milieu, given that one of the charges against the Templars implies some suspicion over this constant wearing of the belts, “even at night” (etiam de nocte).96 Further similarities between the Templars and contemporary Benedictine monastic communities can be glimpsed in the reception ceremonies. In other monastic orders, the reception ceremony included a ritual in which the secular sword-belt was exchanged for the monastic celibacy belt: a symbolic initiation rite equal in importance to tonsuring.97 The belt was also emphasized in the Templar reception ceremony, mentioned when outlining the sleeping arrangements to the new brother.98 Given the practice in other orders, it would be tempting to think that a new Templar received his belt at this point, even if he presumably kept his original sword-belt unlike his pacific monastic counterparts. Indeed, one of the charges against the order involved the manner in which a new brother received his belt in the supposedly pagan reception ceremony.99 A number of brothers countered this accusation by stating that they had received their belts from friends and family members – especially sisters – or had simply bought them.100 These stories may have been true but they were certainly intended to distance the brothers from the charges against the order so cannot be taken for granted. One brother, William of Solier, did claim that the “receiver” gave the brothers their belts, apparently during the ceremony (una cordula … que traditur cuilibet per receptorem), and so it remains possible that the Templars did receive their belts upon reception into the order, as was the practice in other contemporary religious orders.101 It is also plausible that it was around this same time that the brothers received a brief history lesson concerning the allegedly Bernardine origins of this particular practice and garment. 95 

Ibid., 94–95. Le procès, 1:92. 97  Smith, War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture, 104, 181–85. The initial reception of the sword-belt itself was one of the most important rites of passage for young men becoming knights, marking their transition into adulthood: ibid., 177, 181. In this context, the reception of a monastic belt seems to have been engineered deliberately to supersede the secular rite of passage; a man of the knightly or warrior class had not completed his journey to full manhood without making the transition to monasticism. Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay reported that in 1213 Amaury of Montfort was made a knight in a “new and untried” (novus et inexpertus) induction ceremony in which the bishops of Orleans and Auxerre – at the insistent request of the boy’s father – girded him with the “belt of knighthood” (cingulo militari) during mass: Petri Vallium Sarnaii Monachi Hystoria Albigensis, ed. Pascal Guébin and Ernest Lyon, 3 vols. (Paris, 1926–39), 2:123–24. The novel aspect of this was presumably the sacralization of the rite at the hands of churchmen in a liturgical setting, rather than the reception of the sword-belt itself. Perhaps the strong crusading context here permitted such a bold expression that the secular belt, just like the monastic, was a symbol of a religious vocation. 98  La Règle, 347; Il Corpus, 386–88. 99  Le procès, 1:92. 100  Ibid., 1:294, 299–300, 314, 340, 352, 442, 478, 544; 2:475. 101  Konrad Schottmüller, ed., Der Untergang des Templer-Ordens mit urkundlichen und kritischen Beiträgen, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1887), 2:314; The Trial of the Templars in Cyprus: A Complete English Edition, ed. and trans. Anne Gilmour-Bryson (Leiden, 1998), 278. 96 



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Still more evidence adds weight to the Templar claim that Bernard had instituted the belts, despite the lack of any mention of this in the written sources produced closest to Troyes. One of Bernard’s main sources of inspiration when writing De laude was Baldric of Dol’s interpretation of Urban II’s words at the Council of Clermont in 1095.102 According to Baldric, Urban had instructed the prospective participants of the First Crusade to lay down the “belt of knighthood.”103 It seems counterintuitive to instruct crusaders to discard their sword-belts, but the intention here, as with the Templars, was to monasticize the crusaders through purely metaphorical language, creating what Riley-Smith describes as “a military monastery on the move” whilst implicitly assuming that they would retain their military equipment as a matter of practicality.104 The Templars were the culmination of the monasticization of crusading and the relevance of the belt in particular was surely not lost upon Bernard when contributing to the development of the Templar regulations and devotional customs. If it is accepted that Bernard did institute the practice of belt-wearing, then it will be necessary for historians to treat the written regulations of the Templars as mere adjuncts to a broader body of non-written customs, of no less importance, and perhaps greater, than the texts which survive today. On the other hand, if Bernard’s role in the establishment of the belts is rejected, the traditions associated with this particular item of clothing remain significant, as they suggest that the Templars became more inclined over time to attribute elements of their corporate identity to Bernard, even when no justification for this existed in the core regulatory texts allegedly produced by him. It should now be apparent that the non-written – oral, pictorial and sartorial – traditions within the Templar Order flourished in an environment of greater textual naivety than modern historians permit. Most Templars were unable to read about their order’s history, but the brothers believed they knew it well nonetheless, proudly recounting a distinctly Cistercianized, Bernardine narrative to inquisitive and sometimes hostile outsiders. Every brother carried his order’s history with him at all times: when he felt the stubble of his tonsure, when he looked down at his pure white habit, and when he tightened the belt around his waist before bed. A handful at least could even compare themselves directly to visual images of their supposed founder-saint, wearing similar clothing and clasping one of the inspiring and sacralized (but often inaccessible and unintelligible) books he personally wrote to guide them. The non-textual traditions could diverge from the written texts significantly, but all that really mattered to a Templar was that Bernard had been with his order at the beginning and, judging by the frequent appeals to him during the trial, remained with it until the bitter end. 102  Barber, “Introduction,” in Bernard of Clairvaux, In Praise of the New Knighthood, trans. Greenia, 14. 103  Baldric of Dol, “Historia Jerosolimitana,” RHC Oc 4:14. 104  Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986), 2, 84, 150–52.

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Pergamene messinesi due-trecentesche relative all’Oriente latino Bruno Figliuolo Università di Udine [email protected] Abstract This article presents the edition and commentary of eight documents from the Archives of Messina, covering the period 1279–1359, of which seven have not been previously published. Two of the documents relate to crusader Acre, while six concern the commercial relations between Messina and the island of Cyprus. The Archives of Messina, one of the most important ports of the Mediterranean, are rich but remain to a large extent unexploited.

La Messina due-trecentesca ha indubbiamente conosciuto una certa, recente fortuna storiografica; ma, specie sul piano della storia economica e commerciale, la città meriterebbe una trattazione assai più attenta e approfondita di quanto non sia stato sin qui fatto, che ne illustrasse l’andamento magari lungo tutto il Quattrocento, quando i suoi notai ne illuminano i meccanismi di produzione, commercio e distribuzione della ricchezza con dovizia ed eloquenza documentaria, sin nei particolari. I pochi studi che della città peloritana si sono occupati da questo specifico punto di vista o che di esso hanno comunque trattato, infatti, a prescindere dal loro valore storicocritico, comunque non eccelso, sono basati su di una documentazione largamente incompleta,1 che non ha tenuto conto dei suoi abbondanti fondi pergamenacei inediti: né di quelli che lo sono tuttora in massima parte, e che sono custoditi a Palermo, nel locale Archivio di Stato (mi riferisco in specie ai tabulari di S. Maria di Malfinò e di S. Maria Maddalena) e a Toledo, nell’archivio dei duchi di Medinaceli, dove si trova il ricco deposito dell’arcivescovado, dell’archimandritato

Sono in debito di gratitudine nei confronti di Rosaria Stracuzzi e di Benjamin Kedar per avermi fornito la riproduzione di alcune delle pergamene qui edite (e la prima anche per aver risolto non pochi dubbi di lettura, ricontrollando per me il testo di tutti i documenti sugli originali), e in quelli di David Jacoby e Maurizio d’Arcano Grattoni per più di un suggerimento bibliografico ed esegetico. 1  Enrico Pispisa, Messina nel Trecento. Politica, economia, società (Messina, 1980); David Abulafia, “The Merchants of Messina. Levant Trade and Domestic Economy,” e cenni sparsi anche in idem, “The Levant Trade of the Minor Cities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Strengths and Weaknesses,” ora entrambi nel suo, Commerce and Conquest in the Mediterranean (Aldershot, 1993), rispettivamente art. XII, 196–212, e art. XI, 183–202. Sulle strutture sociali, istituzionali ed economiche della Messina medioevale, sino al principio del XV secolo, occorre comunque ora vedere l’ottima tesi di Hadrien Penet, “Messine à la fin du Moyen Âge (XIe–XVe siècle). Espaces, économie, société,” 3 voll. (Thèse de Doctorat Nouveau Régime, Université Paris X-Nanterre, 2006), in particolare 1:1–225. 211

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e del senato cittadini;2 né di quelli inediti all’epoca della stesura dei contributi in oggetto ma pubblicati più tardi. E stiamo parlando, si badi, di diverse migliaia di pergamene, le quali ovviamente consentono di tracciare un quadro molto più preciso e approfondito di tutti gli aspetti della vita cittadina.3 In effetti, illustrare i meccanismi della produzione e del commercio della città dello Stretto costituirebbe un lavoro tanto più meritorio in quanto essa, nel DueTrecento (ma forse ancora nel Quattrocento), è probabilmente, nella percezione dei contemporanei, il centro abitato più importante, dal punto di vista economico e mercantile, dell’intera Sicilia. Se analizziamo i trattati di mercatura e di navigazione superstiti di quel periodo, infatti, coglieremo immediatamente il grande peso che le veniva unanimemente attribuito nella coscienza dei contemporanei.4 Le notizie tratte dalle cronache dell’epoca, in specie da quelle non siciliane (e dunque non tacciabili di parzialità) e più attente ai problemi commerciali (e perciò autorevoli in questo campo), come sono quelle dei Villani, confermano la potenza e lo splendore della città peloritana in quel periodo: Giovanni Villani narra come il conte Giovanni di Chiaromonte affrontò la flotta napoletana nelle acque di Lipari, 2  Per S. Maria di Malfinò, v. la nota successiva; per S. Salvatore, di cui sono state comunque pubblicate alcune pergamene sparse e quelle in lingua greca di alcuni fondi monastici calabresi di rito greco i cui archivi vi erano confluiti, cfr. preliminarmente Messina. Il ritorno della memoria (Palermo, 1994), 118–200. Quanto al tabulario di S. Maria Maddalena, ricordo che si conservano in esso le numerose carte di Terrasanta edite in Henri François Delaborde, Chartes de Terre Sainte provenant de l’Abbaye de N.-D. de Josaphat, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 19 (Paris, 1880). 3  Al complesso della documentazione tuttora inedita vanno ancora aggiunte un centinaio di pergamene messinesi di varia provenienza, rogate tra XIII e XVI secolo, conservate oggi presso la locale Biblioteca Regionale: esse sono state regestate da parte della dottoressa Rosaria Stracuzzi, che me ne ha comunicato il contenuto, e che perciò ringrazio, e sono attualmente in corso di pubblicazione. Tra i fondi editi recentemente ma non sfruttati dalla storiografia precedente, oltre a quelli delle abbazie di S. Maria, citato più avanti, in nota n. 12, e di S. Maria dell’Alto, menzionato in calce alle note archivistiche relative alla carta qui edita sotto il n. 3, segnalo ancora Diego Ciccarelli, Il Tabulario di S. Maria di Malfinò, 3 voll., Biblioteca dell’Archivio Storico Messinese, VI, VII e XXXVII (Messina 1986, 1987 e 2005), che pubblica le pergamene comprese tra il 1093 e il 1383 (e dove, I, nn. 62, p. 118, e 77, p. 160, sono pubblicate due carte rogate ad Acri, rispettivamente il 23 settembre 1259 e il 4 ottobre 1265); Carmen Salvo, “Regesti delle pergamene dell’Archivio Capitolare di Messina (1275–1628),” Archivio Storico Messinese 62 (1992): 87–174; ed eadem, “Regesti delle pergamene dell’Archivio dell’Opera della Cattedrale o Maramma di Messina,” Archivio Storico Messinese 65 (1993): 51–104. 4  Cfr. i veneziani: Il Compasso da navigare. Opera italiana della metà del secolo XIII, a cura di Bacchisio Raimondo Motzo (Cagliari, 1947), 105 e 108; e Zibaldone da Canal. Manoscritto mercantile del sec. XIV, a cura di Alfredo Stussi (Venezia, 1967), 50–55. V. poi quelli toscani: Firenze, Biblioteca Marucelliana, Ms. C.226, a ff. 16v–17v; Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, a cura di A. Evans, The Medieval Academy of America 24 (Cambridge, MA, 1936; rist. an., New York, 1970), a 107–16; Costanzo Ciano, La “pratica di mercatura” datiniana (secolo XIV), Biblioteca della Rivista “Economia e Storia” 9 (Milano, 1964), a 57–59. V. pure p. 13, per la datazione. Sulla posizione e la funzione della città all’interno del sistema portuale sia mediterraneo che regionale dell’epoca, v. Hadrien Penet, “Clavis Siciliae. Les activités portuaires du détroit de Messine (XIIe–Xve siècles),” in Ports maritimes et ports fluviaux au Moyen. Actes du XXXVe congrès de la SHMES (La Rochelle, 5 et 6 juin 2004) (Paris, 2005), 261–76; e idem, “L’organisation des réseaux d’un port de détroit: le cas de Messine (XIe-XVe siècle),” in Espaces et réseaux en Méditerranée. Vie–XVIe siècle, a cura di Damien Coulon, Christophe Picard e Dominique Valérian (Paris, 2007), 41–56.



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il 17 novembre del 1339, contando quasi unicamente su navi e marinai messinesi.5 E il fratello Matteo, narrando della conquista della città da parte di Luigi d’Angiò e delle vicende belliche successive, sino al 1359, la definisce esplicitamente “la corona dell’isola.”6 Non meraviglia, sicché, che i mercanti della città dello Stretto appaiano in maniera non episodica anche nei mari del Levante, a cominciare da Acri, nel corso della seconda metà del Duecento, e poi soprattutto a Cipro, dopo la caduta della città crociata; e che anzi, per consolidarvi la propria posizione, essi abbiano proprio in quel periodo fabbricato un falso privilegio del re di Sicilia Guglielmo I, il quale appunto, nel 1160, avrebbe loro concesso ampi privilegi ad Acri.7 A quel periodo risale infatti una carta del 16 ottobre del 1279, con la quale si restituiscono a Goffredina, vedova del mercante messinese Petronio de Puteo, tutrice anche dei figli minorenni della coppia, Giacomino e Isolde, i beni del defunto marito, scomparso appunto ad Acri. Esecutori testamentari sono tre borghesi messinesi, che si trovavano nella città crociata al momento della disgrazia: Matteo Calciamira, Bulgarino di Castello e Brancaccio de Astingo, quest’ultimo nipote del defunto. L’esame della carta, rogata a Messina, è stato più volte fatto, ma in maniera superficiale e senza trarne tutte le informazioni offerte; anche perché gli studiosi che se ne sono occupati si sono limitati a riprendere le notizie fornite da Maria Alibrandi, che per prima portò il documento all’attenzione della comunità scientifica, però riassumendolo e parafrasandolo solo parzialmente. In effetti, la pergamena è ricca di dati relativi ad Acri e risulta piuttosto complessa nella sua struttura, tanto che è parso opportuno renderla finalmente pubblica (si tratta del nostro documento n. 1). Vi si testimonia che il de Puteo, proprietario di un quarto di un’imbarcazione chiamata “S. Giovanni” e di un ottavo di un bucio detto “S. Croce,” si recava con una certa frequenza in Levante, offrendo a nolo la propria opera di capitano, il proprio equipaggio e la propria imbarcazione a chi ne facesse richiesta. Nel 1279, nella fattispecie, egli si era recato ad Acri su commissione non sappiamo di chi, portandovi soprattutto merci altrui ma in parte anche vino siciliano di sua proprietà, con il quale aveva rifornito alcuni tavernieri locali, tra i quali si nomina un certo Gerardo di Bonsignore. Del pari, al momento della partenza, quando era stato improvvisamente colto dalla morte, aveva caricato sulla sua nave anche merci acquistate per sé: in particolare, aveva comprato 33 mezze tele di zambellotto, una 5  Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica, a cura di Giuseppe Porta, 3 voll. (Parma, 1990–91), vol. III, l. XII, cap. CVIII, pp. 217–18. Sulle fonti siciliane che descrivono l’evento, v. Pispisa, Messina nel Trecento, 167–69. 6  Matteo Villani, Cronica. Con la continuazione di Filippo Villani, a cura di Giuseppe Porta, 2 voll. (Parma, 1995), vol. II, libro VII, cap. XXXIX, p. 59. Sulle convulse vicende politiche di quel periodo, cfr. Pispisa, Messina nel Trecento, 228 ss. 7  Sulla questione, v. da ultimo la convincente interpretazione di Federico Martino, “Una ignota pagina del Vespro: la compilazione dei falsi privilegi di Messina,” Archivio Storico Messinese 57 (1991): 19–76, a 31–35. Cfr. comunque anche Carmelo Trasselli, I Privilegi di Messina e di Trapani (1160–1355). Con un’appendice sui consolati trapanesi nel sec. XV (Messina, 19922; I ed., Palermo, 1949), 5–16.

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grossa pezza di zendado rosso, 10 buctoni d’oro cavi al loro interno, par di capire, e 9 casse più una piccola botticella (vegeticula) di zucchero di Babilonia.8 Inoltre, egli disponeva di una somma di 435 bisanti e 16 carati. Gli esecutori testamentari, però, avevano acquistato per suo conto tre sporte di pepe, equivalenti a un cantaro e 85 rotoli meno un quarto al peso di Acri, pagandole 247 bisanti e 11 carati; e avevano poi speso quasi tutto il rimanente contante dello scomparso per ottemperarne i lasciti pii, saldarne i debiti e pagarne le esequie. Essi restituiscono perciò alla vedova, che si dichiara soddisfatta del computo, soltanto 13 carati, oltre al pepe, allo zucchero e alle altre merci già menzionate; e oltre ancora ai beni personali del defunto, minuziosamente elencati, tra cui un padiglione, alcuni gioielli, un corsetto in cotta di maglia, tre elmi, i suoi indumenti e la sua biancheria; e a 12 once e un quarto d’oro, frutto della vendita fatta ad Acri, per volontà del morente, dell’ottava parte del suo bucio, ancorato a Messina, acquistata da due operatori certamente Messinesi anch’essi: Giovanni di Castello e Nicola di Farinato. E in effetti sembra opportuno sottolineare proprio questa concomitante presenza nella città orientale di alcuni altri operatori messinesi, in totale sei, per la precisione, che vengono a vario titolo menzionati nel documento: indubbio segno che quella rotta era all’epoca ben nota e battuta dai mercanti della città dello Stretto.9 Altre testimonianze in merito, anch’esse ben note, che fanno riferimento a navi e mercanti messinesi presenti ad Acri prima della caduta della città, d’altronde non mancano.10 A esse si aggiunge ora un nuovo, importante documento cittadino, il quale in realtà riporta in copia autentica una carta rogata ad Acri nel 1287; sicché forse non del tutto opportunamente Hadrien Penet, che lo ha recentemente regestato nella peraltro assai bella ricostruzione da lui offerta del tabulario di S. Maria di Messina, ha separato la copia dalla dichiarazione notarile che ne attesta appunto l’autenticità. Per questa ragione, qui di seguito, sotto il n. 2, l’atto si considera come unico: vale a dire una copia semplice munita di dichiarazione di autentica notarile.11 Il precedente curatore, inoltre, è stato forse un po’ troppo frettoloso nell’affermare 8  Sul commercio di zambellotto, prodotto nelle città crociate di Terrasanta, v. David Jacoby, “Camlet Manufacture, Trade in Cyprus and the Economy of Famagusta from the Thirteenth to the late Fifteenth Century,” in Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta: Studies in Architecture, Art and History, a cura di Michael J. K. Walsh, Peter W. Edbury e Nicholas S. H. Coureas (Farnham, 2012), 15–42; per quello dello zucchero di Babilonia, che transitava da Acri proveniente dall’Egitto, cfr. David Jacoby, “Acre-Alexandria: A Major Commercial Axis of the Thirteenth Century,” in “Come l’orco della fiaba.” Studi per Franco Cardini, a cura di Marina Montesano (Firenze, 2010), 151–67. 9  Maria Alibrandi, “Messinesi in Levante nel Medioevo,” Archivio Storico Siciliano, serie III, 21–22 (1971–72): 97–110, a 100–03; Pispisa, Messina nel Trecento, 12; Abulafia, “The Merchants of Messina,” 199–200. 10  Tali testimonianze, di provenienza sia cronachistica che notarile, tutte edite, sono raccolte e brevemente discusse in Pispisa, Messina nel Trecento, 7–8, 13 e 54; e in Abulafia, “The Merchants of Messina,” 200–02. 11  Nel medesimo modo ci siamo comportati nel pubblicare l’atto contrassegnato con il n. 7, pur se esso in realtà è ben diverso dal punto di vista diplomatistico, giacché riporta sì del pari al proprio interno come inserto una copia munita di dichiarazione notarile di autenticità, ma descrive poi un’evoluzione di quello stesso negozio giuridico, avvenuta l’anno successivo.



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che lo stato disastroso della pergamena fa sì che “le teneur de l’acte nous échappe presque totalement,”12 limitandosi perciò a fornirne solo un breve regesto. In realtà, il contenuto del rogito appare abbastanza comprensibile, sia pure al termine di uno sforzo interpretativo notevole. Vi si dice che il mercante messinese Matteo Bevacqua, una volta tornato nella città natale da un viaggio ad Acri, si era fatto fare copia autentica di un atto rogato in quest’ultimo centro il 9 aprile del 1287 dal notaio Leopardo del fu Ricco, che da altro rogito sappiamo essere Pisano;13 atto nel quale Latino Sparario del fu Berlingeri, Messinese, costituiva suoi procuratori Aldoino Greco e Giovanni Aldobrandi, borghesi messinesi anch’essi, affinché questi ultimi seguissero la pratica di restituzione a detto Matteo di una casa, di alcune terre e di certi redditi che a lui di diritto spettavano nella città dello Stretto. Tra i testimoni sono menzionati due altri borghesi di Messina: Percello del fu Benincasa e Bertolotto del fu Biagio. Ancora una volta, come si vede, è testimoniata in quegli anni una presenza abbastanza folta (cinque persone attestate in città nello stesso momento) di Messinesi ad Acri. Gli altri sei atti qui editi o riediti sono invece rogati a Messina (tre), a Siracusa (uno) e a Famagosta (due) nello spazio di una ventina d’anni, e riguardano transazioni commerciali interessanti per lo più Cipro, in un caso anche Beirut, in un altro Rodi e alcuni approdi dell’Asia Minore e nell’ultimo aree non specificate della Romania.14 A essi va aggiunto un ricordo contenuto in una carta rogata a Messina il 17 novembre del 1347, nella quale i mercanti cittadini Goffredo della Spina e Angelo de Nicolao, assicurandosi reciproca quietanza, attestano come, con contratto stipulato a Nicosia il precedente 5 giugno davanti al notaio Marco di Rolandino da Parma, Goffredo avesse acquistato per 9 once dal nobile messinese Pietro Gallo del fu Andrea miles, con denaro di Angelo, delle case nella città dello Stretto, la cui proprietà viene appunto ora riconosciuta a quest’ultimo. Goffredo della Spina e Pietro Gallo si trovavano quindi a Nicosia certamente dalla primavera all’autunno del 1347, e il Gallo anzi, esplicitamente definito abitante nella città cipriota, solitamente vi risiedeva e doveva fare perciò di rado ritorno in Sicilia, se stipula l’atto di vendita con un intermediario. Per la medesima ragione, Angelo de Nicolao doveva essere rimasto a Messina, in attesa del ritorno del suo procuratore.15 12 

Hadrien Penet, Le Chartrier de S. Maria de Messina. Il tabulario di S. Maria di Messina (1250– 1500), 2 voll. (Messina, 1998–2005), II, n. 117, p. 122, del 9.IV.1287, e n. 119, p. 123, del 10.IX.1287. 13  Si tratta di una carta pure di procura, di soli otto giorni precedente quella qui pubblicata, giacché è datata primo aprile 1287, edita in Giuseppe Müller, Documenti sulle relazioni delle città toscane coll’Oriente cristiano e coi Turchi fino all’anno 1531 (Firenze, 1879), n. 71H, p. 106, che però la colloca erroneamente al 1288, non tenendo conto del fatto che la datazione vi è espressa secondo lo stile pisano. Di questo notaio, Leopardo del Fornaio, sopravvive anche un piccolo protocollo conservato presso l’Archivio Arcivescovile di Pisa, Contratti, 6, su cui v. Luigina Carratori, Inventario dell’Archivio Arcivescovile di Pisa, vol. I (secoli VIII–XV), Biblioteca del “Bollettino Storico Pisano.” Collana storica 32 (Pisa, 1986), 84. 14  Il nostro n. 3, già edito in maniera soddisfacente, viene qui ripreso solo per ragioni di completezza, solo con piccoli aggiustamenti sia nella trascrizione che nell’interpunzione. 15  Messina, Biblioteca Regionale, pergamena n. 16: “Gaffridus dela Spina mercator civis Messane ex una parte et Angelus de Nicolao concivis eius ex altera, in nostra presencia constituti,

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Grazie a questi documenti, l’incremento delle nostre conoscenze a proposito della presenza non solo messinese in specie a Cipro in quel giro di anni è notevole, come pure quello di quanto sappiamo sulle attività commerciali ivi svolte dai mercanti della città dello Stretto. Nei pressoché coevi atti rogati nell’isola orientale dal notaio veneziano Nicola de Boateriis, infatti, non ricorre alcuno dei nomi che compaiono nelle carte qui presentate, con la sola, parziale eccezione di Salvo Brugnolo, probabilmente imparentato con il Baldovino Brugnolo della pergamena da noi edita sotto il n. 6. E sono menzionati come attivi a Famagosta nel 1360 tre soli altri operatori messinesi, oltre a lui: Matteo Calvaroso, Giovanni di Pellegrino e Napoleone Porco.16 Nei rogiti stipulati pochi anni più tardi nella medesima città cipriota da un altro notaio veneziano, Simeone, prete di San Giacomo dell’Orio, incontriamo attivo un solo altro Messinese, Genovese Porco, mercante a Famagosta, il quale in due atti, rispettivamente del 28 agosto e del 20 settembre del 1364, vende una schiava e uno schiavo tataro a due mercanti veneziani.17 La pergamena del 29 gennaio 1340 (qui edita sotto il n. 3), proveniente, come tutte le altre rogate a Messina qui presentate, dal monastero cittadino di S. Maria sibi ad invicem animo obligandi confessi sunt omnia et singula infrascripta quod, cum quinto die mensis iunii quintedecime indictionis proximo preterito dictus Gaffridus emerit et empcionis nomine receperit et habuit a magnifico viro Petro Gallo, filio quondam nobilis viri domini Andrei Galli militis, cive Messane, habitatore civitatis Nicosie regni Cipri, quoddam tenimentum domorum terranearum consistens in loheriis duodecim, situm in civitate Messane, in contrata Capperine, iuxta domum cleri presbiterorum grecorum, secus domum notarii Firmi Lardee et prope vias puplicas et alios confines, cum solo et iuribus … et pertinentiis suis, pro precio et nomine precii unciarum novem karlenorum, ad ratione de sexaginta karlenis pro qualibet uncia per eundem Petrum venditorem a predicto Gaffrido emptore proinde receptarum et habitarum, prout hec et alia plenius contineri vidimus in quodam puplico instrumento apud Nicosiam insule Cipri inde confetto anno nativitatis Domini millesimo trecentesimo quatragesimo septimo, indicione quintadecima, die quinto mensis iunii, manu Marchi siri Rolandini de Parma, imperiali auctoritate notarii.” 16  Nicola de Boateriis notaio in Famagosta e Venezia (1355–1365), a cura di Antonino Lombardo, Fonti per la Storia di Venezia. Sez. III – Archivi Notarili (Venezia, 1973), n. 21, p. 27, del 9.X, per Salvo Brugnolo; nn. 22 e 23, p. 28, del 10 e 11.X, per Matteo Calvaroso e Giovanni di Pellegrino, teste nel rogito del giorno 11; n. 84, p. 88, del 23.VIII, per Napoleone Porco. Sulla famiglia di quest’ultimo, v. Maria Grazia Militi e Carmela Maria Rugolo, “Per una storia del patriziato cittadino in Messina,” Archivio Storico Messinese 72–74 (1972–74): 113–65. I documenti qui editi sotto i nn. 4, 6, 7 e 8 sono stati illustrati, con qualche imprecisione e qualche lacuna, in Alibrandi, “Messinesi in Levante,” 103–10, laddove stranamente non vi si menziona il nostro n. 5, che pure si trova custodito nel medesimo fondo; sono stati poi ripresi, insieme a qualche altra rara e sparsa testimonianza edita, in Pispisa, Messina nel Trecento, 112, 113 ss. e 141–43; e infine, inseriti però in un quadro documentario e critico ben più ampio, pur se con le medesime imprecisioni e lacune, in Abulafia, “The Merchants of Messina,” 202–10. Sulle relazioni commerciali tra Cipro e la Sicilia tra tardo Due e Trecento, v. comunque ora l’attento N. Coureas, “Trade between Cyprus and Aragonese Sicily in the late Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” Epeterida tou Kentrou Epistemonikòn Erèinon 32 (2006): 79–108. 17  Catherine Otten-Froux, “Un notaire vénitien à Famagouste au XIVe siècle. Les actes de Simeone, prêtre de San Giacomo dell’Orio (1362–1371),” Thesaurismata 33 (2003): 15–159, rispettivamente alle pp. 83 e 86. Per valutare correttamente la presenza messinese nel Levante occorre comunque valutare anche l’azione degli abitanti della città a Creta, dove essa appare abbastanza vivace, e che sembra ben documentata nella documentazione veneziana superstite: un tale compito esula però evidentemente dagli ambiti del presente studio.



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dell’Alto,18 attesta della presenza a Famagosta di Matteo Prete, Genovese di Messina, il quale vanta un credito in denaro dell’ammontare di 17 once e 10 tarì nei confronti di un altro Messinese, Costanzo Manione; credito garantito su di una casa in Messina di cui ora Matteo cede i diritti al Veneziano Lanzarotto del fu Baliano Spanni, verso il quale si dichiara a sua volta in debito. Tra i testimoni dell’atto compare un altro Messinese: Bartoluccio Gemini del fu Bartoluccio. Qualche anno più tardi, il 17 aprile del 1346, viene rogata a Messina una carta di grande interesse (qui pubblicata sotto il n. 4), perché ci mostra quanto ampi fossero il circuito commerciale e lo spazio economico degli operatori messinesi dell’epoca. Quel giorno Corrado di Salimbene, detto di Accodona, abitante a Siracusa, riconosce di aver ricevuto in prestito da Francesco Paolillo di Messina ben 35 once per finanziare un viaggio commerciale che egli intende a breve intraprendere con la propria galea, chiamata “S. Salvatore,” al momento all’ancora nel porto di Messina, salpando da Siracusa per recarsi prima a Beirut, quindi a Cipro, poi di nuovo a Beirut, per fare infine ritorno a Trapani, Siracusa o Messina, dove gli parrà più opportuno al momento. Il finanziatore, che prenderà parte al viaggio, riceverà vitto e alloggio gratuito sulla nave durante tutto il tempo della navigazione e inoltre potrà caricarvi due cantari di merce di sua proprietà senza pagarne il relativo diritto di nolo. Nell’atto non vi è cenno alcuno alle merci trafficate; ciononostante, numerosi, come si vede, sono gli spunti di interesse in esso contenuti, a cominciare dalle sue stesse clausole contrattuali; ma sembra anche il caso di sottolineare la stazza della nave di Corrado: una galea, che è un tipo di grossa imbarcazione che assai di rado compare nella documentazione messinese; e, ancora, l’immagine della percezione di uno spazio siciliano unitario che sembra emergere dalla coscienza dei protagonisti. L’analisi del rogito del 5 settembre 1351 (qui edito sotto il n. 5) ci mantiene in ambito commerciale e ci permette di ribadire quali fossero gli interessi dei mercanti siciliani all’epoca attivi a Cipro: vale a dire il traffico delle spezie. Nell’atto, infatti, si certifica che Cristoforo Gattola del fu Iacopo, un operatore campano, almeno a giudicare dal nome, patrono del panfilo “S. Giuliano e S. Bartolomeo,” in quel momento alla fonda nel porto di Famagosta ma in procinto di salpare per Napoli e Pisa, lo noleggia in parte al mercante Marino de Anfuso di Messina, impegnandosi a trasportare nella città dello Stretto un carico di spezie di proprietà di quest’ultimo. Ove mai però altri tre mercanti cui aveva in precedenza già noleggiato l’imbarcazione, due Pisani, Giovanni e Tommaso, e il terzo probabilmente un Amalfitano, Petruccio di Conca, si fossero opposti a questa sosta nel porto di Messina, egli assicurava il de Anfuso che ne avrebbe sbarcato il carico o presso la torretta del Faro del porto di Messina o presso un altro scalo siciliano. Interessante, infine, notare che al rogito, 18  Credo di poter confermare la suggestione in tal senso espressa in forma orale da Rosaria Stracuzzi, giacché tutti gli atti riportano notazioni di una medesima mano del XVIII secolo che segnala se il rogito interessasse o meno il monastero. Non è escluso che provenga da quell’archivio anche il documento qui edito sotto il n. 6, stipulato a Famagosta, ma la notazione di mano moderna presente al suo verso appare pressoché completamente evanida.

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stipulato da un notaio pisano nella loggia di quella natio, compaiano come testi tre Fiorentini che si dichiarano residenti a Famagosta: Bartolo di Leone, Zanobi di Nicolò e Giannotto Bonati.19 Il successivo documento qui edito (sotto il n. 6), datato 10 ottobre 1352, è del pari di interesse commerciale, giacché è l’atto con il quale il mercante messinese Vitale Gatto dà quietanza al concittadino Baldovino de Abrignali di aver ricevuto da lui 625 bisanti bianchi di Cipro, cui quest’ultimo era tenuto in virtù di un contratto di cambio stipulato a Messina tre mesi prima. Altri quattro abitanti della città dello Stretto compaiono come testimoni del rogito, stipulato nella loggia dei Catalani della città cipriota. Contratti commerciali sono pure gli ultimi due rogiti da noi pubblicati, i quali però si differenziano sensibilmente sia per la loro natura che per le destinazioni. Quello del 15 febbraio del 1354, pervenutoci in copia autentica del 12 marzo dell’anno successivo (qui proposto sotto il n. 7), è un contratto di cambio marittimo,20 nel quale il mercante messinese Angelo di Scala acquista dal fratello Raniero un credito di 66 once e 18 tarì – una cifra davvero cospicua – dovuta dal mercante Neri Parcellino di Pisa, patrono di una galea a due timoni e due coperte, chiamata “S. Antonio,” ormeggiata allora a Messina, che l’aveva ricevuta a sua volta appunto da Raniero, come investimento su di un viaggio che l’operatore pisano intendeva fare a Rodi e quindi in Asia Minore, a Balat e Theologo e ritorno, a caricare frumento.21 Il totale del credito risulta però suddiviso in due parti: l’una, dell’ammontare di 44 once, 13 tarì e 10 grani, deve essere restituita, a 60 gigliati per ciascuna oncia, alla prima richiesta del creditore, e rimane nelle mani di quest’ultimo; la seconda, vale a dire le rimanenti 22 once, viene ora saldata dal compratore della merce, che risponde al nome del già noto mercante messinese Baldovino de Abrignali. Di nuovo in Romania ci porta l’ultimo dei documenti qui presentati (sotto il n. 8). Si tratta di un atto tipologicamente piuttosto raro, giacché con esso il mercante barcellonese Bernardo Gilio, patrono di un legno chiamato “S. Antonio,” di undici banchi, riceve in commenda da un altro Catalano, Berenguer Puyol, e da un operatore messinese, Benenato Ferrero, 60 fiorini d’oro – di nuovo una somma notevole – per recarsi “ad pirateriam exercendam in partibus Romanie” e riportarne, a Catania o dovunque avesse attraccato con la sua nave al ritorno, due 19  Sergio Tognetti, “Cenni sulla presenza dei mercanti-banchieri fiorentini a Famagosta di Cipro nei primi anni del Trecento,” Archivio Storico Italiano 166 (2008): 53–68. 20  Su questo genere di contratto, inserito nella casistica tipologica generale dei contratti di società di mare messinesi di quegli anni, cfr. Elisa Vermiglio, “Modelli contrattuali di utilizzazione della nave in uso nel Quattrocento nell’area dello Stretto: analisi di alcuni documenti dell’Archivio di Stato di Messina,” in Studi in memoria di Elio Fanara, a cura di Umberto La Torre, Giovanni Moschella, Francesca Pellegrino, Piero Rizzo e Giuseppe Vermiglio, Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza della Università di Messina 234, 2 voll. (Roma, 2008), 2:469–82, a 477–78. 21  Theologo (Altologo), località scomparsa nei pressi di Efeso, e Palachia, odierna Balat, erano importanti mercati granari: Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade: Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Menteshe and Aydin (1300–1415), Library of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and PostByzantine Studies 11 (Venezia, 1983), 129–30 e 163–64. Sulla prima v. Lois Hopfgartner, “Altologo,” in Miscellanea storica ligure, II (Milano, 1961), 99–110.



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schiavi greci per Berenguer, che gli aveva affidato a questo scopo 15 once: l’uno doveva essere quindicenne e l’altro di età compresa tra i 15 e i 30 anni; e due altri ne avrebbe dovuto procurare per Benenato, il quale, per parte sua, gli aveva versato allo scopo 45 once: l’uno quindicenne e l’altra, di sesso femminile, quattordicenne. Ciò che colpisce non è certo il fatto che Messina fosse all’epoca un fiorente mercato di schiavi, condottivi, come è ben noto e assai abbondantemente documentato, in specie dalle navi catalane, genovesi e veneziane che numerose ne frequentavano il porto; quanto da un lato la tipologia del contratto (un unicum nella documentazione in nostro possesso) e dall’altro, soprattutto, il fatto che vi si attesti il commercio di schiavi greci e non, come di consueto, tatari, russi o etiopi, a riprova che la situazione politico-militare congiunturale, che vedeva in quegli anni l’espansione dell’esercito turco in Asia Minore, provocava la cattura di numerosi Greci, immessi poi sul mercato schiavile controllato dai mercanti occidentali.22

22  Sull’argomento si veda Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 160–61; e più specificatamente sulla Sicilia, rispetto alla quale occorrerebbe comunque una più ampia e finalmente esaustiva trattazione, Carmelo Trasselli, “Considerazioni sulla schiavitù in Sicilia alla fine del Medioevo,” Clio 8/1 (1972): 67–90. Sul fenomeno degli schiavi greci, v. pure Charles Verlinden, “Orthodoxie et esclavage au bas Moyen Age,” in Mélanges Eugène Tisserand, V, Studi e Testi 235 (Città del Vaticano, 1964), 428–56, e Michel Balard, La Romanie génoise. XIIe – début du XVe siècle, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 235, 2 voll. (Roma, 1978), 1:604 e 2:797.

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1 Messina, 1279, ottobre 16 Originale [A]: Archivio di Stato di Messina, Fondo Pergamene (= ASM, FP), n. 612, di mm. 445 × 324, in buono stato di conservazione, a prescindere da un piccolo foro nella parte inferiore e dalla caduta di inchiostro dovuta alla piegatura in alcuni punti. Al verso, una notazione di mano del XVIII secolo: “Non si sa a che serve. Vedasi”; una del XIX: “16 ottobre 1279”; e alcune del XX secolo: “Inv. N. 3391” e, a lapis, “Inv. A. 4024” e “ex n. 124; n. 587 ex; n. 612”. Regesto: Alfio Seminara, Le Pergamene dell’Archivio di Stato di Messina. Inventario e regesto (Messina, 2007), n. 612, p. 248. In nomine Domini, amen. Anno eiusdem incarnacionis millesimo, ducentesimo, septuagesimo nono, sextodecimo die mensis octubris, octave indictionis, regnante domino nostro rege Karolo, Dei gratia excellen|tissimo rege Ierusalem, Sicilie, ducatus Apulie, principatus Capue, principatus Achaye, Andegavie, Provincie, Forcalcherrii et Tornodori comitatus, regnorum eius Ierusalem anno tercio, Sicilie vero quintodecimo, | feliciter amen. Coram nobis, Nicoloso Chicarus, iudice messanensis Iohanne de Gilberto, regio publico eiusdem civitatis notario et rogatis testibus subnotatis. Gusfredina vidua, uxor quondam Petroni | de Puteo, civis Messane, tutrix testamentaria, ut constitit, Iacobini et Isolde, pupillorum filiorum suorum, filiorum et heredum dicti quondam Petroni, facto inventario, ut constitit, confessa | est, et nos ipsi iudex, notarius et testes subscripti, presenti scripto publico notum facimus et testamur quod, cum dictus Petronus in ultimis constitutus et dedisset testamentum in Acri, et in | eodem testamento inter alia, institutis sibi heredibus predictis filiis suis, statuisset tutricem eorum Gusfridinam uxorem suam ac eciam statuisset et ordinasset fideicommissarios et execu|tores testamenti sui Matheum Calciamira, Bulgarinum de Castello et Brancatium de Astingo, nepotem suum, cives Messane, presentes et suscipientes, data et concessa eis ab eodem | Petrono in eodem testamento plenius licencia et libera potestate ducendi ab Acon in Messana quarterium suum cuiusdam navis tunc existentis in Acon, que vocatur “Sanctus Iohannes”, et portandi | res dicte et bisantios, quas et quos habebat tunc in Acon, ad fortunam et risicum maris et gentis, et pecuniam et res ipsas consignandi predicte Gusfridine uxori et predictis filiis suis ad | requisicionem eorum, prout in testamento ipsius vidimus contineri. Ac mortuo dicto Petrono in Acon, auctoritate ipsius testamenti pervenissent ad manus predictorum Mathei, Bulgarini et | Brancacii res et pecunie infrascripte, videlicet: dictum quarterium dicte navis et omnium conredorum, asisorum et guarnimentorum suorum; item, in una manu bisancii auri sarra|cenati Acon centum octuaginta et in alia manu bisancii auri sarracenati Acon quinquaginta duo, quos dictus Bulgarinus habebat penes se; item, quatuordecim medie | pecie de tilellis nigris de zambillotto, quas idem Bulgarinus habebat similiter penes se; item, buttoni de auro vacui decem, quos idem Bulgarinus habebat penes se; item, in | alia manu decem et novem medie pecie de tilellis nigris de zambillotto; item, pecia una de cendato rubeo magna; item, cassie novem plene de zuccaro de Babillonia rupto et ve|geticula una plena de eodem zuccaro, que onerate erant in predicta navi; item, in auro et [turo]nensibus argentei bisancii auri sarracenati Acon octuaginta novem, quos idem Petronus | habebat in cassia sua; item, in alia manu bisancii auri sarracenati Acon viginti septem, recollecta a Girardo de Bonsignoro, burgense Acon, quos idem Petronus in eodem testamento | suo dixit se debere recipere ab eo pro vino quod ei vendiderat et tradiderat; item, in alia manu bisancii auri sarracenati Acon decem et novem et karati decem et septem et dimidius, recollecti per | eos a certis tabernariis Acon de summa bisanciorum viginti septem



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quos idem Petronus in eodem testamento suo dixit se debere recipere ab eisdem tabernariis pro vino quod eis vendiderat; item, in | alia manu bisancii auri sarracenati Acon quadraginta unus et karati ***, qui restaverunt de porcione nauli predicte navis contingentem predictum Petronum pro viagio quod dicta navis | olim in proximo fecit a Messana in Acon, de quo naulo excomputata et deducta fuit quedam quantitas bisanciorum pro naulo mercium suarum quas idem Petronus in eodem viagio detulit cum eodem navi | a Messana in Acon; item, in alia manu alii bisancii auri sarracenati Acon viginti sex et dimidius, qui similiter restaverunt de porcione nauli predicte navis contingente eundem Petronum in reditu | ipsius navis que fecit de Acon in Messana, de quo naulo, excomputata et deducta fuit quedam quantitas bisanciorum pro naulo mercium suarum quas idem Petronus delatarum ab Acon in Messana cum eadem navi. Qui omnes | predicti bisancii sunt in summa bisancii auri sarracenati Acon quadringentum triginta quinque et karati sedecim. Confessi sunt e[tiam] se invenisse et pervenisse ad manus eorum in Acon res | infrascriptas quas dictus Petronus habebat penes se, videlicet: cassiam unam, corettos tres de mallia francisca; anulos aureos tres; zonam unam argenteam; dunicam unam et caprise unum | de virgata; burdonem unum; cervellerias tres; travaccam unam de blavo; vanettas usitata duas; cohopertorium unum de burdo; traverserium unum de burdo et paria duo linteaminum |. Et dicta Gusfridina, pro se et tutorio nomine et pro parte dictorum pupillorum filiorum suorum, de mandato curie Messane, ut constitit, periisset a predictis Matheo, Bulgarino et Brancacio sibi | poni et reddi ab eis debita racione et relicum sibi reddi ab eis dicti Matheus, Bulgarinus et Brancatius de mandato eiusdem curie posuerunt et fecerunt eidem Gusfridine finalem et integram racionem, per quam | ostenderunt eidem Gusfridine se emisse de predictis bisanciis in Acon sportas tres piperis, que sunt ad cantaria Acon cantarium unum et rotuli octuaginta quinque minus quartus, pro bisanciis auri | sarracenatis Acon ducentos quadraginta septem et karatos undecim, computatis suis omnibus expensis necessaro factis in empcione et ponderatura et delatura ipsius piperis usque ad navim; quos bisancios | solverunt, et predicta summa bisanciorum qua pervenerunt ad manus eorum, [re]licum vero predicte quantitatis bisanciorum, exceptis karatis tredecim, qui superfuerunt, ut constitit per eandem racionem positam ab eisdem, | ostenderunt se legitime expendisse in Acon pro conducta marinariorum predicte navis [CCC] pro porcione que contigerat dictum Petronum de dicta navi; item, pro expensis factis in egritudine ipsius et pro exequiis funereis et sepultura ipsius; item, pro solvendis debitis et legatis ipsius Petroni contentis in testamento ipsius et pro aliis necessariis expensis eiusdem Petroni, de quibus expensis nobis et eidem Gusfridine | plene constitit et facta sunt per eosdem fideicommissarios plena fides. Et sic de mandato curie Messane, ut constitit, dicti Matheus, Bulgarinus et Brancacius restituerunt et asignaverunt predicte Gusfridine, | recepituri pro se et tutorio nomine et pro parte dictorum pupillorum filiorum suorum, predictas tres sportas piperis, predictam quantitatem zuccari et omnes res alias supradictas que ad manus eorum perve|nerunt et predicti karati tredecim, qui restituerunt de predicta summa bisanciorum. Quas tres sportas piperis, predictam quantitatem de zuccaro et omnes alias supradictas et dicti karati tredecim | dicta Gusfridina, pro se et tutorio nomine et pro parte dictorum pupillorum, de mandato eiusdem curie, ut constitit, presencialiter recepit et habuit et confessa est se presencialiter recepisse et habuisse a dictis | Matheo, Bulgarino et Brancacio, et ratificavit et acceptavit predictas expensas factas per eis, renunciando excepcioni non ponderate seu non habite vel non recepte predicte quantitatis piperis, | zuccari et aliarum rerum predictarum, cuius rei causa dicta Gusfridina, pro se et tutorio nomine et pro parte dictorum pupillorum, absolvit et liberavit eosdem Matheum, Bulgarinum et Brancacium et bona et heredes | eorum, conveniens et promictens per stipulacionem sollempnem eisdem, quod occasione predicte quantitatis piperis, zuccari et aliarum rerum predictarum sibi assignatarum vel occasione bisanciorum predictorum et rerum quas dici posset | pervenisse

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ad manus eorum de bonis que fuerunt dicti Petroni quocumque iure vel modo, eosdem Matheum, Bulgarinum et Brancacium aud heredes eorum nullatenus molestabit, impediet vel ingerabit nec contra eos | exinde consitutionem seu litem movebit, in curia vel extra, per se vel per summissam personam, faciens eis pactum, finem et omnimodam refutacionem de non petendo aliquod ulterius ab eis, absolvens et liberans eos per agui|lianam stipulacionem et acceptilacionem securam pro parte vero que posset contingere predictos pupillos quorum dicta Gusfridina est tutrix in rebus predictis. Dicta Gusfridina promisit eisdem per stipilacio|nem sollempnem, se principaliter obligando, sic facere et curare quod predicti pupilli occasione predictarum rerum et pecunie supradicte eosdem Matheum, Bulgarinum et Brancacium aud heredes eorum nullatenus molestabunt, | impedient vel ingerabunt nec contra eos exinde constitutionem seu litem movebunt in curia vel extra, per se vel per summissam personam, eos exinde conservabit indempnes. Preterea, eadem Gusfridina, de mandato curie Messane, ut | constitit, presencialiter recepit et habuit et confessa est se presencialiter recepisse et habuisse a predicto Bulgarino in alia manu, pro se et tutorio nomine et pro parte dictorum pupillorum, uncias auri duo|decim et quartam ponderis generalis, quas dictus Bulgarinus olim receperat in accomodacione ad negociandum a dicto Petrono in Messana, prout continebatur in quodam puplico instrumento inde confecto manu notarii Aldigerii, | puplicus Messane notarius, quod pro casso et rupto restituit eidem Bulgarino; et in alia manu octavam partem cuiusdam bucii nunc existentis in portu Messane, qui vocatur “Sancta Crux”, cum octava parte omnium | curredorum et guarnimentorum suorum, quam idem Bulgarinus, de mandato dicti Petroni contento in testamento ipsius, receperat in Acon a Iohanne de Castello et Nicolai de Farinato, qui dictam octavam partem | ipsius bucii receperant in accomodacione a dicto Petrono in Messana, renunciando excepcioni non ponderate auri seu predicte pecunie et dicte octave partis dicti bucii et conredorum suorum non habi|tarum vel non receptarum. De qua pecunia et octava parte dicti bucii et de lucro quod ex eis posset provenire, dicta Gusfridina, pro se et tutorio nomine et pro parte dictorum pupillorum ac se princi|paliter obligando, absolvit et liberavit eundem Bulgarinum et bona et heredes eius, ut supradictus. Et si contra fecerit in predictis vel aliquo predictorum, sponte se obligavit ad penam centum unciarum | auri predictis Matheo, Bulgarino et Brancacio legitime stipulantibus vel eorum alteri, a dicta Gusfridina solvendam per stipulacionem sollempnem premissam promisit eisdem reficere et restituere omnia | dampna, expensas et interesse propter ea facta in curia et extra curia, rato manente pacto, et pactum ad sic observandum obligavit eisdem in pignore omnia bona sua presencia et f[utu]ra ubicumque melius potuerit | invenire, renunciando in hiis expresse excepcioni doli, condicioni sive causa et in factum subsidiare et privilegio et electione fori sui. Unde ad futuram memoriam et predictorum Mathei, Bulgarini et Bran|cacii cautelam, facta sunt inde tria consimilia publica instrumenta per manus mei predicti notarii Iohannis, nostris subscripcionibus roborata. Acta Messane anno, mense, die et indictione prescripte. (S) Ego Niccolosus Chicarus, iudex Messane. † Ego Niccolaus de Bonohomo Talliaferro testor. † Ego Iohannes de Leone rogatus testor. † Ego Boniohannes de Falcone testor. † Ego Matheus de Cosa testis sum. † Ego Iohannes de [Gilberto …]



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2 Acri, 1287, aprile, 9 Copia autentica del 20 settembre 1287 [C]: Princeton University Library, John Hinsdale Scheide Collection, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, box 18, n. 342. Sottoscrizioni autografe. Pergamena di mm. 210 × 305, in pessimo stato di conservazione per diffuse macchie di umidità. Regesto: Penet, Le Chartrier, II, n. 117, p. 122, e n. 119, p. 125. In nomine Domini, amen. Anno eiusdem incarnacionis millesimo ducentesimo octuagesimo septimo, vigesimo die mensis septenbris prime indictionis, regnante | domino nostro rege Iacobo, Dei gratia excellentissimo rege Sicilie, Ducactus Apulie et Principatus Capue, regni eius anno secundo, feliciter amen. Nos infra|scripti iudices civitatis Messane, Aldigerus de Guarnerio, regius puplicus eiusdem [auctor]itatis notarius, et testes subscripti, ad hoc | specialiter vocati et rogati presenti scripto puplico, notum facimus et testamur quod, accedens ad presenciam nostram Matheus Bivayqua, civis | Messane, ostendit nobis quoddam puplicum instrumentum subscripti tenoris, confectus apud Acon per manus notarii Leopardi, filii quondam Ricci, | imperialis aule iudicis ordinarii adque notarii, et omni arbitrio sollempnitati peracto, secundum nomine instrumentorum qui conficiuntur in Acon. Et | cum dubitaret ne instrumentum ipsum aliquo [casu] committeretur, pro eo quod originale instrumentum predictum debebat penes Aldoynum Gre|cum et Iohannem de Aldibrando remanere, et vellet instrumentum ipsum puplicatum habere, ad eternam rei memoriam, ut si instrumentum ipsum | ammitteretur, aliquo modo seu quovisque casu predictum puplicatum haberet, ad fidem faciendam in iudiciis et extra iudicia tanquam ipsum originale, | petiit a nobis subscriptis iudicibus et notariis, predictum nostrum officium implorandum, ut instrumentum ipsum originale ad eternam [rei] memoriam | [et cau]telam eiusdem exponentis, quia sui intererat puplicare facere deberemus, nostra iudiciale autoritate interposita. Nos au[tem …] | […] iustis et consoni rationi, et eis admissis, viso instrumento originale predicto, quod vidimus, legimus […] | […]sum non cancellatus nec viciatus in aliqua parte sui set in prima forma et f[i]gu[ra] sui consistere ac omni vicio [… | …] mandavimus et fecimus publicare ad eternam rei memoriam et cautelam eiusdem exponentis, ut ex puplicata […] posse[…] | […] iudicia tanquam ex originale predicto, per manus mei, predicti notarii Aldigerii, ut in pristina pagina continetur ipsius | [instrumenti]. “In eterni Dei nomine, amen. Ex hoc puplico instrumento sit omnibus manifestum quod Latinus Spararius quondam Berlingerii, | [burgensis Messane, fecit, constituit et ordinavit] suos procuratores et certos Aldoynum Grecum et Iohannem Aldibrandum, burgenses Messane, presentes et suscipientes, | [… re]cuperantis melior non sit condicio ad petendum et exigendum et sibi dari et a[…] Matheo la | […] procure ut decit per Bartholum notarium d[…]icio vel alium notarium in curia et [extra, in] placito [publico …] | [… tam ecclesia]sticis quam secularibus et [secularibus] et ecclesiasticis […] et rationes et possessiones […] | […] cum domo […] | […]stum, notarium vel alium notarium, et que possessio et pecia terre et pensiones […] pertinere ad […] dicti procuratoris vel alium | […] cuius rerum dictam possessionem, domus et pecie terre et pensiones restituendas et sibi dare et asignare faccendas et rationes de ipsius | [et cartam et ca]rtas possessionis faciendum et confessionis et quietacionis et finis et refutacionis inde pro eo faciendum et ad | [… eius] heredes et bona pro eo et eum et eius heredes et bona et ad litem et lites incipiendum, contestandum, interrogandum et respo|[ndendum …] procuranda que in predictis et quolibet predictorum pertinent et pertinere videbunt et expectant, et que merita vero po|[… iudicari] non possunt et ad iurandum de calumpnia sunt eius anima in omnibus causis et litibus motis

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et movendis prestita | […] tactis evangeliis coram me, Leopardo iudice et notario, et testibus infrascriptis, et de rato et iudicatum | [solvendo et contra] non faciendum que circa predicta et quolibet predictorum pertinet faciendum et que ipse in re, si presens, commune facere posset, et | […] ad penam unciarum centum auri terenorum ad pondus regni Sicilie boni et puri auri habere firmum et tenere | […] quicquid per dictos procuratores vel aliquem eorum de predictis et quolibet predictorum factum et gestum et administratum et procuratum fuerit | [et contra non venire neque facere] per se vel per alium aliquo modo vel iure sive causa, sub obligatione suorum bonorum et suorum heredum, alioquin dicta pe|[na …] dare et solvere pro[…] et con[…] omnibus iuribus quibus se a dicta pena defendere posset. Et taliter | [hec omnia me Leopardum] notarium, filium quondam Ricchi, scribere rogavit. Actum Acon, in apotheca domus Guidonis Belcayn, que | [est …] Latinus, presentibus Percello quondam Benecase et Bertholotto quondam Blasii, burgenses Messanenses, et Bindo quondam Raynerii, testibus ad hec | [rogatis. Dominice] incarnacionis anno millesimo ducentesimo octuagesimo octavo, indictione quintadecima, nono aprilis secundum cursum Pisanorum. Ego | [Leopardus] filius quondam Ricchi, imperialis aule iudex ordinarius adque notarius, hec omnia scripta a me rogata scripsi adque firmavi”. | [Et in septim]adecima linea, ubi legitur “constituit”, sequi debet “adque ordinavit”; et in vicesima linea, ubi legitur “tam | [ecclesiasticis] quam secularibus”, pro autentico habeatur, quia per me predictum notarium abrasum et emendatum est vice ad licteram “memoriam”, et que de | [… presens instrument] um plena fides habere valeat apud omnes. Factum est inde presens puplicum instrumentum per manus mei, predicti notarii Aldigerii, [nostris | subscriptionibus ro]borata. Scriptum Messane, anno, die, mense et indictione premissis. † Ego Philippus Sardus, iudex Messane. † Ego Iacobus Branca testor. † Ego Stefanus Mirella testor. † Ego Pucius de Parma testor. † Ego Adilgerus de Guarnerio, regius publicus Messane notarius [predict]us scripsi. 3 Famagosta, 1340, gennaio, 29 Originale [A]: Archivio Storico del Monastero di S. Maria dell’Alto, Messina, pergamena n. 43, di mm. 170 × 425, in buono stato di conservazione. Sul verso, di mano posteriore, le annotazioni: “29 gennaio 1340”; “Non si sa a che serve”; e “Letta da Puzzoli”. Edizione: Rosaria Stracuzzi, Il Tabulario di S. Maria dell’Alto di Messina (1245–1718) (Messina, 2010 = Archivio Storico Messinese 89/90 [2008/2009]), n. 43, pp. 245–48. In nomine Domini, amen. Cum Cunstancius Manione de Messana confessus fuerit | et recognoverit mihi Mateo Prete Ianuensi, de Messana, se a me habuisse et rece|pisse mutuo gratis et amore uncias perrialium sive carlensium argenti dea | Messana decem et septem et tarenos decem, computatis perialibus sive | carlensibus sexaginta pro uncia, ut de dicta confessione et debito constat | per instrumentum scriptum manu magistri Franciscib condam Bonanietis de Corvaya | notarii MCCCXXXIII, ut assero. Ex quo debito consecutus sum in a 

De rip. in A. Franciscisci in A.

 

b



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curia Me|ssane per extimationem mihi datam et concessam a dicta curia Messane domum unam, que | fuit de bonis dicti Constantii, de tribus solariis, positam Messane, in contratta Grecie, | cui coheret a tribus partibus via sive strata puplica et a quarta parte, de versus po|nentem, alique domus quas nescio cuius vel quorum sint vel essent. Et quia domus de|bitum feci de peccunia quondam Baliani Spanni Venetis, habitatoris Fa|magoste, volens in predictis agnoscere bonam fidem et facere que de iure debeo, | confiteor tibi Lanzarotto, filio et heredi dicti condam Baliani ac ex|ecutori [testamenti] dicti condam Baliani, prout de executione constat plenius et | apparet in testamento dicti condam Baliani, scripto Famagoste, manu dictic magistri | Francisci notarii, MCCCXXXVIIII, die XVIIII mensis iulii. Quod dictum debitum et | omnia contenta in instrumento dicti debiti dictarum unciarum, et per consequens dicta domus | et extimacio ipsius domus et omnia iura que habeo et consecutus fui occaxione dicti de|biti contra dictum Constantium, ad te dictum Lanzarotum, filium et heredem et exe|cutorem, spectant et pertinent pleno iure, et non ad me dictum Mateum | in aliquo. Renuncians excepcioni dicte confessionis non facte rei ut supra et infra per omnia | verum non esse, doli in factum et omni iuri quin do, cedo et trado et mando | tibi dicto Lanzaroto, filio, heredi et executori predicto, et in te transfero | omnia iura, rationes et actiones reales, personales et penales, rei persecutorias | et mistas que et quas habeo et mihi competunt seu unquam competierunt vel de ce|tero competere possent contra et adversum dictum Constantium habendas et bona ipsius | occaxione dicti debiti et extimationis predicte quantum pro dictis unciis decem et sep|tem et tarenis decem, et promitto tibi supradictum instrumentum dicti debiti et omnia | acta curie et scripturas dicte extimationis dare et consignare Messane integra | et illexa ad utendum infra dies quindecim proximo venturos, postquam mihi | dederis et solveris uncias perialium sive carlensium argenti sep|tem, [computando carlenis] sive perialibus sexaginta per onciam et tare|nos decem, quos asseris te mihi debere et quibus mihi promittis in | presenti facere seu fieri facere bonum publicum instrumentum. Quibus unciis et tarenis | mihi solutis te dictum Lanzarotum, filium, heredem et executorem | predictum, in predictis omnibus iuribus dominum et procuratorem constituo ut in rem | tuam et ponens te in locum meum, ita ut dictis iuribus et actionibus | uti possis tuo nomine directo agere, experiri, excipere, resplicare, | transigere et pacisci et potire dictum debitum, sortem et penam et bona | obligata ac etiam extimationem predictam et omnia et singula demum facere | que egomet Mateus facere possem seu unquam melius potui, acto | quod dicta iura tibi non tenear facere efficacia seu debitorem locuple|tem et solvendo nec ad interesse vel ad aliquid aliud sed talia qualia habeo | et habui talia tibi cessa esse inteligantur. Quam confessionem et iurium | cessionem et omnia et singula suprascripta et infrascripta promitto tibi stipulanti | ratam et firmam et rata et firma […] habere et tenere et contra in aliquo non facere | vel venire, sub pena dupli de […], et quotiens contra fient vel non obser|vantur solepni stipulacione in singulis capitulis huius contractus in solidum promissa, | et refficere et restituere tibi omnia et singula danna et expensas ac | interesse que propterea fierent. Pro quibus omnibus et singulis firmiter obser|vandis, ego Mateus me ipsum et omnia bona mea habita et habenda | dicto tibi in acto iure pignoris obligo, et iuro ad sancta Dei evan|gelia observare ut supra. Actum Famagoste, in logia Ianuensi, anno | dominice nativitatis MCCC quadragesimo, indictione VII, secundum cursum Ianuensem, die vigeximo nono ianuarii, circa ottavam oram, presentibus testibus rogatis Iohanne Gatucio, Facino iudice de Ianua | et Bartholucio Gemini quondam Bartholucii de Messana. (S) Ego Petrus de Doveno de Terdona, imperiali auctoritate notarius et | scriba curie Ianuensis Famagoste, predictis interfui et rogatus | scripsi. c 

Dicti rip. in A.

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4 Messina, 1346, aprile, 17 Originale [A]: ASM, FP, n. 626, di mm. 440 × 175, in discreto stato di conservazione, a prescindere da alcuni piccoli fori lungo il margine destro. In calce due notazioni di mano del XIV secolo: “XXIII madii infirmatum est .p.; IIII .quo. falli XV f(iorini)”. Al verso, di mano del XVIII secolo, la notazione: “Non farne […]”; di mano del XIX secolo la data: “17 aprile 1346”; e di mano del secolo scorso: “N° 140; Inv. A. 4070 e Inv. n. 3453”; e, a lapis, “Ex n. 140; n. 601 ex; n. 626”. Regesto: Seminara, Le Pergamene, n. 626, p. 253. In nomine Domini, amen. Anno incarnacionis eiusdem millesimo trecentesimo quatragesimo sexto, septimo | decimo die mensis aprilis, quartedecime indictionis, regnante serenissimo domino nostro domino rege Lodovico, Dei gracia | excellentissimo rege Sicilie, regni eius anno quarto, feliciter amen. Coram nobis Guidone Dyamanti, iudice no|bilis civitatis Messane, Christoforo de Rocca de Messana, imperiali auctoritate ubique notario puplico ac regio puplico eiusdem auctoritatis | notario, et testibus subnotatis ad hoc specialiter vocatis et rogatis. Conradus de Sallimbene, dictus de Acodona, habitator civitatis | Syragusie, consenciens primo in nos predictos iudicem et notarium tamquam in suos proprios, cum ex certa conscientia sciret nos suos non esse iudicem | et notarium, presente ibidem et hoc petente, interrogante provido viro Baldoyno de Abugnali seniore, mercatore cive Messane, | confessus est omnia et singula infrascripta et nos ipsi iudex, notarius et testes presenti scripto puplico notus [facimus et testamur] | quod, cum predicto pretitulato die dictus Conradus confessus fuerit se pro suis voluntatibus et necessitatibus pert[ractare] | mutuo gratis et precibus presencialiter recepisse et integre habuisse a Francisco Paulillo, cive Messane, ibidem presenti, de [eius proprie] | pecunie uncias auri triginta quinque sine cambio, pro viagio quod ad presentem dictus Conradus debitor facturum se dixerat recedendo | a portu civitatis Syragusie cum quadam calera sua vocata “Sanctus Salvator”, nunc in portu Messane existente, et eundo apud Barutum | et a Baruto redeundo Ciprum et a Cipro iterum eundo seu redeundo in Baruto et a Baruto ad unum seu in unum subscriptorum trium | locorum, videlicet Trapanum vel Syragusiam vel Messanam, ubi sibi melius videbitur, viagio alio non mutato, onerando, eundo et redeundo ad for|tunam et risicum Dei, maris et gentis et dictorum calere, conredorum suorum et rerum et mercium dicti Conradi onerande in dicta calera sua; et | [quanto] dictus Conradus debitor reversus fuerit de dicto viagio in unum dictorum trium locorum vel redeundo poterat, sponte tenebatur et | debeat ac convenerat et promiserat, per stipulationem sollempnem, per se et heredes suos, dicto Francisco creditori, sibi vel suis heredibus aut certo | nuncio suo vel habenti ius [circa] ab eo, integre reddere, restituere et assignare in pace, sine molestia et absque ulla diminucione, | in pecunia numerata auri vel argenti, non in aliis rebus, predictas uncias auri triginta quinque sine cambio infra mensem unum | postquam dictus debitor redierit et applicuerit et portum fecerit in unum dictorum trium locorum de viagio supradicto, sub pacto inter eosdem contra homines | habito sollempne et firmato, ut constitit, videlicet quod incontinenti cum dicta calera applicuerit salubriter ad unum dictorum trium locorum, dicta pecunia sit | salva in terra. Item, quod dictus debitor dare tenebatur dicto creditori per totum viagium supradictum et quousque sibi non satisfecerit de tota pecunia | supradicta, victum et potum mense sue; item, predictus creditor debet sibi conferre et personaliter cum dicta calera et ponere in dicta calera cantaria | duo de pondere de quibuscumque rebus et noli sibi necessaria, videlicet tam in eundo quam redeundo, nulloque naulo propter ea persolvendo per dictum | debitorem creditori predicto



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sub dicta pena et obligacione omnium bonorum suorum, vinculo ecciam sacramenti. Et ad maiorem cau|telam dicti creditoris, predictus Baldoynus, ad requisitionem et preces dicti Conradi debitoris constituens et obligans et se per eodem | debitorem erga ipsum creditorem fideiussorem proprium, debitorem et principalem pagatorem de predicta pecunia mutui predicti eidem | creditori restituenda et assignanda in terminos supradictos et in pecunia numerata auri vel argenti et non in aliis rebus | ac ecciam de predicto victu potu dandi, tradendi et assignandi, modo et forma predictis de predicto portatu vel omnibus et singulis | supradictorum firmiter attendendi et observandi, ut supra dictum est, sub eisdem pena, pactis, obligaccionibus, promissionibus, stipulacionibus, | renunciationibus omnibus supradictis ratis superius adinvicem in predicto in principali primo fideiussore sollempne, reperitis privilegiis ad ipsum reservando | iuri de principali primo conveniendo in omnibus aliis iuribus quibus supradicto venire cum vinculo ecciam sacramenti, prout hec et alia | plenius contineri vidimus in quodam puplico instrumento apud Messanam unde confecto predicto pretitulato die, manu mei predicti notarii Christofori | et subsignato per iudicem Matheum de Guerciis et alios probos viros legitimi numeri. Et dum dictus Baldoynus dubitaret ne forte | ratione dicte fideiussionis ei dampnum aliquid eveniri posse et requisiverit eundem Conradum ut de dicta fideiussionem cautum et securum | facere deberet ipsumque Baldoynum, eius heredes et bona omnia prorsus servare indempnes in curia et extra curia necnon salde, et | pagare in pecunia numerata, ut dictum est dicto Francisco, id actum quod dictus Baldoynus solverit ratione dicte fideiussionis statim ad ipsius | Balduyni primam requisitionem et voluerit ecciam dictus Conradus quod in reg[…] possit facere et fieri facere exequtionem contra eum | in persona vel in rebus, quod […] non sit de contractibus in quibus [ri]tus ipse locum habet, et dictus Conradus volens, premissa omnia | eidem Baldoyno adimplendo sponte convenire promisit, per se predicta omnia sollempne, per se et heredes suos, dicto Baldoyno sibi et suis heredibus | predictam pecuniam solvere et pagare in pecunia numerata dicto Francisco et omnia sibi dictus Franciscus attendere et observare si forte dictus | Baldoynus aliquid solverit de pecunia supradicta; quod totum illud quicquid precium solverit dicto Francisco de pecunia supradicta | seu de omnibus aliis causis quod illud solvere teneatur et debeat dictus Conradus dicto Baldoyno et quod regia curia possit | contra eum facere exequtionem in persona vel in rebus suis, non obstante quod non sit de contractibus quibus ratis ipse locum ipsumque Baldoy|num contra heredes et bona prorsus servare indempnes etiam si dictus Conradus contra fecerit in predictis vel in aliquo predictorum puplicorum se alligavit | ad penam dupli predicte pecunie predicto Baldoyno singula et legitimus contractus sollempne promissione et tenori sibi promisit refutare sibi omnia dampna, | expense et interesse propterea facti et faciendi in curia et extra curia, rato manente pacto, obligando eidem Baldoyno proinde pignorare | omnia bona sua mobilia et stabilia, presencia et futura ubicumque melius apparentia. Renunciando expressim in hiis omnibus consuetudinibus | civitatis Messane et omium aliorum locorum super pignaoribus editis, excepcione doli, condicioni sine causa et in facto privilegio fori | sui et legi si convenerit quod nullum forum sibi competeret vel competicionem possit eligere et in quolibet foro a dicto Balduyno | electo possit et debeat conveniri feriis, beneficio moratorie seu dilatorie impetratis vel impetrandis nec inpetratis | uti ex pacto sollemni, ut constitit, et omnibus aliis iuribus quibus predicta venire possit. Et tacto corporaliter libro, dictus | Conradus iuravit eidem Baldoyno ad sancta Dei evangelia omnia singula predicta facere, attendere et observare et | in nullo contravenire. Unde ad futuram memoriam et dicti Baldoyni cautelam, factum est inde suprascriptum puplicum instrumentum per manus | mei predicti notarii Christofori, nostris subscriptionibus communitum”. Quod autem superius, in tertia linea, ubi legitur “Guidone Dyamanti”, et in tricesimaquar|ta linea, ubi legitur “subsignato per iudicem Matheum de Guerciis”, abrasum

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et emendatum est per me predictum notarium non vicio sed herrore, ideo | pro autentico habeatur. Actum Messane, anno, mense, die, indictione premissis. (S) Ego Guido Dyamanti iudex Messane. † Ego Nicolosus de Raynerio testor. † Ego Mellonus de Bello testor. † Ego Raymundus de Iohanne testor. † Ego Bartholomeus Russus testor. (S) Ego Christoforus de Rocca de Messana, imperialis vicarius ubique notarius puplicus ac regius puplicus nobilis civitatis Messane notarius predicta scripsi et testor. 5 Famagosta, 1351, settembre, 5 Originale [A]: ASM, FP, n. 595, di mm. 270 × 488, in buono stato di conservazione. Al v. una notazione del XVII secolo: “Nauligiamentum cuiusdam vaxelli nauliczati per Marinum de Anfusio a Christofaro Gattoli filius quondam Iacobi vocati Sanctus Iacopus de Gatta patrono ditti vaxelli. In Famagusta”; e alcune notazioni a lapis moderne: “5 settembre 1351”; “ex n. 308”; “n. 570 ex” e “OSMP n° 595”. Regesto: Seminara, Le Pergamene, n. 595, pp. 242–43. In Dei nomine, amen. Ex hoc publico instrumento pateat omnibus evidenter quod, presente me notario et testibus infrascriptis, Cristofarus | Gattolus, filius quondam Jacopi vocati Sanctus Jacopus de Gacta, patronus et dominus cuiusdam panfani vocati “Sanctus Iulianus | et Sanctus Bartholomeus”, nunc in portu Famagoste existentis firmati, ire et navigare ad portum Pisis, Deo duce, ex certa scientia dictum panfanum | naulizavit in parte et locavit seu naulizato et locato nomine concessit Marino de Anfuso de Messana, mercatori ibidem | presenti et recipienti bona fide. Quem quidem panfanum dictus patronus convenit et promisit dicto Marino habere bene stagnum, munitum et | paratum quibuscumque sibi indigentibus, et insuper levare et carigare seu levari et carigari facere in dicto panfano, nomine | et pro nomine dicti Marini, quintalia octo spetiarie, pro quibus dictus Marinus convenit et promisit solvere dicto patrono, pro nolo de quolibet | quintalio dicte spetiarie, florenos tres minus quartum ad quintalia Famagoste. Et etiam dictus patronus promisit dicto Marino carigare | seu carigari facere in dicto panfano, nomine dicti Marini, carratellos tres de cennamo, de quibus dictus Marinus promisit solvere | dicto patrono, pro nolo dictorum carratellorum, florenos septem. Qui patronus promisit dicto Marino cum dictis quintaliis et carra|tellis ponere seu poni facere in portu Messane insule Sicilie, ante quam vadat cum dicto panfano ad dictum portum Pisis, salvo | tamen impedimento Dei, gentium atque maris aut contradictione Iohannis et Tomasi, Pisanorum mercatorum, et Petrucci de Concha, | quibus dictus patronus dictum naulizavit pro eundo ad portum Pisis,a Neapoli, alibi non accipiendo contra eorum voluntatem, | salvo tamen impedimento Dei, gentium et maris, ut dictum, ut patet per cartam naulizationis rogatam a me, notario infrascripto, anno presenti, | mense et die tertia septembris. Sed si contra dictum esset dicto patrono per dictos mercatores, promisit et convenit dicto Marino dictus | patronus eum ponere cum dicta mercantia apud torrettam farri Messane predicte, salvo tamen impedimento Dei, gentium atque maris. | Sed promisit a 

Sg. ad cass. in A.



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dictus patronus dicto Marino, si eum ponere non poterit apud torrettam predictam, ponere eum cum dicta mercantia | in aliqua alia parte insule Sicilie. Que si dictus patronus non fecerit et non observaverit, et alibi eundem extra dictam | insulam Sicilie portaverit dictum Marinum, cum dicta mercantia spetiarie et carratellis, contra eius voluntatem, dictus Marinus | possit ei petere omne dampnum et interesse quod adveniret de dicta mercantia dicto patrono, obligando inde se dictus p[atronus] | et omnia cum refectione dampnorum et expensarum. Et dictus Marinus convenit et promisit dicto patrono ei solvere naulum sup[radictum] | ea die qua receperit dictam mercantiam ad omnem primam petictionem dicti patroni, ad penam dupli totius pretii dicti nauli, | tollendam per dictum patronem dicto Marino cum refectione dampnorum et expensarum, obligando inde se dictus Marinus et omnia | bona sua. Que omnia et singula dictus patronus ex una parte et dictus Marinus ex alia laudantes, approbante[s et] affir|mantes, inter sese et sibi adinvicem stipulantes promiserunt ea omnia et singula, prout superius scripta sunt, habere et tenere firma | et rata atque observare et contra non facere vel venire quoquo modo, sub ypotheca et obligatione omnium bonorum suorum, presentium et | futurorum, et specialiter sub pena ordinata per partem non observantem parti enim observanti persolvenda, cum refectione dampnorum et expensarum, | ut supra dictum est, ac interesse litis. Et extra de quibus dampnis, expensis et interesse premissis, promiserunt inter sese et sibi adinvicem | credere seu credi debere solo simplici et nudo verbo, sine sacramento vel quacumque alia probactione seu iudicis vel iudicum | tassatione et nullam contrariam exceptionem, negactionem vel defentionem iuris vel facti generalem vel specialem contra predicta seu | aliquod predictorum opponere vel opponi facere quoquo modo. Quominus ad integram conductionem, observationem et plenariam consignactionem | et satisfactionem possit quotiens fuerit contrafactum et data et soluta aut grosse remissa vel presens contractum cum omnibus in eo | contentis in suo robore permaneat, volentes dictus Marinus ex una parte et dictus patronus ex alia per hunc contractum posse | ubilibet cogi et ad iudicium trahi et realiter et personaliter conveniri sub quocumque iudicio, magistratu seu preside et cum quacumque | curia, ecclesiastica vel mundana, si predictis vel aliquo predictorum modo aliqua machinactione sine causa de iure vel | de facto presument contra ire, fori privilegio non obstante. Renuntiantes predicti Marinus et patronus ex certa scientia | in predictis exceptionibus non facte huiusmodi premissis convenientibus obligactionibus et predictorum non interventorum; et ita actorum | metus doli mali, fori privilegio omnique tempori feriato et omni appellactione, remedio, beneficiis et constituctione | quibuscumque legum et usus ausilio et generaliter omni exceptioni, defensioni, statuto, prohibictione, auxilio atque i[u]r[a], | precipue iuri dicenti generalem renuntiactionem non valere. Actum in Famagosta, in camera loggie P[isis], | anno dominice nativitatis millesimo, trecentesimo, quinquagesimo primo, indictione quarta, die quinta mensis septembris, pre|sentibus Bartho Leonis de Florentia et Zenobi Nicolai de Florentia et Iannotto Bonati de Florentia, | habitatoribus Famagoste, et aliis. (S) EGO ANdreas filius quondam Falconis notarii Pisis civitatis, inperiali auctoritate | iudex ordinarius, predictis omnibus interfui et de predictis rogatus scribere rogavi | et in publicam formam redegi.

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6 Famagosta, 1352, ottobre, 10 Originale [A]: ASM, FP, n. 648, di mm. 316 × 180, in buono stato di conservazione. Al verso, di mano contemporanea: “Quietatio sir Balduyni de Brugnali eidem facte per Vitalem Gatum”; di mano del XVII secolo una notazione evanida; di mano del XVIII secolo la data: “10 ottobre 1353”, poi corretta a lapis da mano più moderna in “1352”; e di mano del XX secolo le notazioni: “Inv. N. 3436”; “inv. A. 4074”; e, a lapis, “ex n° 143; n. 623 ex; PRIN n. 648”. Regesto: Seminara, Le Pergamene, n. 648, p. 262. In Christi nomine, amen. Anno nativitatis eiusdem millesimo trecentesimo quinquagesimo secundo, indictione quinta, die decimo mensis │ octubris, pontificatus sanctissimi in Christo patris et domini domini Clementis, divina providentia papa VI, anno undecimo, noverint │ universi et singuli presens publicum instrumentum inspecturi, quod in presentia mei notarii et testium infrascriptorum, ad hoc specialiter │ vocatorum et rogatorum, Vitalis Gato, civis Messane, per se et suos heredes fuit confessus et contentus habuisse et │ recepisse a sir Balduyno de Brugnali mercatore, civi Messane, sexcentos viginti quinque │ bisantios albos de Cypro, quod dictus sir Balduynus dicto Vitali dare et solvere tenebatur │ vigore cuiusdam instrumenti cambii scripti manu Macci de Rocha notarii, facti in millesimo trecentesimo │ quinquagesimo secundo, indictione quinta, die vigesimo primo mensis iulii, a me notario infrascripto viso et │ lecto, renuncians exceptioni doli mali metus causa, conditioni indebiti et sine causa et ex iniusta │ causa et factum attorem, fori privilegio, feriis et diebus feriatis et exceptioni non habitorum, solut[o]rum, │ traditorum et non mercatorum dictorum, videlicet et omni alii legum et iure et consilio. Quod quidem │ instrumentum cambii dictus Vitalis voluit et mandavit esse vanum et cassum et nullius │ valoris atque momenti, restituens sibi presentialiter incisum, absolvens et liberans │ dictum sir Balduynum et eius heredes et bona a dicta quantitate sexcentorum viginti quinque │ bisantium alborum de Cypro, et ab omni eo et toto quod dictus Vitalis dicto sir Balduyno │ petere posse vigore dicti instrumenti. Que omnia et singula suprascripta promisit dictus Vitalis │ per se et suos heredes dicto sir Balduyno, pro se et suis heredibus stipulante, puplica, firma et rata │ habere, tenere, observare et adimplere et in nullo contrafacere vel venire pro se vel alium, aliqua │ ratione vel causa, de iure vel de facto. Item, refficere et restituere omnia et singula dampna │, supt., expensas et interesse litis et extra, pro quibus omnibus et singulis firmiter observandis │ obligavit dictus Vitalis dicto sir Balduyno omnia sua bona presentia et futura. │ Actum Famagoste, in logia Cathelanorum, presentibus Dannano Amatoris, Climento Henrici, │ Iacobo Barono et Maccio Peroni, omnibus de Messana, testibus vocatis et rogatis. (S) Ego Paulus quondam Francisci de Puteo de Bononia, publicus apostolica ac imperiali │ auctoritate notarius, predictis omnibus interfui et rogatus predicta scribere presentibus scripsi. Subscripsi.



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7 Messina, 1354, febbraio, 15 Copia autentica del 12 marzo 1355 [A]: ASM, FP, n. 628, di mm. 427 × 320, in cattivo stato di conservazione per larghi strappi lungo le piegature, che pregiudicano la lettura di numerose parole. La datazione è espressa secondo lo stile fiorentino. Al verso, di mano contemporanea all’atto, la notazione, molto evanida: “Pro Baldoyno de Abrignali […] Rayneri”; di mano del XVIII secolo quelle, pure evanide, “per presens instrumentum confessus est Nerius Parcellinus recepisse ob locationem sue caravelle uncias sexaginta sex et tarenos decem et octo a Raynerio de Scala cive Messanensis set nihil ad monasterium”; e “non serve al monastero”; di mano del XIX secolo la data: “12 maggio 1354”; di mano del secolo scorso le notazioni: “Inv. n. 3444”; e, a lapis, “Inv. A. 4075, ex n. 144, n. 603 ex, n. 628”. Regesto: Seminara, Le Pergamene, n. 628, p. 254, con datazione erroneamente attribuita al giorno 13. In nomine Domini, amen. Anno incarnacionis eiusdem millesimo trecentesimo quinquagesimo quarto, duodecimo die [mensis] marcii, octave indictionis, regnante serenissimo domino domino nostro rege Ludovico, Dei gratia excellentissimo rege | Sicilie, regni eius anno terciodeci[mo, feliciter] amen. Coram nobis Iohanne de Consule, iudice nobilis civitatis [Messane], Nicoloso de Raynaldo de Messana, regio puplico curie imperialis notario et testibus subnominatis, ad hoc specialiter vocatis | et rogatis. Angelus de Scala, mercator, civis Messane, asserens se, iure sibi cesso ex causa vendicionis […] sibi facta per Raynerium de Scala, fratrem suum, civem Messane, ut constitit de cessione predicta per quoddam puplicum | instrumentum aput Messanam, [inde] confectum [in] manu notarii Maynieri de Avillano, regii puplici Messane notarii [imperia]lis, decimo die mensis ianuarii presentis octave indictionis; quam cesso predicto, asserens se debere et re|cipere, ex causa [cuiusdam] cambii a [s]yri Nerio Parcellino de Pisis uncias auri sexaginta sex [et tarenos] decem et octo sine cambio, vigore subscripti puplici instrumenti inde confecti manu notarii Andree Russi, | imperiali auctoritate ubique notarii puplici ac regii puplici totius insule Sicilie notarii, quod insertum vidimus [et le]gimus et inspeximus diligenter, actendentes ipsum non abolitum, non abrasum nec viciatum est aliqua parte | sui, sed in eius propria forma et figura consist[entem], omni prorsus vicio et suspicione ta[cen]s, ipsum de verb[o] ad verbum exemplavimus pro ne iacet, nichil in eo addito, diminuto est vel mutato. Cuius predicti | inserti dicti cambii tenor per omnia talis esset: “In nomine Domini, amen. Anno eiusdem incarnacionis millesimo tr[ecen]tesimo quinquagesimo tercio, mense februarii, quintodecimo eiusdem, septime indictionis, regnante serenissimo domino | domino nostro rege Loduvico, Dei gratia excellenti rege Sicilie, regni eius anno duodecimo, feliciter amen. C[or]am nobis Philippo de Bilingerio, iudice nobilis civitatis Messane, Andrea Russo de Messana, imperiali auctoritate ubique | notario puplico ac regio puplico totius insule Sicilie notario et testibus subnominatis ad hoc vocatis specialiter et rogatis. [Sy]ri Nerius Percellinus, civis Pisarum, dominus et patronus cuiusdam caliere nunc existentis in portu Messane, vocata | “Sanctus Antonius”, ad duos timones et duo cohoperta, consenciens primo in nos predictos iudicem et notarium, ca[usa] quod in suos, cum certe ex certa eius scientia non suos non esse, sponte confessus est se presencialiter rece|pisse et integre habuisse in cambium et nomine cambii a Raynerio de Scala, filio syri Ligii de Scala mer[cat]ore, cive Messane, ibique presente et interrogante, de eius proprie tantam quantitatem perrialium argenti monete | insule Sicilie que assendent ad summam, precium et valorem unciarum auri sexaginta sex et tarenorum decem et oct[o] sine cambio eiusdem monete Sicilie bone, bene ponderate, mundam et

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puram ab omni fen[ore et] usura. Renunciando | [exceptione] doli, [dicte] pecunie non habite, [non recepte], non numerate, non assignate vel non ponderate vel non [v]alentis seu assendentis ad summam predictam, quas p[artes unciarum auri] sexaginta sex, tarenorum decem | [et octo] eiusdem m[onete sine] ca[mbio] de […] do[…] per se et heredes suos, convenit et promisit per [stipulationem] sollempnem eidem creditori integre salvare et pagare, dare, tradere, reservare et assignare sibi | vel heredibus suis sive habenti ius et [omni] ab eo seu certo suo nuncio in pace, sine maleficia [et a]bsque ulla diminucione, in pecunia numerata auri vel argenti et non in aliis rebus, in civitate Messane | infra dies quindecim iunta ibidem salubriter dicta calera a die aplicacionis ipsius calere in an[tea, rede]undo de viagio quod facturum se dixit ad presens, recedendo Messana idem Nerius cum dicta calera | [et] eundo recta via Rodum et deinde recedendo et eundo recta via aput Palachiam et [Th]eologim vel ad unum dictorum duorum locorum, et deinde recedendo et redeundo recta via aput | portum civitatis Messane, viagio alio non mutato, salvo iusto Dei, maris et gentium impedimento, eundo, eundi et redeundi ad risicum et fortunam Dei, maris et gentium dicti Raynerii de Scala | creditoris. Et actum est inter eos ex pacto sollempni, ut constitit, quod si forte exiverit dicta calera aput Rodum, dictus patronus deinde recedere debet cum eadem calera et ire aput partes Pala|chie et Theologi vel ad unum dictorum duorum locorum ad onerandum ibi frumento et deinde iret alibi ad exonerandum, quod in civitate Messane quod ibidem inde in terra Rodi. In ipso casu dictus patronus | sibi dare teneatur et occasione cambii supradicti ad primam requisitionem dicti creditoris uncias auri quatrag[in]ta quatuor, tarenos tredecim, grana decem de liliatis boni ac iusti cunei et ponderis ana sexaginta | per unciam computandis, sub pena dupli [dicte] pecunie eidem creditori legitima stipulacioni solvendis, [ratione] promissionis et tenori sibi reficere promisit omnia dampna extra et interesse propterea facta et facienda in curia | vel extra curia, rato manente pacto, obligando sibi proinde pignori omnia bona sua mobilia et stabilia, presentes et futura, ubicumque melius appareant et specialiter predictam caleram suam, cum omnibus | affisis, conredis et guarnimentis sui[s, et] naulum dicte calere et etiam personam suam, non obstante et sine presentia vel contradictione dicti debitoris longiqua vel propinqua, necessaria voluntate vel | probabili et r[enunciando] expressim proinde auxilio iuris et sacri, excepcione doli et infamia condicioni, sine causa s[ui ve]l sui beneficio servari, legi et querere et omnibus et singulis aliis iuribus, scriptis et non scriptis, | quibusquam predicta vel aliquod predictorum [v]enire valeret, et tacto corporaliter libro, dictus de[bito]r iuravit eidem creditori ad sancta Dei evangelia predicta omnia et singula supradicta firmiter acten|dere, observare et in nullo contravenire. Unde ad futuram memoriam et dicti creditoris cautelam [fac]tum est inde presens puplicum instrumentum per manus mei predicti notarii Andree nostris subsignatibus robo|ratum, [actum] est inter eos ex pacto sollemni, ut constitit, quod dictus patronus sibi dare tenetur […] mandandam in mensa sua, et quod dictus creditor habeat tantum de solidis a dicta pecunia quantum | habere debet Iacobinus de Hugolino de solidis mensium duorum dictus creditor confessus est sibi facti seu factum de duobus mensibus a civitate Messane anno, mensis, die et indictione premissis. (S) Ego Philippus de | Bilingerio, iudex Messane. † Ego Cusafi de Cusafi testor. † Ego Nicolaus de Luca testor. † Ego Iohannes de Cavili testor. (S) Ego Andreas Russus de Messana, imperiali auctoritate ubique notarius puplicus | ac regius puplicus totius insule Sicilie notarius predicta scripsi et testor. Dictus Angelus, iure cesso […] vendidit et ex causa vendicionis ipsius omne solucione cessit et habere concessit provido viro | syri Balduyno de Abrugnali, mercatori civi Messane, presenti et ementi, omnia iura omnesque actiones et raciones reales et personales, utiles, directas et mixtas, tacitas vel expressas, que et quas | dictus Angelus venditor habet, habebat vel habetur, potest seu sperat habitura, et que […] competunt et competere possunt et poterunt adversus dictum Nerium et bona sua in uncias | auri viginti duobus de predict[a] summa unciarum auri sexaginta sex,



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tarenos decem et octo in dicto instrumento cambii contentarum pro unciis auri viginti duobus, quas dictus Angelus vendere confessus est se presentialiter recepisse et habuisse a domino syri Baldoyno emptore pro precio et pagamento vendicionis iure predictarum rerum, exceptione doli dicte pecunie non ponderate, non habite vel non recepte aut non numerat et | propterea omnia iura sua predicta quantum ad dictas uncias viginti duas de dicta summa ex causa presentis iuris vendicionis et cessionis dictus venditor a se et heredes suos omnino alienans et transferens in | dictam empcionem et suos heredes sponte transtulit, quasi tradidit, cessit et habere concessit, consenciens ipsum emptorem exinde procuratorem et actorem in rem suam, ut possit inde suo proprio nomine uti actionibus, utilibus | et dicens agere, causari, excipere, replicare et experiri predicto instrumento dicti cambii uti quo ad dictas uncias auri viginti duas, tantum et non plus, de summa predicta; et omnia et singula facere et exercere | utilia et directa in iudiciis et extra iudicia, in premissis et circa premissa. Qui verus dominus potest facere de […] sua propria et que ipse idem venditor facere posset si presentem iura venditoris non fecisset et ratum | habere promisit et firmum quicquid dictus emptor predictis iuris duxerit faciendo et quod de premissis dictus venditor alicui alteri persone vendicionem, donationem seu iurium cessionem non fecit seu facere de cetero aliquod | mansum vel mansurum sub ypotheca et obligacione omnium bonorum suorum et sub pena dupli predicte pecunie, cum restitucione damnorum extra et interesse rato, manente pacto deinde expressum in hiis omnibus exceptione doli, condi|cioni sine causa et in factum, privilegio fo[ri], legi si convenerit, feriis et omnibus generaliter iuribus quibus contra predictis vel aliquo predictorum venire possit, unde ad futuram memoriam et dicti Balduyni emptoris cautelam | factum est inde presens puplicum instrumentum per manus mei predicti notarii Nicolosi, nostris subscriptionibus communitum. (S) Ego Iohannes de Consule, iudex Messane. (S) Ego Nicolosus de [Raynaldo] de Messana, regius puplicus totius insule Sicilie notarius scripsi et testatus sum. 8 Siracusa, 1359, gennaio, 23 Originale [A]: ASM, FP, n. 649, di mm. 316 × 283, in discreto stato di conservazione. Al verso notazione evanida di mano del XVIII secolo; di mano del XIX la data: “23 gennaio 1358”; e di mano del secolo scorso le notazioni: “Inv. n. 3446”; e, a lapis, “Inv. A. 4076; ex n. 145, n. 624 ex e n. 649”. Regesto: Seminara, Le Pergamene, n. 649, p. 262. In nomine Domini, amen. Anno dominice incarnacionis millesimo trecentesimo quinquagesimo octavo, mensis ianuarii, vicesimo tercio eiusdem, duodecime indictionis, regnante | serenissimo domino domino nostro rege Federico, Dei gratia inclito rege Sicilie ac ducatus Athenarum et Neopatrie duce, felicis domini regni sui anno quarto, feliciter amen. | Coram nobis Nicolaus de la Rocca, iudice civitatis Syracusie, notario Angelo de Avenella de Syracusia, regio puplico civitatum, terrarum et locorum eodem vallis Nothi notario et testibus | subsignatis, ad hoc vocatis, specialiter et rogatis, Bernardus Gilius, Catalanus de Barcillona, dominus et patronus cuiusdam ligni vocati “Sancti Antonii”, de bankibus undecim, ut dixit, consenciens | prius in nos predictos iudicem et notarium tamquam in suos, cum sciret ex certa eius scientia nos suos iudicem et notarium non esse, in hac parte presencialiter fuit confessus se recepisse et habuisse in acco|mandita et nomine accomandite

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a Beringerio Puyol Catalano et Beninato Ferrerio Messanense, presentibus et hoc petentibus, florenos de auro de Florencia boni et iusti ponderis | sexaginta in expedicione dicti ligni cum eundo ad lucrandum, prout infrascribitur eundo, a dicto Beringerio florenos de auro boni iustique ponderis quindecim et a dicto Beninato quatra|gnta quinque. Inde, de viagio quod nunc dictus Bernardus facturum asserit cum dicto ligno ad pirateriam exercendam in partibus Romanie et deinde in quatuor partibus mundi, ad | risicum et fortunam Dei, maris et gentium et dicti Beringerius et Beninatus, renuncians dictus Bernardus excepcioni non numerate pecunie, non bonorum non bene ponderatorum, non receptorum | seu non habitum florinorum predictorum, exceptione doli et in facto et cuilibet alie exceptioni pro quibus florenis sexaginta. Et in excepcione dictorum florenorum dictus Bernardus promisit et convenit, per stipulacionem sollemnem, pro se et heredes suos, dare et integre assignare dictis Beringerio et Beninato eorumque heredibus et successoribus seu certo eorum nuncio et procuratori vel habenti ius | […] ab eo in pace, sine maleficia et absque aliqua contradicione seu diminucione, in redditu dicti viagii, in civitate Cathanie vel ubi campum fecerit Grecos infrascriptos, videlicet: | dicto Beringerio Grecum unum etatis annorum quindecim vel ab anis quindecim usque ad annos triginta, et dicto Beninato Grecam unam etatis annorum quatuordecim vel ab | annis quatuordecim usque ad annos viginti; item, Grecum unum etatis annorum quindecim vel ab annis quindecim usque ad viginti, sub pactis et condicionibus infrascriptis, cuidam quod pecunia te|neatur iusto et iustum pecunie; item, quod liceat dicto Beringerio et Benenato inter Grecos apportandos per dictum Bernardum in dicto viagio, exceptuatis Grecis tribus, accipere dictos Grecos | tres et Grecam unam ad eorum eleccionem; item, in casu quod dictus Bernardus cum dicto ligno in dicto viagio Grecos minime lucraretur, quod dictus Bernardus teneatur et debeat dare | et assignare dicto Beringerio et Beninato pecuniam dictorum quatuor Grecorum iuxta extimacionem quatuor proborum virorum elegendorum per dictos Beringerium et Beninatum, prout dicti Gre|ci venderentur in civitatibus Syracusie et Cathanie. Que omnia in presente contractu contento dictus Bernardus sponte promisit et convenit pro se et heredes suos dictis Beringerio et Beninato eorumque | heredibus et successoribus eorum rata et firma habere, tenere et inviolabiliter observare, in nullo contravenire predictis vel aliquibus predictorum aliqua racione vel causa, sub pena unciarum | auri quinquaginta regie curie si contra predicta fecerit, exolvenda mihi predicto notario puplico penam ipsam pro predicta ipse regie curie, sollemniter et legitime stipulantis ab eodem Bernar|do per sollemnem stipulationem premissam, qua pena soluta vel non rato nichilhominus manente presente contractu. Et promisit dictus Bernardus teneri Beringerio et Beninato ad | omnia dapna, expensas et interesse proinde de cetero competere ea integre resarcire, si contra predicta fecerit vel aliquod predictorum, sub ypotheca et obligacione omnium bonorum suorum, mobilium | et stabilium, presentium et futurorum; que dicta bona dictus Bernardus obligavit in pignore et nomine pignoris, et specialiter dictum lignum, dictis Beringerio et Beninato, ac constituit se bona | ipsa nomine precario possidere, donec dicti Beringerius et Benenatus [eundem] integre satisfacere de dictis Grecis. Renuncians dictus Bernardus sua certa scientia necessitandi denunciandi, privi|legio fori sui, ita quod in quolibet foro electo vel eligendo per dictos Beringerium et Benenatum, dictus Bernardus possit et valeat convenire, beneficio legis si convenitur, accioni | exceptioni erronee confessionis ac rei non sic [geste], ut predicitur, accioni, exceptioni doli, mali, metus incidentis in contractibus vel dandi causa ipsis contractibus. Et quibus omnibus aliis hominibus iuribus, usibus, constitucionibus, consuetudinibus foro, privilegiis, capitulis, modis et formis quibus adversus predicta omnia se tueri possit modo aliquo vel iuvare. Hec omnia facta sunt in | presencia Bernardi Colongi, Petro Peroglat et Bernardo Scyelle, sociorum dicti Bernardi in dicto viagio, ut dixerunt, et presencium accaeptacionum et confirmationum predicte. Et est sciendum | quod in quartadecima linea, ubi legitur unum, obrasum et emendatum fuit per



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me predictum notarium non vicio sed errore, et in eadem quartadecima linea, ubi legitur “ad viginti”, | scribi debet hec dictiones, videlicet: “item, Grecum alterum etatis annorum quindecim vel ab annis quindecim usque ad annos triginta”, que omissa fuerant per me predictum notarium non vicio sed er|rore nichilhominus ibi habeantur et intelligantur et pro autentico habeantur. Deinde ad futuram memoriam et dicti Beringerii et Beninati cautelam presens puplicum instrumentum [exinde] | factum est per manus mei predicti notarii [nostri qui supra] iudicis, notarii, subscriptorum testium subscriptionibus, signo et referenciis roboratum. Actum Syracusie, anno, mense, die et indictione premissis. (S) Ego Nicolaus de la Rocca, iudex civitatis Syracusie, subscripsi et testor. † Ego notarius Franciscus Mandala, testis. † Ego Vannis de Ianis Vigino testor. Ego Stephanus [.]amunu in Safortesa testo. † Ego notarius Angelus de Avenella de Syracusia qui supra, regius puplicus civitatum, terrarum et locorum totius vallis Nothi notarius, predictis omnibus rogatis interfui, scripsi predicta et meo signo signavi (S).

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Humbert of Viennois and the Crusade of Smyrna: A Reconsideration Mike Carr Royal Holloway, University of London [email protected] Abstract The army of the second wave of the Crusade of Smyrna, led by Humbert, the dauphin of Viennois, departed from Venice in November 1345. Upon reaching the Aegean, it was beset by numerous problems, such as the failure to seize Chios as a base of operations, illness in the crusader army and infighting between the Hospitallers and the Venetians. After less than two years on campaign, Humbert withdrew from the Aegean, returning to Venice in May 1347, his crusade a failure. Humbert’s leadership of the crusade has been almost universally condemned by historians as being dilatory, feeble or simply incompetent. However, a close analysis of the economic and political situation in the Aegean during the period of the campaign reveals that the dauphin was not at fault for the failure of the crusade. It is true that he was not a gifted commander, but this article demonstrates that many factors contributing to the failure of the crusade were out of Humbert’s hands. Unpublished papal letters show that prior to 1345 Pope Clement VI voiced serious concerns over the capture of Chios from the Byzantines and the possible antagonism this would cause. Likewise, Venetian archival evidence illustrates that trade in the Aegean was suffering after the closure of the Black Sea markets by the Mongols in 1344. The dire economic situation in the region led to starvation in Latin territories; this compromised the provisioning of the crusade and resulted in the Hospitallers – and possibly the Venetians – seeking an alliance with the Aydin Turks before Humbert’s arrival at Smyrna. In these circumstances, it would have been difficult for any crusade to have succeeded, including the one commanded by the dauphin.

The emergence of a number of Turkish beyliks along the Anatolian-Aegean littoral at the end of the thirteenth century marked the beginning of a process which saw the Turks replace the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria as the primary target of Western crusading endeavour. In the first half of the fourteenth century, the raids launched from these beyliks against Frankish territories in the Aegean and Greece began to disrupt trade and even threaten the Latin presence in the region. This resulted in the local Christian powers joining with the papacy to provide a united front against the Turks. Pivotal in the formation of this new crusading strategy was the so-called “Crusade of Smyrna” – the first campaign launched solely against the Turks – which lasted from the proclamation of the crusade and the creation of a naval league by Pope Clement VI in 1343 to the disbandment of the Christian fleet in 1351.1 This 1 

The bull proclaiming the crusade, Insurgentibus contra fidem, dated 30 September 1343, set out the details of the crusade and granted participants the same indulgence that they would receive if they 237

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crusade was of great importance to many contemporaries and was met by a level of popular enthusiasm rarely witnessed in the fourteenth century. Probably as a result of this the expedition also attracted the attention of an unusually high number of medieval chroniclers and was the focus of a considerable amount of surviving diplomatic documents, meaning that details of the campaign can be pieced together on a scale not possible for crusades earlier in the century. The Crusade of Smyrna has consequently been the focus of a considerable amount of scholarly attention, but one area, the “second wave” of the crusade, led by Humbert II, the dauphin of Viennois, is in need of an urgent reconsideration.2 This campaign, which lasted from 1345 to 1347, has become known for its poor planning, weak leadership and dismal outcome more than anything else. Hitherto, the blame for the failure of this expedition has rested predominantly on the shoulders of the dauphin himself, who has been almost universally condemned in the historiography as a “dilatory,” “weak” or simply “incapable” leader, whose name has now become synonymous with the failed crusades of the later medieval period.3 These views have, however, been formed without sufficient consideration went in aid of the Holy Land: Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274–1580, ed. and trans. Norman Housley (London, 1996), 78–80, no. 22. The naval league initially consisted of a total of twenty galleys, six each from Venice and the Hospitallers, and four each from the papacy and Cyprus. Other small-scale expeditions had been launched against the Turks, but these were either not granted the full crusading indulgence, or formed part of a general campaign to liberate the Holy Land. The most notable of these was the naval league of 1332–34. This had been initially formed by Venice for the specific purpose of limiting Turkish incursions into the Aegean, but once it had received papal backing became the first wave of a three-tiered crusade to the Holy Land. See Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant: 1204–1571, 4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1976–84), 1:177–94; Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade: Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Menteshe and Aydin, 1300–1415 (Venice, 1983), 21–40; Angeliki E. Laiou, “Marino Sanudo Torsello, Byzantium and the Turks: The Background to the AntiTurkish League of 1332–1334,” Speculum 45 (1970): 374–92; Vladislav Ivanov, “Sancta Unio or the Holy League 1332–36/7 as a Political Factor in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean,” Études balkaniques 48 (2012): 142–76. 2  Some of the most significant works on the Smyrna campaign are: Jean-Pierre Moret de Bourchenu Valbonnais, Histoire du Dauphiné et des princes qui ont porté le nom de dauphins, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1721–22), 1:334–44; Joseph Delaville le Roulx, La France en Orient au XIVe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1886), 1:103–12; Nicolae Iorga, Philippe de Mézières, 1327–1405 et la croisade au XIVe siècle (Paris, 1896), 33–62; Jules Gay, Le Pape Clément VI et les affaires d’Orient (1342–1352) (Paris, 1904), 32–80; Claude Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II à Venise et en Orient (1345–1347),” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 27 (1907), 509–62; Aziz S. Atiya, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1938), 293–318; Paul Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, Byzance et l’occident: Recherches sur “La geste d’Umur Pacha” (Paris, 1957), 180–203; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:195–223; Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 41–62; Norman Housley, The Avignon Papacy and the Crusades, 1305–1378 (Oxford, 1986), 33–36; idem, The Later Crusades from Lyons to Alcazar, 1274–1580 (Oxford, 1992), 59–62; Diana Wood, Clement VI: The Pontificate and Ideas of an Avignon Pope (Cambridge, 1989), 184–91; Alain Demurger, “Le pape Clément VI et l’Orient: ligue ou croisade?,” Guerre, pouvoir et noblesse au Moyen Âge: Mélanges en l’honneur de Philippe Contamine, ed. Jacques Paviot and Jacques Verger (Paris, 2000), 207–14; Nicholas Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 1313–1378 (Nicosia, 2010), 102–09. 3  Historians have used a host of derogatory phrases to condemn Humbert’s actions and his character, for example: “Humbert II, en effet, ne semblait pas réunir les qualités qu’on était en droit d’espérer d’un chef d’armée. C’était à la fois un misanthrope et un vaniteux”: Delaville le Roulx, La France en Orient, 1:105; “Ce prince, brouillon et faible en mème temps, rêvait de grandes conquètes dans les



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of the wider situation in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean at the time. It will be argued that, when these factors are properly considered, the decisions Humbert made as leader of the crusade were mostly prudent and sometimes unavoidable; he showed initiative and innovation in seeking allies for his crusade, and achieved some limited military successes, while he was confronted by a host of debilitating factors which were out of his control, ranging from the outbreak of illness in the crusader army to the economic collapse in the Aegean and Black Sea, all of which proved to be fatal to the success of his expedition. In the summer of 1343, Pope Clement VI put in motion plans for a naval league in the Aegean to reduce the growing maritime power of the Aydin Turks. A year later, galleys from the papacy, Venice, the Hospitallers and Cyprus assembled at Negroponte and, in October 1344, won a surprise victory at Smyrna, seizing the harbour and harbour-fortress of the city from its redoubtable ruler, Umur Pasha, the scourge of the Latins in the Aegean and the main perpetrator of the Turkish raids against their territories. This initial success was, however, short-lived; in January 1345 the crusade leaders, including the papal legate and the captains of the papal and Venetian galleys, were killed outside the city walls. To add to this disaster, the crusaders had not managed to capture the citadel on the acropolis overlooking the sea, which remained in Umur’s hands, meaning that the Christian army was unable to break out from the harbour-fortress.4 In the wake of these setbacks and the ensuing stalemate, Clement VI looked to the West for a suitable commander to lead a relief army to Smyrna and revive the fortunes of the failing crusade. The most enthusiastic (and possibly the only) response to Clement’s call came from Humbert II, the young and wealthy dauphin of Viennois. He had sent ambassadors to the papal court in February 1345 and by April was at Avignon discussing matters with the pope in person. On 26 May, after a month of negotiations, Humbert took the cross and was officially named as captain-general of the Christian army.5 In November, some months later than scheduled, his forces left Venice for

pays lointains”: Iorga, Philippe de Mézières, 48; “L’incapable Humbert n’est bon qu’à embarrasser ses allies”: Gay, Clément VI, 77; “qu’un personnage turbulent et médiocre”: Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, 194; “young and adventurous, moody and erratic”: Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:195; “irresolute, pliable and dilatory”: Housley, Avignon Papacy, 34; “[the expedition of Humbert was] one of the most pathetic crusading ventures of the period”: idem, The Later Crusades from Lyons to Alcazar, 60. The exceptions to these views remain the works of Claude Faure and Aziz Atiya, who have both provided a more balanced assessment of the dauphin: Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 509–62, esp. 541–42; Atiya, Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, 303–04. 4  Marco Battagli wrote that “Christiani tenebant supra mare unum parvum locum, qui vocatur Smire … Turci autem supra tenebant aliud castrum, quod etiam Smire similiter vocabatur”: Marco Battagli da Rimini, Marcha (1212–1354), ed. Aldo Francesco Massèra, RIS NS 16.3 (Città di Castello, 1913), 51. 5  See Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 511–14; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:195–97; Wood, Clement VI, 186–89.

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the Aegean, reaching Negroponte just before Christmas 1345.6 Here the dauphin’s fleet joined with the four papal galleys of the league, plus one galley each from the Venetian and Hospitaller contingents.7 This fleet was accompanied by a small army of probably no more than 100 knights and 800 footsoldiers.8 The size of this force seems to have been a concern for the dauphin, who was aware that the chance of more crusaders being recruited in the West was low, considering the recent escalation of conflicts in Europe, such as the Anglo-French war.9 Upon his arrival at Negroponte, Humbert therefore set about finding allies in the East to boost the size of the relief force before advancing to Smyrna.10 This, however, was no simple matter as the only remaining local powers not already committed to the crusade were the Byzantine Greeks and the Catalans of Athens who had both previously been considered as a target of Latin military action in the region. In fact, the Catalans had been considered as the principal target of Angevin and Brienne-led campaigns to the Morea since the pontificate of John XXII and 6  It had been decided in Avignon that Humbert was to march initially to Marseilles, whence he would then sail to Genoa and make his way across northern Italy to Venice. On 23 July his departure date from Venice was extended by one month to 2 September which, considering his busy itinerary, was still rather optimistic: see Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 520–26; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:197–201. 7  Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:202, 205. 8  The actual size of Humbert’s army at this stage is difficult to calculate. He had left Marseilles with 63 knights in his retinue and probably recruited some crusaders on his march through northern Italy to Venice: Choix de documents historiques inédits sur le Dauphiné, ed. Cyr Ulysse Joseph Chevalier, Collection de cartulaires dauphinois 7 (Lyon, 1874), 96–99 (no. 28); Atiya, Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, 309. Humbert’s four galleys could hold a maximum of 800 soldiers: Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 512–13; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:195–96. The accounts of various Italian sources about the numbers taking the cross are certainly exaggerated and it remains unclear as to whether these recruits would have accompanied Humbert’s force or made their own way to Smyrna. See, for example, Storie pistoresi (1300–1348), ed. Silvio A. Barbi, RIS NS 11.5 (Città di Castello, 1927), 214; Anonimo Romano, Cronica, ed. Giuseppe Porta (Milan, 1979), 115; Giovanni Villani, Nuova cronica, ed. Giuseppe Porta, 3 vols. (Parma, 1990–91), 3:390–91 (bk. 13, ch. 39); “Cronica di Bologna,” ed. Ludovico Antonio Muratori, RIS 18 (Milan, 1731), cols. 393–94, 399; Housley, Avignon Papacy, 146–47. An anonymous Roman chronicler claimed that the dauphin arrived at Smyrna with no more than 30 knights: Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 116–17. 9  Delaville le Roulx wrote that the small size of Humbert’s force made any military engagements difficult at this stage: Delaville le Roulx, La France en Orient, 1:106. One report of a victory of the dauphin over the Turks at Lesbos in February 1346 is almost certainly fabricated: Storie pistoresi, 219–20; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:204–05; Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, 196, n. 1. Humbert did, however, capture two Greek and Genoese vessels loaded with wheat at this time: Choix de documents historiques inédits sur le Dauphiné, 105–06, no. 31. 10  The small size of Humbert’s force may have prevented him from sending aid to the Genoese colony at Caffa, which was under siege from the Tatars, at the pope’s request in the winter of 1345–46: Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, ed. Eugène Depréz et al., Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 3 vols. (Paris, 1901–61), vol. 1, no. 2216. Indulgences were granted for those Genoese who wished to aid their fellow citizens in the siege: Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI intéressant les pays autres que la France, ed. Eugène Déprez and Guillaume Mollat, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (Paris, 1960–61), no. 847. For more on the siege of Caffa, see Michel Balard, La Romanie génoise, XIIe – début du XVe siècle, 2 vols. (Rome, 1978), 1:75–76.



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had been regularly denounced for allying with the Aydin Turks, the very people Humbert was fighting against.11 For this reason, Humbert wrote letters to the pope in early March 1346 requesting advice and assistance in forming alliances with these factions which, it has been argued by some, only slowed down the progress of his crusade.12 In a letter dated 15 June, Clement replied to Humbert about these matters. In regard to the Catalans, the pope wrote that he was willing to suspend for three years the sentences of excommunication and interdict imposed on them if they agreed to contribute 100 infantry and 100 cavalry to Humbert’s force for three years.13 For the pope, this was a remarkable departure from the policies of his predecessors, all of whom had refused to relax any of the ecclesiastical penalties imposed on the Catalans.14 In the end, nothing came of these negotiations and the Catalans fell back under the apostolic ban three years later, but Humbert’s attempt to recruit them does nevertheless demonstrate that he was not caught up in the bitter feuding over the duchy of Athens, which had governed papal, Angevin and Brienne policies in the Morea for the previous thirty years. Moreover, his overtures towards the Catalans – a significant regional power – should be regarded as a strategically sound move by the dauphin and not dismissed as a hindrance to the crusade.15 11 

See, for example, Diplomatari de l’Orient català, nos. 89–91, 94 (1318), 120 (1323), 122 (1324), 128 (1325), 150 (1330), 152 (1330), 158 (1334). Crusade indulgences were granted for some of these expeditions: Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. Vat., 74, fol. 93v, ep. 209 (1322); summary in Lettres communes de Jean XXII (1316–1334): analysées d’après les registres dits d’Avignon et du Vatican, ed. Guillaume Mollat, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 16 vols. (Paris, 1904–47), vol. 4, no. 16672; Diplomatari de l’Orient català, nos. 150 (1330), 152 (1330). See also Kenneth M. Setton, Catalan Domination of Athens: 1311–1388 (Cambridge, MA, 1948), 21–47; David Jacoby, “Catalans, Turcs et Vénitiens en Romanie (1305–1332): Un nouveau témoignage de Marino Sanudo Torsello,” Studi Medievali 15.1 (1974): 217–61; Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, “The Catalans of Athens and the Beginning of Turkish Expansion in the Aegean Area,” Studi Medievali 21.2 (1980): 821–38. 12  For example, Atiya, Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, 316; Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 540–41. 13  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 1, no. 2580, col. 183. Letters were written to the archbishops of Thebes and Patras ordering them to relax the ecclesiastical penalties if the Catalans fulfilled their share of the agreement: ibid., vol. 1, no. 2590 (summary); full text in Diplomatari de l’Orient català, 1301–1409: colleció de documents per a la història de l’expedició catalana a Orient i dels ducats d’Atenes i Neopàtria, ed. A. Rubio y Lluch (Barcelona, 1947), no. 189. See also Setton, Catalan Domination of Athens, 48; Housley, Avignon Papacy, 256. 14  In 1339, Benedict XII summoned Archbishop Isnard of Thebes to Avignon to stand trial for consorting with Catalans and falsely relaxing their ban of excommunication: Diplomatari de l’Orient català, nos. 167–68; Benoît XII (1334–1342): Lettres communes analysées d’après les registres dits d’Avignon et du Vatican, ed. Jean-Marie Vidal, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 3 vols. (Paris, 1903–11), vol. 1, no. 5214, vol. 2, no. 7420. In 1341, Benedict did, however, allow the Catalans to send an embassy to Avignon to seek reconciliation with the Church: Benoît XII (1334– 1342): Lettres closes, patentes et curiales se rapportant à la France, ed. Georges Daumet, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (Paris, 1920), no. 810; Diplomatari de l’Orient català, no. 177. See also Setton, Catalan Domination of Athens, 45–47. 15  See, for example, Atiya’s comments on Humbert’s “futile negotiations”: Atiya, Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, 316.

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The other potential ally which Humbert identified in the East was that of the faction in the Byzantine civil war led by Anna of Savoy, the dowager empress and regent for Emperor John V Palaiologos in Constantinople. This was a logical choice as the papacy and the local Latin powers had often sought to exploit the tenuous position of the Byzantine factions during the internal conflicts which wracked the empire in the fourteenth century, where the rival Greek parties had often sought an alliance with either the Latins or Turks. In fact, Anna of Savoy had herself been married into the Byzantine royal family during a brief period of peace in the civil wars of the 1320s partly in an effort to strengthen Byzantine ties with the Ghibelline states in Italy.16 Her Latin heritage, coupled with the fact that her rival John Kantakouzenos had himself allied with Umur of Aydin in 1343, made her an obvious ally for Humbert and the crusaders.17 Moreover, from the papal perspective, a negotiation over a potential alliance with a Latin Byzantine empress could lead to the possibility of a union between the Greek and Latin Churches, a prospect enhanced by the opening of negotiations between the pope, Anna and the Venetians about the possibility of sending aid against the Aydin Turks, in 1343.18 Thus, in Clement’s letters to Humbert regarding an alliance with Anna of Savoy, the dauphin was urged to make every effort to encourage the Greek people to join with the Catholic Church.19 The actual discussions over a coalition with the Greeks centred around the use by the crusaders of the Aegean island of Chios, which lay just off the bay of Smyrna and was an ideal base for operations. Humbert wrote to Clement expressing his wish that the island be allocated to him by Anna of Savoy. The pope, in return, dispatched letters to the empress in this regard. In these letters, dated June 1346, Clement outlined his desire that the island be allocated to the crusaders for a period of three years, on the condition that all laws and proceeds would be retained by Byzantine authorities and that the island would be restored afterwards without objection. To expedite matters Clement instructed Francesco Michiel, the archbishop of Crete and vice-legate in the East, to confirm arrangements with the empress as quickly 16 

Joanna or Anna of Savoy was the daughter of Count Amadeo V of Savoy. She married Andronikos III in 1326, who was the grandson of the Emperor Andronikos II and rival claimant to the Byzantine throne during the wars of 1321–28. For this, and the civil wars in general, see Angeliki E. Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins: The Foreign Policy of Andronikos II, 1282–1328 (Cambridge, MA, 1972), 284–329; Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1993), 151–250; Gill Page, Being Byzantine: Greek Identity Before the Ottomans (Cambridge, 2008), 138–41. 17  For more on the alliance between Kantakouzenos and Umur, see Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, 144–79. 18  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 1, nos. 466–71, 490–93, 522–23, 547; Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, 183. For a background to the Union negotiations, see Joseph Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 1198–1400 (New Brunswick, 1979), 200–207; Deno John Geanakoplos, “Byzantium and the Crusades, 1261–1354,” in Setton, Crusades, 3:27–68 at 57–60. 19  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 1, no. 2580, col. 181.



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as possible, in the hope that this might also lead to future negotiations over Church Union.20 Unfortunately for the pope and Humbert, events in the East rendered their plans untenable. In May 1346, a Genoese fleet under the command of Simone Vignoso, which had initially been sent against rebels at Monaco, set sail for the eastern Mediterranean to recoup the expense of its assemblage, possibly with the intention of relieving the Tartar siege of Caffa in the Crimea.21 On 8 June, before Clement’s letters to Anna of Savoy had even left Avignon, Vignoso’s fleet arrived at Negroponte. According to the account of Giorgio Stella, Vignoso came across twenty-six galleys of the league under the command of Humbert, who was preparing for an attack on Chios.22 Upon hearing this, we are told that Vignoso also turned his attention towards the island and, after refusing a generous offer of gold and jewels from Humbert for assistance in taking Chios, launched a surprise attack on the dauphin’s fleet.23 Vignoso then advanced on Chios and within a week secured the whole island, save the castle of Chios Town which submitted in September.24 At this stage, it is worth noting that our main source for these events, Giorgio Stella, was a Genoese notary and government official who wrote his account in the early fifteenth century. As a result, his version of events understandably paints Humbert in a bad light when compared to Vignoso, and gives the impression that the dauphin’s failure to seize the island was a result of indecisiveness and lack of military acumen; the island was, after all, ideally suited as a base and supply-point for the crusaders at Smyrna and, as Vignoso demonstrated, an easy prize to take. But Humbert’s attempts to secure the island were far more complex than Stella’s account suggests; they were inextricably linked to the ongoing negotiations over Church Union and consequently a more sensitive issue than is usually assumed. 20  Ibid., vol. 1, no. 2580. Letters regarding this were also dispatched to Anna of Savoy and the archbishop of Crete: Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. Vat., 140, fols. 35r–36v, ep. 124–29; summaries in Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 1, no. 2581–86; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:205. 21  It is unlikely that Vignoso sailed east with the specific aim of capturing Chios: Philip Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese and their Administration of the Island, 1346–1566, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1958), 1:103. Compare this to Atiya, who has unconvincingly argued that Vignoso’s fleet was sent to the East for the purpose of seizing the island before Humbert could: Atiya, Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, 312. 22  Giorgio Stella, Annales Genuenses, ed. Giovanna Petti Balbi, RIS NS 17.2 (Bologna, 1975), 145–47; Steven A. Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 958–1528 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996), 209–10, 251; Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese, 1:88–91, 103; Roberto S. Lopez, Storia delle colonie genovesi nel Mediterraneo, reprinted with introduction by Michel Balard (Genoa, 1996), 263–64; William Miller, “The Genoese in Chios, 1346–1566,” English Historical Review 30 (1915): 418–32, at 418–19. 23  Jules De Pétigny, “Notice historique et biographique sur Jacques Brunier, chancelier d’Humbert II, dauphin de Viennois,” Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 1 (1840), 284. 24  The administration set up by Vignoso, which became known as the Mahona of Chios, was to rule the island until 1566. For more on the establishment of the Mahona, see: Giorgio Stella, Annales Genuenses, 147–48; Balard, La Romanie génoise, 1:123–26; Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese, 1:93–105; Miller, “The Genoese in Chios,” 418–32.

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Evidence of this can be found in earlier correspondence for the naval league, where we learn that Martino Zaccaria, the former Genoese ruler of Chios and captain of the papal galleys until his death in January 1345, had attempted to divert the crusade fleet towards his former territory, from which he had been expelled by the Byzantines in 1329.25 His appointment as the papal captain seems to have been an uncharacteristically naive move from Clement VI, who wrote on several occasions to the papal legate Henry of Asti ordering him to prevent Martino from attempting to seize Chios and granting him permission to replace the captain if necessary.26 From this correspondence it is clear that the pope felt that any attempt to seize Chios would jeopardize relations with the Greeks, some of whom he had good reason to believe were at the point of accepting Church Union.27 In one letter, Clement even wrote that the Greeks, upon learning of Zaccaria’s intention to seize Chios, had withdrawn from unionist talks and had instead approached the Turks for a possible alliance.28 We have already seen that the discussions between Humbert and Anna of Savoy had been regarded by the pope as an integral part of Church Union and it is likely that the dauphin did not wish to jeopardize relations by launching a premature attack on Chios. He was, after all, evidently a firm believer in the benefits of Church Union; he had already brokered the subject in his correspondence with Anna of Savoy and he had even dispatched a papal ambassador to Constantinople to commence discussions; moreover, he was well placed to recognize the benefit which an alliance with Anna of Savoy could bring to the crusade.29 Consequently, 25 

For more on the Zaccaria of Chios, see Mike Carr, “Trade or Crusade? The Zaccaria of Chios and Crusades against the Turks,” in Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453: Crusade, Religion and Trade between Latins, Greeks and Turks, ed. Nikolaos G. Chrissis and Mike Carr (Farnham, 2014), 115–34; Ludwig Gatto, “Per la storia di Martino Zaccaria, signore di Chio,” Bullettino dell’Archivio Paleografico Italiano, n.s., 2–3, part 1 (1956–57): 325–45; Balard, La Romanie génoise, 1:119–22. 26  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 1, nos. 405 (16 September 1343), 1113 (18 September 1344), 1114 (18 September 1344), 1464 (1 February 1345). 27  See, for example, Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 1, nos. 466–71, 490–93, 522–23, 547; Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, 183; Geanakoplos, “Byzantium and the Crusades,” 57–59. 28  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 1, no. 1113: “ex quibus sequitur, ut eadem insinuatio subjungebat, quod Grecis, qui ex missione galearum predictarum Turchos predictos suos utique persecutores et hostes debilitari sperabant et ad se reuniendos cum ecclesia sancta catholica disponebant, videntes contra se predictarum dirigi stolium galearum et quod ad utilitatem publicam, defensionem videlicet fidelium et expugnationem Turchorum infidelium ad commodum privatum converti, a suo proposito reunionis huiusmodi tepescendo, tractant de confederatione cum Turchis facienda predictis; quod, si verum esset, in detrimentum fidei eiusdem catholice ac dilationem secte dampnate Machometi perfidi, quod misericordiarum avertat Dominus, redundaret.” 29  The papal envoy, Bartolommeo de Rome, is mentioned in the account of John Kantakouzenos who returned to Constantinople in 1347, after seizing the throne from Anna of Savoy and her son John V Palaiologos. After meeting with Bartolommeo, Kantakouzenos took this chance to mend relations with the pope and sent an embassy to Avignon which arrived in the following year: John Kantakouzenos, Historiarum libri IV, ed. Ludwig Schopen, and Barthold Georg Niebuhr, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1828–32), 3:12–13 (bk. 4, ch. 2); “The History of John Cantacuzenus (Book IV): Text, Translation and



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Humbert’s reluctance to jeopardize relations with the Greeks by seizing Chios was a result of careful strategic consideration and an appreciation of the delicate diplomacy which was necessary to forge a possible Byzantine–crusader alliance, and not a consequence of the dauphin’s indecision or incompetence. After the capture of the island by Vignoso, Humbert chose to advance to Smyrna which he reached in late June 1346. His time at Smyrna, lasting until September of that year, was marked by a series of inconclusive military engagements which have contributed to his reputation as an inept military leader.30 One such example of this opinion is given by a fifteenth-century Turkish poem, the Düstūrnāme of Enveri, where the dauphin (Torfil) is said to have been crushed “like a chicken” by Umur and confined to the fortress after losing a battle against the Turks in which a close relative or friend was killed.31 News of this reached Grenoble in September 1346, where a contemporary source confirmed that Humbert had lost five knights in a skirmish with the Turks but, in contrast to the account of Enveri, it was claimed that the dauphin still emerged victorious from the encounter.32 This is corroborated by an anonymous Roman chronicle, which stated that Humbert had been able to secure the harbour area, restore order, and launch sorties against the Turkish forces, during which he took many prisoners. According to the same account he also managed to strengthen the harbour fortifications by building high walls, towers, gates and moats.33 Despite these minor achievements, it is nonetheless clear that Humbert was unable to break the deadlock between the crusaders and the Turks at Smyrna. Unsurprisingly, Humbert’s failure to win any decisive military engagements and his decision to withdraw from Smyrna to Rhodes in September have been regarded as a result of his military incompetence and weak will. However, as we shall see, Commentary,” ed. and trans. Timothy S. Miller (doctoral dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1975), 150–51 and notes at 250–54; Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 205–06; Raymond-Joseph Loenertz, “Ambassadeurs grecs auprès du pape Clément VI, 1348,” Orientalia Christiana periodica 19 (1953): 189–90. 30  See, for example, Philippe Contamine, “Entre occident et orient: Philippe de Mézières (vers 1327–1405): Itinéraires maritimes et spirituels,” in Philippe de Mézières and His Age: Piety and Politics in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kiril Petkov (Leiden, 2012), 19–39, at 22; Iorga, Philippe de Mézières, 49–56; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:208; Wood, Clement VI, 186–87. 31  Enveri, Le destān d’Umūr Pacha (Düstūrnāme-i Enverī), trans. Irene Mélikoff-Sayar (Paris, 1954), 119–22, verses 2173–276; Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, 197–99. 32  Humbert Pilat, “Memorabilia,” in Valbonnais, Histoire du Dauphiné, 2:624; Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 532–33. 33  Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 116–17; Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 532; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:207. A fantastic story of a Christian victory in which 70,000 Turks were killed also circulated in western Europe around this time: Nicolae Iorga, “Une lettre apocryphe sur la bataille de Smyrne,” ROL 3 (1895): 27–31; Storie pistoresi, 215–16 (this account increases the Turkish dead to 700,000!). Iorga believes there is some basis in this story, and both he and Gay give credence to a similar account of Philippe de Mézières, although this is also likely to be a fabrication: Iorga, Philippe de Mézières, 51–56; Gay, Clément VI, 66–67, 73; cf. Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:201–02; Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin, 196–97; Housley, Avignon Papacy, 146; Atiya, Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, 307–09.

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many factors outside of his control combined to make the possibility of a purposeful intervention at the city a virtual impossibility by the summer of 1346. Firstly, it appears as if the arrival of Humbert’s army swelled the already large numbers of Christians holed up in the city. These were unable to break out of the harbour area and, when the heat of the summer began to set in, disease spread throughout the army with many men dying “like sheep.”34 This account, provided by the Roman chronicler, seems a plausible story as we know that Humbert and his wife, Marie des Baux, were also struck down by illness at this point.35 Whether or not Humbert would have had the leadership skills required to prevail against Umur if disease had not disabled the army is impossible to say, but it seems that it was illness and not military failure which ultimately led to Humbert’s premature withdrawal from the city. Another factor in Humbert’s failure to break the deadlock at Smyrna was the increasing difficulty in supplying the Latin colonies in the Aegean with grain at this time. In previous years, traders from Venice and Genoa had frequently imported great quantities of grain from the domains of the Tatars, especially Tana and Caffa in the Black Sea, to supply European markets.36 However, in 1343, just as the naval league had begun to take shape, the Tatar khan had expelled all Latin merchants from Tana and his other territories, prohibiting all grain exports. A shortage of grain and consequently a general rise in prices were the immediate results.37 To make matters worse, the activities of the league in the Aegean had rendered grain import from Asia Minor a rarity after 1343 and by 1344 the economic situation in the Aegean had reached a critical level.38 In October, a group of traders reported to 34 

Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 116–17: “La iente infermava forte, morivane como le pecora.” According to this account, the size of the Christian force at Smyrna before Humbert’s arrival was said to number some 15,000 men. 35  Clement wrote to Humbert on 28 November congratulating him on his recovery from illness: Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 2, no. 2956; also printed in Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 559–62 (doc. 11); Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:208. 36  Matteo Villani reported that the Florentines imported grain from Turkey: Matteo Villani, Chronica con la continuazione di Filippo Villani, ed. Giuseppe Porta, 2 vols. (Parma, 1995), 1:415–16 (bk. 3, ch. 86). 37  Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 45–46; Balard, La Romanie génoise, 1:75–76; Eliyahu Ashtor, Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 1983), 63; Sergei Karpov, “Black Sea and the Crisis of the Mid-XIVth Century: An Underestimated Turning Point,” Thesaurismata 27 (1997): 65–78; Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 209; Kate Fleet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey (Cambridge, 1999), 59, 67. 38  In the early 1340s, there are some isolated examples of Venetians importing grain from the area of Phokaia in Asia Minor. See, for example, Régestes des délibérations du sénat de Venise concernant la Romanie: 1329–1463, ed. Freddy Thiriet, 3 vols. (Paris, 1958–61), vol. 1, nos. 137, 164, 174; Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum: sive acta et diplomata res venetas graecas atque levantis illustrantia a. 1300–1454, ed. Georg Martin Thomas, 2 vols. (Venice, 1880–99), vol. 1, no. 151. Venetian merchants were also allowed to continue some limited grain exchange with the Menteshe Turks. See, for example, Pignol Zucchello, Lettere di mercanti a Pignol Zucchello (1336–1350), ed. Raimondo Morozzo della Rocca (Venice, 1957), 23 (no. 8), 54 (no. 24); Thespismata tēs Benetikēs gerousias: 1281–1385, ed. Spyridon M. Theotokes, Istorika krētika engrafa ekdidomena ek tou arheiou tēs Benetias, 2 vols. (Athens, 1933–37), 2.1:278, no. 13; Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 49, 52. Humbert had made efforts



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the merchant Pignol Zucchello that it was impossible to trade in Turkey, and by September 1345 the Venetian administration on Crete stated that the island was suffering from a scarcity of corn.39 The Roman chronicler even suggested that the Venetians had participated in the crusade against Umur because he had raised taxes on Venetian merchants without just cause prior to the crusade.40 This opinion was shared by Marco Battagli who wrote that the crusade was fought “on account of agreements of corn, which had existed between the Venetians and the Turks, and because of other depredations of the Turks carried out by them tyrannically.”41 In April 1345, the pope took steps to alleviate Venice’s economic difficulties by granting the republic permission to send vessels to trade in Mamluk lands over a five-year period, but the economic difficulties still prevented the Venetians from committing themselves unreservedly to the crusade.42 The problems caused by the closure of the Black Sea markets consequently had an adverse affect on Humbert’s expedition. For example, sometime before the arrival of Humbert at Smyrna, according to the Roman chronicler, the Venetians had sent an embassy to Umur at Ephesos to seek a truce and demand the whole city of Smyrna. In this story, the embassy found Umur reclining on the ground, eating abundantly from a golden spoon, his stomach protruding like a barrel. After hearing the proposal from the embassy, Umur explained that he had no fear of the Christians, as long as the Guelph and Ghibelline factions were still fighting one another.43 The account comes from a source hostile to the Venetians and is clearly fantastical in its description of events, but it could nevertheless still refer to a real Venetian embassy, especially considering the damage that the crusade was doing to the republic’s trade at this time.44 It is certainly accurate in indicating that the Venetians had cooled in their commitment to secure grain supplies from Venice before his departure: Régestes des délibérations du sénat de Venise concernant la Romanie, vol. 1, no. 184; full text in Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 524, 554–56. 39  Pignol Zucchello, Lettere di mercanti a Pignol Zucchello, 25, no. 9: “in Turchia no’ si può né andare né venire”; Duca di Candia: Quaternus consiliorum (1340–1350), ed. Paola Ratti-Vidulich (Venice, 1976), no. 67. 40  Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 103. 41  Marco Battagli da Rimini, Marcha, 50–51: “Hoc advenit propter aliqua bladi pacta, que inter Venetos et Turcos iam fuerant, et etiam propter aliquas Turcorum depredationes ab eis tyrannide perpetrates.” See also Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 44; and Fleet, European and Islamic Trade, 59, 70. 42  Diplomatarium veneto-levantium, vol. 1, nos. 144, 153–55. For more on this trade licence, see Mike Carr, “Papal Trade Licences, Italian Merchants and the Changing Perceptions of the Mamluks and Turkish Beyliks in the Fourteenth Century,” in Union in Separation: Trading Diasporas in the Eastern Mediterranean (1200–1700), ed. Georg Christ, Stefan Burkhardt, Roberto Zaugg et al. (Heidelberg, forthcoming). The relaxing of the trade facilitated direct trade between the West and Egypt on a scale not seen since the early fourteenth century, see David Jacoby, “Production et commerce de l’alun oriental en Méditerranée, XIe-XVe siècles,” L’alun de Méditerranée: colloque international, Naples, 4–6 juin 2003 – Lipari, 7–8 juin 2003, ed. Philippe Borgard, Jean-Pierre Brun and Maurice Picon (Naples, 2005), 242; Ashtor, Levant Trade, 67–70. 43  Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 116; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:207; Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 531–32. 44  Zachariadou suggests that the encounter may have taken place: Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 52, n. 205.

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to the campaign and that factional conflicts were beginning to compromise the unity of the crusade. In fact, since Humbert’s arrival at Negroponte, the Venetian authorities had been unwilling to supply the dauphin with vessels to transport his army to Smyrna.45 In May 1346, they eventually agreed to his demands, but six months later they had to be reprimanded by the pope for preventing crusaders who wished to travel to Smyrna from departing from Venice.46 If the Roman chronicler is to be believed, the Venetians even prevented supplies from reaching Smyrna by blockading the port, and fleeced the crusaders in the city of all their money.47 In the winter of 1346–47 the discord amongst the contingents on the crusade worsened as commercial relations between Venice and the Hospitallers also broke down. In the autumn of 1346 the Order had imposed a new customs duty on Venetian merchants visiting its territories and in response the Cretan government decreed that all trade with Hospitaller territories be prohibited.48 By this stage the Hospitallers were also suffering from the consequences of the economic collapse in the region and had agreed a one-year truce with Umur’s older brother Hizir, the emir of Aydin and ruler of Ephesos.49 This was probably what the Roman chronicler referred to when he suggested that the Hospitallers had prevented Venetian ships from coming to Smyrna and had supplied weapons to the Turks.50 This account is probably an exaggeration of events, but it was nevertheless accurate in highlighting the tension between the Venetians and the Hospitallers and the damage this was causing to Humbert’s campaign. Consequently, the dauphin’s inability to break the deadlock whilst at Smyrna was somewhat of an inevitability, considering the Venetian–Hospitaller feud and general breakdown of adequate provisioning of the crusader army. Although it is true that Humbert did not distinguish himself as a general, his failings were not necessarily a result of military incompetence. The difficulties which beset the crusade at this time are also mirrored in Humbert’s correspondence with the pope whilst at Rhodes, where he stayed until April or May 1347. As he had done at Negroponte a year earlier, the dauphin wrote to Clement for advice on the best course of action for the crusade and received a reply from the pope, dispatched from Avignon in late November. Here Humbert was warned that future crusaders were unlikely to be recruited in the West because 45 

Duca di Candia: Quaternus consiliorum, nos. 88–91, 98; Délibérations des assemblées vénitiennes concernant la Romanie: 1160–1463, ed. Freddy Thiriet, 2 vols. (Paris, 1966–71), vol. 1, nos. 525–28; Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 52; Freddy Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne au Moyen Âge: Le développement et l’exploitation du domaine colonial vénitien: XIIe-XVe siècles (Paris, 1959), 246. 46  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 2, no. 2956; Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI intéressant les pays autres que la France, no. 1273. 47  Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 115. 48  Délibérations des assemblées vénitiennes, vol. 1, nos. 532, 533, 539; Duca di Candia: Quaternus consiliorum, nos. 124, 126, 128, 132, 138, 147, 149; Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 48–49. See also Pignol Zucchello, Lettere di mercanti a Pignol Zucchello, 73, no. 36, where it is written in May 1347 that “el viagio di Rodi è serato.” 49  The treaty is printed in Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade, 201–04 (doc. 1346A). 50  Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 116.



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of the wars which consumed the Continent and that no more money could be sent to the East as tithes and other church subsidies could not be collected.51 Because of these problems, Clement agreed with Humbert that it was “not only expedient but also entirely necessary” to proceed with a truce with the Aydin Turks, previously suggested by the dauphin, “in the best, most honourable and safest way possible.”52 Humbert was ordered to begin discussing the matter with the representatives of the Venetians, Cypriots and Hospitallers and to then proceed in the most appropriate manner he saw fit. One condition Clement imposed was that the truce ought to last no more than ten years, as after that time it was hoped that Europe would be at peace. Faced by these problems, in early 1347 the dauphin began planning for his return to the West. In January he wrote his will whilst on Rhodes and in March he was released from his oath to remain on crusade for three years by the pope, who granted him a confessor to absolve him of the vow and gave him safe conduct for his return home.53 In that month Humbert’s wife died, probably from the illness she had contracted whilst at Smyrna. Soon after this tragedy the dauphin departed from Rhodes, arriving at Venice in the last week of May, before any truce with the Turks could be confirmed.54 After Humbert had returned to the West, his crusade was regarded by some contemporaries as having failed in its objective of breaking the deadlock at Smyrna or of significantly weakening the forces of the Aydin Turks. This was certainly the opinion of the Florentine chronicler Matteo Villani who scathingly remarked that the dauphin was “a weak man, of little virtue and firmness,” who had returned from Smyrna, not with the “honour and esteem” which he could have gained, but instead with a rather “slender reputation.”55 It is, however, worth noting that the divergent political and social attitudes in Italy at this time had as much of an effect on Humbert’s reputation as his actions whilst on crusade. Villani, for example, wrote of the returning Humbert during the time of the great plague, which he 51  Humbert was also warned not to intervene in the Byzantine civil war on the behalf of Anna of Savoy against John Kantakouzenos: Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 2, nos. 2956–57; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:209; Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 534–35. 52  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 2, no. 2956: “non solum expediens, sed etiam necessarium omnino nobis, de concordi et unanimi consilio fratrum nostrorum, videtur, quod ad treugas, de quibus fiebat in tuis nobis missis litteris mentio, faciendas et ineundas, meliori, honorabiliori et tutiori modo quo fieri poterit procedatur.” See also Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:208–09; Housley, Avignon Papacy, 83, 198, 224, 257; Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 534–35. In the following days, letters were dispatched to the other parties involved in the crusade, confirming the measures taken by Humbert and the pope: Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 2, nos. 2958–60, 2962–63, 2974, 2982. 53  Lettres closes, patentes et curiales du pape Clément VI se rapportant à la France, vol. 2, nos. 3179–81; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:210; Housley, Avignon Papacy, 257. 54  Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 1:210. 55  Matteo Villani, Chronica, 1:54 (bk. 1, ch. 28): “Era in quelli dì il Dalfino di Vienna uomo molle, e di poca virtù e fermezza. Costui alcuno tempo tenne vita feminile e lasciva, vivendo in mollizie: e appresso volle usare l’arme: e andò capitano per la Chiesa alle Smirre in Turchia, e dove potea acquistare onore e pregio, tornò con poca buona fama.”

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considered to be a divine punishment for mankind’s shortcomings; the wealthy Humbert, who had failed to bring about any success in the East, would have been an obvious target for such disdain. Similarly, it is worth noting that Florentine relations with the papacy, which had traditionally been good, were at the point of a dramatic decline, making Humbert, as a recognizable servant of the pope, again an ideal target of Villani’s scorn.56 Moreover, we must remember that Villani does not comment on the Crusade of Smyrna itself, meaning that, aside from documentary sources and a few other references, our main contemporary Western account for events at Smyrna is that provided by the anonymous Roman chronicler. He paints a different – and far more positive – picture of the dauphin and his crusade. Obviously the Roman chronicler, like Villani, was reporting on events from within Italy and was equally influenced by his surroundings, but that does not necessarily detract from his value. It is likely that he utilized reports from returning crusaders in his account, and the decidedly anti-Venetian agenda which he propagates – such as when describing the fleecing of crusaders by Venetian captains at Smyrna – may have been founded on genuine popular opinion.57 Perhaps of more importance is the chronicler’s apocryphal report of a meeting between a Venetian embassy and Umur over a possible truce, where Umur laughed off the threat of the crusade by invoking images of his two bickering Guelph and Ghibelline “friends,” who would always ensure a Latin failure.58 By linking the breakdown of the crusade to the internal struggles within Italy, the Roman chronicler may actually provide us with the underlying reason for the development of Humbert’s bad reputation. To put it simply, Humbert was a convenient person to blame and, by using him as a scapegoat, the participants – be it from the Aegean or Northern Italy – could deflect negative opinion away from their own squabbling and the real cause of the collapse of the expedition. Similarly, Giorgio Stella, writing some fifty years later, was also happy to belittle Humbert, in an effort to justify and embellish Vignoso’s seizure of Chios.59 These criticisms of Humbert, especially that of Matteo Villani, have certainly been reflected in subsequent evaluations of the dauphin’s character, where he has often been criticized for a lack of initiative and an overly-deferential relationship with the pope.60 In a sense, these accusations have some justification which may account for their endurance in the historiography; for example, with the benefit of hindsight, the crusade would have been far better served if Humbert had captured Chios before awaiting a papal response and therefore prior to Vignoso’s arrival in the East. But as we have seen, in this case his decision to await papal instructions 56 

See, for example, Louis Green, Chronicle into History: An Essay on the Interpretation of History in Florentine Fourteenth-Century Chronicles (Cambridge, 1972), 44–52. 57  Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 115. For information on the author and the writing of the chronicle, see Gustav Seibt, Anonimo romano: scrivere la storia alle soglie del Rinascimento (Rome, 2000), 1–107. 58  Anonimo Romano, Cronica, 116. 59  Giorgio Stella, Annales Genuenses, 145–51. 60  See the quotations listed in n. 3 above, and also Wood, Clement VI, 187; Housley, Avignon Papacy, 254–56; cf. Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 540–41.



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was understandable. Moreover, in other instances it is hard to see how more decisive action would have benefited the crusade; the outbreak of disease within the crusader army at Smyrna was not within Humbert’s control and the dire economic situation in the Aegean meant that the Venetians and the Hospitallers were feuding before the dauphin had even arrived in the East. These factors hindered Humbert’s crusade more than anything else and, given that the other contingents of the league were unwilling to put aside their differences in order to properly assist the dauphin, his expedition was always destined to fail.61 Claude Faure may have been right when he commented over a century ago that it is not fair to lay the sole responsibility of the fiasco on Humbert, and that the other players in the crusade also have to shoulder some of the blame.62 Humbert, it seems, simply chose to lead a crusade at the wrong time; he was an obvious target for criticism and it is these overly critical views which have hitherto prevailed in later assessments of the campaign.

61 

Housley, Avignon Papacy, 253–56. Faure, “Le dauphin Humbert II,” 540: “Si la croisade de 1345 n’a pas réussi, il n’est pas juste de faire retomber sur le Dauphin toute la responsabilité de son insuccès. Le pape Clément VI, les Vénitiens, les Gênois doivent en porter leur part.” 62 

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REVIEWS The Seljuqs: Politics, Society and Culture, ed. Christian Lange and Songül Mecit. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. Pp. x, 318. ISBN 978 0 7486 3994 6 (hardback), 978 0 7486 6857 1 (paperback). The majority of studies in this volume were originally read at the conference The Seljuqs: Islam Revitalised? which took place at Edinburgh in September 2008. The aim of that event was to examine to what extent the Seljuq state revitalised the Islamic world in the period from ca. 1055 until the end of the Rum Seljuqs in the fourteenth century, and the volume reviewed here has the same objective. It is divided into three parts, as suggested in the title. The five essays in Part I examine politics, and of particular interest to scholars of the crusades are Carole Hillenbrand’s study of the court of the Great Seljuqs, Songül Mecit’s examination of kingship and ideology amongst the Rum Seljuqs, and Andrew Peacock’s assessment of the legitimization of Seljuq rule in Islamic Historiography. Part II is focused on Seljuq society, although is likely to be of little interest to crusade scholars as all five essays are case studies based on circumstances in Baghdad, Persia, and further east. Thus, I will say little about these. Part III examines aspects of Seljuq culture, of which the most useful for crusade historians should prove Massimo Campanini’s study of the famous Islamic thinker al-Ghazali, Robert Gleave’s examination of Shi‘ite jurisprudence within the Sunni Seljuq period, and Scott Redford’s piece on city building within Rum Seljuq territory. Hillenbrand’s chapter introduces the idea of a “court” in Great Seljuq thinking in the period 1063–1118, arguing firstly that the court can be regarded as being wherever the sultan was. The main aim of the article is to highlight some aspects of courtly life – the idea of ranks at the court, the various ceremonial means by which the sultans claimed authority, the attraction of the intelligentsia to the court, and the love of sport, particularly hunting, which was displayed by the Great Seljuq sultans. Knowledge of this is crucial for understanding the parts of Arabic source material for the crusading period where the Great Seljuq court is involved, particularly when seemingly minor details may actually suggest that the authority of the sultan was being challenged through the acts of those clamouring for action against the Franks. Mecit’s chapter on the kingship and ideology of the Rum Seljuqs first highlights the three main aspects of this within the Great Seljuq empire (autocratic government, guardian of Islam and ally and deputy of the caliph) and how these were employed to “excuse” the expansionist policies they adopted. She then gives a brief early history of the Rum Seljuqs, highlighting how they used the same ideas in the period ca. 1064–1156 to legitimize their rule in the face of accusations of undermining the Great Seljuqs through their secession, such as their campaigns against the Byzantines and their resistance to the Franks, particularly during the First and Second Crusades. The rest of the chapter then examines how the “official” 253

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ideology of kingship altered amongst the Rum Seljuqs in 1156–1237, examining the ideological propaganda of each sultan in turn, and highlighting how, despite the often large gap between idea and reality, it was politically extremely significant as it helped to develop and legitimize Rum Seljuq rule. Understanding this is very important in the context of the crusades, as it allows for a better understanding of the motives of those Muslims who resisted them and why events are presented in certain ways in the source material. Andrew Peacock’s chapter on the evolving perspectives surrounding Seljuq legitimacy throughout Islamic History gives a useful assessment of the situation, particularly highlighting that the Seljuqs were not widely admired in the period before ca. 1200, but that as time moved on their legitimacy and legacy acquired greater and greater import, particularly in Anatolia. Such a study is useful as it helps demonstrate and explain some of the reasons behind the political manoeuvrings, which occurred within the Muslim world at the time of the crusades. The final three chapters mentioned above all contribute to further understanding of the situation in the Islamic world at the time of the crusades. Campanini’s chapter, examining the thoughts of al-Ghazali, shows the ideas of this important Muslim thinker who had a huge influence on medieval Islamic thought, and from this the influence of al-Ghazali’s ideas on at least some of the Muslims who fought the Franks can be detected. Redford’s chapter examines building projects in the early thirteenth-century Rum Seljuq state and how these reflect aspects of the political situation in that state at the time, which has ramifications for understanding events in northern Syria during that period. Finally, Robert Gleave’s study examines ideas within Shi‘ism during the Seljuq period, from which attitudes towards the Franks can be inferred. This is a useful volume for crusade scholars, particularly those working on events within the Middle East. It helps elucidate aspects of the Seljuq state, which have been somewhat underplayed before, and in so doing allows for greater understanding of the Islamic world at the time, crucial for a full explication of the interactions between the Franks and the Muslims. This volume is therefore highly recommended for crusade scholars and students. Alex Mallett Royal Holloway, University of London Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291, ed. and trans. Denys Pringle (Crusade Texts in Translation, 23). Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. Pp. xxiv, 463. ISBN 0 7546 5125 3. We should offer an unreserved welcome to this volume of translated documents describing the experiences and impressions of pilgrims to the Holy Land in the thirteenth century. It complements the book covering earlier pilgrimage texts, 1099–1185, edited by John Wilkinson with Joyce Hill and W. F. Ryan some 25



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years ago (Hakluyt Society, 1988), so that the whole period of crusader occupation of the Holy Land is now covered, at least as represented in Latin, Old French, and (now) Greek texts. Denys Pringle acknowledges Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185, along with Wilkinson’s earlier Egeria’s Travels (1971) and Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades (1977), in his preface, and Pringle has also chosen to emulate the good practice of these predecessors in his book’s structure and the comprehensive treatment of the texts. Hence, there is a substantial general introduction that provides a historical context for the texts, explaining the difficulties faced by Christian travellers after the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187. From the first of three chronological sections (1187–1229) it is clear that these were most acute in the earlier years, before about 1220, which helps to explain why – despite the collection’s title – the earliest journey documented is 1211–12. Pringle does suggest, in the first of his many thorough footnotes, some Third Crusade histories that may be consulted to bridge (if not to fill) this twenty-five-year gap. During the second sub-period, 1229–44, Jerusalem and Bethlehem were briefly back in Christian hands, and the consequent increase in pilgrimage to the Holy Places is demonstrated in notarial and administrative documents, all scrupulously referenced, as well as in pilgrimage accounts. The third section comprises more than half a century (1244–91), and more than half the texts. From these it is deduced that there was no immediate decline in pilgrimage activity or change in routes, though by the end of the period threats from the Mongols, and then the Mamluks, led to the development of substitute pilgrimage sites in Acre for those who could not venture beyond. The introduction further covers the motives of pilgrims and the practicalities of pilgrimage, and concludes with a short analysis of the archaeological evidence for pilgrimage. The brevity of this section, it should be stressed, reflects the paucity of evidence. Pringle’s own archaeological background and expertise is clearly demonstrated here, and also in the provision of nine maps and plans. A longer introductory chapter discusses the texts themselves, first generally and then individually. The translations themselves are to be presented chronologically, but an overview categorizes them. There are brief, guidebook-style accounts (including the two texts translated from Greek). There are, more interestingly, descriptions of their experiences written by pilgrims: these prove to be more problematical and should not be taken at face value. Therefore, Pringle takes care to identify some of the earlier sources, which may have been available to the writers and adopted into their narratives unacknowledged. The third grouping of texts is ostensibly geographical descriptions of the Holy Land, which (again) have to be treated with care since they are apt to describe a biblical topography rather than a medieval reality. Some of this last group were accompanied by maps, one of which, by Matthew Paris, is reproduced. The individual introductions which follow provide biographical information about authors, where known, and details of manuscripts and earlier editions, including the edition used for the translation. It is worth noting that the first text, Wilbrand of Oldenburg’s, has been re-edited by

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Pringle from the earliest extant manuscript and published in this journal (Crusades 11, 2012, 109–37). Wilbrand’s description, as it happens, is of particular interest to me. In 1997 I was in Beirut when the foundations of the crusader castle had just been exposed in the course of excavations west of Martyrs’ Square. In an effort to convince the archaeologist – a Romanist – of the importance of preserving the site I faxed her Wilbrand’s description, along with a British Ordnance Survey map of the 1840s. Whether the castle ruins are now visible, I do not know, and sadly they conveyed no impression of the palace’s elaborate decorative scheme (pp. 65–66), but I can vouch for the accuracy and elegance of Pringle’s translation. This is the first of seventeen translated texts, most of them originally in Latin or Old French – or Norman French or Provençal: it would be useful to have the original language stated explicitly, although it is usually possible to deduce it from the footnoted variants and comments. Two passages are translated from Greek (nos. 8 and 17). The descriptions range in length from a single page (Geoffrey of Beaulieu, 1251) to eighty (Burchard of Mount Sion). Geoffrey and Burchard may also be taken to represent contrasts in the complexity of the underlying textual research: Geoffrey’s account is an extract from his life of St. Louis, and survives in a single manuscript, most recently edited in the AA SS (5 Aug.); Burchard’s has generated over 100 manuscripts, two recensions (a longer original and a précis), and several early editions. Pringle has translated from the edition of Laurent (1868), which, however, was based on only three manuscripts. Clearly a new edition is a desideratum, and anyone brave enough to take this on will find Pringle’s footnotes an enormous assistance. Overall, this is an excellent collection of sources, including both the better known and “new” (to this reader) ones. The translations are readable and scrupulously annotated, and the introduction is critical and comprehensive. The book concludes with a bibliography of sources and a general index. It will be a valuable resource for anyone with an interest in thirteenth-century pilgrimage or in the Holy Land after the loss of Jerusalem to the Muslims in 1187. Susan B. Edgington Queen Mary University of London Templiers. De Jérusalem aux commanderies de Champagne, ed. Arnaud Baudin, Ghislain Brunel and Nicolas Dohrmann. Paris: Somogy/Conseil général de l’Aube/ Archives nationales, 2012. Pp. 328. ISBN 978 2 7572 0529 7. Ce livre somptueux a accompagné l’exposition “Templiers. Une histoire, notre trésor,” présentée à Troyes de juin à octobre 2012. Il fait suite à celle consacrée au Procès des Templiers, aux Archives nationales (Paris) en 2011 sous la direction de Ghislain Brunel, conservateur en chef du patrimoine. Associant les documents inédits (chartes, comptes, inventaires, suppliques, recueils manuscrits) conservés



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à Paris, à Nîmes ou Saint-Omer, à ceux des Archives des départements de l’Aube, de la Marne, de la Côte d’Or, de la Haute-Marne, aux objets matériels (trésor monétaire de la commanderie de Payns, céramique découverte dans celle d’Avalleur, ustensiles d’art seldjoukide, documents plus récents liés à la postérité et à l’imaginaire templier), les 40 notices et magnifiques photographies de la sélection opérée sont précédées d’un répertoire illustré et cartographié des 32 commanderies de Champagne et de leurs dépendances. À elle seule, cette matière suffit à démontrer l’enracinement champenois de la “révolution templière,” le cœur même de la naissance et de l’expansion du nouvel ordre religieux indissociable de la destinée des États latins: du fondateur, Hugues de Payns, au sommet de l’aristocratie laïque et ecclésiastique, les comtes de Champagne, Hugues (1093– 1125) devenu lui-même templier, son neveu Thibaud II (1125–52), Henri Ier le Libéral (1152–81), ou au XIIIe siècle, les familles de Brienne ou de Joinville, cette liaison privilégiée et si particulière justifiait largement de s’y arrêter. Non pas seulement de Jérusalem aux commanderies de Champagne, mais bien aussi de la Champagne vers l’Orient. Vingt-trois contributions, illuminées d’une riche iconographie, retracent ce double parcours sous tous ses aspects. Partant d’une réflexion sur la définition même de l’ordre du Temple, son invention et son organisation (A. Demurger), ses origines sont traitées dans une première grande partie où sont revues les “racines lointaines” de l’évolution chrétienne face à la guerre (J. Flori), la personnalité et les familles des fondateurs (T. Leroy), la position éminente de Bernard de Clairvaux (P. Aubé), le concile décisif tenu à Troyes (V. Alanièce et F. Gilet) et les relations des comtes de Champagne et de l’ordre (A. Baudin). La deuxième partie se tourne vers l’objet même de l’ordre, l’Orient: le soutien de la papauté jusqu’au retrait final (P. Demouy), celui des Champenois (M.-A. Nielen), l’implantation outremer (P.-V. Claverie), sans omettre l’influence du modèle templier sur les autres ordres religieux-militaires (Ph. Josserand). L’organisation des bases-arrières, en Occident, permet de revenir sur la règle de l’ordre et la hiérarchie templière (S. Cerrini), sur le rôle financier des templiers (G. Brunel) et sur la vie quotidienne à travers l’aire champenoise: hormis le domaine de Payns transmis par le fondateur, les templiers reçoivent leur première dotation foncière occidentale à Barbonne, près de Sézanne, offerte en 1127 par le comte Thibaud, avant d’autres profits en étroite synergie avec l’essor européen des foires de Troyes, Chalons, Provins, etc. La commanderie en forme l’unité: vaste domaine agricole seigneurial plutôt que forteresse comme on l’imagine à tort. M. Miguet en décrit l’architecture, T. Leroy le réseau, tandis que V. Alanièce et F. Gilet font pénétrer le lecteur dans la commanderie d’Avalleur: une étude de cas très évocatrice, à l’issue de ces approches d’échelles successives. La fin de l’ordre et son procès (M. Barber) sont l’objet d’une minutieuse analyse: celle-ci axe évidemment ici plus particulièrement son regard sur les templiers champenois (G. Brunel), mis en parallèle avec le procès intenté au même moment à Guichard, évêque de Troyes (A. Provost). La dévolution des biens, à l’issue du

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concile de Vienne, est évoquée par A. Demurger. Pour autant, cette quatrième partie ne clôt pas la “chevauchée” templière à travers l’histoire. Elle ouvre à la symbolique et à l’imaginaire templier dont les sceaux de l’ordre et de ses dignitaires ont aussi servi d’appui (A. Baudin): la représentation des deux cavaliers comme celle de la figure probable du chef (la tête) du fondateur conservé dans un reliquaire ont pu nourrir les fantasmes avant même la suppression de l’ordre. C. Amalvi montre la diffusion des “images” templières de 1848 à nos jours à travers les manuels scolaires français et leurs enjeux politiques et idéologiques: le sort tragique de Jacques de Molay mais aussi le “châtiment” de ses bourreaux cristallisent la perception même du Moyen Âge. Ils signent, selon les jugements portés à la Révolution, la revanche contre l’arbitraire royal ou la relativisation des actes de la Terreur. Les fantasmes portés par la fiction contemporaine (N. Dohrmann) sont à la mesure de l’attrait continuel pour les secrets, trésors ou mystères supposés dont la matrice initiale réside au cœur des accusations et du procès. G. Brunel en décrit les mythes et légendes depuis la résurgence d’une loge néo-templière en 1805 jusqu’aux rumeurs engendrées autour de l’abbé Saunière à Rennes-le-Château avant la Grande Guerre. Les travaux érudits menés à la même époque par Auguste Pétel, lui aussi prêtre de son état, historien des templiers de Champagne auquel hommage est ici rendu, permettent de trouver un équilibre salutaire. François-Olivier Touati Université de Tours Kathryn Hurlock, Wales and the Crusades, c.1095–1291 (Studies in Welsh History, 33). Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2011. Pp. 267. ISBN 978 0 7083 2427 1. In recent years there has been an increasing interest in “crusading on the margins.” This has led to investigation of the impact of the crusades in areas outside of the Latin East and the major royal courts in western Europe. Included amongst these are investigations of the crusades in Scandinavia and eastern Europe: for example, the collection of papers in Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1300 (2001) edited by Alan Murray, and focused national studies, such as Christopher Tyerman’s England and the Crusades, 1095–1588 (1988). However, Wales has largely been overlooked in these works. Scholarship focused upon Wales during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has largely bypassed the topic of Wales and the crusades. William Rees’ A History of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in Wales and on the Welsh Border (1947) sought to identify the presence of the military orders in Wales and the March but only briefly touched upon the impact of the crusades in Wales. While several scholars, notably Helen Nicholson and Huw Pryce, have begun to explore the influence of the military orders in Wales, there has been a notable lack of any general survey of the impact of the crusades in Wales. It is into this gap that Kathryn Hurlock’s Wales and the Crusades, c.1095–1291 steps.



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This work is divided into five chapters that cover the range of Welsh involvement in the crusades from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries. The first chapter deals with Welsh sources that reference the crusades and Welsh participation. Hurlock examines Welsh-language poetry, such as the Mabinogion, along with the surviving chronicles, in both Welsh and Latin, that were produced in Wales. While the author acknowledges the general lack of direct references regarding the crusades, those references that do occur are highlighted and brought to the reader’s attention. Hurlock does not argue that crusading was at the forefront of Welsh consciousness during these two centuries, but she does convincingly suggest that references to crusading themes in Welsh monastic and princely circles indicate that Welsh society was connected to contemporary society in western Europe and was aware of the significant events in the Latin East. The next two chapters deal directly with Welsh participation in the crusades. Chapter Two focuses upon Archbishop Baldwin’s preaching tour of 1188, chronicled by Gerald of Wales in the Itinerarium Kambriae, prior to Richard I’s departure on the Third Crusade in 1190. It highlights the route that was taken and the level of interest shown by those living in different areas of Wales and the March. Chapter Three focuses on the responses of those living in those areas and attempts to identify all of those mentioned in the sources as having taken part in subsequent crusades. This latter point can be tricky because the author has sought to include all of the available sources. Some of these sources are later compilations whose authenticity is dubious but their inclusion is necessary. Hurlock has been careful to emphasize the possibility that some of the sources may be inaccurate and provides an overview that is thorough but is not misleading. The actual numbers of those who are known to have gone on crusade from Wales and the March is rather low. Only a few are occasionally mentioned in the sources as having gone on crusade, while the majority that are named were involved after 1190. Hurlock persuasively argues that this may perhaps show more of the political unrest in Wales than providing an accurate reflection of Welsh interest in the crusades at this time. She suggests, convincingly, that the political unrest in Wales between the Welsh, the Marcher lords and inter-family conflict meant that many simply found it too risky to abandon their lands to the constant turmoil. As a result, those who tended to go on crusade can be shown to have concluded peace treaties and other guarantees for their lands prior to their departure. Family ties may also have played a large factor in determining whether someone would have undertaken a crusade, with many of the participants coming from the large Marcher families. The majority of those whom the author identifies are generally known and most of this section of the work consists of an identification and analysis of those mentioned in a crusading context within other sources. Hurlock does, however, make some significant contributions to identifying these crusaders by scrutinising the various records and considering whether those who were claimed as crusaders can be shown to have been absent from Wales for the required length of time. A good example from p. 108 is the case of Morgan ap Hywel who can be linked

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with the “count of Caerleon,” identified on the Fifth Crusade by Reinhold Röhricht in Studien Zur Geschichte des Fünften Kreuzzuges (1891), 89. Hurlock argues convincingly that Morgan was unlikely to have been on crusade during the dates suggested by Röhricht but does suggest a later date when Morgan may have been more likely to participate in the crusade. The fourth chapter is concerned with the presence of the two major military orders, the Hospitallers and the Templars, in Wales and the March. In particular it identifies the properties held by both of these orders and considers the possible motivations of the local donors. It also seeks to identify Welsh members of the military orders. In particular, Hurlock highlights some of the political motivations that appear to have driven donations to the military orders. While donations to the Templars, who were strongly linked with the English monarchy, were limited, the Hospitallers received a larger share of properties in Wales and the March, especially from the native Welsh. While Rees discussed much of this material in his work on the Hospital in Wales, the author brings this material up to date and highlights new discussion and theories in more recent scholarship, particularly Helen Nicholson’s views on the order’s properties in Wales. The final chapter of this book attempts to analyse the Welsh response to the crusades in the context of its relations with England. In particular, the author highlights the fact that continual unrest and poor relations with the English crown affected the willingness of those living in Wales and the March to embark on a crusade. Hurlock finds that crusade participation was most prevalent amongst the Marcher lords whose lands were enjoying a period of stabilized peace with their neighbours. Hurlock also discusses how the Welsh did, or did not, use the crusades as a bargaining tool against the English monarch in order to strengthen their hold on their lands. Instead, Hurlock argues, it was the English who were able to use crusading events and themes, such as Archbishop Baldwin’s preaching tour in 1188, to exert their own authority in Wales. In general the work is well written and organized but there are still a few minor mistakes and errors, most noticeably in the bibliography. On p. 241 Emily Atwater Babcock, co-translator for the most recent English version of William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea (2 vols., 1943), is rendered as Emily Archer Babcock. However, these points are minor and do not detract from the most significant aspect of this work, which is its attempt to identify all of those from Wales and the March who participated in the crusade movement. In this it succeeds admirably. The first two appendices (pp. 214–32) provide a prosopography of those identified in the sources as participants. The author also provides notes on the sources of information and familial connections of the crusaders and comments upon the validity of the claims. At long last we have a thorough study of Wales and the crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that provides a clear overview of the Welsh response to the crusades and the impact of the crusading movement on Welsh society. Hurlock’s work will allow for a better understanding of “crusading on the margins” in Britain, but will also, hopefully, pave the way for a better



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understanding of the political and social impact of the crusades in Christendom throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Philip Handyside Cardiff University Nicholas L. Paul, To Follow in Their Footsteps: The Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv, 350. ISBN 978 0 8014 5097 6. With To Follow in Their Footsteps Nicholas Paul himself follows in the footsteps of two of the most influential historians of twelfth-century crusading in recent times, Marcus Bull and Jonathan Riley-Smith. Paul’s study builds upon Bull’s findings regarding the close association of early crusaders and ecclesiastical communities in Limousin and Gascony around 1100 (Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony, 1993), in which he showed that enthusiasm for crusading grew out of family links and devotional concerns which bound nobility and ecclesiastics in a common cultural context, and in turn provided a fertile ground for Pope Urban II’s appeal to arms-bearers to join the First Crusade. Paul’s other point of departure is Riley-Smith’s work on family networks and crusading in the early twelfth century (The First Crusaders, 1095–1131, 1997), in which he pointed out that family traditions and connections between crusading families played an important role in sustaining the crusade movement as a collective effort, with what he called crusading clans often remaining committed to the Holy Land and the business of the cross over generations. To Follow in Their Footsteps takes these enquiries one step further by asking the question how such family traditions were formed and maintained, and how crusading became a constituent part in the collective memories of noble families, mainly during the twelfth century but with the occasional glimpse into the time after 1200. Paul’s main sources are Latin dynastic narratives, often produced by monastic communities closely associated with crusading families, which weave into their narrative fabrics crusading traditions meant to valorize and enhance a family’s reputation and standing. Paul also includes vernacular literature, the romans and gestes, which circulated in aristocratic communities and clad the story of the crusade in a wider context of epic and largely fictionalized versions of the past, which nevertheless included clear references to the present and to ancestral links with the living. In twelfth-century society, however, the read, recited or sung words now codified in our written records were only one dimension of the public discourse which established an aristocratic family’s fame, reputation and identity. Public monuments, ritual and ceremonies were just as important in an era which readily responded to non-verbal modes of communication. Paul, therefore, also includes among his sources objects such as holy relics, banners, wall hangings, murals and stained glass which returning crusaders donated to churches and

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monastic communities and which spoke of their and their families involvement in the crusades and their travels to the Holy Land. The book is divided into two main parts. In Part I, Paul systematically treats a number of recurrent themes, which weave the fabric of crusading within memorial narratives during the twelfth century. He begins with two chapters on the construction and importance of a crusading heritage within family histories of twelfth-century nobility. Crusading ancestors were often displayed as paragons of noble honour, military prowess and religious piety, and thus served as models to display and emulate. Paul then turns to the way in which relics and other trophies witnessing to a family’s crusading activities became part of the ornaments and ceremonial culture of churches and monastic communities, thus introducing a lasting and often repeated assertion of a family’s identity within a crusading tradition. The remaining two chapters of Part I are dedicated to the cultivation of the memory of family members who died on crusade and to the recurring theme in crusade narratives of the “Opening of the Gates,” which in particular ascribed notions of piety, humility and bravery to crusading ancestors. Part II consists of the case studies of two “count-kings” of the later twelfth century, Henry II of England and Alfonso II of Aragon, who failed to become crusaders despite the fact that they were imbued with social and cultural values and came from family backgrounds which predestined them to respond to the crusading calls extended to them from within and outside their respective domains. These two chapters again show how family identity and crusading traditions went hand in hand, how they contributed towards structuring social relations and how they could influence political stratagems. Even if both Henry and Alfonso did not live up to the expectations held by the worlds they lived in, Paul uses these stories well to illustrate how the power and appeal of the crusade linked in with a wealth of other aristocratic concerns predicated on and directed by specific social contexts and particular political ambitions. Paul’s analysis of the dynastic narratives is of great quality, taking into account the specific nature of the genre of text he deals with. Far from straightforward records of historical narrative, these texts follow their own particular agendas of valorizing aristocratic life and culture and presenting social and political relations within the moulds of literary conventions while serving specific aims and strategies of communication between the authors and the communities they wrote for. Paul does an excellent job in explaining how these texts work within their particular and often highly individual contexts and thus contributes greatly to our understanding in general of the construction of historical memory in the twelfth century. Perhaps the title of the book promises too much: strictly speaking this is a study of dynastic narratives predominantly from central France and their relation with the crusade in the twelfth century, despite the showcase examples highlighted in Part II. The two parts of the book stand somewhat apart and might have been better integrated. Lastly, there are a few issues with the footnotes and the bibliography: short title citations are inconsistent; not all works quoted in the footnotes appear



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in the bibliography; there are some misspellings of foreign-language titles; and the alphabetical order in the bibliography is broken at least once. These quibbles notwithstanding, this is an excellent contribution to twelfthcentury crusade studies, which presents important new aspects and greatly enhances our understanding of the connections between aristocratic culture and crusading in the twelfth century. Christoph T. Maier Universität Zürich Christiane Sutter, Die Kreuzfahrerrezeption in der deutschen Malerei des 19. Jahrhunderts (Karlsruher Schriften zur Kunstgeschichte, 5). Münster: Lit Verlag, 2012. Pp. 364. ISBN 978 3 643 11470 9. Just as the nineteenth century formed the backdrop for modern historiography on the crusades, the century following the French Revolution introduced an iconography of the crusade, which has fed modern popular perceptions of crusading. Nationalism, liberalism, the restoration of monarchies after the Napoleonic experiments, the struggle between Church and state, the rise of universities, Romanticism and the escapism engendered by industrialization and urbanization, all contributed towards the rediscovery of medieval history and myth. Coupled with a revival of Orientalism in the wake of Napoleon’s expeditions to Egypt and nascent imperial colonialism, these tendencies produced a particular focus on the medieval crusades, which manifested itself in the writing of numerous new histories of the crusades as well as literary works set in crusading contexts, such as Sir Walter Scott’s novels. At the same time, art – and in particular painting and sculpture – focused on the crusade as a subject with which to create its own vision of the medieval period. Famous examples are the statues of Godfrey of Bouillon in Brussels and Richard the Lionheart in London or the Salle des Croisades at Versailles. Within this context Christiane Sutter explores paintings from Germany, in particular murals and stained glass in public buildings, churches and aristocratic residences, which depict various crusading themes. Some of these buildings were public spaces, such as Speyer Cathedral or the Imperial Palace at Goslar; others were private at the time, such as Hohenschwangau Castle. Sutter divides her material according to historical criteria, treating in separate chapters depictions of Godfrey of Bouillon and scenes of the First Crusade, Conrad III and the Second Crusade, Frederick I and the Third Crusade, Frederick II, and lastly individual scenes that are sometimes not clearly tied to any specific historical events. While introducing the artists and their works, Sutter makes a valuable effort to explain and explore the connections between the paintings and contemporary writings, mostly histories of the crusades. But while painters may have been aware of the preferences and treatments of the crusades in historical and literary works, their own choices of characters and scenes were little influenced by them. They were

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mostly interested in grand national figures, royal and aristocratic heroes who represented German might throughout history in contexts which suggested equality with other leaders of Christian Europe, especially the French crusading kings, and superiority vis-à-vis an alien culture and religion, i.e. the Muslims. The reflections of the contemporary political world of nineteenth-century Europe are obvious. But this was not the whole story, as the iconography shows a clear desire to stress a number of specific character traits deemed typical of the crusade. Crusading scenes emphasized individual heroism, military prowess and personal piety, as well as a particularly Romantic notion of suffering and endurance. Sutter’s analyses of the paintings she discusses are ultimately disappointing. Although she goes to painstaking lengths to compare the paintings within the context of contemporary ideas about the historical episodes depicted, there is, as she herself states, not much mileage in these comparisons. One wonders whether it would not have been more worthwhile spending more time on an in-depth analysis of the immediate contexts of the paintings – i.e. their place in the pictorial programmes of the buildings in which they appeared, and in particular artistic traditions and developments – as well as the relationship between artists and commissioning authorities. But even within her own remit, Sutter shows weaknesses. Some of her general explanations are far too simplistic. For example, the idea that the influences of the French Revolution pushed religious faith into oblivion to such a degree that it had to be rediscovered during the Romantic era and that this favoured the depiction of religious scenes such as the crusades in no way does justice to the multi-layered conflicts and developments of the early nineteenth century, where religion and faith never ceased to play an important role in people’s individual lives as well as in politics. Sutter’s grasp on modern crusade scholarship is patchy as concerns both German and foreign language works, and it is a pity that in the book the pictures she writes about are not better reproduced, as they are far too small to properly recognize significant details. There is also no index, which would have made navigating the book much easier. Nevertheless, the book fits in with the work done by Elizabeth Siberry on crusades and the modern era and thus opens up an important area of the artistic after-life of the crusades in the nineteenth century. Christoph T. Maier Universität Zürich Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, ed. Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen and Helle Vogt (University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, 445). Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2013. Pp. 329. ISBN 978 87 7674 659 9. Modern historians of the crusades and associated cultural encounters can find themselves alternately puffed up or winded by present-day concerns and political



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interests. Both content and context of this collection of papers from a conference held in Damascus in October 2009 bear this out. Kurt Villads Jensen was prohibited by the Syrian authorities from delivering his keynote paper on Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” while Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen’s essay’s implicit praise for Syrian TV’s secular take on the Sultan Baibars provokes wistful thoughts when read in September 2013. The influences of twentieth- and twenty-first-century experiences of globalization and attitudes to accelerated cultural exchange pulse through a number of contributions. Indeed, as Villads Jensen admits, these provide an inspiration for the whole collection. If there is a presentist message coming from this volume, not that there needs to be one, it proclaims diversity of circumstance and response. Medieval encounters on the external frontiers of Christendom (there is almost nothing on internal frontiers beyond conquered territory) are here confirmed as operating at every level and in all facets of culture and social intercourse – legal, artistic, literary, fictional, ideological, religious, sexual and academic as well as political. Reactions generated ranged from visceral demonization and violent, racist hostility (as in the Baltic) to accommodation (as between Muslims and indigenous eastern Mediterranean Christian traditions) to literary respect of supposedly shared values across religious divides. The easy but toxic myth of inevitable separate development, once fashionable in crusade studies, is at the very least challenged, as are similarly slick popular assumptions of convivencia. What emerge across the centuries are the fissured mental barriers erected in the past by those now being observed and, perhaps, those constructed by their modern observers. The contributions fall into several groups. Most choose to scrutinize specific texts or literary genres. Torben Nielsen not only neatly distinguishes different layers in Henry of Livonia’s approach to native Livonians and others, but also deftly uses Henry’s chronicle to emphasize the importance of recognizing the agency of the usually mute or ignored conquered and oppressed. Jonathan Phillips follows Ibn Jubayr on a tour round his favourable attitude to Saladin. The exchange between cultural stereotypes and the expectations and literary texts that hovers between imaginative entertainment and fictionalized narratives is explored, on the western European side by Helen Nicholson and Sini Kangas, and from the Arabic angle, by Osman Latiff. Each demonstrates how porous are the boundaries between what historians often characterize as “literary” sources and other prose and verse descriptive material. Latiff’s use of Arabic poetry exemplifies the need for more attention to be paid to it as a source for social and cultural – and hence, in its broadest terms, political – history, a point urgently pressed in Robert Irwin’s acute analysis of Arabist twentieth-century historiography, which otherwise turns a sharply critical eye on the work of Hamilton Gibb, Claude Cahen and Emmanuel Sivan. Legal texts provide the basis for Bertil Nilsson (Gratian on pagans and infidels), Hubert Kaufhold (Islam’s influence on the legal tradition of Eastern Christians), Christian Høgel (on Manuel I Komnenos’ failed reform of the formula for converts to Christianity from Islam), Helle Vogt (on German law in Danish Estonia) and Peter Edbury, who excavates inter-faith relations from John of Jaffa

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and Philip of Novara. Each recognizes the complexities of mixed communities that, in practice, transcended the exclusion of theory, although even here it is refreshing to be reminded by Nilsson that Gratian, at his most unworldly and least useful as a guide to twelfth-century living, saw no impediment to legitimate Christian baptism being performed by a non-Christian. The eclecticism of the subject is well caught in the contrasting remaining papers. Andrew Jotischky provides a suggestive, nuanced glimpse of shared religious sites in Syria and Palestine, paying especial attention to participation not just witness across confessional divides. Armenia, often the poor relation of crusader studies, is afforded due importance by Angus Stewart as a precarious link between the Franks and the Mongols as well as a potential base for a Western counter-assault on the Mamluks in the generation after 1291. Janus Møller Jensen, very much in a current local trend, wishes to see Erik Emune (1134–37) as a self-consciously crusading monarch, although unconvincingly since this relies almost exclusively, apart from a letter of Peter the Venerable to Sigurd of Norway of tenuous connection, on thirteenth-century evidence. Møller Jensen’s assumed categorization of more or less any warfare with religious overtones or rhetoric as crusading matches Paul Chevedden’s now familiar arguments over Urban II and the First Crusade, a Huntington-esque Erdmann without pilgrimage and penance. If his essay comparing the geo-political views of Urban II and the Damascene jurist al-Sulami seems even more familiar than usual, it is; a longer version of the piece was published under the same title in Oriens 2011. Chevedden brings great gusto and engaging forcefulness to his possibly welcome slaughtering of cows, holy or not. However, chop logic (see top paragraph on p. 31), loose categories (“goals and ideals that the movement set for itself,” p. 27) and misrepresentation of other scholars (e.g. a misleading inference from Hans Mayer on p. 34) scarcely aid his cause. For all his close analysis, Chevedden seems temperamentally to be, in J. H. Hexter’s formula, a lumper. So, of course, is Samuel Huntington. In a robust but fair assessment, Villads Jensen argues that, as Christianity and hence Christendom and hence European culture were (are?) predicated on exclusivity and opposing other civilizations, Huntington stands in a long medieval and Western tradition. Some represented in this collection stand with him. Most, however, do not. They, like the subject they tackle, resist tendentious or simple schemes; they are among Hexter’s splitters. Christopher Tyerman Hertford College, Oxford Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Pp. xviii, 476. ISBN 978 0 300 11312 9 (hardback). Recent histories of the crusades, or a particular crusade, have poured off printing presses in the last decade, presumably to meet the needs of educated lay readers,



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medieval faculty, and crusades scholars who want to hear about all the interested parties in all the regions touched by the phenomenon. However, these discussions of crusading rarely devote more than a few chapters to the Crusader States; full-length treatments of Outremer have not been common since the 1970s, with the exception of P. M. Holt’s brief The Crusader States and their Neighbours: 1098–1291 (2004). Malcolm Barber’s substantial book goes a long way toward filling this gap. It usefully achieves two tasks: it provides a detailed narrative history of the Frankish East derived from Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Muslim medieval authors and it updates the scholarship on Outremer in diverse sub-areas of history. Barber’s decision to weave military history, Church history, art history, and research on material culture into the chronological survey rather than relegating these subjects to stand-alone chapters, make this book especially attractive for anyone who likes total history (as the publisher noted on the jacket). Yet at the same time, this work’s most noticeable attribute – its meticulous detail – can be a hindrance as much as a help. Barber initially sets up two main themes concerning the Crusader States, both of which get lost in the dense narrative. Nor is it easy to identify the audience Barber (or the publisher) intended to reach. Its apparatus suggests a more general readership, as opposed to crusades specialists; but how many non-specialists or students would want an exhaustive level of detail in a narrative history? Scholars will undoubtedly come to rely upon Barber’s book, but they may find it mildly frustrating to use. Barber’s first and last chapters quickly lay out the scope of both the book and problems encountered by the Franks from their establishment of the Crusader States through the Third Crusade. In the introduction, he notes the land’s historic and symbolic importance; considers the varied ethnicities and religious affiliations of its inhabitants; and then contends that the Franks “produced a unique cultural entity of their own” (Introduction, p. 3). These themes recur in the conclusion: pragmatism underpinned all Frankish institutions and their sense of their crusading past. Again, Barber insists on Frankish independence as a culture, even though the Crusader States borrowed from Western European and Byzantine traditions. This argument, however, does not get much development throughout the book, and indeed it would be difficult to explain how the Franks’ borrowing from Byzantine and Western European traditions led to an “independent and vibrant culture” (Conclusion, p. 357). Barber more successfully indicates how frequently the Crusader States skirted the edge of disaster, long before the battle of Hattin. He brings in as many European, Frankish, Byzantine, and Syrian sources as he can, deftly drawing on the most recent translations and scholarship for all these texts. Two chapters cover the First Crusade, then the book’s structure mimics William of Tyre’s chronicle with chapters organized by rulers of Jerusalem. Maps, plans, family trees, a chronology chart, and plates provide helpful information beyond the chapters, extensive notes, and extensive bibliography. The index deserves special accolades for including brief descriptions of people and places, even the most minor: readers will be able to find

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separate entries for all fourteen men named “Baldwin.” Finally, the comprehensive bibliography conveniently provides references only to the most recent editions and English translations of Western and non-Western primary source authors, instead of forcing readers to search through a dense list of every edition ever printed. Barber’s work will inevitably invite comparisons with Runciman’s History of the Crusades, Volume 2, as both books apply a narrative approach to the same subject matter and non-specialists still turn to Runciman for his vivid writing style. In my opinion, Barber offers his readers much more than Runciman did, both in what he delivers and in how he does so. Though in the first few chapters Barber tends to merely name his sources without any other information, later on he explains how he weighed different texts: how he chose one Arab source over another based on the authors’ agendas, or why William of Tyre is reliable for some incidents but not others. Narrative historians should demonstrate their methodology (even if they interrupt the flow of events to do so) to avoid blurring the line between history and fiction. All too often, Runciman sounded like an omniscient narrator concerned with plot and character development; Barber reads more like a careful historian. Barber also provides more detail than Runciman – a mixed blessing. It can often become difficult to see the forest for the trees. Barber explains what happened, why it happened, and who described the happenings, but sometimes fails to clearly point to the incidents or people that ultimately had the most impact on the Crusader States. This level of detail may also limit the book’s audience. Lay readers might get lost or misdirected in this dense work, and lecture-writers might also find the book unusable because it is not conducive to skimming. Even specialists may find the text too concentrated, with inconveniently placed endnotes rather than footnotes. Barber’s painstaking work undoubtedly advances crusades scholarship, but in a book produced for an ill-defined audience, it may not receive the attention it deserves. Deborah Gerish Emporia State University M. A. Köhler, Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers in the Middle East: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Period of the Crusades, trans. P. M. Holt, revised, edited and introduced by K. Hirschler (The Muslim World in the Age of the Crusades, 1). Leiden: Brill, 2013. Pp. xv, 368. ISBN 978 90 04 24857 1. The field of crusader studies is currently in a state of rapid growth. Every year, publishers’ catalogues display a range of new studies produced by scholars seeking to redraw the map of this research area. The pace of change can be breathless and even recent publications are in danger of drifting into the wake of such relentless advances. How striking it is then that a team of scholars have committed their time and skills to the translation of a work that has now been in circulation in German for over two decades. The first historian to seek to bring Köhler’s study on Levantine



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diplomacy at the time of the crusades to the attention of an Anglophone audience was P. M. Holt. He translated the bulk of this work into English between 1999 and 2001 and his undertaking was later completed by Konrad Hirschler who took on the task in 2010. This monograph in its present form is a complete translation of the original, although references to secondary works in the original have been curtailed and some alterations have been made to the transcription of Arabic terms. Fundamentally, Köhler’s study provides a reassessment of Christian–Islamic relations in the Near Eastern region during the late-eleventh and twelfth centuries (with some remarks on developments in the thirteenth). It is his overarching intention to confront the notion that this was a period characterized by a direct and sustained religious conflict between Catholic Christianity and Islam. In this endeavour his work is highly topical. The publication of Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) has lately caused many historians (and other commentators) to consider the relevance of such ideas to the crusading era. Although Köhler’s work was published many years before the term “Clash of Civilizations” was brought to the fore in academic debate, he is essentially addressing the same concept. Structurally, Köhler has chosen to investigate this broad issue through an examination of the treaties and alliances formed in the Near East across faith boundaries. The first three chapters of this work offer a phase-by-phase analysis on the evolving diplomatic situation in this region examining the periods 1070–99, 1098–1158 and 1158–92 respectively (with some comments on the thirteenth century in the last of these chapters). The first chapter begins by discussing the period directly before the advent of the crusaders into the Near East, making the point that this region was already both contested between various factions and characterized by considerable ethnic and religious diversity. This sets up his conclusion that when the crusaders settled in this area they merely became another rival faction jockeying for position alongside their Arab, Turkish and Turcoman neighbours. This section also covers the arrival of the First Crusade, touching upon several familiar historiographical themes including: Urban’s reasons for launching the crusade, the crusaders’ motives, and their relations with Alexius. At this point, Köhler’s study will feel a little out-ofdate to a twenty-first-century eye. This is hardly surprising given the scale of recent research on the First Crusade. Even so, his ongoing use of the Arabic sources in this and every chapter adds an original dimension to his argument. In this case, he employs Arabic materials to draw insightful conclusions about the negotiations that took place between the Fatimids and the pilgrims during the course of the crusade. The second and third chapters concern the changing fortunes of the Latin East from the period following the First Crusade through to the end of the Third Crusade. Having explained how the crusaders’ integrated themselves into a system of competing lordships, he discusses the evolving relationships between these territories over time. In this account he draws a number of challenging conclusions. For example, in his account of Muslim resistance to the Franks, he generally seeks

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to minimize the influence of jihad upon the political decision-making of Islamic rulers. He argues instead that they were primarily guided by principles of economic advantage and political survival, using jihad as a tool only when it suited them. Even Saladin is presented in this way. He is described as a man who employed jihad propaganda to strengthen his own authority but then, having declared his public commitment to holy war, found that he had no choice but to play out this role so that he could remain in power. Moving onto another matter, he advances the thesis that many of the alliances and diplomatic manoeuvrings of this period were guided by the “no place” doctrine. This is essentially the thesis that all the powers of the Near East had a vested interest in the status quo. The supremacy of one of their number or the successful intervention of a powerful neighbour could threaten the entire political system, imperilling each of its members and raising the spectre of a future in which there would be “no place” for their own survival. Thus the members of the system – from any faith – tended to band together against any rising power to maintain balance and protect their interests. This is a thought-provoking model which in some situations maps very closely onto the political events of the period. The final chapter explores the “instruments” and legal tools used in treatyformation, defining, for example, the formal subjugation of one power to another or the sharing of a given territory. He offers discussion on the Frankish and Islamic influences that shaped these “instruments.” Overall, there is much that is fresh and original about Köhler’s thesis. His insights into the realpolitik underlying the various treaties and alliances of this period are deeply incisive. He does perhaps underestimate the importance of holy war (both Christian and Islamic) as a factor when he balances his diplomatic equations but this should not obscure the very real contribution he makes in this magisterial study. Nicholas Morton Nottingham Trent University Actes de Famagouste du notaire génois Lamberto di Sambuceto (décembre 1299– septembre 1300), ed. Michel Balard, William Duba and Chris Schabel (Centre de Recherche Scientifique Sources et Études de l’histoire de Chypre, 70). Nicosia, 2012. Pp. 357. ISBN: 978 9963 0 8129 5. Bullarium Cyprium. Vol. III. Lettres papales relatives á Chypre 1316–1378, ed. Charles Perrat and Jean Richard (Centre de Recherche Scientifique Sources et Études de l’histoire de Chypre, 68). Nicosia, 2012. Pp. 548. ISBN: 978 9963 0 8126 4. Cyprus in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was an important Latin bastion in the eastern Mediterranean. After the collapse of the last crusader states it provided a haven for refugees from the Holy Land and its capital Famagusta became an increasingly vibrant trading centre, especially once Mamluk pressure had forced



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the fall of Acre and the gradual decline of the Armenian port of Lajazzo. Genoese merchants often frequented the island, as did those from the other main trading cities of the Italian peninsula, as well as from Iberia, Greece and further afield. In addition to being a significant trading entrepôt, in these years Cyprus was also a main base for military campaigns to the Levant, with the Lusignan rulers regarded as integral players in the proposed crusades to recover the Holy Land and weaken Mamluk domination of the region. As the fourteenth century progressed, they also became the front-runners in the protection of Christian lands from the incursions of the Anatolian Turks and later the Ottomans. The two volumes under consideration here are important contributions to the study of Cyprus at this time, especially the economic history of Famagusta and the diplomatic relations between the Avignon popes and the clergy and rulers of the island. The first volume, the acts of the Genoese notary Lamberto di Sambuceto, builds on the work into Genoese notarial acts from Famagusta, began by the Collana storica di Fonti e Studi and its director Geo Pistarino in 1982. (Published in five volumes: Notai genovesi in Oltremare. Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto di Sambuceto (3 iuglio 1300–3 agosto 1301), ed. V. Polonio, Collana storica di Fonti e Studi [CSFS] 31, Genoa, 1982; Notai genovesi in Oltremare. Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto di Sambuceto (6 iuglio–27 ottobre 1301), ed. R. Pavoni, CSFS 32, Genoa, 1982; Notai genovesi in Oltremare. Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto di Sambuceto (11 ottobre 1296–23 giugno 1299), ed. M. Balard, CSFS 39, Genoa, 1983; Notai genovesi in Oltremare. Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto di Sambuceto (31 marzo 1304–19 iuglio 1305, 4 gennaio–12 iuglio 1307), Giovanni da Rocha (3 agosto 1308–14 marzo 1310), ed. M. Balard, CSFS 43, Genoa, 1984; Notai genovesi in Oltremare. Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto di Sambuceto (gennaio– agosto 1302), ed. R. Pavoni, CSFS 49, Genoa, 1987.) The present work gathers the acts made by Lamberto between 26 December 1299 and 23 September 1300 from cartolare 125 of the Genoese State Archive. This forms the first of three volumes dedicated to this register, the second and third of which were published in 1982 (see the CSFS 31 and CSFS 32 above). Lamberto is one of the most important Genoese notaries overseas. His career began in Chiavari, before he moved to Caffa in 1288, where he worked for around three years and made a series of 903 acts (published as: Gênes et l’Outre-mer, Tome 1: Les actes de Caffa du notaire Lamberto di Sambuceto 1289-1290, ed. M. Balard, Paris, 1973). After a hiatus of several years, Lamberto began working on Cyprus in 1296, in Famagusta and Nicosia, before returning to Genoa in 1307 where he died in ca. 1325. The sources from Lamberto’s career span almost twelve years, from 1296 to 1307, and make up one of the most important sources for the history of trade in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, as well as of Genoese commercial expansion and the conduct of international business in Caffa and Famagusta. The present volume is of particular importance for the latter point, providing a wealth of acts relating to the many different mercantile ventures of the Genoese on Cyprus and in the wider region.

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As one would expect, Lamberto’s registers reflect the high levels of commercial activity linking Cyprus with the markets of Italy and the western Mediterranean, as well as locations in the East such as Turchia, Syria, Armenia, Constantinople and the Aegean islands (see e.g. nos. 69, 83, 143, 180). The editors have made another extremely important contribution to the existing work on Lamberto and have produced a volume which maintains the high editorial standards of its predecessors, with thorough indices, accurate summaries and a useful introduction. The Bullarium Cyprium is a collection of papal documents relating to Cyprus, which now makes up three volumes, all published by the Cyprus Research Centre (the others being: Bullarium Cyprium. Vol. 1, Papal letters concerning Cyprus, 1196–1261, ed. C. Schabel, Nicosia, 2010); Bullarium Cyprium. Vol. 2, Papal letters concerning Cyprus, 1261–1314, ed. C. Schabel, Nicosia, 2010). The third volume, under discussion here, covers those documents from the pontificates of the second of the Avignon popes to the last: John XXII (1316– 34), Benedict XII (1335–42), Clement VI (1342–52), Innocent VI (1352–62), Urban V (1362–70) and Gregory XI (1371–78). Some of this material can already be found in various published volumes, such as the editions of papal letters by the Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome or the editions of the Registra Supplicationum published by the Analecta Vaticano-belgica. However, these volumes are by no means complete and they can be difficult to consult because of their sometimes confusing structure and omissions. Moreover, the sheer number of documents produced by the papal chancery at this time means that the historian of medieval Cyprus can become bogged down under the weight of irrelevant material. The editors of the present work should therefore be praised for producing a coherent volume which brings together the relevant documents in a clear chronological sequence and with accurate and helpful summaries to existing published documents as well as to archival material which has not been published elsewhere. The preference given to the Registra Avenionensia over the Registra Vaticana and notice of the Registra Supplicationum – an important and much underused source for the Avignon papacy after John XXII – is especially commendable. Overall, these two volumes will provide historians with invaluable information on the commercial networks linking Cyprus to the wider Mediterranean, as well as on the political, social and religious life of the island in the late Middle Ages. The editors should be praised for producing a work of such high scholarly standard and the Cyprus Research Centre should be acclaimed for continuing to promote and publish the fruits of this invaluable academic exercise. Mike Carr Royal Holloway, University of London



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Pierre-Vincent Claverie, Honorius III et l’Orient (1216–1227): Étude et publication de sources inédites des Archives vaticanes (ASV) (The Medieval Mediterranean, Peoples Economies and Cultures, 400–1500, 97). Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013. Pp. xii, 502. ISBN 978 90 04 24559 4. Honorius III has long been overshadowed by his illustrious predecessor Innocent III: an entire German-Austrian team is editing Innocent’s papal registers and scholars including Helmut Roscher and Achille Luchaire have analyzed Innocent III’s impact on crusade policy and the East. However, those who have previously scrutinized the papal registers in manuscript or have relied on the piecemeal editions or summaries of Honorius III’s letters by Horoy, Pressutti, Tautu, Rodenberg and others may now turn to Christopher Schabel’s Bullarium Cyprium, vol. I: Papal Letters Concerning Cyprus, 1196–1261 (Nicosia, 2010), William Duba’s Bullarium Hellenicum, Pope Honorius III’s Letters involving Frankish Greece and Constantinople (Turnhout, 2013) and Claverie’s meticulous edition of Honorius’ correspondence dealing with Frankish Syria and Cilician Armenia. Claverie’s volume also provides the first sustained survey of Honorius’ eastern policy since the late James M. Powell’s pivotal series of articles on Honorius and his Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1221 (Philadelphia, 1986). As cardinal Cencius, the future Honorius III was appointed protector of Frederick II (1197) and had ample opportunity to witness the results of Innocent III’s policies in the East. Turning to the papal registers and Honorius’ surviving sermons, Claverie finds there an Innocentian commitment to the principle of papal supremacy and Gregorian reform, a devotion to the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem, evidence of a contemporary eschatological imperative and the conception of the crusade as an allencompassing penitential as well as military project dependent upon a liturgicallydriven home front and the financial sacrifice of those unable to make journey in person. Honorius also inherited the internecine wars and political divisions within Latin Christendom that threatened to sabotage the delicate balancing of competing demands for money and men for multiple crusade projects – in aid of the newly established Latin Empire of Constantinople, against heretics in the Midi, in the Iberian peninsula, and to the East and Baltic. Honorius also followed Innocent’s lead in undertaking tasks traditionally assumed by secular rulers, including the creation of peace, the collection of clerical income taxes imposed for the crusade, the redemption of certain categories of crusade vows and the protection of crusaders’ rights, the distribution of monies to deserving crusaders and the setting, coordination and enforcement of ever-shifting deadlines for departure. Claverie rightly notes that Honorius’ policies in these matters adapted in response to information received from key participants in the Fifth Crusade, including Jacques de Vitry, Oliver of Paderborn, the papal legate Pelagius, the heads of the military orders and Latin ecclesiastics serving in the East. Following James Powell, Claverie depicts Honorius not as impotent, over-indulgent, and less devoted to the crusade effort but rather wielding various forms of pressure to ensure Frederick II’s commitment

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to a definite departure date. He attributes the failure of the Fifth Crusade neither to Honorius nor to his legate Pelagius but to the lack of a definite military leader, the desertion of crusaders, the desultory nature of Frederick II’s involvement and the bellicosity of his imperial representative, Louis of Bavaria. Claverie notes that, despite the disastrous denouement of the Fifth Crusade, Honorius managed to craft a precarious equilibrium in Cyprus and Armenia through his conciliatory policies and support of the Templar and Hospitaller orders. He was then faced with the unenviable task of persuading Latin Christendom to immediately engage in a new crusade, while creating peace, ensuring the fulfilment of Frederick II’s vow and arranging the necessary finances (the clergy was largely taxed out, so Honorius proposed a three-year hearth tax). Honorius extracted specific departure dates from Frederick II at Ferentino (1223) and San Germano (1227), arranged for his marriage to the heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem (1225), and brokered a critical treaty between the emperor and the Lombard League (1227). He also tackled the obstacles of potential war between England and France and the ongoing demands of the Albigensian crusade by appointing the capable Conrad of Porto as his legate (oddly enough, Claverie neglects to mention Neininger’s valuable study of Conrad). In addition to pressuring Frederick and other secular rulers, Honorius issued multiple letters of protection, appointed numerous seasoned crusade preachers (including many eastern Latin prelates), and kept meticulous records of the monies mustered in aid of the expedition of William of Montferrat to Thessalonica and the crusade of Frederick II. Claverie concludes that the efforts of Honorius and his appointees were not at fault for the lack of effectual aid sent to the East and the Latin Empire of Constantinople, blaming instead the intransigence of contemporary sovereigns including Henry III and Louis VIII, and William of Montferrat’s and Frederick II’s failure to assume the leadership role they had repeatedly pledged to undertake. Honorius also followed Innocent III in attempting to ameliorate the conditions of the Latin clergy in the East, strengthen the acquisitions of the Fourth Crusade and assert at least titular supremacy of the Roman Church over the Eastern Churches through the installation of a Latin episcopate (while permitting mixed Christian rites). By the early thirteenth century, the papacy positioned itself as a protector and supreme arbitrator of the ecclesiastical institutions of the Holy Land, including regular religious communities and secular ecclesiastics who looked to Rome to confirm their possessions and constitutions and settle conflicts. Honorius busied himself in assigning benefices, resolving contested elections, and alleviating the poverty of the Latin clergy by reassigning church revenues (in a medieval version of redistricting) to compensate for properties lost to hostile powers. Both men’s pontificates saw the rise of the use of papal judges delegate to regulate clerical litigation and enforce reforms, for Honorius tried to extend to eastern Latin ecclesiastics the proposals enacted in Lateran IV (1215). He appointed educated individuals and approved inquests into defamed prelates including the aptly named Antelm “the Nasty,” Latin archbishop of Patras. Honorius also appointed legates



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including John Colonna and Pelagius to reform the Eastern Churches in the Latin states of Constantinople, Cyprus and the Holy Land, and sought to end quarrels between Latin barons and secular ecclesiastics through brokering compositions over tithes, lands and rights. As Claverie acknowledges, it is a truism among Byzantinists that Innocent III and Honorius III assumed an intransigent position regarding dialogue between Rome and the Greek and other Eastern Churches. Although both popes considered the fall of the Byzantine empire as a unique opportunity to unite the universal Church by requiring the submission of orthodox clergy to Rome, Honorius also engaged in diplomatic relations and religious debates with orthodox prelates, Theodore Doukas and John Vatatzes while wielding the threat of excommunication and organizing crusades to protect the new Latin Empire of Constantinople (partly as a route to the Holy Land) should negotiations fail. Ecclesiastical reunion and legitimization of rulership had become bargaining chips in eastern politics, and Honorius very nearly achieved Theodore Doukas’ recognition of Roman supremacy in the 1220s. Despite papal insistence on key doctrines such as the filioque, respect for eastern liturgies and holy places ensured that, while Honorius and Innocent attempted the unification of Greek and Latin church hierarchies and the extraction of tithes (in return for continuance of Byzantine liturgy under Greek clergy), in other areas they permitted de facto autonomy of Eastern Churches. Honorius’ grants of privileges and exemptions to eastern Christian regular religious communities and his relations with the Georgian and other Eastern Christian Churches proved typical of papal policy: the recognition of papal primacy opened the possibility of papal validation of an eastern sovereign, sealed by religious union implying acceptance of catholic beliefs. There was little attempt to Latinize religious practices provided that Eastern Churches acknowledged Latin primacy. This may have been due partly to the deep rift, which persisted between linguistically-challenged Latin prelates and their dioceses in Cyprus, the former Byzantine empire and elsewhere. Only a few exceptional individuals such as Oliver of Paderborn and Jacques de Vitry engaged in actual dialogue with eastern ecclesiastics prior to the mendicant orders’ involvement in these regions. Perhaps seeking a solution to this problem, Honorius followed Innocent III and his cardinals (including Oliver and the future Gregory IX) in supporting the mendicant orders, guiding them into the activities they would dominate during the pontificates of Gregory IX and Innocent IV: pastoral work, missions, crusade organization and recruitment. Opposing some historians who claim that Honorius favoured the Teutonic order, Claverie concludes that Honorius III actively sponsored various military orders on the peripheries of Christendom (in the Baltic, the Midi, the Iberian peninsula and the Holy Land). Honorius also relied on members of military orders as messengers in diplomatic missions to Muslim powers and in the collection, transport and distribution of crusade funds, including clerical taxes and vow redemption money, roles which, after the first quarter of the thirteenth century, would be entrusted to the mendicant orders instead.

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In conclusion, Claverie follows Jean Richard, Kenneth Setton, Michele Maccarrone and James Powell in seeing Honorius III’s pontificate as a crucial link between the policies of Innocent III and Gregory IX, including innovations in crusade organization (preaching, liturgy, finance, diplomatic dealings, and taxation) and the promotion of popes as supreme arbiters of Christendom, a role essential for the peace and reform work deemed critical to the crusades’ success. Perhaps even more than Innocent III, Honorius leaned heavily on the advice of his cardinals for political decisions (including the marriage of Frederick II to Isabella of Brienne) and as legates, with mixed success: Claverie contrasts the success of John of Colonna’s mission to the Latin Empire of Constantinople with the contributions of Pelagius as a diplomatic in the East and the latter’s failure as a war leader and administrator. He finds differences too in Honorius’ treatment of eastern prelates who appealed to Rome. While Innocent preferred to depose individuals accused of abuses, Honorius rehabilitated even notorious prelates such as Antelm “the Nasty” because of their political and military usefulness to the region, while attempting to resolve the tensions between rival churches and secular powers in Latin Romania and Cyprus. Honorius strove to continue Innocent III’s promotion of the crusade, the union of Churches and reform of both Latin and non-Latin clergy in the East. Yet despite his constant efforts, Honorius saw the failure of the Fifth Crusade, the destabilization of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, and the frustration of attempting to bring Frederick II’s oft-delayed expedition to fruition. Similar failures had dogged the pontificate of Innocent III and would vex the equally talented Gregory IX and Innocent IV, and Claverie rightly lays the image of Honorius as an aged and indecisive pope to rest, confirming his administrative and diplomatic abilities. His study of Honorius’ pontificate and edition of many key documents from the papal registers are a significant contribution to the study of the crusade, the military orders, and the Latin East and should serve scholars well for decades to come. Jessalynn Bird Independent Scholar James Petre, Crusader Castles of Cyprus. The Fortifications of Cyprus under the Lusignans: 1191–1489 (Texts and Studies in the History of Cyprus, 69). Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 2012. Pp. 433. ISBN 978 9963 0 8127 1. The work is based on a Ph.D. thesis, submitted in 2010 at Cardiff University and supervised by Professor Denys Pringle. It is lavishly illustrated with 24 maps/plans and 106 photographs, all but one taken by the author himself. The text falls into four main parts, of which Part I presents a general view of the history of the respective period with a special focus on fortification. In Part II the author investigates the role of the fortifications by focusing on a variety of aspects, while Part III is devoted to the architecture, drawing analogies with developments in Syria, Anatolia and



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Europe. Part IV, a gazetteer of the known sites, is not simply a summary of the present state of knowledge based on the results of research undertaken to date, but also includes observations made by the author himself. In Part I, the author offers a general survey of the historical events of the period discussed with his attention focused strictly on the fortifications. Literary sources are used extensively and discussed in relation to the dating of the phases of construction, the role the fortifications played in the history of the period, and the conditions and contexts which led to the reuse or modification of existing fortifications or the erection of new ones. In the crucial debate on the purpose of the early fortifications built by the Lusignans, the author argues against the more military point of view espoused by other scholars. Instead, he proposes a concept emphasizing the Lusignans’ need to demonstrate their success and their projection of royal power. Undoubtedly, this is a much-needed corrective to the narrow view of castles and other fortifications functioning primarily as military or strategic facilities. He also rules out that the castles played a considerable role in the process of establishing a feudal system, although fortifications always were an important means to wield power and exert authority in newly colonized territories. Here, the reader would have expected some more explanations why this process did not take place in the Lusignans’ coming to power on the island. The description of the later periods, notwithstanding the fact that their history has been discussed at length by other scholars, offers new insights. The specific focus on fortifications, not presented in this distinct manner before, has enabled the author to integrate their history into the wider framework of the island’s history in general. By doing this, he explains with greater clarity both the rise in castle building of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the corresponding decline in the construction of fortifications taking place in the following centuries. In Part II, the author discusses at length the raison d’être of the fortifications and their role in peace and war. Most of his observations and conclusions are in line with the well-established conclusions of recent scholarship in this field. However, the author is the first to present a comprehensive discussion of these matters concerning the medieval fortifications of Cyprus. He convincingly demonstrates why they were built and the role they played in the Lusignan system of government. Besides military purposes such as the accommodation of garrisons, fortifications also served as administrative centres. The issue of economic interests, frequently associated with fortifications elsewhere, is not discussed in this section. This aspect of castle construction on Cyprus, though addressed in the entries for Kolossi and Kouklia in the gazetteer, would have deserved more attention, not least to discuss it with reference to the current scholarly debate on this topic. The author points out that on Cyprus, as in mainland Syria and Palestine, the nobility was based in the towns and therefore constituted a predominantly urban aristocracy. This might give rise to some objections, given that on the Frankish mainland the conditions were certainly different to those in Cyprus. The feudal system there was more sophisticated, with a lesser degree of “urbanization” of the

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nobles, at least during the twelfth century. This is attested by several examples (among others Saône, Toron, Nephin, Beaufort) where respective facilities indicate a permanent residence of the lord. It is noteworthy that not only the castles but also the town walls are treated appropriately. The author claims that the major ones, those of Famagusta and Nicosia, were not built as a reaction to the fall of Acre in 1291 and the growing threat of a Mamluk invasion but rather as a symbol of “importance, wealth and dignity.” On the other hand, he admits that the fortifications at Kyrenia were of a certain military strength, stating that defensibility and symbolism may have been balanced. The late and slow development of town walls, in contrast to the situation on the Frankish mainland, where they were of a high military relevance, can certainly be explained by the lack of internal and external threats, as stated by the author. In Part III, the architectural features of the fortifications under discussion are systematically examined. The author explains how the Lusignans kept and developed the features inherited from their Byzantine predecessors and how they applied Byzantine features such as prow-shaped towers or the castrum-type layout in their own constructions. The reader might have expected a more exhaustive discussion on influences from the Frankish mainland here, as constructions such as the citadel of Famagusta are a magnificent embodiment of all the defensive features developed by the crusaders there. How close these ties were is exemplified by the case of the last king of Jerusalem and builder of the citadel at Famagusta, Henry II, who also happened to be the king of Cyprus. Furthermore, there was a massive influx of residents from these regions to Cyprus following the fall of Acre in 1291. The author also discusses Armenian influences, such as those found in towers like the one at the north-east corner of the citadel of Kyrenia. The talus at its base and its arrow loops with a horizontal slit, however, are undoubtedly European influences. Part IV, the gazetteer, is not only the largest but also the most valuable section of the book. The author has assembled material of all kinds, extensively using the extant sources but also adding many observations of his own. Besides describing thoroughly all the sites and their remains, he discusses unresolved problems associated with some of them. Worthy of note are the photographs and the site plans. Many of the latter, even if based on material published earlier, have been amended in part by the author who has attempted to outline different phases of construction. Certain new plans, in particular that of La Cava, which has not been surveyed to date, are also presented. The entries of the supplementary gazetteer (Bellapais, Kouklia, Potamia, Prophitis Elias) and the discussion of their defensive character are a valuable addition. Worth mentioning is the reference to the fortified perimeter around the monastery of Bellapais, accompanied by a ditch and entered by an impressive gate furnished with a drawbridge and machicolations. As concerns Famagusta, the author contests Faucherre’s view that the towers on the south side were possibly detached (albarrana), a phenomenon only seldom found outside the Iberian Peninsula. In the case of Kyrenia, the author rejects earlier



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notions that the southern extension with its pentagonal towers was built during the seventh or ninth century in favour of a later dating to the second half of the tenth century. Their ashlar facing and the portal in its western part, however, rather point to a Frankish origin. At Limassol, Corvisier’s and Faucherre’s perception that the church constituting the first building phase of the “castle” was of Templar origin is likewise challenged. The extensive discussion on the crucial question of whether there was any fortification in Limassol at all during the Lusignan period appears to be more useful. The castle of Saranda Kolones at Paphos, moreover, has received an in-depth discussion in which the author addresses the possibility of a Byzantine origin, supported by numismatic finds. Nevertheless, the numerous arguments proposed by earlier researchers for a Frankish origin of both enceintes cannot be discounted. The question of a Byzantine origin or Byzantine influences should be subject to future investigations. Although extensively treated in publications, the site is far from being sufficiently researched, something that also applies to the aforementioned castle of Kyrenia. In conclusion it can be stated that in this work, despite its being based on the results of earlier surveys and excavations, the author presents an up-to-date and – for the first time – comprehensive gazetteer of the castles and other fortifications built on Cyprus during the Lusignan period. This gazetteer, moreover, is enriched by a considerable amount of new material and insights. The architectural record is extensively discussed and the written sources interpreted in depth. Therefore, the book and its findings represent nothing less than the latest state of the discussion concerning the medieval fortifications of the island. Mathias Piana Universität Augsburg Christopher Tyerman, The Practices of Crusading: Image and Action from the Eleventh to the Sixteenth Centuries (Variorum Collected Studies series, CS1027). Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Pp. xii + 274. ISBN 978 1 40945 424 3. The Variorum Collected Studies series is not yet an uninteresting genre of (re)publishing research results. Admittedly, more and more of the studies included in these volumes can now be easily accessed electronically, but only the printed book enables one to sink down deeply into the armchair and get an impression of the academic career of an excellent scholar. As this volume certainly does. Christopher Tyerman has selected fourteen articles spanning more than thirty years, from his 1982 study of Marino Sanudo to a 40-page discussion of money and incentives on crusade, which is published here for the first time. The geographical, thematical, and chronological range of Christopher Tyerman’s work is truly impressive. The first section in this volume consists of five studies of early fourteenth-century crusading, mostly in-depth studies of French plans for recovering the Holy Land or engagements in actual expeditions. The second

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section, with six studies, concerns the nature of crusading and how to define a crusade, discussing the problem from a Middle Eastern, a Baltic, and a common European context. One article from 2011 is a close reading of a single text, Henry of Livonia, while another draws on examples from a wide variety of source material, namely the now famous and much debated article from 1995 on whether there actually were any crusades in the twelfth century. Yet another article, from 1999, analyses early modern studies of the crusades and shows how they were used in a sixteenth-century polemic between Catholics and Protestants. The last section’s three contributions deal with the actual experience of crusading: who went on crusade, how was decision-making organized, what was the role of money. The focus of all articles is obviously on crusading, but constantly set into a broader context, be it medieval societies in general, or crusading in practice compared to other forms of warfare, or a discussion about crusading and the just-war tradition in Latin Europe. Has Christopher Tyerman changed over time? He seems to have become milder and has toned down what he himself in the introduction labels “occasional rhetorical flourishes,” or at least he has relegated them to the footnotes. What has not changed, however, is the caution with which he defines the concept of crusading and his reluctance to apply it too readily to too many phenomena in the Middle Ages. An important caveat in a time when many scholars still are ready to find crusades everywhere. This Variorum collection alone cannot do justice to the importance of Christopher Tyerman as a crusade scholar and does not really give an impression of his immense production, or of his substantial and lengthy books. Also, some important aspects of his work are not adequately represented here, the most severe lack being examples of his historiographical studies of modern scholarship. Nevertheless, the book can be recommended warmly both to those new to the field, as an introduction to the variety of crusading, and also to the more experienced crusade scholars as a welcome revisit of older discussions. Kurt Villads Jensen University of Southern Denmark Elisabet Crouzet-Pavan, Le mystère des rois de Jérusalem. 1099–1187. Paris: Albin Michel, 2013. Pp. 376. ISBN: 978 2 226 24620 2 Considering the rather slight interest of recent French historiography in crusading studies, one may be surprised when one of the leading French medieval scholars switches her attention to such an old-fashioned theme as the dynastic history of Jerusalem. Even if the author’s main interests, Venice and medieval Italy, are closely linked with Mediterranean expansion, the surprise increases when we read that she does not intend to write on “the crusade, its memory or the history … of the kingdom of Jerusalem” (p. 7). This is precisely what turns this book into a new



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and stimulating study, dealing with medieval thinking and writing on the kings of Jerusalem, particularly the construction by the sources of the idea and the images of kingship in Jerusalem. The book does not study “the past, but a representation of the past” (p. 12); however, it is not simply another book on medieval historiography because the kingdom of Jerusalem has a very peculiar status in the medieval mind and raises an unconceivable idea, a “mystery”: how could an earthly lord rule in the heavenly city, how could a man of flesh succeed Christ as king of the Holy Land? The chroniclers gradually build an answer to this question, elaborating another “mystery” (in its medieval sense of “religious play”) in order to give significance to the birth of this kingdom and, ultimately, to its death. The first chapter is thus dedicated to the sources, mostly the chronicles of the First Crusade. Recent bibliography and debates are well known but the author is more interested in the intention of each narrative and its views on history and human salvation. She insists, interestingly, on the radical differences between the chronicles of the First Crusade that describe the event as a final eschatological accomplishment, and later texts (Fulcher of Chartres, Albert of Aachen, William of Tyre) which carry on the account after 1099 and thus describe the 1099 expedition as the beginning of a new era. The second chapter considers the ideology of the First Crusade as a mixture of pilgrimage, holy war and earthly preoccupations. This is not the most original part of the book, but it explains well how these tensions are related to the “mystery”: the birth of an earthly kingdom out of an eschatological expedition. The third chapter focuses on the treatment of Godfrey of Bouillon in medieval chronicles before July 1099, and on the gradual construction of his image as a perfect miles Christi combining piety and bravery. The fourth chapter deals with the birth of the kingdom, the election of Godfrey, and relations with the ecclesiastical authorities. Godfrey’s title, his refusal to be crowned as king, and the conflicts over his election and with Daibert of Pisa are closely examined and related to the problems caused by the existence of a terrestrial king in Christ’s realm. The fifth chapter studies the construction of a new, more terrestrial, image of the kingdom after the election of Baldwin I, when the Holy Land was “reintegrated [in] the normal course of historical time” (p. 276). The difficult invention of a dynastic legitimacy is balanced by the insistence on the kings’ perfection (at least until Baldwin III) and their role in protecting the kingdom against the various threats and in re-establishing the holiness of these lands. By contrast, the last chapter is centred on the decomposition of the kingdom. It shows perfectly how chroniclers manage to combine the holiness of Latin occupation of Jerusalem and its apparent abandonment by God, casting the responsibility for the final defeat not on the kings but on the monastic clergy (most of all the military orders), evil counsellors or greedy barons. In the chronicles, the fading of the king’s body with the leprosy of Baldwin IV corresponds to the weakness of his kingdom, even if the courage of the sick king is pointed out as a proof of the still existing holiness of his charge. One can always regret that in dealing with such a large topic one must necessarily give less attention to some aspects. The Second Crusade could have enjoyed a better

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treatment, studying the developments in the conception of the crusade – and thus of Jerusalem – and the importance of this defeat for the switch from the heavenly kingdom to an earthly realm. The tensions between the papacy and the kings of Jerusalem and their impact on the composition of the sources, very thoroughly studied in the case of Godfrey of Bouillon, could have been developed for the rest of the period. These points are not criticisms but regrets, caused by the intelligence of the analysis on other aspects, and do not diminish the importance of this study. Whether the author wants it or not, this book is about crusade history and gives an interesting new point of view on many aspects. The tensions and conflicts among the Franks and their treatment by our sources are carefully studied: they were minimized and concealed during the First Crusade and the first years of the kingdom in order to enhance unity over the holy cause, but they were over-reported during the last period, as an explanation of the kingdom’s fall. The analysis of royal ideology and its various manifestations in rituals and ceremonies is based on the theory of the king’s body, particularly appropriate since the opposition between the king’s human nature and his holy (almost divine) role lies at the centre of the mystery of the kings of Jerusalem. The greatest contribution of this book to crusading studies lies in its global approach. Focusing on the writing rather than on the events, the author reminds us how much crusade history is too often dependent on few sources, written with very specific intentions. The chroniclers do not write to relate facts, but to transform them and to make events coincide with God’s will, much more worth writing about than tangible reality. This method is not brand new and has been successfully applied by many scholars (most notably Jonathan Riley-Smith and Jean Flori) but it has been limited to the First Crusade and rarely applied to the entire history of the Latin states. Of course, other kinds of sources (archaeology most of all) are now used to establish the history of the kingdom of Jerusalem, but this book shows brilliantly how carefully chronicles must be handled: they do not simply provide information on facts and events but, rather, on how they are perceived and understood. Benjamin Weber Université de Toulouse



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Short Notices Albert of Aachen’s History of the Journey to Jerusalem (Volume 1: Books 1–6. The First Crusade, 1095–1099; Volume 2: Books 7–12. The Early History of the Latin States, 1099–1119), trans. Susan B. Edgington (Crusade Texts in Translation, 24). Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. Pp. xi, 288 and xi, 249. ISBN: 978 1 4094 6653 6. The publication is a paperback edition of Professor Edgington’s translation of Albert of Aachen’s Historia Ierosolimitana, originally published in 2007 as a volume in the series Oxford Medieval Texts. The translation offered here is essentially the same as in the Oxford edition. However, chapter titles, which – on account of these not being a part of the first redaction of Albert’s Historia – were relegated to an appendix, are here added to the text. Susan Edgington’s edition and translation of this important source to the First Crusade and the settlement in the East was originally reviewed by Edward Peters in Crusades 7 (2008): 217–19. Denys Pringle, Churches, Castles and Landscapes in the Frankish East (Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS1018). Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. Pp. xii + 350. ISBN 978 1 4094 5497 7. This collection contains sixteen articles by Denys Pringle published between 1982 and 2007: “Church-building in Palestine before the Crusades”; “Churches and Settlement in Crusader Palestine”; “The Planning of some Pilgrimage Churches in Crusader Palestine”; “Cistercian Houses in the Kingdom of Jerusalem”; “The Fief of Aimery of Franclieu and the Estate of the Abbey of St. Mary of Mount Sion in the Territory of Jerusalem”; “Perceptions of the Castle in the Latin East”; “A Castle in the Sand: Mottes in the Crusader East”; “Templar Castles between Jaffa and Jerusalem”; “The Castles of Ayla (al-‘Aqaba) in the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods”; “The Castle and Lordship of Mirabel”; “Il castello di Belmonte e la proprietà ospedaliera della Terra di Emmaus nel regno crociato di Gerusalemme”; “ Qal’at Jiddin: A Castle of the Crusader and Ottoman Periods in Galilee”; “Castle Chapels in the Frankish East”; “The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Castle of Tripoli (Mont-Pèlerin)”; “The Chapels in the Byzantine Castle of Sahyun (Qal’at Salah al-Din), Syria”; and “The Spring of the Cresson in Crusading History”. Liquid and Multiple: Individuals and Identities in the Thirteenth-Century Aegean, ed. Guillaume Saint-Guillain and Dionysios Stathakopoulos (Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, Monographies, 35). Paris: Collège de France – CNRS, 2012. Pp. 297. ISBN 978 2 916716 30 5 ISSN 0751 0594 The articles in this volume derive from papers presented to the first joint Newton Fellowship and Annual Byzantine Colloquium, held in London in 2010. This was

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linked to a research program on thirteenth-century prosopography in the Aegean funded by a Newton International Fellowship awarded by the British Academy. The following articles are included: “From Prosopography to the History of Individuals in the 13th-century Aegean” by Guillaume Saint-Guillain; “Michael VIII Palaiologus and the Aegean” by Michael Angold; “The Byzantine Aristocracy and the Union of the Churches (1274–1283): A Prosopographical Approach” by Vincent Puech; “Great Venetian Families outside Venice: The Dandolo and the Gradenigo in 13th-century Greece” by Charalambos Gasparis; “Meeting the Locals: Peasant Families in 13th-century Lemnos” by Fotini Kondyli; “Networks of Nicaea: 13thcentury Socio-economic Ties, Structures and Prosopography” by Ekaterini Mitsiou; “Diplomatic Gifts: Women and art as Imperial Commodities in the 13th Century” by Antony Eastmond; “The Location of Medical Practice in 13th-century Eastern Mediterranean” by Dionysios Stathakopoulos; “Enhancing Earlier and Managing Later Latin Identity and Power through Women: The Case of 13th-century Euboea” by François-Xavier Leduc; “The Italians in 13th-century Frankish Morea: Some Reflections on Old and New Sources” by Angeliki Tzavara; “The Lady and the Merchants: Byzantine and Latin Prosopographies in Dialogue in a Commercial Court Case relating to Epiros” by Guillaume Saint-Guillain; and “Byzantium in Question in 13th-century Seljuk Anatolia” by Sophie Métivier. The twelve articles are followed by a concluding essay by Dionysios Stathakopoulos and an index.

Guidelines for the Submission of Papers The editors ask contributors to adhere to the following guidelines. Failure to do so will result in the article being returned to the author for amendment, or may result in its having to be excluded from the volume. 1. Submissions. Submissions should be sent as email attachments to one of the editors (contact details below). Papers should be formatted using MS Word, double-spaced and with wide margins. Times New Roman (12 pt) is preferred. Remember to include your name and contact details (both postal and email addresses) on your paper. 2. Peer Review. All submissions will be peer reviewed. They will be scrutinized by the editors and sent to at least one outside reader before a decision on acceptance is made. 3. Length. Normally, the maximum length of articles should not exceed 6,000 words, not including notes. The editors reserve the right to edit papers that exceed these limits. 4. Notes. Normally, notes should be REFERENCE ONLY and placed at the end of the paper. Number continuously. 5. Style sheet. Please use the most recent Speculum style sheet (currently Speculum 75 (2000), 547–52). This sets out the format to be used for notes. Please note that this is not necessarily the same format as has been used by other edited volumes on the crusades and/or the Military Orders. Failure to follow the Speculum format will result in accepted articles being returned to the author for amendment. In the main body of the paper you may adhere to either British or American spelling, but it must be consistent throughout the article. 6. Language. Papers will be published in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. 7. Abbreviations. Please use the abbreviation list on pp. ix–xi of this journal. 8. Diagrams and Maps should be referred to as figures and photographs as plates. Please keep illustrations to the essential minimum, since it will be possible to include only a limited number. All illustrations must be supplied by the contributor in camera-ready copy, and free from all copyright restrictions. 9. Italics. Words to be printed in italics should be italicized if possible. Failing this they should be underlined. 10. Capitals. Please take every care to ensure consistency in your use of capitals and lower case letters. Use initial capitals to distinguish the general from the specific (for example, “the count of Flanders” but “Count Philip of Flanders”). 11. Summary of Article. Contributors will be required to provide a 250 words summary of their paper at the start of each article. This will be accompanied by the author’s email address. The summary of the paper is to be in English, regardless of the language of the main article.

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Editors Professor Benjamin Z. Kedar Professor Jonathan Phillips Department of History Department of History, Royal Holloway  The Hebrew University of Jerusalem University of London, Egham Jerusalem 91905, Israel Surrey, TW20 0EX, England, UK [email protected] [email protected]



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SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF THE CRUSADES AND THE LATIN EAST MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION The primary function of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East is to enable members to learn about current work being done in the field of crusading history, and to contact members who share research interests through the information in the Society’s Bulletin. There are currently 467 members of the SSCLE from 41 countries. The Society also organizes a major international conference every four years, as well as sections on crusading history at other conferences where appropriate. The committee of the SSCLE consists of: Prof. Bernard Hamilton, President Prof. Jean Richard, Prof. Jonathan Riley-Smith, Prof. Benjamin Z. Kedar and Prof. Michel Balard, Honorary Presidents Prof. Luis García-Guijarro Ramos, Secretary  Prof. Adrian Boas, President’s Secretary Prof. Kurt Villads Jensen, Conference Secretary Dr Jon M.B. Porter, Treasurer Prof. Jonathan Phillips, Officer for Postgraduate Members Prof. François-Olivier Touati, Bulletin Editor Prof. Thomas F. Madden, Website Current subscription fees are as follows: • Membership and Bulletin of the Society: Single £10, $20 or €15; • Student £6, $12 or €9; • Joint membership £15, $30 or €21; • Membership and the journal Crusades, including the Bulletin: £25, $46 or €32.