Liturgy and devotion in the crusader states: introduction

ABSTRACT

This special issue contains eight essays on the liturgy celebrated in the Latin East in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The papers as a whole demonstrate how the study of the liturgy can open up the religious and cultural history of the crusades and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, reveal crusade spirituality and practice, and trace how the Latins of Outremer expressed through their liturgy their historical consciousness and awareness of contemporary realities.     

Dysentery in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem: an ELISA analysis of two medieval latrines in the City of Acre (Israel)

Dysentery was a significant cause of ill health during medieval times according to written sources of the period. However, it has been very difficult to detect the organisms that cause dysentery in archaeological samples from latrines and cesspools. This is because the cysts of the enteric parasites that cause dysentery are very small and usually fragment in the soil, in contrast to the robust ova of parasitic intestinal worms. This study uses a monoclonal enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique to identify the fragments of those enteric parasites that cause diarrhoea. Samples were taken from two excavated medieval latrines in the city of Acre. Coins and radiocarbon dating suggest that the latrines were in use during the thirteenth century CE. Positive results were noted for Entamoeba histolytica and Giardia duodenalis, while Cryptosporidium parvum was negative. This is the first time that either of these parasites have been identified in the Middle East using these methods.     

Trauma in the Crusader period city of Caesarea: a major port in the medieval eastern Mediterranean

Caesarea is the first fortified city to undergo palaeopathological analysis of its Crusader period inhabitants. This study of the 12th and 13th century population aims to determine the major types of trauma present, whether from weapon injuries or accidents. Since the Crusades were known for the significant number of battles and raids that took place, weapon injuries were expected to be common. Thirteen cases of trauma are described and a highly unexpected pattern has come to light. These cases do not include one single example of weapon‐related trauma. Every fracture is of a type expected from accidents or interpersonal violence without weapons. Possible explanations include the location of the city deep within Frankish territory and the robust city walls giving effective protection to the inhabitants, and also that the population were involved in activities that left them prone to accidents but not weapon injuries. The other important finding from this study was that the cases of lower limb long bone spiral fractures had healed in a near‐anatomical alignment. This is not what we would expect, as a proportion of these injuries would normally have been unstable and tend to heal poorly aligned. The good position could have resulted from surgeons' use of splints to immobilise the bones while they healed. This suggestion is supported by laws of the kingdom of Jerusalem, which stated that surgeons were to be punished if they allowed such fractures to heal at an angle. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The messianic journey of Jonathan ha-Kohen of Lunel to the Land of Israel re-examined

In 1210, thanks to increased contacts between Jewish communities in western Europe and in the eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the crusades, Jonathan ha-Kohen, head of the yeshivah of Lunel and leading Jewish Provençal sage of his time, set sail for Alexandria, from where he proceeded on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A year later, a group of sages from northern France and England arrived in Marseille, en route to Palestine. A number of scholars have investigated the messianic aspects of this second wave of immigration, called the “‘ aliyah of the three hundred rabbis”. This article, however, seeks to examine the messianic aspects of the earlier journey, undertaken by Jonathan ha-Kohen and his followers, within their local Provençal context.     

The defence of the Holy Land and the memory of the Maccabees

This article explores the evolving use of Maccabaean ideas in sources concerning the conduct of Christian holy warfare between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. It demonstrates that the memory of the Maccabees and other Old Testament exemplars played an important role in shaping the idea of crusading and its subsequent evolution to encompass new frontiers in the Baltic and Iberia, as well as structural developments in crusading, such as the establishment of the military orders.     

论中古西欧“上帝的和平”运动

10世纪末由基督教会在西欧大陆发起的“上帝的和平”运动是当时的政治、经济和宗教等原因共同促成的。它包括“上帝的和平”和“上帝的休战”两个阶段 ,主要通过举行和平集会等活动 ,力求限制贵族的私战和骑士的暴力行为 ,从而保护社会各阶层免受其害。这一运动使西欧的社会秩序有所好转 ,有利于西欧的经济复兴。它提高了教会的权威 ,促进了西欧骑士制度的形成 ,产生了划分三个等级的社会理论 ,并为十字军东侵创造了条件     

Military Orders Between Territorialization and Periphery from the 12th to the 16th Century

Military orders have historically played a key role in defining borders, both in a mental sense, by favouring an awareness of alterity in the most peripheral territories (Christians against Muslims and Christians against Pagans), and also in more direct ways, as owners of land in these territories. This article¹ discusses both the influence, in the broadest sense, of territory and periphery upon the medieval military orders, and the relationship between the crown and the military orders. It will be done through a comparative historical analysis of two cases: Portugal and Denmark in the 12th–16th centuries. Both countries were placed at the periphery of the Western world in the Middle Ages, and they were both active agents in the Crusading movement.     

Henry IV and Charles VI: the confirmation of the twenty-eight-year truce

The deposition of Richard II in 1399 caused serious problems for the new English king, Henry IV, in foreign affairs. Contemporaries believed that his seizure of the crown would provoke an outbreak of new hostilities with the French since the wife of the deposed monarch was none other than Isabel, a daughter of Charles VI, king of France. Indeed Charles took certain belligerent measures against henry, whom he stubbornly refused to recognize as the legitimate ruler of England, but stopped short of war because Isabel still remained in English custody. Henry IV, on the other hand, desired to improve relations with France because of his own tenuous hold on the English throne. Once Charles VI became convinced early in 1400 that Richard II had died in captivity, he abruptly changed his policy towards England and announced his intention of observing the terms set forth in the Twenty-Eight-Year Truce which he had originally concluded with his son-in-law in 1396. Later in May, Henry IV similarly proclaimed his willingness to honor that agreement. How both sides avoided an open clash and eventually confirmed the Twenty-Eight-Year Truce forms the central theme of this paper.     

A shared imitation: Cistercian convents and crusader families in thirteenth-century Champagne

This article examines the relationship between Cistercian nunneries and the crusade movement and considers the role of gender in light of the new emphasis on penitential piety and suffering prevalent during the thirteenth century. Focused on evidence from the region of Champagne in northern France, it argues that female family members of male crusaders adopted Cistercian spirituality as a means of participating in the experience of suffering and the pursuit of the imitation of Christ that had come to be associated with the act of crusading. The connection between Cistercian nuns and crusaders was further strengthened during this period as the Cistercian order expanded its liturgy to include specific rounds of prayers for success in the east and in southern France, for Jerusalem, and for the well-being of crusaders. Many crusader families in Champagne founded Cistercian nunneries to function as family necropolises, further sharpening the connections between crusaders, memory, and suffering as experienced in female Cistercian houses.