The Old-French Chanson d'Antioche has long intrigued historians and literary scholars. Unusually among epic poems, it follows closely a well documented historical event - the First Crusade - and appears to include substantial and genuine historical content. At one time it was believed to be based on an account by an eye-witness, 'Richard the Pilgrim'. Carol Sweetenham and Susan Edgington have combined forces to investigate such claims, and their findings are set out in a comprehensive introduction which, firstly, examines the textual history of the poem from its possible oral beginnings through several re-workings to its present form, achieved early in the thirteenth century. A second chapter assesses the Chanson's value as a source for the crusade, and a third considers its status as a literary text. A complete prose translation follows, the first in English and based on the definitive edition. The Chanson is revealed as a lively narrative, with tales of chivalry, villainy, and even episodes of humour. There are extensive footnotes to the translation, and an appendix provides supplementary material from a different manuscript tradition. There is also a cast list of heroes and villains with biographical information for the 'real' ones and literary analogues for the fictional characters. The Chanson d'Antioche can now be read for enjoyment, and for a whole new perspective on crusading in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
This complete set of the Old French crusade cycle includes La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne, Le Chevalier au Cygne, La Fin d'Elias, Les Enfrances Godefroi, Le Retourde Cornumarant, La Chanson d'Antioche, Les Chetifs and La Chanson de Jerusalem.
La Chanson d'Antioche is the final volume to appear in the Old French Crusade Cycle, a series published by The University of Alabama Press. The series represents a large body of epic poetry important for an understanding of the phenomenon of cyclical composition and for a clarification of the relationship between the literary genres of epic and romance. Composed in Old French, the cycle, which dates from the 13th century in its edited form, is both history and fiction, folklore and reality; its sources are both oral and classical, and its influence can be seen in translations and versions in Spanish, English, Dutch, and German. The cycle is valuable to a wide range of fields, including the literatures of Old French, Old Spanish, Medieval German, Middle English, as well as folklore, history, and linguistics. La Chanson d'Antioche, along with La Chanson de Jerusalem, forms the quasi-historical nucleus of the entire Old French Crusade Cycle, which focuses on the fictional life of the hero Godfrey of Bouillon. The cycle recounts Godfrey's birth and childhood, his ancestral roots, his maturation to adulthood, his experiences in the First Crusade, and the confrontation between the crusad
Crusading in the Age of Joinville enhances the current literature dealing with the issue of crusaders' motivations by providing a detailed examination of the ideas and experiences of those who promoted and participated in the crusades of Louis IX of France in the mid-thirteenth century. It assesses the possibilities and problems associated with the source material available to historians of crusading in the thirteenth century and highlights the unique nature and value of John of Joinville's Life of Saint Louis. Two distinct approaches are taken to the analysis of these sources in order to demonstrate their richness. The first of these is thematic and is employed to reveal contrasts between the idealised images of crusading depicted by its promoters and the experiences of those who responded to their calls to take the cross. Secondly, the careers of Joinville and his close contemporary Oliver of Termes provide extended case studies demonstrating that involvement with crusading could have very different origins and expressions. Overall, Crusading in the Age of Joinville provides an innovative and accessible study of crusaders and crusading in the thirteenth century.
The First Crusade was arguably one of the most significant events of the Middle Ages. It was the only event to generate its own epic cycle, the Old French Crusade Cycle. The central trilogy at the heart of the Cycle describes the Crusade from its beginnings to the climactic battle of Ascalon, comprising the Chanson d’Antioche, the Chanson des Chétifs and the Chanson de Jérusalem. This translation of the Chétifs and the Jérusalem accompanies and completes the translation of the Antioche and makes the trilogy available to English readers in its entirety for the first time. The value of the trilogy lies above all in the insight it gives us to medieval perceptions of the Crusade. The events are portrayed as part of a divine plan where even outcasts and captives can achieve salvation through Crusade. This in turn underlies the value of the Cycle as a recruiting and propaganda tool. The trilogy gives a window onto the chivalric preoccupations of thirteenth-century France, exploring concerns about status, heroism and defeat. It portrays the material realities of the era in vivid detail: the minutiae of combat, smoke-filled halls, feasts, prisons and more. And the two newly translated poems are highly entertaining as well, featuring a lubricious Saracen lady not in the first flush of youth, a dragon inhabited by a devil, marauding monkeys, miracles and much more. The historian will find little new about the Crusade itself, but abundant material on how it was perceived, portrayed and performed. The translation is accompanied by an introduction examining the origins of the two poems and their wider place in the cycle. It is supported by extensive footnotes, a comprehensive index of names and places and translations of the main variants.
To date, historians of the crusades have not thoroughly investigated the theme of crusading as an act of vengeance, despite its frequent appearance in crusading sources. This has led to inaccurate assumptions regarding the nature of medieval vengeance and the role that various cultures of vengeance played in the crusading movement. This volume revises those assumptions and creates new understanding of how crusading was conceived as an act of vengeance in the context of the changing social patterns and values of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
The Old-French Chanson d'Antioche has long intrigued historians and literary scholars. Unusually among epic poems, it follows closely a well documented historical event – the First Crusade – and appears to include substantial and genuine historical content. At one time it was believed to be based on an account by an eye-witness, 'Richard the Pilgrim'. Carol Sweetenham and Susan Edgington have combined forces to investigate such claims, and their findings are set out in a comprehensive introduction which, firstly, examines the textual history of the poem from its possible oral beginnings through several re-workings to its present form, achieved early in the thirteenth century. A second chapter assesses the Chanson's value as a source for the crusade, and a third considers its status as a literary text. A complete prose translation follows, the first in English and based on the definitive edition. The Chanson is revealed as a lively narrative, with tales of chivalry, villainy, and even episodes of humour. There are extensive footnotes to the translation, and an appendix provides supplementary material from a different manuscript tradition. There is also a cast list of heroes and villains with biographical information for the 'real' ones and literary analogues for the fictional characters. The Chanson d'Antioche can now be read for enjoyment, and for a whole new perspective on crusading in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Heretic and impostor or reformer and statesman? The contradictory Western visions of Muhammad In European culture, Muhammad has been vilified as a heretic, an impostor, and a pagan idol. But these aren’t the only images of the Prophet of Islam that emerge from Western history. Commentators have also portrayed Muhammad as a visionary reformer and an inspirational leader, statesman, and lawgiver. In Faces of Muhammad, John Tolan provides a comprehensive history of these changing, complex, and contradictory visions. Starting from the earliest calls to the faithful to join the Crusades against the “Saracens,” he traces the evolution of Western conceptions of Muhammad through the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and up to the present day. Faces of Muhammad reveals a lengthy tradition of positive portrayals of Muhammad that many will find surprising. To Reformation polemicists, the spread of Islam attested to the corruption of the established Church, and prompted them to depict Muhammad as a champion of reform. In revolutionary England, writers on both sides of the conflict drew parallels between Muhammad and Oliver Cromwell, asking whether the prophet was a rebel against legitimate authority or the bringer of a new and just order. Voltaire first saw Muhammad as an archetypal religious fanatic but later claimed him as an enemy of superstition. To Napoleon, he was simply a role model: a brilliant general, orator, and leader. The book shows that Muhammad wears so many faces in the West because he has always acted as a mirror for its writers, their portrayals revealing more about their own concerns than the historical realities of the founder of Islam.
The Canso d'Antioca is a fascinating text which deserves more attention than it has received. It is a fragment of a much larger epic describing the events of the First Crusade, related to the Old French Chanson d'Antioca but with many unique features. As such it presents a double interest to scholars of both history and literature. It is a source text for the First Crusade with information not contained in any other source. It is also an early and seminal text for Occitan epic, few examples of which survive. And arguably it represents the first work of vernacular verse history in France, raising fundamental questions about the junction of epic and historiography. This is the first published edition of the text since Paul Meyer's version in 1884. It is based on the single extant manuscript of the Canso found in Roda in Northern Spain and now in Madrid, accompanied by a translation into English on facing pages. The text is supported by detailed notes and a glossary of proper names cross-referenced to all major First Crusade sources. The introduction discusses in detail the history of the text and manuscript, the value of the Canso as a historical document, and its place both within the historical tradition of the Crusade and within Occitan literary tradition and 12th-century vernacular historiography.
This collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.The period between the First Crusade and the collapse of the "crusader states" in the eastern Mediterranean was a crucial one for medieval historical writing. From the departure of the earliest crusading armies in 1096 to the Mamlūk conquest of the Latin states in the late thirteenth century, crusading activity, and the settlements it established and aimed to protect, generated a vast textual output, offering rich insights into the historiographical cultures of the Latin West and Latin East. However, modern scholarship on the crusades and the "crusader states" has tended to draw an artificial boundary between the two, even though medieval writers treated their histories as virtually indistinguishable. This volume places these spheres into dialogue with each other, looking at how individual crusading campaigns and the Frankish settlements in the eastern Mediterranean were depicted and remembered in the central Middle Ages. Its essays cover a geographical range that incorporates England, France, Germany, southern Italy and the Holy Land, and address such topics as gender, emotion, the natural world, crusading as an institution, origin myths, textual reception, forms of storytelling and historical genre. Bringing to the foreground neglected sources, methodologies, events and regions of textual production, the collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.nean were depicted and remembered in the central Middle Ages. Its essays cover a geographical range that incorporates England, France, Germany, southern Italy and the Holy Land, and address such topics as gender, emotion, the natural world, crusading as an institution, origin myths, textual reception, forms of storytelling and historical genre. Bringing to the foreground neglected sources, methodologies, events and regions of textual production, the collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.nean were depicted and remembered in the central Middle Ages. Its essays cover a geographical range that incorporates England, France, Germany, southern Italy and the Holy Land, and address such topics as gender, emotion, the natural world, crusading as an institution, origin myths, textual reception, forms of storytelling and historical genre. Bringing to the foreground neglected sources, methodologies, events and regions of textual production, the collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.nean were depicted and remembered in the central Middle Ages. Its essays cover a geographical range that incorporates England, France, Germany, southern Italy and the Holy Land, and address such topics as gender, emotion, the natural world, crusading as an institution, origin myths, textual reception, forms of storytelling and historical genre. Bringing to the foreground neglected sources, methodologies, events and regions of textual production, the collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.ual production, the collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.
