The Knight, the Cross, and the Song. Stefan Vander Elst
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fight bravely against the Christians and defeat them.]
What better way to oppose the isolated, starving Franks than to eat, drink, and rampantly procreate? Interestingly, this passage, which shows Kerbogha at his most ebullient, confidently urging the Muslims on to debauchery, is followed immediately by another that shows him in a very different light. The passage in which Kerbogha’s mother approaches her son and advises him not to fight the Franks has garnered some critical attention; while some have discussed the veracity of the episode and its possible origin as “camp gossip,” others, notably Natasha Hodgson, have focused on the remarkable qualities ascribed to Kerbogha’s mother and on the implications of her words, which suggest the superiority of the Christian religion.33 However, even though the episode presents Kerbogha’s mother as caring and learned, the Anonymous’s intent is not so much to describe Muslim women as it is to cast a shadow over Kerbogha. Although he is depicted as the apex of Turkish power in the text, the one to whom the unfortunate Sensadolus cannot but subject himself and who confidently urges his coreligionists on to enjoy themselves in the expectation of victory, the passage shows Kerbogha struggling to get out from under his mother’s wings. It presents him as not only debauched but also immature and perhaps weak—an unheroic foil to the Franks, whose women are mostly limited to serving refreshments to the men on the battlefield.34
KNIGHTS OF CHRIST
The Muslim opponents as we find them in the Gesta therefore closely resemble the Saracens in the chansons de geste. They are ethnically diverse, wealthy, and polytheist, which makes them less worthy as knights than the Christians. As suggested by the depictions of Kerbogha, the best-described Muslim in the work, we also find them to be both morally dissolute and unduly influenced by women. Confronting the Muslims on the battlefield are the Christians, who are very much the opposite: united, morally just, and of course relentlessly poor and miserable. The Anonymous’s description of the Christian army, too, is deeply rooted in the chansons: he relies on them to define the Crusaders’ reasons for taking the cross and their relation to the divine, their military qualities and accomplishments, as well as their ethnic makeup. Furthermore, as he bases his definition of Crusade and what it entails to a large extent on his portrayal of the motivations and achievements of the Christians, this also markedly affects his Crusade ideology.
At the very beginning of his work the Anonymous outlines what led so many Christians, among whom he includes himself, to take up arms and set out for the East:
Cum iam appropinquasset ille terminus quem dominus Iesus cotidie suis demonstrat fidelibus, specialiter in euangelio dicens: “Si quis uult post me uenire, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam et sequatur me,” facta est igitur motio ualida per uniuersas Galliarum regiones, ut si aliquis Deum studiose puroque corde et mente sequi desideraret, atque post ipsum crucem fideliter baiulare uellet, non pigritaretur Sancti Sepulchri uiam celerius arripere.
[GF 1: When that time had already come, of which the Lord Jesus warns his faithful people every day, especially in the Gospel where he says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,” there was a great stirring of heart throughout all the Frankish lands, so that if any man, with all his heart and all his mind, really wanted to follow God and faithfully to bear the cross after him, he could make no delay in taking the road to the Holy Sepulchre as quickly as possible.]
The above, with its heavy reliance on Matthew 16:24, has led Kenneth Baxter Wolf to argue that the Anonymous considered and consequently described the Crusade as nothing more than a pilgrimage: “The language is exclusively that of a pilgrimage, where the whole point is to walk in Christ’s footsteps and to experience the sufferings of his passion … it is the pilgrimage aspect of the crusade, not the conquests per se, that dominate the account.”35 This, however, is only half of the explanation offered in the early pages of the Gesta of why Christians set out, and were obligated to set out, for Jerusalem. Immediately after the Anonymous speaks of the need for the faithful to take up their crosses, he adds the following:
Ait namque domnus apostolicus “Fratres, uos oportet multa pati pro nomine Christi, uidelicet miserias, paupertates, nuditates, persecutiones, egestates, infirmitates, fames, sites et alia huiusmodi, sicuti Dominus ait suis discipulis: ‘Oportet uos pati multa pro nomine meo.’”
[GF 1–2: The lord pope said also, “Brothers, you must suffer for the name of Christ many things, wretchedness, poverty, nakedness, persecution, need, sickness, hunger, thirst and other such troubles, for the Lord says to his disciples, ‘You must suffer many things for my name.’”]
The Anonymous’s quotation of Acts 9:16 here (“I will show him how much he must suffer for my name”) is inaccurate, and Hill has found in this yet more evidence that he was a layman, if a devout one.36 What is remarkable here is, however, not the inaccuracy—the Anonymous quoted the rather longer passage from Matthew correctly—but the fact that with this modification the passage echoes the famous words of Roland: “Pur sun seignor deit hom susfrir destreiz / E endurer e granz chalz e grans freiz, / Sin deit hom perdre e del quir e del peil” [CR ll. 1010–12: “For his lord a vassal must suffer hardships / And endure great heat and great cold; / And he must lose both hair and hide”]. The Christian duty to take up one’s cross and follow Christ is therefore closely followed by a reference to a very lay notion found in the chansons, that of a contract of mutual obligation between the Crusaders and God. The Christians must suffer for God and fight the “inimici Dei” [GF 40: “God’s enemies”];37 by doing so they become “Christi militia” [GF 14: “Christ’s army”], “fortissimi milites Christi” [GF 18: “most valiant soldiers of Christ”], and “milites … ueri Dei” [GF 40: “knights of the True God”]. In turn, God’s commitment to the Crusaders as defined in the Gesta is three-fold: he will assist them in the struggle against his enemies and will give them earthly as well as heavenly rewards, thereby combining the duties of secular and spiritual lord.
God in the Gesta often helps the Christians, and much agency in the success of the Crusade is ascribed to him. He acts almost as a field commander at Dorylaeum: “Et nisi Dominus fuisset nobiscum in bello, et aliam cito nobis misisset aciem, nullus nostrorum euasisset.… Sed omnipotens Deus pius et misericors qui non permisit suos milites perire, nec in manibus inimicorum incidere, festine nobis adiutorium misit” [GF 20–21: “If God had not been with us in this battle and sent us the other army quickly, none of us would have escaped … but Almighty God, who is gracious and merciful, delivered his knights from death and from falling into the hands of the enemy and sent us help speedily”]. He outflanks the Saracens at Antioch, when “Stabant uero inimici Dei et nostri undique iam stupefacti et uehementer perterriti, putantes nostros se deuincere et occidere.… Sed Deus omnipotens hoc illis non permisit” [GF 40: “God’s enemies and ours were standing about, amazed and terrified, for they thought that they could defeat and kill us … but Almighty God did not allow them to do so”].38 Finally, at Ascalon, he is with the Christians in the front lines: “Bella uero erant immensa; sed uirtus divina comitabatur nobiscum tam magna, tam fortis, quod statim superauimus illos” [GF 96: “The battle was terrible, but the power of God was with us, so mighty and so strong that we gained the victory at once”]. God here is not a distant judge of the moral perfection of his followers but an active participant who aids the Christians in their war against his enemies.
Furthermore, he rewards them for their efforts. This is made clear from the very beginning of the work: the Anonymous follows up on the Christians’ obligation to suffer with “ac deinceps: ‘Persequetur uos larga retributio’” [GF 2: “and afterwards ‘Great will be your reward’”]. This reward, intriguingly, is both spiritual and material. For one, if death meant an eternity with the devil to the Muslim, to die in the service of God gave the Christian access to heaven. This applies even to those who did not die in battle; to die while fulfilling one’s duty to suffer is sufficient. As the Anonymous says about the very first action of the army of the princes, the siege of Nicaea:
Fuimusque in obsidione illa per septem ebdomadas et tres dies, et multi ex nostris illic receperunt martyrium, et letantes gaudentesque reddiderunt felices animas Deo; et ex pauperrima gente multi mortui sunt