In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

228 Giles Constable 15   Charter Evidence for Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade Most of the scholars who have studied Urban II’s call to the crusade at the council of Clermont in November 1095 and his subsequent preaching of the crusade have relied on the narrative accounts, which were written by the anonymous author of the Gesta francorum et aliorum Hierosolymitanorum , Peter Tudebode, Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, Robert (the Monk) of Rheims, Guibert of Nogent, Baldric of Bourgeuil, William of Malmesbury, and Orderic Vitalis.1 The relations among the works of these writers are debated, but there is general agreement that they were written at the beginning of the twelfth century, after the crusade, and that they were influenced by its outcome.2 Some of them, furthermore, were 1. See in particular the influential article by Dana C. Munro, ‘The Speech of Pope Urban II. at Clermont, 1095’ , American Historical Review 11 (1906) 231–42, which is cited by almost all students of the subject. Among recent accounts see Frederic Duncalf, ‘The Councils of Piacenza and Clermont ’ , in A History of the Crusades, 1: The First Hundred Years, ed. Marshall W. Baldwin (MadisonLondon 1969) 238–42; Herbert E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade’ , History 55 (1970) 177–88; Robert Somerville, ‘The Council of Clermont and the First Crusade’ , SG 20 (1976) 325–37, repr. in idem, Papacy, Councils and Canon Law in the 11th–12th Centuries (Variorum Collected Studies 312; Aldershot 1990); Hans E. Mayer, The Crusades, trans. John Gillingham (2nd ed. Oxford 1988) 8–11; Penny J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, MA 1991) 2–5; Jean Flori, La première croisade (Brussels 1992) 27–34; Thomas Asbridge , The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford 2004) 31–39 (with a brief bibliography in n. 28 on p. 348); Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London 2006) 63–72. 2. According to Louise and Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095–1274 (Documents of Medieval History 4; London 1981) 40, ‘All the reports of Urban’s address at the end of the Council of Clermont were written after the success of the crusade, and the words put into the pope’s mouth reflected these subsequent events’ . See also August C. Krey, ‘Urban’s Crusade —Success or Failure’ , American Historical Review 53 (1947–48) 236, and Asbridge, First Crusade 32, who said that all the accounts of Urban’s address were written after the crusade and ‘must, therefore, be read with a healthy dose of suspicion in mind’ . Pope Urban II’s Preaching  229 written with propagandistic aims in favor of one or another of the crusader leaders.3 A few scholars have also taken into account some of the charters issued by crusaders (mostly to raise money for their journeys) in the period immediately or very soon after the council,4 but those charters which explicitly refer to Urban and his preaching of the crusade have not, to the best of my knowledge, been studied as a group. They were written by men who may have heard Urban speak or at least heard reports of his preaching and were certainly not influenced by subsequent events. Probably the earliest, from Marcigny-sur-Loire, is dated ‘in the year that pope Urban II came into Aquitaine’ , which may be either 1095 or 1096;5 another, from the monastery of St-Pierre-de-la-Cour at Le Mans, was issued 16–17 February 1096;6 and a grant by count Robert of Flanders can be dated before September or October 1096, that is, less than a year after the council.7 A charter from Sauxillanges was issued ‘not long after’ (‘non longo post tempore’) Urban delivered his ‘exhorting decree’ (exhortans decretum), which probably refers to the council.8 To these can be added a pancharte from St-Aubin at Angers dated 20 March 1098 and confirming, among other grants, a charter issued before that date and, therefore, close to the date of the council.9 These documents differ in what they say about Urban. According to the Marcigny charter, he ‘inspired the army of Christians to repress the ferocity of the eastern pagans’ (‘Christianorum exercitum movit at [for ad?] 3. See Jean Flori, ‘De l’anonyme normand à Tudebode et aux Gesta Francorum. L’impact de la propagande de Bohémond sur la critique textuelle des sources...

Share