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Articles

Royal inauguration and liturgical culture in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099–1187

Pages 485-504 | Received 02 Mar 2017, Accepted 19 Apr 2017, Published online: 10 Nov 2017
 

ABSTRACT

While modern scholars have often assumed that the models of liturgical kingship which prevailed in Latin Christendom during the Early Middle Ages became less prominent in the Central Middle Ages, more recent work has suggested that royal dynasties including those of France and England maintained practices of liturgical kingship between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. This article contributes to this recent wave of historiography by examining the image of monarchy which was adopted in the kingdom of Jerusalem between 1099 and 1187. It takes as its focus the inauguration ceremonies and associated royal rituals performed by the monarch during this period, considering aspects of each ceremony, including the various constituent rituals, the place or places in which the rituals were held, the prelates who presided, the identity of other individuals who were recorded as having taken part, and the dates upon which the ceremonies were held. It is suggested that the royal dynasty of Jerusalem was attuned to the liturgical potential of inauguration ceremonies, and that it adopted rituals which were aimed at fostering consensus among the political community of the kingdom. The monarchy created an image of liturgical kingship which combined Western practices with elements that were unique to Jerusalem.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Cecilia Gaposchkin, Iris Shagrir and all the attendees of the conference at Dartmouth College in April 2016 for their instructive comments which aided considerably in the composition of this article. I am particularly grateful to Jay Rubinstein, who led the discussion on my paper. I trialled some of my ideas at a workshop in Oxford in March 2016, where I received helpful suggestions and comments from Johanna Dale, Matthew Kempshall and Björn Weiler.

Note on contributor

Simon John is Lecturer in Medieval History at Swansea University. His interests include medieval political thought on kingship, and the socio-cultural impact of the crusades in Latin Christendom. He has published articles on aspects of his research in journals including the English Historical Review and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and is the author of the forthcoming monograph Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c.1060‒1100 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017).

Notes

1 The following abbreviations are used in this essay: AA: Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. and trans. Susan Edgington (Oxford: Clarendon, 2007); CCCM: Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis; Ernoul: Louis de Mas Latrie, ed., Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier (Paris: Renouard, 1871); FC: Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg: Winters, 1913); FC, trans.: Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127, trans. Frances Ryan (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969); Ibelin: John of Ibelin, Le Livre des Assises, ed. Peter Edbury (Leiden: Brill, 2003); Mayer: Hans Mayer, ‘Das Pontifikale von Tyrus und die Krönung der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 21 (1967): 141–232; RA: Raymond of Aguilers, Liber, eds. John Hill and Laurita Hill (Paris: Geuthner, 1969); WT: William of Tyre, Chronique, ed. R.B.C. Huygens. CCCM 63 and 63A. 2 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986); WT, trans.: William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. Ernest Babcock and August Krey. 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943); WTCont: Margaret Morgan, ed., La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184–1197) (Paris: Geuthner, 1982), trans. as The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, trans. Peter Edbury (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998).

F.S. Schmitt, ed., Sancti Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, Opera omnia. 6 vols. (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1946–63), 5: 255; The Letters of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, trans. Walter Frölich. 3 vols. (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1990), 3: 36–8.

2 Mayer.

3 See, for example, Jean Richard, Le royaume latin de Jérusalem (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1953); Joshua Prawer, The Crusaders’ Kingdom: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (New York: Praeger, 1973); Alan V. Murray, The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: a Dynastic History, 1099–1125 (Oxford: Prosopographica et Genealogica, 2000).

4 e.g. Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).

5 See, most recently, Élisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, Le mystère des rois de Jérusalem, 1099–1187 (Paris: Albin Michel, 2013).

6 Carlrichard Brühl, ‘Kronen und Köningsbrauch im frühen und hohen Mittelalter’, Historische Zeitschrift 234 (1982): 1–31; Hans Schaller, ‘Der heilige Tag als Termin mittelalterliche Staatsakte’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 30, no. 1 (1974): 1–24.

7 Janet Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London: Hambledon, 1986); eadem, ‘The Lord’s Anointed and the People’s Choice: Carolingian Royal Ritual’, in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, eds. David Cannadine and Simon R. F. Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 137–80.

8 Nicholas Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

9 M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008).

10 Johanna Dale, ‘Christus Regnat: Inauguration and Images of Kingship in England, France and the Empire, c.1050–c.1250’ (Ph.D. diss., University of East Anglia, 2013).

11 On medieval vocabulary for inauguration, see Dale, ‘Christus Regnat’, 162–74. The terms ‘anointing’ and ‘consecration’ apparently conveyed almost identical resonances to medieval writers.

12 On inauguration ceremonies (‘Krönung’) and crown-wearings (‘Festkrönung’), see Percy Schramm, Der König von Frankreich: das Wesen der Monarchie vom 9. zum 16. Jahrhundert. 2 vols. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960), 1: 112–30.

13 Martin Biddle, ‘Seasonal Festivals and Residence: Winchester, Westminster and Gloucester in the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries’, Anglo-Norman Studies 8 (1985): 51–72.

14 Dale, ‘Christus Regnat’, 177. This was in line with episcopal consecrations, which were likewise usually carried out on Sundays.

15 Dale, ‘Christus Regnat’, 182.

16 On these sources, see I. Shagrir and C. Gaposchkin, ‘Liturgy and Devotion in the Crusader States: Introduction’, in this special issue, Journal of Medieval History 43, no. 4 (2017): 359–366.

17 Ibelin, 569–80.

18 Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati, MS G.V. 12, ff. 65v–71v and 108v, edited in Mayer, 222–5, 227–8, which must be read in conjunction with P. Ward, ‘An Early Version of the Anglo-Saxon Coronation Ceremony’, English Historical Review 57 (1942): 345–61. On the Rathold tradition and the attendant ordines, see Richard A. Jackson, Ordines coronationis Franciae: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages. 2 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995–2000), 1: 168–200.

19 On the Templar Ordinal, see Shagrir and Gaposchkin, ‘Liturgy and Devotion in the Crusader States: Introduction’, 359–366, and S. Salvadó, ‘Rewriting the Latin liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre: Text, Ritual and Devotion for 1149’, in this special issue, Journal of Medieval History 43, no. 4 (2017): 403–420.

20 RA, 143.

21 FC, 306–8; FC, trans., 124; AA, 444–7.

22 See the discussion by J. Rubenstein, ‘Holy Fire and Sacral Kingship in Post-Conquest Jerusalem’, in this special issue, Journal of Medieval History 43, no. 4 (2017): 470–484.

23 See, e.g. Guibert of Nogent, Dei Gesta per Francos, ed. R.B.C. Huygens. CCCM 127A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), 317–18. Note, however, that that Albert of Aachen attributed the theological concern over the crown of thorns not to Godfrey but to Baldwin I: AA, 550–1. Fulcher simply stated that Godfrey was not crowned because he had not wished it and some had opposed it, but gave no further information: FC, 385; FC, trans., 148.

24 RA, 152.

25 FC, 309–10; FC, trans., 125; AA, 450–3; RA, 154. On the relic, Deborah Gerish, ‘The True Cross and the Kings of Jerusalem’, Haskins Society Journal 8 (1996): 137–55. On the True Cross more generally, Barbara Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood: the Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image, trans. Lee Preedy (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

26 AA, 516–17. Cf. WT, 450; WT, trans., 1: 414.

27 ‘omnis populus Hierosolymitanus’: FC, 352–3; FC, trans., 137. Cf. AA, 528–31.

28 On the relationship of the two Baldwins, Murray, Crusader Kingdom, 187–8.

29 FC, 368; FC, trans., 143.

30 ‘ab omnibus magnis ac parvis rex et domnus constitutus est’: AA, 540–1.

31 FC, 368; FC, trans., 143.

32 WT, 461; WT, trans., 1: 425.

33 ‘rex de negotiis suis aliquantis expediretur’. FC, 369; FC, trans., 143.

34 FC, 384; FC, trans., 147. On Baldwin’s dispute with Daibert, see Rubenstein, ‘Holy Fire’.

35 ‘Et quia instabat Nativitas Salvatoris, et quia ipse Balduinus et ipse patriarcha Daimbertus invicem aliquatenus obliqui errant …  de ejus coronatione atque regni intronizatione usque ad festum dilatum est.’ Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium, in Recueil des historiens des croisades: historiens occidentaux. 5 vols. (Paris: Académie royale des inscriptions et des belles-lettres, 1844–98), 3: 522.

36 Fulcher described it as the ‘Basilica of the Blessed Mary at Bethlehem’ (‘basilica beatae Mariae apud Bethleem’). FC, 384–5; FC, trans., 148.

37 ‘sub sacra unctione sublimatus et coronatus est rex Balduinus’. FC, 385; FC, trans., 148, though note that Ryan mistranslates ‘unctione sublimatus  …  est’ as ‘appointed’ rather than ‘anointed’.

38 ‘sollempni consecratus et in regem Ierusalem unctus, in magna gloria coronatus est’: AA, 550–1; ‘consecratus est in regem inunctus …  et regio diademate sollempniter laureatus’: WT, 463; WT, trans., 1: 427–8, which seems to denote a crown rather than the more abstract diadem of kingly authority.

39 AA, 550–1.

40 ‘a patriarcha memorato, una cum episcopis cleroque ac populo adsistentibus’: FC, 385; FC, trans., 148; ‘astantibus clero et populo, ecclesiarum quoque prelatis et regni principibus’: WT, 463; WT, trans., 1: 427–8.

41 ‘ab exultante clero, principibus et populo’: WT, 513; WT, trans., 1: 481–2.

42 AA, 550–1.

43 On possible practical considerations behind the decision: Mayer, 151; Murray, Crusader Kingdom, 95–6; Barber, Crusader States, 63.

44 WT, 513; WT, trans., 1: 281–2.

45 Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993–2009), 1: 137–56 (no. 61), especially 138.

46 John Wilkinson, Joyce Hill and W. Ryan, trans., Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099–1185 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1988), 143.

47 Dale, ‘Christus Regnat’, 191.

48 Samuel anointed both Saul and David (1 Sam. 10:16). Jesus ‘Christ’ was anointed in the sense of being anointed of God, rather than by holy oil. In 1100, only the kings of England and France were anointed during their inaugurations. Other dynasties adopted anointing later: the kings of Sicily, for example, adopted it upon the creation of that kingdom in 1130. Dale, ‘Christus Regnat’, 56. Mayer attributes the decision to anoint Baldwin in 1100 to the strong cultural influence of France, and asserts that the precedents for God’s chosen ones receiving unction in Jerusalem were too important to overlook. Mayer, 163.

49 AA, 550–1.

50 On which, see Rubenstein, ‘Holy Fire’.

51 ‘Balduinus rex … pro more regio coronatus fuerat’: FC, 833.

52 Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium, 3: 526.

53 Guibert of Nogent, Dei Gesta per Francos, 343.

54 ‘sollempniter coronatus est’: AA, 744–5.

55 ‘in hac sacra sollempnitate dominice resurrectionis gloriose et catholice coronatus est’: AA, 748–9.

56 AA, 834–5.

57 ‘in omni honore et gloria propter legatos regis Grecorum iussu domni patriarche coronatus sollempniter ac regaliter celebravit’: AA, 834–5.

58 Mayer, 169–70.

59 AA, 868–73.

60 Murray, Crusader Kingdom, 120–3.

61 FC, 615–16; FC, trans., 225.

62 AA, 872–3.

63 WT, 548–9; WT, trans., 1: 519.

64 ‘pari voto et unanimi consensu eum in regem eligentes’: WT, 550; WT, trans., 1: 520.

65 FC, 615–16; FC, trans., 225. The chapter is titled ‘the consecration of King Baldwin on Easter Day’ (‘Quod die Paschae Balduinus sit in regem consecratus’).

66 ‘unxit et consecravit … Unctus quippe Baldwinus in regem et … coronatus’: AA, 872–3. One manuscript reads ‘honoratus’ instead of ‘coronatus’ (see note n).

67 ‘sollempniter et ex more inunctus et consecratus est et diadematis insigne regium suscepit’: WT, 550; WT, trans., 1: 520. On the possible meanings of ‘royal diadem’, see above.

68 e.g. Barber, Crusader States, 119–20; Mayer, 152–3.

69 Murray, Crusader Kingdom, 121–4, for example, suggests that the faction that wished Eustace to succeed Baldwin I was behind the denial of a crown to Baldwin II.

70 Murray, Crusader Kingdom, 122; Mayer, 153.

71 Dale, ‘Christus Regnat’, 163–7.

72 Eadmer, Historia novorum in Anglia, ed. Martin Rule. Rolls Series 81 (London: H.M.S.O., 1884), 9.

73 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 448–9. The day of the ritual coincided with the feast of St Oswald.

74 Mayer, 222–3; Ward, ‘Early Version’, 350, 355.

75 In a charter Baldwin II issued on 31 January 1120, it is noted that he was in the second year of his reign. In another, issued in mid-1120, it is stated that he was in the third year of his reign. There can thus be no doubt that he believed that his reign began at Easter 1118. Hans Mayer, ed., Die Urkunden der Lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem. 4 vols. (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2010), 1: 225–30 (no. 85) and 230–3 (no. 86).

76 Mayer, 152.

77 ‘cum uxore sua diademate regio …  coronatus est’: FC, 635; FC, trans., 232.

78 ‘cum uxore coronatus est’: WT, 562; WT, trans., 1: 535.

79 e.g. Mayer, 153, 162.

80 WT, 551; WT, trans., 1: 522, recorded that Baldwin II sent for his wife and children after his inauguration at Easter 1118.

81 On Pentecost 1068, the archbishop of York (who had earlier anointed William) anointed Matilda as William’s queen consort. Majorie Chibnall, ed. and trans., The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis. 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969–80), 2: 214–15.

82 WT, 625; WT, trans., 2: 45–6.

83 ‘comes cum …  uxore …  sollempniter et ex more coronatus et consecratus est’: WT, 634; WT, trans., 2: 51. The assertion that Fulk and Melisende were inaugurated ‘ex more’ led Mayer to deduce that by 1131 a fixed rite was in use. Mayer, 154.

84 FC, 639; FC, trans., 233.

85 In 1119, the relic was returned from a campaign to Jerusalem and arrived on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. All those who were in the city received it joyously. FC, 632–3; FC, trans., 230.

86 Louis van Tongeren, Exaltation of the Cross: Toward the Origins of the Feast of the Cross and the Meaning of the Cross in Early Medieval Liturgy (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 279–80.

87 London, British Library, MS Egerton 1139, f. 17v.

88 Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 233–40, especially 239.

89 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 185.

90 WT, 711; WT, trans., 2: 135.

91 ‘convenientibus de more principibus simul et universis ecclesiarum prelatis …  sollempniter inunctus, consecratus et cum matre coronatus est’: WT, 717; WT, trans., 2: 139.

92 Mayer, 164‒5.

93 WT, 718; WT, trans., 2: 140.

94 ‘rex  …  consilio proposuerat in die festo Pasche Ierosolomis sollempniter coronari’: WT, 778; WT, trans., 2: 205.

95 ‘et sequenti die subito, matre non vocata, in publicum processit laureatus’: WT, 778; WT, trans., 2: 205.

96 Mayer, 170–1.

97 WT, 864; WT, trans., 2: 295–6.

98 ‘adeptus in regni solium hereditario iure sibi debitum’: WT, 864; WT, trans., 2: 295–6.

99 ‘a … domino Amalrico patriarcha, presentibus et cooperantibus archiepiscopis, episcopis et universis ecclesiarum prelatis, regie unctionis gratiam et diadematis insigne adeptus’: WT, 864; WT, trans., 2: 295–6.

100 Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France. 24 vols. (Paris: Aux dépens des librairies, 1738–1904), 16: 36–7.

101 WT, 962; WT, trans., 2: 399.

102 On his reign: Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

103 ‘sollempniter et ex more a domino Amalrico … comministrantibus archiepiscopis, episcopis et aliis ecclesiarum prelatis, Idibus Iulii, quarta die post patris obitum, inunctus et coronatus est’: WT, 962; WT, trans., 2: 399.

104 Simon John, ‘The “Feast of the Liberation of Jerusalem”: Remembering and Reconstructing the First Crusade in the Holy City, 1099–1187’, Journal of Medieval History 41 (2015): 409–31, especially 415–20.

105 See the discussion in John, ‘“Feast of the Liberation of Jerusalem”’, 420–1.

106 From the reign of Hugh Capet (d. 996) to that of Philip II (d. 1223), the Capetian kings of France had their sons inaugurated during their own lifetime. On this, see Andrew W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France: Studies on Familial Order and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).

107 ‘universe plebis suffragio, cleri quoque qui presens erat assensu … regia decoratus est unctione et sollempniter coronatus’: WT, 1058; WT, trans., 2: 501–2. William explicitly dates the ceremony to 20 November (‘mense Novembre, vicesima die mensis’).

108 ‘communi principum consilio’: WT, 1058; WT, trans., 2: 501–2. Almost immediately after this, William of Tyre made the contradictory claim that opinions of ‘wise men’ (‘virorum prudentum’) in Jerusalem over the appointment of Baldwin V as co-king were ‘many and varied’ (‘varia …  et multiplex’), and revealed that some thought that the appointment would be of no benefit, for it left the kingdom in the charge of two kings who were hampered, one by illness and the other by his young age (‘alter morbo, alter etate’).

109 Mayer, 160–1. Mayer notes that 20 November was the feast of Edmund the Martyr, a ninth-century king of East Anglia, but since no twelfth-century author linked the feast to Baldwin V’s inauguration, it is doubtful that it had a bearing on the choice of date for Baldwin V’s inauguration.

110 Hamilton, Leper King, 194–5, for example, connects Baldwin IV’s decision to have his nephew inaugurated co-king at this time to the recent developments which had led to the elder king removing Guy of Lusignan from the regency.

111 On this feast, see Salvadó, ‘Rewriting the Latin Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre’. The liturgy contained in the Templar Ordinal explicitly states that if the feast fell on the twelfth kalends of December (i.e. 20 November), then it fell on the Sunday before the Sunday upon which others ‒ presumably referring to those in the West ‒ celebrated the start of Advent (i.e. the fourth Sunday before Christmas).

112 On the crown-wearing and its date, see Hamilton, Leper King, 194–6, 207–10. Hamilton convincingly argues that this crown-wearing ritual should not be conflated with Baldwin V’s inauguration, as previous scholarship had tended to do.

113 Hamilton, Leper King, 208–9.

114 ‘Ore est il coustume en Jerusalem quant li rois portoit corone que il prent la corone au Sepulcre et la porte en son chief jusques au Temple ou Jhesu Crist fu ofert. La euffre il sa corone. Mais il l’oste depuis par rachat. Ensi soloit l’on faire quant la mere avout son premier enfant masle, qu’ele l’ofroit au Temple, si le rechastoit d’un aignel, out de .ij. colombes ou de .ij. tortereles’: WTCont, 21: WTCont, trans., 15. Cf. Ernoul, 118, Ibelin, 575.

115 ‘Quant li rois avoit oferte sa corone au Temple Salemon ou li Templier manoient, estoient mises les tables por mangier. La se seoit li rois et ses barons et tuit cil qui mangier i voloient, fors soulement les borgeis de Jerusalem qui servoient, que tant devoient il de servise au rei que quant li rois avoit portee corone il servoient et lui et ses barons au mangier’: WTCont, 21; WTCont, trans., 15. Cf. Ernoul, 118, Ibelin, 575–6.

116 Hamilton, Leper King, 210, 216.

117 WTCont, 32–4; WTCont, trans., 25–7; Ernoul, 131–4; Hamilton, Leper King, 216–22.

118 WTCont, 33; WTCont, trans., 26.

119 WTCont, 32–3; WTCont, trans., 25–6; Ernoul, 132.

120 WTCont, 33; WTCont, trans., 26; Mayer, 161; Hamilton, Leper King, 221.

121 Though note that inaugurations could be held on a Friday when it coincided with a significant feast. Frederick Barbarossa had his son Henry VI inaugurated king of Germany in Aachen on Friday 15 August 1169 (the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin): see John B. Freed, Frederick Barbarossa: the Prince and the Myth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 351–2.

122 Ibelin, 572–3. See for example in the Tyre ordo the rubric indicating that the people (‘populus’) praised and acclaimed the new monarch: Mayer, 224; Ward, ‘Early Version’, 358.

123 Nelson, ‘Lord’s Anointed’.

124 David Bates, William the Conqueror (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 256‒7.

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