How to justify a crusade? The conquest of Livonia and new crusade rhetoric in the early thirteenth century

This article addresses the issue of how it was possible to justify a crusade to a region, such as the eastern shore of the Baltic, where there were no sacred shrines to protect or Christian lands to reconquer. Adopting a pluralist perspective of crusades, it argues that the Livonian crusade of the early thirteenth century offers some interesting clues to the new developments of crusading ideology. Conceiving of the conquest and conversion of Livonia as a crusade, albeit not quite equal to the liberation of Jerusalem, its initiators and apologists employed legal and rhetorical devices to justify the occupation of a region under the auspices of a crusade. This article examines these strategies through the medium of contemporary chronicles and papal letters.     

Papa et pecunia: Innocent III’s combination of reform and fiscal policy to finance crusades

This article examines the fiscal policies of Pope Innocent III throughout his pontificate, culminating in the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council. The aim of this analysis is to illustrate that not only was Innocent more fiscally minded than his predecessors, but that he also attempted to utilize fiscal policy as a tool for facilitating the crusade movement. Innocent adapted the fiscal tools of his predecessors while inventing several of his own. These tools included streamlined census-taking, income taxation, crusader vow redemptions/commutations, expanding crusade indulgences, the collection of alms, trade embargoes, clerical reform and more. These tools were designed to aid crusade endeavours, either directly or indirectly, and through crusading achieve the salvation of Christian souls.     

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.     

Maurofilia y maurofobia en el Libro del conde de Castilla

The Poema de Fernán González (or Libro del conde de Castilla) is not a crusade song, nor is it an epic poem or a historical account commemorating the foundation of San Pedro de Arlanza Monastery. It is rather a hybrid text that employs all the literary and historical resources available around the middle of the thirteenth century to an educated poet who was intent on transmitting to future generations the memory of the Count who made possible the independence of Castile. All episodes in the poem point to Castile's unique place in history, describing through the protagonist's bellicose deeds its hegemonic ascendency as the most important kingdom of the Iberian peninsula. Its destiny is determined by the hero's combative character against all enemies, whether Christians or Moors, and more specifically by confronting the powerful kings of neighboring states León and Navarre.     

Papal pronouncements on legitimate lordship and the formulation of nationhood in early fourteenth-century Scottish writings

Early fourteenth-century Scotland produced some of the period's clearest expressions of nationhood, most famously with the so-called Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Despite the letter's fame, its conceptual language and that of related Scottish texts has not hitherto been entirely recognised. The present article demonstrates that these writings are closely informed by contemporary legal ideas concerning lawful jurisdiction and just war. Their use of legal ideas can be shown to have been inspired by the concerns and outlook of the papacy, particularly with regard to its temporal lordship in Italy. It is this inspiration that can explain the clarity and force with which the Scottish texts of these decades present the kingdom as specifically Scottish and the nation as a political force, for which they have since become renowned.     

A Transformed Life? Geoffrey of Dutton,the Fifth Crusade,and the Holy Cross of Norton

Despite the volume of scholarship dedicated to crusade motivation, comparative little has been said on how the crusades affected the lives of individuals, and how this played out once the returned home. Taking as a case study a Cheshire landholder, Geoffrey of Dutton, this article looks at the reasons for his crusade participation and his actions once he returned to Cheshire, arguing that he was changed by his experiences to the extent that he was concerned with remembering and conveying his own status as a returned pilgrim. It also looks at the impact of a relic of the True Cross he brought back and gave to the Augustinian priory of Norton.     

Crossing boundaries in the Mediterranean: papal trade licences from the Registra supplicationum of Pope Clement VI (1342–52)

This article examines a number of ‘trade licences’ issued during the pontificate of Clement VI, found predominantly in the unpublished Vatican Registra supplicationum. These licences were privileges granted to merchants exempting them from the papal ban on trade with the Muslim world. The article argues that the licences can demonstrate, amongst other things, that merchants were more concerned with their spiritual welfare and the ramifications of illegal trade than has often been presumed, and that the papacy was aware of the need for merchants to have contact with Muslims, in contradiction to the view of a fundamental opposition between the Church and Islam during the period. They provide a valuable insight into the changing Western attitudes towards contact with different Muslim groups in the Mediterranean, and also shed considerable light on the complex interaction between mercantile objectives and religion in the Middle Ages.     

Crusade or cooperation? Savary de Brèves’s treatises on the Ottoman Empire

This article examines two treatises by François Savary de Brèves, French ambassador to Constantinople (1589-1605) and to the Holy See (1608-14), one promoting a crusade against the Ottoman Empire and the other championing the Franco-Ottoman alliance. By closely reading these ostensibly paradoxical texts, which were published in the same volume, I argue that de Brèves’s true intent was to advocate cooperation between France and the Ottoman Empire as a long-term foreign policy objective. This article draws attention to the significant roles played in the political, diplomatic and intellectual worlds of early-seventeenth-century France by Savary de Brèves, a largely forgotten figure. It highlights the ambivalent image of the Ottomans in early modern Europe and contributes to recent scholarship on the interactions between the Islamic East and Christian West.     

The importance of Old French chronicles as historical sources of the Fourth Crusade and the early Latin Empire of Constantinople

Michael Angold has shown that the collapse of Greek resistance to the crusading army has not yet been fully explained by historians (Journal of Medieval History, 25, 3 (1999) 257–78). The chronicles of Villehardouin and Clari are an additional, important source, written by eyewitnesses. They provide first-hand evidence of the morale of the army, its sense of mission and the problems which it faced. Henri de Valenciennes provides a similar, first-hand account of the start of the reign of Henry of Hainaut as Latin Emperor. Close study of these texts helps to explain the victory of the westerners. They are even more important as historical sources than as examples of early French prose.     

Ritual,what else? Papal letters,sermons and the making of crusaders

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the importance of papal letters and crusade sermons for the process of recruiting crusaders and analyses different communicative aspects which were at play during events recruiting for the crusade. It argues that both papal letters and sermons were vital elements for effective crusade propaganda but that they fulfilled distinct functions. While letters emanating from the papal curia set the strategic, organisational and legal goalposts for crusade propaganda, crusade sermons were central to the successful recruitment of crusaders. The article highlights the performative aspects of crusade preaching by Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095 and Abbot Martin of Pairis at Basel in 1200 and shows that ritualised communication played an important role during recruitment events.