The Crown and the Cross: Burgundy, France, and the Crusades, 1095–1223, by Hilary Rhodes

Abstract

Burgundy’s role in the crusades in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries is well known to scholars of the individual crusades in which Burgundians took part, but the context and wider trends of their involvement have been less clear. Hilary Rhodes has skilfully disentangled the complex dynastic strands and relationships which have discouraged scholarly study, in a clear analysis which establishes the breadth and depth of Burgundian involvement in crusading during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Rhodes shows that Burgundians were involved in crusading from the very start of the movement and took part even when their dukes did not join expeditions in person. She points out that the earliest expeditions which modern scholars have considered as crusades—against Barbastro in 1063, Pope Gregory VII’s plan for an Iberian campaign in 1073 and his 1074 plans for an expedition to Constantinople to protect eastern Christians—involved Burgundians. Unlike his ducal neighbours, Duke Odo I did not join the First Crusade in 1095–96 (although a few other Burgundians did); when he did join the expedition in 1101, after Jerusalem had been captured, it was not for spiritual gain but (Rhodes argues) to escape a dispute with Cluny. Again, although Duke Odo II did not join the Second Crusade, some Burgundians went with King Louis VII of France.