Heroic Deeds and Heroic Failure: Robert of Normandy and the Portrayal of the First Crusade in 12th and 13th Century England

Abstract

The First Crusade was evoked by Anglo-Norman English historians throughout the 12^th and into the 13^th Century. In the first third of the 12^th Century it was recounted in detail by three leading historians: Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntington. By the middle of the 12^th Century, however, it was already being depicted less as an enterprise in its own right and more as a backdrop for the participation of Robert, Duke of Normandy. Robert himself was depicted as a flawed hero, whose bravery on crusade was celebrated, but who failed in his ultimate duty by refusing the crown of Jerusalem. This paper traces the evolution of the portrayal both of the crusade and of Robert’s part in it in 12^th and 13^th Century England, exploring how perceptions both of the crusade and Robert changed in line with political priorities and attitudes to crusade.

Bibliographic References

Printed sources

Latin

ALBERT OF AACHEN – Historia Ierosolimitana: History of the Journey to Jerusalem. Ed. and trans. Susan B. Edgington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Annales de Waverleia, In Annales Monastici. Ed. Henry Richards Luard. London: Longman, 1865, vol. 2; pp. 129-411.

BALDRIC OF BOURGUEIL – Historia Jerosolimitana. BIDDLECOMBE, Steven (ed.). EDGINGTON, Susan B. (trans.). Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2014.

Baldric of Bourgueil: “History of the Jerusalemites”. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020

FULCHER OF CHARTRES - Historia Hierosolymitana (1095-1127). Ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1913. Trans. Frances Rita Ryan, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127. University of Tennessee Press, 1969.

GERVASE OF TILBURY – Otia Imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor. Ed. and trans. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002.

Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolymitanorum. Ed. and trans. Rosalind Hill. London: Nelson, 1962.

GUIBERT OF NOGENT – Dei Gesta per Francos et cinq autres textes. Ed. Robert B. C. Huygens. Turnhout: Brepols, 1996. Trans. Robert Levine. The Deeds of God Through the Franks by Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy Guibert. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1997.

HENRY OF HUNTINGDON – Historia Anglorum: the History of the English People. Ed. and trans. Diana Greenway. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Hystoria de via et recuperatione Antiochiae atque Ierusolymarum (olim Tudebodus imitatus et continuatus). Ed. Edoardo d’Angelo. Florence: SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2009.

MATTHEW PARIS – Matthew Paris: Chronica Maiora, ed. Henry Richards Luard, 7 vols., London: Longman and Trübner, 1872-1883.

ORDERIC VITALIS – The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis. Ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969-1980.

RALPH OF CAEN – Radulphi Cadomensis Tancredus.  Ed. Edoardo d’Angelo. Turnhout: Brepols, 2011. Trans. Bernard S. Bachrach and David S. Bachrach. The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of Caen: a History of the Normans on the First Crusade. Guildford: Ashgate, 2010.

RALPH OF DICETO – Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lunduniensis Opera Historica. Ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. London: Longmans, 1876.

ROGER OF HOVEDEN – Gesta Regis Henri Secundi abbatis: The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I, 1169-92: known formerly under the name of Benedict of Peterborough. Ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols, London: Longmans, 1867.

ROGER OF HOVEDEN – Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Hovedene. Ed. William Stubbs, 4 vols. London: Longmans, 1868-1871.

ROBERT DE TORIGNI – La Chronique de Robert de Torigni. Ed. Léopold Delisle, 2 vols. Rouen: Le Brumant, 1872-1873.

ROBERT THE MONK – The Historia Iherosolimitana of Robert the Monk. Ed. Marcus Bull and Damien Kempf. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013. Trans. Carol Sweetenham. Robert the Monk’s History of the First Crusade: Historia Iherosolimitana. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

ROGER OF WENDOVER – Rogeri de Wendover Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry Coxe, 4 vols London: Bentley, 1841-1844.

WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY – Gesta Regum et Anglorum. Ed. and trans. Roger A. B. Mynors, completed by Rodney Thomas and Michael Winterbottom, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH – William of Newburgh: the History of English Affairs. Ed. and trans. P. G. Walsh and M. J. Kennedy, 2 vols. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 2007.

WILLIAM OF TYRE, Chronicon. Ed. Robert B. C. Huygens, 2 vols. Turnhout: Brepols, 1986. Transl. Emily A. Babcock and August. C Krey, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea. New York: University of Columbia, 1943.

Old French

 BENOIT DE SAINTE-MAURE – Chronique des ducs de Normandie publiée d’après le manuscript de Tours avec les variants du manuscrit de Londres. Ed. Carin Fahlin, 4 vols. . Uppsala: 1951-1967.

La Chanson d’Antioche: chanson de geste du dernier quart du XIIe siècle, ed. and transl. Bernard Guidot. Paris: Champion, 2011.

 La Chanson de Jérusalem –  Ed. Nigel Thorp. Vol. 6 (1992) of The Old French Crusade Cycle. Ed. Emanuel J. Mickel and Jan A. Nelson, 10 vols.Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 1977-2003.

Estoire de Jérusalem et d’Antioche, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades vol .5 pp. 621-648; pp. 629-630. See also https://frenchofoutremer.ace.fordham.edu/index-of-sources/alphabetical-listing/estoire-de-jerusalem-et-antioche

GEFFREI GAIMAR – Estoire des Engleis/History of the English. Ed. and trans. Ian Short. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

PIERRE DE LANGTOFT – The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft. Ed. Thomas Wright, 2 vols. London: Longmans, 1866-1868

Siège d’Antioche – The Siege of Antioch Project: Digital Approaches – Siege of Antioch Project (fordham.edu).

WACE – Le Roman de Rou de Wace. Ed. Anthony J. Holden, 3 vols, Paris: Picard, 1970-1973

Studies

AIRD, William – “Orderic’s secular rulers and Representations of Personality and Power in the Historia Ecclesiastica”. In ROZIER, Charles C., et alii (Ed.) - Orderic Vitalis: Life, Works and Interpretations. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2016, pp. 189-216.

AIRD, William C. – Robert Curthose: Duke of Normandy. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2008.

ASHE, Laura – Fiction and History in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

CASSIDY-WELSH, Megan – Remembering the Crusades and Crusading. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017.

BLACKER, Jean – The Faces of Time: Portrayal of the Past  in Old French and Latin Historical Narrative of the Anglo-Norman regnum. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

BORENIUS, Tancred – “The Cycle of Images in the Palaces and Castles of Henry III”. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943) pp. 40-50.

BROWN, Elizabeth A. R.; COTHREN, Michael W. – “The 12th-century Crusading Window of the Abbey of St-Denis: praeteritorum enim recordatio futurorum est exhibitio”. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 49 (1986), pp. 1-40.

DAMIAN-GRINT, Peter – The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: inventing vernacular authority. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1997.

DAVID, Charles Wendell – Robert Curthose Duke of Normandy. Cambridge, Massaschusetts: Harvard University Press, 1920.

DZWIGALA, Bartlomaej –  “Evolution of the account of Duke Godfrey,’s deed of hewing the enemy through the middle with a single blow during the siege of Antioch by  the  First  Crusade.  A  source  study.”  Przedal  naul  historycznyoh  17  (2018)  pp. 5-28.

GILLINGHAM, John – “Roger of Howden on Crusade”. In GILLINGHAM, John - Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the 12th Century. London:  Hambledon, 1994, pp. 141-153.

GRABOIS, Aryeh – “Anglo-Norman England and the Holy Land”, In Anglo-Norman Studies VII: The Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1984, (ed.) R. Allen Brown, pp. 132-41.

GRABOIS, Aryeh – “The description of Jerusalem by William of Malmesbury: a mirror of the Holy Land’s presence in the Norman mind”. In Anglo-Norman Studies 13 (1990) pp. 145-156.

GREENWAY, Diana – “Authority, convention and observation in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum”.  Anglo-Norman Studies 18 (1995), pp. 105-121.

LE SAUX, Françoise – A Companion to Wace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

MASON, J. F. A. – “Roger de Montgomery and his sons”. In Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 13 (1963) pp. 1-28.

PARSONS, Simon Thomas – The Use of Chanson de Geste Motifs in the Latin Texts of the First Crusade, c. 1095-1145. Ph.D thesis, Royal Holloway College, University of London, 2018.

PAUL, Nicholas – To Follow in Their Footsteps: the Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012.

PAUL, Nicholas; YEAGER, Suzanne – Remembering the Crusades: myth, image and identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

RILEY-SMITH, Jonathan – The First Crusaders 1095-1131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1997.

ROACH, Daniel – “Orderic Vitalis and the First Crusade”. Journal of Medieval History 42 (2016), pp. 177-201.

SHOPKOW, Leah – History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1997.

STAUNTON, Michael Staunton – The Historians of Angevin England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

THOMSON, Rodney M. –  William of Malmesbury. Revised edition. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2003.

TYERMAN, Christopher – England and the Crusades: 1095-1588. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

URBANSKI, Charity – Writing History for the King: Henry II and the Politics of Vernacular History. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2013.

VAUGHAN, Richard – Matthew Paris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.

WELANDER, David – The History, Art and Architecture of Gloucester Cathedral. Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1999.