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ABSTRACT
This analysis uses the genre of the Old French chanson de geste as a lens through which to examine the impact of Hattin and the subsequent loss of Jerusalem in 1187. It argues that these texts act as a vehicle for what Geraldine Heng has termed ‘cultural rescue’: the transfiguring of historical trauma through layers of narrative until it becomes a celebration in the form of romance. The chanson de geste, appealing as it did to the knights and soldiers who were the intended audience of calls to go to Outremer, provided the obvious genre for such a process. This is played out through two temporal concepts: anachronism and utopianism. Anachronism is reflected in a new focus on the First Crusade and capture of Jerusalem, which stands in contrast to the contemporary loss of Jerusalem. Meanwhile Outremer is cast as an increasingly unrealistic utopian environment where anything is possible, up to and including the conversion of Saladin to Christianity. The result is a textual fantasy: Outremer is fossilised in an era where the success of 1099 can be indefinitely prolonged and the failure of 1187 virtually fictionalised out of existence.
Disclosure statement
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Notes
1 ‘Might one not say that to march on Jerusalem is the most beautiful image possible of an internal adventure?’: Gaston Compère, Je, soussigné, Charles le Témeraire, duc de Bourgogne (Brussels, 1989), 145. All translations are mine unless otherwise stated. I am very grateful to the anonymous readers of this paper for their constructive suggestions.
2 Le Chevalier au Cygne et Godefroid de Bouillon: poème historique, ed. Frédéric-August-Ferdinand-Thomas, baron de Reiffenberg, and Adolphe Borgnet, 3 vols., Monuments pour servir à l’histoire des provinces de Namur, de Hainaut et de Luxembourg, vols. 4–6 (Brussels, 1846–54) [hereafter cited as CCGFB].
3 CCGFB, lines 9465–9477; 15663–15903; 9652–9723.
4 ‘Godefroi s’introduit, déguisé et sans défense, dans une ville ennemie, pour contempler une femme qu’il aime, quoiqu’il ne l’ait jamais vue, et qui l’aime aussi, sans le connaître autrement que par la renommée. Il est dans une situation digne des Amadis’: CCGFB, vol. 2, Introduction, CIX.
5 Geraldine Heng, Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (New York, 2003), 3.
6 Megan Cassidy-Welch, ‘Before Trauma: The Crusades, Medieval Memory and Violence’, Continuum 31 (2017): 619–27.
7 Siobhain Bly Calkin, ‘Narrating Trauma? Captured Cross Relics in Chronicles and Chansons de Geste’, Exemplaria 33 (2021): 19–43.
8 Michael Heintze, ‘Les chansons de geste tardives et la réalité historique’, Actes du congrès international de la Société Rencesvals (22-27 août, 1988), 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1990), 1: 331–41.
9 Bly Calkin, 29–33, for a similar narrative skirting around the reality of the loss of the relic of the Cross.
10 Norman Housley, The Later Crusades: From Lyons to Alcazar, 1274–1580 (Oxford, 1992), 7–48, 76–9.
11 Housley, Later Crusades, 48.
12 Mémoires d’Olivier de la Marche, ed. Henri Beaune and Jules d’Arbaumont, 4 vols. (Paris, 1883-88), 3: 340–80 for the Feast of the Pheasant, 361–8 for description of Holy Church and the giant, 341–4 for the Swan Knight.
13 Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, ed. Bianca Kühnel, Hanna Vorholt, and Galit Noga-Banai (Turnhout, 2014).
14 Christoph Maier, Crusade Propaganda and Ideology: Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross (Cambridge, 2000).
15 Linda Paterson, Singing the Crusades: French and Occitan Lyric Responses to the Crusading Movements, 1137–1336 (Woodbridge, 2018).
16 L’Histoire de Gilles de Chyn by Gautier de Tournay, ed. Edwin B. Place (Evanston/Chicago, 1941), in which the eponymous hero spends the middle section of the poem engaged in heroic exploits in Outremer after a vision of Christ; Gui de Warewic: roman du XIIIe siècle, ed. Alfred Ewert, 2 vols. (Paris, 1932), in which Gui’s exploits take him far and wide including Outremer. For analysis, see Nicholas Paul, ‘In Search of the Marshal’s Lost Crusade: The Persistence of Memory, the Problems of History and the Painful Birth of Crusading Romance’, Journal of Medieval History 40, no. 3 (2014): 292–310.
17 Siège d’Antioche: Oxford Bodleian Hatton 77; British Library Add. 34114; Bâtard: Bibliothèque Nationale fonds français 12552. Both texts are discussed in greater detail below.
18 Le Roman des Eles et l’Ordene de Chevalerie: Two Early Old French Didactic Poems, ed. Keith Busby (Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1983), 71–146.
19 ‘La chanson de geste raconte le passé, et elle le fait de manière à en simplifier les données, à en rehausser les traits glorieux’; Robert F. Cook, ‘Les épopées de la croisade’, Aspects de l’épopée romane: mentalités – ideologies – intertextualités, ed. Hans van Dijk and Willem Noomen, (Groningen, 1995), 93–110; 99.
20 ‘Cil le gaaignierent jadiz/Dont vos oeiz es romans lire’; ‘reconmenciez novele estoire’; Rutebeuf, La complainte d’Outremer, lines 8–9, 16; Onze poèmes de Rutebeuf concernant la croisade, ed. Julia Bastin and Edmond Faral (Paris, 1946), V, 52–63. In La nouvelle complainte d’Outremer, Rutebeuf offers a stinging criticism of fireside knights whose enthusiasm for crusade after heavy drinking dissipates like magic the following morning: Onze poèmes XI, 111–130 lines 251–64.
21 For further analysis see Caroline Smith, Crusading in the Age of Joinville (Aldershot, 2006), 87–93.
22 Vividly set out in Rutebeuf’s Disputaison du croisé et du décroisé: Onze poèmes VIII, 84–94.
23 La Chanson de Guillaume, ed. and trans. Philip Bennett, (London, 2000); Renaut de Montauban: édition critique du manuscrit Douce, ed. Jacques Thomas (Geneva, 1989).
24 ‘L’univers thématique de la chanson de geste est loin d’être rigide’; François Suard, Guide de la chanson de geste et de sa postérité littéraire (Paris, 2011), 99.
25 Sarah Kay, The Chansons de Geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford, 1995).
26 Tristan de Nanteuil chanson de geste inédite, ed. Keith V. Sinclair (Assen, 1971).
27 Enfances Renier: chanson de geste du XIIIe siècle, ed. Delphine Dalens-Markovic (Paris, 2009).
28 ‘La légende veut être tenue pour vraie, bien qu’en elle des événements surnaturels puissent faire irruption dans le monde reel’; Hans Jauss, ‘Chanson de geste et roman courtois au XIIe siècle. (Analyse comparative du Fierabras et du Bel Inconnu), in Chanson de geste und höfischer Roman: Heidelberger Kolloquium 30 January 1961 (Heidelberg, 1963), 61–77, at 65.
29 ‘Anachronisme et utopie – voilà les deux pôles qui marquent la relation entre la poésie héroique de basse époque et la réalité historique’; Heintze, ‘Les chansons de geste tardives’, 341.
30 Jonathan Phillips, The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin (London, 2019), 216.
31 The Historia Iherosolimitana of Robert the Monk, ed. Marcus Bull and Damien Kempf (Woodbridge, 2013), Introduction, xlv–xlvi.
32 Baldwin was asked by his clerics ‘quis nobilem historiam illam de terre Palestine per principes nostros restauratione et Saladini ac Saracenorum per eosdem expugnatione digne tractare posset’ (‘who would be capable of treating with appropriate dignity that illustrious story of how the land of Palestine was won back by our nobles and of how Saladin and his Saracens were expelled by them’). Baldwin suggests that his nephew Joseph should tackle the subject in verse and that, inevitably, Gerald should turn his hand to the prose version. Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. Brewer, vol. 1, RS 21 (London, 1861), 1–122, at 79. See Simon Parsons, ‘The Inhabitants of the British Isles on the First Crusade: Medieval Perceptions and the Invention of a Pan-Angevin Crusading Heritage’, English Historical Review 134 (2019): 273–301, 294–95.
33 The Old French Crusade Cycle, ed. Jan A. Nelson and Emanuel J. Mickel, 10 vols. (Tuscaloosa, 1977–2003) [hereafter cited as OFCC or Cycle]; La Chanson d’Antioche, chanson de geste du dernier quart du XIIe siècle, ed. and trans. Bernard Guidot, (Paris, 2011); La Chanson des Chétifs, ed. Geoffrey M. Myers, OFCC vol. 5 (1980): La Chanson de Jérusalem, ed. Nigel Thorp, OFCC vol. 6 (1992). For the Siège d’Antioche see Jennifer Gabel Aguirre, La Chanson de la Première Croisade en ancien français d’apres Baudri de Bourgueil (Heidelberg, 2015) for partial edition; Linda Paterson, Simon Parsons and I are working on a new edition and translation of the full text [hereafter cited as Siège d’Antioche].
34 Chanson d’Antioche lines 105–43, 217–48.
35 Chanson d’Antioche, lines 1–248.
36 Siège d’Antioche, lines 17–19: ‘Pernez a cels essample qui ancïenement/Guerpirent lur terres et lur edifiement/Por servir Damedeu, le roi omnipotent’.
37 Hatton 77. This is the only time we find part of the Chétifs detached from the other texts of the Cycle.
38 See François Suard, ‘Le Chevalier au Cygne et Godefroid de Bouillon. Une réécriture épico-romanesque’, in Croisades? Approches litéraires, historiques et philologiques (Valenciennes, 2009), 211–27; old but still useful is Emile Roy, ‘Les poèmes français relatifs à la première croisade: le poème de 1356 et ses sources’, Romania 55 (1929): 411–68.
39 CCGFB lines 3–9: ‘Et je vous conteray de miracle divine/De grandes traïsons et de mortele hayne/Et d’armes et d’amors de gent de haute aine/Et la destrusion de la gent sarrasine/Et de Jherusalem la prise et la rachine/De Nicque et d’Andioche, d’autres terres Hermine’.
40 Les Enfances Godefroi and Le Retour de Cornumarant, ed. Emanuel J. Mickel, OFCC 3 (1999), lines 2341–84.
41 Developments of a kind subject to much modern denigration: displaying alarming-sounding ‘sérieux symptomes de décadence’ (‘serious symptoms of decadence’) according to Labande: Etude de Baudouin de Sebourg, chanson de geste, ed. Edmond-René Labande (Paris, 1940), Introduction, 87.
42 La Chrétienté Corbaran, ed. Peter R. Grillo, OFCC vol. 7.1 (1984); La Prise d’Acre, Mort Godefroi and the Chanson des rois Baudouin, ed. Peter R. Grillo, OFCC vol. 7.2 (1987).
43 The Jerusalem Continuations: The London-Turin Version, ed. Peter R. Grillo, OFCC vol. 8 (1994).
44 Chanson des Rois Baudouin, lines 6726–78, 6735–36; ‘Li rois Salehadins qui tant a de fierté/Ne nous laira de tere vallant.i. oef pelé’.
45 Chanson des Rois Baudouin, lines 29379-82: ‘Si bien ce deffendi Baudouins li gentis/Entre lui et les siens qui mout furent hardis/Que Salehadins fu en la fin desconfis/Et furent mout lonc temps en pais les Dieu amis’.
46 Baudouin de Sebourg, ed. Larry S. Crist, 2 vols. (Paris, 2002) [hereafter cited as BS], lines 2376–79: ‘Che que Godefrois de Bullon acquesta/Et Bauduïns ses frerez, ens ou temps qu’i regna/Ichius Salehadins trestout regaïngna/Et tous les Cristïens desconfi e mata’.
47 Christopher Tyerman, How to Plan a Crusade: Reason and Religious War in the High Middle Ages (London, 2015), 292.
48 ‘Cet Orient d’opérette’: Margaret Rossi, Huon de Bordeaux et l’évolution du genre épique au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1975), 422.
49 Jean Renart: The Romance of the Rose or Guillaume de Dôle, ed. and trans. Regina Psaki (New York, 1995), lines 5567–5622.
50 La Chevalerie d’Ogier de Danemarche, ed. Mario Eusebi (Milan, 1963), lines 10389–445. See Helen Nicholson, Love, War and the Grail: Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights in Medieval Epic and Romance 1150–1500 (Leiden, 2004).
51 Orson de Beauvais: chanson de geste du XIIe siècle, ed. Jean-Pierre Martin (Paris, 2002).
52 La Belle Hélène de Constantinople: chanson de geste du quatorzième siècle, ed. Claude Roussel (Geneva, 1995).
53 Lion de Bourges: poème épique du XIVe siècle, ed. William W. Kibler, Jean-Louis G. Picharit, and Thelma S. Fenster, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1980), lines 420–440; 20926–21009; 34073–34089.
54 Enfances Renier, lines 47–102.
55 Huon de Bordeaux: édition bilingue, ed. William Kibler and François Suard (Paris, 2003).
56 Luke Sunderland, ‘Genre, Ideology and Utopia in Huon de Bordeaux’, Medium Aevum 81, no. 2 (2012): 289–302, at 298.
57 Belle Hélène, lines 9998–10145; La Chanson de Jérusalem, lines 4728–4751.
58 Belle Hélène, lines 9809–9820.
59 Enfances Renier, lines 17926–17990, 18538–18577.
60 Le Bâtard de Bouillon: chanson de geste, ed. Robert F. Cook (Geneva, 1972). These texts along with CCGFB used to be described as the Second Crusade Cycle, a view developed in detail by Suzanne Duparc-Quioc in Le Cycle de la Croisade (Paris, 1955). This, however, assigns more coherence to the three texts than they actually display; see Robert F. Cook and Larry S. Crist, Le deuxième cycle de la Croisade: deux études sur son développement (Geneva, 1972).
61 ‘Un aventurier du Hainaut, qui voyage beaucoup, mais dont les exploits ont lieu […] soit en Europe du Nord, soit dans des endroits imaginaires’; Crist, BS, Introduction, xli.
62 BS, lines 166–793, 20719–22601.
63 BS, lines 14473–14590, 17152–17206.
64 Nicholson, Love, War and the Grail, 218.
65 Le Bâtard de Bouillon, lines 6518-6542. Lines 6526–6527 refer to the fall of the Temple alongside Acre, Tiberias and Ascalon.
66 Saladin: suite et fin du deuxième cycle de la Croisade, ed. Larry S. Crist (Geneva, 1972).
67 Crist, BS, Introduction, xlvii–viii; Peter R. Grillo, ‘Romans de croisade, histoires de famille: recherches sur le personnage de Baudouin de Sebourg’, Romania 110 (1989): 383–95; Alan Murray, ‘Why a Bastard? A Possible Historical Origin for the Illegitimate Hero in the Bâtard de Bouillon’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 98, no. 2 (1997): 179–85.
68 BS, lines 21331, 21330, 2411, 3716. For the limping Robert/Roger, ‘Robers du Rosoy, qui cloche du talon’: BS, line 22183, and Chanson d’Antioche, lines 2868, 8996.
69 ‘Ahistorique et partant atemporel: il ne peut guère en être autrement dans la representation d’une société franque qui n’ jamais existé’: Crist, Introduction to BS, xlv.
70 La Chanson de Roland, ed. Ian Short (Paris, 1990), line 3164: ‘Deus! quel baron, s’oüst Chrestïentet!’
71 See Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, ed. Rosalind Hill (London, 1962), 49–56; Chanson d’Antioche, lines 6545-6960; Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana, VI. 7–12.
72 La Chanson des Chétifs, lines 2933–41, 3908–17.
73 La Chrétienté Corbaran, lines 292–319.
74 CCGFB, lines 28250–28317.
75 For a comprehensive discussion of sources, see Margaret A. Jubb, The Legend of Saladin in Western Literature and Historiography (Lewiston, 2000).
76 Carmina Burana, ed. Benedikt Konrad Vollmann (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1987), poem 50, pp. 138-44, stanzas 14-15: ‘ferox Saladinus/Latro ille pessimus, terre devastator’.
77 L’istoire de tres vaillans princez Monseigneur Jehan d’Avesnes, ed. Danielle Quéruel (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1997); La fille du comte de Ponthieu: conte en prose, versions du XIIIe siècle et du XVe siècle, ed. Clovis Brunel (Paris, 1923); Saladin: suite et fin, ed. Crist.
78 La fille du comte de Ponthieu, nouvelle du XIIIe siècle, ed. Clovis Brunel (Paris, 1926).
79 Donald Maddox, ‘Domesticating Diversity: Female Founders in Medieval Genealogical Literature and La Fille du Comte de Ponthieu’, in Selected Papers from the Eighth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, 26 July – 1 August 1995, ed. Evelyn Mullally and John Thompson (Woodbridge, 1997), 97–107.
80 BS, lines 2228–2383; 2369–2371 for conversion.
81 Récits d’un ménestrel de Reims au treizième siècle, ed. Natalis de Wailly (Paris, 1876), 111–2.
82 Saladin: suite et fin, 168-9: ‘si fait a supposer qu’en celle fin il se converty a nostre seigneur Jhesu Crist’.
83 Jubb, The Legend of Saladin, 54; Jean Richard, ‘Huon de Tabarie: la naissance d’une figure épique’, reprinted in Jean Richard, Croisés, missionnaires et voyageurs: les perspectives orientales du monde latin médiéval (London, 1983), no. IV, 1073-8.
84 ‘Une tradition épico-romanesque qui se cherche et se définit sans jamais devenir méconnaissable’; Cook, ‘Les épopées de la croisade’, 103.