The Crusading Idea in Cluniac Literature of the Eleventh Century

Abstract

Noteworthy as Cluny’s role may have been in the eleventh century as far as strictly religious history is concerned, it is possible that it has been overestimated in the fields of political, social and literary history. For the last thirty years certain historians have been infected with what one can only call ‘panclunism’. Cluny has been given the credit for the creative vitality of the age, and to her has been attributed a decisive influence over the ‘Gregorian reform’, the development of the pilgrimage to St James of Compostela and the redaction of the epic songs and heroic poems of chivalry. Just as there has been a tendency to represent the church as hitherto a spiritual society but now organising herself into a juridical and political entity, or to portray a holy pope like Gregory VII as evolving into an expert on war and finance,1 so too, we are told, did the monastic institution, pressurised by circumstances and attempting to meet a variety of demands, become more and more involved with the world.KeywordsEleventh CenturyCrusade IdeaPromise LandMilitary EnterpriseBenedictine MonasteryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.