Reviewed by: Andrew D. Buck (a.buck@qmul.ac.uk)
The study of crusading memory is a flourishing field, with this volume, edited by Megan Cassidy-Welch, the latest scholarly contribution. As Cassidy-Welch notes in the introduction, this book aims to “draw attention to the diverse ways in which Crusades and crusading were remembered in the Middle Ages and beyond” (p. 8) and clearly hopes to be a stepping stone for future scholarship. To set the scene for this, the introduction provides an overview of concepts of “medieval” memory, and how pre-modern memoria was understood as both the physical storing of information and the communication of remembrance through objects, texts or actions. Cassidy-Welch thus argues that crusaders saw themselves as part of, and regulated their behaviour according to, certain social and religious traditions, such as Christ’s sacrifice and the emulation of the deeds of crusading forebears. Following a fairly useful discussion of current scholarship, Cassidy-Welch sets out the book’s methodological framework, namely the interplay between “communicative memory” (the lived, immediate memory of an event) and “cultural memory” (the process by which memory evolves into an official story, often to create social, political or organisational legitimacy); before setting out its three thematic strands: sources of memory, communities of memory and cultural memory. While more could have been done to lay out the available theological approaches to memory, especially for those new to the field, one certainly leaves the introduction with a clear sense of the road ahead.
The book’s first thematic strand – Sources of Memory –
explores the respective roles of preaching, liturgy, images, material cultures,
texts and romances in shaping and preserving crusading memory. It begins with
Jessalynn Bird’s (perhaps overly-ambitious) contribution on crusade preaching,
which outlines the processes by which crusade preachers incorporated the past,
both Christian and heroic, into recruitment sermons. By emphasising remembrance
of the suffering and sacrifice of Christ and the holy martyrs, drawing on
heroic tradition, and tapping into existing liturgical practices, Crusade
preaching became a multi-sensory experience. Eventually, this ensured that the
crusading past became something to emulate, with crusaders embodying pious
devotion and Christian sacrifice. In a similar vein, M. Cecilia Gaposchkin’s
interesting discussion on the liturgical feast which commemorated the First
Crusade’s capture of Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, demonstrates that this liturgy
cemented the crusaders’ identity as the new Israelites and placed the First
Crusade as a key “node” in eschatological history. Thus, by drawing on broader
theological and exegetical context, as well as practices from the
Advent–Epiphany liturgy, it promoted the notion that, through the Franks, the
New Jerusalem had come.
Next comes Elizabeth Lapina’s study of the role of church
murals depicting the crusades and how these served to create an imagined past
and signify religious and cultural identity. Thus, images of knightly battles
or of returning crusaders, when placed alongside heroic figures like
Charlemagne or Arthur, could serve to legitimise dynasties. Of particular
significance, though, are eleven images of the saintly intercession at the
Battle of Antioch in 1098, produced in northern France and England between the
twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Through these, Lapina shows the emergence of
a fascination with Saint George – for his appearance as a warrior, rather than
martyr, served to legitimise knightly involvement in crusading – and that
Jerusalem, not Antioch, acted as the site of this intercession: almost
certainly because it held greater spiritual, Christological, miraculous and
eschatological significance. These images thus show how the past served to define
the present. Following this is Anne Lester’s illuminating discussion on how
objects also created and transmitted crusading memory. Thus, objects bought,
brought, or, as was often the case, commandeered, on crusade, could evoke
particular events or places related to crusading or the Holy Land. In turn,
this allowed family traditions to be created and maintained, while these
objects also affirmed social status and relationships and could also cultivate
group identity. Through the particular focus on Christ relics, it is argued, we
can even see the greater interest in crusading as an act of Imitatio Christi.
For Lester, as with Lapina, objects therefore provide an important window into
the ways in which crusading entered medieval society, and stayed there.
The final two contributions to this thread offer a more
textual focus. The first is Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński’s discussion on the
early-twelfth-century Polish dynastic chronicle, the Gesta principum Polonorum.
In this, it is argued that this text shaped the identity and Christian
legitimacy of Poland’s ruling family, the Piasts, through their involvement in
“proto-crusading” (wars of conversion against Pomeranian and Prussian pagans).
To tie this more effectively with crusading, Güttner-Sporzyński also looks to
place the text as part of the outpouring of Christian historical literature
after the First Crusade, and so includes a lengthy discussion of the now
well-known process by which the crusade’s history was told and re-told from
eye-witness texts to the second-generation, largely Benedictine, “theological
refinement”. Given that the subsequent attempts made to form links with the
First Crusade sources do not rely on issues of provenance, this seems fairly
unnecessary. Perhaps more problematic is that, with a couple of notable
exceptions – the evocation of the Maccabees and saintly intercession in battle
– the links made between the two strands are tenuous, at times misleading. For
example, he sees in the Polish description of large pagan casualties an allusion
to descriptions of the 1099 massacre at Jerusalem, despite no apparent textual
similarities and it being a common trope of any text aimed at demonstrating the
legitimacy of a victory (see, for example, William of Poitiers’ account of the
Battle of Hastings). In the end, the nub of the matter lies with a problematic
attempt to equate a Just War supported by God – which the Gesta principum
Polonorum clearly portrays the anti-Pagan wars as, just as William of Poitiers
did with the Norman Conquest – with the First Crusade, which was viewed as a
salvific act of a penitence, even a pilgrimage (Just War ≠ Penitential War).
Thus, while this does provide a useful insight into how memory could create
Christian political and dynastic legitimacy, that it seeks to place this within
the context of crusading, particularly the processes of memorialising the First
Crusade, is rather less convincing. Far more effective is Lee Manion’s
examination of crusading romances – in particular the Chanson d’Antioche,
Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Willehalm, and the prologues and epilogues of William
Caxton’s fifteenth-century printed middle-English translations of two crusading
romances: Godeffroy of Boloyne and The Lyf of the Noble and Crysten Prince,
Charles the Grete – which explores how vernacular literature transmitted
crusading memory and shaped it for didactic purposes. Of most interest is his
examination of Caxton, who printed his texts when crusading was in abeyance,
and England was riddled with civil war, in the hope that the crusading past
could divert martial attentions towards a worthier pursuit. This aptly
demonstrates how crusading memory was in a constant dialogue with the present,
even beyond the high middle ages, and that, rather than simply re-telling the
narratives, vernacular texts were shaped to provide models of Christian
behaviour.
The book’s third section – Communities of Memory – then
turns to the groups who preserved crusading memories, including monasteries,
kings, Jews, and the nobility. It begins with Katherine Allen Smith’s excellent
discussion on the role played by monastic orders in preserving, interpreting
and transmitting the memory of the First Crusade. Whether by supporting
departing crusaders, serving as repositories for relics or the bodies of crusaders,
or producing crusading texts, monasteries were hubs of crusading memory. Yet,
while several monastic authors placed the crusade within sacred time, they also
used it to demonstrate the spiritual superiority of monasticism. For example,
it is demonstrated, through the Vita Sancti Adjutoris, written by Hugh of
Amiens c.1130 to commemorate a former crusader, Adjutor of Tiron, who became a
monk at Tiron after nearly two decades in the East because St Mary Magdalene
had engineered his release from Muslim captivity, that, although crusading was
considered praiseworthy, it was only one step on the true path to spiritual
conversion, which culminated in monasticism. A little less convincing, but
still interesting, is James Naus and Vincent Ryan’s contribution on how
crusading legitimised and memorialised royal status. Indeed, despite a useful
introduction to the various problems and motivations of royal crusading, the
case study of Richard the Lionheart is perhaps under-explored, and there are
occasional slips in insight or critical engagement. As such, whereas they offer
the insightful suggestion that Richard’s reportedly impetuous decision to take
the Cross without seeking the counsel of his father, King Henry II, was
imbedded in both pious concerns and issues of dynasty and legitimacy, the piece
then rather skips through the problems and successes of Richard’s crusade
planning and execution, and then his legend. As such, the authors skirt around
the fact that, while they argue that Richard sought to succeed where his
forbears had failed by circumventing the crusading heritage of both his
parents, for whom there had been little success and a lot of prevarication, his
subsequent two-year delay in departure – which is conveniently sidestepped –
does serve to undermine this.
Following from this is Rebecca Rist’s somewhat concise
discussion on how Jewish communities memorialised crusading, particularly the
issue of papal protection. It examines two chroniclers of the First and Second
Crusades respectively, Shelomo bar Shimson and Ephraim of Bonn, through whom it
is argued that, while Shelomo’s text offers a very negative portrayal of papal
protection during the First Crusade, Ephraim is altogether less interested in
pontifical pronouncements and instead focuses on monarchs. Roughly half the
length of the other pieces, this feels somewhat incomplete, and whilst the
practical assertion is made that papal protection was clearly valued by Jewish
communities, and remembered when it did (and did not) come – though Ephraim’s
silence does raise unanswered questions regarding this argument; it would have
been interesting – in lieu of the surprisingly long notes and bibliography – to
see further examples and a lengthier discussion of the ideas of memory being
explored elsewhere in the volume. More illuminating, and one of the book’s
strongest pieces, is Nicholas Paul and Jochen Schenk’s study of the role of
family memory in disseminating and memorialising the crusading ideal. In this,
the pair outline how crusading was remembered and promoted through familial
traditions of participation – particularly for those families with
multi-generational involvement in the Crusades – and through commemoration in
epitaphs, and architecture. Likewise, some families also commissioned dynastic
histories to glorify past familial crusading exploits, even in competition with
the more traditional oral and written texts (particularly of the First
Crusade). Through such traditions, and the artefacts or texts which preserved
them, the feats of past crusaders, real or mythologised, were transmitted to
serve as markers of status and instructional messages for later generations.
Dynastic crusading memory was thus crucial to noble legitimacy and identity,
and even helped to construct the crusading movement itself.
 |
| Statue of Saladin, Damascus |
Perhaps of greater interest to the readership of this site,
is the final thematic strand – Cultural Memory – which frequently deals with
post-medieval memories of the Crusades. It begins with Jonathan Harris’
interesting discussion on Byzantine memories of the crusades, particularly the
Fourth Crusade. This event, which saw the capture of Constantinople in 1204 and
the creation of a Latin Empire, displaced many Greeks to Nicaea, where accounts
of the crusade and its aftermath were composed. In this so-called Nicaean
tradition, four key strands of memory were crafted. The first was the memory of
the looting and desecration of Byzantine churches, with texts and oral
traditions transmitting enduring dismay at the losses suffered at the hands of
greedy Latins. Secondly, the Latins were criticised for their schismatic
beliefs – which, by the fourteenth century, was as much about anger over 1204
than theological differences. Thirdly, the culpability of Venice in 1204 –
though by the 1450s this had so evolved that Venetians were asked to defend
Constantinople against the Ottomans because the city had once been theirs.
Finally, stories also endured regarding Byzantine culpability in 1204 through
the incompetence of the Angeloi and the mistreatment of earlier crusading
expeditions. These case studies thus aptly demonstrate how Byzantine society
adapted and utilised the traumatic memory of 1204 as a cultural and diplomatic
tool.
Next is Anna Rodríguez’s discussion on the complex
inter-relationship between crusade and Reconquest in Iberia (albeit largely the
Kingdom of Castile) from the twelfth–fourteenth century. Rodríguez argues that
although the fourteenth-century Castilian Infante, Don Juan Manuel, the
descendent of Reconquest heroes, provided an idealised view of Iberia’s
crusading past in a series of moralistic tales, the reality was less clear.
Indeed, Castilian monarchs lacked any practical interest in Holy Land crusades,
prioritising instead the war in al-Andalus. Likewise, although Castilian nobles
took the cross in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they did so to protect
themselves from the king during times of conflict. Even when French crusading
forces aided Castile against the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212,
Castilian memorialisation of this victory saw it not as a papally directed holy
war, but as a royal victory which cemented monarchical legitimacy. Therefore,
while late-medieval chivalric moralism sought to unite Iberian and crusading
memory, this only occurred after the Holy Land’s loss de-politicised the
movement’s relationship to the Reconquest.
The book’s penultimate chapter is Alex Mallett’s
contribution on Muslim memory of the crusades. Starting with
early-twelfth-century reactions to the First Crusade, Mallett charts the
memorialisation of crusades and crusaders by Muslims up to the current day. It
is demonstrated that the earliest reactions, while decrying Frankish violence,
primarily criticised Muslim disunity. Likewise, as jihad intensified under Nur
al-Din and Saladin, and later the Mamluks, the increased level of invective
directed against the crusaders served to legitimise these rulers in uniting the
Muslim world under their leadership. This was no monochromatic process, though,
as Mallett shows that during the rule of the later Ayyubids in the early–mid
thirteenth century, whose approach to the Franks was more pragmatic, their
policies were either criticised or passed over by authors depending on personal
allegiance. In an important corrective to recent scholarship, Mallett also
shows how memory of Saladin and the crusades did not disappear during the
Mamluk and Ottoman periods, and nor is the modern Islamic view of the crusades
limited to the Arab nationalists and Islamists who see an endless “crusading”
conflict between East and West (as seen through the varied approaches to the
crusades found in the school textbooks of Islamic nations). Mallett thus aptly
demonstrates the complex ways in which the Islamic world, and its ruling
elites, used (and still use) the crusades as a “yardstick by which the actions
of the rulers of Muslim states can be judged” (227).
The final chapter is Carsten Selch Jensen’s interesting
study on how the Baltic Crusades have been remembered and used in Estonia and
Latvia (or, more broadly, Livonia). Starting with a brief overview of Baltic
crusading, Jensen leaps forwards to the Enlightenment, demonstrating that
although many thinkers saw the Baltic campaigns, like those to the Holy Land,
as wasteful ventures in brutality and greed, which placed an innocent,
religiously pure indigenous community under slavery, there were also Germanic
nobles who used their perceived crusading ancestry as a tool for legitimacy. In
the nineteenth century, this brought German nationalists, who utilised crusading
to demonstrate their cultural superiority, into conflict with Estonian and
Livonian nationalists who romanticised their own past, emphasising the
innocence and freedom of the pre-crusading era (as opposed to the slavery and
oppression of the crusaders). These divisions endured into the twentieth
century, as calls for independence increased following the First World War,
with anti-crusader chieftains or tribes evoked to promote resistance, until
Nazi and Soviet occupations ensured that, after 1945, a single narrative was
created of a Marxist Baltic war against materialism and greed. As Selch aptly
demonstrates, therefore, the crusading past here, as elsewhere in Europe
and indeed the Near East, provided the backdrop for nationalism and political struggles
far removed from their original events.
Overall, this book has much to its credit. Not all the contributions are of equal value, and there are certainly those which try to do too much, or lack coherence or relevance to the volume’s overall aims, but there are several chapters which should serve as the ideal starting point for anyone looking to explore issues of crusading memory, and which provide important correctives and addendums to traditional ideas or avenues of scholarship. Given the impressive bibliographical data also available for each chapter, this should be a must for scholars of crusading memory, as well as university libraries and teachers of the crusades.
Queen Mary University of London
