Charlemagne's Road, God's Threshing Floor; Comprehending the Role of Hungary in the First Crusade (original) (raw)
Related papers
The route taken by the Crusaders was not a random decision, nor was it a route that was bound to be chosen. This matter is the subject of ongoing research. Elements examined include the creation of the pre-established pilgrimage route, the image of a Christian Hungary in the writings of pre-Crusader chronicles, the pratical reasons for the route taken by the crusaders, the logistics, the conflicts, and the image of the incidents in the Crusader and non-Crusader chronicles, and the legacy of the event. [A later version of this text will be published under the title ‘“The Threshing-Floor Sifts Out the Chaff in the Breeze that Blows”: Comprehending the Role of Hungary in the First Crusade’]
This paper is a short contribution to the history of the crusades led against so-called heretics in the first half of the thirteenth century. The topic is well known in the Western historical research, as well as in the popular culture, due to the significance of the campaigns in Southern France against the Cathars, also known as the Albigensian Crusade, in the early thirteenth century. Nonetheless, the idea of a crusade to exterminate the depravity of heresy emerged in relation to other territories and local groups as well. The relationship between the Kingdom of Hungary and its southern neighbour, Bosnia offers a quite similar example, as accusations of heterodoxy played an important role in the efforts of the Hungarian rulers to assert their overlordship over the territories of Bosnia. The issue appeared as early as the outset of the thirteenth century, when accusations emerged against the Bosnian ruler, Ban Kulin claiming that he and his subjects were no true Christians. Although the monarch was able to acquit himself from the accusations due to the examination ordered by Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), there were no military actions in order at that time, yet the controversy regarding the state of Christianity in Bosnia persisted. This study investigates the situation in the 1220s and 1230s when the idea of crusaders fighting for the cause to abolish heresy arose several times, and it seems possible that a Hungarian royal prince, Duke Coloman of Slavonia, even lead his armies – as a crusader – to Bosnia. The events of the campaign(s) are scarcely known; however, the preparations are tangible in the main source material, the pontifical correspondence. Therefore I will analyse the efforts made by Honorius III (1216–1227) and Gregory IX (1227–1241) in this matter, revealing the role of crusader terminology. It is quite intriguing that Hungarian sources contain only indirect information regarding the crusade against Bosnian heresy, even though the notion of fighting infidels as crusaders a few years after the crusade of King Andrew II (1205–1235) must have been widely known among members of the lay and ecclesiastical elite of the Realm of St Stephen.
Religious Rites of War - beyond the Medieval West. Volume 2. Central and Eastern Europe. Edited by Radosław Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, Gregory Leighton, 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Cover illustration: St. Olav altar frontal. Section one / first scene. King Olav of Norway makes a generous money offering to the clergyman while marching to war against the pagans. Trondheim, Nidaros Cathedral(?), ca. 1300. Now in Archbishop's Palace Museum in Trondheim. With kind permission of © Daniela Pawel, The Restoration Workshop of Nidaros Cathedral. 8.1a-b Reliquary of Tilo of Lorich, probably taken as booty by the Polish king Władysław Jagiełło after the Battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg (1410) and given to Gniezno Cathedral 273 Maps 0.1 Map of Northern Europe and the Baltic depicting major locations appearing in the volume xvi Abbreviations Titles of series and journals without further explanation APH Acta Poloniae Historica. BF Beihefte der Francia. CB Crossing boundaries: Turku medieval and early modern studies. CCCM Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, 301 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1966-). CEMT Central European medieval texts. ChH Church History. CHR Catholic Historical Review. Commentaria Commentaria: Sacred texts and their commentaries. Jewish, Christian and Islamic CSML Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought. CTT Crusade texts in translation. DHIW Deutsches Historisches Institut Warschau. Quellen und Studien. Dusburg, Chron. Pr. "Chronicon terre Prussie" von Peter von Dusburg, ed. Max Töppen, SrP 1 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1861), 3-219. ECEE East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450. EMC Explorations in medieval culture. FKG Forschungen zur Kirchen-und Geistegeschichte. FQKK Forschungen und Quellen zur Kirchen-und Kulturgeschichte Ostdeutschlands.
This introductory article serves a number of purposes. It offers an abridged narrative of the scope of the Second Crusade and introduces the major debates associated with the venture. All the contributions to the present volume are introduced within this framework and, when applicable, their place in the current historiography is highlighted. While serving as a concise introduction to the multifaceted nature of the crusade and, for the first time, drawing attention to the main debates associated with it within a single article, the historiographical discussion of this remarkable mid-twelfth-century endeavour has necessarily proved to be a testing ground for a familiar although still unresolved debate: what do scholars mean when the employ the terms ‘crusading’, ‘crusade’ and ‘crusader’?
This article analyses an unusually large and generally ignored corpus of private charters: namely, testaments from eleventh-century Catalonia, some of them as yet unedited, that make reference to an upcoming or consummated pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The documents provide rare information about the testators' social, financial and spiritual circumstances. They not only open a window to the mindset of medieval men and women, but also enable us to discern changes of devotion over time. An analysis of the pilgrims' declared goals reveals the paramount importance of Christ's Sepulchre during the largest part of the eleventh century, whereas the town of Jerusalem gained momentum as an "attractor" already prior to the First Crusade. Similarly, a growth of penitential anxieties can be discerned in the second half of the century. The documents analysed in this article therefore substantiate the narrative sources generally used to study pre-crusade pilgrimage. They also demonstrate that Catalonia in the eleventh century was an area much more closely connected to Jerusalem and Palestine both by land and by sea than hitherto thought. Veneration of the holy sites was strengthened by the construction and dedication of churches and chapels, by the transfer of relics and other material and mnemonic devices. As a result, the call to the First Crusade did not go unheard in eastern Iberia.