No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
‘God Wills It’: Signs of Divine Approval in the Crusade Movement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Robert the Monk, who was present at the Council of Clermont in 1095 and heard Urban II preach the crusade sermon, reports that when he had finished speaking all who were there shouted: ‘God wills it. God wills it’. The pope, Robert tells us, saw in this unanimity a sign of divine inspiration: ‘I tell you that God has drawn this response from you to express the feeling which he has inspired in your hearts’. Yet although Urban’s arguments and eloquence convinced his audience at Clermont, reactions to the crusade were more ambivalent among some people in the West, even among some of those who took the cross. This was a legacy of the ambiguous attitude of Western churchmen towards violence and warfare. Western society in the early medieval centuries was very violent, and, as Guy Halsall has rightly pointed out, the Church helped to determine the norms of violence which Christian society found acceptable. No doubt churchmen viewed their intervention primarily as a limitation exercise. From the later ninth century onwards, as the Carolingian Empire declined, the popes intermittently called on the warriors of the West to come to their aid. Indeed, in some ways the campaign of the Garigliano, conducted by a league of Byzantine and Lombard forces organized by Pope John X, who himself took part in the fighting, and which achieved its objective of ridding the Papal States of bands of Muslim raiders who had settled there, was like a rehearsal for the First Crusade. The Church further tried to influence the behaviour of Christian fighting men by encouraging the Truce and Peace of God movements in the early eleventh century, and in some areas the liturgical blessing of swords was introduced. Consequently, by 1095 the fighting men in Western Europe were accustomed to the Church hierarchy’s calling on them for help.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2005
References
1 Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana, Bk. I, ch. 2 [hereafter RM], RHC Occ, 3: 729.
2 Halsall, Guy, ‘Introduction’, in idem, ed., Violence and Society in the Early Medieval West (Woodbridge, 1998), 1–45,11–12 Google Scholar.
3 Paul Rousset referred to these wars as ‘précroisades’ in Les Origines et les caractères de la première croisade (Neuchâtel, 1945), 27–42.
4 Arnaldi, Girolamo, ‘La fase preparatoria della battaglia del Garigliano del 915’, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia IV (Naples, 1954), 123–44 Google Scholar; Vehse, Otto, ‘Das Bündnis gegen die Sarazenen vom Jahre 915’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 19 (1927), 181–204 Google Scholar.
5 Head, Thomas and Landes, Richard, eds, The Peace of God. Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000 (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1992)Google Scholar; Erdmann, Carl, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, Marshall, tr. Baldwin, W. and Goffart, Walter (revised edn, Princeton, NJ, 1977), 79–87 Google Scholar.
6 Vogel, Cyrille, ‘Le Pèlerinage pénitentiel’, Revue des sciences religieuses 38 (1964), 113–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Southern, Richard W., The Making of the Middle Ages (London, 1953), 50.Google Scholar
8 Bull, Marcus, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: the Limousin and Gascony, C.970-C.1130 (Oxford, 1993).Google Scholar
9 Piazzoni, Ambrogio M., ‘Militia Christi e Cluniacensi’, in ‘Militia Christi’ e Crociata nei secoli XI-XIII. Atti della undecima Settimana internazionale di studi, Mendola, 28 agosto-1 settembre 1989 (Milan, 1992), 341–72.Google Scholar
10 Siberry, Elizabeth, Criticism of Crusading, 1095–1274 (Oxford, 1985), 190–216.Google Scholar
11 Aachen, Albert of, Historia Hierosolymitana [hereafter AA], Bk. IV, ch. 38, RHC Occ., 4: 415–16. For an account of the early crusading expeditions: John France, Victory in the East: a Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, 1994), 88–96.Google Scholar
12 Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem [hereafter RA], RHC Occ, 3: 276–7; Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi [hereafter RC], ch. 106, RHC Occ, 3: 680–1.
13 Epistulae et chartae ad historiam primi belli sacri spectantes quae supersunt aevo aequalis ac genuinae. Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088–1100, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Innsbruck, 1901), no. VI, 142.
14 France, Victory in the East, 197–296.
15 RA, RHC Occ, 3: 255–6; Fuhheri Carnotensis Historia Hiersolymitana (1095–1127), ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913) [hereafter: Fulcher], Bk. I, ch. xx, 244–7.
16 RA, RHC Occ, 3: 281; Raymond d Aguilers, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem, trans. John H. Hill and Laurita L. Hill (Philadelphia, PA, 1968), 97–8.
17 RA, RHC Occ, 3: 253–5, 257–9. This is the fullest account of the discovery of the Holy Lance, which is mentioned in many other sources: Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Chronologie de la première croisade (Paris, 1902), 167–8, no. 284.
18 Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, ed. Hagenmeyer, 159, no. XV.
19 RA, RHC Occ, 3: 261; France, Victory in the East, 282–96.
20 When told of the visions, ‘episcopus autem nihil praeter verba putavit’, RA, RHC Occ, 3: 255. Ralph of Caen reports the accounts which he later heard of how Peter Bartholomew had ‘salted’ the excavations in Antioch cathedral, RC, ch. 100, RHC Occ, 3: 676–7.
21 RA, RHC Occ, 3: 279–88; FC, Bk. I, ch. xviii, ed. Hagenmeyer, 235–41. This trial may have been influenced by the practice which had developed in some parts of the West of authenticating relics through the ordeal by fire, Thomas Head, ‘Saints, Heretics and Fire: Finding Meaning through the Ordeal’, in Sharon Farmer and Barbara H. Rosenwein, eds, Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts. Religion in Medieval Society. Essays in Honor of Lester K. Little (Ithaca, NY, and London, 2000), 220–38. I owe this reference to my daughter, Sarah Hamilton.
22 AA, Bk. V, ch. 32, RHC Occ, 4: 452. Guibert of Nogent, writing in 1106–9, defended the authenticity of the Holy Lance: Guibert de Nogent, Dei Gesta per Francos et cinq autres textes, ed. Robert B. C. Huygens, CChrCM 127A (Turnhout, 1996) [hereafter: Guibert], Bk VII, ch. xxxiv, pp. 332–3; Colin Morris, ‘Policy and Visions. The case of the Holy Lance at Antioch’, in John Gillingham and James C. Holt, eds, War and Government in the Middle Ages. Essays in Honour of J. O. Prestwich (Woodbridge, 1984), 33–45.
23 Raymond of Aguilers is the only eye-witness source for the First Crusade to mention other relics. St Andrew complained in a vision to Peter Bartholomew that the Count of Toulouse had neglected relics belonging to Andrew himself; the priest, Peter Desiderius, told Raymond of Aguilers that he had been ordered in a vision to collect the relics of Sts Omechius, Leontius and John Chrysostom from the church of St Leontius at Antioch; while looking for these, the count’s representatives also found relics belonging to St George; in a later vision, Peter Desiderius was ordered by St George to collect the relics of St Thecla; RA, RHC Occ, 3: 265, 290. Since no other source mentions these relics, they evidently made little impact on the other crusaders.
24 Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, ed. Hagenmeyer, No. IX, p. 147 Google Scholar. See also Walter, Christopher, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (Aldershot, 2003).Google Scholar
25 The cult of St Blaise had been introduced in Rome by a Greek religious community in the tenth century and later became popular there, Bernard Hamilton, ‘The City of Rome and the Eastern Churches in the Tenth Century’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 27 (1961), 6–26,11.
26 RA, RHC Occ, 3: 292; trans. Hill and Hill, 115.
27 The only instance in the eye-witness accounts of the crusade is the appearance of Our Lady to the priest Stephen of Valence. St Agatha was in attendance, but did not speak, RA, RHC Occ, 3: 287.
28 Anonymi Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, ed. and trans. Rosalind Hill (London, 1962) [hereafter: GF], 69.Google Scholar
29 Cf. II Kings, 6,16–17. When reworking the account in GF, Robert the Monk included an explanation, which he attributed to Bohemond’s chaplain, of how spiritual beings may become visible: ‘assumant sibi aeria corpora … quia videri non possunt in spirituali essentia sua’. RM, Bk. V, ch. 9, RHC Occ, 3: 797.
30 Matt. 2, 1–11. See the commentary in the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, Homilia Secunda, PG 56, 636–46. This Latin work was wrongly attributed to St John Chrysostom and was read quite widely in the medieval West.
31 The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, Bk. IX, ch. 2, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols (Oxford, 1969-80), 5: 8–10.Google Scholar
32 Guibert, Bk. II, ch. xvii, pp. 133–4.
33 Fulcher, Bk. I, ch. xiv, ed. Hagenmeyer, 203–5; A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127, ed. Harold S. Fink, trans. Frances R. Ryan (Knoxville, 1969), 88–9.
34 GF, ed. Hill, 65; also reported by RA, RHC Occ, 3: 257. Robert the Monk makes Herluin, one of the envoys from the crusade to Kerbogha, claim: ‘That star came as a warning to you and as an earnest of deliverance to us; for because of it we are assured that we have been given a mission by our God’. RM, Bk. VII, ch. 7, RHC Occ, 3: 826.
35 RC, ch. 57, RHC Occ, 3: 648.
36 Guibert, Bk VII, ch. xxvii, pp. 319–20.
37 Dostourian, Ara Edmond, Armenia and the Crusades, Tenth to Twelfth Centuries. The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa (Lanham, MD, New York and London, 1993), Pt. II, ch. 129 (anno 1009–1100), 175.Google Scholar
38 Amouroux-Mourad, Monique, Le Comté d’Edesse, 1098–1150 (Paris, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39 RA, RHC Occ, 3: 302; Fulcher, Bk I, ch. xxx, ed. Hagenmeyer, 309–10; AA, Bk VI, ch. 38, RHC Occ, 4:488–9.
40 AA, Bk VII, ch. 68, RHC Occ, 4: 550. Walter the Chancellor, in his account of how King Baldwin II brought the Holy Cross to Antioch in 1119 and saved the city after its army had been annihilated at the Field of Blood, attributed similar powers to the relic; Galterii Cancellarii, Bella Antiochena, Bk. II, ch. xii, RHC Occ, 4: 121–3; Thomas S. Asbridge and Susan B. Edgington, Walter the Chancellor’s ‘The Antiochene Wars’: a Translation and Commentary (Aldershot, 1999), 156.
41 Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (3rd edn, Oxford, 1983), specially ch. 1,1–36.Google Scholar
42 AA, Bk. I, ch. 29, RHC Occ, 4: 234–5; RA, RHC Occ, 3: 256.
43 ‘In the following month, which was June, the moon appeared to us … entirely red…. This happened on the thirteenth of the month. If it had happened on the fourteenth we would certainly have thought it an eclipse. Therefore we regarded it as a portent’: Fulcher, Bk.II, ch. lxi, tr. Ryan, p. 219; ed. Hagenmeyer, 604–5.
44 Fulcher, Bk. II, ch. xxxv, tr. Ryan, 189–90; ed. Hagenmeyer, 508–9.
45 Simon, Paul, ‘Weather Eye’, The Times, Friday 27 June 2003.Google Scholar
46 Fulcher, Bk. II, ch. lxiii, tr. Ryan, 220–1; ed. Hagenmeyer, 607–8.
47 AA, Bk. VI, ch. 36, RHC Occ, 4: 487–8.