Raising Arms: Liturgy in the Struggle to Liberate Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages (review)

In the renaissance that is now crusade studies, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the wider implications and expressions of the movement. Once relegated to the periphery of medieval history, new studies have demonstrated that the crusades existed at its very core, animating events and dynamics across Europe. Modern studies no longer view the crusades as mere military campaigns, but as intensely religious activities incomprehensible outside of religious history. The crusades were the barometer of Europe's soul. For medieval Christians, success in the crusades meant spiritual health and the favor of God. Defeat, which was the norm, was clear evidence of a sickness in Christendom and general divine disfavor. That is why "home front" crusade activities, such as prayers, processions, and fasts were seen as integral to success as the mustering of troops and the fighting of wars.

It is all the more surprising then, that virtually no scholarly attention has been paid to the ways in which medieval Christians sought to win victories abroad through prayers at home. In that respect, this book is the first spade full of dirt in what promises to be a large and fascinating excavation. It is the first study to gather together and examine crusade-related prayers within medieval liturgy. Specifically, Linder looks at five kinds of liturgical prayers: the Holy Land Clamor, a genre of prayer that appears after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 that was usually injected into the Mass or the Office; the Holy Land Mass, identified by distinctive prayers in the Collect, Secret, and Postcommunion; the dedicated war Mass, which weaves together the triple prayers along with additional supplications and appropriate Scriptural readings; the Gregorian Trental, a series of Masses—usually thirty as the name suggests—for the deliverance of Christians or Christian lands held in bondage or (as was much more often the case) the deliverance of souls from Purgatory; and the Holy Land bidding prayers, which were vernacular petitions read at Mass.

Perhaps it is due to the ground-breaking nature of this book, but the organization is unlike anything I have encountered before. Historical narrative is woven together with meticulous textual analysis, detailed charts, and extensive manuscript catalogs. It is almost a reference work, not so much to be read as to be mined. Nevertheless, in so doing the reader would miss some of Linder's important insights which are sandwiched between ponderous discussions of textual evolution. For example, when one reads of the entire population of Rome taking part in a religious procession as a symbolic crusade in 1212 (p. 10) one cannot help but be struck at the awareness and anxiety at all levels of Christian society with regard to the success of the crusades. A review this brief cannot begin to describe the sophisticated level of textual and source analysis which Linder undertakes.

My only criticism of this remarkable work of scholarship regards the larger implications that Linder seeks to draw. At the outset he contends that the liturgy and rites were "effective channels of information and propaganda for the knowledge they imparted was perceived by the faithful as authoritative. . . . Rites, furthermore, addressed the entire community as well as each individual. . ." (p. xv). At the book's conclusion he returns to this theme, noting that "one faces the question of effectiveness: how successful was this liturgy in implanting its values and aims on late medieval society?" (p. 364). While it is certainly true that bidding prayers, which claim the smallest portion of this study, were a means of communicating to the faithful, could Mass or Office prayers often said quietly or silently and always in Latin have really acted as a means of "information and propaganda"? Linder thinks so, arguing that most people would get the "gist" of these prayers. Yet he ultimately closes the question (and the book) by...