Crusade Preaching and the Ideal Crusader by Miikka Tamminen (review)

The extant crusade model sermons of the thirteenth century have attracted increasing scholarly attention over the past few decades. A series of invaluable studies by historians such as Penny Cole, Christoph Maier, Nicole Bériou, Jessalynn Bird, and Alexis Charansonnet has made these fascinating texts more widely accessible and shed considerable light on their composition, dissemination, sources, rhetorical strategies, themes, and impact. This new book by Miikka Tamminen explicitly builds on the work of these scholars and explores how concepts of the ‘true’ or ideal crusader were constructed and promoted in the model sermons and preaching aids composed by a group of crusade preachers who had all either studied or taught at the University of Paris at some stage: Phillipe le Chancelier, Jacques de Vitry, Roger of Salisbury, Eudes de Châteauroux, Humbert de Romans, Federico Visconti, and Guibert de Tournai.

Drawing on thirty-six texts summarized at the outset (pp. 24–43) and listed in five useful appendices for ease of reference (pp. 291–97), Tamminen offers nothing less than ‘a comprehensive study of crusade sermons […] where the focus is on the messages intended for those who have already taken the cross’ (p. 2). Although no single book could truly provide ‘a comprehensive study’ of such a rich corpus of sources, Tamminen’s analysis does illuminate the perspectives of the crusade preachers in detail. Fortunately, that detail never comes at the expense of clarity.

The structure of the book is simple, but logical: following the introduction (pp. 1–43), the remainder of the study functions as a kind of triptych, with each chapter tackling a specific set of themes and motifs deployed by the preachers in their idealized constructions of crusaders’ spiritual comportment and physical conduct. Chapter 2, ‘The Crusade and the Bible’ (pp. 45–89), is not only the least substantial chapter, but also arguably the least innovative, even though it does provide a thoughtful and concise analysis of the ways in which preachers used various biblical figures such as Joshua, Achor/Achan, the Maccabees, and the prostitute Rahab as examples of the kinds of behaviour that they should both adopt and avoid. Though undoubtedly interesting, the chapter’s final subsection on ‘Biblical Prophecy’ (pp. 74–89) does not engage thoroughly with previous scholarship on apocalypticism in the crusading context, and fails to explain clearly how the apocalyptic and prophetic material discussed aided preachers in constructing and instructing ‘true’ crusaders.

Chapter 3, ‘The Crusader and God’ (pp. 90–201), on the other hand, is both very long (perhaps too long) and full of insightful observations. One of the most important of these is that the ideals, language, and imagery of the imitation of Christ (imitatio Christi), inextricably bound up with concepts of self-denial, rejection of the world (contemptus mundi), love for God, and the ready embrace of suffering, remained as prominent in thirteenth-century crusade ideology as they had been in the twelfth century (pp. 108–32). This chapter also aptly illustrates the preachers’ complex, nuanced, and by no means consistent views on crusading stigmata, indulgences, and martyrdom.

Chapter 4, ‘The Crusader and the World’ (pp. 203–78), shifts the frame of reference and investigates how the preachers articulated the ideal crusader’s relationship with wealth, family, home, and society. As in Chapter 3, Tamminen further refines our understanding of thirteenth-century crusade ideology by demonstrating that, contrary to what some scholars have suggested, awareness and expressions of the fundamental link between crusade and pilgrimage persisted in this period and can be seen in many of the model sermons (pp. 239–50). Furthermore, Tamminen shows convincingly (and somewhat surprisingly) that not all preachers were hostile or opposed to the participation of women and children in crusading expeditions, as is especially clear in the case of Eudes de Châteauroux (pp. 262–69).

For all its merits, Crusade Preaching and the Ideal Crusader suffers to some extent from...