The Deeds of Bohemond: Reform, Propaganda, and the History of the First Crusade

Abstract

In the first years of the twelfth century, three French monks simultaneously rewrote the same chronicle of the First Crusade, the Gesta Francorum. Despite recent skepticism expressed by some historians, the best explanation for this coincidence is that all of them had been exposed directly or indirectly to the 1106 preaching campaign of Bohemond of Taranto, who was raising armies for a new crusade. The monastic writers were all struggling at that time either to gain ecclesiastical promotion or to regain offices that they had lost. The production of a crusade chronicle would have advanced their cause. Bohemond of Taranto was aiming through his crusade to make himself emperor of Byzantium. These chronicles, which celebrated his achievements, would have promoted this goal as well. Finally, the papacy wished to ensure its claim to have been the inventor of the crusade movement-a point which the three monastic historians make explicitly.