Crisis, Liturgy and the Crusade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

1997 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 628-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph T. Maier
Keyword(s):  
Special Relationship ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Holy War ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Religious Devotion

The First Crusade has been described as a ‘church in procession’ and a ‘military monastery on the move’. The progress of the first crusading armies to the Holy Land was indeed accompanied by regular liturgical practices, acts of devotion and intercessory rites. Before each battle and during sieges the crusaders fasted, prayed, celebrated mass and confessed their sins. They went in processions and sang psalms. This wealth of liturgical practices reported by contemporary commentators provided the rhythm to the crusaders' pilgrimage to Jerusalem and marked the sacred character of their undertaking. At the same time, the liturgy was a rallying point for the crusaders' identity: it represented and reinforced the special relationship between the milites Christi and their God, and gave expression to the spirituality and the ethos of the holy warrior. The crusaders' earnest participation in the liturgy of pilgrimage and holy war no doubt contributed to the image, already observed by contemporaries, of the crusade as a vehicle of piety and a means of salvation parallel to the vocation of the monastic life, which was traditionally considered the highest form of religious devotion.

“Citizens of Heaven” versus “The Islamic Peril”

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy L. Stockdale
Keyword(s):  
Theme Park ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Potential Danger ◽  
Holy War ◽  
A Site

In early 2001, the Holy Land Experience (HLE) theme park opened in Orlando, Florida. Before 9/11, Islam was merely a shadowy figure at the HLE; after 9/11, however, the park has promoted a vision of Islam and Muslims that fosters hate among American Protestant visitors. This paper argues that the HLE is a site of extreme potential danger, for it espouses holy war and dissent between American Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

scholarly journals Świętość w czasach podbojów islamskich. Męczennicy chrześcijańscy z Gazy z VII wieku

Vox Patrum ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 497-521
Author(s):  
Mieczysław Celestyn Paczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Latin Translation ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian History

The article focuses the story of the martyrdom of 60 Christian soldiers in Gaza who were executed for their refusal to convert to Islam during the Muslim inva­sion of Palestine. It is a final episode of varied Christian history of that region. Christian history of Gaza appears as complex and fascinating. In this region in the 4th century paganism was still strong but the monastic life developed in the vicinity of Gaza. Literary sources annotated the anti-Chalcedonian resistance of monastic circles in the wake of the council of Chalcedon. Christian history of the Gaza region ended dramatically with the Arab conquest in the 7th century. Just at that time a group of Christian soldiers refused the offer of the commander of the winners Muslims. The narrative of their martyrdom was preserved in a Latin translation of a Greek original. According to the text of the Passio, the Christian soldiers were executed in two groups: at Jerusalem and at Eleutheropolis. Bi­shop Sophronius of Jerusalem intervened in favor of these Martyrs and comforted them. He also gained the palm of martyrdom. The Passio in two different Latin recensions reveals a relatively neglected aspect in the history of the Holy Land during the period of heightened religious tension.

On the March

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cecilia Gaposchkin
Keyword(s):  
Holy War ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Meaningful Role ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks at the liturgy of crusade in an attempt to appreciate the devotional and religious texture that the rites of prayer and intercession brought to the crusading experience. Unlike most of the rest of this book, which is organized around the evidence found in the liturgical volumes themselves, the chapter draws primarily on narrative accounts of crusading, paying particular attention to the role of liturgy, prayer, and ecclesiastical ritual in underwriting the goals and sacrality of the First Crusade and crusading in general. It is clear from the sources themselves that liturgical rituals were more frequently performed in the First Crusade than in other campaigns in a way that suggests that the rites played a heightened role—that is, a more frequent or at least more meaningful role—on the campaign. However, their performances were also strategic, and the way in which the devotional and strategic aspects of liturgical intervention intertwined is central to the quality of crusade as holy war.

Prelude

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-27
Author(s):  
Steve Tibble
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Crusader States

This chapter describes a time before strategy, when the lands of the Middle East were intensely fractured, and trust and loyalty were scarce commodities. It looks at a time when self-interest was paramount and where chaos was so ingrained that an entire life could be lived without knowing anything else. It also talks about wars that are guided by politics, driven by policy objectives, and implemented through strategy but often lost in the rushed outpouring of human actions and emotions. The chapter discusses the liberation of Jerusalem and the end of the First Crusade, where most of the original crusaders returned home and some remained to defend the Holy Land. It also includes the four political entities that are collectively known as the “crusader states”: The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.

Stigmata on the First Crusade

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 99-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Purkis
Keyword(s):  
Holy Land ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Eyewitness Account ◽  
The Dead

In his eyewitness account of the First Crusade, Fulcher of Chartres described the shipwreck and drowning of a boatload of crusaders who were bound for the Holy Land in 1097. After the bodies of the dead were recovered, he explained how ‘they discovered crosses evidently marked on the flesh above the shoulders’. Fulcher supposed this incident to be a miracle, ‘divinely revealed’, and that the marking was a ‘token of faith’ (pignusfidei) bestowed by God upon his servants. It was a sign to the surviving crusaders that God favoured them and would fulfil the promise he had made that ‘the just, though they shall be taken prematurely by death, shall be in peace’ (Wisd. 4, 7).

Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous II of Roucy’s Proto-Crusade in Iberia c. 1073

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
Lucas Villegas-Aristizábal
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Circumstantial Evidence ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Family Networks ◽  
First Crusade

This article surveys the surviving material regarding Gregory VII and Eblous of Roucy’s expedition to Iberia c. 1073. This is an expedition that usually has been overlooked which provides a glimpse in to Gregory VII’s mindset with regard to the Iberian wars against the Muslims. This article assesses how Gregory attempted to use the current arguments for ‘Holy War’ to encourage Eblous and his followers to fight in the Christian–Muslim frontier. It also compares the papal plans with Eblous’ probable motives as they can be discerned from sources and the circumstantial evidence. Furthermore, it addresses whether Eblous went to Iberia to fight the Muslims since some of the accounts seem to contradict each other. It will also explore the significance of this episode in the development of Holy War as a preamble to the First Crusade, especially in comparison with the better-known siege of Barbastro of 1064. Lastly, it will also analyse how Eblous’ filial relations with the Aragonese rulers would help create family networks between the Burgundian and Norman nobility and the ruling houses of the Iberian Peninsula in the following decades, and the effect of these on the later involvement of Frankish contingents in the Iberian wars against the Muslims.

The Emergence of the Military Order in the Twelfth Century

1985 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.J. Forey
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Century ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Military Orders ◽  
Order Of Santiago ◽  
The Military

At the time when encyclopaedic works on the military orders began to be produced in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was widely held that the military order was an institution which had existed for most of the Christian era. Many of the orders catalogued in these volumes were reported to have been founded well before the period of the crusades, although there were often conflicting opinions about the precise antiquity of a particular foundation. Various dates were, for example, given for the establishment of the military order which the knights of the Holy Sepulchre were thought to constitute: although some held that it had been founded shortly after the first crusade, its creation was attributed by others to St James the Less in the first century A.D., while its origins were also placed in the time of Constantine and in that of Charlemagne. The foundation of the order of Santiago, which in fact occurred in 1170, was often traced back to the ninth century; yet while some linked it with the supposed discovery of the body of St James during the reign of Alfonso 11, others associated it with the legendary victory of Clavijo, which was placed in the time of Ramiro i. The accumulation of myth and tradition recorded in these encyclopaedias has exercised a prolonged influence on historians of the military orders: disproof has not always been sufficient to silence a persistent tradition. It is, nevertheless, clear that the Christian military order, in the sense of an institution whose members combined a military with a religious way of life, in fact originated during the earlier part of the twelfth century in the Holy Land.

scholarly journals Catherine of Siena’s crusade letters: Spirituality and political context

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana L. Villegas
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Political Policy ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
City States

AbstractCatherine of Siena has been credited with original views regarding the crusade as political policy and with influencing Gregory XI to carry this out. In this article, I argued that while Catherine of Siena did not succeed in furthering the crusade – nor did she initiate this policy – her crusade correspondence leaves us a legacy that reveals significant aspects of her spirituality. Over 40 letters to ecclesiastical authorities, Kings, Queens, leaders of city states, knights and her own followers reveal a religious intent, although addressing a policy with both religious and political consequences. The latter were important to Catherine because she considered political-cultural context vital for salvation and transformation; she advocated for the crusade because she considered that the crusade pilgrimage and holy war to recover the Holy Land would be critical for the salvation of many. Her epistles further witness to the prophetic, missionary nature of Catherine’s spirituality, and we see how she crafted her own version of crusade spirituality out of the wisdom on transformation learned through her union with God, fused with early Christian martyr spirituality and early crusade spirituality preached in medieval Europe. This thematisation of Catherine’s crusade letters is based on textual analysis of all crusade related letters in the 2002 critical text, on the most complete dating of Catherine’s letters (finished in 2008); and in dialogue with literary and other historical advances, making it an innovative study.Contribution: Catherine of Siena’s crusade letters reveal significant aspects of her spirituality rather than contributions to crusade politics. The letters evidence her prophetic-missionary spirituality and her conviction that socio-political context is significant for a journey of transformation; as well, this analysis details the importance of early Christian martyr spirituality for Catherine’s crusade spirituality.

The Destruction of Jerusalem and the First Crusade

1996 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
John France
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Popular Piety ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Early Evidence ◽  
Enormous Amount ◽  
Scholarly Discussion ◽  
The Church

The First Crusade was such an important event with such amazing consequences that it is hardly surprising that an enormous amount of ink has been spent on discovering the reasons why enthusiasm for it was so widespread. Much effort has been spent on examining factors which preconditioned the men of the eleventh century to welcome Urban's appeal in 1095–6. Broadly speaking it has been supposed that the wars against Islam in Spain accustomed men to the notion of Holy War, while the growing authority of the Church in the age of reform predisposed them to obey their spiritual directors – early evidence of this was the Peace and Truce of God first proclaimed by the bishops and clergy of France. Papal initiative in supporting the reconquest of Islamic Sicily and ‘corrupt’ England, and the influence of papal ideas about the militia Christi refined and developed by Anselm of Lucca reinforced the point. The Church threw its authority behind pilgrimage, the great manifestation of the popular piety of the age which was intimately allied to devotion to relics of saints and the cult of their sacred places. The most sacred of all places, and therefore the greatest of pilgrimages, was that to Jerusalem. It was the spiritual reward for this journey to Jerusalem which Urban 11 offered for those going on the expedition of 1095. These factors have always been the substance of discussion and were systematically analysed by Erdmann in a book which remains the basis of scholarly discussion to this day.

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