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Negotiating Knightly Piety: The Cult of the Warrior-Saints in the West, ca. 1070–ca. 1200

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James B. MacGregor
James B. MacGregor
Affiliation:
Ph.D. graduate of the University of Cincinnati.
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Extract

Around 1184, Alan de Lille composed a sermon addressed to Europe's knights (Ad milites) as part of a treatise on the art of preaching (Ars praedicandi). In it, Alan condemned the felonious and violent behavior of Western warriors and reproached them for their mistreatment of the poor and the Church—the very groups that knights ought to protect in an ideal Christian society. According to Alan, such actions must cease and knightly behavior must be reformed. Using scriptural precedent, he encouraged knights to consider their spiritual welfare by articulating a difference between internal and external military service. Knights, if they wish to be soldiers of God, must wield both temporal and spiritual arms: the former to protect the Church and their homelands, the latter to combat the enemies of their souls. Balance between the two was essential since external service (earthly combat) was empty and meaningless without its internal counterpart (spiritual combat). By ensuring the proper equilibrium, knights could fulfill their assigned role in the world while actively working to ensure their own salvation.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 317 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2004

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References

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13. Unfortunately, the reason for Blaise's presence among the warrior-saints must remain speculative since the identity of the five battles to which the letter refers may only be guessed at. Hagenmeyer suggests that they are (1) The battle of Dorylaeum (July 1097); (2) The battle of Heraclea (September 1097); (3) The battle at the Iron Bridge on the banks of the Orontes (October 1097); (4) The battle against the Turks from the castle of Harnec (November 1097); (5) The battle against a Muslim force seeking to relieve Antioch (December 1097). See Kreuzzugsbriefe, 245, 272–73. Whether or not the cult of Saint Blaise was associated with any of these sites is difficult to determine since his cult is based in the town of Sebaste, a location well off the route followed by the crusading army. There is, however, a lesser known martyr named Blaise whose cult was centered in Caesarea (Cappadocia), a city through which the crusaders passed shortly after the battle of Heraclea. As with the martyred bishop of Sebaste, however, Blaise of Caesarea had no connection with a military career, having been a shepherd before he suffered for the faith. For Blaise, Saint of Sebaste, , Acta sanctorum, Feb. I, 336–53Google Scholar. For Saint Blaise of Caesarea, , Acta sandorum, Feb. I, 353.Google Scholar

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20. Riley-Smith, , “The First Crusade and Saint Peter,” 55–56 and note 105.Google Scholar

21. Tudebodus, Petrus, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere, ed. Hill, John Hugh and Hill, Laurita L. (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1977), 111–12Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Peter Tudebode).

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23. Peter Tudebode, 98–100. Translation from Tudebode, Peter, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere, trans. Hill, John Hugh and Hill, Laurita L. (Philadelphia, Penn.: American Philosophical Society, 1974), 74–75.Google Scholar

24. Monachus, Robertus, Historia Iherosolimitana, in Recueil des historiens des croisades. Historiens Occidentaux, 5 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1844–1895), 3:821–22, 830, 832Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Robert of Rheims; the Recueil will be cited as RHC Hist. Occ.).

25. Historia peregrinorum euntium Jerusolymam, in RHC Hist. Occ., 3:205.

26. Robert of Rheims, 832. The proximity of Rheims to the Imperial domain, where the cult of Saint Maurice was particularly popular, offers one possible explanation as to why this saint's name was added to Robert's version of the Antioch story. See Flori, , La guerre sainte, 131.Google Scholar

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28. William of Malmesbury, 1:638, 639. See also Nogent, Guibert de, Dei Gesta per Francos et cinq autres textes, ed. Huygens, R. B. C., Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 127 A (Turnholt: Brepols, 1996), 240Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Guibert of Nogent).

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30. Robert of Rheims, 796–98.

31. Bull, , Knightly Piety, 197Google Scholar; Levine, Robert, “The Pious Traitor: Rhetorical Reinventions of the Fall of Antioch,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 33:1 (1998): 65–67.Google Scholar

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33. For an introduction to the content, intent, and audience of the chansons de geste, and the chansons de croisade more specifically, see Powell, James M., “Myth, Legend, Propaganda, History: The First Crusade, 1140–ca. 1300,” in Autour de la Première Croisade. Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (Paris: Sorbonne, 1996), 131, 136–38Google Scholar; Cook, Robert Francis, “Crusade Propaganda in the Epic Cycles of the Crusade,” in Journeys toward God: Pilgrimage and Crusade, ed. Sargent-Baur, Barbara N. (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute, 1992), 157–75Google Scholar; Trotter, D. A., Medieval French Literature and the Crusades (Geneva: Droz, 1987), 107–25Google Scholar; Kleber, Herman, “Pelerinage—Vengeance—Conquete. La Conception de la premiere croisade dans le cycle de Grain-dor de Douai,” in Au carrefour des routes d'Europe: La Chanson de geste, 2 vols. (Aix-en-Provence: Cuer, 1987), 2:757–75Google Scholar; Bender, Karl-Heinz, “Die Chanson d'Antioche: eine Chronik zwischen Epos und Hagiographie,” Oliphant 5 (1977): 89–104Google Scholar; Bender, Karl-Heinz, “Des chansons de geste à la première èpopèe de croisade. La présence de l'histoire contemporaine dans la litérature française du 12ème siècle,” in Actes du VIe congrès international de la Société Rencevals (Aix-en-Provence: University of Provence, 1974), 485–500.Google Scholar

34. La Chanson D'Antioche, ed. Suzanne, Duparc-Quioc, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1976–1978), 1:444–46Google Scholar and note, lines 9052–71.

35. On the use of Robert's chronicle by the author/redactor of the chanson, see Chanson D'Antioche, 2:132–39.

36. Edgington, Susan B., “Holy Land, Holy Lance: Religious Ideas in the Chanson d'Antioche,” in The Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History, ed. Swanson, R. N. (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 2000), 142–53.Google Scholar

37. Gesta Francorum, 87.

38. For Ramla and other sites important to the cult of Saint George, see Delehaye, , Les Légendes grecques, 45–50.Google Scholar

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40. Orderic Vitalis, 5:156,157. See also the chronicle of Baldric of Dol from whence Orderic took his information: Historia Jerosolimitana in RHC Hist. Occ., 4:95–96.

41. Guibert of Nogent, 269; Translation from Guibert, of Nogent, , The Deeds of God through the Franks, trans. Levine, Robert (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 1997), 125–26.Google Scholar

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44. Narratio quomodo reliquae martyris Georgii ad nos Aquicinenses pervenerunt, in RHC Hist. Occ., 5:xliv–xlv, 248–52; Acta sanctorum, Apr. III, 134–36.

45. Chanson D'Antioche, 1:304, line 6064; Riley-Smith, , “The First Crusade and Saint Peter,” 56Google Scholar and notes 109, 110.

46. Raymond d'Aguilers, 136; translation from Hill and Hill, 114–15.1 have slightly altered the translation by Hill and Hill for clarity. These changes are indicated above in brackets. “Itaque obtulimus vota sancto Georgio, et quia se ducem nostrum confessus fuerat, visum et majoribus et omni populo, ut episcopum ibi elegeremus, quoniam ecclesiam illam in terra Israel primam inveneramus.”

47. Raymond does report that some crusaders witnessed a vision of Bishop Adhemar (the papal legate had died on August 1, 1098) on the walls of Jerusalem: Raymond d'Aguilers, 151. It is not until the thirteenth century that Saint George becomes associ- ated with the fall of Jerusalem: Varazze, Iacopo de, Legenda Aurea, ed. Maggioni, Giovanni Paolo, 2 vols. (Florence: SISMEL, 1998), 1:398.Google Scholar

48. La Chanson de Jerusalem, ed. Thorp, Nigel R. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992), 50, lines 679–89.Google Scholar

49. Hamilton, , The Latin Church in the Crusader States, 84–85.Google Scholar

50. Despite what the chanson says, Bohemond cannot have been present at this battle. When the crusading army continued its march to Jerusalem, Bohemond remained at Antioch where he ruled as the first prince of this new crusader principality.

51. Chanson de Jerusalem, 50–53, lines 690–854.

52. The identity of the saint named “Domins” in the Chanson de Jerusalem is commonly thought to be Saint Demetrius. Given that Demetrius is named in virtually all of the chronicles, and since no other saints with similar names present themselves as possibilities, this identification appears sound.

53. Acta sanctorum, May III, 285–86; Delehaye, Hippolyte, “Les actes de S. Barbarus,” Analecta Bollandiana 29 (1910): 276–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is unlikely that the reference to “saint Barbe” in the Chanson de Jerusalem refers to Saint Barbara—there is no indication in the chronicles or chansons that female saints were associated with the success of the First Crusade or with the ranks of the warrior-saints. The only possible exceptions to this statement are the reported visions of the Virgin Mary to individual crusaders and the report, found only in the chronicle of Raymond d'Aguilers, that Saint Agatha accompanied the Virgin during one of these appearances. See Riley-Smith, , “The First Crusade and Saint Peter,” 53Google Scholar; Raymond d'Aguilers, 127. It is not until the late Middle Ages that Barbara's purported patronage of artillerymen associates her with military activity.

54. Spiegel, Gabrielle M., “The Cult of St Denis and Capetian Kingship,” in Saints and Their Cults. Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and History, ed. Stephen, Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 141–68.Google Scholar

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56. Chanson de Jerusalem, 53–54, lines 855–70.

57. For the titles of other chansons de geste in which the warrior-saints appear, see the appropriate volumes and entries in Moisan, André, Répertoire des notns propres de personnes et de lieux cités dans les chansons de geste françaises et les oeuvres étrangères dérivées, 5 vols. (Geneva: Droz, 1986).Google Scholar

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59. The Song of Aspremont, trans. Newth, Michael W. (New York: Garland, 1989), 203–6, lines 8505–610.Google Scholar