The Historia Iherosolimitana of Robert the Monk, ed. D. Kempf and M.G. Bull

Abstract

The crusades were a written construction, not just a lived experience. To a notable extent, from their very inception, perceptions of the wars of the cross—at least among social and clerical elites—appear to have been moulded by the circulation of texts. Prominent among these were the many Latin chronicles composed and compiled in the generation following the First Crusade, a uniquely concentrated explosion of literary commentary and cultural memorialisation. Combining elements drawn from Biblical models, vernacular epics, patristic theology, old soldiers’ tales and the refined imaginations of their authors, these narratives set events in artfully constructed frames, even when affecting linear clarity or assuming the authenticity of personal witness. Judged on the survival of medieval manuscripts (at least 84, according to the editors of this new edition), the most widely disseminated of the histories of the First Crusade was that usually attributed to Robert, failed abbot of St Remi in Reims and later attached to the monastery at Sénuc. The editors confirm the probability, but not certainty, of Robert’s authorship, while, picking up on references that imply the recent death of Philip I of France, they argue for a slightly later date for composition than that usually suggested—shortly after, rather than shortly before, 1108. The Capetian dimension to Robert’s text and intentions provides one of the editors’ consistent themes. The lasting power of such texts was evident in shaping later attitudes, the written, oral and visual images stimulated by the First Crusade exerting a potent, self-referential hold on subsequent promoters and witnesses. Although barely explored in the editors’ succinct introduction, the transmission of Robert’s version of events through media other than copies of the chronicle itself, such as the poetic version by Gunther of Pairis, formed one of many such strands that consolidated contemporary understanding and even perhaps aspirations.