A History of the Crusades

by Jonathan Riley-Smith

  (ll. 8–28)

  The king and the crusade have been given the role that is played by the losengiers in the standard love-song: separating true lovers. The poem offers an interesting twist in that the lament is both for the shame of the loss of the holy places and for lost love, and the woman complains of what is more usually praised. A later example adopts traditional motifs of the chanson de femme…ype of song in which a woman complains of her unhappiness in love, usually because she has been forced to marry a man that she does not love, but finds consolation in thinking of an illicit lover. This song, by Guiot de Dijon (c .1190), has a powerful emotional core related to the poetic convention of ‘love from afar’. The implicit narrative is the same as for the chanson de femme, but the obstacle to happiness is here the fact of her crusader-lover’s absence. Her defiance of the separation lies in erotic thoughts of him and in the unconventional keepsake which he has left her.

  I will sing to comfort my heart, for I do not want to die or to go mad because of my great loss, when I see that no-one returns from that foreign land where the man is who brings solace to my heart when I hear him spoken of. God, when they cry, ‘Onward’, give Your help to that pilgrim for whom my heart trembles; for the Saracens are wicked men .

  I shall bear my loss until I have seen a year go by. He is on a pilgrimage; may God grant that he return from it! But, in spite of all my family, I do not intend to marry any other. Anyone who even speaks to me of it is a fool. God, when they cry, etc .

  However, I am hopeful because I accepted his homage. And when the sweet wind blows which comes from that sweet country where the man is whom I desire, then I turn my face towards it gladly, and it seems to me then that I can feel him beneath my mantle of fur. God, when they cry, etc .

  I regret very much that I was not there to set him on the road. He sent me his shirt which he had worn, so that I might hold it in my arms. At night, when love for him torments me, I place it in bed beside me and hold it all night against my bare flesh to assuage my pains. God, when they cry, etc .

  (‘Chanterai por mon corage’, ll. 1–20, 33–56)

  The conventions of the chanson de femme are cut across by the refrain which quite literally places the object of her love, the ‘pilgrim’, in the context of the crusade.

  One of the poets’ favourite topoi (poetic conventions) was the idea of the lover’s heart being able to be apart from his body, crossing the distance which separated the lovers. Friedrich von Hausen, who was a poet in the entourage of Frederick Barbarossa and was killed on the Third Crusade, makes much of this in a number of his songs, most obviously in ‘Mîn herze und mîn lîp diu wellent scheiden’: ‘My heart and my body, which have long been united, strive to part. My body is eager to fight against the heathen, whereas my heart has chosen a woman above all the world’ (ll. 1–2). The model for Friedrich’s song was probably ‘Ahi, Amours! com dure departie’ by Conon of Béthune (c .1188):‘Oh, Love! How hard it will be for me to have to leave the best woman who was ever loved or served! May God, in his kindness, lead me back to her as surely as I leave her in sorrow. Alas! What have I said? I am not really leaving her at all! If my body is going off to serve Our Lord, my heart remains entirely within her sway’ (ll. 1–80).

  Another common topos is that of ‘dying for love’. In an anonymous chanson de femme, ‘Jherusalem, grant damage me fais’, perhaps dating from the mid-thirteenth century, this is combined with an interesting transformation of the idea of crusading as an act of love: ‘So help me God, there is no escape for me: die I must, such is my fate; but I am well aware that, for one who dies for love, there is but a day’s journey to God. Alas! I would rather embark upon that day if I could find my sweet love than remain here all forlorn’ (ll. 15–21). ‘Dies for love’ is loaded with two meanings: the conventional ‘dying of a broken heart’ which applies to the woman and the death on the crusade of her lover who has died for love of God. Her death will thus parallel his and they will both have only a day’s journey to God. The stanza is something of an icon of the entire relationship between the love-lyric and the crusade orthodoxy. It redeems the near defiant attitude which the woman expresses in the first stanza: ‘Jerusalem, you are doing me a great wrong’, an attitude which echoes that of the maiden in Marcabru’s pastorela and is also to be found in the song ‘Già mai non mi comfortto’ of Rinaldo d’Aquino (c. 1228).

  La croce salva la giente

  e me facie disviare,

  la crocie mi fa dolente

  e non mi vale Dio pregare.

  Oi me, crocie pellegrina,

  perché m’ài così distrutta? (ll. 25–30)

  The cross saves the people but causes me to go mad, the cross makes me sorrowful and praying to God does not help me. Alas, pilgrim cross, why have you destroyed me in this way?

  Hartmann von Aue sees a more positive role for a woman: ‘The woman who with a willing heart sends her dear husband on this journey, providing that at home she lives in a way that all will proclaim virtuous, shall purchase half of his reward. She shall pray for both of them here, and he shall go and fight for both of them there’ (‘Swelch vrowe sendet lieben man’, ll. 1–7).

  So far we have considered the way in which crusade songs reflect the social aspirations, the religious orthodoxy, and the literary conventions of the time, but what did they have to say about the reality of the crusades? One of the aspects most frequently mentioned is the danger of the journey itself—hardly surprising when one recalls that the first of the known troubadours, William IX of Aquitaine, lost almost all his men on his way to the Holy Land. Gaucelm Faidit, who took part in the Third Crusade, celebrates his own return in the song, ‘Del gran golfe de mar’ (1192/3). He did not care for the journey and is delighted to be back in familiar surroundings. The sea voyage especially distressed him: ‘for now I need not be afraid of the winds, north, south, or west, my ship is no longer swaying, and I no longer need fear the swift galleys or corsairs’ (ll. 32–6). He acknowledges the merit of the crusaders but deplores the fact that some go to sea for no more than pillage and piracy: ‘Any man who undergoes such discomforts to win God or to save his soul is doing the right thing, not the wrong one; but if anyone goes to sea, where one suffers such ills, in order to rob and with wicked intentions, it very often happens that, when he thinks he’s on the up, he’s coming down, so that in despair he lets go of everything and throws it all away: soul and body, gold and silver’ (ll. 37–48). The moral stricture is clear, but there is perhaps also a playful sub-text: those who go to sea with ill-intent will suffer sea-sickness!

  In ‘Ez gruonet wol diu heide’ (probably written at the time of Frederick II’s expedition in 1228–9), Neidhart von Reuental imagines writing home from Palestine, a letter of complaint: ‘If they ask you how it goes with us pilgrims, tell them how badly the French and Italians have treated us: that is why we are weary of this place… we all live in misery; more than half the army is dead…’ (ll. 38–42, 53–4). He is quite disenchanted with the whole business and wouldn’t be put off going home by anything as relatively harmless as a sea voyage: ‘He seems to me a fool who remains here this August. My advice would be that he should delay no longer and go back home across the sea; that is not painful. Nowhere is a man better off than at home in his own parish’ (ll. 71–7).

  The actual fighting is rarely described in song. The deeds of the Muslims are usually referred to briefly or in general terms: ‘.…he churches are burnt and deserted: God is no longer sacrificed there…’ (‘Chevalier mut estes guariz’, ll. 13–16, on the taking of Edessa). The only surviving crusade song in Spanish, however, gives a more circumstantial, though perhaps not eye-witness, account of events after the capture of Jerusalem by the Khorezmians in 1244. The anonymous poet claims to be writing for the ears of the Second Council of Lyons (1274); no doubt the gory detail is intended to have a propaganda function: ‘Then come the tender maidens, in chains and in torment. They weep greatly in their affliction and sorrow in Jerusalem. The Christians see
their sons roasted, they see their wives’ breasts sliced off while they are still living; they go along the streets with their hands and feet cut off (sic!) in Jerusalem. They made blankets out of the vestments, they made a stable out of the Holy Sepulchre; with the holy crosses they made stakes in Jerusalem’ (‘! Ay, Iherusalem!’, ll. 91–105). The terms in which the Khorezmians are spoken of in ‘!Ay, Iherusalem!’ are reminiscent of much earlier crusade songs: ‘These Moorish dogs have held the holy dwelling for seven and a half years; they are not afraid of dying to conquer Jerusalem. They are helped by those of Babylon with the Africans and those of Ethiopia… Now because of our sins the dark day has brought the Moorish hordes… The Christians are few, fewer than sheep. The Moors are many, more than the stars’ (‘!Ay, Iherusalem!’, ll. 21–7, 66–7, 71–2).

  Gavaudan, in ‘Senhor, per los nostres peccatz’ (1195) also attributes Muslim successes in the Holy Land to the sinfulness of Christians, and fears that such triumphs may encourage them to attempt the same in Spain: ‘Sirs, because of our sins, the Saracens’ power increases: Saladin captured Jerusalem; it has still not been won back; that is why the king of Morocco has sent out a message that, with his perfidious Andalusians and Arabs, armed against the faith of Christ, he will fight against all Christian kings’ (ll. 1–9). There follows an account of the huge numbers involved and the brute rapacity of the enemy: more numerous than raindrops, they are cast out on the fields to feed themselves on carrion, and they leave nothing unconsumed. He speaks of their pride: they think everything belongs to them and will bow down before them. The references to his audience’s home territory make clear that he is seeking to inspire or to recruit by means of terror: ‘.…oroccans, Almoravids occupy the mountains and the fields. They boast to each other: “Franks, make way for us! Provence and the Toulousain are ours and all the land that stretches from here to Le Puy!” Never was such a fierce boast heard before from such false dogs, such accursed infidels’ (ll. 21–7). He urges his hearers not to leave their birthright to the cas negres outramaris (black foreign dogs) and to rescue the inhabitants of Spain who are in jeopardy. The Muslims are here treated in very much the same way as in the Chanson de Roland: ‘In their first corps there are those of Butentrot, in the second the Micenians with their huge heads; on their spines, halfway down their backs, they have bristles like those of pigs… in the tenth, those of the desert of Occïant: a race which never served Our Lord; never was known a more wicked people: their skin is harder than iron, they have no use for helm or hauberk, in battle they are faithless and cruel’ (Chanson de Roland, ll. 3220–3, 3246–51). Their sins are pride and faithlessness; they are animal-like; their strength lies in numbers expressed, not so much in figures, as by a recital of their tribal origins; their boast goes to the heart of Christian fears of invasion and subjection.

  Since crusade songs frequently take the form of sirventes, both praise and criticism of individuals and of political events are common. Marcabru’s Lavador song urges the importance of the Spanish crusade rather than that to the East. The topic of the rival claims of the two enterprises recurs in Gavaudan’s song which appeals to the emperor, to Philip II of France and his nobles, and to Richard I of England to help Spain. Salvation depends on choosing the right way: ‘Jesus Christ, who preached to us so that our end might be a good one, shows us which is the right path’ (‘Senhor, per los nostres peccatz’, ll. 37–9). The ‘right path’ here is more than the usual Christian metaphor for the way to salvation: it is the path that leads to Spain.

  Frequently poets urge barons or monarchs to take the cross, to set out, to do more than they have. Gaucelm Faidit, in ‘Tant sui ferms e fis vas Amor’ (1188/9), speaks of the shame that all must suffer

  .… for the false race who do not believe in him are disinheriting him and insulting him in that place where he suffered and died. It behoves everyone to consider going there, and the princes all the more so since they are highly placed, for there is not one who can claim to be faithful and obedient to him if he does not aid him in this enterprise.

  To the count, my lord, I wish to say that, as he was the first to have the honour, let him take care that God should have reason to thank him, for the praises come with the going [itself]! (ll. 54–64)

  The ‘count’ is probably Richard, as count of Poitou, one of the first to take the cross after the battle of Hattin. Virtually the entire career of Richard in connection with the crusade may be traced through troubadour songs. His own poem, ‘Ja nus om pris ne dira sa raison’, is not exactly a crusade song, but is written as from his prison in Vienna.

  No man who is a prisoner can truly speak his mind except in sorrow; but to comfort himself he may write a song. I have plenty of friends but their gifts are poor; they will be shamed if, for the sake of my ransom, I remain a prisoner here for two winters.

  It is no wonder that my heart is sad when my overlord oppresses my lands. If he were now mindful of our oath which we both swore together, I know for sure that already I would no longer be a prisoner here. (ll. 1–6, 19–24)

  The overlord is Philip II of France who had taken advantage of Richard’s imprisonment to invade Normandy despite the oath which they had sworn in December 1190 to protect each other’s lands for the duration of the crusade. Richard’s death is lamented by Gaucelm Faidit and by Peirol; both have a poor opinion of certain other leaders: ‘England has but poor compensation for King Richard; and France with its flowers used to have a good king and good lords, and Spain had another good king, and likewise Montferrat had a good marquis, and the empire had an esteemed emperor; I do not know how those who are here now will behave’ (Peirol, ‘Pus flum Jordan’, ll. 15–21). Peirol was writing this in 1221 or 1222 but still felt that the monarchs of his time were far inferior to those involved in the Third Crusade.

  The Albigensian Crusade produced an interesting situation for the poets. If, in the eastern crusades, God was the victim whose rightful lands and inheritance had been usurped by the Muslims, then for some of the troubadours, this position was occupied by the count of Toulouse. If, in the songs associated with the Reconquista, the menacing foreign hordes were those of the Moors, for some poets of Languedoc the invaders were the French. In 1209, Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Béziers, was rumoured to have been assassinated by order of Simon of Montfort. Guillem Augier Novella’s lament for him treats the French in much the same way as other crusade songs treat the Muslims: ‘They have killed him. Never did anyone witness so great an outrage, nor was so great a wrong ever done nor such a great departure from the will of God or Our Lord as the renegade dogs have committed, those of Pilate’s treacherous lineage, those who have killed him’ (‘Quascus plor e planh’, ll. 11–16). Guilhem Figueira, in his famous sirventes, first accuses Rome of having been responsible for the loss of Damietta because of the Pope’s ‘cowardly negotiations’, then of offering a false pardon to the French crusaders: ‘Rome, in truth I know, without a doubt, that with the fraud of a false pardon you delivered up the barons of France to torment far from Paradise, and, Rome, you killed the good king of France by luring him far away from Paris with your false preaching’ (‘D’un sirventes far’, ll. 36–42). The ‘false pardon’ and the ‘false preaching’ reflect Guilhem’s view that the expedition against the Cathars was no true crusade and could not attract the benefit of a plenary indulgence. Louis VIII died at Montpensier in 1226 from a disease contracted in Languedoc. Where conventional crusade songs identify the way to Paradise with the crusade, Guilhem makes clear that this expedition is a barrier to salvation: ‘Thus, in winter and in summer alike, a man who follows your path follows a bad guide, for the devil will carry him off into the fires of Hell’ (ibid., ll. 54–6).

  Political allusions are rarer in French and German songs until we come to the works of Rutebeuf in the late thirteenth century. The new form which he used, the dit, much longer than the trouvères’ songs, gave him scope to speak his mind, to refer explicitly to events, persons, and attitudes, to rail against his favour
ite target, the mendicant orders, which he saw as diverting both the attention of Louis IX and much-needed finance from the crusade.

  In summing up, then, we may say that crusade songs served several purposes. From the point of view of the poet-performer, they provided material for sirventes, a counterpoint to and a source of variations on the theme of courtly love, a range of allegories and structures of thought. From the point of view of the audience—for we must not forget that these songs were written to be performed—they presented, in a palatable way exclusive to their milieu, the doctrine, information, and propaganda that was otherwise delivered by preachers or diffused by clerks. At the same time, the songs reinforced the audience’s self-image and showed how the crusade itself could confirm their possession of the virtues of nobility, holding up models for them to emulate and to inspire their esprit de corps. But the songs could also express their worries and uncertainties if things went badly, their protests against injustice or against the mishandling of God’s enterprise.

  6

  The Latin East

  1098–1291

  JONATHAN PHILLIPS

  THE First Crusade established a Latin Christian presence on the eastern Mediterranean seaboard which lasted for almost 200 years. The expedition contained contingents from many areas of Europe, including Flanders, Normandy, Languedoc, and Lorraine. Notwithstanding their different origins, the crusaders who settled in the Levant were identified by the word ‘Franks’ by contemporary Muslims and Latins in the East. The capture of Cyprus in 1191 strengthened their community in the Levant and the island remained a Christian outpost long after the fall of the mainland settlements. Following the sack of Constantinople in 1204 the crusaders took control of most of the former Byzantine empire. The Greeks recovered much of their territory quite rapidly but Venetian Crete and the Latin principality of Achaea survived. Each of these western settlements had a distinctive identity. This chapter will examine their character and their impact on the conquered lands.