From the Gesta Francorum to the Chronicles of Kings: How did the change in the nature of Crusading influence the presentation of Crusader history between the First and Third Crusades? The success of the First Crusade was a spectacular if unexpected triumph for the Western Christian Church. When pope Urban II called the Crusade in 1096, people of all social backgrounds responded to the call of the cross, barons, knights, clerics and commoners all took the cross and headed east in an attempt to reclaim Jerusalem from the ‘infidels’ that had held it for the past five centuries. The crusade itself can be seen as the first endeavour of a united Christendom, preached by a strong and independent papacy which sort to aid the Byzantine Empire in an attempt of reunification as well as to reclaim the holy places of Christianity. However, due to the nature of the crusading there was no one sole motivation for its undertaking; salvation, wealth, repentance, a new start, duty and faith amongst a myriad of others are all accepted as motivations for the individuals who took part in the First Crusade. So it is unsurprising that an event of such an unprecedented nature, which at the time crossed all social boundaries, was recorded by both participants and outside observers to both record the events of the crusade and to also to meet the great thirst for information that the crusade generated across Europe in both monastic and scholarly houses as well as in the lay population. There are in existence several surviving chronicles of the First Crusade, the most common, if not the most popular chronicle of the crusade was written by Robert the Monk from an abbey in Rheims; but as with most histories of the First Crusade this chronicle draws heavily on the Gesta Francorum a contemporary chronicle written by an anonymous participant on the crusade and was written either during or soon after the events of the Crusade. The early histories of the crusade praise the worthiness of the cause, the achievements of the Western Christendom and the men who had succeeded so far from their homes and under such great hardship. However, I believe that the success of the First Crusade doomed the future of the crusader movement; the main participants in the military aspect of the First Crusade where for the most part dukes, barons and counts accompanied mainly by the landless younger sons of the French and German nobility, the success of these men created an expectation in the West that any undertaking if a crusade would and should be successful. As a counterpoint to the history of the First Crusade the histories of the Second and Third Crusade are not united chronicles glorifying the entire endeavours that the kings of Europe undertook in 1146-7 and 1191-2 respectively, but partisan chronicles written by members of courts or friendly third parties whose records support the actions of their native ruler. This change in the manner in which the histories of the first three crusades are recorded; I believe go lengths to show just how much the medieval ideal of crusading changed over the course of the twelfth century, in the minds of those who recorded it and even in the minds of its participants. For the period the Gesta Francorum was unusual in the fact that it was recorded by either a knight or a low level cleric or clerk who was likely attached to the knights or household of Bohemond of Taranto; the work has no real introduction and is heavily centred around the deeds of Bohemond a southern Norman aristocrat who took the cross but ended his crusade to secure for himself the recently captured city of Antioch. Five of the nine chapters in the chronicle are centre around the events before and after the fall of Antioch and the successful attempts of the crusaders to hold the city despite a Muslim counter attack; oddly enough for all this focus on Antioch, the capture of the holy city of Jerusalem only receives one chapter in which the crusader capture of the city of Ascalon is the actual ending of the chronicle but it is understood that the anonymous author was present at the siege of Jerusalem and had left the service of Bohemond. The style of the Gesta is unusual and many theories have been posed but the idea that the author is a knight is the most common and I believe most likely; ‘We have no means of knowing whether he wrote the history of the Crusade himself or dictated it to a clerk. Educated knights (‘milites literati’) were rare in the period, but they did exist, particularly in the case of younger sons, trained for the church… and had been recalled to a military career by the death of an older brother’ Rosalind Hill, ‘The Deeds of the Franks and the other Pilgrims to Jerusalem’ (Medieval Texts, Thomas Nelson and Sons LTD, London: 1962) P. xiv. . The manner in which the text is presented was considered to have a ‘very rustic and unpolished style’ Rosalind Hill, ‘The Deeds of the Franks and the other Pilgrims to Jerusalem’ (Medieval Texts, Thomas Nelson and Sons LTD, London: 1962) P ix. In regards to Baudri the Archbishop of Dol’s opinion on the Gesta. even for the medieval period and so the Gesta went through many rewrites and transformations in the early twelfth century but still remained the basis of all crusader literature. Further proof of the knightly nature of the Gesta is that the work fails to regard the Council of Clermont which heralded the crusade and only mentions Pope Urban’s expedition to France in passing, a cleric even one who was not present would have likely mentioned the importance of such an event The fact that the Gesta was missing any mention of the Council of Clermont was the very reason the Abbot of Rheims instructed Robert the Monk to re-write a history of the Crusade. Reference to this can be found in Rosalind Hill, ‘The Deeds of the Franks and the other Pilgrims to Jerusalem’ (Medieval Texts, Thomas Nelson and Sons LTD, London: 1962) P ix.. The Gesta therefore, when compared to later crusade chronicles, presents a first person experience of an event that was so seminal to the middle ages, its style like that of many soldiers diaries from the modern period, reflects the nature of one man at ground level, who could not know for definite all the events of a major campaign but describes in detail the events of his immediate awareness. With the text it is easy to recognise when events that the author was clearly not involved in are recounted, as detail is scare and names are fleeting, these accounts therefore must be based on hearsay and rumour which would travel widely throughout travelling crusader armies and camps Evidence of this can be found early in the Gesta, which describes the misfortune of the pilgrims and soldiers who followed peter the Hermit: ‘Of the remainder, those who would not renounce God were Killed; others, whom the Turks captured alive, were divided among their captors like sheep, some were put up as targets and shot with arrows, others sold and given away as if they were brute beasts. Some of the Turks took their prisoners home to Khorasan, Antioch or Aleppo or wherever they happened to live’. Rosalind Hill, ‘The Deeds of the Franks and the other Pilgrims to Jerusalem’ (Medieval Texts, Thomas Nelson and Sons LTD, London: 1962) Book 1, P. 4.. The Gesta, a campaign history in essence, ‘the author of the Gesta Francorum adopted a new approach to the recording of the past, one that was just starting to emerge in medieval Europe as an alternative to the traditional year-on-year chronicle. Distilling the experiences of thousands of participants into a single, overarching narrative, he constructed the first Historia (narrative history) of the crusade, recounting a tale of epic scope and heroic dimensions’ Thomas Asbridge, ‘The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land’ (Simon & Schuster UK LTD, London: 2010).. The contents and subject matter of the Gesta Francorum were to inspire the histories and participants of the following crusades, due to its humble origins the chronicle was set to be spread and reproduced massively by the monastic houses of the West. The simplistic style of the Gesta however, did not live up to the standards of the monastic houses of Western Europe and the work received much attention, with many attempts to re-write the chronicle. It was in this re-writing that the First Crusade received the vast and colourful reputation, the most popular of these secondary histories was that of Robert the Monk whose ‘Historia Hierosolymitana’ was completed early in the 1120’s and there are over one hundred surviving manuscripts still existing compared to the Gesta Francorum’s seven; there were as well the chronicles of Fulcher of Chartres and Raymond of Aguilers who were both participants in the crusade and educated clerics whose writings were more polished and followed the style of the Western Church. The works of these clerics whether revisionist or contemporary to the crusade present a rather unified description of events and for the most part the author’s refrain from attacking the character of any Christian participant, which is unusual for the medieval period, especially during times of interaction between those of different nationality and ethnicity; this amnesty of course is not applied to Turkish, Arabian and other Muslim groups involved in the crusade. The similarity in all these accounts and especially the accounts of the massacre in Jerusalem are due to the use of the Gesta Francorum as the basis for all histories of the First Crusade; ‘The Latin accounts of the sack of the city are graphic. Many writers used the Deeds of the Franks as a basis for their own accounts… This explains why there appears to be so much agreement between the sources’ Scott McGlynn, ‘By Sword and Fire’ (Phoenix, London: 2008) P. 156. . The main reason I believe that unifies all of the histories of the First Crusade is the very fact that it was successful; the crusaders’ three years of hardship was a triumph, religiously, militarily and culturally. The fighting men of the Christian West had returned the Holy city to the Church and the road for safe pilgrimage was secure. The histories therefore could be united as there was no blame to find, no defeats to be explained and no reputations to be saved or sacrificed to justify the events that lead to defeat. Chronicles from outside this mind set record events rather differently, ‘The Alexiad’, written by the daughter of Emperor Alexius I, Anna Comnena, is a highly partisan and political chronicle that highlights the ill intents of the crusaders and the barbaric nature of the Frankish culture as a whole and is more fitting to be compared to chronicles of the Third Crusade due to its nature as a biographic chronicle of a monarch ‘For although Peter for his part undertook this great journey originally only to worship at the Holy Sepulchre, yet the rest of the Counts, and especially Bohemund, who cherished an old grudge against the Emperor, were seeking an opportunity of taking their vengeance on him for that brilliant victory he had gained over Bohemund when he engaged in battle with him at Larissa. The other Counts agreed to Bohemund's plan, and in their dreams of capturing the capital had come to the same decision (which I have often mentioned already) that while in appearance making the journey to Jerusalem, in reality their object was to dethrone the Emperor and to capture the capital’. Anna Comnena, ‘The Alexiad’. Edited and translated by Elizabeth A. Dawes. (London: Routledge, 1928).. As it were, the vast majority of the audience in the west would be unaware of these documents leaving the ideals of crusading untarnished. It would ultimately be defeat and disappointment that would be associated with the chronicles’ of the Second and Third crusades, which caused attitudes and style to change accordingly, reasons for failure had to be found and justified. The debacle that was the Second Crusade, originally called to reclaim the lost County of Edessa, the first of the four Christian territories to be founded in Outremer and the first to fall in 1144. The origins of this crusade lay staunchly with the very popularity that the success of the First Crusade and its chronicles had generated in Europe. Unlike the single speech of Pope Urban II in 1095, the Second Crusade was preceded by a vast preaching tour of the respected Bernard of Clairvaux, which in turn spawned further crusade preaching across Europe; ‘The preaching of these men was so enormously influential that the inhabitants of nearly every region, by common vows, offered themselves freely for common destruction. Not only the ordinary people, but kings, dukes, marquises, and other powerful men of this world as well, believed that they thus showed their allegiance to God. The bishops, archbishops, abbots, and other ministers and prelates of the church joined in this error, throwing themselves headlong into it to the great peril of bodies and souls...’ Anonymous, ‘Annales Herbipolenses,’ circa 1147 translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 115-121. (Note this author was not supportive of the event and deemed the crusades’ failure to be caused by lack of faith in those taking part). . The prestige of taking part in such a Holy Land noble endeavour was therefore great and worthy of the attention of the very highest secular powers in Europe, the monarchs of France and Germany At the Time of the Crusades calling in 1145-46, the response of the French King and German ruler was very disconcerting for many advisors and nobles in both nations as the death of a leader so far from home was bound to cause trouble back home. The kingdom of England in this period was experience the political turmoil of the Anarchy and duly troops from Normandy, Anjou, Blois etc. where unwilling to crusade as there interests were invested with the on-going succession dispute in England., Louis VII and Conrad III respectively took the Cross to reclaim the County of Edessa and maintain the Christian states in Outremer. Through modern eyes it would seem that having monarchs lead an expedition to the Holy Land would be an advantage as they could use all the resources of their kingdom’s to ensure adequate resources and men to ensure the success of the Crusade Ultimately the success of the previous crusade which had been led by an impromptu assortment of Barons, Dukes and Counts with no overall leader and only an ultimate military objective had set a dangerous precedent for any following Crusade. . This was not the case however, as the presence of the King’s brought along many hangers on and larger courts and baggage trains were attached to the crusading armies The presence of Eleanor of Aquitaine and her ladies in waiting is a commonly cited reason for the failure of the Second Crusade in the eyes of many medieval chroniclers., also just like the First Crusade the Second Crusade was accompanied by large numbers of non-combatants who travelled with the armies, lengthening supply lines, consuming resources and providing no official military or support role to an army on the move. Odo of Deuil describes the situation that met the French army in Anatolia and the fate of the Germans which preceded them An account from the Chronicler of Conrad III described the German situation as follows; ‘We, therefore, announce to your faithfulness that we had reached Nicaea with our army entire and strong, wishing to complete our journey quickly; we hastened to set out for Iconium under the guidance of men who knew the road. We carried with us as many necessities as possible. And behold when ten days journey were accomplished and the same amount remained to be traversed, food for the whole host had almost given out, but especially for the horses. At the same time the Turks did not cease to attack and slaughter the crowd of foot soldiers who were unable to follow the army. We pitied the fate of our suffering people, perishing by famine and by the arrows of the enemy; and, by the advice of our princes and barons, we led the army back from that desert land to the sea, in order that it might regain its strength. We preferred to preserve the army for greater achievements rather than to win so bloody a victory over archers’. Taken from: Dana C. Munro, "Letters of the Crusaders", Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol 1:4, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1896), 12-14, ‘The Germans who preceded us, therefore, had a disagreement. Many of them set out with the Emperor through Konya on the left hand road under sinister omens The route through Konya was the shortest but most mountainous route on which the German Emperor and his army where defeated at Dorelayum, severely reducing the number of German soldiers on the crusade. In fact Conrad III had diverted many of his non-combatants to follow the longer coastal routes but had decided to press on with his forces without support and consequently diminished much of his crusading force. . The rest turned to the right under the Emperor's brother, a course which was unfortunate in every way. The middle road fell to our lot and so the misfortunes of the other two sides were tempered’ Odo of Deuil, La Croisade de Louis VII, roi de France, IV, ed. Henri Waquet, Documents relatifs à l;histoire des croisades, Vol 3 (Paris: Paul Guethner, 1949), 54-55, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 111-112. The presence of two kings each with their own chronicler, reasonably dictated that there would be two histories of the crusade from the outset, but as each army operated separately and travel differently to one another each chronicle would be separate and generate its own version of events and actions of its participants. As the crusade deteriorated through the harsh Anatolian winter, many pilgrims and foot soldiers were in fact left to make their own way overland, whilst the French King, his court and the last remnants of what can be called a fighting force were transported by sea to the Principality of Antioch; In a similar manner the German Emperor who had fallen ill on route, made his return from Constantinople via sea to Acre with his remaining men. Once in the Holy Land, the crusade, even under the leadership of the two monarchs was no more successful and floundered on the walls of Damascus and later failed to achieve anything at Ascalon. The itinerate histories of Odo of Deuil and Conrad’s chronicler can be seen as attempts to mimic that of the Gesta Francorum, written pre-emptively with the idea that the eventual success of the crusade would be recorded and ready to spread and exhorted. So when failure came, reasons had to be propagated and scapegoats found; ‘Contemporaries were appalled by the failure of the crusade. Henry of Huntingdon gave voice to public opinion by attributing it to the displeasure of the Almighty, ‘for [the crusaders] abandoned themselves to open fornication and to adulteries hateful to God, and to robbery and every sort of wickedness Alison Weir, ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine, By Wrath of God Queen of England’ (Vintage, London: 2007) P. 71. ’. Furthermore even Bernard of Clairvaux penned an official apology for the events of the Second Crusade, he points no fingers and doesn’t excuse himself from the events but explains the events within a religious and biblical context, which for the most part seeks to bring reconciliation and understanding to the events of the crusade, the strongest reference being to the Exodus of Moses and his people from Egypt and the human weaknesses of those ultimately undertaking God’s work ‘The sad and unexpected outcome, however, cannot be laid to the rashness of the leader, for he did everything at the Lord's command, with "the Lord aiding them and attesting his word by the miracles that went with them." But, you may say, they were a stiff-necked race, forever contending against the Lord and Moses his servant. Very well, they were rebellious and unbelieving; but what about these other people? [The Crusaders] Ask them. Why should it be my task to speak of what they have done? One thing I shall say: How could they make progress when they were always looking backward as they walked?’ Taken from De Consideratione Libri Quinque, II, 1., in Patrologia Latina 182,: 741-45, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 115-121.. This latest change in feeling towards crusader history, adeptly points out the strong religious attachment that was bound up with the idea of crusading. For the majority of the chroniclers writing about the events, the crusades symbolised the physical counterpart to their own war against the enemies of Christ, which was spiritual and sort through prayer. These chroniclers were after all, familiar with the events of the previous crusade and knew how a crusade could be successful and any dissimilarity between the two events was likely to be the reason for failure. This attitude did seem to neglect the new political situation that made the crusade, upon the crusaders arrival their actions did not reflect the best course of actions for the Crusader States; the strong religious fervour of the crusaders alienated the nobles of the Holy Land as well as forcing friendly Muslim allies away when Damascus was besieged. For both participant and chronicler it became the nobility of Outremer, who received scorn for betraying the ideals of the crusade and taking material and territorial gains over spiritual. Conrad III’s chronicler heavily hints at the betrayal of the crusader nobles in his account of the siege of Damascus, ‘When following the advice of the common council we had gone to Damascus and after a great deal of trouble had pitched our camps before the gate of the city, it was certainly near being taken. But certain ones, whom we least suspected, treasonably asserted that the city was impregnable on that side and hastily led us to another position where no water could be supplied for the troops and where access was impossible to anyone. And thus all, equally indignant and grieved, returned, leaving the undertaking uncompleted’ Dana C. Munro, "Letters of the Crusaders", Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol 1:4, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1896), 12-14.. Just as the crusade had failed to recapture Edessa so had the chroniclers and crusaders failed to adapt to the new situation present in the Holy Land, defeat further added to this change in attitude and many now saw just how ineffective the notion of crusading could be. The political disunity of the Holy Land continued after the events of the Second Crusade and led to its eventual collapse in 1187 when Saladin the new ruler of a united Syria and Egypt captured Jerusalem, leaving the Christians with only the port of Tyre. The shock of Jerusalem falling back into Muslim hands was enough to galvanise the call for a Third Crusade to the Holy Land. Just as the Second Crusade had attracted monarchs through the stories of the First Crusade, it was viewed that the current situation could only be saved by the efforts of the strongest men in Western Europe, Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa, King Philip II Augustus and Richard I of England. Again the involvement of King’s in the crusade brought more courtly and clerical resources to the recording of the events of the crusade, the Third Crusade after all, is the most amply supplied of the first three crusades in terms of primary sources. These contemporaries however could not escape the political rivalry and turmoil that surrounded the decision for the Kings of England France to take part in a joint Crusade A tradition of rivalry and warfare, dominated the relations between both the Angevin Empire and the Capetian Kings of France since Henry of Anjou’s marriage to Louis VII’s ex-wife Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1153. Henry became King of England in 1154 and by marriage and inheritance control lands stretching from the Scottish Border to the Pyrenees. Upon Richard I’s ascension to the English throne, the two former friends Philip and Richard continued this tradition of territorial rivalry. However, for all of Richard’s continental holdings he owed homage to Philip II of France which made him a vassal of Philip even though he held the same rank and title and was likely the more powerful of the two men. This position never sat easily and can be seen as the main reason for the lack of co-operation between the two Kings during the crusade. . The journey to the Holy Land, took these two monarchs just over twelve months via the sea routes of the Mediterranean with a long winter break in Sicily Roughly Six months were spent in Sicily; both Philip and Richard became heavily involved in the politics of the island and continued their disputes and rivalry., the long route overland had already claimed the life of Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa and broke apart the massive German crusade. Once both Kings had reached the Holy Land, the near two year siege of Acre was still continuing, contemporary writers, despite the combined Christian efforts still chose sides when recording their accounts, Richard of Devizes noted that, ‘Only the French who had come with their King sat idle and apart with their paltry king of the French’ Richard Devizes, ‘The Chronicle of Richard Devizes’ P.43 whereas Rigord the French biographer of Philip II records ‘King Phillip wanted to start the assault first thing the next day. But the king of England would not permit his men to leave and forbade the Pisans, with whom he had a sworn agreement, to assault, and so the assault failed Rigord, Histoire de Philippe Auguste, ed. E. Charpentier, G. Pon and Y. Chauvin (Paris, 2006) Verse 88:Pp.303-307.’. The politics and allegiances of Europe now where projected on to the already complex political situation in the Holy Land as each King backed rival claimants to the throne of Jerusalem ‘The Marquis of Montferrat, a son of the serpent, had occupied Tyre several years before. The king of the French sold all his living captives to him and promised him the crown of a region not yet won…when you at last take Jerusalem, the chief city of this country, from the enemy’s hand, you will, without delay or conditions, turn the kingdom over to Guy, the lawful king of Jerusalem.’ Richard Devizes P.47., the chronicles supportive of their respective kings, echoed their Lord’s sentiments. Just as the Third Crusade became mired in politics and rivalry so it is easy to dismiss the chronicles as purely retelling the events as partisan pieces whose agenda was to glorify and exalt the actions of their king; however, often in these chronicles the political rivalries and politics are set aside in favour of recording the deeds of the crusaders working in the name of God. In the vain of the Gesta Francorum, the battles against the infidel are retold in a similar manner, heroism and self-sacrifice in the face of strong opponents and adverse conditions suggest the images of the First Crusade still influenced crusade writing nearly a century later, ‘For Godfrey of Lusignan, a man of the most approved valour, opposed them, and drove them back from the barricades… he slew ten of them with an axe he carried in his hand, in a most glorious manner; and none be smote escaped… that no one since the time of those famous soldiers, Roland and Oliver, had been so deserving of praise’ Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 175-81.. This language appears repeatedly throughout the accounts of the siege of Acre, from all parties and all nationalities, giving the impression that the crusade ideal set in motion by the Gesta Francorum a century before, ultimately the Third Crusade failed to reach a fevered crescendo like the capture of Jerusalem , Richard I had been left as commander of the military council in the Holy Land after Philip II’s return to France in August 1191 he had secured vital territory for the Christians in the East but believed it to be folly to press on and be destroyed at the walls of Jerusalem, eventually a treaty was reached between Christian and Muslim, ‘Saladin agreed to confirm an inviolate peace between Christians and Saracens, guaranteeing for both free passage and access to the Holy Sepulchre of the Lord without the exaction of any tribute Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864) VI, 27-28 (pp. 427-30), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 185-86’. This action was staunchly defended by Richard’s chroniclers, ‘Whoever contends that Richard should have felt otherwise about this peace agreement should know that he thereby marks himself as a perverse liar. Things were thus arranged in a moment of necessity. The King, whose goodness always imitated higher things and who, as the difficulties were greater, now emulated God himself, sent legates to Saladin’ Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864) VI, 27-28 (pp. 427-30), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 185-86. Again the political feeling of feudal Europe, became the main platform for finding reasons for the Third Crusades’ failure; for those in the Angevin land’s it was the French King’s abandonment of the crusade after the capture of Acre and subsequent attacks on Normandy in Richard’s absence, for the French it was Richard’s unbearable conduct and supposed oath breaking on the Crusade which drove Philip II away from the endeavour, for those in the Holy Land the intercession of the Western King’s had brought some new gains and a new monarch but had not ensured a strong or continued existence for the Christian states in Outremer. The chronicles themselves reflect these lacklustre circumstances, as after all there was nothing really to write home about but after all Richard’s negotiations had retained a Christian presence which only five years previously had nearly been extinguished, a Christian presence was to remain in the Holy Land for a further century. It is important to understand that by the end of the Third Crusade the nearly a century had past, since the Gesta Francorum had entered circulation in Western Europe and the very fact that chroniclers a century later where still trying to produce work that would try to inspire the same amount of sensationalism as that anonymous text did, is a tribute to the effect of the impact that crusader history had in Western Europe. It can be determined that the ideals set by the First Crusade and its histories, never left the minds of those participating and chronicling the events. The later crusader histories, despite changes to the nature of crusading and its recording, still present a feeling that the crusades are the largest and most important undertakings of Christianity. No other events are as widely recorded amongst contemporaries, in every language, society and culture the events of the crusaders are chronicled. Understandably there are differences between the Gesta Francorum and the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, but at their core the same principles are still followed and encouraged, despite the unavoidable influences of politics and the changes to the undertaking of crusading that occurred over the course of the twelfth century. Crusading became a more secularised undertaking, with men and materials being needed more than faith and pilgrims, those who went on crusade still sort victory in the name of God, but had to tend to a larger political and strategic situation. It would have been impossible for the Third Crusade to even reach the Holy Land if the lessons of the First and Second crusade had not been heeded and the overland routes avoided. Accordingly the histories changed too record these new undertakings, the spirit of crusading still remained, but as is often the case, reality was now set to influence the recording of the crusades more than faith. The very existence of sources beyond western Christendom goes further in attributing the vast effects of crusading than any single document produced in Western Europe could ever state; Christian, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Armenian documents all exist on the subject of crusading showing just how far reaching crusading had become by the end of the twelfth century. Ultimately, the changes to the nature of crusading did affect the content and style of its histories, but at no point, regardless of politics, strategy, nationality or defeat did the importance of the need to record crusader history ever falter. Bibliography Primary Sources Anna Comnena,’ The Alexiad’. Edited and translated by Elizabeth A. Dawes. (Routledge, London, 1928) Annales Herbipolenses, 1147, in MGH, SS, XVI, 3, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, WI: 1962) Anonymous, ‘Gesta Francorum: The Deeds of the Franks and the other Pilgrims to Jerusalem’. Edited & translation by Rosalind Hill (Medieval Texts, Thomas Nelson and Sons LTD, London: 1962) De Consideratione Libri Quinque, II, 1., in Patrologia Latina 182,: 741-45, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962) Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1864) VI, 27-28 (pp. 427-30), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962) Odo of Deuil, La Croisade de Louis VII, roi de France, IV, ed. Henri Waquet, ‘Documents relatifs à l;histoire des croisades, Vol 3’ (Paris: Paul Guethner, 1949), 54-55, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Marquette University Press, Milwaukee, WI, 1962) Richard Devizes, ‘The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes’, edited by J. T. Appleby (London, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd: 1963) Rigord, Histoire de Philippe Auguste, ed. E. Charpentier, G. Pon and Y. Chauvin (Paris, 2006). Secondary Sources Asbridge, T. ‘The Crusades: The war for the Holy Land’ (Simon & Schuster UK LTD, London: 2010). Bradbury, J. ‘Philip Augustus: King of France 1180-1223’ (Longman, London: 1998) Budd, A., ‘The Modern Historiography Reader; Western Sources’ Edited by Adam Budd (Routledge, Oxon: 2010) Burrow J., ‘A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances & Inquires from Herodotus & Thucydides to the Twentieth Century’ (Penguin Books, London: 2009). Dana C. Munro, "Letters of the Crusaders", Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol. 1:4, (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1896) Davis, R.H.C., ‘A History of Europe; From Constantine to Saint Louis’, 3rd Edition. Edited by R.I. Moore (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2006) Gillingham, J. ‘Richard the Lionheart’ (Book Club Associates, London: 1978) McGlynn, S. ‘By Sword and Fire’ (Phoenix, London: 2008) McLynn, F. ‘Lionheart and Lackland: King Richard and King John and the Wars of Conquest’ (Vintage, London: 2007) Weir, A. ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine: By Wrath of God Queen of England’ (Vintage, London: 2007) MA Medieval and Renaissance Studies Student ID: 20057023 11 01/03/2013