Viriliter et sine Timore:

Fear and Courage Among the First Crusaders 1095 to 1099

Jilana Ordman
April 29, 2002

An essay submitted to the faculty of the Department of History

at Loyola University Chicago, in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.

Readers: Dr. Barbara Rosenwein and Dr. Theresa Gross-Diaz

 Abbreviations

AHR American Historical Review

Die Kreuzzugsbriefe Epistulae et chartae ad historiam

primi belli sacri Spectantes: Die
Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren
1088-1100, ed. Heinrich
Hagenmeyer. Innsbruck: Verlag
der Wagner’schen
Universitatsbuch-handlung,
1901.

EHR English Historical Review

PL Patrilogia cursus completus.

Series Latina. 221 Vols. Paris:
Garnier Fratres and J. P. Migne,
1844-1864.

RHC Oc. 3 Recueil des historiens des

croisades. Historiens
occidentaux, Vol. 3. Paris:
Academie Imperiale des
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres,
1866.
 3

Introduction

“We were all indeed huddled together like sheep in a fold, agitated and

frightened, surrounded on all sides by enemies so that we could not proceed in either

direction,” wrote crusade chronicler and cleric Fulcher of Chartres. 1 According to another

chronicler, the priest Peter Tudebode, two crusade leaders were unable to persuade their

men to attack a citadel because “they were shut up in houses fearfully, some because of

hunger and others because of fear of the Turks.”2 Statements such as these appear

frequently in sources of the First Crusade, but as is the case in many areas of historical

inquiry, scholars have not examined these examples of emotional expression.

This essay will examine expressions of fear, methods for its mitigation, and the

social context and consequences of its expression among men who took part in the first

“seigniorial” crusade to Jerusalem, from 1095 to 1099.3 While in some primary sources

of the First Crusade authors reported that crusaders directly and literally expressed fear,

in others explicit references to fear were notably absent. Some crusaders who expressed

fear were not condemned, while others who did so were cursed and insulted. This essay

will explore these sources’ disparities regarding fear and analyze the varied reactions

portrayed within them to those who expressed this emotion. Through this approach I hope

1
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Peregrinantium bk. 1 c. 11 (hereafter referred
to as Gesta Francorum), in RHC Oc. 3, 335C-D: “Nos quidem omnes in unum conglobati, tanquam oues
clausae ouili, trepidi et pauefacti…ut nullatenus aliquorsum procedere ualermus.”
2
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere bk. 10 c. 11 (hereafter referred to as
Historia de Hierosolymitano), in RHC Oc. 3, 71: “…erant inclusi in domibus timentes alii fame, alii timore
Turcorum.”
3
The first “Seigniorial” or “Knightly” crusade was preceded by an expedition organized by non-
military personnel, often called the “Peasant’s Crusade” or the “Popular Crusade;” see James Brundage,
The Crusades: A Documentary Survey (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1962), 24; and Claude
Cahen, “Introduction to the First Crusade,” Past and Present, no. 6 (1964): 27. Though women were present
on the Knightly crusade this essay focuses on gender expressions by men; for more information on
women’s involvement, see Walter Porges, “The Clergy, the Poor, and the Non-Combatants on the First
Crusade,” Speculum 21 (1946): 1-23 and Sharon Farmer, “Persuasive Voices: Clerical Images of Medieval
Wives,” Speculum 61 (1986): 517-543.
 4

to illuminate the social conventions for the expression of fear in a late eleventh-century

military context, including the influences of social class and gender identity on the

expression of this emotion.

Recent scholars have noted the general methodological difficulties faced in the

examination of emotions in the Middle Ages. 4 As with the study of other emotions, the

examination of fear in the Middle Ages must move beyond traditional academic

generalizations of medieval emotional expression. According to historian of emotions

Mark S. R. Jenner, late nineteenth and early twentieth century historians investigated fear

in order to understand why individuals in earlier societies seemed more prone to

widespread fears than those in the modern west. 5 Norbert Elias, whose theory of the

civilizing process argued for a transformation from an emotionally and physically

uninhibited medieval society to a socially controlled early modern one, stated that public

violence and warfare were not only necessary in medieval society, but also pleasurable

“for the mighty and strong.”6 The mighty and strong were not afraid of injury in war. 7 In

order to discount these assumptions and clarify medieval emotional expression scholars

have reexamined texts from which such generalizations were developed. 8 Jenner

4
See especially Catherine Cubitt, “The History of Emotions: a Debate; Introduction,” and Barbara
Rosenwein, “Writing Without Fear About Medieval Emotions,” Early Medieval Europe 10 (2001): 225-
233.
5
Mark S. R. Jenner, “The Great Dog Massacre,” in Fear in Early Modern Society, ed. William
Naphy and Penny Roberts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 44-45. The influence of
Anthropologist Lewis Morgan was also important in earlier historian’s attitudes toward emotions. Morgan
discussed the “rudeness of the early condition of mankind” and “the gradual evolution of their mental and
moral powers,” in “Ethnical Periods,” excerpted from Ancient Society (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1910), reprinted in Perspectives in Cultural Anthropology, ed. Herbert Applebaum (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1987), 47. (page citation is to reprint edition)
6
Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Malden: Blackwell Publishers,
1994), 158. Elias’s theory of sociogenesis proposed that the civilizing process undergone in a culture over
time was similar to the process of “growing up” among individuals in western society; also see Elias, xiii.
7
Ibid., 160.
8
Communications professor John R. E. Bliese examined crusade chronicles and chansons de geste
for insight into the rhetorical manipulation of emotions by military leaders and the psychological
 5

explained that fear is now examined within the “cultural and discursive construction of

sentiment” with special attention to how and why individuals and cultures decide that

something poses a danger to them, an area of research that he named “the historical

sociology of risk.”9 Yet the focus of most historians, including Jenner, has remained

widespread fears of sin, disease and disaster. 10 Very few scholars of the Middle Ages and

early modern period have analyzed expressions of fear in high-risk situations such as

combat.11

While fear of personal physical harm and widespread social anxiety are

considered very different affective states, fear of harm on the battlefield and during

peacetime situations must also be distinguished. 12 Research by modern military

psychologists suggests that emotional expressions during warfare may not be of the same

quantity or intensity as displayed in daily civilian life. These psychologists argue that

responses to stress in combat may generally be classified as pathological when compared

to peacetime behaviors.13 In his discussion of affect among modern and ancient soldiers,

motivations of medieval warriors. He stressed that the most important factor in the study and analysis of
fear in the chronicles was that the emotion was mentioned at all. See Bliese, “Fighting Spirit and Literary
Genre: A Comparison of Battle Exhortations in the Song of Roland and in the Chronicles of the Central
Middle Ages,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 96 (1995): 417-437; idem, "The Courage of the Normans: A
Comparative Study of Battle Rhetoric,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 35 (1991): 1-27; and idem, “When
Knightly Courage May Fail: Battle Orations in Medieval Europe,” Historian 53 (1991): 484-505.
9
Jenner, 45.
10
For an assessment of the increase of wide-spread fear in the later Middle Ages see Jean
Delumeau, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture 13th-18th Centuries, trans. Eric
Nicholson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990). See also William J. Bouwsma, ed., “Anxiety and the
Formation of Early Modern Culture,” in A Usable Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990),
157-189 and William Naphy and Penny Roberts, “Introduction,” in Fear in Early Modern Society, 1-8.
11
Bleise, who is not a historian, is one of the few scholars to focus on medieval emotions on the
battlefield. Also important is the work of interdisciplinary scholar and historian William Ian Miller; see
Humiliation and Other Essays on Honor, Social Discomfort, and Violence (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1993) and The Mystery of Courage (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).
12
Psychologist Stanley J. Rachman describes fear as a feeling of apprehension about tangible and
realistic dangers, while anxiety refers to a feeling of uncertainty that is difficult to relate to a tangible cause.
See Rachman, Fear and Courage (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1978).
13
See Joanna Bourke, “The Emotions in War: Fear and the British and American Military, 1914-
1945,” Historical Research 74 (2001): 317.
 6

William Ian Miller found that the noisy confusion of battle resulted in “emotional

synesthesia,” through which stimuli that would normally result in one emotion could

during combat lead to its opposite. 14 In his study of battlefield fear and courage, World

War II veteran and author J. Glenn Gray explained from personal experience that the

constant threat to life, presence of the enemy, and exposure to stress created a climate of

feeling that was not paralleled in civilian life. 15

Expressions of fear by crusaders during their journey east, therefore, may not

have been identical to normal eleventh-century responses to stress and physical danger.

At the same time, however, the examination of the expression of emotion by individuals

under stress may provide the opportunity for more insight than would be possible if the

subjects were in the comforts of home. As historian Eric Christiansen wrote regarding the

study of medieval institutions on the frontiers of the northern crusades, “The study of

these institutions on their home ground, or in hot-house colonies, is well established and

keenly pursued; but at least as much can be learned by looking at them under stress,

beyond the pale.”16 If emotional expression is shaped by the culture from which a

crusader originated, and that culture was carried east within the community of the

crusaders, then the study of the expression and mitigation of fear “beyond the pale” may

illuminate the norms for the expression of this emotion at home. Despite differences in

intensity and expression, both fear of danger in battle and at home were products of the

same emotional culture.

In the case of the first crusaders, as well as combatants from other eras, the

14
Miller, The Mystery of Courage, 89.
15
J. Glenn Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle, 2d ed (New York: Harper and Row
Publishers, 1970), 26.
16
Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier 1100-1525
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 3.
 7

examination of emotional expression in battle must also discuss the behavior of those

who do not display fear, a trait that is commonly called courage. While courage may

often be perceived as a lack of fear, many scholars identify courage as an ability to fight

despite the presence of danger or even the experience of fear. Miller argued that at the

heart of courage is the notion of attack and defense, the awareness that one faces pain or

death. In order to display courage one must have an awareness that danger is present,

even if that awareness does not always lead to fear. 17 Psychologist Stanley J. Rachman

described courage as the ability to act in spite of feeling what one defines as fear. 18 Yet

the key to the display of courage despite fear may be emotional self-control. Philosopher

Douglas N. Walton argued that control of all emotions is necessary for competence and

survival in dangerous situations. A man may experience fear, but he will only succeed in

battle if this feeling is controlled. 19 By discussing expressions of fear among the first

crusaders this essay will also explore late-eleventh century concepts of courage, a quality

that in some crusade source is attributed only to those who did not express fear at all,

while in others it is ascribed to those who fought despite it.

Before moving on to discuss the historiography pertinent to this investigation, I

should first explain my textual approach to reports of fear and its mitigation among

crusaders. The primary sources I have utilized for this investigation include chronicles

composed by men who participated in the First Crusade, letters written by crusaders, one

chanson de geste that was written soon after the crusade but was most likely already

known to crusaders in oral form, and another written a century after the event that

17
Miller, The Mystery of Courage, 12, 41, 282.
18
Rachman, 25.
19
Douglass N. Walton, Courage: A Philosophical Investigation (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986), 82.
 8

recorded the crusaders’ deeds in the style of earlier heroic epics.

The sources of the First Crusade that I have examined had diverse audiences.

Chronicles, records of holy acts in the east, were primarily meant to be read by members

of the clergy who would then share the information with laymen. Chansons were heard,

and later read, by noble men and women as entertainment at home, and heard by noble

and knightly men on the battlefield. Letters were sent to friends and acquaintances in the

West to relate specific incidents. Disparate as these audiences were, they shared common

religious traditions, rituals, social institutions, and historical worldviews. This common

culture resulted in systems of symbols and representations recognizable across

geographical and social boundaries. Affect could be conveyed through commonly

recognized representations of emotional language and behavior. Thus, though these texts

had distinct audiences, those who came in contact with them shared a common culture

and may be thought of as an emotional community.

Expressions of fear in the sources of the First Crusade include more than just

explicit references to the emotion. In both English and Latin words used to denote “fear”

are employed to express uncertainty, suspicion, and a hope that something won’t happen

not only in the context of threats of bodily harm, but also in expressions such as “he fears

it will rain” or “she fears she will be late.” 20 While in this investigation the former

context is valuable, the latter makes it impossible to examine sources for expressions of

fear by looking solely at words that literally indicate “fear.” It is thus necessary for us to

focus on situations in which fear may be adduced whether or not this emotion is

explicitly named.

Psychologist Stanley J. Rachman described three components of experienced fear:

20
Miller, The Mystery of Courage, 205.
 9

subjective reports, physiological changes, and avoidance/escape reactions. Subjective

reports of fear include individuals making statements such as “I felt fear” or “I was

afraid,” while physiological changes are shown by physical reactions to dangerous

stimuli, such as increased heart-rate, trembling or being frozen in place.

Avoidance/escape reactions may be defined as running away, hiding or otherwise

distancing oneself from danger. 21 I have approached all three aspects of fear using

authors’ reports of crusaders expressing fear and their attributions of fear or fearful

behavior to crusaders. Context has thus played a much greater role than vocabulary in my

study of these texts. Inevitably, however, there is a danger of contextually interpreting a

passage to contain more emotional expression than a chronicler, author of a chanson, or

author of a letter intended. The solution to this interpretive quandary is found in

comparing texts from multiple literary genres in order to clarify the words used to

describe fear and the situations in which fear could arise.

It is important to remember that references to fear in all these sources are

descriptions purposefully included by a narrator; these reports do not necessarily

represent straightforward accounts of experienced emotion. While the composers of these

chronicles, chansons, and letters often had first-hand knowledge of life on the battlefield,

they wrote according to literary and oral traditions. Authors from each of these genres

often described or attributed affect for reasons that went beyond the desire to provide a

full, non-fictional account of events. This essay will explore some of those reasons.

21
Rachman, 4-5.
 10

Historiography

This study of fear among the first crusaders has been influenced by multiple areas

of scholarly research, including twentieth-century crusade historiography, the study of

emotions in historical and cross-cultural contexts, and discussions of class and gender in

medieval and modern history. This historiographical section provides a brief discussion

of each issue and has been organized to provide a setting for my present research on

crusaders’ emotional expression rather than a complete overview of each area of study.

The First Crusade and the Crusaders

The popularity of the Crusades as a subject of historical inquiry has resulted in a

nearly continuous flow of material since roughly 1800.22 The “American School” of

crusade study had its beginning in the work of Dana Carlton Munro (1866-1933). His

approach to the crusades, which is thought to have grown from the methodology of

nineteenth-century German historian Leopold von Ranke, utilized multiple eyewitness

sources to gain a picture of the whole event, its causes, and consequences, rather than

focusing on the authorship and validity of a single source. 23 Though Munro is best known

22
D. C. Munro, in “War and History,” AHR 32 (1927): 219, cited the date of birth of modern
crusade historiography as 1807, when the National Institute of France offered a prize for an essay about
influence of the crusades on European culture, thus suggesting that the crusades could be viewed as more
than just an example of pre-Enlightenment barbarity. According to historian J. L. La Monte, the peak of
international crusade scholarship was 1875-1911, the years of the Société de l'Orient Latin. The Société
encouraged cooperation between scholars, acted as a center for collecting evidence of individuals’
participation in the Crusades, and shaped the scholarly description of the crusades as a mass movement.
See La Monte, “Some Problems in Crusade Historiography,” Speculum 15 (1940): 58-59.
23
Susan Edgington described Ranke’s admonition as a request to “tell it like it is.” Ranke and his
student Heinrich von Sybel produced a history of the First Crusade that utilized eyewitness accounts in
1841, though his area of study was primarily modern political history. See Edgington, “Reviewing the
Evidence,” in The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. Jonathan Phillips (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1997), 55.
 11

for this method, his 1932 article “A Crusader” used a single source to achieve new

results.24

In “A Crusader,” Munro argued that questions about the personality and

motivations of the crusaders arise as soon as the crusades themselves are thought of as

“real events” and not just facts and dates, an idea that had lasting but delayed

repercussions in crusade historiography. 25 In his investigation of crusaders’ motivations

and “mental equipment,” Munro felt it necessary to limit his inquiry to men whose

experiences were recorded in detail, who personally witnessed the success of the crusade

and displayed knowledge of eastern geography and politics, but who were not crusade

leaders.26 He felt that chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, one of the few crusaders who fit

within these limitations, provided insight into the human experience of the First

Crusade.27 Munro specified, however, that Fulcher’s aversion to violence and inclusion of

descriptions of private life set him apart from other chroniclers. 28 Based on the Fulcher’s

behaviors and reactions described in this chronicle, Munro suggested that the chronicler

was “very human,” which he felt proved that there were universals in emotional

experience and expression.29 While Munro’s defining humanity by an aversion to

24
D. C. Munro, “A Crusader,” Speculum 7 (1932): 321-335; for examples of Munro’s work that
use of several eyewitness accounts to study a single event, see Munro, “The Speech of Pope Urban II at
Clermont,” AHR 11 (1906): 231-242, idem, “Did the Emperor Alexius I Ask for Aid at the Council of
Piacenza?,” AHR 27 (1922): 731-733, and idem, “Western Attitudes Toward Islam During the Period of
the Crusades,” Speculum 6 (1931): 329-343.
25
See Munro, “A Crusader,” 321; for a similar argument see for example Rosalind Hill, ed. and
trans., Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1962),
xxi. It could be said that this attitude has been the basis of recent Crusade historiography, including John
France’s approach to military history with a concern for its human causes and effects. See France, Western
Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000-1300 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 205, 232.
26
Munro, “A Crusader,” 321.
27
Ibid., 322.
28
Ibid., 333-334.
29
Munro wrote “It is evident that Arnold was right, human nature has not varied much throughout
the ages.” The Arnold to which Munro referred was most likely poet and essayist Matthew Arnold (1822-
1888); Ibid., 335.
 12

violence may now be considered ahistorical and perhaps representative of the effects of

World War I on scholarship, his article successfully argued against historians making

“rash generalizations” that all people loved and approved of violence and cared little for

their own and their peers’ well being. 30

Though Munro’s own definition of humanity was certainly a generalization, his

investigation opened a line of inquiry, which my research follows, into the expressions

and behaviors of crusaders as human beings with human reactions to their experiences.

While Munro raised the topic of emotional behavior, he did not consider the effects of

culture on the crusaders’ actions and expressions. Future scholars looked more closely at

the cultural forces behind the actions of the crusaders, but none after Munro attempted to

draw conclusions regarding their emotional reactions to their surroundings. They focused

instead on the cultural changes that led so many to take up the cross and travel east.

In his 1935 examination of the cultural development of the crusade movement,

The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, German historian Carl Erdman investigated changes in

Christian attitudes toward warfare and the development of Christian knighthood. While

Erdman’s conclusions that the Church played an important role in the development of

positive attitudes toward warfare and knighthood in response to social and political

transformations had lasting effects on the study of the crusades and medieval culture, he

described knights’ roles as created and modified by social trends and governing bodies

without mention of individuals’ will or response. 31 While a reader of his work may

assume the consequences that the changes in these attitudes had on the mentalities of

30
Ibid., 335.
31
Carl Erdman, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).
 13

those who gained social and spiritual acceptance as Christian knights, Erdman does not

propose an analysis of those mentalities.

Erdman’s focus on the development of crusading culture inspired others to

examine the effects of this development through knights’ motivations to go on crusade.

Few scholars, however, sought to discover the attitudes of crusaders while in the east. In

his 1946 article “The Clergy, the Poor, and the Non-Combatants on the First Crusade,”

Walter Porges discussed the mounted and unmounted fighters’ opinions toward the non-

combatants, including women, children, and the poor who traveled with them. 32 The

presence of women, who were perceived as instigators of vice, caused anxiety because of

the crusaders’ belief that their success was dependent on God’s favor. 33 This reference to

crusaders’ anxiety made Porges’ article an important contribution to crusade

historiography, as did its reference to marginalized groups such as women and the poor.

Unfortunately, this importance can be seen only in hindsight; its line of investigation was

a dead end. Works after Porges did not closely examine the functional roles of

individuals on crusade or their attitudes towards gender, and few focused on the

experiences of women who traveled with the expedition.34

Dutch military historian J. F. Verbruggen contributed to historians’ understanding

of the mentalities of crusaders and knights in general with his 1954 work The Art of

Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages. Verbruggen differed from

traditional medieval military historians, who tended to focus on developments in military

technology and the strategies of mounted fighters, in his discussion of knights’

32
Walter Porges, “The Clergy, the Poor, and the Non-Combatants on the First Crusade,” 1.
33
Women who are recorded to have taken part in the journey include the wives of commanders
and fighters, camp followers, and at least one nun. See ibid., 9-15.
34
Historian Sharon Farmer has referred to positive views of wives who participated in the First
Crusade; see Farmer, “Persuasive Voices,” 522, 525.
 14

psychology and emotional response as shaped by their training and in the importance he

placed on the military contributions of footsoldiers. 35 He condemned Dutch medievalist

Johann Huizinga’s and others’ acceptance of literary sources that described knights as

endlessly brave and bloodthirsty as factual accounts, stating that this was a simplistic

interpretation suggested by the lyrics of a few idealistic poets.36 He argued that the

reexamination of these literary sources showed that fears of death, mutilation, wounds,

and captivity, which knights were trained from a young age to overcome, were clearly

present as the chief tactical problems faced by medieval armies. 37 But despite

Verbruggen’s desire for a new understanding of knightly emotional experience, he still

asserted that in “…the tenth and eleventh centuries fighting was particularly reckless,

because life was not then as highly esteemed as later.”38 Knights’ fears of death,

mutilation, wounds, or captivity apparently did nothing to lessen savagery in battle.

Until a full translation of from Dutch was completed in 1997 this work influenced

only a few scholars to reassess medieval literary sources that discussed warfare and

medieval tactics, and to combine descriptions of battles, social history and ideological

analysis into what has since become the modern approach to military history. 39 Erdman’s

35
Verbruggen saw major problems in the work of military historians, primarily that they usually
had military training but no preparation in historical writing or knowledge of the period of which they
wrote; see The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages, from the Eight Century to 1340,
trans. Sumner Willard and Mrs. R. W. Southern, 2d ed. , (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1997),
1.
36
Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (London: E. Arnold & Co., 1924), 64-65 cited
in Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe, 37. Verbruggen complained that Le Jouvencel and
other works made scholars think that knights felt contempt for human life and human suffering.
37
Verbruggen, 40.
38
Ibid., 57.
39
In his introduction to Verbruggen’s The Art of Warfare in Western Europe, military historian
Matthew Bennet explains that though only a few scholars were influenced by Verbruggen’s work before its
partial translation in 1970 and full translation in 1997, those whom it did influence closely followed
Verbruggen’s approach in their own studies of military history. Bennet specifically points to the research of
Kelly DeVries, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press,
1998) and John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge:
 15

account of the social and ecclesiastical development of the idea of the crusade continued

to inspire dialogue, and mid-twentieth-century historians did not produce examinations

that focused directly on the crusaders’ own psychological, spiritual or material

perspectives. Not until well after the World Wars did attention even turn to the crusaders’

economic motivations, as part of historians’ growing interest in social and economic

history.40

German historian Hans Eberhard Mayer, in his 1965 work The Crusades, argued

that due to Erdman’s influence too much attention had been paid to ecclesiastical

developments before and during the eleventh century.41 Mayer argued that socio-

economic factors created a climate in which economically destitute men were willing to

risk their lives for ideological reasons. 42 Despite this theory, at no point did Mayer

provide an example of even one crusader who stated or implied that he journeyed east for

economic reasons. Mayer’s study could not fully approach the psychological world of the

crusaders without this direct evidence. His work did, however, inspire other scholars to

move away from the investigation of the Crusades as a purely religious movement.

Mayer had pointed out that crusaders’ participation was often funded by ecclesiastical

Cambridge University Press, 1994) as examples of modern military historiography inspired by Verbruggen.
Bennet himself, however, demonstrates Verbruggen’s influence in his use of instructive literature to better
understand knightly culture in “Military Masculinity in England and Northern France, 1050-1225,” in
Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D. M. Hadley (London: Longman, 1999), 71-88.
40
See for example Georges Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and
Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century, trans. Howard B. Clark (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1974), in which economic and productive forces greatly shaped medieval European culture and
social relations. For economic interpretations of the crusade see below.
41
Mayer did agree with Erdman’s argument that the crusades would have been impossible without
a Christian concept of holy war and the development of Christian knighthood; see Mayer, The Crusades,
trans. John Gillingham (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 22
42
Mayer, 23-25. Scholars such as Elizabeth Hallam have discounted Mayer’s conclusions
regarding economic factors due to the huge expense of journeying east. Soldiers had to be financially
secure, at least at the beginning of the journey, since even mercenaries had to furnish their own arms and
horses; see Hallam, ed., Chronicles of the Crusades: Eyewitness Accounts of the Wars between Christianity
and Islam (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989), 60.
 16

authorities and that their material possessions were protected by canon law while they

were in the east.43 This focus on the material aspects and ramifications of crusading thus

led other scholars to investigate the economic and ecclesiastical rules and regulations by

which crusade participation was organized. This shift is reflected in the late ‘sixties by

James Brundage’s Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader, an examination of the

relationship between the crusades and changes in canon law.44

Crusade historians of the 1970s and 1980s continued to display interest in the

legal and ecclesiastical aspects of crusading, besides providing suggestions for crusader

motivation. British ecclesiastical and crusade historian Herbert E. J. Cowdrey

demonstrated the influence of both Erdman and Mayer in his focus on the dynamic

relationship between crusading, indulgence, and church reform movements.45 In his 1974

essay “The Genesis of the Crusades: The Springs of the Western Ideas of Holy War,”

Cowdrey suggested that the economic situation in Europe was not as bad as Mayer had

argued.46 He emphasized ecclesiastical concern for the moral direction of knights as the

basis of the crusading movement, and presented the eleventh century preoccupation with

the remission of sin as an important crusader motivation.47 Cowdrey’s and other

historians’ attention to lay piety and to the legal, religious, and social position of the

43
Mayer, 42.
44
See Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1969); and idem, “Holy War and Medieval Lawyers,” in The Holy War, ed. Thomas Patrick Murphy
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976).
45
Cowdrey’s numerous works include “Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade,” History
55 (1970): 177-88, idem, “The Peace and Truce of God in the Eleventh Century,” Past and Present no. 46
(1970): 42-67, and idem, “Martyrdom and the First Crusade,” in Crusade and Settlement: Papers Read at
the First Conference of the Society of the Study of he Crusades and the Latin East, ed. P. W. Edbury (New
Jersey: Cardiff Press, 1985), 46-56.
46
Cowdrey, “The Genesis of the Crusades: The Springs of Western Ideas of Holy War,” in Holy
War, 13-14.
47
Ibid., 16.
 17

knight in society influenced scholars to focus on crusaders’ material and spiritual

motivations rather than on large-scale socio-economic explanations. 48

In the 1980s historians also discussed economic and social changes in the West

that resulted from the practice of crusading. Geographic areas not commonly studied for

their crusade involvement, such as England, became subjects of inquiry. 49 The crusades

in the east, and the later western crusades, were also investigated as vehicles for

spreading southwestern European Christian culture and institutions.50 But most important

to the historiography of the 1980s and 1990s, the experiences and ideas of the crusaders

themselves had a newfound significance.

British historian Jonathan Riley-Smith described his 1986 work The First Crusade

and the Idea of Crusading as most influenced by Erdman, whom he considered the source

of the prevailing historiographical view of the origins and early history of the Crusades. 51

Unlike Erdman, however, he considered the attitudes and experiences of the crusaders
48
As early as the 1950s Giles Constable began to draw attention to medieval opinions of the
crusades, the relationship between religious orders and crusading, and the financial realities of individuals
who traveled east; see for example Constable, "The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries," Traditio
9 (1953): 213- 79, idem, “The Financing of the Crusades in the Twelfth Century,” in Outremer: Studies in
the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer, and R. C. Smail
(Jerusalem : Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982), and idem, Monks, Hermits and Crusaders in Medieval
Europe (London: Variorum reprints, 1988).
49
Historians such as Simon Lloyd and Christopher Tyerman noted that England produced few
crusaders, yet argued that the desire to fund and encourage crusade participation led to important
developments in that country’s system of taxation. See Lloyd, English Society and the Crusade, 1216-1307
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1988) and Tyerman, England and the Crusades, 1095-1588 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1988).
50
See for example Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier
1100-1525. For cross-cultural relations between Moslems and Christians see R. I. Burns, Muslims,
Christians, and Jews in the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Societies in Symbiosis (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984). The study of polemics and enemy images began in the 1960s, due in large part to
the work of Norman Daniel, and then increased in the 1970s and 1980s with the publication of medieval
anti-Jewish and anti-Moslem literature; see Daniel, Islam and the West: the Making of an Image
(Edinburgh: University Press, 1960).
51
Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, 1. Riley-Smith has published
numerous studies and has edited and contributed to Crusade encyclopedias; see for example “Death on the
First Crusade,” in The End of Strife, ed. David Loades (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, Ltd., 1984), idem,
“The Crusading Movement and Historians,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995), and idem, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997).
 18

themselves to be of great importance in the creation of the concept of crusade. The

“astounding” success of the soldiers, despite their stress, fear, and hunger, were details

that Riley-Smith considered defining qualities of the idea of crusade and the crusader

experience.52 These experiences of the soldiers suggested that their intense religiosity,

which manifested in the discovery of relics and visions of fallen comrades, was a way of

coping with battlefield stresses.53

The image Riley-Smith constructed of the First Crusade was far from the late-

nineteenth and early-twentieth century ideal of the crusader bravely marching east to

fight for Christendom. By defining the crusade experience as horrific, Riley-Smith

opened even more lines of inquiry. Though most historians had not yet ventured into this

new approach to the crusades, scholars from many disciplines now more closely

examined how crusaders stayed on the march or battlefield despite their fear or hunger.

Communications professor John R. E. Bliese examined medieval battle rhetoric as

a means for overcoming fear and anxiety in multiple studies. His 1991 article “When

Knightly Courage May Fail: Battle Orations in Medieval Europe,” showed the influence

of Verbruggen as well as more recent military and crusade historiography. 54 While

Bliese is not a historian, his area of specialty has allowed him to examine facets of the

crusaders’ experiences that those within the discipline have ignored. The range of

affectivity displayed by medieval soldiers is an important theme in all of Bliese’s

research, which led him to critique early twentieth-century medievalists’ conclusions that

knights were inherently brave and bloodthirsty. 55

52
Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, 154.
53
Ibid.
54
Bliese, “When Knightly Courage May Fail,” 490.
55
Ibid., 484.
 19

Bliese argued that leaders’ motivational speeches, recorded and conveyed by

medieval chroniclers, showed the ideals that they felt would encourage knights to fight

bravely. These speeches called on knights to embody chivalric tropes such as valor,

justice, comradeship, loyalty, and ancestral reputation.56 He stressed that the most

important factor in the study and analysis of fear in the chronicles was not its causes,

stated cures, or the textual formulas by which it was admitted or denied, but that the

emotion was mentioned at all. 57 Perhaps because he approached the Crusades and

crusaders from an interdisciplinary perspective, Bliese demonstrated a willingness to use

psychological theories that crusade historians have not. Utilizing the hierarchy of

universally applicable human needs developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow, Bliese

analyzed the rhetorical strategies of crusade leaders based on their ability to persuade

men to stay on the field and fight by promising that their most basic needs for survival

would be met.58

Among scholarly approaches to the Crusades in the 1980s and 1990s was a

renewed interest in the military aspects of the crusades, including tactics, equipment,

castles and military orders. Military and crusade historians applied theories of crusaders’

motivations in conjunction with new analyses of medieval military practices. 59 Historian

John France examined many of the military aspects of the First Crusade, including its

56
Ibid., 492-493.
57
This attitude toward emotions in historical texts is similar to that of Catherine Peyroux’s
discussion of the inclusion of a saint’s rage in a vita. Though the reading of a saint’s Life presents problems
regarding literal versus figurative interpretation, the appearance of an emotion in this type of written source
suggests that it would be intelligible to the text’s intended audience; see Catherine Peyroux, “Gertrude’s
furor: Reading Anger in an Early Medieval Saint’s Life,” in Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion
in the Middle Ages, ed. Barbara Rosenwein (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 40-43.
58
Bliese, “When Knightly Courage May Fail…,” 494.
59
Military historians have traditionally focused on large conflicts, while modern specialists now
argue that battles were infrequent and small; see France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 11-
12.
 20

technological inventions and even its naval aspects.60 His Western Warfare in the Age of

the Crusades looked at changes in warfare from 1000-1300 and envisioned the First

Crusade as a turning point that dramatically changed medieval understanding of war and

military service.

According to France, few knights were the military professionals that Verbruggen

and other historians have imagined. Though he agreed with Verbruggen that mounted

fighters would have been in the minority among their unarmed servants on the journey

east, he stressed that they would have been overwhelmed by the length of their tour of

duty since the types of conflicts to which they were accustomed tended to be of short

duration and to occur in or near their home territories.61 Reassessing religious

motivations for crusade participation, France argued that though spiritual goals were

important, Pope Urban II first announced the crusade as a venture to liberate Christian

lands from an enemy, an idea that medieval knights were familiar with in their land-based

economy.62 France also discussed medieval European ideology regarding outsiders, an

area of increasing interest among medieval historians.63 He linked more frequent violence

60
See for example France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), and idem, “The First Crusade as a Naval Enterprise,”
Mariners Mirror 83 (1997): 389-97.
61
France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 7-10. Riley-Smith agrees that knights were
the minority of crusaders, since they were the minority of fighting men in general and the cost of crusading
was prohibitive; see The First Crusaders, 1095-1131, 112
62
The notion of the First Crusade being a mission to return the holy land to Christian possession
features most prominently in chronicles composed long after Jerusalem was in Christian hands, such as that
of Robert the Monk, c.1122; see Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana bk. 2 c. 3, trans. James E.
Cronin (Ph.D. diss, New York University, 1973), 92: “Take that land from the impious and tame it
yourself, that land given by God to the sons of Israel…”. But writing shortly after the First Crusade,
Fulcher reported that Urban II stated, in Gesta Francorum, RHC Oc. 3, bk. 1 c. 3, 335: “With earnest prayer
I, not I but God, exhorts you…to hasten to exterminate this race from our lands and to aid the Christian
inhabitants in time.” By the Third Crusade Pope Innocent II directly compared the crusader’s duty to that of
a vassal who was required to come to the aid of his dispossessed lord; see France, Western Warfare in the
Age of the Crusades, 205.
63
See for example R.I. Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987) and
Debra Higgs Strickland, “Monsters and Christian Enemies,” History Today 50 (2000): 45-54.
 21

toward outsiders within European Christian culture and on its frontiers to knights’

increasing desire and ability to gain improved social status through military service. 64

France and scholars such as Marcus Bull in his Knightly Piety and the Lay

Response to the First Crusade stressed the conflict between the crusading experience and

the normal activities of medieval vassal knights. They also placed great important on fear

of sin as a motivational force for knightly and lay participation in the Crusade. 65 This

approach positioned crusaders within the social, economic, and spiritual system of their

culture more clearly than that of previous scholars. While earlier scholars had looked at

spiritual, social and economic motivations separately, the examination of multi-faceted

motives for crusade participation within the context of the development and practices of

Christian knighthood showed that crusading knights were members of a social class

whose behaviors were shaped by the values of society at large as well as those of their

peers.

As this discussion has shown, the study of the Crusades has shifted over time to

focus more closely on the crusaders themselves. It is nearly a circular transformation,

from the noble knight of the late-nineteenth century, through the mass movements and

ideological holy wars of the mid-twentieth century, to the spiritually and socially

motivated knight of the late twentieth century. Interest in crusaders’ personal motivations

mirrors interest in individuals in the Middle Ages as complete persons, acting on and

being acted upon by many aspects of their culture. 66 Late twentieth and early twenty-first

64
France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 188-189.
65
According to crusade historian Marcus Graham Bull, clerical and lay pieties were entirely
distinct. They converged however, in the presentation of Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont; see Bull,
Knightly Piety and the Lay response to the First Crusade, 10.
66
I use the term individual in this context to encompass the members of the clergy, laity and the
scholastics whose textual productions have lately become subjects of study in the investigation of medieval
culture and emotional expression. The debate regarding “individuality” in the Middle Ages has centered on
 22

century examinations of the crusaders have introduced issues of social class and the

development of knighthood, though historians have not yet discussed the topics of

emotion and gender in this context.

The Interdisciplinary Study of Emotion

Though most scholars of the crusades have not dealt with emotional expression

and behavior, other historians are placing a growing importance on the cultural history of

emotions. Interest in emotions within the discipline began as a result of the work of

scholars of the French Annales school, such as Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, and their

successor Alain Boureau. These men called for historians to study social, economic,

psychological, and emotional history in order to better understand the whole of human

experience.67 Due to their influence, historians have begun to understand emotional

experience as integral to culture. “Emotions may be nebulous, contradictory and

complex,” explained Joanna Bourke, “but they are the very stuff of human action and

agency.”68 According to Jan Lewis and Peter Stearns, the emotional dimension of human

interaction has not only shaped history, but also created it. 69

the supposedly increased attention to the self and the inner psychological and spiritual landscape during the
Twelfth Century Renaissance. Carolyn Walker Bynum has argued that this “discovery of the individual”
went hand in hand with the increasing categorization and delineation of social groups and a growing
interest in living up to behavioral types, roles, and models; see Bynum, Jesus as Mother (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1982), 82-109.
67
See Febvre, “Sensibility and History: How to Reconstitute the Emotional Life of the Past,” in A
New Kind of History: From the Writings of Febvre, ed. Peter Burke, trans. K. Folca (London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1973), 12-16. Boureau explored the development of the history of the mentalities and
historical anthropology in “Propositions pour une histoire restreinte des mentalités,” Annales ÉSC 44
(1989).
68
Joanna Bourke, “The Emotions in War: Fear and the British and American Military, 1914-
1945,” 315.
69
Lewis and Stearns, “Introduction,” in An Emotional History of the United States (New York:
New York University Press, 1998), 1. For a discussion of the relationship between an emotion and the
culture in which it was expressed during the Middle Ages see C. Stephen Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In
Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 4-7.
 23

The study of emotional experience, expression, and behavior has traditionally

occupied a more prominent position among researchers in the social sciences than among

historians. The investigation of the causes, structures, and functions of emotions has been

integral to the study of human psychology and behavior since the work of Charles

Darwin.70 While the varied theories of emotional experience and expression are too

numerous to fully detail in this essay, the debate that has most shaped the discourse on

emotions in historical and cross cultural analysis has been between biologically and

culturally based views on the origins and structures of human emotions. Darwin’s theory

that human emotions were based on instincts common to both man and animals, and

universal in their experience and expression, was very influential. 71 Many theorists built

upon Darwin’s framework of biological and physical affect in debates that included the

role of physiological changes and the function of situation appraisal in the formation and

experience of emotions.72

Since the 1980s, constructivist theory has provided a non-biological approach to

the origins and structures of emotion. In this theory, emotional experience is shaped by

the culture of the subject through his or her society’s norms for emotional expression and
70
Randolph R. Cornelius, The Science of Emotion: Research and Tradition in the Psychology of
Emotion (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996), 185, 189-190.
71
Rom Harré, “An Outline of the Social Constructionist Viewpoint,” in The Social Construction
of Emotions (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986). Fear, according to Darwinian theory, is a universal
evolutionary physiological response to a dangerous environment; see Randolph R. Cornelius, The Science
of Emotion: Research and Tradition in the Psychology of Emotion (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996), 185,
189-190.
72
In 1884 William James reversed Darwin’s theory that physiological changes resulted from
emotion that occurred in response to the environment, arguing instead that emotional experience resulted
from physiological changes in response to the environment; see “What is an emotion?,” in What is an
Emotion? Classic Readings in Philosophical Psychology, ed. C. Calhoun & R. C. Solomon (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1984), 127-141. Magda Arnold, who pioneered cognitive theory in the 1960s,
placed importance on the appraisal of environmental stimuli within the mind of the subject. Emotions,
though based on instinct, relied on individuals’ prior experiences and goals; see Arnold, Emotion and
Personality: Vol. I, Psychological Aspects (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960). Other cognitive
theorists have linked human appraisal patterns with the “information-processing” approach of Ulrich
Neisser’s Cognitive Psychology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967) and computational models of
language and brain activity. See Cornelius, 131-137.
 24

by the terminology used to discuss emotion. 73 Language carries the cultural meaning of

the emotional experience, enabling the description of one’s internal state to an observer. 74

The importance of emotional experience thus becomes its externally validated

expression, resulting in culturally-based systems of meaning and definition dominating

whatever internal process may have occurred. 75

Scholarly approaches to emotions in the Middle Ages reflect changes in theories

of emotion in the social sciences. Biologically based theories of emotions as instinctual

reactions to stimuli led scholars such as Huizinga, Bloch and Elias to discuss the lack of

emotional control in the Middle Ages. These scholars saw this as a period in which man

was closer to nature and more likely to act quickly and spontaneously. 76 While some

modern medievalists partially accept this analysis, others display a more distinctly

cultural constructionist position in their examination of emotions in literary and cultural

contexts.77

In this essay, I approach fear among the first crusaders from a cultural

constructionist position. According to this theory, not only are objects of fear determined

by cultural context, but also the approved methods for the expression of this emotion and

73
The idea of emotional expression as the public display of a social role was first put forth by
James Averill; see Cornelius, 152. Claire Armon-Jones argued explicitly that the sources and contents of
emotion are not “natural,” but are determined in large part by culturally based moral judgments; see “The
Thesis of Constructionism,” in The Social Construction of Emotions, ed. Harré, 33. For a discussion of the
emotions as social roles in historical literature, see William Ian Miller’s discussion of Icelandic sagas in
Humiliation, and Other Essays on Honor, Social Discomfort and Violence (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1993), 104-105.
74
Cornelius, 166.
75
Catherine Lutz and Geoffrey M. White, “The Anthropology of Emotions,” Annual Review of
Anthropology 15 (1986): 417.
76
See Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (London: London: E. Arnold & Co.,
1954), 9; Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961), 72-73; Elias, The
Civilizing Process, 175-176.
77
For a direct response to views of medieval emotional expression as irrational, see Stephen
White, “The Politics of Anger,” in Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, 127-
131.
 25

the situations in which its expression is acceptable. 78 Yet anthropological studies have

shown that even in militaristic societies there seem to be universal experiences of fear in

response to physical danger, though individuals’ expressions of fear and attitudes toward

military participation are culturally constructed. 79 Hence, though from my constructionist

position I argue that the expression and experience of even a seemingly universal

emotion such as fear of injury is shaped by cultural context, I suggest that the

investigation of expressions of fear among crusaders should proceed from the assumption

that these men were biologically motivated to fear injury or death when faced with

imminent danger. The ways in which this fear was expressed, overcome or succumbed to,

was dependent on the cultural context. These methods of expression and mitigation of

fear in turn shape individuals’ experiences of that emotion. While crusaders and

combatants from other periods often faced the same dangers of pain and loss of life, their

cultures and communities developed different forms for expressing these fears and

different methods for assuaging or preventing them.

Social scientists who support cultural constructionist perspectives agree that both

social class and gender are constructed identities through which emotional expression and

behavior are structured. Scholars who investigate emotions in the medieval context are

also bringing these issues into their discussions, though medievalists must usually rely on

sources composed by educated men to provide most descriptions of expressed emotion. 80

78
Cornelius, 164, 191.
79
See for example Leslie Gill, “Creating Citizens, Making Men: The Military and Masculinity in
Bolivia,” Cultural Anthropology 12 (1997): 527-550, and the articles collected in Ali A. Mazrui, ed. The
Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977).
80
Regarding gender, in “Gertrude’s furor: Reading Anger in an Early Medieval Saint’s Life,” in
Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, 36-55, author Catharine Peyroux
discusses the causes of Gertrude’s anger in the context of her identity as a Frankish woman, but does not
relate Gertrude’s verbal expressions of anger either to her as female or to her biographer as male. On the
subject of social class, Paul Freedman’s essay, “Peasant Anger in the Late Middle Ages,” 171-188 in the
 26

In the context of emotional expression and behavior in combat the involvement of class

and gender is especially important, as in cross cultural studies scholars have often found

the expression of masculinity and social status to be closely linked to military identity

and behavior.81

Class and Gender Among the Crusaders

Recent studies of social class from the tenth through twelfth centuries have

examined how individuals were identified as noble and free or unfree, the relationships

between these classes, to what virtues various classes aspired, and how parameters for

behavior were transmitted.82 While many scholars have investigated the development and

definitions of nobility and knighthood, research on peasants has not progressed as quickly

since there are fewer sources that speak directly about or were composed by members of

this class.

same volume, looks at noble representations and interpretations of peasant anger. In the investigation of
emotions medievalists are most often studying the constructions of educated men’s standards for the
description of emotional expression.
81
Scholars have linked honorable military participation to expressions of class identity and to
compliance with normative forms of masculinity in various cultural settings. See for examples Gill, 528,
Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: The
Free Press, 1987), 8, George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 13, Robert A. Nye, Masculinity and Codes of Honor in Modern
France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 16-18, and Dent Ocaya-Lakidi, “Manhood,
Warriorhood, and Sex in Eastern Africa,” in The Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa, 154.
82
For the self-definitions and perceived qualities of social classes, and the relationships between
social classes, see for example Constance Brittain Bouchard, ‘Strong of Body, Brave and Noble:’ Chivalry
and Society in Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), Paul Freedman, Images of the
Medieval Peasant (California: Stanford University Press, 1999), Aldo Scaglione, Knights at Court:
Courtliness, Chivalry, and Courtesy from Ottonian Germany to the Italian Renaissance (Berkeley:
University of California, 1991), and Andre Vauchez, The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and
Devotional Practices, ed. Daniel Bornstein, trans. Margaret J. Schneider (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame, 1993); for a reexamination of traditional approaches to dependency between classes, see Susan
Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1994), 17-47; for the transmission of knowledge across geographic and class boundaries see Robert
Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950-1350 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1993) and C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and
the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939-1210 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985) and idem,
The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950-1200 (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994).
 27

Historians have developed theories regarding the guidelines for conduct

throughout the Middle Ages by studying prescriptions for behavior in ecclesiastical

sources from the early tenth century, chivalric codes in later medieval chansons,

romances, and prescriptive manuals. Because these periods and types of sources are

separated by complex social changes and contain widely divergent content, scholars have

had difficulty determining ideals for behavior during the intervening centuries. In

response to this, Constance Bouchard has stressed that it is important not to assume that

ideals found in the later Middle Ages were present during earlier periods, a fault which

she argued is present in many studies of medieval behavior. 83 Historians have shed light

on tenth and eleventh century noble and knightly behavior, however, though often

through biographical study rather than a focus on chivalric ideals.84

Crusaders who traveled east were all members of the emotional community of the

society in which they were socialized, namely eleventh-century Western, usually

Frankish, Christian culture.85 But crusaders discussed in chronicles written shortly after

the First Crusade, letters written during the crusade, and two first crusade-era chansons,

the Chanson de Roland and the Chanson d’Antioche, can also be divided into distinct

social classes.

83
Bouchard, x, 104.
84
See Bernard S. Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul 987-1040: A Political Biography
of an Angevin Count (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), which despite its authors’ stated
aversion to the history of the mentalities contains valuable information on the education and enculturation
of a the nobleman and discusses affective statements he made as an adult; see xi, 12-17, 169. Many
biographies, however, like John Hugh Hill and Laurita L. Hill’s Raymond IV Count of Toulouse (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1964), focus completely on social and political activity with little discussion of
a noble’s childhood, emotional experiences, or affective expression.
85
Though some crusaders came from areas outside the Frankish kingdoms, the majority of men
who traveled east considered themselves Franks or descendents of Franks. Individuals from other regions
who joined the journey usually did so out of economic or political connections to the geographic entity we
now call France; see Christopher Tyerman, England and the Crusades, 1095-1588, 15. For a an account of
Bohemond de Hauteville count of Taranto calling his men of Apulia to arms by comparing them to the
Franks, see Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana bk. 2 c. 3, 116.
 28

In the chronicles, classes of crusaders included the noble, titled military leaders

(referred to as ductores, dictatores, principes, and maiores), knights (milites),

footsoldiers (pedites), the poor (pauperes), the lesser ranks (gens minuta), and clerics

(clerici). The rich (locupletes) are on occasion referred to as a group in relation to the

pauperes, but it is unclear whether these are fighting men of rank or non-fighting wealthy

men. The various classes are sometimes grouped together by the terms fighting men

(bellatores), pilgrims (peregrini), or simply “our men” (noster), while lay crusaders are

sometimes referred to en masse as the laity (laici). Letters by crusaders used the same

terminology as the chronicles but referred only to the leaders and knights. Likewise, the

chansons only discussed leaders (barnages, nobiles princhiers) and knights (chevaliers)

with no mention of footsoldiers. While the chronicles contain multiple examples of

clerical behavior through which their emotional expressions can be compared to knights

and leaders, in neither the letters nor the chansons are clerics distinguished from other

classes by their behavior on the battlefield.

As emotional response and reaction is dependent upon the culture and community

in which one is socialized, these separate classes can be considered separate emotional

sub-communities of nobles, knights, clerics and footsoldiers. Often subgroups within a

culture will have differing values or normative behaviors than the majority that surrounds

them, so each of these groups might display different styles of emotional expression. 86

While these sub-communities played an equally important role in the development of

86
For a modern study that illustrates differing responses to social problems by minority
communities within American culture see Martha M. Dore and Ana O. Dumois, “Cultural Differences in
the Meaning of Adolescent Pregnancy,” Family and Society 71 (1990): 93-101.
 29

individual affectivity, movement from one emotional community to another may result in

changes in individual emotional expression. 87

The ductores and milites of the First Crusade are in many cases identified by

name and their activities described in detail. Because these groups are the best recorded

in medieval sources and most often studied by modern scholars, the investigation of their

class-specific modes of expression can build upon scholars’ prior theorization of chivalric

ideals. In the study of both early eleventh century rulers and the development of later

medieval chivalry, historians have discerned ideals for leadership and behavior among

nobles and knights that juxtaposed the antique codes of behavior that had been passed

down from Roman authors through Carolingian literature and the functional roles

promulgated by Christian ideology.88 The tenth, eleventh and early twelfth-century Peace

and Truce of God movements played an important role in modifying the behavior of the

nobility and their servile knights, bringing them in line with standards of conduct

approved by the clergy.89 The clergy, at least in France, supported military activity so

long as these warriors enforced peace, justice, and the social order. 90

As knights gained more independence and both nobility and knighthood became

classes defined by military participation in the service of the Church and Christian

society, knights aspired to live by the same standards of conduct as those that defined the

nobles. C. Stephen Jaeger suggested that these standards were originally taught to the

nobles by the clergy, whose knights then adopted them at the urging of their superiors,

87
Though Renato Rosaldo might disagree, I argue that his “Introduction: Grief and a Headhunter’s
Rage,” in Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 1-21
demonstrates that by moving into a new community through an ethnographic experience he learned a new
way to experience and express grief.
88
Scaglione, 10; also see Bachrach, xiii.
89
See especially Thomas Head and Richard Landes, The Peace of God: Social violence and
Religious Response in France around the Year 1000 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
90
Scaglione, 26-27.
 30

the Church, and for their own social advancement. 91 Matthew Bennet, looking more

closely at the educational, social and psychological development of medieval knights in

chansons and chronicles, argued that in the tenth and eleventh centuries boys were

socialized from a young age to become part of a complex warrior culture. 92 What

historians consider the formal code of chivalry was either developed by the clergy and

then encouraged among these warriors, or coalesced from their existing standards for

behavior, in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

While scholars have at times disagreed about the ability of knights to live up to

the often contradictory ideals for behavior that became classified as chivalry, Bouchard

has argued against both the existence of a single standard of behavior and the idea that all

who sought power attempted to live by it. 93 Despite these disagreements over the

culmination of the chivalric ideal, based on the developmental model of chivalry we see

that noble and knightly crusaders were trained to fill their social roles and learned class-

related behaviors and expressions through education and socialization.

Unlike the identities of nobles and knights, those of the pedites, pauperes, and

gens minuta are unclear in literature of the First Crusade. Ideals for behavior among

footsoldiers are rarely mentioned in medieval sources, and historians have had difficulty

discerning these men’s social status and the personal attributes they were expected to

display. Paul Freedman, in agreement with other scholars, has suggested that at the time

of the First Crusade it is unlikely that footsoldiers who traveled east were unfree villeins,

91
Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness, 174-175. Scholars in nearby cathedral schools were paid to
compose educational texts for the young Angevin noble Fulk Nerra (987-1040); see Bachrach, 22.
92
Bennet, “Military Masculinity in England and Northern France, 1050-1225,” 73-76. In
accordance with Angevin custom Fulk Nerra spent much of his youth traveling with his father on court
business and sitting at his side during official gatherings; see Bachrach, 13.
93
Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness, 211; Bouchard, 113.
 31

due to negative attitudes toward the military competence of servile laborers. 94 As nobles

and knights had merged into a class based on military participation, the distinction

between free and unfree became linked to military competence. While only free peasants

could gain respect for their abilities with arms, only peasants who could successfully

defend themselves were thought to deserve freedom. 95 But unarmed men with little or no

military skills could still be useful when at war. Medieval armies needed large numbers

of men to meet the basic needs of others on the expedition, who could then be armed

when necessary.96

Whether footsoldiers were free or unfree, occasionally or regularly armed, they

constitute a class separate from the knights and nobles whom they served on the First

Crusade. While we do not have sources that describe ideals for their behavior as fully as

those that deal with nobles and knights, expectations for footsoldiers on the battlefield

differed greatly from those that applied to their knightly and noble social superiors.

Chroniclers of the First Crusade described footsoldiers displaying emotional responses to

crusade circumstances that were distinct from their higher-ranking counterparts.

Besides being examinations of class-specific behavior, studies involving medieval

military culture are by nature studies of the definitions and expressions of medieval

masculinity.97 Until a few decades ago the examination of medieval knightly behavior

was virtually synonymous with the examination of medieval masculinity. But as Dawn

Hadley explained in her introduction to Masculinity in Medieval Europe, when men are

94
Freedman, 110; see also Verbruggen, 112, and France, Western Warfare in the Age of the
Crusades, 65-66.
95
Freedman, 185, 192.
96
France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 72.
97
Active participation in warfare by women was very rare in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth
centuries. Women who fought attracted attention from their contemporaries for their exceptional roles. See
M. McLaughlin, “The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare, and Society in Medieval Europe,” Women’s
Studies 17 (1990): 193-103.
 32

examined as gendered beings it becomes apparent that there were actually a variety of

forms and expressions of masculinity.”98 Scholars have recently shown increased interest

in many facets of medieval masculinity, encouraged by the growing field of gender

studies and the subsidiary development of men’s studies.

Perhaps because traditional studies of medieval history tended to focus on the

behavior of men in positions of power, military masculinity is seldom examined in the

context of gender. Matthew Bennet has argued that though the chivalric, heroic ideal has

been the most often examined male role in traditional studies of medieval history, it too

was a construction that individuals were taught through socialization, social interaction

and expectation. Most important to the focus of this essay, Bennet stressed that further

exploration of men's failures to live up to prescribed behavior will show more clearly

what was required of them.99 The examination of medieval military behavior in the

context of gender allows for greater insight into the attitudes of nobles and knights

towards their identities and social functions than do studies that focus only on the

historical development of these classes. Descriptions of emotional expression among

knights, nobles and footsoldiers help to delineate what types of behaviors were expected

of medieval men, whose participation in their professional role and social class was

dependent on their gendered identity.

Studies of medieval class and gender that have focused on class-specific behavior

and the ideals that defined military masculinity have utilized later medieval chansons de

geste, romances, and chronicles from throughout the Middle Ages that record events in

98
Hadley, ed. Masculinity in Medieval Europe, 2.
99
Bennet, “Military Masculinity in England and Northern France, 1050-1225,” 88.
 33

the lives of exemplary individuals.100 Chronicles of the First Crusade, however, show

large numbers of professional warriors at work, interacting with each other and their

environment. Used in conjunction with First Crusade-era chansons and letters written by

crusaders, they provide insight into lay crusaders as warriors and men within their

culture. These sources shed new light on the ideals for behavior among all classes of

crusaders by showing how clerical and lay authors described their own and their peers’

behavior, especially in situations where the failure to live up to ideals of courage and

bravery was imminent.

Fear Among the First Crusaders

Let us now turn to reports of fear and its mitigation in chronicles composed by

men who participated in the first crusade, letters written by crusaders to Christians in the

West, and two chansons de geste. I will first discuss reported expressions of fear and its

mitigation and point out key words in each genre of sources. Sources’ descriptions of

emotional expressions and key terms will be compared as they are introduced into the

discussion.

100
Bachrach’s biography of Fulk Nerra uses a wide variety of sources and provides detailed
information on the behavior of one man in the context of his cultural traditions, but is intended to be a study
of political strategy; see Bachrach, xi. Regarding studies that intentionally examine class and gender
specific behavior on a larger scale, Bennet utilized a chronicle of the life of William the Conqueror and a
chanson form of the life of William of Orange for information concerning the childhood training of
knights; see Bennet, “Military Masculinity in England and Northern France, 1050-1225,” 74-76. Scaglione
and Jaeger discussed the behavior of nobles presented by Dudo of St. Quentin’s De moribus et actis
primorum Normanniae ducum and the Gesta Normannorum ducum; see Scaglione, 68-72 and Jaeger, The
Origins of Courtliness, 198-201.
 34

Chronicles of the First Crusade

Eyewitness chronicles of the First Crusade provide accounts of the emotions

expressed by their own authors and by other crusaders. Chroniclers who participated in

the First Crusade at times conveyed their own emotional states, but most frequently they

reported the emotional expressions of the crusaders who surrounded them. The chronicles

that I have utilized include the anonymous Gesta Francorum et aliorum

Hierosolimitanorum, which is the only narrative thought to be composed by a knight, the

Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Peregrinantium of the cleric Fulcher of Chartres, the cleric

Raymond D’Aguilers’ Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem, the priest Peter

Tudebode’s Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere, and the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem

expugnantium of the cleric Bartolf of Nangis. 101

These narrative histories report expressions of fear and other emotions by

crusaders, though they raise problems as historical documents when used for analyzing

individuals’ experiences in the east. D. C. Munro explained chroniclers’ descriptions of

Saracen barbarity and Christian vengeance by stating “It was a more brutal age than ours,

and the atrocities which are alleged to have been committed were highly spiced to suit the

spirit of the time.”102 While this analysis suggests that Munro was making his own

101
For the Anonymous Gesta in Latin and English, see Gesta Francorum et aliorum
Hierosolimitanorum, Latin text and English, ed. and trans. Rosalind Hill (London: Thomas Nelson and
Sons Ltd., 1962). The Gesta Francorum of Fulcher of Chartres, Raymond D’Aguilers’ Historia, Peter
Tudebode’s Historia de Hierosolymitano, and the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem of Bartolf of Nangis are all
available in Latin in RHC Oc. 3; each of these is also available in English, with the exception of Bartolf of
Nangis’ Gesta Francorum Iherusalem. For Fulcher of Chartres’ Gesta Francorum see A History of the
Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127, ed. Harold S. Fink, trans. Frances Rita Ryan (Knoxville: University of
Tennessee Press, 1969); for Raymond D’Aguilers’ Historia see Historia Francorum qui ceperunt
Iherusalem, trans. John Hugh Hill and Laurita L. Hill (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society,
1968); for Peter Tudebode’s Historia de Hierosolymitano see Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere, trans.
John Hugh Hill and Laurita L. Hill (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1974). Translations
from the Latin provided in this paper are my own.
102
Munro, “Western Attitudes Toward Islam During the Period of the Crusades,” Speculum 6
(1931): 331.
 35

generalizations regarding a medieval love of violence, it is not incorrect to suggest that

the works of the chroniclers were tailored to suit their audience.

The chroniclers had first-hand knowledge of battle and the psychology of war as a

result of their personal presence on the field, but their experiences had to be conveyed in

terms comprehensible to their clerical and educated lay audience. 103 This was

accomplished by the portrayal of the crusaders and their enemies as narrative characters

with identifiable behaviors and reactions. These behaviors and reactions had to have a

basis in the common cultural experience or readers would not have been able to

understand and recognize them. Authors of chronicles wanted to preserve events for

posterity, but they also sought to tell a good story in order to encourage others to follow

in the footsteps of their Christian heroes.

Fulcher of Chartres described a crusader’s departure from his wife and friends, in

which the man and woman reacted very differently in response to his impending journey:

…She, fearing (timens) that she would never see him again, could not stand but
tumbled lifeless to the ground mourning (ad terram exanimis rueret lugens) her
loved one, whom she was losing in life as if he were already dead. He, however,
like one who had no pity, although he had, and suffering neither with the tears of
his wife nor the mourning of any of his friends, although secretly suffering,
departed steadfast with a firm soul. 104

Here the outwardly composed husband left his distraught wife to fight in defense of

Christendom. We are not told how the husband behaved after he left his wife and friends,

103
Bliese, “When Knightly Courage May Fail,” 485.
104
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum bk. 1 c. 6, in RHC Oc. 3, 328D: “Illa autem timens
nunquam illum se uidere amplius, non ualebat se sustentare, quin ad terram exanimis rueret lugens pro
amico suo, quem perdidit vivum, quasi iam mortuum. Ille vero tanquam nil habens pietatis, et tamen
habens, nec fletui uxoris suae, nec amicorum quorumcumque moerori condolens, et tamen clam condolens,
duro suc animo constans abibat.”
 36

but we do see that the wife displayed her emotions very publicly. Both the crusader and

his wife suffered at his departure, but only she publicly displayed fear over his death.

This scene, the only example of an emotional interaction between a man and

woman in this group of sources, may be taken as indicative of appropriate public male

behavior during the crusade. Yet Fulcher’s own chronicle, and the chronicles of other

authors, described male behavior that did not fit this model. Fulcher himself explained

that early in the crusade, at the sight of a ship sinking,

…we were much afraid; so much that many weak hearted who had not yet
boarded ships returned to their homes, giving up the pilgrimage and saying that no
more would they entrust themselves to a treacherous sea.105

None of these crusaders were reported to have collapsed to the ground due to fear. While

Fulcher and the men he traveled with expressed fear, he called those who specifically

chose to return home rather than risk travel by sea weak hearted (debiles corde).

Two of the most straightforward expressions of fear of death in combat --those

that began this paper -- portrayed crusaders as overcome by fear (timor), agitated

(trepidi), and frightened (pavefacti).106 These agitated crusaders, and ones we will later

encounter who were described as stunned (stupefacti), are the most common references in

the chronicles to crusaders demonstrating what may be considered physical symptoms of

fear.107 Peter Tudebode reported that because men had locked themselves in houses and

105
Ibid., bk. 1 c. 8, 330D: “Quod infortunium quum videremus, pavore grandi confusi sumus
tantum ut plerique corde debiles, nondum naves ingressi, ad domus suas repedarent, peregrinatione dimissa,
dicentes nunquam amplius in aquam sic deceptricem se infigere.”
106
Ibid., Gesta Francorum bk. 1 c. 11, in RHC Oc. 3, 335C-D and Peter Tudebode, Historia de
Hierosolymitano bk. 10 c. 11, 71.
107
For the stunned crusaders, see Anonymous, Gesta bk. 10 c. 37, 89.
 37

refused to fight, their leader Bohemond de Hauteville was “angered very much.” 108

Bohemond was angered because these crusaders’ fears prevented them from acting,

prevented them from properly filling their professional role. Similarly, Fulcher

considered the crusaders who chose to turn back at the sight of the sinking ship and were

unable to fulfill their professional duties weak hearted, surely a negative characteristic.

Just as the sight of the sinking ship caused crusaders to turn back, chroniclers

reported that the news of someone’s particularly violent death increased fear in others.

This emotional reaction may be understood in the context of William Ian Miller’s

hypothesis that bloody violence is thought to be more painful and thus more threatening

than violence from which the body remains undamaged. 109 As Raymond D’Aguilers

explained,

There was in the army a knight most illustrious and most loved by all, with the
name Roger of Barneville. This man, while following the retreating army of
enemies, was captured and decapitated. Therefore sorrow and fear (dolor et timor)
seized (invasere) us, to so great an extent that many were led to the desperation of
escape (desperationem evadendi).110

D’Aguilers described himself and those around him being seized by sorrow and fear

when they heard of their companion’s violent death, yet none of the crusaders who were

led to escape were considered weak hearted. Sorrow and fear were not “felt,” but

emotions that entered or seized (invadere) these crusaders. The connection D’Aguilers

108
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano bk. 10 c. 11, 71: “…erant inclusi in domibus
timentes alii fame, alii timore Turcorum, inde nimis iratus fuit.”
109
Miller explained that people “associate noisiness and bloody messiness with pain, and in turn
we have a sense that pain bears some relation to violence.” See Miller, Humiliation, 66.
110
Raymond D’Aguilers, Historia Francorum c. 9, 252F: “Erat in exercitu miles clarissimus et
carissimus omnibus, nomine Rogerius de Barnevilla: hic, quum exercitum revertentium inimicorum
assequeretur, captus et capite truncatus est. Invasere igitur nostros dolor et timor, usque adeo ut ad
desperationem evadendi multi ducerentur.”
 38

made between fear and the desperation of escape suggests that other flights from battle in

the chronicles may also be associated with fear.

Besides obvious threats to their lives, crusaders feared the unfamiliar. The

enemies of the crusaders, called Turks or Saracens, could be frighteningly alien. 111 In

many cases the style of warfare used by the Turks caused the crusaders to react in ways

that may be connected with the expression of fear. Fulcher of Chartres described such a

scene, which resulted in the retreat of crusaders:

…The Turks were howling like wolves and furiously shooting a rain of arrows;
we were stunned (stupefacti) by this and near death, indeed with many wounded
we soon surrendered the rear to flight (dorsa fugae dedimus). Nor is this
remarkable because to all of us such warfare was unknown.112

Here Fulcher said that he and the crusaders around him were stunned or stupefied by

what they witnessed, and like the crusaders who saw the sinking ship and those who

heard of their beloved knight’s painful death, many of them fled. The rear of the army,

which fled first, would have been composed of footmen and men of lesser ranks, not

knights.113 This flight was not the desperate flight of one man alone or even a small

group, but the retreat of a large portion of the army. Though Fulcher did not attribute fear

to himself or the other crusaders, he described them as stunned and explained that their

actions were not remarkable in this situation. According to Psychologist Stanley J.

111
Islam was thought to be an idol worshipping and pantheistic religion with Mohammed as the
primary God. For Christian misconceptions of Islam, see Munro, “Western Attitudes Toward Islam During
the Period of the Crusades,” 331, 334; also see Debra Higgs Strickland, “Monsters and Christian Enemies,”
49-50.
112
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum bk. 1 c. 11, 335A: “Turci autem ululatibus concrepantes,
et pluviam sagittarum vehementer emittantes; nos illicao stupefacti mortique proximi, etiam multi laesi,
mox dorsa fugae dedimus. Nec hoc mirandum, quia nobis omnibus tale bellum erat incognitum.”
113
Battle order usually consisted of knights first, then footsoldiers, then leaders and others of
highest rank. Leaders would often ride forward through their men to lead a charge; see Verbruggen, 209-
210.
 39

Rachman’s delineation of reactions that imply fear, these men exhibited a

physical/psychological response, being stunned, and demonstrated an avoidance/escape

reaction, in that they fled.114 Fulcher therefore described the lowest ranking portion of the

army as acting fearfully, though he did not report that they literally expressed fear. The

fact that they were not condemned for their behavior will be discussed and contextualized

with other instances of low ranking men fleeing from battle later in this essay.

The anonymous chronicler, a knight who traveled in the contingent of Bohemond

de Hauteville, referred to similar encounters with Turks in which the enemies’ behavior

caused fear among the crusaders. “These Turks began, all at once,” he wrote, “to howl

and gabble and shout, saying with loud voices in their own language some devilish word

which I do not understand.” This occurs again, “When they saw the Count and

Bohemond coming back and escorting the builders [of a crusader castle], they began to

gnash their teeth and gabble and howl with very loud cries….” 115

During the first occurrence of hearing what was most likely the enemies’ war cry,

the anonymous author explained that the enemies’ attack was so fierce that he and other

crusaders fled “through the nearest mountain, or wherever there was a path.” 116 He

provided neither reports of crusaders expressing fear nor detailed descriptions of the

manner in which they retreated. But during the second instance the author described his

lord immediately gathering the army around him for a motivational speech. Bohemond

said:

114
Rachman, 4.
115
Anonymous, Gesta, bk. 3 c. 9, 18: “Continuo Turci coeperunt stridere et garrire ac clamare,
excelsa voce dicentes diabolicum sonum nescio quomodo in sua lingua…” and bk. 7 c. 18, 40: “Tunc
videntes comitem et Boamundum venientes et conducentes illam gentem, mox coeperunt stridere et garrire
ac clamare vehementissimo clamore…”
116
Ibid., bk. 7 c. 18, 40: “…per proximam montaneam, et ubi uia eundi patebat.”
 40

Lords and bravest knights of Christ, behold that we are encircled on all sides and
that the battle will be difficult. Therefore, let all the knights go bravely (viriliter)
against them, and let the footsoldiers skillfully (prudenter) and very quickly
(citius) unfold the tents.117

In this scene the anonymous author described Bohemond rapidly organizing his men by

assigning them specific tasks in response to danger, rather than reporting the men’s

possible emotional expressions in response to this threat. Prudenter, meaning prudently,

skillfully, or wisely, is a word often used to describe battlefield behavior. Just as

prudenter was used by multiple authors to describe behavior fitting for a situation, we

shall see later in this essay that imprudenter was used to describe people who acted

improperly or behavior that was not fitting for the situation.

The anonymous chronicler described Bohemond and his knights reacting very

differently in these two similar situations. In both cases, the shouts of the Turks acted as a

call for the crusaders to react. In the first case the crusaders fled, while in the second they

stayed and fought. The similarity of these two situations and the disparity of the crusaders

responses in each case suggests that, at least for the knightly chronicler, the crusaders in

the first instance fled because Bohemond had not organized them as he had in the second.

Bohemond’s interactions with his men play an important role in our assessment of

whether fear was present in these scenes. Bohemond is reported to have told his knights

to go into battle bravely, to display a trait that scholars have suggested relies not on a lack

of fear, but on acting despite it. 118 For Bliese, the fact that Bohemond even gave a

117
Ibid., bk. 3 c. 9, 18: “ ‘Seniores et fortissimi milites Christi, ecce modo bellum angustum est
undique circa nos. Igitur omnes milites eant viriliter obuiam illis, et pedites prudenter et citius extendant
tentoria.’”
118
See Rachman, 25. Miller explains that to display courage one must have an awareness that
danger is present, even if that awareness does not also lead to fear; see Miller, The Mystery of Courage,
282.
 41

motivational speech would be proof that fear was present in the second instance. 119 If, on

the other hand, fear was present in the first instance and resulted in flight, we must take

into account that repeated exposure to threatening stimuli can habituate subjects and

lessen their emotional reactions.120 Fear in the first instance may have thus resulted in

lessened fear in the second. But though we may make interesting and educated

hypotheses regarding crusaders’ experience of fear in these and other scenes, it remains

of primary importance that in the two instances we have just discussed no chronicler

reported the direct expression of experienced fear.

The crusaders of the chronicles had a variety of means at their disposal for

responding to overwhelming danger, one example of which was Bohemond’s recently

discussed organization and command of his men. The most common responses to danger

in the chronicles involved crusaders either fleeing or triumphing over their urge to flee by

miraculous or earthly means.

The flight from battle most often reported by chroniclers and most often analyzed

by modern historians was the abandonment of the lengthy siege of Antioch by Stephen

count of Blois and Chartres. Peter Tudebode provided a detailed account of this event.

Tudebode wrote that a few days before the city was captured, in the midst of a long and

arduous battle, “Imprudent (imprudens) Stephen, Count of Chartres, whom all our

superiors had elected so that he would be our leader, with the greatest feigning of his own

illness basely retired to another camp.” Stephen then climbed a neighboring mountain

and watched as the Christians were attacked. He returned to his camp in secret to retrieve

his supplies, and then “with speedy passage he imprudently turned his route back

119
Bleise, “When Knightly Courage May Fail,” 485-486.
120
Rachman, 11. Gray explained that continued exposure to the “spectacle of battle” may
eventually cause men to be inured to the threat of death and injury; see Gray, 36.
 42

again.”121 Tudebode described Stephen and his abandonment of the battle as imprudens

and imprudenter, which we may define as behaving improperly on the battlefield,

especially in contrast to the anonymous chronicler’s description of Bohemond’s

admonition to his footsoldiers to behave prudenter.122 Stephen’s lack of concern for the

fate of his comrades can be seen as especially worthy of reproach since he had just been

elected military leader of all the crusaders. While chroniclers at first described him as

very noble and mighty in arms (vir noblissimus et armis validus), after his abandonment

of the siege he was most often called imprudenter, someone who behaved improperly in

battle.123

The Count of Blois and Chartres was not the only man to flee when facing a large

number of opponents, but he was the only noble to abandon a siege and succeed in his

escape. Chroniclers did not portray either Stephen or others who attempted to escape

expressing fear, but the authors and the other crusaders whom they described condemned

those who fled for abandoning their comrades. When chroniclers reported knights or

footmen expressing fear and then abandoning battles or fleeing from camp, reactions to

their behavior depended on their rank and the effects of their actions on other men.

The anonymous chronicler explained that when William the Carpenter and Peter

the Hermit fled from battle “because of great wretchedness and misery,” only William, a

knight and lord, was severely chastised by their leader Bohemond. 124 Whether William

121
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano c. 11, sec. 1, 74: “Imprudens itaque Stephanus,
Cartonensis comes, qui erat caput nostrorum quem omnes nostri maiores elegerant ut esset nostrorum
ductor, maxima fingens se infirmitate, prius quam Antiochia foret capta…et celeri cursu retro imprudenter
iter revertit.”
122
See Anonymous, Gesta, bk. 3 c. 9, 18.
123
See for example Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum bk. 1, c. 16, 342 Col. A” “…vir erat
noblissimus et armis valdis.”
124
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 6 c. 15, 32: “…Willelmus igitur Carpentarius et Petrus Heremita, pro
immensa infelicitate ac miseria ipsa…”
 43

felt fear or not was unimportant to both Bohemond and the chronicler; his flight from

danger was seen as an act of abandonment. William had previously run from battle in

Spain, to which Bohemond referred when he said “Perhaps because you wanted to betray

these knights and the Christian camp, just as you betrayed those others in Spain?” 125 Both

escapes were a betrayal, the earlier of which may have been seen by Bohemond as

something that predisposed William to the current attempt. William had run off

shamefully (turpiter), much like Stephen of Blois. 126 But Peter the Hermit, like the low

ranking men in the rear of the army who fled from screaming Saracens, as described by

Fulcher of Chartres, suffered neither insults nor condemnation. 127 Since Peter was not a

knight he was not expected to behave bravely and remain with his comrades.

Fulcher of Chartres reported that many withdrew from the siege of Antioch “some

because of poverty (egestas), some because of cowardice (ignavium), some because of

fear of death (mortis timorem), first the poor (pauperes), then the rich (locupletes).”128 In

Fulcher’s list of reasons for flight from battle cowardice was a separate category from the

fear of death. Fearing death did not make one a coward, though both cowards and those

who feared death ran from danger. Perhaps the men who Fulcher here described as

cowards were those who consistently fled from all danger, while those who fled from fear

of death were suddenly overcome by a fear that they had at other times managed to

assuage. These cowards may be similar to those that veteran and military philosopher J.

Glenn Gray called “constitutional cowards,” people who lacked a sense of dependence

125
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 6 c. 15, 33: “Forsitan ob hoc quod uoluisti tradere hos milites et hostem
Christi, sicut tradidisti alios in Hispania.”
126
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 6 c. 15, 32: “O infelix et infamia totius Franciae, dedecus et scelus
Galliarum. O nequissime omnium quos terra suffert, cur tam turpiter fugisti?”
127
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum bk. 1 c. 11, 335A.
128
Ibid., bk. 1 c. 16, 342A: “…se remouerunt, alii propter egestatem, alii propter ignauium, alii
propter mortis timorem, primum pauperes, deinde locupletes.”
 44

on, and responsibility for, their comrades.129 Poverty was also a reason for leaving battle,

though the rich were among those who fled. It is conceivable that those whom Fulcher

identified as rich fled either because they lacked the material goods with which to defend

themselves or the dedication to the cause for which they fought. That the poor fled first,

followed by the rich, demonstrates the association between poverty and timidity that

Freedman argued was a later medieval French literary theme. 130

On another occasion when the crusaders were attacked the anonymous author

wrote:

Those Turks were menacing us on the one hand, and hunger tormented us on the
other. Indeed help and assistance was lost to us. The lesser ranks (gens minuta)
and the poorest (pauperrima) fled to Cyprus or Rum or into the mountains. We
did not dare to go to the sea on account of fear (timorem) of those evil Turks;
nowhere was there a way open for us. 131

Those of the lesser ranks and the poorest who fled suffered neither insults nor

condemnation by the author or their peers. Though the anonymous chronicler did not

report fear among men who fled, the “we” that he said could not get to the sea because of

fear of the Turks included himself and other knights, men who were trapped and unable

to flee to a specific location. Given the context in which he placed this event, in which

the Turks were menacing and the crusaders were tormented by hunger, perhaps fear was

assumed to be a motivating factor in the poor men’s flight. That the knights would stay in

129
Gray, 114.
130
Freedman, 110.
131
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 6 c. 15, 35: “Nam illi constringebant nos ex una parte, et fames
cruciabat ex alia. Succursus vero et audiutorium nobis deerat; gens minuta et pauperrima fugiebant
Cyprum, Romanium, et in montaneas. Ad mare utique non audebamus ire propter timorem pessimorum
Turcorum; nusquam erat nobis via patefacta.”
 45

the battle instead of fleeing in a disorganized fashion, despite hunger and fear, would

bolster any image of bravery that this author hoped to project.

Like the knights with whom the anonymous chronicler traveled, most nobles and

knights remained on the battlefield or in camp despite danger. The chronicles of the

crusades described individuals overcoming their urges to flee and remaining on the

battlefield in a variety of ways. Frequent references to prayer suggest that faith in God

was often enough to keep men fighting. Faith protected men as they rushed into battle,

ensured that they would be victorious, and also kept the army working together

smoothly.132 Chroniclers’ inclusion of supernatural events and apparitions in times of

stress and danger suggests that these were important means for overcoming fear.

Stories of personal triumphs over the urge to flee usually included direct

expressions of fear and often involved the appearance or disembodied voices of saints,

dead companions, or even Christ. These apparitions then either fought side by side with

the crusader or at least convinced him not to run away. Fulcher of Chartres related the

story of a fellow cleric:

Then the Lord appeared to a certain cleric who was fleeing because of fear of
death and said to him ‘Why, brother, are you seeking an escape?’ ‘I am fleeing,’
he said, ‘lest, unlucky, I might perish.’ Thus many fled, lest they perish by a
terrible death. To the cleric the Lord answered, ‘Flee not, but rush back, and tell

132
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano bk. 5, c. 7, 38: “Now the famous Count of
Flanders, protected on all sides by faith and the sign of the cross…rushed against them.” (“Egregius
namque comes Flandrensis undique regimine fidei atque signo crucis…occurrit illis.”) See also Raymond
D’Aguilers, Historia Francorum, c. 4, 241D: “Through God’s inspiration we have arrived, through his
loving kindness we won the highly fortified city, Nicaea, and through his compassion, have victory and
safety from the Turks as well as peace and harmony in our army….” (“Per Dei inspirationem nos
venisse…pacem et concordiam in exercitu nostro fuisse….”)
 46

the others I will go with them into battle. For having been pleased by prayers to
my mother, I will be favorable to the Franks…’ 133

Another cleric was equally reassured by the voice of his dead brother. Fulcher wrote that

as the man tried to escape Antioch during a siege on the city

…his brother, already dead, said to him ‘Why, brother, are you fleeing? Stay; fear
not; for God will be with you in your struggle; and your companions, who in this
journey have already preceded you in death will fight with you against the
Turks.134

In each case of a courage-inspiring apparition, chroniclers make it clear that the

witness first felt that he might perish, acted or attempted to act in response to this danger,

and then beheld a vision or heard a voice. Fulcher’s reports of fearful crusading clerics

receiving supernatural visitors may be understood in the context of Jean- Claude

Schmitt’s assessments of the increase in otherworldly visitations after the year 1000. 135

Though early medieval ghost stories featured spirits appearing in dreams, Schmitt

suggests that after the year 1000 tales of apparitions during all states of consciousness

became more common.136 These phantoms were often bearers of moral advice, appearing

as likenesses of their former selves.137 While appearances by the Lord himself were

133
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum bk. 1, c. 20, 346A-B: “Tunc cuidam clerico pro timore
mortis aufungienti apparvit Dominus…Nam matris meae precibus placatus, propitiabor eis…’.” Christ also
appeared to a Turk on one occasion, leading to his conversion and the capture of a city; see Bartolf of
Nangis, Gesta Francorum Iherusalem c. 13, in RHC Oc 3, 499D: “Apparvit enim ei Dominus Jesus
Christus per uisum, et ait: “Vade, et redde ciuitatem Christianis.”
134
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum bk. 1 c. 20, 346C: “astitit cuidam descendenti frater
eiusdem iam mortuus, aiens illi: ‘Quo frater, fugis?…contra Turcos vobiscum praeliabuntur.’”
135
Jean Claude Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 35.
136
Ibid., 42, 60.
137
Ibid., 12, 78.
 47

uncommon, visits by a dead relative to calm the living, as in Fulcher’s tale of the

frightened cleric, were not. 138

Raymond D’Aguilers reported the experience of a fearful Provençal layman,

whose occupation was not described. During an earthquake at Antioch, the man said that

…such great fear invaded me (tantus timor me invasit) that I was able to say
nothing except ‘God save me.’ Indeed it was night, and I was lying down; nor was
anyone in my hut to whom I could turn for fellowship. While, however, as I have
said the shocks continued at length, and my fear increased every time, two men
dressed in the most brilliant garments appeared to me…” 139

One man was older, while the other was young and “not common to the sons of man.” 140

While the younger of the two might represent an angel, both men’s garments were

reminiscent of those worn by ghostly apparitions reported in the Old and New

Testaments.141

Miraculous natural signs also appeared to frightened crusaders, such as the

appearance of a cross in the sky reported by Fulcher of Chartres. 142 The anonymous

chronicler reported signs such as lights in the sky, which not only frightened the Turks

but also surprised the Christians. 143 The anonymous author also detailed the appearance

138
Ibid., 30.
139
Raymond D’Aguilers Historia Francorum c. 10, 254A:“… tantus timor me invasit, ut nihil
praeter ‘Deus adiava me’ dicere possem. Erat enim nox, et ego iacebam: nec in tugerio meo erat aliquis
cuius consortio refoverer. Quum autem, ut dixi, concussio terrae diutius duraret, et timor meus semper
excresceret, coram me duo viri adstiterunt in veste clarissima….’”
140
Ibid., “…proprae filiis hominem.”
141
See for examples 1 Kings 28.14, Douay-Rheims/1 Sam 28.14, Biblia Sacra Vulgata, and Matt
28.3, Douay-Rheims/ Biblia Sacra Vulgata.
142
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum bk. 1 c. 15, 341A: “Tunc temporis uidimus in coelo
unum ruborem mirabilem... Multi etiam tunc uiderunt quoddam signum in modum crucis figuratum colore
alburnum….”
143
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 9 c. 28, 62: “Nocte quippe superueniente, ignis de caelo apparvit ab
occidente ueniens…Mane autem facto, tremefacti Turci fugerunt omnes pariter pro ignis timore…”
 48

of warrior saints. In the midst of a battle being lost by the Christians a multitude of men

on white horses appeared, bearing white banners. Anonymous wrote,

And thus our men seeing this army did not understand completely what this was
or who they might be, until they realized that this was the aid sent by Christ, and
that the leaders were St. George, St. Mercurius and St. Demetrius.144

This company of Christian warrior saints was similar to one that Schmitt reports appeared

in Raoul Glaber’s Historiae, written between 1028 and 1049. The army seen by Glaber,

led by St. Maurice, consisted of men who had died fighting infidels. 145 The appearance of

warrior saints and the promised assistance of dead comrades and the Lord himself on the

battlefield assured crusaders that God supported their military actions. This was certainly

the case in the Battle of Clavijo in 834, when St. James appeared to the leader of the

Spanish forces in a dream and promised him a victory in the upcoming battle. The

warrior-saint appeared on the battlefield the following day, in full armor riding with a

sword in one hand and a banner in the other. The Christians went on to win a decisive

victory. 146 According to Jonathan Riley-Smith, in his study of the idea of martyrdom

among the first crusaders, visions of dead crusaders and other warriors reflect, and at the

time substantiated, the belief that knights fighting for a Christian cause could reap a

heavenly reward. This would have encouraged men to risk death. 147

144
Ibid., bk. 9, c. 29, 69: “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.”
145
Schmitt, 102.
146
Laura Elizabeth Gibbs, “Forging a Unique Spanish Christian Identity: Santiago and El Cid in
the Reconquista,” The Student Historical Journal, Loyola University, New Orleans, 1996,
<http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1996-7/Gibbs.html#6> (April 26, 2002). Historians have
discerned, however, that there was no battle of Clavijo took place and the whole episode resulted from a
spurious early 12th century charter. See Roger Collins, Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity 400-1000,
2d ed. (New York: St Martin's Press, 1995), 234.
147
Riley-Smith, “Death on the First Crusade,” 24.
 49

Besides faith and holy apparitions, there were also earthly means by which fear

could be overcome. Leadership played a vital role, as shown in the scene previously

discussed in which Bohemond organized his men before battle. 148 Good crusade leaders

also motivated others to act bravely through their own behavior and through inspiring

speeches before battle.149 Sometimes, however, they had to forcefully restrain their men

from flight. Raymond D’Aguilers wrote that Bohemond, who intended to eventually

mount a planned retreat with his army, locked fearful crusaders inside the besieged city

of Antioch for the night in order to prevent disorganized flight.

During this time the people believed that the princes wished to escape to the port.
And thus many were strengthened. Indeed during the night that passed a few
persevered in faith, who did not wish to flee. But if the bishop and Bohemond had
unlocked the city gates, to a large degree only a few would have remained.
William of Grand-Mesnil, however, fled, along with his brother, and many others,
clergy and laity.150

In this case the crusaders’ trust in their leaders’ strategy and plan for escape, according to

D’Aguilers, strengthened the crusaders to remain in the city. Since those who fled were

described as clergy, laity, and William of Grand-Mesnil and his brother, we may read that

these named men were the only knights among those who fled. Though some crusaders

were willing to wait for their leaders to organize a retreat, many clergy, laity, and these

two named knights were the only crusaders to demonstrate a lack of trust in Bohemond

and the other leaders.

148
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 3 c. 9, 18.
149
For the effectiveness of pre-battle motivational speeches, see the works of John R. E. Bleise.
150
Raymond D’Aguilers Historia Francorum c. 11, 256H: “Etenim populus ea tempestate
existimabat quod principes vellent fugere ad portem. Confortati sunt itaque multi…Fugit tamen Willelmus
de Grandis Mainil, et frater eius, et multi alii, laici et clerici.
 50

Other emotions expressed by crusaders, besides fear, help us to further understand

the ideals for emotional expression among various classes of crusaders and the interaction

between fear and emotions such as anger and grief. Though both clerical and the knightly

authors condemned Stephen of Blois’ behavior at the battle of Antioch, only Peter

Tudebode included an emotional scene between Stephen and other crusaders to whom he

lied about Bohemond’s death in battle after his departure. One knight named Guy, along

with others who standing nearby during Stephen’s announcement, reacted very

emotionally. Tudebode wrote that

Guy, a most noble knight,…along with everyone, began to cry out (plorare), to
shriek (ululare), and to wail most violently (vehementissimo planctu)…No one
could console Guy who cried, wrung his hands, and wailed: ‘Poor me!
Bohemond, honor and glory of all the world, whom the universe feared and
loved…Oh how sad I am (Heu me tristis)!…Who could grant to me that I could
die for you, my sweetest friend and lord?’151

Guy abruptly composed himself and announced:

Perhaps you believe this half-gray (semicano) imprudent (imprudenti) knight

(milites)? Indeed, I have never heard discussion of any military exploits he has
made other than this one. But he has fled shamefully (turpiter) and dishonorably
(inhoneste) just as a most evil (nequissimus) and miserable (infelix) man, and
whatever the wretch (miser) says, you will know that it is entirely a lie. 152

151
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano bk. 11 c. 2–3, 75-76: “Quumque Guido,
honestissimus miles, haec talia fallacia, statim cum omnibus aliis coepit plorare et ululare vehementissimo
planctu Nemo namque poterat cinsolari Guidonem plorantem et plaudentem manibus, suosque frangentem
digitos et dicentem: ‘Heu me! Boamunde, honor et decus totius mundi, quem universus orbis timebat atque
amabat! Heu me tristis!… Quis mihi det ut ego moriar pro te, dulcissime amice et domine?”
152
Ibid.: "‘Forsitan creditis huic semicano imprudenti militi? Unquam vere audivi loqui de militia
aliqua quam isdem fecisset. Sed turpiter et inhoneste recessit sicut nequissimus et infelix, et quicquid miser
nuntiat, sciatis per omni falsum esse.’”
 51

Guy believed that Stephen was lying about Bohemond’s death simply because he was

alive to tell the story. He felt that a good knight would have wanted to give his own life in

the place of his lord’s, a desire that he expressed in his outburst. This knight’s respect for

his lord is also demonstrated by his description of Bohemond as someone whom the

universe feared and loved. While this is the only instance in the chronicles of a lord’s

praiseworthiness being related to his ability to inspire fear, we shall see later that this was

a connection commonly made in the chansons.

Guy insulted Stephen in a number of ways, including calling him “half-gray.”

This insult suggests that at the time this chronicle was written only young men were

thought capable of being respectable knights, which coincides with the knightly ideals of

physical beauty and strength that scholars have discerned were promoted by vernacular

chansons.153 Guy’s use of the word imprudenti once again demonstrated the incorrectness

of Stephen’s behavior, which was then expounded on by the knight’s statement that

Stephen behaved shamefully and dishonorably. Tudebode reported that Guy referred to

Stephen as a knight, though the author himself described him by his proper title of count,

comes. Guy’s statement that anything else Stephen said would be a lie is also important,

as it shows that Stephen’s present action had called his future credibility into question.

This relationship between past and future behavior can be ascertained from the scene

discussed earlier in this essay, in which Bohemond berated William the Carpenter for

attempting to flee from camp. Bohemond connected Williams’s previous flight from

battle with his current escape, as indicative of a tendency toward betraying his

See Sally North, “The Ideal Knight as Presented in Some French Narrative Poems, c. 1090 – c.
153

1240: An Outline Sketch,” in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill
and Ruth Harvey (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1986), 112, 122.
 52

comrades.154 Likewise, according to Guy, Stephen’s present untruth should be seen as

indicative of a tendency to lie in future circumstances.

Guy himself is reported to have expressed emotion: he cried out, shrieked and

wailed most violently. Tudebode did not attribute fear for his own life to this man, though

fear had been attributed to the knights discussed earlier who heard about the beheading of

their comrade Roger of Barneville, but instead showed Guy publicly grieving. It is not the

case that Tudebode was generally reluctant to attribute fear to knights, however, as at one

point he listed fear, along with starvation, as a tribulation suffered continuously for

almost a month while the army marched east. 155 In this scene, therefore, we see that the

grief and sadness that Guy suffered over the perceived loss of friend superceded any

concern he might have felt for his own safety. This type of loyalty to one’s comrades,

compared to Stephen of Blois’ desertion from battle, is obviously portrayed as a far

superior virtue.

No one was able to calm Guy during his emotional outburst. But when he

decided his expressions were not warranted he composed himself and addressed the

knights around him, discrediting the source of his misinformation. That Guy decided that

his outburst was unwarranted rather than indecorous may be understood in the context of

other scenes from the chronicles and the chansons in which knights cried publicly in

circumstances such as the loss of a friend or even the loss of a horse. Guy’s reported

expression of emotion is in accordance with Matthew Bennet’s argument that among

154
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 6 c. 15, 33.
155
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano bk. 10 c. 12, 73: “Tales ergo tribulationes et
fames atque timores passi sunt servi Dei per viginti sex dies…”
 53

tenth and eleventh-century knights strong homosocial bonds were encouraged and, at

least in literature, transcended other relationships. 156

The anonymous chronicler, who never portrayed nobles or knights expressing fear

unless they were immediately threatened on the battlefield, describe knightly men

experiencing and expressing other emotions. He explained that at one point the he and the

men with whom he traveled faced immense danger while marching away from a

concluded battle:

…leaving from there we entered onto a devilish mountain, which was so high and
steep…Horses fell over the precipice, and one beast of burden dragged another
down. The knights stood entirely depressed, wringing their hands from so much
sadness and grief…157

The source of these knights’ sadness and grief was apparently the loss of their horses and

material goods. The anonymous knightly chronicler did not describe them expressing fear

for their own lives as they watched their horses fall to their deaths, but instead grief and

sadness. Grief and sadness were apparently more acceptable emotions than fear in this

situation. Crusade-era chansons also contain nobles and knights expressing grief and

sadness over the loss or possible loss of possessions, as will be discussed later in this

essay.

To conclude our discussion of the chronicles, these texts provide examples of

crusaders’ behaviors as explained by an intermediary, a chronicler. These authors showed

different classes of crusaders expressing or exhibiting fear, and other emotions, in

dissimilar ways. Footmen and men of lesser ranks exhibited fear more frequently than

156
Bennet, “Military Masculinity in England and Northern France, 1050-1225,” 88.
157
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 4 c. 11, 27: “…exeuntes inde intravimus in diabolicam montanam, quae
tam erat alta et angusta…Illic precipitabant se equi, et unus saumarius precipitabat alium. Milites ergo
stabant undique tristes, feriebant se manibus pre nimia tristitia et dolore…”
 54

knights and nobles, while only knights or nobles displayed emotions such as sadness,

grief and anger. Clerics were portrayed expressing fear and sadness, but not anger. The

chroniclers also judged crusaders’ emotional expressions and behaviors differently

according to the crusader’s class. While footmen were shown running in fear without

condemnation, knights and nobles who ran away with or without expressing fear were

considered imprudenter and to have behaved shamefully, turpiter. Clerics were never

condemned for the expression of emotion, but in all cases they were able to overcome

their fears through prayer or supernatural means. Chroniclers did, however, report

knights’ and nobles’ public expressions of fear without descriptions of reproach, provided

that these men remained in battle.

The basic professional requirement that knights were expected to meet was to

enter or remain in battle at the order of their superior lord; the ideal was to accomplish

this without expressing fear. Their ultimate professional failure was to abandon their

comrades, as shown by negative reactions to knights and nobles who did so.

According to chroniclers’ descriptions, footmen, men of lesser ranks, and the poor

seem to have been exempt from the ideal of bravery in battle. Stories of their flights in

times of fear and hunger seem to have been used to highlight the severity of the threat

that the crusaders faced and as an opportunity to demonstrate the bravery of the knights

and nobles who remained in combat.

Clerical and lay chroniclers’ descriptions of crusader’s expressions and crusade

events differed. Unlike the clerical authors, the knightly chronicler was less likely to

describe fear for personal safety in combat unless it could be traced to an immediate

cause such as the approach of a greater number of troops. At one point he wrote “they
 55

had us enclosed and all were expecting death,” but he did not say that this possibility of

death caused fear in himself or other knights.158 While clerical authors referred to an

experience of fear that we assume to be inherent in combat, incited by traumatic news or

strange sights, the anonymous knight referred to the threat of death only when it was

imminent, and often without expressing an accompanying experience of fear. When

describing the experiences of specific crusaders, the anonymous chronicler reported the

expressions and behaviors of knights and nobles more frequently, while clerical authors

primarily discussed others who were clerics or whose occupation went unmentioned.

In their descriptions of supernatural means for overcoming fear and miraculous

signs, clerical and lay chroniclers were both most descriptive of events that best related to

their profession and social identity. The clerical authors spent more time describing holy

apparitions and signs that could be linked directly to Christ than did the knightly author,

who was more attentive to the appearance of warrior saints on the battlefield. Class

divisions in the description of emotional expression, in which knights more rarely express

fear of death in battle than others, will become more pronounced as we continue to

discuss expressions of fear in the chronicles, letters and chansons.

Crusaders’ Letters

Letters written by crusaders provide another valuable source of emotional

expression. Crusaders wrote letters both as personal messages to inform loved ones of

their situation and as official documents to report the status of the crusade to

ecclesiastical authorities. Because each letter was composed for a specific recipient or

group of recipients, the emotions conveyed or avoided within them provide insight into

158
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 10 c. 37, 89: “… Cum autem tenerent nostros iam inclusos, qui omnes
putabant mori…”
 56

accepted norms for emotional expression among their authors and readers. Surviving

letters that I have utilized include two from Count Stephen of Blois and Chartres to his

wife Adela in 1097 and 1099, one from Anselm of Ribemont to Manasses, the archbishop

of Reims, in 1097, and one from Archbishop Daimbert of Pisa, Duke Godfrey of

Boullion, and Count Raymond IV of Toulouse and St. Gilles to Pope Paschal II, the

successor of Urban II, in 1099.159

Count Stephen of Blois and Chartres was a member of the expedition of Duke

Robert Curthose of Normandy and Count Robert II of Flanders. Nothing is known of his

life prior to his marriage in 1081. His wife Adela, the daughter of William the Conqueror

and sister of Duke Robert, is thought to have been a major instigator in her husband’s

crusade participation.160 Stephen, like many other nobles of Chartres, made the crusading

vow in 1096.161

Stephen’s letters of 1097 and 1099 expressed emotion to Adela, but contained no

references to fear. Though in the letter of 1097 Stephen did not say whether he wrote or

dictated his words, in the 1099 text he explained that “…my chaplain Alexander…wrote

159
These letters are catalogued in Paul Riant’s Inventaire critique des lettres historiqes des
croisades (Paris: E. Leroux, 1880). For the letters of Stephen of Blois, see “Epistula I Stephani comitis
Carnotensis ad Adelam uxorem suam,” in Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, 138-140 and “Epistula II Stephani comitis
Carnotensis ad Adelam uxorem,” in Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, 149-152; for Anselm’s letter see “Epistula I
Anselmi de Ribodimonte ad Manassem archiepiscopum Remorum,” in Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, 144-146; and
for the letter by Daimbert, Godfrey, and Raymond see “Epistula (Dagoberti) Pisani archiepiscopi et
Godfridi ducis et Raimundi de S. Aegedii et universi exercitus in terra Israel ad papam et omnes Christi
fideles,” in Die Kreuzzugsbrief, 167-174. These letters are available in English in Letters of the Crusades
Written from the Holy Land, ed. and trans. Dana Carleton Munro, University of Pennsylvania Translations
and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History Vol. 1, no. 4 (Philadelphia: Department of
History, University of Pennsylvania, 1896). Translations from Latin in this paper are my own.
160
Brundage, “An Errant Crusader: Stephen of Blois,” Traditio 16 (1960): 381-382. Adela has
been studied for insight into the social and political power of French aristocratic women; see Kimberly
LoPrete, “Adela of Blois,” in Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, ed. Theodore Evergates
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 7-43.
161
Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131, 88. Many nobles who took the vow probably
never went on crusade. The crusading vow was not enforced by canon law prior to 1095, though there was
social pressure to fulfill one’s oath. An ecclesiastical exemption from fulfilling one’s vow was not required
for those who vowed to go but did not travel east until later crusades; see Brundage, Medieval Canon Law
and the Crusader, 34-36.
 57

these letters with the greatest speed.”162 Stephen’s words were affectionate, addressing

Adela as his “sweetest and most lovable/lovely wife,” and repeatedly calling her

“sweetest,” “dearest,” and “sweetest friend.” 163 In these letters, especially that of 1099, he

exaggerated the success of the crusaders:

I tell you, my delight, and you should believe most truly, that in the same battle
we killed 30 admirals, that is princes, and 300 other noble Turkish knights, not
counting some other Turks and pagans…Of our men, however, we lost one
alone.164

Stephen closed his 1099 letter by saying that his wife would see him as soon as

possible.165 Historian James Brundage has interpreted this as a sign that he intended to

leave and return home, but it is possible that he was simply conveying his hope that the

crusade would end soon.166 While the count’s chaplain Alexander actually wrote the 1099

text, I see no reason to believe that he would have left out expressions of fear if Stephen

had dictated them, based on what we have seen of clerical chroniclers’ willingness to

attribute emotion to nobles. From Stephen’s letters to his wife we may deduce that

crusaders did not want the wives they had left at home to worry about their safety, an idea

supported by Fulcher of Chartres’ account of the woman fearing for the fate of her

departing husband.167

162
“Epistula II Stephani comitis Carnotensis,” 152: “Dum vero capellanus meus Alexander
sequenti Paschae cum summa festinatione has litteras scriberet….”
163
Ibid., 149: “dulcissimae atque amabilissimae coniugi,” “carissima,” and “Epistula I Stephani
comitis Carnotensis,” 138: “dulcissima amica.”
164
“Epistula II Stephani comitis Carnotensis ad Adelam uxorem suam,” 152: “…dico tibi, mi
dilecta, et verissime credas, quod eodem proelio XXX admiraldos, id est principes, aliosque CCC nobiles
Turcos milites, exceptis aliis Turcis atque paganis, interfecimus. Computati sunt ergo numero mortui Turci
et Saraceni MCCXXX, de nostris autem unum solum non perdidimus.”
165
Ibid., 152: “…certainly you will see me as quickly as I am able;” “citius potero me certe
videbas.”
166
See James Brundage, “An Errant Crusader: Stephen of Blois,” 388, and “Epistula II Stephani
comitis Carnotensis ad Adelam uxorem,” 152.
167
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum, bk. 1 c. 6, 328D.
 58

Unlike the letters of Stephen, Anselm of Ribemont’s 1097 letter to Archbishop

Manasses of Reims described crusaders experiencing fear. Anselm was a northern

Frankish castellan who wrote to the archbishop, according to Jonathan Riley-Smith, not

only to flatter him but also to request repeatedly that the powerful man pray for him and

his deceased companions.168 His letter described both success and adversity during the

crusaders’ adventures after arriving in Nicomedia. Anselm referred to fear among the

crusaders during a battle in which they were outnumbered, and the arrival of Christian

reinforcements provided support. He wrote:

…of our men, however, many fell, and they drove all the remaining men into the
camp. The faction of Bohemond, count of the Romans, Count Stephen and the
Count of Flanders led the way. This group having been seized with fear (timore
correptis), a greater army suddenly appeared; Hugo the Great and the Duke of
Lotharingia were riding in first… 169

Anselm and his men were seized with fear because of the strength of the opposing army.

These men were seized in a way similar to Raymond D’Aguilers’ description in his

chronicle of men seized (inuadere) by sorrow and fear. While corripere has a sense

similar to rapere, to seize or snatch, invadere can mean enter into or befall, besides seize.

Both words definitely imply something happening that one does not want to happen, but

corripere associates greater violence with the act. If, as was discussed earlier, greater

violence results in greater fear, then Anselm and his men were seized by a more intense
168
For Anselm’s reasons for writing, see Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131,
74. “Epistula I Anselmi de Ribodimonte ad Manassem archiepiscopum Remorum,” in Die
Kreuzzugsbriefe, 144: “Because you are our lord and because the whole kingdom of France considers you
the greatest on account of your governance, we are making our experiences known to your fathership;”
“Quia dominus noster es et quia totius Franciae regnum tua maxime ex cura pendet, paternitati tuae
notificamus nostros eventus.”
169
“Epistula I Anselmi de Ribodimonte,” 145: “…multos autem nostrorum occiderunt, reliquos
omnes in ipsis castris reppulerunt. Praeerant autem huic parti Boamundus, comes Romanorum, Stephanus
comes atque comes Flandrensis. Hic ita timore correptis, subito signa maioris exercitus apparverunt;
equitabant autem in primis Hugo Magnus et dux Lothariensis…”
 59

fear at the sight of an approaching army than the knights described by D’Aguilers who

heard of their friend’s beheading. 170 The sight of an army actually approaching probably

would inspire more intense fear than the rumor of a friend’s violent death, though in this

case the difference in words may be only a sign of the authors’ choices, not an underlying

desire to semantically quantify fear.

Anselm also stressed the importance of religious observance among the crusaders.

“After the army had arrived at Nicomedia,” he wrote, “we, greater men as well as lesser,

cleansed by confession, fortified (munivimus) ourselves by receiving the body and blood

of our Lord.”171 The word munere is used by medieval clerical authors to refer to

strengthening oneself with or for Christian ritual, or simply sanctioning something within

the church.172 It is difficult to know if Anselm described this act of faith among the

crusaders because he was writing to an archbishop, or because the courage of the author

and his fellow crusaders was in fact strengthened by performing this ritual on foreign

soil. That the only expression of fear in this letter was immediately assuaged by the

arrival of a greater number of troops may be a result of Anselm’s desire to encourage the

archbishop to encourage more men to travel east. But as other letters by crusaders and the

chronicles demonstrate, it was not acceptable for high-ranking knights or leaders to

express fear unless faced with imminent danger.

170
Raymond D’Aguilers, Historia Francorum c. 9, 252F.
171
“Epistula I Anselmi de Ribodimonte,” 144: “Postquam igitur apud Nicomediam exercitus
peruenit…tam maiores quam minores per confessionem mundati, perceptione corporis et sanguinis Domini
nos ipsos munivimus.”
172
See for example Cartulaire de l'Eglise du Saint Sépulcre de Jerusalem: CLXIII. De Libertate
Ecclesie Sancti Sepulcri, in PL 155, Col. 1234B: “…et hoc signo crucis nostra propria [manu] facto
munivimus, et sigillo nostro roboravimus, subscriptis nostris canonicis testibus, in urbe Troia feliciter.” For
a later example see Bernard of Clairveau, “Epistola CCCXC,” in PL 182, Col. 0596D-0597A: “Nuntium
tuum cum magna exsultatione vidimus, et negotium tuum, quantumcunque potuimus, munivimus ad
dominum Papam.”
 60

The 1099 letter of Archbishop Daimbert of Pisa, Duke Godfrey of Boullion, and

Count Raymond IV of Toulouse and St. Gilles to Pope Paschal II, was written directly

following the capture of Jerusalem. Each co-author had a personal reason for

participating in this letter to the successor of Pope Urban II. As there is no explanation

within the text itself, the co-authorship of this letter may be explained by the roles these

men filled in the crusade at the time of its culmination in Jerusalem. Archbishop

Daimbert had been a close associate of Pope Urban II, traveling with him from Italy to

his councils throughout France. He had been elected the papal leader of the crusaders

following the death of Adhémar of Le Puy. 173 Duke Godfrey of Boullion headed a

contingent of crusaders and had been elected military leader of all the Christians

following the capture of the city. Count Raymond IV of Toulouse and Saint-Gilles had

been excommunicated for a short time prior to the crusade, but was chosen to lead a

contingent on crusade after proving his faith through service to Pope Urban II. 174 He had

first been recommended for the position of crusade leader but had refused, and the

ensuing disagreement between his and Duke Godfrey’s supporters had resulted in debate

and dissention among both noble and clerical crusaders. These men, each in a position of

power within the crusade enterprise, may have felt it politically and professionally

necessary to write to the new pope, who had been appointed during their absence. The

authors may have written the letter together in order to convey solidarity between the

173
Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 57, 108.
174
Raymond was excommunicated in 1076 due to a consanguineous marriage. This
excommunication may also have been related to his refusal to fight against the Normans, despite the
request of Pope Gregory VII. After his excommunication Raymond took up arms whenever the Church
called. Regarding his relationship with Urban II, the Pope’s journeys through France brought him to many
monasteries and abbeys owned or protected by Raymond; see John Hugh Hill and Laurita L. Hill,
Raymond IV Count of Toulouse (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1964), 11-12, 34.
 61

papal and lay noble leaders, thus showing that the Kingdom of Jerusalem would be

successfully organized and ruled.

This letter to Pope Paschal II narrated events from the capture of Nicaea through

the battle of Ascalon, following the capture of Jerusalem. It included descriptions of

hunger, sickness, and cannibalism endured at Antioch, Barra and Marra, and requested

that the pope praise the bravery of both surviving and fallen crusaders and pray for

them.175 Despite descriptions of other hardships, this letter made no mention of fear. It

highlighted the crusaders’ faith, depicting them crying out for God’s aid before battle and

receiving it:

And when our army and the enemy caught sight of each other, while kneeling we
called upon God's aid, so that he who had by necessity strengthened the law of the
Christians in our other battles, might in the present battle, extend the kingdom of
the church of Christ from sea all the way to sea, having broken the strength of the
Saracens and the Devil. There was no delay: with our crying out to God he
approached and supplied great boldness (audaciae).176

As in other sources, the sight of numerous enemies inspired the crusaders to call upon

God for assistance, who then granted them an increase in their boldness. Though fear was

not expressed in this passage the authors explained that the crusaders felt they needed

assistance in breaking the strength of the Saracens and that God supplied boldness in

response to their prayer. The authors of this letter thus expressed the army’s fear by

describing the crusaders’ need for strength and their reception of boldness from God.

175
“Epistula (Dagoberti) Pisani archiepiscopi et Godfridi ducis et Raimundi de S. Aegedii,” in Die
Kreuzzugsbriefe, 169-170: “Tanta fames in exercitu fuit, ut corpora Saracenorum iam fetentium a populo
Christiano comesta sint,” and 173: “Igitur ad tam mirabilem fratrum nostrorum fortitudinis…invitamus vos
exsultationem.…”
176
Ibid., 171-172: “Cumque exercitus noster et hostium se conspexissent, genibus flexis adiutorem
Deum invocavimus, ut, qui in aliis nostris neccessitatibus legem Christianorum confirmaverat, in praesenti
bello, confractis viribus Saracenorum et diaboli, regnum Christi et ecclesiae a mari usque ad mare
usquequaque dilataret. Nec mora: clamantibus ad se Deus adfuit atque tantas audaciae vires ministravit…”
 62

The letters that we have discussed demonstrate crusaders’ own uses of emotional

expression rather than chroniclers’ descriptions of crusaders’ emotions. None of these

letters contained references to fear that were not due to imminent danger or mitigated by

the crusaders’ faith or the arrival of reinforcements. Instead, these texts highlighted and

exaggerated the success of the crusaders and their trust in each other and in God.

Both the class of the writers and the audience to whom they wrote may explain

the style of their references to emotional expression. Count Stephen of Blois wrote to his

wife, a relationship that Matthew Bennett argued took a secondary place to male

companionship in the system of socialization that constructed knightly masculinity. 177

Stephen’s relationship with Adela may not have been one in which emotional weakness

was shared and discussed. Adela had also been a motivating force in Stephen’s crusade

participation, and he may have felt that she would not have been pleased by an admission

of fear.178

Anselm of Ribemont and Archbishop Daimbert, Duke Godfrey and Count

Raymond IV may have had similar relationships with those to whom they wrote. Anselm

addressed himself to Archbishop Manassas as “your man and humble servant in the lord,”

a phrase which conveys a structured and perhaps directly hierarchical relationship but

with an unclear level of personal involvement. 179 As we shall see shortly in the discussion

of chansons de geste, companions of the same class such as Roland and Oliver in the

Chanson de Roland shared sadness they felt for dead friends and concerns regarding their

177
Bennett, 82.
178
Brundage explains that the letters show that “Stephen was devoted to his rather domineering
wife;” see “An Errant Crusader: Stephen of Blois,” 382.
179
“Epistula I Anselmi de Ribodimonte,” 144: “…suus homo et humilis servuus in Dominum….”
 63

relationship with their superiors. 180 Had Anselm of Ribemont’s, Archbishop Daimbert’s,

Duke Godfrey’s and Count Raymond’s relationships with the recipients of their letters

been personal friendships rather than hierarchical associations, these authors might have

expressed their own emotions and other crusaders’ fears that were not successfully

allayed. At the same time, however, we do not know that even close friends would

discuss emotions with one another that they felt were improper to be expressing. Based

on the behavior of knights and nobles in the chronicles, it would have been improper for

these men to express fears that were not mitigated or that prevented them from fighting.

The ideals of military emotional behavior to which Stephen of Blois, Anselm of

Ribemont, Archbishop Daimbert, Duke Godfrey, and Count Raymond may have aspired

are found in the final genre of material I will discuss, the chansons de geste, songs of

deeds.

Chansons de geste

The chansons de geste were composed and performed primarily for audiences of

men and women within noble households, though parts of a chanson would sometimes be

sung for knights in the field prior to battle as an exhortation to live up to the ideals which

it presented.181 Early twentieth-century historians accepted the events documented in

these texts as accurate representations of knightly attitudes and behaviors on the

battlefield.182 More recent scholars have sought to distinguish between the behavior of

180
See La Chanson de Roland, lines 1691-1701, 104-105: “Count Roland sees the great slaughter
of his men/ He calls his companion Oliver:/ ‘Dear sir, dear comrade, in God’s name, what do you make of
this?/ You see so many good knights lying on the ground!/…Dear Oliver, how shall we do it/ How shall we
break the news to him [the King?’/ Oliver said: ‘I don’t know how to reach him/ I would rather die than
have something to blame ourselves for.”
181
Bliese, “Fighting Spirit and Literary Genre,” 418.
182
Troubadour Bertran de Born’s portrayal of blood-thirsty knights loving nothing more than
battle in “Le Jouvencel” was thought to be descriptive of their actual attitudes and behavior. See Huizinga,
 64

knights in medieval fiction and reality. 183 While Bleise has examined chansons and

chronicles to gain insight into the psychology of knights, Sarah Kay has studied romances

and chansons in order to understand the culture for which they were composed. She

described both genres as “political fictions, in that their narratives are bounded by

assumptions about the nature of the personal and the social, the licit and the illicit, the

ethical and the unethical, and the representable and the unrepresentable.” 184 Because

textual discourse is unable to portray the entirety of human experience, it relies upon the

guidelines of social and behavioral norms to construct characters and their activities. 185

The chansons may thus be less representative of knights’ and nobles’ actual behaviors

than they are of how knights and nobles enjoyed seeing and hearing themselves

represented.

Like the chronicles, chansons reflected their audience and the culture in which

they were composed. It is thus less important to discern if the behavior of the knights in

chansons was representative of specific actions and emotional expressions than it is to

utilize these texts as tools through which knightly ideals for behavior may be examined.

Those who examine emotional expression in the chansons therefore should not assume

that descriptions of knightly behavior are indicative of actual emotional expression, but

instead utilize these expressions as guidelines for what a text’s audience would recognize

as the representation of a particular emotion. It is also important to remember that these

documents were composed as entertainment, and may therefore exaggerate and even

The Waning of the Middle Ages (Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1954), 64-65 and Thomas McGuire,
The Conception of the Knight in the Old French Epics of the Southern cycle (Ph.D. Diss, U Michigan,
1939), 18-20.
183
For further discussion of modern scholarship on the chansons see Bliese, “Fighting Spirit and
Literary Genre…,” 417, and idem, “When Knightly Courage May Fail…” 484.
184
Sarah Kay, The Chansons de geste in the Age of Romance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 5.
185
Ibid. Kay’s argument is based on the work of Fredric Jameson, especially his The Political
Unconscious (Ithaca: Cornell, 1981).
 65

satirize battlefield behavior. Yet for either exaggeration or satire to be entertaining it must

refer to commonly recognizable events or behaviors.

I have utilized two chansons to provide cultural insight into reports of crusaders’

emotional expressions in the crusade chronicles and letters. The Chanson de Roland was

written between 1098 and 1100, though versions of it are thought to have existed in oral

form as early as the Battle of Hastings in 1066. 186 Set in roughly 778, the poem described

the experiences of Charlemagne’s rear-guard in Spain. The Chanson d’Antioche,

formally written c.1180, is thought to be a continuation of certain chronicles, particularly

the anonymous Gesta and of a manuscript by Baudri of Bourgeil. 187 This work, which has

not received as much scholarly attention as the Chanson de Roland, told the story of the

First Crusade with special attention to the battle of Antioch.

It is very likely that Frankish knights would have been exposed to oral versions of

the Chanson de Roland prior to the crusade. Scholars agree that legends of Roland were

popular among the Franks before the chanson was written, due to naming patterns and the

186
Bliese, “Fighting Spirit and Literary Genre…,” 418. For the La Chanson de Roland in Old
French and English, see La Chanson de Roland, trans. Brault. While the Old French version will be used to
provide examples of word usage, English quotations will be from Brault’s translation of the Old French.
Dating this chanson is a “compromise” according to Brault, because scholars are not sure whether it was
written before, during, or after the First Crusade; see “Introduction,” in La Chanson de Roland, xviii, xxv.
187
For La Chanson d’Antioche in Old French see La Chanson D’Antioche: Édition du texte
d’apres la version ancienne, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc, Documents relatifs a l’histoire des croisades, XI
(Paris: L’Academie des Inscriptionis et Belles-Lettres, 1978); for the modern French version see La
Chanson d’Antioche, trans. by La Marquise de Saint-Aulaire (Paris: Didier, 1862). This is the most recent
modern French translation I was able to find, though more recently published editions of this text are
available on microform. Multiple versions of La Chanson d’Antioche survive but it is not known exactly
when prior to 1180 each part was composed. Possible authors include Albert of Aachen and Richard le
Pélerin; see Duparc-Quioc, La Chanson D’Antioche: Édition du texte d’apres la version ancienne, 9 and
Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131, 2. While the Old French version will be used to provide
examples of word usage, my English translations will be from the Modern French; both will be cited. In
cases where the Old and Modern French seem to differ greatly, translations of both versions will be
provided in the text and both languages will be quoted in the notes.
 66

appreciation of relics which are mentioned in the song itself. 188 The behaviors it

conveyed would have already been familiar and perhaps representative of the

professional ideals to which crusaders aspired. The Chanson d’Antioche, written long

after, was the record of the First Crusade as a legendary enterprise. It portrayed the

crusaders as they had been remembered through both their own renown or infamy and

that of their families and descendents. Based on this analysis, the former text provides

examples of the behaviors that the crusaders may have sought to emulate, while the latter

demonstrates the legendary idealization, and at times demonization, of crusaders’

behaviors.

In both the Chanson de Roland and the Chanson d’Antioche good knights are

defined by their bravery, whether Christian or Saracen. Though according to Rachman

and Miller there can be no courage without the possibility of fear, the chansons contain

no examples were of a man directly expressing fear and then successfully fighting.

Knights were either consistently cowardly or brave. The Chanson de Roland’s Christian

Count Orgier “never acted out of cowardice (cuardise)/ A better knight than he never

donned a byrnie.”189 Even a non-Christian from Balaguer “is renowned for his bravery

(vasselage)/ If he were a Christian, he would be a very worthy knight.” 190

Bravery among these knights was equated with a lack of cowardice by the

composers of these chansons, and in the Chanson de Roland linked with the ability to

inflict physical harm on others. “The French have struck courageously (de coer) and

vigorously (de vigur)/ The pagans have died by the thousands and in masses,” wrote the
188
Noblemen began naming their children after the legend’s heroes around the beginning of the
eleventh century. Relics are also an important clue to the legend’s popularity. Roland’s oliphant, for
example, was displayed in the Church of St. Seurin; see Brault, “Introduction,” xv-xvi.
189
La Chanson de Roland, lines 3531-3532, 214: “Li quens cuardise n’out unkes,/ Meillor vassel
de lui ne vestit bronie.”
190
Ibid., lines 898-899, 58: “De vasselage est il ben alosez,/ Fust chrestïens, asez oüst barnet.”
 67

author of the Chanson de Roland.191 Knights who caused great damage were praised and

described as worthy men, produme. When the French Ancëis, for example, fought his

enemy: “He pierces his body with the point of his good spear/ He sticks it deeply into

him, he pushes the iron right through him/ Running him through, he tumbles him over on

the field dead/ Roland says: ‘That is a worthy man’s blow.’”192 Bravery and the ability to

cause fear in others were linked only once in the chronicles, in the case of the knight Guy

who cried over his respected lord Bohemond. Tudebode reported Guy describing

Bohemond as the “honor and glory of all the world, whom the universe feared and

loved.”193 That the universe feared him was as important as that it loved him. Sally North

found similar sentiments in her examination of ideals for knights in later chansons, in

which fierceness to enemies was esteemed equally with kindness to friends. 194 God,

rather than the men's own actions, was considered the source of nobles’ and knights’

bravery in the Chanson d’Antioche. Noble crusade leader Bohemond, repeatedly called

brave (vaillans), was listed among the leaders especially favored by God in the opening

passages of the Chanson d’Antioche.195 These leaders were those who “God wishes to

bless” or were cared for by God.196

191
Ibid., lines 1438-1439, 90: “Franceis I unt ferut de coer e de vigur/ Paien sunt morz a millers e
a fuls…”.
192
Chanson de Roland, lines 1285-1288, 80: “Del bon espiet el cors li met la mure/ Empeinst le
ben, tut le fer li mist ultre/ Pleine sa hanste el camp mort le tresturnet/ Ço dist Roland: ‘Cist colp est de
produme!’
193
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano bk. 11 c. 3, 76: “ ‘…honor et decus totius mundi,
quem universus orbis timebat atque amabat!”
194
North, “The Ideal Knight…,” 128.
195
See for example La Chanson d’Antioche, trans. by La Marquise de Saint-Aulaire, 2.9, 63; La
Chanson D’Antioche: Édition du texte d’apres la version ancienne, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc, line 1020:
“Buiemons de Secile, li preus et li villains….”
196
La Chanson d’Antioche, trans. by La Marquise de Saint-Aulaire, 1.2, 3: “que Dieu voulut
bénir;” La Chanson D’Antioche: Édition du texte d’apres la version ancienne, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc,
line 39, 20: “qui Deu ainme et tient cher.”
 68

The Chanson de Roland contained a scene that clarified how knights themselves

felt they needed to behave. When Roland’s friend Oliver chided him for not previously

calling for assistance, though the hero wished to do so after a large opposing army

appeared, he explained “Heroism (vassalage) tempered with common sense is a far cry

from madness;/ Reasonableness is to be preferred to recklessness (estultie)./ Franks have

died because of your senselessness (legarie).”197 Both God’s favor and the ability to

injure others were missing from this definition of heroism. For Oliver, heroic action

required common sense. Though a knight should be courageous, he should act according

to circumstances and avoid endangering the lives of others.198 Recklessness and

senselessness were qualities that knights should avoid, words which provide another

meaning for the Latin imprudenter. To display heroism, vassalage, was to act prudenter.

Like the chronicles and letters, the chansons described knights calling on God to

protect the living and the dead. The context of these knights’ and nobles’ requests to God,

however, suggests that a different kind of relationship was portrayed in texts composed

by knights or for a knightly audience than in those by and for clerics. The knights of the

Chanson d’Antioche not only requested aid from God, but made promises to him

themselves. Prior to a large battle Baldwin explained to the Count of Flanders why he

should lead a charge, yet described his own behavior as senseless:

Sire, in the name of God all powerful, When I was in Arras, your strong town, I
spoke highly of myself in front of all with senselessness (legarie)/ That if God

197
La Chanson de Roland, lines 1724-1726, 106: “Kar uasselage par sens nen est folie;/ Mielz ualt
mesure que ne fait estultie./ Franceis sunt morz par vostre legerie.”
198
Bennet argued that this instance demonstrated that undisciplined behavior was condemned in
medieval warfare. See “Military Masculinity in England and Northern France, 1050-1225,” 86.
 69

would raise me a kingdom in Syria/ I would carry the first blow on that detestable
race.199

Baldwin apparently thought that referring to an agreement made with God as a reason for

leading a charge was more acceptable than admitting the desire to gain possessions and

renown, and that the Count of Flanders would have more faith in a charge inspired by

God’s will or because of a pact with the Lord than one that Baldwin himself suggested.

God was used by Baldwin as a constantly available source of bravery, not only a rescuer

who would help in times of need after receiving prayers.

Baldwin described his public bargain with God to lead the charge against the

enemy as senseless. Though he explained that he was “speaking highly of himself” when

he made the bargain with God, his use of the word senselessness implies that he may

have felt he was overestimating his own martial abilities. Taken in the context of

Roland's and Oliver's use of this word, Baldwin may have been unsure that he would

succeed in his charge on the Saracens and used both his promise made to God and his

desire for his own kingdom to justify his desire for heroic action. If heroism was in part

dependant upon embarking on military endeavors that could succeed without killing

one’s fellow knights, the desire to lead a charge against an enemy of which little was

known was a display of both recklessness and senselessness.

Knights in the Chanson de Roland prayed to God for assistance in battle,

explicitly calling on him to increase their fighting ability and curse their enemies. While

the clerical chroniclers and both the letter of Archbishop Daimbert, Duke Godfrey and

199
La Chanson d’Antioche, trans. by La Marquise de Saint-Aulaire, 2.16, 71. La Chanson
D’Antioche: Édition du texte d’apres la version ancienne, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc, lines 1275-1278, 78:
“Sire, por Dieu merci, qui tot a en baillie, Quant jou fui a Arras, a vo cité garnie, Voiant tos, me vantai de
molt grant legarie, Le premier colp ferroie sor la gent paienie.”
 70

Count Raymond IV and that of Anselm of Ribemont referred to crusaders succeeding in

battle after their prayers had resulted in increased strength or help from a larger army, in

the Chanson de Roland we are told exactly what the crusader requested and what he was

experiencing as he made his request. 200 Upon the death of a fellow knight, Roland “held

his bloody sword/ He heard well the French crying out their distress/ His fury is so great

he thinks he will burst in two/ He said to the pagan: ‘God shower misfortunes on

you…’.”201 Similarly the anonymous chronicler described knights who had been killed in

battle crying out “Avenge, Lord, our blood which has been shed for you….” 202 The

knightly author and the Chanson de Roland showed men requesting exactly what they, as

knights, needed from God.

Fear was rarely mentioned in both the Chanson d’Antioche and the Chanson de

Roland. In the Chanson d’Antioche after a camp was pitched during the battle for

Antioch, a knight who was asked to stand guard stated: “…But who would want to guard

this residence, Having fear (paor) of losing limbs and life.”203 After making this

statement, the knight proceeded to stand on guard, and no comment was made regarding

his expression of fear. Unlike the instance that Peter Tudebode related, in which

Bohemond became angry at men who were so afraid that they would not fight, the knight

who mentioned fear in the Chanson d’Antioche was able to do what he was ordered. 204

200
Epistula (Dagoberti) Pisani archiepiscopi et Godfridi ducis et Raimundi de S. Aegedii,” 171-
172.
201
Chanson de Roland, lines 1586-1589, 98: “Li quens Rollant tint s’espee sanglente/ Ben ad oït
que Franceis se dementente/ Si grant doel ad que par mi quïet fendre./ Dist al paien: ‘Deus tut mal te
consente!”
202
Anonymous, Gesta bk. 2 c. 8, 17: “Vindica Domine sanguinem nostrum, qui pro te effusus est;
“Vindica Domine sanguinem nostrum, qui pro te effusus est…”
203
La Chanson d’Antioche, trans. by La Marquise de Saint-Aulaire, 4.25, 162. La Chanson
D’Antioche: Édition du texte d’apres la version ancienne, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc, lines 3306-3307,
184: “Mais qui vaura garder icele manantie/ Paor ara de perdre les membres et le vie.”
204
Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano bk. 10 c. 11, 71.
 71

In the Chanson de Roland fear for an individual’s death was expressed only when

the army realized that it had left Roland and his friend Oliver alone to face the Saracens:

“The French are vexed and angry/ They are all crying bitterly/ And they have great fear

for Roland.”205 The Franks were vexed (dolenz) and angry (curuçus) at Ganelon for

betraying Roland. Though in this instance their tears and fear (poür) are more directly

connected to Roland than their anger, a few stanzas later the author wrote “And the

French are angry and vexed/ They are all weeping and showing distress/ and they pray to

God to protect Roland.”206

Anger, vexation, and tears accompanied fears for Roland’s safety. In his

discussion of emotions on the battlefield, Miller suggested that during battle emotions

can merge with their culturally determined opposites.207 While the emotions of the Franks

were not necessarily transformed into their affective opposites, their sense of betrayal and

imminent danger could have resulted in mixed responses to Roland's danger. All were

negative however, and the author’s replacement of their expression of fear for Roland

with prayers to God for his safety again demonstrates that God’s assistance was thought

to be an important force in a knights’ survival in battle, and thus an important method of

assuaging fear for one’s own or another’s safety.

Events occur in the chansons similar to those that inspired fear among crusaders

in the chronicles, such as seeing the deaths of one’s comrades, but with no expression of

that emotion. As in the chronicles, knightly expressions of other emotions in the

chansons clarify the contexts in which fear was displayed. References to knights

205
La Chanson de Roland, lines 1813-1815, 112: “li Franceis dolenz e curuçus/ N’i ad celoi ki
durement ne plurt/ E de Rollant sunt en grant poür.”
206
Ibid., lines 1835-1837, 112-113: “E li Francais curuçus e dolent/ N’I ad n’I plurt e se dement/ E
prient Deu qu’il guarisset Rollant.”
207
Miller, 89.
 72

expressing sadness is more frequent in the Chanson de Roland than in the Chanson

d’Antioche, though in both texts we find nobles and knights expressing grief, sadness and

anger over the loss or possible loss of both companions and material goods.

Fear for personal safety was rarely expressed in the Chanson de Roland. Loss of

comrades inspired intense sorrow but did not lead knights to express fears for their own

safety. Even Ganelon, Roland’s villainous stepfather, showed anger instead of fear when

faced with danger. When ordered to travel alone to Marsile in order to deliver a message

for Charlemagne he threatened Roland for nominating him, stating “’If God wills that I

should return from there, I’ll take such great vengeance on you, That it will last you all

your life.’”208 Ganelon displayed anger at the possibility that he might not survive the

journey, but did not express fear for his own safety. Roland wept “like a noble knight,” a

chevaler gentill, over unknown knights whom he saw slain on a battlefield, rather than

expressing fear that he would meet a similar fate. 209 Weeping over the death of a

superior, friend, or even a fellow Christian was a positive trait in the chronicles and in

this chanson.

The death of a comrade or of fellow crusaders was not the only justifiable reason

to express emotion. Similarly to the anonymous chronicler’s description of knights

displaying sadness and grief at the loss of their horses while traversing a steep mountain,

the author of the Chanson de Roland described Roland crying out to God, begging that

his sword should not fall into possession of the Saracens. Roland cried “I would rather

208
Chanson de Roland, lines 289-291, 18: “’Se Deus o dunet que jo de la repaire/ Jo t’en muvra un
si grant contraire/ Ki durerat a trestut tun edage.’”
209
La Chanson de Roland, lines 1853, 114: “…pluret cum chevaler gentill.”
 73

die than have it remain with the pagans. God, our Father, do not let France be dishonored

this way!”210

While the Chanson d’Antioche did not describe knights or nobles crying over the

deaths of their comrades, it did contain noble knights crying from physical and perhaps

psychological discomfort. The author of this chanson wrote, after some crusaders’ horses

were too exhausted to move, “The sirs go by foot, doleful and wrathful;/ their stockings

are torn,/ their shoes are worn out./ Their feet are bleeding./ They are crying and

lamenting.”211 Many crusading knights were reduced to the level of footmen as horses

were lost, and the use of tears in this case may serve to call attention to their anguish.

From the example in the chronicles and those in both chansons we see that nobles and

knights were free to express emotions publicly, and displayed great concern for both

other crusaders and for the objects which defined their social and military roles, their

horses, swords, and perhaps facetiously in the case of lords in the Chanson d’Antioche,

shoes and stockings.

The chansons’ lack of expressions of personal fear may be further clarified by the

case of Stephen of Blois in the Chanson d’Antioche. Upon hearing a command to attack

during the siege of Antioch, for example, he reacted with physical symptoms and a desire

not to enter into battle: “When Stephen heard the command of the good duke,/ He would

have much better loved to be in his home in Blois./ He shook deeply (tramble) when he

took his sword./ All his limbs moved (Li membre li remuent) from his head to his

210
Ibid., lines 2336-2337, 142: “Meilz voeill murir qu’entre paiens remaigne// Deus Pere, n’en
laiser hunir France!”
211
Suzanne Duparc-Quioc, ed. La Chanson d’Antioche: Édition du texte d’apres la version
ancienne (Paris: L’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1976), lines 2269-2271: “Li signor vont a
pié,/ Deolant et aïre;/ Lor caucus sont rompues,/ Lor sollier depané,/ Or lor sainent li pié,/ s’ont tenrement
ploré.”
 74

toes.”212 This chanson also provided a closer look at Stephen’s retreat from Antioch to

the nearby mountain. Stephen and his men

…brushed back through the sand and only stopped themselves on the mountain/
The 2000 cried: ‘Sir, what are you doing?/ In the name of the creator we are going
toward those miscreant infidels.’/ Count Stephen responded: ‘By my head we are
doing nothing/There are more than 30,000 Turks and slaves/ We will have helped
if we return to the camp of God.’213

This was the final mention of Stephen in this chanson, whose author portrayed Stephen’s

departure from the siege as a tactical retreat rather than a panicked flight from battle as

was implied by the chroniclers. Yet Stephen’s tactical retreat took place against the

wishes of his own men, after having stated that he would have preferred to be at home.

He was the only crusader to whom physical discomfort was attributed and the only one to

be described expressing homesickness in battle. Stephen’s shaking and trembling limbs

may demonstrate that he felt his safety to be directly threatened, according to Rachman’s

definitions of physiological responses to fear. 214

Since we can assume that the chanson’s author was not intentionally describing

modern physiological symptoms of fear, we are faced with a great similarity between the

medieval and modern physical expressions of this emotion. In order to better examine

212
La Chanson d’Antioche, trans. by La Marquise de Saint-Aulaire, 2.25, 77-78: “Quand Étienne
entend le commandement du bon duc/ Il eût bien mieux aimé être á Blois dans sa maison/ Il trembla
fortement quand il prit son étendara/ Tout son sang frémit du chef aux talons.” La Chanson D’Antioche:
Édition du texte d’apres la version ancienne, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc, lines 1438-1441, 86-87: “Quant
l’entendi Estievened, s’en ot al cuer tençon/ Il vausist a cele eure estre a Blois se maison/ Tos tramble
dusqu’en terre quant prist le gonfanon/ Li membre li remuent del cief dusc’al talon.”
213
La Chanson d’Antioche, trans. by La Marquise de Saint-Aulaire, 2.30, 82. La Chanson
D’Antioche: Édition du texte d’apres la version ancienne, ed. Suzanne Duparc-Quioc, lines 1532-1539, 91:
“A ces mos laisent corre tres parmi sablon/ Et li Turc les aquellent et cacent a randon/ Ne s’arestent
François desi que sor le mon/ Et li doi mil s’escrient: ‘Segnor, nos que feron?/ El non al Creator vers ces
cuvers tornon.’/ Ço dist li quens Estievenes: ‘Par mon cief non feron/ Il sont bien .xxx. mil que Turc que
Esclavon/ Secors arons ançois s’a l’ost Deu retornon.”
214
Rachman, 284-288.
 75

similarities between medieval and modern physical emotion expressions we may also

turn to the variety of ways of reporting emotional expression in other forms of heroic

literature. In his discussion of affect in Icelandic sagas, Miller explained that this genre

often contained detailed descriptions of physical changes occurring during emotional

situations.215 Since physical displays of emotion can often be interpreted in numerous

ways, this method of discussing emotion required saga characters to have recognizable

and consistent dispositions. 216 Stephen was clearly not praiseworthy in the chronicles: he

was an imprudens who acted imprudenter. There is thus an unavoidable connection

between Stephen’s trembling, homesickness, and flight. His physical reaction to the

situation in the chanson was consistent with his improper behavior in the chronicles,

through which was displayed a noble who consistently desired to leave battle and find

safety. Stephen’s disposition in the chanson, inspired by his behavior in the chronicles,

demonstrates his overwhelming concern for his personal well-being. His trembling was

thus the author’s way of demonstrating his fear and desire to return home.

Stephen’s actions provided an illustration of how crusaders should not behave.

Listeners to recitations of this chanson and readers of it would have recognized his

behavior as incorrect for the circumstances, as he was the only man to behave as he did

and because his own men disagreed with his actions. Other crusaders’ direct expressions

of concern for personal safety would have been seen in the context of Stephen’s behavior,

a crusader putting his own desires above the needs of his comrades and disregarding the

eventual goal of gaining possession of Jerusalem.

215
Miller, Humiliation, 101.
216
Ibid., 108-109.
 76

To conclude this discussion of the chansons, both texts we have shown us an

idealization of how knights and nobles should behave in battle. It is not enough for

knights and nobles to prove their bravery by remaining on the field to fight despite

danger. Mounted fighters must demonstrate that they are capable of withstanding and

causing violence, since unlike in the chronicles there are no fleeing footsoldiers next to

whom they can considered brave by simply remaining on the field. Among the sources

we have discussed, the most similarities in knightly and noble expressions of emotion are

found in the chansons, letters, and the chronicle by the anonymous knight. Yet even our

anonymous author was willing to admit that fear was present when he faced an opposing

army. This was not done in the chansons. In the chansons we are presented with courage

and cowardice as absolutes, with mounted fighters categorized by either their ability to

spill blood or their desire to return home. It is easy to see how earlier scholars could be

misled by perceiving the ideals portrayed by the chansons as knightly reality. But these

ideals allow us to understand the cultural meanings of emotional expression in the

chronicles and letters of the First Crusade.

Conclusion

The chronicles, letters, and chansons that we have examined illustrate ideals for

the expression of fear among crusaders. These texts have shown us what physical

symptoms of fear were thought to consist of, and how these physical and verbal

expressions were shaped by and actively defined crusader’s professional and social roles.

The ideals for emotional expression among the first crusaders also provide insight into

the expression of emotion in wider medieval military and non-military contexts.

 77

Knights and nobles of the chronicles and letters sought to attain the ideal of

fearlessness put forth by crusade-era chansons. The expression of fear in battle by knights

and nobles in battle was seen as a desire to return to home and safety, and to desert their

comrades in order to protect themselves. Even when fear was expressed outside of battle

the crusaders who did so were seen as less than courageous, as weak hearted. For

crusaders to fight despite reports of expressed fear or attributions of fear by authors was a

sign of their courage, bravery, and faith. The ultimate transgression for a mounted fighter

was to be unable to fight despite his fear and thus be prevented from fulfilling his role as

a combatant and flee from battle, deserting his comrades.

For footsoldiers and those of the lesser ranks, the gens minuta, flight from

dangerous battles was expected. These ranks of men were excluded from the chansons

and the letters, texts whose authors filled with tales of bravery and valor that the men of

lesser ranks simply could not provide. For the authors and audiences of both genres the

actions of footmen and the gens minuta were not a part of the important deeds that made

up the crusading experience.

Clerics, excluded from the events of the letters and chansons, were seemingly

outside this system of bravery and cowardice. Yet they faced their own constraints

regarding the expression of fear. The chroniclers provided no examples of clerics even

expressing fear unless it was immediately assuaged by a heavenly visitor or supernatural

event. A cleric who fled from danger may have been condemned as or perhaps more

harshly than a noble who did so, since his weakness would have been a sign of his lack of

trust in God and his lack of faith that the crusade was God’s will. The fact that no cleric

was reported to have fled from battle, even in a possibly intentionally humorous episode
 78

such as the lamenting, shoeless lords, demonstrates the inconceivability of such behavior

in the crusaders’ systems of religious belief and emotional expression.

While nobles and knights were limited in their expressions of concern for their

personal safety, they frequently expressed a wide range of other emotions. It was

acceptable in the chronicles and chansons for knights to cry over the death of a comrade

or when they risked losing the material possessions that were necessary for their social

function as knights. The letters, though providing few direct references to fear, display

knightly and noble crusaders crying out to God for aid, and in the case of Stephen of

Blois, expressing love for a wife at home. Constraints on emotional expression among

knights and nobles applied only to the expression of fear. Other emotional displays were

described in detail and often praised by authors and other crusaders.

For footsoldiers and the lesser ranks, the frequency of expressions of fear was

accompanied by a complete lack of other emotional expressions. Not enough detail was

provided of these individuals to allow us to see them in situations in which they had

reason to express emotion. As Freedman has demonstrated, peasants were thought to be

incapable of feeling emotions or exhibiting qualities that rose above immediate material

concerns, such as love, bravery, and a sense of honor.217 As the events portrayed in the

sources of the crusade were chosen to demonstrate the bravery of those who participated

and the influence of a higher, holy calling upon them and their actions, it is

understandable that the behavior and expressions of lesser ranking men was excluded.

These men could not be the Christian heroes of the crusade, because they were incapable

of heroism. They were thus not worthy of description.

217
Freedman, 177.
 79

Clerics in the chronicles, like the nobles and knights of the chronicles and

chansons, were portrayed expressing sadness and grief. Unlike the knights, however, they

responded more emotionally to sudden and unexpected deaths outside of battle than to

violent deaths on the field. Knights and nobles would have been nearby friends who they

saw die, witnessed the act itself, and personally understood the pain such a death may

have involved. Clerics, however, were more concerned for those who appeared to die for

no reason rather than for directly assisting in fighting for Christian possession of the holy

land. It may have been felt even by clerics that men who died fighting the infidel would

have received a heavenly reward.

Through the narrative accounts of the chroniclers and authors of the chansons we

are shown the physiological symptoms that accompanied expressions of fear and other

emotions. In this area we have been provided examples of behavior from both men and

women, which allows us to see the gendered division in acceptable emotional expression.

Fearful behavior was most commonly ascribed to knightly and noble crusaders, the only

ones to be described exhibiting physical signs of fear, by saying that these men were

stunned, stupefied and agitated. Publicly visible emotional displays, such as trembling or

fainting, were ascribed to only two individuals in our crusade sources: the wife of a

departing crusader and Stephen of Blois. The care taken by the author of the Chanson

d’Antioche to describe Stephen’s outward behavior and inner concerns shows that

Stephen was intended to appear susceptible to both experiencing fear and to displaying

intense physical manifestations of that emotion. Women were apparently also thought

susceptible to intense feelings and displays of emotion, as shown by the wife who was

left behind by her crusading husband. The author of the Chanson d’Antioche thus showed
 80

Stephen to be not only a coward and a dishonorable knight, but comparable to a woman

in his style of emotional expression.

Eleventh-century warrior masculinity required control of fear and its physical

symptoms so that one could participate in battle. Having reached this conclusion

regarding emotional expression on the battlefield, we may then suggest its application in

non-military settings. The ideals for the expression of emotion by knights, nobles and

clerics, and the assumptions regarding emotional expression by men of lower ranks, are

easy to apply to civilian life.

From the rules we have discerned for emotional expression during the First

Crusade, we may hypothesize that it would have been frowned upon for a knight or noble

at home and in peace, whose best friend had died for example, to collapse to the ground

or to cry out in terror that he too would meet the same fate. Yet it most likely would have

been acceptable for the noble or knight to shed tears, to pray, or to express anger at the

cause of his friend’s death. Likewise, expectations regarding the expression and

experience of emotion by footsoldiers and men of low rank would have been similar in

peace-time to what we have seen in the crusade literature. Certainly these classes of men

were thought to have concern for their own lives, but from the crusade texts we have

examined it seems that that they would not have been imagined growing angry or

shedding tears over lost companions and possessions. Clerics, too, during peace as in

war, would have been expected to pray for those who lost their lives, to call upon God to

assist and support those who fought for him, and perhaps to be especially concerned for

those who were innocent victims of disease or drought as much as sinking ships. They
 81

were not supposed to be overcome with fear or concern for their own worldly success or

safety, as this would have shown a lack of spiritual faith.

The ideals we have seen for emotional expression during the crusade were not

successfully attained by all crusaders. Stephen of Blois and other fearful crusaders

demonstrate that though men may be trained from a young age to become members of a

warrior culture and exposed to the same ideals of courage and bravery as their comrades,

they may still choose to flee when directly threatened. Only the fictional milites and

ductores of the chansons were able to fully live up to those texts’ ideals of courage

without fear, viriliter et sine timore, that have been assumed among past historians to be

the norms for the behavior of these classes in reality.

Just as we must read across a variety of textual genres to understand the

disparities between the ideals and what may have been the reality of knightly behavior, it

should not be concluded that footsoldiers and lesser ranking men expressed no emotion

simply because crusade chroniclers did not record it. The only factor that separated them

from their superiors was social class, a difference that in modernity has resulted in the

creation of distinct emotional communities and forms of emotional expression rather than

a lack of experienced or expressed affect. If any aspect of this research calls out the most

for further investigation it is certainly the standards for emotional expression among

those who were not knights, nobles, or clerics, among those who set up tents and ran

from battle. If we are to attempt to understand the emotional expressions contained in

medieval texts we must seek to better understand all parts of society portrayed in them. It

remains to be discerned to what standards of behavior and emotional expression the gens

minuta themselves aspired.

 82

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