The Celestial Knight: Evoking the First Crusade in Odo of Deuil’s De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem and in the Anonymous Historia de Expeditione Friderici Imperatoris

Writing in the early twelfth century, the Benedictine theologian and historian Guibert of Nogent asserted: “Si filii Israel miraculis quae ante eos egerit dominus michi inferentur obiectis” [If someone cites the sons of Israel and the miracles God performed for them, I shall offer something more miraculous].¹ Guibert was referring to the sequence of events known to posterity as the First Crusade, events which are presented throughout his revealingly titled crusade history Dei Gesta per Francos as a divine miracle in their own right, enacted by God through the participants of the expedition two decades earlier. This perception of the First Crusade, which culminated in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, was ubiquitous in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.² The miracles experienced during the expedition, as recorded by its chroniclers, became a defining aspect of the ongoing memorialization of the First Crusade throughout the twelfth century.³

In contrast to their celebrated antecedent, the Second and Third Crusades did not achieve equal success in the eyes of contemporaries.⁴ In the mid-twelfth century, in his narrative of the deeds of his nephew and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Otto of Freising (d. before 1177) commented of the Second Crusade: “Verum quia peccatis nostris exigentibus, quem finem predicta expeditio sortita fuerit, omnibus notum est, nos, qui non hac vice tragediam, sed iocundam scribere proposuimus hystoriam, aliis vel alias hoc dicendum relinquimus” [But since the outcome of that expedition, because of our sins, is known to all, we, who have purposed this time to write not a tragedy but a joyous history, leave this to be related by others elsewhere].⁵ The Third Crusade similarly failed in its remit, insofar as it did not succeed in the recapture of Jerusalem, which had fallen to Saladin’s forces in 1187.⁶ Ambroise reveals the existence of a negative contemporary response to the Third Crusade by defending against it in his Estoire de la Guerre Sainte (written before 1199): “Mais meintes genz non sachanz / distrent / Puis plusors [feiz] par lor folie / Qu’il n’orent rien fait en Sulie / Quant Jerusalem n’ert conquise” [But many ignorant people say repeatedly, in their folly, that they achieved nothing in Syria since Jerusalem was not conquered].⁷ Yet despite such censure, medieval accounts of the Second and Third Crusades continued to discuss these later expeditions in miraculous terms that mirrored treatments of the First Crusade. This article explores the reasons behind this historiographical phenomenon through analysis of the celestial, or saintly, warrior motif. First, key moments in the motif’s development are outlined.⁸ This is followed by an examination of two later crusade narratives featuring the celestial knight, namely Odo of Deuil’s De profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem (c. 1150) and the anonymous Historia de Expeditione Friderici Imperatoris (c. 1200).⁹ These later examples of the celestial knight motif provide insights into how the problems posed by defeat were negotiated by authors in order to legitimize their use of the miraculous, and why an author might go to such lengths to do so. Further, exploration of the ongoing memorialization of the First Crusade throughout the twelfth century contributes to a consideration of whether the use of the motif should be viewed as a deliberate evocation of that earlier endeavor.

The Celestial Knights of the Gesta Francorum

The appearance of a celestial army during the crusader defense of Antioch in June 1098 is one of the most iconic miracles associated with the First Crusade.¹⁰ The anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (hereafter, Gesta Francorum),¹¹ himself a participant in the First Crusade, described how an innumerable host of knights astride white horses and brandishing white standards descended from the mountains to support the Christian army: “Exibant quoque de montaneis innumerabiles exercitus, habentes equos albos, quorum uexilla omnia erant alba. Videntes itaque nostri hunc exercitum, ignorabant penitus quid hoc esset et qui essent; donec cognouerunt esse adiutorium Christi, cuius ductores fuerunt sancti, Georgius, Mercurius et Demetrius...