Chroniques et propagandistes: Introduction critique aux sources de la première croisade (review)

The First Crusade produced a wealth of sources in its immediate aftermath from both eyewitnesses and monastic chroniclers, explaining the triumphs of God through the men who fought and died en route to Jerusalem. This array of texts, with conflicting accounts and heroes, contested dates and degrees of importance, can be overwhelming for students and scholars alike, and for both groups Jean Flori’s Chroniques et propagandists is a welcome addition to the already full field of Crusade textual analysis. For the novice in the field (who is able to read French), Flori’s book lives up to its subtitle as a critical introduction to the sources of the First Crusade, focusing on all of the traditional major works: the Gesta Francorum and its derivatives, Raymond d’Aguiliers, Fulcher of Chartres, and Albert of Aachen. It also serves as an introduction to the vast array of historiographical debate on the three major areas of analysis Flori works with: the date of the redaction of the sources, the eyewitness value of the sources, and the partiality of the sources. It has the added benefit of introducing a student to the idea of factionalism in historiography, as Flori makes no bones about where he stands on the various issues and who stands with or against him. For the Crusade historian, on the other hand, Flori’s text will be a touchstone text for both admirers and detractors, as he has attempted to substantially revise the way we approach our major sources.

The initial segment of the book takes a quantitative approach to looking at biases within the chosen texts. The first chapter looks at the number of references to the names of the major actors in the First Crusade in the four major original texts to show who their most important figures are. This is then expanded in the second chapter to look at the number of favorable references to each actor to explore the direct biases of the text. What Flori finds is that despite traditional notions of importance based on name-references, the major texts have somewhat different level of valorization than is commonly assumed. This is of absolute importance given the unfortunate weight tradition tends to play in the analysis of primary sources. Raymond d’Aguiliers, for example, while mentioning Raymond de Saint-Gilles three times more than the three next most-mentioned figures, has only one directly laudatory reference to the count. Both chapters reinforce the idea of impartiality on the part of Albert of Aachen—a theme that recurs throughout the text as a whole, as Flori is a strong proponent of rehabilitating that source as one of highest importance. The third chapter moves the quantitative analysis to the derivative texts of the Gesta Francorum, focusing mainly on the three Benedictine revisions with a separate section for Peter Tudebode. The graph provided for positive references to figures in the Gesta and its derivatives (Graph 8; 53) is particularly interesting. The separate section on Tudebode builds Flori’s larger case about Tudebode’s relationship to the Gesta, namely that it is an earlier redaction of the version of the Gesta commonly seen today—the lessened amount of glorification for Bohemond is used as one building block in this case.

The second part of the book examines the family of texts derived from the anonymous Norman author of the Gesta Francorum in greater detail, looking at the manuscript traditions and the internal structure of the Gesta, Peter Tudebode, Baudri of Bourgueil, Robert the Monk, and Guibert of Nogent. Chapter 4 is Flori’s preliminary exploration of the Gesta itself, its pro-Bohemond slant and Flori’s belief in an Ur-Gesta of which the Gesta Francorum known today is a later propagandistic redaction. The next chapter is one of the most useful parts of the book—it examines the complex relationship between the Gesta Francorum and the work of Peter Tudebode. Flori covers the debate on which text is earlier...