Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- The Crusades, the Latin East and Medieval History-Writing: An Introduction
- 1 History-Writing and Remembrance in Crusade Letters
- 2 A ‘swiðe mycel styrung’: The First Crusade in Early Vernacular Annals from Anglo-Norman England
- 3 To Bargain with God: The Crusade Vow in the Narratives of the First Crusade
- 4 ‘The Lord has brought eastern riches before you’: Battlefield Spoils and Looted Treasure in Narratives of the First Crusade
- 5 Foundation and Settlement in Fulcher of Chartres’ Historia Hierosolymitana: A Narratological Reading
- 6 After Ascalon: ‘Bartolf of Nangis’, Fulcher of Chartres and the Early Years of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
- 7 Repurposing a Crusade Chronicle: Peter of Cornwall's Liber Revelationum and the Reception of Fulcher of Chartres’ Historia Hierosolymitana in Medieval England
- 8 Between Chronicon and Chanson: William of Tyre, the First Crusade and the Art of Storytelling
- 9 History and Politics in the Latin East: William of Tyre and the Composition of the Historia Hierosolymitana
- 10 ‘When I became a man’: Kingship and Masculinity in William of Tyre's Chronicon
- 11 Laments for the Lost City: The Loss of Jerusalem in Western Historical Writing
- 12 The Silences of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum 1
- 13 The Natural and Biblical Landscapes of the Holy Land in Jacques de Vitry's Historia Orientalis
- 14 The Masculine Experience and the Experience of Masculinity on the Seventh Crusade in John of Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis
- 15 Writing and Copying History at Acre, c. 1230–91
- Index
14 - The Masculine Experience and the Experience of Masculinity on the Seventh Crusade in John of Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- The Crusades, the Latin East and Medieval History-Writing: An Introduction
- 1 History-Writing and Remembrance in Crusade Letters
- 2 A ‘swiðe mycel styrung’: The First Crusade in Early Vernacular Annals from Anglo-Norman England
- 3 To Bargain with God: The Crusade Vow in the Narratives of the First Crusade
- 4 ‘The Lord has brought eastern riches before you’: Battlefield Spoils and Looted Treasure in Narratives of the First Crusade
- 5 Foundation and Settlement in Fulcher of Chartres’ Historia Hierosolymitana: A Narratological Reading
- 6 After Ascalon: ‘Bartolf of Nangis’, Fulcher of Chartres and the Early Years of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
- 7 Repurposing a Crusade Chronicle: Peter of Cornwall's Liber Revelationum and the Reception of Fulcher of Chartres’ Historia Hierosolymitana in Medieval England
- 8 Between Chronicon and Chanson: William of Tyre, the First Crusade and the Art of Storytelling
- 9 History and Politics in the Latin East: William of Tyre and the Composition of the Historia Hierosolymitana
- 10 ‘When I became a man’: Kingship and Masculinity in William of Tyre's Chronicon
- 11 Laments for the Lost City: The Loss of Jerusalem in Western Historical Writing
- 12 The Silences of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum 1
- 13 The Natural and Biblical Landscapes of the Holy Land in Jacques de Vitry's Historia Orientalis
- 14 The Masculine Experience and the Experience of Masculinity on the Seventh Crusade in John of Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis
- 15 Writing and Copying History at Acre, c. 1230–91
- Index
Summary
John of Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis is one of the key historical accounts of the career of the saint-king Louis IX of France (d. 1270). Most scholarship on this text has, therefore, concerned itself primarily with Louis. However, Joinville's narrative offers far more than just a hagiography of the Capetian saint, as the passages in which Joinville recalls his own experiences and reactions to events, particularly in a crusading context, are highly significant – for example, in relation to the recent scholarly emphasis on investigating the expression of emotions in medieval narratives. Building on this work, the following chapter considers how ideals of masculinity found in Joinville's text were embodied and enacted on the Seventh Crusade (1248–54) – an expedition led by Louis, which, despite swiftly capturing Damietta on 6 June 1249 and achieving a pyrrhic victory in the battle of Manṣūra (8–11 February 1250), failed to wrest Jerusalem from Ayyūbid control. Importantly, Joinville's account of this enterprise offers the first, or at least the most detailed, attempt by a crusade participant to offer first-person insights into the crusading mindset, more particularly that of an elite male crusader. Although participant crusade texts date back to the First Crusade (1096–99), such as the anonymous Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, and were composed for each of the major crusading expeditions thereafter, including Geoffrey of Villehardouin's and Robert of Clari's accounts of the Fourth Crusade (1202–04), all of these works were written, at least for the most part, in the third person. Earlier crusade authors, therefore, did not look to place the focus upon themselves, nor could they be termed homodiegetic. Part of Joinville's significance rests on the fact that the inclusion of his own perspective was intended to lend authority to the events described.
This chapter also adds to the recent spate of fruitful studies of crusading masculinity, exemplified by the 2019 essay collection Crusading and Masculinities. Despite this work, Joinville's Vie has hitherto not been subjected to a detailed gendered reading, with the notable exception of Joanna Phillips’ consideration of Louis’ illness and its implications for his masculinity. In this, Phillips concluded that masculine ideals were intrinsically linked to embodiment, and that illness negatively affected both the leadership capacity and masculine reputation of crusade leaders.
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- Crusade, Settlement and Historical Writing in the Latin East and Latin West, c. 1100-c. 1300 , pp. 259 - 276Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2024