Armies of Heaven

by Jay Rubenstein

  There was now a fundamental series of oppositions between Latin and Greek and, more broadly, between West and East. The distinction is an old one, with roots in antiquity (Greeks and Persians, Romans and barbarians), but the crusade gave it new life and new detail. The opposition went beyond Christian and Saracen, beyond “Christendom” and “Pagandom,” as Raymond of Aguilers put it. It was a question of two different worlds, an effeminate, flighty, unbelieving (schismatic or heretical) East that stood in sharp opposition to a virtuous Latin West. It is a dichotomy fundamental to the Franks’ thought. As mentioned previously, Ralph of Caen could still recall how, while a child in Normandy, he had seen the skies turn a frightening shade of red the night after Mardi Gras in 1098. “Those in the West who saw it shouted out, ‘The East fights!’” Or stated more succinctly, the English historian Henry of Huntingdon, thirty years after the conquest of Jerusalem, described the vision in which Christ appeared to Stephen of Valence and explained to him how the Christian army might yet prevail at Antioch. “You shall tell these things,” he said, “to the sons of the West.”11

  The differences between East and West were on the surface religious, but the root cause was climatic. It is again an old idea, dating back to Hippocrates and Aristotle, but one that received new valorization because of the crusade. According to Guibert, the excessive heat in the East caused men’s thoughts to be more transient, less stable, and unfixed. “The faith of Orientals has always been rather mutable,” he wrote, and that is why most every major heresy originated in their world. William of Malmesbury mentioned the importance of climate in connection with the crusade on three separate occasions. Easterners, he observed, were dried up because of heat. They had less blood, which gave them more cunning minds, and they feared close combat because they had so little blood to spill. The heat also caused their blood to be less vital than the Franks’, giving them a slavish character. For that reason alone—the inert blood of its people—the Persian Empire endured so long. The emperor’s subjects lacked the vigor to rebel. The Franks, born in more temperate regions, were bold and savage and on several occasions shook themselves free of a single people’s domination. The untamed ferocity of crusade warriors thus became, in William’s analysis, a sign of cultural virtue.12

  This emphasis on opposites, part of a style of thought that is fundamentally apocalyptic, was born of the oppositions with which by now we have become familiar: heaven and hell, the saved and the damned, God and Devil, Christ and Antichrist, Christian and Saracen. The vision of a West in perfect opposition to an East, the formation of a single people out of diverse tribes, the accomplishment of divine mission through an army of saints—all are apocalyptic ideas. The experience of a shared Apocalypse, one that did not disappear in a moment of sudden disillusionment in 1000, 1033, and 1065 but rather haunted the imagination for years, reified these ideas and transformed them into beliefs shared and celebrated in circles that extended beyond courtly and intellectual classes. When the crusade disappeared, these habits of thought, these imaginative bonds joining together disparate communities behind a label otherwise meaningless—“the West”—survived.

  Some historians, and no doubt some readers, will be inclined to go further still, to see in the crusade not just the birth of the High Middle Ages but also the birth of the modern world, as we find ourselves living in a time again marred by religious strife and characterized by an instinctive division between East and West. Caution is necessary on this point. The word “crusade” has been used to distressing effect by all sides in recent global conflicts and never with anything resembling thoughtfulness or precision. It is surely ludicrous to draw one-to-one parallels across nine centuries of history. But at the same time, it is difficult to ignore the resonances between the eleventh-century story I have told and our own time: a Western army attacking a little-understood Eastern culture, earnestly believing itself to be a liberator of the cities it conquered, trusting that God was on its side and that to die in battle was to attain a martyr’s death, both anxious and hopeful that its exertions would remake the world and create a peace so profound that history itself might draw to a close (with Christianity or liberal democracies covering the globe), only to discover that the sudden liberation of Jerusalem had led not to a new world but to an endless and endlessly dangerous occupation of enemy territory.

  Whether that parallel will persist remains to be seen. In the Middle Ages, more than half a century was needed to sort out just which Apocalypse had happened, if any, and another half century still was required to iron out the various nuances of crusade doctrine. In the meantime the unintended consequences of that first great exercise in medieval holy war continued to pile up, one disaster atop another.

  An event buried deeply in the past, with so many causes and effects between its day and ours, offers no clear lesson. But the First Crusade, as the original and perhaps the only Apocalypse fulfilled, does present a somber warning about the dangers of holy war once an army or the authority behind an army chooses to believe that its goals align with God’s. The rivers of blood such a war unleashes run no less deep, specious though their otherworldly justifications may be.

  AT SOME POINT in the twelfth century, an unnamed scribe was just finishing a copy of Raymond of Aguilers’s history of the First Crusade. He had a couple of blank pages at the end of the book. Not wanting to waste parchment, he filled them with a few details about Ida of Boulogne, Godfrey’s saintly mother. In summing up her achievements and her life, he skipped naturally to July 15, 1099. Influenced by the general tenor of what he had just read in Raymond’s book but not really recalling the details, he described the final entry of the Franks into Jerusalem. Godfrey and Tancred led the way. “At the point of attack where Godfrey was besieging Jerusalem, a white horseman came galloping down from the Mount of Olives. Godfrey and Tancred were the first to follow it.” In the words of Apocalypse, “And I looked, and behold a white horse, and he who sat upon it held a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. The armies who are in heaven were following him, on white horses, and they were clad in fine linen, white and pure.”13

  In such literary dark corners the apocalyptic First Crusade endures, where fallen knights like Galdemar Carpenel stand watch over a demonic foe, their spears raised toward Babylon in an unending war for the heavenly Jerusalem—a dream from which medieval men and women would one day awake, even if, like many a forgotten nightmare, the delirium of holy war would continue to haunt their psyches and shape their waking lives.

  Acknowledgments

  In 1999, while attending a professional conference, I presented what I expected to be the first of three or four papers concerning the First Crusade. With luck, I hoped to turn these papers into a professional article. Twelve years later, I am finally able to publish this book, the first major contribution in an ongoing research project to which I would like to devote still more years. It has been, and remains, a long and rewarding journey. While undertaking it, I have benefited from the advice, friendship, and support of more people and institutions than I can possibly remember. But I will make a go of it here.

  The serious work behind this book began thanks to the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), which in the academic year 2002–2003 enabled me to undertake research in and around Paris devoted to the First Crusade. I had very definite ideas about the crusade at this time—among them, that the First Crusade had almost nothing to do with the Apocalypse. Things changed. If I had not had this year to explore the literature and the manuscripts, this book would not have been possible.

  In 2006–2007 I was fortunate enough to receive an ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship, which enabled me to spend a year at the American Academy in Rome, now with very different ideas about the crusade. The administrators of the American Academy, in particular the director at the time, Carmela Franklin, were incredibly supportive. The fellows of the Academy proved to be a welcoming and engaging community, whose questions, ideas, and enthusiasm for my resear
ch enriched this book immeasurably.

  In the following year, 2007–2008, I returned to Paris, this time through the support of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, where the first full version of this book began to take shape.

  Without the support of these agencies (not to mention the generosity of my employer, the Department of History at the University of Tennessee, which allowed me to begin my career in Knoxville with a two-year leave), this book would certainly not have been possible. During the early months of my second year in Paris, I received a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It has opened up whole new opportunities for research and writing, making it possible for me now to think of this book as the first chapter in a larger research project on the impact of the crusade movement in Europe.

  In immediate connection with this book, I must thank my agent, Deborah Grosvenor, who guided my manuscript toward Basic Books and who has given me so much invaluable advice along the way. Lara Heimert at Basic Books strongly encouraged me to take the narrative approach in this book, retelling the events of the First Crusade through the prism of apocalyptic theory, and all of the editors and readers at Basic Books have done marvelous work turning a dense and difficult text into a far more accessible and effective story. Hats off especially to Brandon Proia, Melissa Veronesi, and Jan Kristiansson.

  Will Fontanez and the University of Tennessee Cartographic Services Laboratory created this book’s beautiful and beautifully clear maps, working well from my generally muddled requests and instruction. The UT History Department, the Marco Institute for Medieval Studies, and the UT Office of Research through the UT Exhibit, Performance, and Publication Expense Fund, generously contributed subventions to support the production of those maps as well as to pay for the many other illustrations that have enriched Armies of Heaven.

  My colleagues and friends in medieval history have contributed enormously to this book in so many ways—through advice, through references, through reading and critiquing the many incarnations of its chapters, and through writing letters of support as I applied for a variety of different grants (many more than the ones listed here). I cannot imagine how I must have tried the patience of Sally Vaughn, Ed Peters, Sharon Farmer, Tim Graham, Philippe Buc, Jason Glenn, and Geoff Koziol. But they always came through with reference letters for me without fail. The people who wrote letters of endorsement for the MacArthur Fellowship were anonymous. I thank all of you, and I hope this book does not entirely disappoint.

  The scholars who have given advice and encouragement are more numerous still. Thanks so much, in no particular order, to Dennis McCarthy, Helen Damico, Kevin Uhalde, Christopher MacEvitt, Peggy Brown, Bill North, Victoria Morse, Marina Rustow, Jerry Passannante, Tom Burman, Nick Paul, Clementine Oliver, Brett Whalen, Matthew Gabriele, Tom Madden, Mark Pegg, Benedicta Ward, Cecelia Gaposchkin, Dominique Barthélemy, Frédérique Lachaud, John Ott, Maura Lafferty, Jean-Charles Bédague, Richard Landes, and Karin Fuchs. A number of crusade scholars, whom I have either met only through e-mail or only in passing at academic conferences, have generously given advice, including Jonathan Riley-Smith, Marcus Bull, Jean Flori, John France, Nikolas Jaspert, and Luigi Russo. Finally, I thank all of the graduate and undergraduate students with whom I have been fortune enough to have worked, many of whom have suffered through my crusade class. In this category, at the University of Tennessee, I have to thank especially Meghan Worth and Geoff Martin. This list is woefully incomplete. To everyone else, please accept my apologies and gratitude.

  My friends have borne patiently with this project as well. Many of them, who like me are part of the medieval history game, have been mentioned. Others who don’t fall into that category (Tom Bissell, who traveled to Jerusalem with me in 2007; Joseph McAlhany, who traveled around Bohemond’s homeland with me that same year; my parents, Gene and Marilyn Rubenstein; and John Randolph and Gary Barth, Chad Brumley and Steve Barrick, who are the best friends a person could ask for) have made equally important contributions.

  On the same day that I began putting the final touches on this manuscript, two very good friends passed away. Tom Sizgorich taught me a lot about religious violence during the one year I was fortunate enough to walk the same hallways as he at the University of New Mexico. His contribution to the study of history was already extraordinary. The loss to the field at his early passing is incalculable; the loss to his friends is beyond expression.

  Jim Powell also will not be able to see this book, in many ways the product of his encouragement. During the 1998–1999 academic year, when I was teaching at Syracuse, Jim treated me to many lunches, allowed me to raid his library, taught me so much about the crusades, and assured me that my small papers were saying something interesting about this well-worn historical topic of crusading. His friendship and support meant the world to me, and I will miss him sorely.

  During the research and writing of this book, as is now apparent, I attended many conferences and spoke to many audiences. Most memorably, in the spring of 2008 I traveled from Paris to New York to participate in a conference at Fordham University. While there I went out to dinner with a magazine editor named Meredith McGroarty. About a year later, we were married. Because of her love and support, by the time I finished this book, I was a much happier person than I had been at the beginning—a transformation that enlivens even the darkest passages of this book. Because of her sharp advice and her editor’s eye, Armies of Heaven tells a much better story than it would have done without her.

  This book is for Meredith.

  Abbreviations

  Please note that in instances where both a Latin text and an English translation are listed here, it is always the Latin version that is cited in the text of this book. English translations are provided to enable curious nonspecialist readers to consult source material. Citations are made according to book and chapter, and in the case of Fulcher, sentences, as well as by page. Book and chapter citations should enable readers to locate the cited material quickly, whatever edition or printing or translation they are working from. Sources that are cited within a single chapter appear in full in the notes.

  AA: Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana: History of the Journey to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. Susan B. Edgington (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 2007).

  AASS: Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto urbe coluntur, ed. Johannes Bal-landus et al., 70 vols. (Paris and Rome: Société des Bollandistes, 1863–).

  Adso: Adso Dervensis, De ortu et tempore Antichristi, ed. D. Verhelst, CCCM 45 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1976).

  Alexiad: Anna Comnena, The Alexiad, trans. E. R. Sewter (London: Penguin Classics, 1969).

  Alphandéry and Dupront: Paul Alphandéry and Alphonse Dupront, La chrétienté et l’idée de croisade (Paris: A. Michel, 1954–1959, repr. by A. Michel as a single volume, 1995).

  Asbridge (2000): Thomas Asbridge, The Creation of the Principality of Antioch, 1098–1130 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2000).

  Asbridge (2004): Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004).

  Autour de la Croisade: Autour de la Première Croisade: Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (Clermont-Ferrand, 22–25 juin 1995), ed. M. Balard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996).

  BB: Baudry of Bourgueil (aka, Baldric of Dol), Historia Hierosolymitana , RHC Oc. 4, 10–110.

  BL: British Library.

  BN: Bartolph of Nangis, Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium, RHC Oc. 3, 491–543.

  BnF: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

  BR: Bibliothèque Royale (Brussels).

  Bull (1993): Marcus Bull, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony, c. 970–c. 1130 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1993).

  Caffaro: Caffaro, De liberatione civitatum orientis, RHC Oc. 5, 47–73.

  CCCM: Corpus Christianorum continuatio Mediaevalis.

  CCSL: Corpus Christianorum ser
ies Latina.

  CdA: La Chanson d’Antioche, ed. Suzanna Duparc-Quioc, 2 vols. (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1977, 1978).

  Chazan (1987): Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987).

  Chroniques: Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou et des seigneurs d’Amboise, ed. Louis Halphen and René Poupardin (Paris: Auguste Picard, 1913).

  Cohn (1957): Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (London: Secker and Warberg, 1957).

  EA: Ekkehard of Aura, Hierosolymita: De oppresione, liberatione ac restauratione Jerosolymitanae Ecclesiae, RHC Oc., 5, 7–40.

  École Française (1997): Le Concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la Croisade (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1997).

  Erdmann, Origin : Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977).

  FC: Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhand-lung, 1913); trans. France Rita Ryan, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969).

  Flori (1999): Jean Flori, Pierre l’Ermite et la Première Croisade (Paris: Fayard, 1999).

  Flori (2007): Jean Flori, L’Islam et la Fin des Temps: L’interprétation prophétique des invasions musulmanes dans la chrétienté médiévale (Paris: Seuil, 2007).

  France (1994): John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

  France (2006): John France, “Two Types of Vision on the First Crusade: Stephen of Valence and Peter Bartholomew,” Crusades 5 (2006): 1–20.