The Historia Ierosolimitana of Baldric of Bourgueil ed. by Steven Biddlecombe (review)

For over a century, scholars have relied on the Recueil des historiens des croisades for editions of key texts related to the crusades, including Baldric Bourgueil’s Historia Ierosolimitana, a Latin prose history of the First Crusade detailing the events from Pope Urban II’s sermon at Clermont in 1095 through the capture of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Muslim army at Ascalon in 1099. The editions in the Recueil, however, were products of the nineteenth century and are increasingly unable to meet modern expectations of critical editions. Starting with Rosalyn Hill’s 1962 critical edition of the anonymous Gesta Francorum, scholars have devoted considerable attention toward improving the editions of First Crusade texts. As part of a noteworthy and recent Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research project initiated by Marcus Bull, Steven Biddlecombe’s edition of Baldric of Bourgueil’s Historia Ierosolimitana is emblematic of this trend, and a significant milestone has been reached: now all three French Benedictine versions of the Gesta Francorum are available in new critical editions. Yet Biddlecome offers more than a mere update of the Recueil’s edition. With an introduction to the text nearly matching the length of the edition itself, Biddlecombe’s edition also provides the current understanding of Baldric’s biography, new information on the dating and dissemination of his text, and a fresh look at the ideas contained therein, allowing for a renewed appreciation of Baldric’s significance as a medieval author and the influence of his text in the Middle Ages (xxiv). These attributes make Biddlecombe’s text a welcomed contribution to the field.

While little is known about Baldric’s early life, he was born at Meung-sur-Loire in 1046 and became something of an autodidact despite his relatively poor, rural background that lacked family connections (xiv). With more historical sources at hand, Biddlecombe is on firmer ground in summarizing Baldric’s life at the Benedictine abbey of St. Peter at Bourgueil and his tumultuous tenure as archbishopric of Dol. At Bourgueil, Baldric used the monastery’s classical and biblical resources for his writings, and his position as abbot enabled him to be an attendee at the Council of Clermont in 1095 (xxii). In 1107, though, Baldric became archbishop of Dol where he worked against unfavorable currents until his death in January 1130. Relations with the local clergy soured, Tours continued to challenge the notion of an archbishopric at Dol, and at the First Lateran Council in 1123 Baldric needed to defend himself against the charge of an unjustly seized prebend (xiii–xiv).

Baldric’s tenure at Bourgueil and Dol directly relate to the dating and composition of the Historia Ierosolimitana, which Biddlecombe uniquely and convincingly identifies as a two-stage process with two distinct manuscript traditions. According to this schema, Baldric began his Historia in 1105 at Bourgueil, hence the “Bourgeuil recension” (and more properly the Historia Ierosolimitana of Baldric of Bourgueil) before amending the Historia sometime after 1107 as archbishop of Dol, thus the “Dol recension” (xxiv–xxvi). While the differences between the recensions are slight, they are not insignificant. The Dol recension adds the names of twelve crusade participants with Breton and Norman connections, reflecting the new milieu associated with Baldric’s archiepiscopacy at Dol (xxx). Biddlecombe does not explore the implications of this schema at length in his introduction. Nevertheless, this promises to be a fruitful venture for future scholars.

While previous scholarship downplayed Baldric’s emendations to the Gesta Francorum, an anonymous eyewitness account of the First Crusade upon which Baldric’s Historia is made, Biddlecombe demonstrates that Baldric’s Historia is no mere literary enhancement of the Gesta. Throughout the introduction, Biddlecombe reiterates that Baldric drew on classical, biblical, and patristic sources to “dignify the history of the First Crusade by introducing theological ideas, epic motifs, and plausible characters” for his diverse, not exclusively ecclesiastical, audience (xl–xli). In doing so, Biddlecombe argues, Baldric distinguished himself among First Crusade accounts in viewing...