An Empire of Memory (41 page)

3840–2

4652

453

823 Venice

242–3

308

R.

R. Po

653

Garonne

459 467

45

609

Rhône

457

626

R.

63

376

5497 5229–31

744500

826

5225–6

778–80

4556?

450–1

96

838

832–5 851

35

471

521

Toulouse

5384

251 781799

269

488–9

4739

359

1628

41

806 820

254

289

4529

478

828

4757

70

660

60

R.

644

StGilles

Arles

298–9

Ebro

1623

1624

Pamplona

87–8

747

799

397 436

599

132

303

820

4738

110

1643

336 3720

1627

4606

109 441

755 294–5

50

100 miles

5295–6

0

680

Marseilles

196

696

484

1638–9

0

100

200 km

4602

Pisa

Figure 5.1. Map of recruitment to the First Crusade. Reprinted with permission from Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997).

The Franks Return to the Holy Land

147

several thousand miles to Palestine. Urban may have actually been planning some

sort of armed expedition to the East for a number of years but the match that lit

the bonfire was most likely struck in south-western Francia, at Clermont in

November 1095.65 We have three attendees who left us substantive accounts of

Urban’s crusade sermon. They are Fulcher, a canon of Chartres; Robert, a monk

from somewhere around Reims; and Baudri, abbot of Bourgueil (in Anjou) and

later archbishop of Dol.66 Abbot Geoffrey of Vendôme and Hugh, a monk of

Saint-Vannes of Verdun, then of Saint-Bénigne of Dijon, and later abbot of

Flavigny, may also have attended.67 Later, the anonymous Norman author of the

Gesta Francorum, the Poitevin priest Peter Tudebode, and Guibert, monk of Saint-

Germer of Fly and later abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, would write down versions

of Urban’s speech.68 Although many have tried to reconstruct what Urban said

from the surviving versions of his speech, in truth none of the above authors tell us

much about what Urban said.

The very idea of an armed journey to the East in 1095 subjected each preacher,

participant, and observer to ‘a swarm of emotional and intellectual responses’, the

number and variety of which would only grow as independent preachers carried

Urban’s message outwards from Clermont.69 Further, as discussed in Chapter 2, textual

composition was linked to medieval mnemonic practice and as such was more interest-

ed in recording what ought to have been than wie es eigentlich gewesen ist.70 Since all

those who wrote versions of Urban’s speech were writing after the capture of Jerusalem

65 The expedition may have been in Urban’s mind c.1090, when he mentioned his intention to

journey into Francia. See Alfons Becker, ‘Urbain II et l’Orient’, in Francesco Babudri (ed.), Il Concilio di Bari del 1098: Atti del convegno storico internazionale e celebrazioni del 9. centenario del concilio (Bari, 1999), 123–44; Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, Mass.,

2006), 66–83; Becker, Papst Urban II., ii. 333–4, 379–81; Riley-Smith, First Crusade, 14–15; Carl

Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, tr. Marshall Baldwin and Walter Goffart (Princeton,

1977), 319–28; among others. John Pryor has even put into doubt whether the Byzantines called for

help at Piacenza. John H. Pryor, ‘A View from the Masthead: The First Crusade from the Sea’,

Crusades, 7 (2008), 126 and n. 168.

66 Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana (1095–1127), ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer

(Heidelberg, 1913); Robert of Reims, Historia Iherosolimitana, RHC Occ 3: 717–882; and Baudri

of Dol, Historia Jerosolimitana, RHC Occ 4: 1–111. A research group around Marcus Bull hopes to

soon put out new critical editions of the last two of these texts.

67 Abbot Geoffrey of Vendôme mentioned his reaction to the speech in one of his letters. Hugh of

Flavigny may have been with Abbot Jarento of Saint-Bénigne of Dijon, who was at the council. See

Geoffrey of Vendôme, Ad Odonem, PL 157: 162–3; Hugh of Flavigny, Chronicon, MGH SS 8: 474.

On Hugh’s career, see Patrick Healy, The Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny: Reform and the Investiture

Contest in the Late Eleventh Century (Burlington, Vt., 2006), 63–88.

68 Gesta Francorum, ed. Hill, 1–2; Peter Tudebode, Historia, ed. Hill and Hill, 31–3; and Guibert,

Dei gesta per Francos, ed. Huygens, 110–17. On the distinction between Peter and the Gesta, see Ch. 2

n. 97 above. It is possible too that Tudebode (a priest from Civray, near Poitiers and Charroux) was at Clermont or saw Urban elsewhere as he toured Francia.

69 E. O. Blake, ‘The Formation of the “Crusade Idea”’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 20 (1970),

17; also Jean Flori, ‘Une ou plusieurs “première croisade”? Le Message d’Urbain II et les plus anciens pogroms d’Occident’, Revue Historique, 285 (1991), 22–6; idem, Guerre sainte, 17, 19; Jonathan

Riley-Smith, ‘Christian Violence and the Crusades’, in Anna Sapir Abulafia (ed.), Religious Violence

between Christians and Jews: Medieval Roots, Modern Perspectives (New York, 2002), 12–14; and the

seminal H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade’, in Thomas F. Madden

(ed.), The Crusades: Essential Readings (Oxford, 2002), 16.

70 See Ch. 2, at nn. 110–17.

148

The Franks Recreate Empire

in 1099, intimately touched by the West’s joy at the crusade’s success, these writers

explained the event’s inception by its conclusion. They read the narrative of the First

Crusade backwards, from the sack of Jerusalem to what they saw as the movement’s

beginning (in most cases, Urban’s speech at Clermont). In this way, despite what we

might think of as their proximity to objective fact, the ‘eyewitness’ versions of the speech

are actually little different from those of the second-generation of crusade chroniclers.

All of them sought, in the words of Guibert of Nogent, to capture the intentio of

Urban’s speech. And there is still more to confound modern attempts to reconstruct

Urban’s speech at Clermont. Not only intending to capture the intentio of the speech,

our authors then sought to package this intentio into a sermon of their own composi-

tion.71 So, to summarize, these authors, deeply affected by the call to crusade and the

subsequent fall of Jerusalem, sought to explain what had happened by making an

educated guess at Urban’s mindset, but a guess filtered through their own historical and

theological terms––and all this in the form of a model sermon. Cross-referencing the

versions of Urban’s speech, looking for common themes as Dana Munro famously did,

probably alerts us to the fact that these authors understood the meaning of the crusade

similarly, not that Urban did or didn’t say something.72

Further complicating our understanding of Urban’s role in the genesis of the First

Crusade, we must recognize that we are not only talking about Clermont when we

talk about the inception of the First Crusade. Urban spent much of 1095 and 1096

traveling around in order to promote his military expedition. He was in Tuscany,

Lombardy, Provence, Languedoc, Burgundy, Nevers, the Auvergne, the Périgord,

Aquitaine, the Poitou, Anjou, Maine, Blois, and Gascony (Figure 5.2). Before he

even crossed the Alps, he was in Rome, Pisa, Pistoia, Florence, Cremona, and

Piacenza. He held a major assembly at Clermont and councils at Piacenza, Nîmes,

and Tours, and spent Christmas at Limoges. He sent legates from all these assemblies

back to their dioceses to preach. His numerous stops at monasteries and cathedrals

must have attracted sizeable crowds from near and far.73 (It wasn’t every day that a

pope came to visit.) It is hard to gauge who attended these smaller gatherings but we

do know something about who came to Clermont. Clermont was huge: eighty

bishops and perhaps thirteen archbishops, more than forty abbots, a number

(though not necessarily a large one) of laymen, delegations from absent ecclesiastics,

such as the archbishop of Rouen, each with sizeable entourages, and of course the

71 Guibert, Dei gesta per Francos, ed. Huygens, 111; and Penny J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusade

to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), ch. 1.

72 Marcus Bull, ‘Views of Muslims and of Jerusalem in Miracle Stories, c.1000–c.1200: Reflections

on the Study of the First Crusaders’ Motivations’, in Marcus Bull and Norman Housley (eds.), The

Experience of Crusading, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2001), i. 22. Some, however, still think it worth trying to reconstruct his speech. See Christoph T. Maier, ‘Konflikt und Kommunikation: Neues zum

Kreuzzugsaufruf Urbans II’, in Dieter Bauer, Klaus Herbers, and Nikolas Jaspert (eds.), Jerusalem in

Hoch- und Spätmittelalter: Konflikte und Konfliktbewältigung-Vorstellungen und Vergegenwärtigungen

(Frankfurt, 2001), 13–30; Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford, 2004), 31–9;

Flori, L’Islam et la fin des temps, 276; and most famously Dana C. Munro, ‘The Speech of Urban II at

Clermont’, American Historical Review, 11 (1906), 231–40.

73 The best reconstruction of Urban’s Frankish itinerary is still Becker, Papst Urban II., ii. 435–57.

Becker leaves out the Italian part of Urban’s itinerary though.

Le Mans

Orléans

Sablé

Vendôme

Itinerar Urbans II. in Frankreich 1095–1096

Die karte enthält einige Veränderungen

Blois

Angers

St.-Maur

gegenüber der Skizze bei R. CROZET,

de Glanfeuil

Nantes

Le voyage d’Urbain II en France,

Tours-Marmoutier

Loire

Annales du Midi 49 (1937).

Bourges

Nevers

Autun

0

100 km

Vienne

Loire

Allier

Chalon

Poitiers

Souvigny

n

St.-Maixent

Cluny

Montet-aux-moines

Charroux

Mâcon

St.-Jean-

Charente

Genf

d’Angély

e

Saóne

Gr. St. Bernhard

Saintes

Clermont

Kl. St. Bernhard

Aosta

Limoges

Lyon

Sauxillanges

p

Vienne

Uzerche

La Chaise Dieu

Mont Cenis

Brioude

Susa

Turin

Po

Isére

Grenoble

Le Puy

St.-Flour

Romans

Bordeaux

Mont Genévre

Valence

Asti

Aurillac

l

Dordogne

Garonne

Chirac

Cruas

Gap

Rhone

Embrun

Bazas

Cahors

Monastier

Mende

Agen

St.-Paul-

Moissac

Sisteron

A

Trois-Châteaux

Nérac

Layrac

Millau

Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Avignon

Forcalquier

Nîmes

Cavaillon Apt

ance

Tarascon

Dur

Toulouse

St.-Pons

Montpellier

St.-Gilles

Arles

de Thomières Maguelonne

Itinerar 1095

Itinerar 1096

Marseille

Orientierungsorte

Carcassonne

Narbonne

Itinerarstationen

Alet

Figure 5.2. Map of Pope Urban II’s preaching itinerary in Francia, 1095–96. Reprinted with permission from Alfons Becker, Papst Urban II. (1088–1099), vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1988).

150

The Franks Recreate Empire

papal entourage itself. They were by no means all from south-western Francia. They

came from Provence and Aquitaine, but also Italy, Iberia, Normandy, Flanders,

Lotharingia, Burgundy, Champagne, and the Île-de-France.74 Other gatherings

were probably similarly composed.

Then, all of these attendees, at all of these gatherings, took the message of an

armed expedition to Jerusalem home with them and the message spread from

there.75 Urban wrote letters to those he never met with––men of Catalonia,

Flanders, Bologna, and the monks of Vallombrosa. Legates preached the expedition

in Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. A network of monks, canons, and village priests passed

word along.76 Archbishop Manasses II of Reims told his suffragans to push the

message in their dioceses. Abbot Jarento of Saint-Bénigne, with Hugh of Flavigny,

went to Normandy and England, eventually convincing Robert Curthose to join

the expedition, and recruitment was indeed strong in Flanders, Normandy, and the

Île-de-France.77 King Philip I of Francia (1060–1108) met with legate Archbishop

Hugh of Lyons at Mozac just before Clermont and, likely informed about the

crusade plans, went back to Paris to convoke a council of war with his brother,