Shifting sensibilities? Changes in the symbolism and the appeal of the Crusades after the end of Outremer (Fourteenth century) - in «I quaderni del m.ae.s.», N. 20 (2022), p. 105-133 (original) (raw)
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While the huge historiographical production on medieval crusades mainly stresses the part played by princes, the aristocracy and military orders, the proceedings of the international congress held at the Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan on 9th-11th March 2011 focus on a topic which has received far less attention: the importance of the popes and their delegates in the organization before departure and the conduct of the armies sent to liberate the Holy Land in the 12th and 13th centuries. The recent revival of studies on the representation of the Supreme Pontiff has led to reconsider the actions of the papal governement in the crusades. In this volume, fourteen specialists throw new light on the clerks and prelates (cardinals, legates, nuncios, papal chaplains, etc.) who were commissioned by the popes to set up and lead crusades, on their origins and careers, on their methods of preaching and collecting taxes, on their diplomatic relations, on the obligations of their missions and their liberty to act, etc. Devoting greater attention to papal delegates will help to better understand the complex inner history of the military pilgrims to Jerusalem.
Of all the ecclesiastical apparatus employed by the papacy to promote crusading, the Crusade indulgence was the most important. Like all institutional arrangements, the Crusade indulgence underwent a process of development. This development has been distorted by a teleological view of the facts that regards the Crusade indulgence as the direct expression of Pope Urban II’s Jerusalem Crusade (1095-1102) and the indulgence that was set forth in Canon 2 of the Council of Clermont (1095). This study will show that the institutionalization of the Crusades was a long, drawn out, piecemeal process, which did not begin in 1095, but in 1063 with the introduction of the Crusade indulgence for Sicily and Iberia. Crusading did not owe its inception to the novel elements that Urban added to the enterprise in 1095, nor did it owe its inception to the new direction that crusading took in 1095 with Jerusalem the focus of its ambitions. Rather, the institutional history of the Crusades indicates that these wars began in the western half of the Mediterranean and were already in full swing when Crusaders undertook to “rescue Jerusalem and the other Churches of Asia from the power of the Muslims.”
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’?
The Fifth Crusade represented a cardinal event in early thirteenth-century history, occurring during what was probably the most intensive period of crusading in both Europe and the Holy Land. Following the controversial outcome of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Pope Innocent III's reform agenda was set to give momentum to a new crusading effort. Despite the untimely death of Innocent III in 1216, the elaborate organization and fi rm crusading framework made it possible for Pope Honorius III to launch and oversee the expedition. The Fifth Crusade marked the last time that a medieval pope would succeed in mounting a full-scale, genuinely international crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land, yet, despite its signifi cance, it has largely been neglected in the historiography. The crusade was much more than just a military campaign, and the present book locates it in the contemporary context for the fi rst time. The Fifth Crusade in Context is of crucial importance not only to better understand the organization and execution of the expedition itself, but also to appreciate its place in the longer history of crusading, as well as the signifi cance of its impact on the medieval world. This volume brings together an international group of scholars working on the Fifth Crusade and the crusading movement in the early thirteenth century, exemplifying the new approaches being pursued in the study of the crusades and religious medieval history more broadly. The contributions address the historiographical debate, the roles of the papacy and the German empire, the preaching and recruiting of the crusade, the situation in Egypt and the Holy Land, the textual traditions and, fi nally, the political importance of the crusade in Europe.