There was nothing left but heaven, where he would
meet only those who, like him, had wasted earth.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Oh Russet Witch (Tales of the Jazz Age)
The previous chapters frequently noted eschatological elements in the sermon texts; this chapter is now devoted to systematizing and contextualizing these, investigating the role of eschatological expectations for the Third Crusadeâs mobilization. The state of research overall does not consider this expedition to be eschatological in nature, since its chronicles are hardly eschatological compared to those of the First Crusade.1 However, this opinion stems from a limited horizon of sources: sermon texts provide another picture, while there are conclusive explanations for the divergences between âtexts prior to a crusadeâ and âtexts after a crusade.â The crusade movementâs eschatological nature has been a controversial subject: some skillfully explored the issue, especially regarding the First Crusade, including Sylvia Schein, Jay Rubenstein, Jean Flori, or Philippe Buc. Others have paid little attention to it or even agitated against it, for example, Jonathan Riley-Smith or John France. The latter school adhered to traditions that viewed the phenomenon too much through a modern rational lens.2 Meanwhile, however, the hypothesis about the First Crusadeâs eschatological or better apocalyptic nature is well established: its chronicles, for example, those of Raymond of Aguilers or Guibert of Nogent, reveal numerous and diverse eschatological elements. When arguing for the eschatological nature of Mt. 16:24, cited at the outset of the Gesta Francorum, Rubenstein asserts: âThe first thing the compiler of the Deeds of the Franks wanted his readers understand was that in talking about the crusade, he was talking about the apocalypse.â3 And elsewhere: âThe establishment of a Christian kingdom of Jerusalem brought the Last Days closer to hand, although how close remained a point of debate.â4 As for other crusades, it seems to be a common assumption, especially in British scholarship, that these did not adhere to an eschatological outlook; this is worth contesting with the help of the following arguments:
(1) Sermon texts deliver different insights to the chronicles: they offer meaningful and diverse eschatological elements. The reason why this has not found its way into the state of research is simple: sermons have rarely been considered.5 The overall absence of eschatology in the chronicles is due to the crusadeâs failure, a fact that engenders a disillusionment with such beliefs.
(2) An inherent and coherent logic links crusade and eschatology: it is a general Christian idea that the Apocalypse will take place in Jerusalem. This is present throughout the biblical narratives (including the Old Testament prophets, the apocalyptic passages of the Gospels, Johnâs Revelation, and popular prophecies such as Pseudo-Methodius). Eschatological beliefs trigger, therefore, movement towards the holy city.6 While not every journey necessarily had an eschatological origin, it seems reasonable to ask if this was the case when thousands of people suddenly felt such an urge, as was expressed in crusades and pilgrimages.7
However, crusadingâs eschatological logic has not entirely escaped attention: Sylvia Schein spoke of popular messianic movements (volkstümlich-messianische Bewegungen).8 And Jay Rubenstein concluded: âApocalypticism, however, was fundamental to crusade thought, inherent in the very idea of a crusade and woven throughout all the narratives.â9 Jean Flori already pointed to the apocalyptic outlook of the Third Crusade: âDue to [the loss of] Jerusalem and the holy places, the war against the Saracens of the East generated once more an evident prophetic dimension and a more than likely eschatological coloring.â10 And yet, a systematic discussion of this complex subject is still outstanding. Beyond crusade studies, two further fields are pertinent: sermon studies and general research on medieval eschatology and apocalypticism. Astonishingly, these two barely interact despite the fact that sermon texts are filled with eschatological elements. Sermon scholars hardly considered such dimensions (or did not contextualize them historically);11 scholars devoted to eschatological thought rarely relied on sermon texts, but remained mostly within a classic historiographical spectrum.12
Medieval authors posed the fundamental question of why God permitted the Holy Landâs conquest, which was usually answered with the argument of sinfulness. Yet, there was always sin, while such dramatic events as those of 1187 were far from being an everyday occurrence. The question follows: Why did he permit the conquest right now?13 As a consequence, implementing the explanation of sinfulness suggests a dramatic increase in sin that transcends certain boundaries.14 Rev. 18:5, for example, speaks of sins towering unto heaven (pervenerunt peccata eius usque ad caelum)âthe transgression of sinâs quantity, and perhaps also quality, represents an eschatological momentum; it forces God to intervene.15 Therefore, the use of peccatis nostris exigentibus hints at a providential watershed tantamount to each conquest of Jerusalem, fueled by the fact that such did not occur too often historically. As the chapter on Jerusalem discussed, the biblical narratives encode the cityâs conquest already as such.16 The question of why God permits the Holy Landâs occupation at a specific point in time thus indicates a providential turning point.
Sermon texts contain numerous eschatological elements, references to the End of Days, the Last Judgment, or the Second Coming. Certain feasts such as Advent or All Saints betray a specific entanglement with such themes; they actively bring the Apocalypse closer (didactically, but also temporally); this dynamic will be discussed below.17 The End of Days is so dominant in these texts that one can describe it as one of their essential traits: they perpetually remind their audiences that the End is always somehow close and that they must always be prepared. Yet, the eschatologyâs imminence requires discussion, because a text broaching such an element does not necessarily indicate apocalyptic expectations. Different types of eschatology exist (such as an individual or realized form), just as it may be the case that a sermon tackles the Apocalypse, but locates it in the distant future.18 One may conclude that a text displays imminent expectations if one of four patterns occurs: first, if eschatological elements blend with historical events such as those of 1187; this indicates a literal understanding of the Apocalypse. Second, if specific groups (whether the audience or enemy groups) are endowed with eschatological identities and corresponding calls for action (such as the binary of iusti and impii). This encompasses the common rendering of the Muslims as âpagansâ (pagani; gentiles; nationes; ethnici), in particular if this presents itself as a consistent pattern throughout a textâas is already the case with First Crusade chronicles, indebted to the ventureâs eschatological outlook.19 The recurring presence of nationes and gentes in several prophecies such as Johnâs Revelation or Ezekiel corroborates this eschatological coloring. For example, the gentes conquer Jerusalem in Rev. 11:2, to be annihilated by Christ in Rev. 19:15âa trajectory that points to the events of 1187 and expectations for the Third Crusade respectively.20 Third, one can surmise that the more urgent and vivid the broaching of eschatology, the closer is the Apocalypse. Texts speaking of thundering trumpets (such as Peter of Blois) or the terrible judgment (such as Audita tremendi) provide strong indicators.21 Fourth, some texts even claim that it is happening already, specifically via John 12:31 (nunc iudicium est huius mundi).22 But even if one believes in the dawn of the Apocalypse, there remains the question of where exactly one stands within the complex and multistaged eschatological scenario.
This leads to the larger issue of understanding and decoding eschatology nowadays. Historians have sometimes been quick to negate such beliefs, apparently because texts scarcely offer statements such as âthe End is nigh.â At the same time, these historians failed to decode textsâ manifold eschatological references, often simply overlooking them.23 This pertains, for example, to references to Isaiah or Ezekiel, because these are apocalyptic prophecies. However, their imagery is often so specific that one must be trained to recognize it: for instance, the motif from Rev. 14:20 that blood is rising up to the horsesâ bridles or Isaiahâs call to rejoice with Jerusalem (as the End of Days is coming).24 These references (and there are many more) do not offer a statement that we would deem apocalyptic today, but they are drawing on motifs determined as such via their biblical subtexts and contexts, reinforced by exegetical traditions. This tackles the issue that it is not only a question of when, but also of how and where. One may define eschatology as establishing a connection between earth and heaven, stemming from a Christian worldview where the two spheres are firmly separated since the Fall of Mankind. Yet, this connection is not monocausal in nature (comparable to that between present and future): it is not a simple question of one or the other. In the Christian system of thought, eternity always runs in parallel to earthly existence, therefore connections between the two may occur. Prophecy and history interlock thanks to a permanent interplay, that is, identifying elements of prophetic texts in oneâs own present. Joachim of Fiore led these efforts to perfection in the late 12th century. Considering the Third Crusadeâs corpus, one can conclude that his apocalypticism played an essential role for his generationâeven though both later generations and modern scholars often depicted him as a misfit.25
Furthermore, there is the question of what exactly âfulfillment of prophecyâ means. A prophecy represents a textually encoded course of action, understood as divine revelation about the future, and an established corpus of texts describes such. Historical agents, trapped in its maelstrom, keep their eyes open for the very same events, since they are fully convinced of the prophetic authority.26 The fulfillment unleashes itself in the coincidental, or perhaps consciously induced, concurrence between textual prophecy and phenomena in oneâs environmentâbut what does âfulfillmentâ mean? This is bound to the eschatological scenario; the prophecies deal throughout with the End of Days: fulfillment initiates either the Apocalypse itself or a new stage within the eschatological scenario. Asserting such is thus a most meaningful device. Precisely for this reason Augustine recommended that one should not consider current events as the fulfillment of prophecy.27 However, it remains possible that authors qualified this with hindsight, for example, by labeling it as a partial (partim) fulfillment, as coined by Philippe Buc.28 The essential questions are therefore: What exactly fulfills itself? Which elements (persons, events) are at play therein? What does the fulfillment initiate? Finally, it is necessary to return once more to the crucial role of reform: whereas the crusade was an intrinsic part of the reform agenda, eschatology provided these efforts with a destination. For instance, penance plays a vital role in Revelation (e.g., Rev. 2:5; 2:21; 3:19). Similarly, Dan. 9:24 and 12:11â12 attribute a role to the eradication of sin in the eschatological scenario (in the first reference: consummetur praevaricatio, et finem accipiat peccatum, et deleatur iniquitas).29 Anchored in the concept of the Corpus Christi, reform is the collective preparation for the Last Judgment. The closer the Judgment, the more urgent reform appears: extensive efforts, as they can be observed in the 12th century, thus indicate eschatological expectations.30 These represent the obligatory first step, as displayed in Ezekielâs prophecy: the cleansing has to start with the just (Ez. 9:6). The crusade is the second step, a twofold causality prominently formulated in Audita tremendi.31 Consequently, the vision of the crusade as a penitential journey, as developed by Jonathan Riley-Smith and Marcus Bull in particular, does not contradict the eschatological visionâthis is a false modern antithesis.32
Essential questions about eschatology and the Third Crusade are thus:
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What is the eschatological content of the events of 1187? Do they represent a fulfillment of prophecy and what does this initiate? What eschatology is inherent in the Cross, considering, for example, the cross signings in Johnâs Revelation?
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What role does the eschatology of the First Crusade play? What happened in 1099 according to late 12th-century opinions?33 The initiation of the Apocalypse, which has lasted since then?
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What specific eschatological utterances and elements appear in the sermon texts? Do these permit any conclusions as to where exactly these preachers thought they stood in salvation history or the eschatological scenario?
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Which types of eschatology are present on the eve of the Third Crusade? Is this concerned with a historicized Apocalypse taking place in Jerusalem? Are other types of eschatology present in parallel or in connection with such an understanding?
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What role shall human protagonists play within the eschatological scenario? What calls for action does this entail?
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What is observable in a comparison of sermon texts and chronicles? What kinds of revisions can one expect at the crusadeâs failure? Which larger processes of adaptation are observable throughout the 12th century?
Eschatological traits unearthed in the other chapters:
Other chapters noted eschatological ideas and biblical references on numerous occasions; these are summarized here to help orientate the reader. Whereas this chapter discusses them within a larger panorama, the preceding chapters examined them with a close eye on the textual evidence.
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The signing with the cross adheres to an eschatological or even apocalyptic outlook (especially via references to Ezekiel and Revelation).
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The cross as a war banner evokes Rev. 19 (vexillum sanctae crucis); the same pertains to Christ as their warlord, whom they follow into battle.34
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Jerusalemâs conquest fulfills a prophecy, often expressed through references to its earlier conquests (such as that by the Romans), but also through Rev. 11:2 coloring its pagan conquest apocalyptically.
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The entanglement of the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem represents eschatology par excellence; this expressed itself notably in the motif of the cityâs gates.
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The Temple holds specific eschatological components, in particular through its role in Johnâs Revelation and the entanglement with the Ark of the Covenant.35
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The liturgy and thus sermons inhere in an eschatological nature; the church space represents an eschatological window, providing a nexus to the different Jerusalems.36
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The increasing appearance of heretics and false prophets is a sign of the impending Apocalypse: these are âsymptoms of the Endâ (where and how many heretics appear is subject to perception, a question of discourse and their presence in texts).
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The failure of crusades encourages expectations in the sense of ânot yet, but soonâ; these are accumulative expectations that consist of the sum of eschatological elements (âsymptoms of the Endâ).37
1 Breaking with Augustinian Authority
Christendom was always a strongly eschatological religion; the return to heaven appeared as the goal of Christian existence. It was even born out of an eschatological mood: Jewish prophecies had announced the coming of both the Messiah and the Apocalypse. While the Messiah came, the Apocalypse did not. After having clung to this paradoxical situation for decades (as visible in the Gospels and Revelation), a solution was developed with the Second Coming of Christ. Christian history was often driven by the hope that the End was nigh; this formed a pivotal impetus for molding society, as the epoch-bridging book of Philippe Buc has masterfully demonstrated.38 However, there was a period which one may call the Augustinian intermezzo: while Christianity remained deeply apocalyptic or even millenarist well into the 4th century (visible, for example, with Irenaeus of Lyon, Hippolyte of Rome, or Lactantius), Augustine turned against such ideas. He rejected an imminent eschatology and remained a seminal authority for centuries. One may summarize his dogmas in three main points:
First, Augustine, like many church fathers, rejected the earthly Jerusalem as the place of Judaism: the shift from Old to New Covenant was also manifested in spatial terms. One transitioned to predominantly spiritual and allegorical readings of the prophecies, which all located the Apocalypse in Jerusalem, and thus revised this localization. This interlocked with early Christianityâs prevailing approach of allegorical exegesis and spiritual warfare.39 The Apocalypse would not take place there, but somewhere else (God may nominate any place) or perhaps everywhere. Second, Augustine also established the dogma of passiveness. There are two possibilities for conceiving of eschatological agency: either the believers are mere bystanders, while God and perhaps angels conduct business, or one grants humans the possibility of taking on eschatological roles. The church father strongly opted for the first possibility; this generated an âagnosticismâ (Robert Markusâ term): historical events do not reflect Godâs will or a progress in salvation history.40 Third, Augustine also rejected the predictability of the End and any corresponding speculation. God alone would know the time, while also being capable of delaying it as he wished. This comprised a rejection of imminent eschatological beliefs, which he countered with the idea of the Church as an apocalyptic presentism, a realization of heaven on earth. The Apocalypse appeared as a state, not as an event. The time of the Judgment itself remained unknown; one should always be prepared, but nothing more than that.41
These dogmas seem to have been seminal for the early Middle Ages, yet they were neither universal nor binding. Eschatological beliefs blazed up frequently, in particular after the advent of Islam when Christians started wondering about its providential purpose, often considering it as an eschatological symptom (visible, for example, in Pseudo-Methodius). Already Augustineâs pupil Orosius (c.385âc.420) developed different ideas pointing towards a historicized Apocalypse and immediate expectations.42 Yet, for the time being, the West remained relatively distant from Islamâs domains; only the Carolingian age would bring it more strongly into the Westâs orbit. This age also initiated certain intellectual changes that started questioning the Augustinian dogmas, especially in terms of reading the biblical texts again more literally. As a result, the perspective opened up towards the earthly Jerusalem; the legend of Charlemagneâs pilgrimage to the holy city bears witness to this.43 Imminent eschatology and its predictability likewise became more popular concerns: in general, people do not seem to have believed it was imminent, but located it in the near future. The rich exegetical works of the Carolingian Empire developed alternatives to Augustine, but they remained for the time being (largely) limited to an exegetical register. What had been penned on parchment unleashed in the Ottonian age its full historical power. As Johannes Fried demonstrated, the Ottonians understood their time as the End of Days that the Carolingians had predicted were close.44 The year 1000 saw exorbitant expectations resulting in masses of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem: the eschatological discourse had found its way from the exegetical register to the midst of society. The movements around 1000 (and the further 11th century) show how emphatically the Augustinian dogma of passiveness had been discarded: various social classes started seeking their eschatological redemption in Jerusalem.45 It is certainly not a coincidence that this happened at the time when preaching to the laity was expandingâeschatology was an essential trait of sermons, while it was also their responsibility to formulate calls for action.46
At the time of and especially after the First Crusade, all three Augustinian dogmas certainly belonged to the past: authors formulated numerous literal readings, thus putting the earthly Jerusalem center stage. Preachers called for dedicated activity within the eschatological scenario, molding crusaders into Godâs eschatological helpers, who contributed to the progress of salvation history and secured their personal salvation.47 And the unpredictability also seems to have been forgotten.48 Eschatological beliefs had been festering since the late 10th century, encouraged by Islamâs allegedly eschatological role, beliefs that were all fulfilled in the First Crusade: the West overall seems to have agreed that the End was imminent. The 12th century reveals a tendency to emphasize the Apocalypse as an actual event, especially when historicizing the concept of the civitas Dei, in contrast to Augustine, for example, in the works of Otto of Freising (c.1112â1158) or Henry of Albano.49 Historicizing means to anchor it in time and space, while the localization was obvious thanks to the biblical sources. These developments supported the understanding of the Apocalypse as an impending event that would take place in the Holy Land. The central Middle Ages followed a lore other than Augustine, particularly significant was the concurrence between lurking eschatological expectations and expanding popular preaching: the age of the crusades had begun.
2 The Paradox of Eschatological Prognosis: False Prophet or Praedicator Dei
Indebted to the biblical prophecies, one can say that the End of Days expressed itself in symptoms (such as natural phenomena): elements appeared on the world stage that were coincidentally also part of prophecies, or at least they were perceived as such. One may expect that the simultaneous occurrence of several symptoms triggered even greater expectations, and that lay people also had a certain knowledge about this (not least taught by sermons/preachers).50 Such symptoms may thus have operated without clerical interference, yet it seems essential that authorities interpreted and classified them. If rumors were circulating, it is likely that a preacher would have taken them up at the earliest opportunity, either to confirm or to refute them: confirmation likely generated a meaningful boost. Richard Landes argued that apocalyptic movements were fed by latent expectations or âhidden transcriptsâ that made their way into the public sphere and then overwhelmed a considerable part of society.51 A crusade can be described as reaching such a critical mass. Clerics desired to control the apocalyptic discourse, in order to prevent feral lay movements. This, however, did not mean that they were opposed to apocalyptic violence. Guy Lobrichon argued that, when they lost control over the Apocalypse, they returned to predominantly spiritual readingsâBernard did so after the Second Crusade.52 On the other hand, it is possible that clerics were the authors of such beliefs: they were far more aware of the eschatological symptoms and likely read events through the lens of prophecies. It was one of their duties to convey the divine will to the laity and to warn them if the End was impending, since it was then all the more urgent to repent, in order to secure a favorable verdict at the Last Judgment.53 A cleric would therefore want to look out for the approaching End and to instruct his flock accordingly. This instruction happened primarily via sermons, where eschatological themes were omnipresent. A cleric neglecting this duty would have run the risk of receiving the sentence of damnation at the Judgment.
However, clerics faced a fatal dilemma: the formulation of a providential prognosis entailed a delicate risk if it was not fulfilledâas was usually the case, yet this study has already unearthed that the central Middle Ages did not care about empiricism (see the chapter on institutional context). If this happened, the preacher turned into a false prophet, a servant of the devil and Antichrist, a most serious accusation.54 Caution was requiredâso how shall one broach the issue? The sermon texts, and how they deal with eschatological matters, seem to reflect this ambivalent situation: one will not find any precise predictions about the day and year the Apocalypse will come. This would have been skating on very thin ice indeedâand it was not necessary. As already noted, sermon texts often speak about eschatology in a way that leaves its nature and imminence undetermined. Expectations were triggered by references and keywords, mostly from the Bible, which were familiar to the audience. Another strategy consisted in putting such words into anotherâs mouth: Bernard did this prior to the Second Crusade; here, the devil formulated the prognosis.55 Furthermore, one may suppose that any exposure to eschatological themes (even if located in the distant future) produced a heightened sensitivityâequivalent to the Holy Landâs presence in sermons. As a result, merely the presence of such themes, even if a prognosis remained absent, operated as a vital motor for unleashing corresponding hopes.
Another dimension complements this game: if preachers discarded Augustinian passiveness, they promoted the idea that humans can contribute to the progress of salvation history. The Apocalypseâs positive connotation for a righteous Christianâand most clerics would have considered themselves as suchâsuggests that they wanted to push the story forward, and that they instructed their audiences accordingly. One who obviously overdid it was Bernard. The accusation, especially by Gerhoch of Reichersberg, that the crusade had been a devilish trick, was also targeting him, who revealed himself as a false prophet.56 The eschatological prognosis was thus an issue of societal discourse: Was a preacher capable of holding his ground following a false prediction?57 This is what Bernard was trying to do in De consideratione, and one may conclude that he was successful. Considering his pivotal role in the Second Crusadeâs mobilization, it would have been possible to brand him as a false prophet, perhaps even threatening or persecuting him. Nevertheless, the failure left a mark on his reputation.58 A preacher had two important tasks in such a situation: on the one hand, controlling the discourse towards the laity. If he was a cleric in need of an explanation for his flock, his authority would have been helpful, likely also social bondsâas long as he was not accused by another authority. On the other, controlling the textual discourse was essential for further communication within the clerical milieu: it certainly helped that preachers were seldom alone in their predictions, but had colleagues who shared their viewsâwho thus assisted in erasing the traces of failure. In light of this delicate situation, it is astonishing that preachers sometimes uttered predictions that were more specific.59 Penned on parchment, it is evident that this was not a moment of spontaneous foolishness, as is imaginable in the situation of preaching. These are remarkable findings, a tangible manifestation of the discourse, displaying an authorâs convictions which were probably shared by others (likely including the manuscriptâs scribe). As for the manifestation in text, three forms are possible:
(a) An a posteriori perspective pertains to many texts, in particular those of a historiographical nature, but sermon texts may also have been subject to such a perspective. A text is cleaned up after a prophecyâs failure, after the Apocalypse did not materialize; failure is erased and suppressedâthe essential argument of Richard Landesâ research. Texts where eschatological elements remain unclear may reflect such a process, especially if a textâs overall appearance is unpolished or patchy.60 The comparison of different manuscripts is most valuable here: this study discussed several examples where one version of a text contains eschatological details (for instance, concerning verb tenses), while another has erased them.61
(b) An a priori perspective pertains to the sermon texts, since this genre is naturally located prior to action (reform, Apocalypse, crusade); it fundamentally contributed to expectations. Texts surviving in such a state are most valuable evidence. Reasons for such a survival may have been that an author simply did not have an opportunity to cleanse the text (for example, Henry of Albano dying prior to the crusade), or doing so was not a priority, as the text lost importance along the way, disappearing in some library.62 Sermons were perhaps also adapted for the future; the same text may have been used ten or twenty years later when expectations were again blazing. It seems unlikely that a large cleansing machinery systematically purged all texts (as assumed by Landes); sermons demonstrate how apocalypticism may survive in the evidence. Other genres (critically historiography) were only penned after failure; there was no need to cleanse them.
(c) An a fortiori perspective can be argued for the First Crusade chronicles: outlooks were confirmed and encouraged, since failure remained absent and a priori expectations delivered.63 Consequently, the expedition remained an apocalyptic event, at least for some time and for some observers. Such cases, however, are rare and may blend with a posteriori: some elements are revised, while others are encouragedâso Jean Floriâs opinion on the First Crusade.64
Due to this complex situation, the historians must prick up their ears, that is, deliver a close textual analysis, including the consideration of different versions in the manuscript evidence. Landes argued that one may extrapolate eschatological elements qualitatively and quantitatively, since it is already remarkable to find such in texts due to the dilemma of prognosis and a posteriori cleansing.65 Such evidence preserves clerical beliefs as well as their desire to formulate predictions. The exact nature of an element may occasionally remain unclear in a specific textâbut the analysis of an entire corpus allows us to assemble such utterances and thus draw a clearer picture, in agreement with a discourse analysis.
3 The Eschatological Offer of Identity: Preaching, Church, and Crusade
Participating in the eschatological scenario provided historical protagonists with new identities and these were formulated in sermon texts. They were a key component of crusade spirituality, especially because they were capable of overruling existing identities such as social class.66 As Philippe Buc noted, Johnâs Revelation left the question of human agency open, a fact that allowed preachers to formulate such roles for their audiences. As he demonstrated through numerous examples from across the centuries, including from the First Crusade, agents often believed they were taking on such roles and thus contributing to the progress of salvation history through their actions.67 While preachers, in their vocation as exegetes, taught the prophecies and created such roles, their listeners performatively engendered their fulfillment: text transformed into event. Jay Rubenstein concluded on Adso of Montier-en-Derâs ideas (around the year 1000): â[â¦] [it is] an invitation to live at historyâs climax and to participate in the transformation and transfiguration of humanity.â68 Eschatological discourses delivered role models for safeguarding oneâs personal salvation within a preconceived eschatological scenario; they made crusaders into Godâs helpers as 1â¯Cor. 3:9 puts it (Dei enim sumus adiutores), a verse present in several crusade texts.69 Adaptations of it appear in many sermons: Ralph Ardens, for example, exhorts the standard-bearers of the cross (here aquilae) to assemble in the Holy Land, to assist Christ in holding Judgment (ibi congregantur [â¦] ut judicent mundum cum eo).70 Henry of Albano voices that God shall finish âin usâ or âthrough usâ what he had begun in the First Crusade (consumma, Deus, hoc quod jam coepisti operari in nobis).71 Augustinian passiveness abandoned, humans can actively contribute to the eschatological events or initiate their coming.
The Apocalypseâs positive connotation engendered that the believers wanted the prophecies to be fulfilled, therefore they contributed to it: this represented the teleological goal of an entire society. Measures to achieve the same may have unleashed an exorbitant forceâand the crusades may be understood as exactly such. The preachers assisting via their didactic mediation were essential for clarifying the issue, that is, for shaping a societal discourse. Depending on exegetical reading and historical context, different âscriptsâ may have developed that informed a protagonistâs goals and priorities.72 This was likely more powerful the more agents came under pressure, that is, when an alleged point of fulfillment was approaching or corresponding elements appeared on the world stage (symptoms of the End), dynamics that triggered eschatological action such as anti-Jewish pogroms.73 However, if such a point passed without the anticipated fulfillment, it likely began to dawn on protagonists that their activities had not been sufficient. The First Crusade displays such a performative advancement of prophecy, after expectations had been bottled up for c.100 years. One may suppose the same dynamic for the period between 1099 and 1187.
The sermon was thus the point of departure for the eschatological play, the casting that granted everyone who was willing a role in the End of Days. It is well known, and has recently been discussed by Cecilia Gaposchkin, that the liturgy inhered in certain eschatological logics: âAnd the liturgy, because of the way in which it spoke to Scripture, history, and eschatology, because of the multivalent readings and multiple levels on which liturgy was intended to convey, was the ideal vehicle to bridge the gap between the historical and the eschatological; to articulate the ties between the events themselves and the providence they belonged to.â74 The liturgy was the ritual capable of establishing a connection with the heavenly realm; it opened an eschatological window, as manifested in a churchâs architecture and spatial structuring.75 This was experienced in community, guided by the mediator between heaven and earth, the priest and preacher.
The imagery of an âeschatological windowâ is found in the sources, for example, in one of Hélinand of Froidmontâs Palm Sunday sermons, already discussed in the chapter on the Cross relic. While it focuses on the Cross and calls for crusading, one section deals with liturgical space, thus creating an interplay between crusade, liturgy, and eschatology. Hélinand expounds that two jubes exist in the church (one between laity and clergy, the other between clergy and the inner sanctum). These consist of curtains that are opened on Good Friday, in reference to the tearing of the Templeâs curtains at the moment of Christâs death (Mt. 27:50â51). Drawing on Cant. 2:9, their opening generates an eschatological window that reveals the view towards the eschatological resurrection (respiciens per fenestras); one can catch a glimpse of the eschatological events (per fenestras videt futura opera).76 This is aligned with Ez. 40, where the prophet speaks of an Eastern gate to heaven (sic Ezechiel vidit eum stantem in porta). Hélinand sees a sermonâs purpose as creating such a window.77 Consider that the audience looks East while listening to him, into the area of the church colored as the heavenly Jerusalem, in the direction of the earthly city. Sermon and church open the perspective towards the End of Days: this idea is found here in a text with high crusade potential, which elaborates on Ez. 9, a verse that entwines Jerusalem and the signing with the cross. On what occasion, if not at such a sermon, should the listeners take the cross, encouraged by the eschatological role suggested to them?
Another significant example delivers a sermon In dedicatione ecclesiae by Peter of Blois, already discussed in the chapter on Jerusalem: as Peter delineates, the church, a typological Jerusalem, represents a nexus to the cityâs heavenly and earthly guises. Consider again that his listeners are looking East when hearing his words; he plays specifically with Ps. 122: Jerusalem has been built as a city (Ierusalem, quae aedificata est ut civitas). This reference evokes the earthly city which he describes as a portent and signpost that God established (posuit Dominus in signum et portentum).78 He agrees with Hélinand that the church represents an eschatological window by drawing on Ez. 41:16 and including the motif of the Eastern gate.79 Peterâs words suggest to his listeners that an eschatological sphere arises, a sphere causally related to the holy city, the signpost to the End of Days. It transpires that the conjunction of church and sermon evoked the city at least as an echo (considering the concurrence of terminology, architecture, and symbolism), but, as two examples demonstrated, it was also explicitly made present. This remained passive per se in the liturgy: one participated in such a ritual, cast a glance into the future, but returned afterwards to the business of daily life. One entered an eschatological sphere, but left it againâin this sense eschatological and not apocalyptic. It was the crusade itself where passive turned into active, spiritual prediction into literal manifestation, and eschatological window into impending Apocalypse.80 The crusade represented the physical realization of so many matters that were present in the West only in their invisible, spiritual form. The sermon had the purpose of pointing to this possibility of the End, which one must seize by traveling to the Holy Land.
Two crucial figures within the eschatological scenario were the Last World Emperor and the Antichrist; these invited contemporaries to identify them with actual protagonists, and exactly this happened on the eve of the Third Crusade. Depending on the region, the Emperor was identified with all three major leaders: Richard Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa.81 However, references to such ideas are rare in the sermon texts, just as the princes do not play any role therein. Those few cases where they are present are concerned with reproaching a delayed departure or internal Christian conflicts.82 Since sermons were addressing broad audiences and mobilizing in places far from princely courts, their absence should not be surprising. They did not play the preeminent role which modern concepts of politics like to grant themâlocal nobility and bishops were probably far more important for recruiting specific groups.83 Similarly, the overall absence of both great princes and the Last Emperor can be explained with the sermon materialâs model nature: such references would have limited the potential applicationsâadditions in the actual preaching situation were thus possible. As we know from many examples (such as Henry II), a princeâs promise to participate was far from a guarantee, therefore naming such a prince was not supporting mobilization.84 If a preacher had even identified him with the Last Emperor, his absence from the expedition would have been tantamount to a false prophecy. Other sources, however, demonstrate that such ideas were vivid on the eve of the crusade. It may have been the case that these ideas only unfolded their full potential once an army had departed under a princeâs leadership. Yet, the disappointment must have been even more devastating, if the alleged Emperor was not capable of deposing his crown in Jerusalem for the purpose of initiating the Apocalypse. Barbarossa drowned in Asia Minor, whereupon the bulk of his army returned home; the disappointment that he was not the Last Emperor was likely an essential cause.85 Richard Lionheart was most successful, feeding on some triumphs (the conquest of Acre; the victory at Arsuf) that may have encouraged such ideas, but then, despite his proximity, he was not even capable of organizing an attack on Jerusalem.
Martin of León, in his strongly historical commentary on Johnâs Revelation, discusses some aspects about the Last Emperor when commenting on Rev. 11:2 (relating how pagans occupied Jerusalem for 42 month):86
But some among our savants claim that one among the Frankish kings will fully represent the Roman Empire, for he will live in the End of Days. He will be the greatest and last among all kings. And, after having reigned his realm blessedly, he will eventually depart for Jerusalem and voluntarily surrender his scepter and crown on the Mount of Olives. This will be the end and completion of the Empire of Romans and Christians, and, agreeing with the Apostleâs authority, they say that the Antichrist will appear immediately. [â¦] Thus, as we noted above, he will be born in Babylon. Thereafter, he will come to Jerusalem and circumcise himself, speaking to the Jews: âI am Christ who has been promised to you and who has come for the sake of your salvation, in order to assemble you from all regions and to protect you.â As a consequence, all the Jews will stream unto him, believing that they receive God, but they will receive the devil.87
Martin declares that a king holding the Roman Empire would be the Last Emperor who surrenders his crown in Jerusalem in order to initiate the arrival of the Antichristâthis may allude to Barbarossa.88 The Antichrist would come from Babylon to Jerusalem; this could refer to a conquest. He would pretend to be Christ in front of the Jews, and they would be taken in. Like many of his contemporaries, Martin intertwines Jews and Muslims, evoking a conspiratorial front against Christendom.89 The question, however, remains of where he sees his own days in this scenario: he speaks of the events in the future tense, yet allusions to current circumstances and the crusade endeavor are obvious. It is possible that he penned these lines on the eve of the venture, expecting that one of the princes would lay down his crown in Jerusalem. Just the fact that he relates the Last Emperor to Jerusalemâs pagan conquest in Rev. 11:2 is a bold indication that he is devoted to making sense of the events of 1187. He may have surmised that Saladin is the Antichrist (as did Peter of Blois)âbut the commentary remains silent on the matter.90 The dangers of predictions may have made him cautious.
Two sources deliver an impression of the self-image of two princes, Barbarossa and Lionheart. Such ideas seem to have been vivid around the first; scholars have attested that the German regions had a strong affinity for such.91 The Ludus de Antichristo, penned in southern Germany (Tegernsee, 1160s), provides an insightful testimony. Even though some scholars have rightfully noted that it remains unclear whether Barbarossa is the Last Emperor of the play, it is at least a possible reading, especially if one staged it at the imperial court or in a related context.92 Discourses potentially related to Barbarossa thus existed on the eve of the Third Crusade. The fact that he decided to depart must have appeared to fulfill a prophecy.93 Henry of Albanoâs letter to Barbarossa (probably January 1188), enticing him to join the crusade, suggests the same idea to his addressee: the papal legate and powerful messenger of Godâs will encouraged such hopes. He says that divine providence elevated the emperor above all other rulers (providentia divina maiestatem vestram super colla cuiuslibet terrene potestatis extulit); and he stresses his duty to provide an example (exemplo precellat) as well as to annihilate the pagans (ad conterendos hostes fidei).94 This letter likely reflects the mood at the Council of Mainz, where Barbarossa took the cross, and which not for nothing bore the name of Curia Iesu Christi. In agreement, the emperor refused to occupy his throne during the council, since it actually belonged to Christ, a prefiguration of his intent to depose his crown in Jerusalem.95 Eventual disillusionment with the idea may explain why Henryâs letter is not cited in any chronicles (unlike other letters from his pen): it only survives in an independent copy.
The second piece of evidence comes from Richard Lionheartâs own pen, writing to Garnerius of Clairvaux some days after the massacre on Muslims in Acre, and praising therein its divinely sanctioned nature. He delineates first the meaning of the holy places, emphasizing the role of blood:
We have received the places of his death as our burden with such large and holy labor, the places that he dedicated with his precious blood and that the enemies of Christâs cross have hitherto disgracefully defiled. And in the short period of time after the lord and king of the Franks had arrived in Acre, we have landed there successfully thanks to Godâs guidance.96
He underlines the sanctity of deeds (sanctus labor) as well as Godâs guidance. Thereafter, he reports on Acreâs conquest and the failed negotiations to regain the Cross relic, the cause of the massacre, which he subsequently describes: âAs was proper, we commanded the Saracens that we had in custody be killed, around 2600 altogether.â97 It happened âas was properâ (sicut decuit), that is, according to Godâs will. Richard perceives himself as an executor of divine will, the spearhead of the apocalyptic forces. He presents the massacre as a providential necessity, lacking any signs of remorse or conflict. He seems to have been eager to fulfill Joachim of Fioreâs prediction of such an event (erit illorum strages maxima, qualis non fuit ab initio mundi).98 Similarly, his wish to proceed to Jerusalem and thus complete the story becomes evident at the letterâs conclusion.99 This agrees once again with Joachim, who (allegedly) said that he would be the chosen one who retakes Jerusalem, while clearly suggesting the identity of the Last Emperor to the English king.100 Richardâs own words, addressed to one of the most eminent representatives of Christendom, betray his identity as an eschatological avenger who strives for the eradication of paganism. The eschatological impetus is also apparent when he renders Jerusalem as the civitas Dei.101 This most significant piece of evidence shows his encouraged role after the capture of Acre: among the three princes who departed, he is the one who most likely fulfills the role of the Last Emperor. At the same time, he calls his addressee to keep preaching the crusade in the West, in agreement with the double frontier of spiritual and physical warfare; this would secure Godâs support all the way to the final battle.
4 The Earthly Jerusalem as an Eschatological State (1099â1187)
It is a remarkable finding that some of the First Crusadeâs chroniclers, years after the events, still had a deeply eschatological approach to them, in particular the three Benedictines Guibert of Nogent, Baldric of Dol, and Robert of Reims, all writing around ten years later. Jay Rubenstein thus elaborated on the hypothesis of an eschatological state: the Apocalypse begun in 1099 and was still ongoing. He even extended this hypothesis to Lambert of Saint-Omer, active slightly later (1120s).102 The fact that several chroniclers ten to twenty years later displayed this idea demonstrates that it had the potential to persistâthe First Crusade remained popular throughout the 12th century.103 Before 1187, there seems to have been no event that would have hampered such an understanding: the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem flourished and even expanded (for example, the conquests of Tyre and Ascalon). Sources around the Third Crusade betray that this was still common ground. Significant evidence is offered by, for example, Prevostin of Cremona when he asserts, in an adaptation of Is. 11:10, that the Sepulcher had been glorious âfor such a long timeâ (quandiu fuit sepulchrum eius gloriosum).104 The chapter on Jerusalem discussed how strongly writers were merging the earthly and heavenly city, as expressed specifically in the motif of the gates, while the earthly guise represented such a gateway.105 The chapter thus reflected on the concept of the four senses, unearthing a clear tendency to align the earthly city with the anagogical sense, a result that substantiates the hypothesis of an eschatological state. What meaning inhered in this idea? With the First Crusade, it was commonly accepted that something eschatological had happened: the holy city henceforth offered an outstanding possibility for getting in touch with heavenâtantamount to ideas of saints, relics, and churches, but surpassing these in intensity and meaning.106 However, it remained unclear whether this trait, according to late 12th-century opinions, inhered generally in the earthly city, that is, since Christ, or whether it was only established with the First Crusadeâan unspoken subtext. It seems at least that the events of 1099 engendered an intensification consisting in a temporal approach to the Apocalypse and a spatial approach to the celestial realm: they had opened a unique eschatological window.107
There is the issue of whether earthly Jerusalem signifies an âeschatological stateâ or an âapocalyptic stateââan issue depending on how one defines these categories.108 Eschatological state designates the notion of a realized Apocalypse, a heaven on earth, an outstanding connection with the celestial realm. Augustine understood the Church as such; this likewise pertains to the monastery. It is plausible that monastic authors fused this concept with the earthly cityâthey did so with other ideas including imitatio Christi and contemplatio.109 Did the earthly city offer lay people what the monastery offered to monks? Did it provide lay people with the possibility of a monastic life (if only temporarily)? The rendering of crusading as a quasi-monastic activity suggests so. Bernardâs De laude novae militiae formulated the same idea for the Templars.110 The realized Apocalypse implies a process of adaptation after the First Crusade: whereas at first one meant to see the (final) Apocalypse, one then came to the conclusion that the expedition had created an eschatological state, a spatially manifested possibility of gaining salvation.
The second possibility is that the city represented an âapocalyptic state,â a literal reading of the prophecies: the Apocalypse began in 1099 and lasted from then on. This would mean that it happened in Jerusalem, whereas the Westâthe terrestrial exile of Christendomâwas still dwelling in normal time. Such was certainly a possibility in the contemporary system of thought, though difficult to determine. Such a hypothesis is corroborated by the fact that all the prophecies agree on Jerusalem as the Apocalypseâs venue. It is also plausible that late 12th-century observers believed it had been ongoing for almost a century: the notion of a single event is modern. Two factors demonstrate that it would be a protracted process: on the one hand, the idea that human and divine counting do not concur. What God does on one day may be a thousand years for humans, therefore numbers provided by prophecies were not binding. On the other, several prophecies make the multistaged process explicit, sometimes naming longer time spans, for example, Rev. 11:2 speaks of a three-and-a-half-year pagan occupation of Jerusalem, or Dan. 9:24 drafts a 70-year penitential period within the eschatological scenario.111 It is thus possible that the Apocalypse was believed to have been ongoing since 1099. This raises the question of how the eschatological scenario had developed since then. Or did it fail to develop?âthe next section is devoted to this question. That the earthly city represented such a state became apparent in Cecilia Gaposchkinâs study of the liturgy of Latin Jerusalem, which positioned the city close to its heavenly counterpart or even equated the two. Liturgical texts even proclaimed that the gates of heaven stood open.112 The liturgy, therefore, perpetuated throughout the 12th century the understanding that one stood here on the threshold to heaven. This impression must have been even stronger for a visitor from the West when participating in local liturgical actions.113
Finally, the specific paradigms inherent in such a state require discussion, including the question of how these were differing from the ânormal stateâ in Europe. First, it was due to this state that every Christian had the opportunity for martyrdom, an extraordinary grace usually only granted to a few elect, so colored through the early Christian narratives on the Roman persecution.114 This was the condition in the West (consider, for example, Thomas Becket). Yet, on crusade, everybody was suddenly entitled to become a martyr, disregarding the former way of life, because the Holy Land being that close to heaven offered this easy way to step over. Second, the activity of crusading safeguarded a favorable verdict at the Last Judgment. It was thus deeply eschatological, even if one did not believe in an imminent Judgment. Yet, this was suddenly imminent as soon as one believed oneâs own death was close, a threat omnipresent on crusade. With his death, the individual entered into a timeless period, jumping forward to the Judgment.115 Safeguarding a place happened via the crusadeâs remission of sin, which, however, was only effective if there was not any further occasion for sinning, that is, if martyrdom or the Apocalypse occurred.116 Some also took it literally by either marking a spot in the Valley of Josaphat, the Judgmentâs venue, or choosing the same as their burial place.117 Crusading thus offered an insurance as it was only available in the Holy Land for the bulk of Christian society. Third, as discussed, the earthly city between 1099 and 1187 represented at least a realized eschatology tantamount to the monastery: in agreement with the providential coloring of actual landscapes, it made it possible to approach God and heaven in a way that was impossible elsewhere. This expressed itself, for example, in transmitting the monastic idea of contemplatio. Such made the earthly city attractive even for monks despite the concerns and prohibitions of authorities. Fourth, it seems that the mere presence of Christians in the Holy Land contributed to salvation historyâs progress. This likely adhered to the fulfillment of a quantity, equivalent to completing the number of martyrs, an achievement that would initiate the Apocalypse (see Rev. 6:10â11). However, such progress necessitated that they were virtuous. With the Second Crusade, as we will see in the next section, God revealed that this was not the case. It thus seems that the eschatological state required perpetual and performative renewalâas done in the liturgy of Latin Jerusalem. This raises the intriguing question of what providential developments may have occurred between 1099 and 1187 as well as what shifts the year 1187 heralded.
5 The Narrative of Salvation History, Vantage Point Post-1187: Nodes, Plot Twists, and Accumulative Expectations
It is well known that later generations still considered the First Crusade a providential watershed, but scholars have hardly discussed the question of how the vantage point changed the providential narrative. For example, how did one look on the first expedition at the time of the Second Crusade? The basis for this examination is provided by the narrative of salvation history consisting of the following key elements: Fall of Mankind / Ten Commandments / Old Covenant / Christ / New Covenant / Apocalypse. All these events form nodes or plot twists that initiate paradigm shifts. The First Crusade was one such node located between New Covenant and Apocalypse (with a clear tendency to the latter).118 Yet, this basic model occasionally required adaptation: authors inserted new elements, dependent on different prophecies and changing historical circumstances, for example, Jerusalemâs earlier conquests (such as that by Titus and Vespasian) or the emergence of Islam in the 7th century.119 It is possible that the anticipated salvation history materialized in events; and this requires a reflection on the concepts of ânodeâ and âplot twist.â Christâs Passion, for example, represented a node, that is, a watershed essential for the entire dramaturgy, pointing beyond itself in meaning and impact. A node is the a posteriori interpretation of an event that acquired meaning in the metanarrative with hindsight.120 A plot twist, on the other hand, indicates an a priori notion about an event that then occurred in an unexpected way: both the Second Crusadeâs failure and the events of 1187 represented such. They challenged pope, preachers, and exegetes as to classifying them in providential terms, that is, finding their appropriate place within the providential narrative.
The Christian system of thought is characterized by the peculiar simultaneousness of terrestrial and celestial world, a phenomenon that enables the establishment of points of contact, while the two are fundamentally separate until the Apocalypse. Therefore, the teleological narrative of salvation is terrestrial in nature: God structures it with the help of signs and prophecies, providing guidance back to the heavenly world.121 Only in the End of Days would the demarcations break down: as Isaiah and Revelation put it, heaven would be ârolled up,â and the two worlds would openly face one another.122 The closer the End, the more these demarcations break down, the more elements from the other world troop into this world, the more the concept of temporality dissolvesâas the idea of Jerusalem as an eschatological state demonstrates. Beyond the narrativeâs basic nodes, one may assert six further nodes or plot twists; this stems from general tendencies extracted from contemporary sources, in particular the Third Crusadeâs corpus:
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Jerusalemâs conquest by Titus and Vespasian (A.D.â¯70) was often classified as a node that had expressed Godâs will concerning the rejection of the Jews. The event was a visible manifestation of what had changed in the shift from Old to New Covenant. The significant fact of being a (pagan) conquest of Jerusalem thus delivered a model for similar events.123
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The emergence of Islam represented a plot twist; it surprised Christian observers, who started wondering how it fitted into the narrative of salvation. As Jean Floriâs epoch-bridging book examined, this question troubled Christianity throughout the centuries.124 It was a common approach to consider Islam as the eschatological enemy; following this lore, the crusades finally fulfilled what God had already intended since its emergence in the 7th century.125
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The year 1000 was supposed to be the End itself, so the opinion a priori, but the plot twist consisted in the fact that expectations did not deliver. Thus, they were repeatedly postponed and frequently disappointed. Similar to the failure of crusades, the 11th century knew a number of plot twists. As was argued in the previous chapter, these did not hamper the renewal of expectations, quite the contrary; the First Crusade is the best proof of that.126 However, eventually the year 1000 was revised so far (or overshadowed by the conquest of 1099), that it does not seem to have played a role anymore in the late 12th century.
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The First Crusade fulfilled what the year 1000 had promised; contemporaries immediately elevated it into a pivotal node, sometimes even comparing it with Christâs crucifixion. This swift establishment of interpretive authority indicates expectations that shaped the expedition itself, and were only the fulfillment of long-lasting desires. The First Crusade was deeply apocalyptic, but, depending on the opinion, either not quite yet the End itself or just the first stage in a protracted eschatological scenario.127 Be that as it may, it is evident that historical agents after 1099 were called to contribute to the progress of salvation history. One may read the subsequent waves of crusaders as an attempt to achieve exactly that.128
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However, then came the plot twist of the Second Crusade: while Bernard of Clairvaux and many others may have believed that the progress had been successful, and therefore God sent a sign to initiate the next step (the loss of Edessa), the expeditionâs failure suggested the opposite.129 The proactive attempts to push the story forward had failed peccatis nostris exigentibus. This seems to have agreed with the contemporary understanding that God planned the Apocalypse for the Second Crusade, but he ultimately postponed it.130 Progress necessitated that the militia Christi was worthy to enter heaven. God pulled the emergency break, signifying that they must engage in moral reform; this refocused attention on internal enemies, yet heretics and false prophets were also eschatological symptoms. God would not push heavenâs doors further open until these had been efficiently dealt with.131
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But then the next plot twist occurred: the events of 1187.132 After a long period of seesawing, from which the Christians did not know how to extricate themselves, God put salvation history to the test, so manifested in the losses of the Cross relic and Jerusalem. The relic, vivid embodiment of the Covenant, suggested that their elect status was endangered. Jerusalem suggested that the gates to heaven may close again. Similarly, many authors entwined the conquest with that of the two Roman emperors, usually considered as vengeance on the Jews for the crucifixion. God now exacted vengeance on the Christians; the typological construction thus indicated the same consequences as in A.D.â¯70, a deprivation of their elect status.133 The meaning of Cross and Jerusalem, especially after 1099, created this critical situation: in the eyes of contemporary observers, 1187 was perhaps the most fateful year that had ever challenged Christendom. Peter of Blois, for example, asserts that their idleness had shattered the stability of the divine plan (stabilitatem sancti propositi concussissent).134 The Christians now gained a last chance to prove themselves; otherwise, an entire and unplanned reorganization of the divine plan was impendingâas had happened in the shift from Judaism to Christianity. Such was the urgent call on the eve of the Third Crusade. After the venture, however, preachers protracted this call, evoking over decades the same threat with the same rhetorical urgency, as the frequent references to Jerusalem and the Cross relic demonstrate.135
A modern observer wonders what went wrong with medieval people when they repeatedly believed in the coming End, then reached the conclusion that it had still not arrived, and still did not learn from the experience, but surrendered once again to the apocalyptic turmoil when an occasion presented itself.136 From our (European) perspective, this must seem like a collective pathological issue. Therefore, historians who characterized these phenomena in such language may be forgiven, in their attempts to qualify these through the lens of post-Enlightenment rationalismâbut this does not do justice to the phenomenon.137 Even though keywords such as fanatism or delusion may apply to eschatological hopes, these people were not insane. What they did concurred with a logic and a specific rationality that may not be ours, but it worked for medieval society.138 It was a vicious circle: the End was an omnipresent subject in Latin society since the year 1000. The eschatological corpus of texts (biblical and post-biblical) held such a large variety of elements, making it quite impossible that a Christian eked out existence without encountering, probably multiple times, such elements, for example, heretics or natural phenomena. But why did they not learn from experience? The simple answer is that eschatological hopes operated in an accumulative manner. The narrative of salvation induced the necessary logic that the Apocalypse must draw nearer the more time passed. It was not supposed to take a step backwards. Even if expectations were revised or adapted with hindsight, as soon as interpretive authority had been established, it became quite impossible to erase it completely. Jay Rubenstein argued for the situationâs dilemma: if the prophecy delivers, the Apocalypse comes. If it fails, one is confronted with false prophets, yet these are likewise a sign of the imminent End.139 It is thus meaningful that this motif is omnipresent in the pertinent corpus of sources.140 Even if efforts were made to negate or erase eschatological hopes, it is likely that either the dynamic of false prophets unfolded, or that erasing collective experiences remained simply unachievable.
Expectations behaved accumulatively in a twofold manner: diachronically and synchronically. The synchronic dimension tackles the âsymptoms of the Endâ: the simultaneous occurrence of apocalyptic elements triggered expectations. The losses of the Cross and Jerusalem, both holding momentous eschatological meaning, must have appeared as a completion of such symptoms, a point of no return. The accumulation may also have stretched over a period: the First Crusade appears to have been drawn on in this manner. This leads to the diachronic dimension: with 1099, it was obvious that something eschatological had happenedâwhat exactly remained a matter of debate and underwent adaptations over the decades. So much had already occurred that was apocalyptic in one way or another that it could now only be a question of a few moments. As the chapter on the failure of crusades examined, failure did not diminish the enthusiasm, but hopes accumulated. Each time a situation occurred that was somehow eschatological, but then proved to be not yet apocalyptic, new building blocks were piled up on the eschatological towerâuntil, so it was hoped, it would touch heaven itself.141 This was the dynamic of the 12th century: at its conclusion, after having been caught up deeper and deeper in this vicious circle, God decided to let two events happen in 1187 that could not communicate more clearly that the End was finally imminent.
6 Marching into the End of Days: The Apocalyptic Third Crusade
Numerous elements and sources have been assembled, showing that the End was believed to be impending or had already begun. Three essential arguments demonstrate this: first, there was a vivid apocalyptic mood since the days of the First Crusade, manifesting itself in the earthly Jerusalem as an either eschatological or even apocalyptic state. The providential watershed of 1099 caused a break in the Latin Westâs perception: whereas its exact nature may remain hidden from the modern observer, existing largely as a subtext and being subject to change, it is evident that the West believed it was living in the shadow of the Apocalypse. Second, certain disappointments seem to have occurred, especially after the Second Crusade, because the Christians failed to move the eschatological scenario forward. However, the events of 1187 delivered an apocalyptic antithesis: the two objects, the Cross and the holy city, comprised momentous providential meaning, therefore their God-willed loss could only be perceived as apocalyptic. Authors read Jerusalemâs conquest as the fulfillment of prophecy, which was per se always apocalyptic. Third, the omnipresent entanglement of earthly and heavenly city delivers a persuasive argument: the gates to heaven stood open.
The border between heaven and earth thus crumbled; Christ assembled his soldiers for the final battle, aiming for the eradication of all unbelievers, in agreement with the vision of Rev. 19, whose imagery and ideas are present in many texts. As the chapter on the Cross relic discussed, the crusaders appear as vexilliferi crucis (Henry of Albano) and aquilae (Ralph Ardens), who follow their Savior into battle.142 The term aquilae entwines the idea of a cross-bearer with the image of a bird, in accordance with Rev. 19, where the birds (here aves) feed on the flesh of the unbelievers.143 Numerous sermon texts portray Christ as a warlord and standard-bearer: for example, Peter of Blois speaks of the leader and lord of the cross banner whom they shall follow into battle (sequamur ducem ac principem hujus vexilli). Ralph Ardens assures his audience that Christ will precede them to the Last Judgment with the cross banner (praecedet enim vexillum santae crucis), just as Hélinand of Froidmont deemed him signifer noster and antesignanus noster, who marches ahead of them (ante eas vadit). Martin of León reminded his audience that Christ has led his soldiers onto the battlefield (dux noster Jesus Christus secum milites ad praelium duxit), likely referring to the First Crusade.144 The Third Crusadeâs preachers suggested to their audiences that the cross on their clothes was an apocalyptic sign that marked them out as Christâs soldiers, ready to march into the last of all battles.
The outstanding treatises penned by Henry of Albano and Peter of Blois are valuable sources for the expeditionâs apocalyptic outlook. These present the Apocalypse in its unadulterated grimness: Peter designates Saladin as the Antichrist (without specifying that he is not the final Antichrist).145 The Muslims appear throughout as eschatological enemies; one passage equates them with the Whore of Babylon, upon whom the crusaders must now exact vengeance, a bold apocalyptic motif.146 Another passage asks rhetorically whether the audience cannot hear the thundering trumpets, another motif colored by Revelation.147 Henry of Albano agrees in classifying Saladin and the Muslims as irreconcilable enemies and servants of the Antichrist.148 His crusade treatise starts with the assertion that the gates connecting earthly and heavenly Jerusalem stand open, because Old Testament prophecies have been fulfilled (in the First Crusade).149 In his ultimate vision of the End, he calls the audience to consider the impending day of salvation (2â¯Cor. 6:2): Christ has come now to hold judgment (i.e., probet Dominus, qui sint ejus; qui sint ei fideles, qui perfidi), and, in agreement with Rev. 19, they shall follow their king into the last battle (fideles siquidem milites suum regem sequentur).150 However, Henry pushes his luck further: through a rhetorical question he formulates that it seems as if Christ had already come again, but, contrary to the plan, to be crucified again (nunquid non in his [diebus] videtur venisse Christus iterum crucifigi?). In the subsequent sentence, he answers his own question (venit plane denuo crucifigendus ab ethnicis). Christ has already come a second time, formulated in the perfect tenseâthey live in the End of Days.151
Similarly, right at its outset, Audita tremendi draws attention to the terrible judgment. Many other contemporaries followed the pope in classifying the events as an iudicium Dei, a plain reference to the Last Judgment.152 This includes Henry when addressing the German nobility: he evokes the apocalyptic vision of Mt. 27, including the resurrection of the dead (terra tremuit, sol expavit, petrae scissae sunt, et aperta credimus monumenta).153 Richard Lionheart, in the shadow of Jerusalem, writes to Garnerius of Clairvaux that the earth trembled (contremuit terra), confidently marching towards the Judgment.154 Several preachers formulate an apocalyptic vision of violence that seems to supersede all humanism when declaring its goal as the genocidal eradication of all unbelievers.155 Contextualized within the providential narrative, it seems that contemporaries believed that the End had started in 1099 and now, with 1187, the Judgment itself, the conclusion of the eschatological scenario, had arrivedâyet, depending on their reaction, the verdict may not fall in their favor.
Lastly, the beginning of the chapter outlined four approaches to help substantiate the hypothesis that a sermon text not only speaks about eschatological elements in an undetermined future, but displays imminent expectations. First, the sermon texts connect eschatological themes and biblical references explicitly with the events of 1187, for example, by using several Old Testament prophecies to describe them (such as Ezekiel or Isaiah). They thus propose a literal reading that merges the historical events with the Apocalypse. It is similarly expressive when they replace a prophecyâs future tense with the present or perfect tense, as has been visible in several cases: one believes the prophecy fulfilled.156 Second, the eschatological portrayal of groups, both the audience and inimical groups, is a persistent pattern throughout the texts; one discards ethnic or social identities. Using such methods, the sermons prepare their audiences for their role as eschatological executors, ready to meet the enemy in the Holy Land.157 Third, we have seen on several occasions that the eschatological vision is presented as a vivid and imminent matter. Calls to abstain from sin and to prepare for the Judgment suggest great urgency; they fuel fear and panic, but also violence and zest for action. Even if this was sometimes a rhetorical device, one may suppose that this had an impact on audiences. Fourth, we have encountered several passages plainly formulating that something apocalyptic is happening already, for example, when Henry of Albano asserts that the Second Coming has already taken place. Properly analysing and decoding eschatological elements makes it clear that preachers conceived of the Third Crusade in deeply apocalyptic terms, while presenting this vision to broad audiences. This is remarkable considering the disappointments and adaptations that likely followed the expedition; it is significant that we even find these elements manifested in text: we may read these as the tip of the iceberg, a prevailing apocalyptic mood. On the eve of the venture, there seems to have been no doubt: building on the precedent of the First Crusade, one believed the final battle to have come and departed full of devotion on the path that would lead right unto the heavenly Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, some eschatological elements are present: the chapter on Jerusalem discussed, for example, that many chronicles resumed the reading that Jerusalemâs conquest fulfilled a prophecy. Brett Whalenâs book reflects the state of research; he examines the conjunction of crusade and Apocalypse from the First Crusade to the late 13th centuryâonly the Third Crusade is suspiciously omitted: Brett Edward Whalen, Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass. 2009), esp. 117â118.
See, e.g., Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Philadelphia 1986), 35, 102, 143; Riley-Smith, âReview of Jay Rubenstein, Armies of Heavens: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse,â Catholic Historical Review 98/4 (2012), 786â787; John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, UK 1994), 356; Nicholas Morton, Encountering Islam on the First Crusade (Cambridge, UK 2016), 216â226. For an overview of the different opinions and a critique of the Riley-Smith school, see Philippe Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology: Holy War Fostered and Inhibited,â Mitteilungen des Instituts für Ãsterreichische Geschichtsforschung 125 (2017), 305â307; Jay Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse: History and the Last Days,â Quaestiones medii aevi novae 21 (2016), 161â168. See also the critique of overall tendencies in medieval studies: Richard Allen Landes, Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (Oxford 2011), 63â65, 79â88; James T. Palmer, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, UK 2014), 18â19.
Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 160. On Mt. 16:24 see the chapter on the Cross relic.
Jay Rubenstein, Nebuchadnezzarâs Dream: The Crusades, Apocalyptic Prophecy, and the End of History (Oxford 2019), 210; see also Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology,â 323.
For exceptions who all highlighted the eschatological nature, see Penny J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095â1270 (Cambridge, Mass. 1991), 134â135, 198â200; Jean Flori, Prêcher la croisade: XIeâXIIIe siècle; communication et propagande (Paris 2012); Miikka Tamminen, Crusade Preaching and the Ideal Crusader (Turnhout 2018), 74â89; Lydia M. Walker, âLiving in the Penultimate Age: Apocalyptic Thought in James of Vitryâs ad status Sermons,â in: The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources, ed. Elizabeth Lapina and Nicholas Morton (Leiden 2017), 298â315; Christoph T. Maier, âCrusade and Rhetoric against the Muslim Colony of Lucera: Eudes of Châteaurouxâs Sermones de rebellione Sarracenorum Lucherie in Apulia,â Journal of Medieval History 21 (1995), 356â359.
See Rubenstein, Dream, 49â63; Jean Flori, Lâislam et la fin des temps: lâinterprétation prophétique des invasions musulmanes dans la chrétienté médiévale (Paris 2007), 235â237, 310â311, 316; Sylvia Schein, âDie Kreuzzüge als volkstümlich-messianische Bewegungen,â Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 47 (1991), 124â126; André Vauchez, âLes composantes eschatologiques de lâidée de la croisade,â in: Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et lâappel à la croisade de 1095 (Rome 1997), 237â241. The same has been argued for the pilgrimages around 1000: Johannes Fried, âEndzeiterwartung um die Jahrtausendwende,â Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 45 (1989), 460â465; Richard Allen Landes, Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History. Ademar of Chabannes, 989â1034 (Cambridge, Mass. 1995), 285.
See Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 181â182. However, I disagree with Rubenstein that there were opposing trends in the later 12th centuryâhe universalizes misfits such as Ralph Niger; the reaction to 1187 is the best rebuttal (see Rubenstein, Dream, 188â189, 212). The issue needs more thorough investigation between the Second and Third Crusades, especially regarding sermon texts.
Schein, âBewegungen,â 120.
Jay Rubenstein, âLambert of Saint-Omer and the Apocalyptic First Crusade,â in: Remembering the Crusades, ed. Nicholas L. Paul and Suzanne M. Yeager (Baltimore 2012), 71. See also Hans-Dietrich Kahl, ââ¯â⦠Auszujäten von der Erde die Feinde des Christentums â¦â Der Plan zum âWendenkreuzzugâ von 1147 als Umsetzung sibyllinischer Eschatologie,â in: Heidenfrage und Slawenfrage im deutschen Mittelalter (Leiden 2011), 655â660.
Flori, Lâislam, 300â335, cited 312: âLa lutte contre les Sarrasins dâOrient prend à nouveau, à cause de Jérusalem et des Lieux saints, une dimension prophétique évidente et une connotation eschatologique plus que probable.â My translation. See also Jessalynn L. Bird, âProphecy, Eschatology, Global Networks, and the Crusades, from Hattin to Frederick II,â Traditio 77 (2022), 31â106.
For exceptions, see Jussi Hanska, Strategies of Sanity and Survival: Religious Responses to Natural Disasters in the Middle Ages (Helsinki 2002); Bruce Wood Holsinger, âThe Color of Salvation: Desire, Death, and the Second Crusade in Bernard of Clairvauxâs Sermons on the Song of Songs,â in: The Tongue of the Fathers, ed. David R. Townsend and Andrew Taylor (Philadelphia 1998), 165â172; Augustine Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Italy: The Great Devotion of 1233 (Oxford 1992); Michael Mecklenburg, âHow to Represent the Future: Narratological Aspects of Preaching and Performing the Last Judgement,â in: The Last Judgement in Medieval Preaching, ed. Thom Mertens (Turnhout 2011), 163â180.
See, e.g., Palmer, Apocalypse; Fried, âEndzeiterwartung,â 381â473.
Authors such as Orosius or Lambert of Saint-Omer asked the same about Christâs birth, answering it with the peaceful and prosperous reign of Augustus (see Rubenstein, Dream, 29).
See Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca, NY 2017), 258. It seems that collective sinfulness invalidated the rewards of crusading; especially after the Second Crusade some complained about the useless deaths of participants. The abbot of Casa-Maria developed an antithesisâmartyrs despite failure (John of Casa-Maria, Epistola, 590; see Cole, Preaching, 54â55). In agreement: Geoffrey of Auxerre, Vita (3.4), 309; Otto of Freising, Gesta, ed. Schmale, 270; discussed by Hubert Glaser, âDas Scheitern des zweiten Kreuzzuges als heilsgeschichtliches Ereignis,â in: Festschrift für Max Spindler, ed. Dieter Albrecht and Andreas Kraus (Munich 1969), 123, 131.
For Rev. 18:5, see Martin of León, Commentary on Rev. (18.5), 391; William of Newburgh, Historia, 253; Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 49, 54â55. See also Alan of Lille, De cruce Domini, ed. dâAlverny, 280â281, who speaks of a dangerous increase in sin (propter ingruentiam peccatorum) that generated the Cross relicâs âdefiniteâ (omnino) loss. See also Oliver of Paderborn, Ep.5, ed. Hoogeweg, 305, voicing as to 1187: multiplicarentur peccata super terram.
The post-biblical prophecies substantiate this; these survived in many 12th-century copies, for example, Pseudo-Methodius (see Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 172â175; Guy Lobrichon, 1099: Jérusalem conquise (Paris 1998), 27â28).
See Jussi Hanska, âCatastrophe Sermons and Apocalyptic Expectations: Eudes de Châteauroux and the Earthquake of 1269 in Viterbo,â in: The Last Judgement in Medieval Preaching, ed. Thom Mertens (Turnhout 2011), 117â118, highlighting the apocalyptic nature of the second Sunday in Advent devoted to the Second Coming. See also Gaposchkin, Weapons, 132, 145â146.
Fried distinguishes between ânormal expectationsâ and âheightened expectationsâ (Fried, âEndzeiterwartung,â 388â394). See also Palmer, Apocalypse, 7â8, 228; and Kevin L. Hughes, Constructing Antichrist: Paul, Biblical Commentary, and the Development of Doctrine in the Early Middle Ages (Washington, D.C. 2005), 4â5, discussing how precisely this uncertainty may have contributed to expectations.
See Nicholas Morton, âEncountering the Turks: The First Crusadersâ Foreknowledge of Their Enemy; Some Preliminary Findings,â in: Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages, ed. Morton and Simon John (Farnham 2014), 54â55; John Victor Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York 2002), 105â134; Martin Völkl, MuslimeâMärtyrerâMilitia Christi: Identität, Feindbild und Fremderfahrung während der ersten Kreuzzüge (Stuttgart 2011), 189â214. As Morton notes, the pattern also permeates the encyclicals of Eugen III and Gregory VIII.
See below, esp. on Joachim of Fioreâs prophecy to Richard Lionheart. For sources see, e.g., Ez. 2:3; 20:41; 30:26; 36:20; Is. 64:1; Rev. 2:26â27; 16:19.
Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 68; Gregory VIII, Audita tremendi, ed. Chroust, 6. Ekkehard of Aura said of the First Crusade that the trumpets were already thundering (Ekkehard of Aura, Chronica, ed. Schmale, 132). The phrase iam or iam iamque also expresses such immediacy (see Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology,â 310â311, 334; Fried, âEndzeiterwartung,â 412).
See, e.g., Ralph Ardens, Pars (II), De tempore, Sermo 36, 1447; Garnerius of Clairvaux, Sermo 28, 753; Baldwin of Canterbury, De commendatione, 612; Bernard of Clairvaux, De laude, 296; Sermo in Cant. 6, 804. The reference is pertinent in a twofold way, since John 12:32 says that Christ, hanging on the cross, draws all people unto him, that is, to Jerusalem (ego, si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnes traham ad meipsum); see the chapter on the Holy Land.
For such an example, see Charles W. Connell, âMissing the Apocalypse in Preaching the Crusades,â in: Crusading in Art, Thought, and Will, ed. Matthew Parker and Ben Halliburton (Leiden 2018), 198, who claims that Henry of Albanoâs treatise does not contain any apocalyptic elements. For the rebuttal, see Alexander Marx, âJerusalem as the Travelling City of God. Henry of Albano and the Preaching of the Third Crusade,â Crusades 20 (2021), 96â110. For a critical review of the simple scheme of âEnd: Yes or No,â see Palmer, Apocalypse, 227â235.
On the first, see Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology,â 321â322; Benjamin Z. Kedar, âThe Jerusalem Massacre of 1099 in the Historiography of the Crusades,â Crusades 3 (2004), 65, 72; on the second, see Gaposchkin, Weapons, 150â152, 265, 272. In general see Buc, Lâempreinte du Moyen Age: la guerre sainte (Avignon 2012), 25â26, 41â42; Kahl, âAuszujäten,â 644â645; Kristin Skottki, ââ¯âUntil the Full Number of Gentiles Has Come inâ: Exegesis and Prophecy in St Bernardâs Crusade-Related Writings,â in: The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources, ed. Elizabeth Lapina and Nicholas Morton (Leiden 2017), 248â249.
On Joachimâs significance, see Whalen, Dominion, 100â124; Elizabeth Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, 1095â1274 (Oxford 1985), 202â204; Rubenstein, Dream, 181â207, 213. On his influence on Innocent III, see Flori, Lâislam, 317, 328; Whalen, Dominion, 135â137.
See Buc, Holy War, 9â10; Palmer, Apocalypse, 15.
See Landes, Heaven, 48.
See Buc, Holy War, 74â77, 284; Flori, Lâislam, 272â275; Gaposchkin, Weapons, 155â156. Gaposchkin characterizes this as âwhen the Apocalypse failed to materialize.â On revisions in Joachim of Fioreâs work after the Third Crusade, see Rubenstein, Dream, 199, 203â204.
This is part of an anti-Jewish trend, often combined with Jerusalemâs destruction in A.D.â¯70 (see Martin of León, Liber sermonum, Sermo 23, 889; Petrus Comestor, Historia Scholastica, 1459; Alan of Lille, Contra haereticos (3.12), 412). The implication is that the Jews did not use the time for penance (coincidentally 70 years as in Dan.), therefore God sent the Romans to punish them.
See Buc, Holy War, 95â99; Johannes Fried, Dies irae: Eine Geschichte des Weltuntergangs (Munich 2016), 120â126; Hans-Werner Goetz, âEschatologische Vorstellungen und Reformziele bei Bernhard von Clairvaux und Norbert von Xanten,â in: Vorstellungsgeschichte (Bochum 2007), 75â88.
Gregory VIII, Audita tremendi, ed. Chroust, 8â9; see the previous chapter. On Ez. 9:6, see Buc, Holy War, 171â172. On Ez. 9 see the chapter on the Cross relic. Therefore, anti-heretical crusades preceded crusades to Jerusalem in providential logic. As God ended a crusade peccatis exigentibus, he told the Christians that they were not ready, but must return to reform and the war on heresy.
This has already been argued in: Rubenstein, Dream, 218â219.
Rubenstein argues that the First Crusadeâs apocalyptic dimension was so strong that it persisted for the remainder of the century, but it was adapted and renegotiated (Rubenstein, Dream, 215).
Ad (a) and (b), see the chapter on the Cross relic.
Ad (c), (d), and (e), see the chapter on Jerusalem.
See the chapter on Jerusalem as well as below in this chapter.
Ad (g) and (h), see the chapter on the failure of crusades as well as below in this chapter.
Buc, Holy War. On modern phenomena dependent on Christian Apocalypticism, see Landes, Heaven, 250â388.
See Schein, âBewegungen,â 123; Nikolas Jaspert, âDas Heilige Grab, das Wahre Kreuz, Jerusalem und das Heilige Land. Wirkung, Wandel und Vermittler hochmittelalterlicher Attraktoren,â in: Konflikt und Bewältigung, ed. Thomas Pratsch (Berlin 2011), 71. On spiritual warfare, see Buc, Holy War, 72â100; Gaposchkin, Weapons, 41â53.
Robert Austin Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of Saint Augustine (Cambridge, UK 1970), 159â162. See also Landes, Heaven, 18, 32â35; Johannes Fried, Aufstieg aus dem Untergang: Apokalyptisches Denken und die Entstehung der modernen Naturwissenschaft im Mittelalter (Munich 2001), 22â23, 51â53. Landes and Fried argue that apocalypticism (unlike eschatology) lent itself to human activity. Landes also discusses that specific apocalyptic movements, in the course of their existence (and failure), switched between the poles of active and passive.
See Fried, Untergang, 47â51; Landes, Heaven, 6â7, 29â31, 48; Landes, âThe Fear of an Apocalyptic Year 1000: Augustinian Historiography, Medieval and Modern,â Speculum 75/1 (2000), 97â145. See also Markus, Saeculum, 178â186.
On Orosius, see Rubenstein, Dream, 26â34. On Pseudo-Methodius, see Flori, Lâislam, 302â307; Palmer, Apocalypse, 107â129.
See Buc, Holy War, 91â98; Gaposchkin, Weapons, 52â53. On Charlemagne, see Matthew Gabriele, An Empire of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade (Oxford 2011), 41â72; and Carl Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens (Darmstadt 1980), 276â279, asserting that the legend was well established by the 11th century.
Fried, âEndzeiterwartung,â 406â412.
See Landes, Relics; Sylvia Schein, Gateway to the Heavenly City: Crusader Jerusalem and the Catholic West (1099â1187) (Aldershot 2005), 146â148; Jay Rubenstein, Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse (New York 2011), 318â320. For a depiction of the modern scholarly debate about the year 1000, see Palmer, Apocalypse, 4â7.
See Nicole Bériou, Religion et communication: un autre regard sur la prédication au Moyen Age (Paris 2018), 47â59, esp. 51; Charles W. Connell, Popular Opinion in the Middle Ages: Channeling Public Ideas and Attitudes (Berlin 2016), 48â108. However, sermon texts around 1000 have not been investigated yet.
See Buc, Holy War, 253â261, 271â272; Gerd Althoff, âSelig sind, die Verfolgung ausübenâ: Päpste und Gewalt im Hochmittelalter (Darmstadt 2013), 135â136, 146. Buc reviews the common idea that humans only became agents of history in modernity (in opposition to God as agent in pre-modern times). The concept of a prophet alone makes it clear that God uses helpers.
See Rubenstein, Armies, 264â266; Fried, Dies Irae, 89â93.
See Rubenstein, Dream, 126â131; Yves Congar, âEglise et Cité de Dieu chez quelques auteurs cisterciens à lâépoque des Croisades: en particulier dans le De Peregrinante Civitate Dei dâHenri dâAlbano,â in: Mélanges offerts à Etienne Gilson de lâAcadémie française, ed. Callistus Edie (Toronto 1959), 187; Hans-Werner Goetz, âDie Rezeption der augustinischen civitas-Lehre in der Geschichtstheologie des 12. Jahrhunderts,â in: Vorstellungsgeschichte (Bochum 2007), 110â111.
See Mt. 24:32â33; 2â¯Tim. 3:1â5; and Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 171â172, 175â185; Guy Lobrichon, âStalking the Signs: The Apocalyptic Commentaries,â in: The Apocalyptic Year 1000, ed. Richard Allen Landes (Oxford 2003), 67â79; Hans-Dietrich Kahl, âCrusade Eschatology as Seen by St. Bernard in the Years 1146 to 1148,â in: The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, ed. Michael Gervers (New York 1992), 38â39. For a list of such symptoms, see Landes, Heaven, 53â54.
Landes, Heaven, 8â9, 40â43, 52â55.
Guy Lobrichon, âMaking Ends Meet: Western Eschatologies, or the Future of a Society (9thâ12th Centuries). Addition of Individual Projects, or Collective Construction of a Radiant Dawn?â in: Cultures of Eschatology, ed. Veronika Wieser and Vincent Eltschinger (Berlin 2020), 1:36.
See Landes, Heaven, 14â15; Lobrichon, âEnds,â 30; Phyllis Barzillay Roberts, Studies in the Sermons of Stephen Langton (Toronto 1968), 63â64. See, e.g., Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (I), 259, concluding on the basis of Jerusalemâs conquest and the presence of several types of sinners (2â¯Tim. 3:1â5)âall symptoms of the Endâthat the Second Coming and the general resurrection are certainly nigh (communem omnium resurrectionem, et ultimum Christi adventum talia praeventura indubitanter exspectet). See also Peter of Blois, Ep.227, 516; Alan of Lille, Contra haereticos (2.1), 380; Benedictinus anonymus, De penitentia, PL 213:890.
See Landes, Heaven, 29. This is precisely the reason why one observes much seesawing in Joachim of Fioreâs works (see Rubenstein, Dream, 199), but he still dared more than anybody else, a fact for which some celebrated him as a prophet, while others condemned him.
See Skottki, âNumber,â 260. As to the Third Crusade, consider Peterâs Dialogus (a conversation between Henry II and an abbot) as well as Henryâs imagined speech of the devil (Peter of Blois, Dialogus, esp. 395â396; Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 359â360).
See the chapter on the failure of crusades. Another enthusiastic example is Jacques de Vitry in conjunction with the Fifth Crusade (see Tamminen, Crusader, 76â77).
For a discussion of such strategies, see Landes, Heaven, 57.
See Hans-Dietrich Kahl, âDie Kreuzzugseschatologie Bernhards von Clairvaux und ihre missionsgeschichtliche Auswirkung,â in: Bernhard von Clairvaux und der Beginn der Moderne, ed. Dieter R. Bauer and Gotthard Fuchs (Innsbruck 1996), 311â315, who suggested that Bernard inspired the Antichrist in the Ludus de Antichristo. See also Annales Herbipolenses, 3, asserting that the crusade preachers were false prophets and the Antichristâs servants (quidam pseudoprophete and testes Antichristi). Prior to the expedition, Bernard himself did not shy away from such accusations (Bernard of Clairvaux, Ep.365, 668â670; see Skottki, âNumber,â 255â256).
On Bernard, see Kahl, âAuszujäten,â 658â660.
Landes, Relics, 144â153, 287â308; Landes, Heaven, 56â67; see also Fried, âEndzeiterwartung,â 389. As to sermons, besides cleansing eschatological elements, adaptation into a generic model may likewise have occurredâthe two processes may also have blended.
For copies preserving such, see, e.g., Ms. Troyes 509, fols. 95v, 150râv; Ms. BL Royal 8 F XVII, fols. 147v, 159r.
Landes seems to exclude such a possibility; he does not consider the possibilities that sermon texts offer (see Landes, Heaven, xvii). Palmer, however, already noted such a possibility of survival (Palmer, Apocalypse, 18).
See Lobrichon, Jérusalem, 30; Whalen, Dominion, 53. Landes also excludes such a possibility, since he operates with the premise that all apocalyptic events fail.
Flori, LâIslam, 280â281; Flori, Pierre lâermite et la première croisade (Paris 1999), 419â420, 466.
See Landes, Heaven, 66â69, 79â81, using the image of an iceberg of which we can only see the tip.
See Vauchez, âComposantes,â 241â242; Tamminen, Crusader, 251â253, 286â288. See also the discussion on audience in the chapter on historical context.
Buc, Holy War, 75, 84â85, 247, 253â261. Gaposchkin discusses that war-related liturgy encouraged such an identity: oneâs own actions were embedded in a larger providential struggle (Gaposchkin, Weapons, 46; see also Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 164, 186â187).
Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 175.
See Marx, âCity of God,â 108; Marx, âThe Passio Raginaldi of Peter of Blois. Martyrdom and Eschatology in the Preaching of the Third Crusade,â Viator 50/3 (2019), 222â223. It is present in Humbertâs list of biblical references for crusade preaching: he adds that they are his helpers âof course against the Saracensâ (scilicet contra sarracenos) (Humbert of Romans, De predicatione, 117).
Ralph Ardens, Pars (II), De tempore, Sermo 19, 1373; see the chapter on the Cross relic.
Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 356. Pascal II already formulated the same in his letter answering the crusadersâ report of the massacre in Jerusalem (1100): âQuod per prophetam populo suo Dominus pollicetur, impletum vobis agnoscimus.â And a few lines later: âquod coepit adimpleat [deus] et manus vestras, quas hostium suorum sanguine consecravit, immaculatas usque in finem adfluentissima pietate custodiat.â (Kreuzzugsbriefe (XXII), ed. Hagenmeyer, 178; discussed by Althoff, Verfolgung, 139â140).
See Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology,â 305, 316, 323; Buc, Holy War, 9â10, 264â272; Thomas Sizgorich, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam (Philadelphia 2009), 48â49, 67â69.
On the causal link between apocalypticism and anti-Jewish pogroms, see Flori, Lâislam, 228â233; Rubenstein, Dream, 47â48, 105; Richard Allen Landes, âThe Massacres of 1010: On the Origins of Popular Anti-Jewish Violence in Western Europe,â in: From Witness to Witchcraft, ed. Jeremy Cohen (Wiesbaden 1997), 79â112.
Gaposchkin, Weapons, 156; see also 29â64.
Consider, for example, references to the heavenly Jerusalem or the Last Judgment, the demarcation of sacred areas (which are thus closer to heaven), or a buildingâs orientation towards heaven (vivid in the Gothic style), but also the orientation towards east.
Hélinand of Froidmont, Sermo 10, 564. Mt. 27 presents this in conjunction with eschatological passages where the dead rise and march to Jerusalem. Alan of Lille offers a similar discussion in a crusade-specific sermon (Ms. BL Add 19767, fol. 75r). See the chapter on exemplary descriptions for the full text.
A few lines after this discussion, he exhorts his audience via Ez. 9 âto approach Jerusalemâ (appropinqua Hierosolymis) (Hélinand of Froidmont, Sermo 10, 565). On the Eastern gate, see the chapter on Jerusalem.
Peter of Blois, Sermo 52, 713.
Peter of Blois, Sermo 52, 714.
However, if one left the Holy Land again, one left the apocalyptic sphere. Thus, with hindsight, apocalypticism may have turned again into eschatology. This is corroborated by the liturgy of Latin Jerusalem, which had been created after the model of dedicating churches (see Gaposchkin, Weapons, 131, 154â155).
See Schein, Gateway, 153â154; Flori, Lâislam, 302â307; Rubenstein, Dream, 43â48, 193â201. For evidence on Philip Augustus, see Rigord, Gesta, ed. Delaborde, 94; Roger of Howden, Gesta, 2:51â53; Ralph of Diceto, Ymagines, 58â60; discussed by Hannes Möhring, Der Weltkaiser der Endzeit: Entstehung, Wandel und Wirkung einer tausendjährigen Weissagung (Stuttgart 2000), 174. Such identifications were also made for the Second Crusade: on Louis VII, see Rubenstein, Dream, 102â103; Anne Latowsky, Emperor of the World: Charlemagne and the Construction of Imperial Authority, 800â1229 (Ithaca, NY 2013), 141â147; and on Conrad III, see Skottki, âNumber,â 259â260; Kahl, âAuszujäten,â 657â660.
See Peter of Blois, Conquestio, 94; Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 357.
On these questions, see the chapter on historical context.
In agreement: Tamminen, Crusader, 74, 94, noting that the pope barely appears in sermons either, and discussing that ambivalent personal traits or opinions about a prince, for example, about Richard Lionheart, may have encouraged omission.
Many only turned back from Antioch, after an epidemic had struck them, another divine punishment (see Graham A. Loud, âIntroduction,â in: The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa (Farnham 2010), 27). Happening a few weeks after the emperorâs death, a causal link seems still plausible.
On the commentary, see Amélie de las Heras, âLe livre de lâApocalypse chez Martin de León (m. 1203), entre commentaire et sermon. Une âlectio divinaâ tournée vers lâaction,â Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 49/1 (2019), 61â84, who, however, did not consider the crusade.
Martin of León, Commentary on Rev. (11.2), 359â360 and Ms. León, San Isidoro 11/3, fol. 197v. âQuidam vero nostri doctores dicunt, quod unus ex Francorum regibus Romanum imperium ex integro tenebit, quia in novissimo tempore erit, et ipse erit maximus et omnium regum ultimus. Hic postquam regnum suum feliciter gubernaverit, ad ultimum Jerosolymam perget, et in monte Oliveti sceptrum et coronam suam ultro deponet, (hic erit finis et consummatio Romanorum Christianorumque imperii) statimque, secundum Apostoli sententiam, Antichristum dicunt adfuturum. [â¦] Hic itaque, ut supra diximus, in civitate Babyloniae natus, Jerosolymam veniens, circumcidet se, dicens Judaeis: Ego sum Christus vobis repromissus, qui ad salutem vestram venit, ut vos de cunctis terris congregem et defendam. Tunc fluent ad eum omnes Judaei, aestimantes Deum suscipere, sed suscipient diabolum.â
The passage speaks of the emperor departing for Jerusalem at the end of his life; this likewise suggests Barbarossa. Martin refers to âsome of our teachersâ (quidam nostri doctores), perhaps Paris masters or also Iberian traditions. The first half of the passage quotes verbatim from: Adso of Montier-en-Der, De ortu, 26.
See, e.g., Flori, Lâislam, 228â230; Philippe Buc, âLa vengeance de Dieu: de lâexégèse patristique à la Réforme ecclésiastique et la Première Croisade,â in: La vengeance, 400â1200, ed. Dominique Barthélemy, François Bougard, and Régine Le Jan (Rome 2006), 466; Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley 1999), 156â165.
Joachim of Fiore considered Saladin to be the sixth of seven Antichrists (see Rubenstein, Dream, 193â198; Flori, Lâislam, 322â324). Roger, after having cited Joachimâs sermon to Richard Lionheart, quotes two sections from treatises on the Antichrist; the one is Adso of Montier-en-Derâs, the other is to my knowledge unidentified (Roger of Howden, Chronica, 3:80â86). On the notion of several Antichrists, see Buc, âVengeance,â 475; and in general Hughes, Antichrist; Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York 2000).
See, e.g., Jean Flori, âJérusalem terrestre, céleste et spirituelle. Trois facteurs de sacralisation de la première croisade,â in: Jerusalem the Golden, ed. Susan B. Edgington (Turnhout 2014), 37.
See Schein, âBewegungen,â 130; Möhring, Weltkaiser, 173â174, 184. Möhring notes that Barbarossa commissioned assignments to the scriptorium of Tegernsee.
See Flori, Lâislam, 307, who ascribes Barbarossa a messianic charisma. Before his departure, Barbarossa received an illustrated manuscript of the strongly apocalyptic First Crusade chronicle of Robert of Reims (see Damien Kempf, âTowards a Textual Archaeology of the First Crusade,â in: Writing the Early Crusades, ed. Kempf and Marcus Bull (Woodbridge 2014), 123â126).
Ms. BL Add 24145, fol. 77v. Joachim of Fioreâs portrayal of Richard Lionheart is very similar: â[â¦] Dominus dabit tibi victoriam de inimicis suis, et exaltabit nomen tuum super omnes principes terraeâ (cited in Roger of Howden, Chronica, 3:78).
See Schein, Gateway, 155; Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford 1962), 390â393. Ansbert renders him as a signifer, a term also used for Christ, inspired by Rev. 19 (see the chapter on the Cross relic); this analogy indicates once more the Last Emperor. The same passage notes that Henry of Albano suggested the name of Curia Jesu Christi (Ansbert, Historia, ed. Chroust, 14). This is corroborated by his letter to the German nobility: âeadem curia singulariter est Salvatori Domino deputataâ (Henry of Albano, Ep.32, PLÂ 204:250).
Roger of Howden, Chronica, 3:131. â[â¦] loca mortis Ejus, pretioso Suo Sanguine dedicata, quae inimici crucis Christi hactenus ignominiose profanabant, tanti et tam sancti laboris in nos onus suscepimus, et intra breve temporis spatium post adventum domini regis Francorum ad Accon, ibidem Domino duce prospere applicuimus.â
Roger of Howden, Chronica, 3:131. â[â¦] de Sarracenis, quos in custodia habuimus, circa duo millia et sexcentos, sicut decuit, fecimus exspirare.â
Roger of Howden, Gesta, 2:152. Other authors shared the positive view of the massacre, or at least did not consider it a condemnable event (e.g., William of Newburgh, Historia, 68â69; Ralph of Diceto, Ymagines, 94â95; Ambroise, LâEstoire, ed. Paris, 148â149; Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon, ed. Stevenson, 34; discussed by Stephen Spencer, ââ¯âLike a Raging Lionâ: Richard the Lionheartâs Anger during the Third Crusade in Medieval and Modern Historiography,â The English Historical Review 132 (2017), 506â508; John B. Gillingham, Richard I (New Haven, Conn. 1999), 170). The same pertains to the letter by the First Crusadeâs leaders about the massacre in Jerusalem (Kreuzzugsbriefe (XVIII), ed. Hagenmeyer, 170â171; see Althoff, Verfolgung, 137â140).
Roger of Howden, Chronica, 3:132â133. It is significant that he connects this with Easter.
See Roger of Howden, Gesta, 2:152â153; Chronica, 3:80â86; see the compelling argument in: Flori, Lâislam, 310â312; see also Rubenstein, Dream, 200â202.
Roger of Howden, Chronica, 3:130. Contrary to the depictions in: Jonathan Phillips, âThe Third Crusade in Context: Contradiction, Curiosity and Survival,â Studies in Church History 51 (2015), 110â113; John D. Hosler, The Siege of Acre, 1189â1191: Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, and the Battle that Decided the Third Crusade (New Haven 2018), 150â157; Thomas Asbridge, âTalking to the Enemy: The Role and Purpose of Negotiations between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart during the Third Crusade,â Journal of Medieval History 39/3 (2013), 275â296, esp. 294. For an overview of depictions of the massacre, see Spencer, âLion,â 520â522.
Rubenstein, âSaint-Omer,â 73â75, 85â88; Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 177â185; see also Gaposchkin, Weapons, 148â156; Lobrichon, Jérusalem, 131â133; Vauchez, âComposantes,â 236. Rubenstein claims that they remained in a state of an âongoing Apocalypseâ âfor decadesââhowever, he does not tell us where he sees a possible end to this state (Rubenstein, Armies, 319). Connell suggested that Guibert of Nogentâs strongly apocalyptic chronicle intended to provide a model for future crusade preachers (Connell, âApocalypse,â 193).
On its commemoration, see Gaposchkin, Weapons, 130â191; Jonathan Phillips, The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom (New Haven 2007), 17â36; Jaroslav Folda, âCommemorating the Fall of Jerusalem: Remembering the First Crusade in Text, Liturgy, and Image,â in: Remembering the Crusades, ed. Nicholas L. Paul and Suzanne M. Yeager (Baltimore 2012), 125â145. References to the glorious first crusaders were also common; see William J. Purkis, Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia, c.1095âc.1187 (Woodbridge 2008), 93â94; Nicholas L. Paul, To Follow in Their Footsteps: The Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY 2012).
Ms. BNF lat. 14859, fol. 215v. By adapting its verb tense, 12th-century authors frequently made clear that they believed Is. 11:10 to have been fulfilled; see, e.g., Rupert of Deutz, Commentary on Zach., 761; Hervé de Bourge-Dieu, In Isaiam, 144â145; Richard of Saint-Victor, Christus ponitur, 523.
See Marx, âCity of God,â 98â102. For sources, see, e.g., Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 350â351; Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 48; Ms. Paris, Arsenal 543, fols. 243râ244v.
See Rubenstein, Dream, 215.
A sermon by Prevostin of Cremona presents the earthly Jerusalem as being in an eschatological state established with Christâs arrival (Ms. BL Add 18335, fol. 11r; see also Peter of Blois, Conquestio, 94). See the chapter on Jerusalem. However, this does not necessarily mean that this state existed continuouslyâit may have been inactive due to enemy occupation. Prevostinâs sermon also expresses the belief that the conquest of 1187 indicated the fall of the heavenly city (see also Peter of Blois, Sermo 39, 677; Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, 369â372).
For the two concepts, see Landes, Heaven, 18â20; Palmer, Apocalypse, 10; Lobrichon, âEnds,â 26â27.
See Marx, âCity of God,â 95; Gaposchkin, Weapons, 34â35; Purkis, Spirituality, 12â58, 118. On the realized Apocalypse, see Congar, âEglise,â 175â178; Schein, Gateway, 128â130, 190â191.
See Riley-Smith, First Crusade, 84, 150â152; Jessalynn L. Bird, âRogations, Litanies, and Crusade Preaching: The Liturgical Front in the Late Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries,â in: Papacy, Crusade, and Christian-Muslim Relations, ed. Bird (Amsterdam 2018), 189â191. On Bernard, see Skottki, âNumber,â 248â251; Peter Raedts, âSt. Bernard of Clairvaux and Jerusalem,â in: Prophecy and Eschatology, ed. Michael J. Wilks (Oxford 1994), 181. However, as Raedts and Skottki argue, the Templars were exemplary for all lay people.
Consider also Joachimâs calculation of the eschatological scenario stretching from 1200 to 1260 (Joachim of Fiore, Expositio, fols. 5râ6r, 131v; Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon, 68; see Flori, Lâislam, 323; Whalen, Dominion, 170â175; see also Tamminen, Crusader, 79â80).
See Gaposchkin, Weapons, 137, 154â155, 267, 280â281.
There may have been a divergence in perception: it seems plausible that inhabitants understood the liturgy in eschatological terms, whereas visitors from the West perceived it as apocalyptic.
See Candida R. Moss, The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (Oxford 2010).
See Palmer, Apocalypse, 228; Christoph Auffarth, Irdische Wege und himmlischer Lohn: Kreuzzug, Jerusalem und Fegefeuer in religionswissenschaftlicher Perspektive (Göttingen 2002), 157. On the distinction of collective and individual Apocalypse, see Buc, Holy War, 152â176; Lobrichon, âEnds,â 31â32.
The abbot of Casa-Maria betrays this outlook regarding the Second Crusadeâs participants: âDenique confessi sunt nobis qui redibant, quod vidissent multos ibi morientes, qui libenter se mori dicebant, neque velle reverti, ne amplius in peccatis reciderent.â (John of Casa-Maria, Epistola, 590; see Cole, Preaching, 56â57.) During the Fourth Crusade, participants voiced concerns that sins committed in the preparation period or during the crusade (that is, after the remission was granted) may jeopardize the enterprise (see Tamminen, Crusader, 163â166).
See Schein, Gateway, 145; Paul, Footsteps, 76; Ora Limor, âPlacing an Idea: The Valley of Jehoshaphat in Religious Imagination,â in: Between Jerusalem and Europe, ed. Renana Bartal and Bianca Kühnel (Leiden 2015), 288â290, 293â300.
The concept of providential nodes has been developed in: Buc, Holy War, 278â284. See also on typological causalities in salvation history: Buc, Guerre Sainte, 25â26, 32â33, 41â42.
Augustine defined Jerusalemâs conquests as providential watersheds, each initiating a new age in his model of six ages of the world (see Rubenstein, Dream, 25, 28; see also Markus, Saeculum, 17â18).
See Buc, Holy War, 278â279. See also Sizgorich, Violence, 48â49, 67â69; Alexander Marx, Gerd Micheluzzi, and Kristina Kogler, âNarrare: Reflexionen über die Anwendung von Erzähltheorie auf das Mittelalter,â in: Narrareâproducereâordinare (Vienna 2021), 24â26.
Peter takes it to extremes via Amos 3:7: regarding 1187, he asserts that God does not let anything happen without having revealed it beforehand to the prophetsâa radical departure from Augustinian agnosticism (Peter of Blois, Sermo 39, 677â678); see the chapter on Jerusalem.
Is. 34:4; Rev. 6:14. Isaiah says: complicabuntur sicut liber caeli. And Revelation: caelum recessit sicut liber involutus. See also Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (I), 261; with regard to the close Second Coming, he proclaims that faith will turn into sight (fides transibit in speciem), that is, spiritual into physical.
Yet, authors often understand the two emperors as Godâs avengers; see the chapter on Jerusalem. See also Buc, Holy War, 21â22, 76â77, 264; Glaser, âScheitern,â 140â142.
Flori, Lâislam, esp. 116â121, 320â325; see also Lobrichon, Jérusalem, 27â35; Tolan, Saracens, 40â57.
See, e.g., Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 359, where he sketches the Holy Landâs turbulent history, including the Islamic expansion. See the chapter on Jerusalem.
On the year 1000, see, e.g., Landes, Relics; Flori, Lâislam, 226â241, 258â260, 266â281.
See Lobrichon, Jérusalem, 130â133; Buc, Holy War, 99, 278â284; Rubenstein, Armies, 318â319. On the heightened interest in the Apocalypse in the early 12th century, see also Whalen, Dominion, 79â83.
On these waves, see Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095â1131 (Cambridge, UK 1997), 7â22; Christopher J. Tyerman, Godâs War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, Mass. 2006), 261â267.
For expressing surprise about its failure: âNec facile invenies sive in historiis, sive in annalibus, quod ab exordio Christianitatis usque ad tempus istud tanta multitudo populi dei tam subito et tam miserabiliter deperierit, sicut nunc factum estâ (Ex auctario Gemblacensi, ed. Delisle, 274).
See Kahl, âEschatology,â 35â47; Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology,â 328â338; Rubenstein, Dream, 107â122. See also Goetz, âReformziele,â 82â85.
See the chapter on the failure of crusades. See also Peter of Blois, Ep.98, 307, where he inverts the meaning of Is. 66:10; the vantage point is 1185: the prophecy had hitherto failed to be fulfilledâin agreement with the discourse after the Second Crusade. See the chapter on Jerusalem.
Their nature as a plot-twist is corroborated by the surprise that numerous contemporaries expressed (e.g., Gregory VIII, Audita tremendi, ed. Chroust, 6; Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 355; Roger of Howden, Gesta, 2:12; Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, 365; Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 36).
See, e.g., Martin of León, Liber sermonum, Sermo 22, 858; Ralph Ardens, Pars (I), Section (2), Sermo 23, 2024; Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 49. One chronicle even equates Jerusalemâs loss with the crucifixion (Continuatio Zwetlensis, 543; see also Henry of Albano, Ep.32, PL 204:249).
Peter of Blois, Conquestio, 85â86. See also Itinerarium peregrinorum, ed. Mayer, 265, saying that the Muslims proclaimed after Jerusalemâs conquest the law that Christâs Passion had already destroyed, the law of the Old Covenantâan unscheduled turning point. See the chapter on Jerusalem.
This study discussed some early 13th-century examples, especially: John of Abbeville, Ad crucesignatos, ed. Cole, 222â226; Ms. Oxford, Magd. Coll. 168, fols. 70vâ72r. Several exegetes of the 13th and 14th centuries made the Second and the Third Crusades into further nodes on the way to the Apocalypse. As Buc argues, such nodes developed exactly because the events had been considered apocalyptic in their own time (Buc, Holy War, 281â284). Joachim of Fioreâs prediction towards Richard Lionheart also remained a vivid story for the rest of the Middle Ages: one piece of the apocalyptic Third Crusade thus had a powerful legacy (see Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachitism (Oxford 1969), 73â74, 100â101).
Landes developed a model for the emergence and abatement of apocalyptic expectations, the apocalyptic wave, consisting of waxing wave, breaking wave, churning wave, and return to normal time (Landes, Heaven, 52â61). This is a useful model, yet at times it requires adaptation according to context.
In agreement, see Landes, Heaven, 4â6, 63â65, 83â88; Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology,â 306â307; Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 163â164; Palmer, Apocalypse, 18â19.
See in general David dâAvray, Medieval Religious Rationalities: A Weberian Analysis (Cambridge, UK 2010).
Rubenstein, âCrusade and Apocalypse,â 182; see also Flori, Lâislam, 288â294; Buc, âCrusade and Eschatology,â 330, 336â338; Buc, Holy War, 53â54, 85, 170, 190.
See, e.g., Baldwin of Canterbury, De commendatione, 391, 395, 435â436; Petrus Cantor, Verbum abbreviatum, 61, 195; Peter of Blois, Sermo 22, 626; Sermo 58, 732; Compendium in Iob, 800; Garnerius of Clairvaux, Sermoâ¯4, 592; Martin of León, Liber sermonum, Sermo 8, 825; De diversis, Sermo 4, 98; Commentary on Rev. (19.20), 398â399; Alan of Lille, Distinctiones, 694, 763, 796, 828, 843, 912; Contra haereticos (2.1), 377; and (2.25), 399â400; Ars praedicandi, 183; Ms. BL Add 19767, fol. 73r; Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (I), 259; Benedictinus anonymus, De penitentia, PL 213:890; Ms. Troyes 1301, fol. 141r; Ralph Ardens, Pars (II), De tempore, Sermo 18, 1369â1372; Pars (I), Section (1), Sermo 28, 1765â1766; Pars (I), Section (2), Sermo 19, 2010; Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus (6.20), 1228; Innocent III, Quia maior, 818.
This agrees with Landesâ idea that protagonists must boost their âdoseâ to maintain their apocalyptic inebriation (Landes, Heaven, 44, 57â58).
Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 357, 360; Ralph Ardens, Pars (II), De tempore, Sermo 19, 1373; see also Henry of Albano, Ep.31, 247, 249; Jacques de Vitry, Sermoâ¯2, ed. Maier, 106; Guillaume le Breton, Philippidos, ed. Delaborde, 66; Odo of Chateauroux, Sermo 2, ed. Maier, 146.
Bede had already identified the birds as the saints (see Buc, Holy War, 88).
Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 50â51; Ralph Ardens, Pars (II), De tempore, Sermo 19, 1374; Hélinand of Froidmont, Sermo 8, 546â547; Martin of León, De diversis, Sermo 11, 144; see also Ansbert, Historia, ed. Chroust, 14; Baldwin of Canterbury, Sermo 8, 127; Henry of Albano, Ep.32, PL 204:249. Several texts refer to the virga with which Christ would annihilate the unbelievers according to Rev. 19 (e.g., Peter of Blois, Contra Iudeos, 838; Passio Raginaldi, 56; Sermo 39, 678; Garnerius of Clairvaux, Sermo 3, 590; Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (IX), 324; (XIII), 355; Itinerarium peregrinorum, ed. Mayer, 247).
See Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 40, 57; discussed by Marx, âPassio Raginaldi,â 221.
Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 54â55; see also Peter of Blois, Conquestio, 79; John of Abbeville, Ad crucesignatos, ed. Cole, 223; Martin of León, Commentary on Rev. (2.5), 310; Ralph Ardens, Pars (I), Section (2), Sermo 38, 2075; Baldwin of Canterbury, Sermo 3, 57.
Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 68; see also Ralph Ardens, Pars (I), Section (1), Sermo 32, 1780â1781; Sicard of Cremona, De officiis, 214. The reference stems from Rev. 8â10. See Marx, âPassio Raginaldi,â 219â224.
See esp. the imagined speech of the devil in: Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 359â360 and Ms. Troyes 509, fols. 154vâ155r.
Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 350â351 and Ms. Troyes 509, fol. 150râv.
Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 355 and Ms. Troyes 509, fol. 152v. Note that probet Dominus is present tense subjunctive.
Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 354 and Ms. Troyes 509, fol. 152r.
Gregory VIII, Audita tremendi, ed. Chroust, 6; see also Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, 365; Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 36; Ep.87, 274; Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica, 164; Ralph Ardens, Pars (II), De sanctis, Sermo 8, 1519; Gunther of Pairis, Hystoria, ed. Orth, 135; Lucius III, Ep.182, 1313.
Henry of Albano, Ep.32, ed. Chroust, 11; see also De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 354; Geoffrey of Auxerre, Sermo 3, ed. Gastaldelli, 80; Sermo 8, ed. Gastaldelli, 123; Sermo 20, ed. Gastaldelli, 240; Peter of Blois, Conquestio, 83; Hélinand of Froidmont, Sermo 10, 564.
Cited in Roger of Howden, Chronica, 3:130.
See, e.g., Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 33, 70; Conquestio, 78; Henry of Albano, De peregrinante civitate Dei (XIII), 355, 359; Ms. BL Add 24145, fol. 77v; Baldwin of Canterbury, Sermo 8, 127; Alan of Lille, Contra haereticos (2.23), 399; Martin of León, De diversis, Sermo 11, 150; Roger of Howden, Gesta, 2:152 (Joachim of Fioreâs sermon); Lucius III, Ep.12, 1085. On the Second Crusade, see Bernard of Clairvaux, Ep.457, 890; Odo of Deuil, De profectione, ed. Berry, 70â71. On Bernard, see Kahl, âAuszujäten,â 637, 649; Skottki, âNumber,â 258â261. See also Skottki, âVom âSchrecken Gottesâ zur Bluttaufe. Gewalt und Visionen auf dem Ersten Kreuzzug nach dem Zeugnis des Raimund dâAguilers,â in: Gewalterfahrung und Prophetie, ed. Peter Buschel and Christoph Marx (Vienna 2013), 477â478.
See, e.g., Peter of Blois, Passio Raginaldi, 49; Conquestio, 85â86; Ms. BNF lat. 14859, fol. 215v; Ms. BNF lat. 2954, fol. 159v; Ms. Dijon 219, fols. 87vâ88r; Ms. BL Add 19767, fol. 75r. See also Marx, âCity of God,â 104â105.
See Marx, âPassio Raginaldi,â 219â222.