How were the Crusades, and the crusaders, narrated, described, and romanticised by the various communities that experienced or remembered them? This Companion provides a critical overview of the diverse and multilingual literary output connected with crusading over the last millennium, from the first writings which sought to understand and report on what was happening, to contemporary medievalism, in which crusading is a potent image of holy war and jihad. The chapters show the enduring legacy of the crusaders' imagery, from the chansons de geste to Walter Scott, from Charlemagne to Orlando Bloom. Whilst the crusaders' hold on Jerusalem was relatively short-lived, the desire for Jerusalem has had a long afterlife in many cultural contexts and media.
Author(s): Anthony Bale (editor)
Series: Cambridge Companions to Literature
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: xviii+288
The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades
Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Chronology
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Notes
Part I. Genres
1 Crusader Chronicles
Genre
Language
Manuscripts and Editions
Sources
Authors, Patrons, and Readers
Functions
Notes
2 The Chanson de geste
Crusading in Europe
The Chansons de geste and Crusading in Outremer
Conclusion
Notes
3 The Troubadours and Their Lyrics
Who Were the Troubadours ?
Exhortation
Chansons de départie
Political Polemics
Papal-imperial Conflict
Charles of Anjou
Apostasy and Burlesque
Personal Experiences of Crusading
Notes
Part II. Contexts and Communities
4 Rome, Byzantium, and the Idea of Holy War
Rome
Byzantium
Clermont and Beyond
Notes
5 Women’s Writing and Cultural Patronage
Notes
6 Reading and Writing in Outremer
Transnational Manuscripts and Crusader Book Production
Crusaders and Their Compositions
Describing the Holy Land
Notes
7 Hebrew Crusade Literature in Its Latin and Arabic Contexts
Introduction
Prose Crusade Chronicles
Liturgical Verse
Apocalypse
Conclusion
Notes
Part III. Themes and Images
8 The Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem
Scriptural Roots of the Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem
Multi-fold Senses of Jerusalem: Church Fathers and Monastic Responses
Pilgrimage and the Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem
Crusading and the Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem
Notes
9 Orientalism and the ‘Saracen’
The Gesta Francorum
La chanson d’Antioche and other Chansons de geste
Troubadour and Trouvère Poetry
Notes
10 Chivalry, Masculinity, and Sexuality
Crusading and Chivalry in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries
Crusading Masculinity
Sexuality
Notes
Part IV. Heroes
11 Saladin and Richard I
The Intersectional Levantine
Salāh al-Dīn and Richard I: Victory Versus Attrition
Richard Coer de Lyon and Tales of Saladin: Traumatic Appetites and Economies of Plenitude
Notes
12 ‘El Cid’ (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar)
Notes
13 Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Louis IX of France
Notes
Part V. Afterlives
14 Romance and Crusade in Late Medieval England
Proto-crusades? The Siege of Jerusalem and the Question of Charlemagne
Crusading Anglo-Saxons: English Before the English
The Historical Crusades: Richard Coer de Lyon
Penitential Romance: Thinking on Cultural Failure
Notes
15 Renaissance Crusading Literature: Memory, Translation, and Adaptation
Shifts in Renaissance Crusading Practices
The Siege in History: Assimilating the Past
The Heroic Poem: Conversion and the Fallen Warrior
Conclusion
Notes
16 The Crusades and Medievalism
Notes
Further Reading
1 Crusader Chronicles
2 The Chanson de geste
3 The Troubadours and Their Lyrics
4 Rome, Byzantium, and the Idea of Holy War
5 Women’s Writing and Cultural Patronage
6 Reading and Writing in Outremer
7 Hebrew Crusade Literature in Its Latin and Arabic Contexts
8 The Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem
9 Orientalism and the ‘Saracen’
10 Chivalry, Masculinity, and Sexuality
11 Saladin and Richard I
12 ‘El Cid’ (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar)
13 Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Louis IX of France
14 Romance and Crusade in Late Medieval England
15 Renaissance Crusading Literature: Memory, Translation, and Adaptation
16 The Crusades and Medievalism
Index
Back Matter
