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God’s Bounty, Pauperes and the Crusades of 1096 and 1147

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Conor Kostick*
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin

Extract

Cease, therefore, your discords, let your quarrels fall silent, your wars become quiescent, and let the disagreements of all controversy be put to sleep. Start the journey to the Holy Sepulchre, get that land off the criminal race and make it subject to you, that land the possession of which had been given by God to the sons of Israel, which – as the Scripture says – is flowing with milk and honey.

Robert the Monk was present at the famous Council of Clermont in 1095, at which Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade by announcing that there would be a major expedition against the pagans to assist the Christians of the East. According to Robert, Urban reminded his listeners of the journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt; a journey in which God’s bounty several times saved Moses and his followers from famine and thirst. The report of another eyewitness at Clermont, Baldric (or Baudri) of Dol, reinforces the hkelihood that the Book of Exodus was in the thoughts of those who listened to Urban.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2010

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References

1 Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana, RHC Oc. 3: 717–882, at 728:‘Cessent igitur inter vos odia [vos discordiae], conticescant jurgia, bella quiescant et totius controversiae dissensiones sopiantur. Viam sancti Sepulcri incipite, terram illam nefariae genti auferte, eamque vobis subjicite, terra illa filiis Israel a Deo in possessionem data fuit, sicut Scriptura dicit, quae lacte et melle fluit’ (referring to Exod. 3: 8, 17; 13: 5; 33:3).

2 Baldric of Dol, Historia Hierosolymitana, RHC Oc. 4: 1—in, at 16: ‘Ecce, Deo gratias, jam Christianis ituris, duo ultronei processere viri; ecce sacerdotium et regnum; clericalis ordo et laicalis ad exercitum Dei conducendum concordant. Episcopus et comes, Moysen et Aaron nobis reimaginantur.’

3 Murray, A. V., The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, A Dynastic History 1099–1125 (Oxford, 2000), 3842 Google Scholar.

4 Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem, ed. John France (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Nottingham, 1967), 11–12, 17 (237, 238). I am grateful to Professor France for permission to quote from his thesis. References to the PL edition (PL 155: 0591–0668A) are in brackets.

5 Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum, ed. France, 202 (0633D); 100 (0612C).

6 Leyser, K., Communications and Power in Medieval Europe:The Gregorian Revolution and Beyond, trans. Reuter, T. (London, 1994), 82 Google Scholar n. 26.

7 Morris, C., The Papal Monarchy:The Western Church from 1050 – 1250 (Oxford, 1989), 34 Google Scholar.

8 Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum, ed. France, 46 (0601D).

9 Ibid. 68–69 (0606A).

10 See Morris, The Papal Monarchy, 316–50; I. S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge, 1990), 365—66.

11 Urban II, ‘Letter to the Clergy and People of Bologna’, in Hagenmeyer, H., ed., Epistulae et Chartae ad Historiam Primi Belli Sacri spectantes quae supersunt aevo aequales ac genninae: Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088–1100 (Innsbruck, 1901), 13738 Google Scholar.

12 Ekkehard of Aura, Frutolfs uni Ekkehards Chroniken una die Anonyme Kaiserchronik, ed. Schmale, F.-J. and Schmale-Ott, I. (Darmstadt, 1972), 140 Google Scholar.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Guibert of Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CChr CM 77a (Turnhout, 1996), 119:‘pauperum animositas tantis ad hoc ipsum desideriis aspiravit ut eorum nemo de censuum parvitate tractaret, de domorum, vinearum et agrorum congruenti distractione curaret’.

16 Ibid. 120:‘Videres mirum quiddam, et plane joco aptissimum, pauperes videlicet quosdam bobus biroto applicitis, eisdemque in modum equorum ferratis, substantiolas cum parvulis in carruca convehere.’

17 Ibid. 300.

18 Tyerman, C., ‘Who Went on the Crusades?’, in Kedar, B. Z., ed., The Horns of Hattīn (Jerusalem, 1992), 1426 Google Scholar, at 24.

19 Gerhoch, De Investigatione Antichristi Liber I, in MGH LdL 3, ed. E. Dümmler et al. (Hanover, 1897), 304–95, at 374—75: ‘non rusticanorum ac servorum, dominorum suorum relictis aratris ac servitiis, ignorantibus quoque nonnulli vel invitis dominis, parum aut nichil auri vel argenti habentes inconsulte expeditionem illam longissimam arripuerant, sperantes in tam sancto negotio sicut olim antiquo illi Israhelitarum populo, vel pluente desuper celo vel undecunque celitus ac divinitus amminiversitates eundem exercitum in eadem sancta via, ut estimabant, comprehenderunt’.

20 Historia Peregrinorum euntium Jerusolymam, in RHC Oc. 3: 167–229, at 174:‘Pater non audebat prohibere filium, nec uxor prohibere virum, et dominus non audebat prohibere servum.’

21 Nader, M., Burgesses and the Burgess Law in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1099–1325) (Aldershot, 2006), 20 Google Scholar.

22 Annales Augustani, ed. G. H. Pertz, MGH SS 3 (Hanover, 1839), 134.

23 Cosmae Chronica Boemorum, ed. G. H. Pertz et al., MGH SS n (Hanover, 1854), 103.

24 Pounds, N. J., An Economic History of Medieval Europe, 2nd edn (London, 1994)Google Scholar; Postan, C. and Mathias, P., eds, The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1987), 20439 Google Scholar; White, L. T., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, 1964 Google Scholar).

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26 Annals of the Four Masters, ed. J. O’Donovan (Dublin, 1856), 949.

27 Ekkehard, Frutolfs und Ekkehards Chroniken, ed. Schmale and Schmale-Ott, 140: ‘Tactus quisquam igne invisibili quacumque corporis parte tarn diu sensibili, immo incomparabili tormento etiam inremediabiliter ardebat, quosque vel spiritum cum cruciatu vel cruciatum cum ipso tacto membro amitteret. Testantur hoc hactenus nonnulli manibus vel pedibus hac pena truncati.’ For ergot poisoning, high temperatures and gangrenous limbs, see M. McMullen and C. Stoltenow, Ergot (Fargo, ND, 2002). See also J. Sumption, Pilgrimage (London, 2002), 75; J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders (Cambridge, 1997), 16.

28 Annales Sancti Blasii, ed. G. H. Pertz et al., MGH SS 17 (Hanover, 1861), 277.

29 Ekkehard, Frutolfs und Ekkehards Chroniken, ed. Schmale and Schmale-Ott, 140.

30 Guibert of Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos, ed. Huygens, 118.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid. 119.

33 Ekkehard, Frutolfs und Ekkehards Chroniken, ed. Schmale and Schmale-Ott, 140.

34 For Peter the Hermit, see J. Flori, Pierre l’Ermite et la Première Croisade (Paris, 1999); also H. Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremite (Leipzig, 1879); E. O. Blake and C. Morris, ‘A Hermit Goes to War: Peter and the Origins of the First Crusade,’ in W.J. Shiels, ed., Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition, SCH 22 (Oxford, 1984), 79–107; M. D. Coupe, ‘Peter the Hermit – A Reassessment’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 31 (1987), 37—45.

35 Ekkehard, Frutolfs und Ekkehards Chroniken, ed. Schmale and Schmale-Ott, 141.

36 Baldric of Dol, Historia Hierosolymitana, RHC Oc. 4: 17; Albert of Aachen, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. S. B. Edgington (Oxford, 2007), 58.

37 Duncalf, F., ‘The Peasants’ Crusade,’ AHR 26 (1920-21), 44053 Google Scholar, argues in favour of good logistical planning by Peter and his followers, but see Kostick, C., The Social Structure of the First Crusade (Leiden, 2008), 95103 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.