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ABSTRACT
Twelfth-century narrative accounts in Armenian, Syriac and Latin recount a number of processions in Syria and Palestine in which both Eastern Christians and Latins participated. Processions were one of the many ways by which the Franks expressed their political dominance over the urban (and likely also the rural) landscape, but it was also a way that all Christian communities used to express and even construct relationships among themselves. Scholars often assume that the procession performs (in a Durkheimian sense) the work of creating or displaying unity. Yet the scattered sources of the twelfth-century Frankish Levant suggest that this is only one of the functions an inter-confessional procession can play. As common were processions that delimited, separated and hierarchised communities.
Note on contributor
Christopher MacEvitt is Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College. His book, The Crusades and Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (2008), examines the relationship between the Frankish settlers in the Levant and indigenous Christians in the twelfth century, and he is currently completing a book on Franciscan martyrs in Islamic lands.
Notes
1 The following abbreviations are used in this article: AA: Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. and trans. Susan Edgington (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007); CCCM: Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis; 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); 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).
‘Ex illo “Allachibar!”, quod infidelitas orando exclamat, hac in urbe obmutuit, ac pro eo “Christus vincit, regnat, imperat!” tanquam rediens postliminio, reboavit.’ Radulfus Cadomensis, Tancredus, ed. Edoardo D’Angelo. CCCM 123 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 41 (144.1278–81).
2 ‘Ubi tociens invocatum est nomen maledictum perfidi Machometi, nomen abhominabile, quod os demonis nominavit, invocetur amodo nomen benedictum Iesu Christi … ’ Robert B.C. Huygens, ed., Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, vol. 6. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), 123.
3 See Daniel Galadza, ‘Greek Liturgy in Crusader Jerusalem: Witnesses of Liturgical Life of the Holy Sepulchre and St Sabas Lavra’, in this special issue for the absence of references to the Franks in Greek Orthodox (‘Melkite’) liturgical texts in the patriarchate of Jerusalem. Journal of Medieval History 43, no. 4 (2017): 421–437.
4 See Andrew Jotischky for a broad examination of inter-religious spirituality: ‘Pilgrimage, Procession and Ritual Encounters between Christians and Muslims in the Crusader States’, in Cultural Encounters in the Crusades, eds. Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen, and Helle Vogt (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2013), 245–62.
5 Christopher MacEvitt, Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
6 FC, 202–3; FC, trans., 88.
7 FC, 278–9; FC, trans., 115–16.
8 The Greeks were mysteriously left out of the kisses.
9 See also Fulcher's description of grateful Armenians welcoming Baldwin of Boulogne on his way to Edessa. FC, 212; FC, trans., 91.
10 AA, 400–1.
11 See Dana Carleton Munro's classic article: ‘The Speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont, 1095’, American Historical Review 11, no. 2 (1906): 231–42.
12 In his appearance to Peter in Jerusalem, Jesus admonished him to ‘disclose the malicious acts and injustices inflicted on our people and our holy places’. AA, 6–7.
13 See also the account of the procession in Antioch in Tudebode: Petrus Tudebodus, Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, eds. John Hugh and Laurita L. Hill (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1977), 108. Tudebode did not compose his own account of the First Crusade; he ‘lightly glossed and annotated a book’, in Jay Rubenstein's description, the book being an early version of the Gesta Francorum. This procession in Antioch does not appear in the Gesta, and therefore is distinctive to Tudebode's account. Jay Rubenstein, ‘What is the Gesta Francorum and Who Is Peter Tudebode?’, Revue Mabillion, new series 16 (2005): 179–204. Jerusalem was also the site of urban inter-confessional processions: see the description of Greek and Latin priests processing together to the Templum Domini: Rosalind Hill, ed., Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1962), 94. Robert of Rheims included this procession in his reworking of the Gesta, but omitted the participation of the Greeks. Robert of Rheims, ‘Historia Hierosolomitana’, in Recueil de historiens des croisades: historiens occidentaux, vol. 3 (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1866), 873 (IX.xv). See also Fulcher's description of Baldwin I's arrival in Jerusalem in 1100 when he was greeted by the population, including Greeks and Syrians: FC, 368; FC, trans., 143.
14 AA, 338–9.
15 AA, 338.
16 AA, 338.
17 FC, 639–42; FC, trans., 233. Fulcher did mention one ambiguous example: in 1123, with Baldwin II in captivity, Fulcher recorded that ‘we who remained in Jerusalem, Latins, Greeks and Syrians alike, did not cease to pray for our brothers who were thus placed in tribulation, to bestow alms upon the needy, and at the same time to visit piously in barefooted procession all the churches in the Holy City.’ FC, 665; FC, trans., 242.
18 For example, he mentioned the pious acts during the first battle of Ascalon (1099) discussed by Fulcher, saying that ‘the entire body of Christians – our leaders, bishops, clergy, and all the people (populus universus) – assembled, armed with the weapons of the spirit … to the sound of hymns and spiritual songs, they hastened with bare feet to the Temple of the Lord [from the Sepulchre].’ WT, 433; translation adapted from WT, trans.: 1: 394–5.
19 WT, 461 (10: 6); WT, trans., 1: 425.
20 FC, 635; FC, trans., 232. Fulcher did not even mention Morphia's name. See Simon John, ‘Royal Inauguration and Liturgical Culture in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099-1187’, in this special issue for more on Frankish coronations in Jerusalem. Journal of Medieval History 43, no. 4 (2017): 485–504.
21 See Nathanael Andrade, ‘The Processions of John Chrysostom and the Contested Spaces of Constantinople’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 18, no. 2 (2010): 161–89, for the way in which the patriarch sacralised public spaces in Constantinople during his conflict with the imperial family.
22 Franz-Josef Arlinghaus, ‘The Myth of Urban Unity: Religion and Social Performance in Late Medieval Braunschweig’, in Cities, Texts, and Social Networks, 400–1500: Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Urban Space, eds. Caroline Goodson, Anne Elizabeth Lester and Carol Symes (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 228.
23 Matt‘eos Urhayets‘i [Matthew of Edessa], Zhamanakagrut‘iwn (Vagharshapat: Tparan Mayr At‘oroy Srboy Ejmiatsni, 1898). All translations, unless otherwise noted, are from Ara Dostourian's English translation. Matthew of Edessa, Armenia and the Crusades: the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, trans. Ara Edmond Dostourian (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993). For more on the dating of Matthew, see Christopher MacEvitt, ‘The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa: Apocalypse, the First Crusade and the Armenian Diaspora’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 61 (2007): 254–96.
24 Thomas Artsruni, History of the House of the Artsrunik‘, trans. Robert W. Thomson (Detroit: Wayne State Press, 1985), 369, and Lyn Jones, Between Islam and Byzantium: Aght‘amar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 114–18. Jones argues that True Cross relics in Armenia were associated with Byzantine models of imperial rulership.
25 Zaroui Pogossian, The Letter of Love and Concord: a Revised Diplomatic Edition with Historical and Textual Comments and English Translation (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 115–16.
26 Ashot visits the Cross, Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 8; Chronicle, 22. Matthew's chronology is woefully inaccurate here. He places these events in 971/2, while Ashot IV actually ruled from 1021 to 1039.
27 Senek‘erim was buried at Varag; Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 55; Chronicle, 50. Matthew also gets this wrong, as Senek‘erim died in 1027, not in 1022/3 as Matthew recorded.
28 This is probably Paul, the abbot of the monastery of Varag. According to Matthew, he had been consecrated as kat‘olikos by Philaretos, a Chalcedonian Armenian warlord whom Matthew in general detested. Paul was elevated in 1085/6 (534 in Armenian chronology) in opposition to Grigor II Vykaser Pahlavuni, whom Matthew championed: Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 228–9; Chronicle, 150. When Paul the former kat‘olikos died a year after the arrival of the Cross in the city, Matthew explained that ‘Paul had accompanied the Holy Cross [to Edessa] and died in the same year’: Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 244; Chronicle, 159.
29 Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 242. Chronicle, 157. Dostourian translated ‘arar patehut‘iwn’ as ‘arranged a procession’, but generally ‘patehut‘iwn’ has a more general meaning of ‘opportunity, event, chance’.
30 For an early example, see Victricius of Rouen: Gillian Clark, ‘Victricius of Rouen: Praising the Saints’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 7, no. 3 (1999): 365–99.
31 According to Matthew, the Greek T‘oros did not become the ruler of Edessa until the Armenian year 543 (1094/5 CE) after the death of Buzan: Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 249; Chronicle, 161. Ibn al-Athir, however, recorded that T‘oros was ruling the city on behalf of Buzan, but he was writing more than a century later, while Matthew was an eyewitness. Furthermore, for the purposes of this argument, what matters is who Matthew thought was ruling Edessa. D.S. Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l Ta’rikh: Part I (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 280.
32 Matthew elsewhere identifies him as a slar (Persian, salar, general), ruling on behalf of Buzan. For an onomastic comparison, see the Khutlukh associated with the fortifications of Jerusalem under the Ayyubids: R. Stephen Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols: the Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260 (Albany: State University of New York, 1977), 151. The name strongly suggests a Turkic and Muslim background.
33 The same basic story is told in the Doctrina Addai and the Acts of Thaddeus, the earliest manuscript of which dates to the early sixth century. Sebastian Brock, ‘Eusebius and Syrian Christianity’, in Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publications, 1999), 258–80.
34 The Doctrina Addai had been translated into Armenian sometime in the early Middle Ages. The date of Movses is controversial; some claim a fifth-century date for him, while others argue that he could not have written before the tenth century. See Robert W. Thomson, ‘The Writing of History: the Development of the Armenian and Georgian Traditions’, in Il Caucaso: cerniera fra culture dal Mediterraneo alla Persia (secoli IV–XI), 20–26 aprile 1995. 2 vols. (Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1996), 1: 493–514, especially 506–10.
35 See J.B. Segal, Edessa, ‘the Blessed City’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 65–6, for the semantic and legendary entanglements of Thaddeus, Judas and Thomas. Matthew's continuator Gregory the Priest mentioned the tradition that Edessa was protected from violent conquest as long as the city remained faithful to Jesus: ‘Famine and sword will never enter your city as long as its inhabitants observe my commandments.’ Zengi, according to Gregory, was the first to conquer the city directly. Grigor Erits‘ [Gregory the Priest], ‘Sharunkut‘iwn’, in Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 373; translated in Gregory the Priest, ‘Continuation’, in Armenia and the Crusades, tr. Ara Edmond Dostourian (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993), 244.
36 Pogossian, Letter of Love and Concord, 113.
37 He used it again during famine in Edessa (Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 271; Chronicle, 175), when Mawdud massacred the populace of Edessa (‘woe to the people of Abgar’: Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 315; Chronicle, 206), and the same quote again when the Franks temporarily expelled the population from the city (Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 326–7; Chronicle, 213).
38 Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 262; Chronicle, 169.
39 Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 314; Chronicle, 205.
40 Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 242; Chronicle, 157. He does not tell who was responsible; one therefore suspects that Armenians may have been involved.
41 The icon is a bit more mysterious than the Cross. One possible candidate for the image is the legendary image that Jesus made on the day his mother died that was brought to Armenia by Bartholomew, mentioned in the ‘Life of Nerses’; see Pogossian, Letter of Love and Concord, 117. According to Matthew, T‘at‘ul, the prince of Marash, gave his city to Joscelin in 1104/5, and at the same time sold ‘an icon of the Theotokos to the great Armenian prince T‘oros, son of Constantine’. Matthew of Edessa, Zhamanakagrut‘iwn, 298; Chronicle, 195. While the suggestion that the icon was sold sounds mildly sacrilegious, Matthew clearly admired T‘oros, and would not mind the icon being in his hands. Otherwise, we have no evidence of the fate of the Cross or the icon; the use of the Cross in battle is the last mention of it. The monastery of Varag also had a famous image of the Virgin in its possession, as Matthew mentioned ‘an icon of the Theotokos’ along with the Holy Cross in his first reference to the monastery. The continuator of Matthew's chronicle, Gregory the Priest, recorded that when John II Komnenos attacked Tʻoros’ brother and successor Leon, he took the holy icon of the Theotokos back to Constantinople, along with Leon and his family. Grigor Erets‘, ‘Sharunkut‘iwn’, 369; trans. Gregory the Priest, ‘Continuation’, 241.
42 MacEvitt, ‘Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa’, 254–96.
43 For a recent report on the monastery, see P. Abdo Badwi and Fady Baroudi, ‘Le couvent de Mar Barsauma: redécouverte du site’, Parole de l'Orient 31 (2006): 243–56.
44 Michael the Great, The Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex of the Chronicle of Michael the Great, ed. Gregorios Yuhanna Ibrahim (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009), 619. The translations that follow throughout the article were adapted from both Michel le Syrien, Chronique, trans. J. -B. Chabot. 4 vols. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1899‒1910), 3: 238, and Matti Moosa, The Syriac Chronicle of Michael Rabo (the Great): a Universal History from Creation (Teaneck: Beth Antioch Press, 2014), 652, but I have given citations only to Moosa's more accurate translation. I would like to thank Luke Yarborough for his help gaining access to the Codex and Moosa's translation.
45 For another example of Franks as arbiters, see Chronicle of Michael the Great, 599–603; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 634–5.
46 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 619; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 652.
47 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 619; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 652. B‘otha is the most common word in Michael the Great for this kind of activity which encompasses processions, but is a broader liturgical term.
48 The chronicle of Michael the Great is preserved in a single copy dated to 1598. But in the thirteenth century, it was twice translated into Armenian, and copied several times; we have 60 copies surviving in Armenian. The Armenian version abridged Michael's lengthy account, beginning as it did with Adam, and did away with his tripartite division of subjects, and added and changed details throughout. The translation included this account of Barsauma ridding Edessa of locusts, but the Armenian translation included the participation of the pope, who had come from Rome. The pope was incited by the Greeks to open the reliquary not on account of the specific miracles, but instead as a part of a general attack on the non-Chalcedonian Syrians. The procession becomes a vigil instead. Zhamanakagrut‘iwn tear‘n Mikhayēli asorwots‘ patriark‘i (Jerusalem: I tparani srbots‘ Hakovbeants‘, 1871), 414–15; Robert Bedrosian, trans., The Chronicle of Michael the Great, Patriarch of the Syrians (Long Branch: Sources of the Armenian Tradition, 2013), 184.
49 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 651; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 685.
50 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 619; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 652.
51 Luke 19.
52 At certain points, however, this structure does break down, with some sections containing only a single column.
53 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 651; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 684.
54 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 652; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 685.
55 Most commonly in Arabic sources. See, for example, in the biography of Zengi: Baron MacGuckin de Slane, trans., Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary. 4 vols. (Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Britain and Ireland, 1842‒71), 1: 540.
56 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 655; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 687.
57 These were of course the words that Jesus spoke to the Apostles at the Transfiguration; Matt. 17:7. Chronicle of Michael the Great, 656; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 688.
58 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 656; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 688.
59 For more on Bar Wahbūn, see Hubert Kaufhold, ʻZur syrischen Kirchengeschichte des 12. Jahrhunderts: neue Quellen über Theodoros bar Wahbūn’, Oriens Christianus 74 (1990): 115–51.
60 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 727; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 722.
61 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 727; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 722.
62 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 727; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 723.
63 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 728; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 724.
64 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 728; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 724.
65 Chronicle of Michael the Great, 728; Moosa, trans., Chronicle, 724.
66 Muslims knew about Armenian devotion to the arm of S. Grigor; see A.C.S. Peacock, ‘An Interfaith Polemic of Medieval Anatolia: Qādī Burhān al-Dīn al-Anawī on the Armenians and their Heresies’, in Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia, eds. A.C.S. Peacock, Bruno De Nicola, and Sara Nur Yildiz (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 233–62.