A History of the Crusades (16 page)

You who love with a true love, awaken! Do not sleep! The lark draws day towards us and tells us in its speech that the day of peace has come which God in his great sweetness will give to those who will take the cross for love of him and who will suffer pain night and day through their deeds. Then he will see who truly loves him.

He who was crucified for us was not lukewarm in his love for us but loved us like a true lover [
fins amins
] and, for us, lovingly carried in great anguish the Holy Cross, sweetly in his arms, before his breast, like a gentle lamb, simple and pious; then he was nailed with three nails, firmly through the hands and the feet.

(‘Vos qui ameis’, ll. 1–10, 21–30)

The idea of the crusade as an act of love is part of the religious orthodoxy of the time, but another connection between the crusades and love derives from a literary rather than an ecclesiastical source. One of the principal themes of medieval poetry is love. Indeed, in the case of the German poets, the name by which they are known—
Minnesänger
—means ‘those who sing of love’. Typically the poet adopts the persona of a man in love—usually hopelessly so—with an unnamed lady. The features which characterize the expression of this
fin’amor
in the songs of the troubadours,
trouvères
and
Minnesänger
are longing, tension which is unresolved, and praise of the beloved. These features can be developed in a number of ways. For example, if the tension is unresolved, we may be told the reason why: the lady is of such supreme character and status, so ‘distant’ from the lover that he despairs of ever attaining the lofty heights where she dwells. There may be other obstacles and dangers: actual distance, rivals, gossip-mongers (known as
losengiers
), or the lover’s timidity. It is not difficult to see how such elements of the love-song may be transferred to the idea of crusading. The unresolved longing may express the intention, as yet unfulfilled, to go on the crusade, or it may be used to suggest the idea of the journey which seems so long and to which no end can clearly be seen. Hartmann von Aue, in a song written at about the time of the Third Crusade, deliberately associates
Minne
with love of God, as expressed in the crusade as a ‘pilgrimage of love’: ‘Lords and kin, I am making a journey; blessings on my land and people. No need to ask where I am going: I tell you clearly where my journey leads. Love (
Minne
) captured me and has freed me on parole. Now she has sent me a message that I should set out for her love. It is inevitable: I must go thither: how could I break my promise and my oath?’ (‘Ich var mit iuwern hulden’, ll. 1–8).

He only reveals towards the end of the second stanza that he is referring to the crusade. However, rather than exploiting the allegorical possibilities, it is more often the case that the poets
associate
the idea of the crusade with the idea of human love, by adopting the language or the conventional situations of lovepoetry. This is increasingly the case as time goes by. For the Second Crusade, only one surviving poem makes this association, but by the end of the century, and more particularly in Germany, it has become very common. The earliest example sees matters from the point of view of the woman left behind by the crusader. Marcabru’s ‘A la fontana del vergier’ (
c
.1147) begins with the allusion to spring and nature which is a traditional feature of courtly song. In the usual
pastorela
the ‘I’ of the poem—generally presented as a knight—encounters a maiden. She sings of the joys or pains of love. The knight attempts
to seduce her but is refused. In this case the maiden’s sorrow has a specific foundation.

She was a young girl, beautiful of form, daughter of the lord of a castle; and when I expected that the birds and the greenery might bring her joy, and that, because of the sweet new season as well, she might be willing to listen to my persuasions, she soon changed her mood.

She wept beside the spring and gave a heartfelt sigh. She said, ‘Jesus, king of the world, my great sorrow grows because of you, for the shame perpetrated against you causes me great grief: the best men in all this world are going off to serve you, but this is what pleases you. It is with you that my lover is going away, the handsome, the noble, the worthy, and the powerful; all that is left to me here is my sorry plight, my frequent longings, and my tears. Oh! Cruel was King Louis who issued the summonses and edicts through which sorrow entered my heart!’

(ll. 8–28)

The king and the crusade have been given the role that is played by the
losengiers
in the standard love-song: separating true lovers. The poem offers an interesting twist in that the lament is
both
for the shame of the loss of the holy places and for lost love, and the woman complains of what is more usually praised. A later example adopts traditional motifs of the
chanson de femme
…ype of song in which a woman complains of her unhappiness in love, usually because she has been forced to marry a man that she does not love, but finds consolation in thinking of an illicit lover. This song, by Guiot de Dijon (
c
.1190), has a powerful emotional core related to the poetic convention of ‘love from afar’. The implicit narrative is the same as for the
chanson de femme
, but the obstacle to happiness is here the fact of her crusader-lover’s absence. Her defiance of the separation lies in erotic thoughts of him and in the unconventional keepsake which he has left her.

I will sing to comfort my heart, for I do not want to die or to go mad because of my great loss, when I see that no-one returns from that foreign land where the man is who brings solace to my heart when I hear him spoken of.
God, when they cry, ‘Onward’, give Your help to that pilgrim for whom my heart trembles; for the Saracens are wicked men
.

I shall bear my loss until I have seen a year go by. He is on a pilgrimage; may God grant that he return from it! But, in spite of all my family, I do not intend to marry any other. Anyone who even speaks to me of it is a fool.
God, when they cry, etc
.

However, I am hopeful because I accepted his homage. And when the sweet wind blows which comes from that sweet country where the man is whom I desire, then I turn my face towards it gladly, and it seems to me then that I can feel him beneath my mantle of fur.
God, when they cry, etc
.

I regret very much that I was not there to set him on the road. He sent me his shirt which he had worn, so that I might hold it in my arms. At night, when love for him torments me, I place it in bed beside me and hold it all night against my bare flesh to assuage my pains.
God, when they cry, etc
.

(‘Chanterai por mon corage’, ll. 1–20, 33–56)

The conventions of the
chanson de femme
are cut across by the refrain which quite literally places the object of her love, the ‘pilgrim’, in the context of the crusade.

One of the poets’ favourite topoi (poetic conventions) was the idea of the lover’s heart being able to be apart from his body, crossing the distance which separated the lovers. Friedrich von Hausen, who was a poet in the entourage of Frederick Barbarossa and was killed on the Third Crusade, makes much of this in a number of his songs, most obviously in ‘Mîn herze und mîn lîp diu wellent scheiden’: ‘My heart and my body, which have long been united, strive to part. My body is eager to fight against the heathen, whereas my heart has chosen a woman above all the world’ (ll. 1–2). The model for Friedrich’s song was probably ‘Ahi, Amours! com dure departie’ by Conon of Béthune (
c
.1188):‘Oh, Love! How hard it will be for me to have to leave the best woman who was ever loved or served! May God, in his kindness, lead me back to her as surely as I leave her in sorrow. Alas! What have I said? I am not really leaving her at all! If my body is going off to serve Our Lord, my heart remains entirely within her sway’ (ll. 1–80).

Another common topos is that of ‘dying for love’. In an anonymous
chanson de femme
, ‘Jherusalem, grant damage me fais’, perhaps dating from the mid-thirteenth century, this is
combined with an interesting transformation of the idea of crusading as an act of love: ‘So help me God, there is no escape for me: die I must, such is my fate; but I am well aware that, for one who dies for love, there is but a day’s journey to God. Alas! I would rather embark upon that day if I could find my sweet love than remain here all forlorn’ (ll. 15–21). ‘Dies for love’ is loaded with two meanings: the conventional ‘dying of a broken heart’ which applies to the woman and the death on the crusade of her lover who has died for love of God. Her death will thus parallel his and they will both have only a day’s journey to God. The stanza is something of an icon of the entire relationship between the love-lyric and the crusade orthodoxy. It redeems the near defiant attitude which the woman expresses in the first stanza: ‘Jerusalem, you are doing me a great wrong’, an attitude which echoes that of the maiden in Marcabru’s
pastorela
and is also to be found in the song ‘Già mai non mi comfortto’ of Rinaldo d’Aquino (
c
. 1228).

La croce salva la giente
e me facie disviare,
la crocie mi fa dolente
e non mi vale Dio pregare.
Oi me, crocie pellegrina,
perché m’ài così distrutta? (ll. 25–30)

The cross saves the people but causes me to go mad, the cross makes me sorrowful and praying to God does not help me. Alas, pilgrim cross, why have you destroyed me in this way?

Hartmann von Aue sees a more positive role for a woman: ‘The woman who with a willing heart sends her dear husband on this journey, providing that at home she lives in a way that all will proclaim virtuous, shall purchase half of his reward. She shall pray for both of them here, and he shall go and fight for both of them there’ (‘Swelch vrowe sendet lieben man’, ll. 1–7).

So far we have considered the way in which crusade songs reflect the social aspirations, the religious orthodoxy, and the literary conventions of the time, but what did they have to say about the reality of the crusades? One of the aspects most frequently mentioned is the danger of the journey itself—hardly
surprising when one recalls that the first of the known troubadours, William IX of Aquitaine, lost almost all his men on his way to the Holy Land. Gaucelm Faidit, who took part in the Third Crusade, celebrates his own return in the song, ‘Del gran golfe de mar’ (1192/3). He did not care for the journey and is delighted to be back in familiar surroundings. The sea voyage especially distressed him: ‘for now I need not be afraid of the winds, north, south, or west, my ship is no longer swaying, and I no longer need fear the swift galleys or corsairs’ (ll. 32–6). He acknowledges the merit of the crusaders but deplores the fact that some go to sea for no more than pillage and piracy: ‘Any man who undergoes such discomforts to win God or to save his soul is doing the right thing, not the wrong one; but if anyone goes to sea, where one suffers such ills, in order to rob and with wicked intentions, it very often happens that, when he thinks he’s on the up, he’s coming down, so that in despair he lets go of everything and throws it all away: soul and body, gold and silver’ (ll. 37–48). The moral stricture is clear, but there is perhaps also a playful sub-text: those who go to sea with ill-intent will suffer sea-sickness!

In ‘Ez gruonet wol diu heide’ (probably written at the time of Frederick II’s expedition in 1228–9), Neidhart von Reuental imagines writing home from Palestine, a letter of complaint: ‘If they ask you how it goes with us pilgrims, tell them how badly the French and Italians have treated us: that is why we are weary of this place… we all live in misery; more than half the army is dead…’ (ll. 38–42, 53–4). He is quite disenchanted with the whole business and wouldn’t be put off going home by anything as relatively harmless as a sea voyage: ‘He seems to me a fool who remains here this August. My advice would be that he should delay no longer and go back home across the sea; that is not painful. Nowhere is a man better off than at home in his own parish’ (ll. 71–7).

The actual fighting is rarely described in song. The deeds of the Muslims are usually referred to briefly or in general terms: ‘.…he churches are burnt and deserted: God is no longer sacrificed there…’ (‘Chevalier mut estes guariz’, ll. 13–16, on the taking of Edessa). The only surviving crusade song in Spanish, however,
gives a more circumstantial, though perhaps not eye-witness, account of events after the capture of Jerusalem by the Khorezmians in 1244. The anonymous poet claims to be writing for the ears of the Second Council of Lyons (1274); no doubt the gory detail is intended to have a propaganda function: ‘Then come the tender maidens, in chains and in torment. They weep greatly in their affliction and sorrow in Jerusalem. The Christians see their sons roasted, they see their wives’ breasts sliced off while they are still living; they go along the streets with their hands and feet cut off (sic!) in Jerusalem. They made blankets out of the vestments, they made a stable out of the Holy Sepulchre; with the holy crosses they made stakes in Jerusalem’ (‘! Ay, Iherusalem!’, ll. 91–105). The terms in which the Khorezmians are spoken of in ‘!Ay, Iherusalem!’ are reminiscent of much earlier crusade songs: ‘These Moorish dogs have held the holy dwelling for seven and a half years; they are not afraid of dying to conquer Jerusalem. They are helped by those of Babylon with the Africans and those of Ethiopia… Now because of our sins the dark day has brought the Moorish hordes… The Christians are few, fewer than sheep. The Moors are many, more than the stars’ (‘!Ay, Iherusalem!’, ll. 21–7, 66–7, 71–2).

Gavaudan, in ‘Senhor, per los nostres peccatz’ (1195) also attributes Muslim successes in the Holy Land to the sinfulness of Christians, and fears that such triumphs may encourage them to attempt the same in Spain: ‘Sirs, because of our sins, the Saracens’ power increases: Saladin captured Jerusalem; it has still not been won back; that is why the king of Morocco has sent out a message that, with his perfidious Andalusians and Arabs, armed against the faith of Christ, he will fight against all Christian kings’ (ll. 1–9). There follows an account of the huge numbers involved and the brute rapacity of the enemy: more numerous than raindrops, they are cast out on the fields to feed themselves on carrion, and they leave nothing unconsumed. He speaks of their pride: they think everything belongs to them and will bow down before them. The references to his audience’s home territory make clear that he is seeking to inspire or to recruit by means of terror: ‘.…oroccans, Almoravids occupy the mountains and the fields. They boast to each other: “Franks,
make way for us! Provence and the Toulousain are ours and all the land that stretches from here to Le Puy!” Never was such a fierce boast heard before from such false dogs, such accursed infidels’ (ll. 21–7). He urges his hearers not to leave their birthright to the
cas negres outramaris
(black foreign dogs) and to rescue the inhabitants of Spain who are in jeopardy. The Muslims are here treated in very much the same way as in the
Chanson de Roland
: ‘In their first corps there are those of Butentrot, in the second the Micenians with their huge heads; on their spines, halfway down their backs, they have bristles like those of pigs… in the tenth, those of the desert of Occïant: a race which never served Our Lord; never was known a more wicked people: their skin is harder than iron, they have no use for helm or hauberk, in battle they are faithless and cruel’ (
Chanson de Roland
, ll. 3220–3, 3246–51). Their sins are pride and faithlessness; they are animal-like; their strength lies in numbers expressed, not so much in figures, as by a recital of their tribal origins; their boast goes to the heart of Christian fears of invasion and subjection.