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Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
1
DRAFT: NOT TO BE QUOTED OR CIRCULATED
The Flowers of Chivalry Slay Goliath. Defining and Confronting Evil in the Early
Crusader Sources
This paper considers the definitions of evil in the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century sources of
the crusades. Research material consists of crusader chronicles and vernacular poetry, the so-called
First Crusader Cycle and its continuations. I will first give a brief account of the historical
background of crusading and then turn to more specific questions of the medieval ideas related to
evil and vice in crusading context. In this setting, the concept of sin is crucially important. The
discussion will conclude with some further remarks on sacred violence as a medieval tool for
confronting and resolving the powers of evil.
What is crusading all about?
The crusade (1095-) is the earliest western prototype of publicly acknowledged meritorious warfare.
It is a sub-category of religiously justified warfare under the general title of just war, which is
fought defensively under the leadership of the highest religious authority for the protection of
Christendom against the forces of evil. The high medieval institution was regulated by the canon
law and distinctive religious practices as well as special privileges, out of which the most important
is the indulgence.
In medieval terms, crusade was perceived as an armed pilgrimage to liberate the Holy Land and
support the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291). The primacy of the pilgrim ethos, especially
during the early years of crusading, lead great numbers of non-combatants to participate in the
expeditions alongside professional soldiers. In the European history of ideas, crusading had an
integrating effect.
The invention of crusades was a papal effort to limit baronial warfare in western Christendom. The
doctrinal innovation was the idea of linking salvation to violence: by taking up the cross, the
members of the western military aristocracy became protectors of the Church and the papal see.
Furthermore, the formulation of the crusading ideology was inextricable from the historical process,
which resulted in the strengthening of the papal power; it was yet another extension of the papal
grasp at plenitude potestas, the ecclesiastical supremacy over temporal lordship.
In modern historiography, the crusades are habitually numbered from the first to the fifth, seventh or
ninth. This well-established classification stems from the work of Georg Christoph Müller in 1709, and is not
equivalent to the medieval concept of crusading. The same applies to the terms “crusade” and “crusader”,
which were not used by the twelfth century contemporaries, who perceived their participation in terms of
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
2
pilgrimage. Individual crusaders were in constant move, and it is important to keep in mind that the ordinal
numbers marking the crusader campaigns in modern historiography merely indicate those moments, when
greater armed forces marched to East.
The First Crusade has been dated between the spring of 1096, when the first armies set out from Europe,
and the summer of 1099, when crusaders captured Jerusalem and then successfully defended their gains
against Fatimid forces from Egypt. Thereafter major campaigning took place in Syro-Palestine between
1146–47, and 1189–1191. The crusades of Louis the Pious to Damietta (1217–19) and Tunis (1248) indicate
the last major crusader expeditions in the Middle East.
By the turn of the thirteenth century the crusading ideal was turning inwards to expeditions against
schismatics, heretics, Saracens and pagans within Christendom or its immediate borderland resulting in the
Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople (1204), the Albigensian Crusades (1209–1229) of Southern
France, the intensification of the Iberian Reconquista (c.722–1492), and the Baltic Crusades (1147- c. 1500),
which lead to the absorption of the Baltic peoples into the Western Church – the most lasting achievement
of the crusades. There is no scholarly consensus on which date exactly can be called as the end of the
crusading activities. Depending on academic perspective, the crusade movement can be extended to 1492
(the end of reconquista), 1523 (Hospitallers leave Rhodes), 1571 (the Battle of Lepanto) and much later.
Among the medieval phenomena, crusading was especially well-documented and ideologically enduring
concept. The remaining sources can be crudely divided into three categories; authorized preaching and
history-writing, epic poetry and popular stories, and texts intermingling material from both of these, e.g.
crusader genealogy and hagiography. There were no sharp boundaries between these groups, which
typically borrowed narrative elements and stylistic patterns from each other. While reading the extant
sources, it is important to keep in mind their writing context. Crusade-related texts were written as
manifestations of western pre-eminence, reflecting the ideal of a universal Christian commonwealth,
providential historiography, and epic conventions of the exploits of the military elite.
In the sources, cross-cultural contact is predominantly conveyed through military models based
upon the rising chivalric ethos and religious contest. The crusading institution was based upon the
idea of malevolent attack on Christians, and this idea necessitated the textual creation of a powerful,
diabolical enemy. Although a limited amount of information had been available even earlier, the
great western public perceived the first image of Islam through crusade propaganda, which was
circulated in the west from the early years of the twelfth century onwards. In this propaganda, the
concepts of sin, wretchedness, and mortal threat by evildoers are prevailing.
Definitions of Evil as a Sin
In the high-medieval context religion dominates the ideas of morality. Medieval authors define and
interpret evil and wickedness according to the normative rules indicated by their religious
background, whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Human behavior is seen as fundamentally split
to either piety and righteousness, or transgression and malevolence. The key concept is sin, an
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
3
intentional act, which is against the will of God and thus criminal. Human quarrels were not seen as
bilateral, but as a trial, in which God was playing the third part as the omnipotent judge.
The sources’ criticism on evilness may equally stem from imagined moral vices as well as concrete
deeds. The principal definer of sinfulness was intention, which was steered by the human intellect.
The logic was that if the person was acting out of good faith, the result could not be harmful.1 In
practice this meant that a successful outcome of a battle and winning of booty served as a
confirmation for the means used to attain the victory. Material gains were not contradictory to
spiritual striving, but understood as tangible reward for serving God in holy war.
Consequently, crusaders could never be completely certain of their adequate state of mind until the
military outcome was clear. The sources stress the salience of prayer and public acts of penance
performed by the armies before entering the battle. The mentions of visions, dreams, and
interventions by the saints are also frequent, indicating shows of divine mercy that crucially
facilitated military achievements. The participation in the crusade was, of course, an expiative act.
In the original meaning, however, the plenary crusade indulgence, remissio peccatum, was
understood as the remission of penance ordered from previous confessed and absolved sins, and did
not thus protect the crusaders from further evildoing during the march east.
Crusaders and their Saracen enemies were accused of different vices. The crusader list includes
avarice, pride, and envy out of the seven deadly sins. The sources criticize indiscriminate killing
and enslaving of Christians, marauding Christian villages, plundering churches, and persecuting
ecclesiastics. These offences were commonly counted as cruelty in the medieval west, whether
resulting from holy or lay warfare.2 In all the cases, the transgression takes place between fellow
Christians in a Christian community. The accusations of atrocity were not directed against
encounters between Christians and non-Christians.
1 Bernard of Clairvaux. Si bona fuit causa pugnantis, pugnae exitus malus esse non poterit. In De laude
novae militiae, J. Leclerq ed., Sancti Bernardi opera omnia, Rome 1957, 1215.
2 Strickland, Matthew. War and Chivalry. The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy
1066-1217. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 304–320. In western warfare it was a norm to
deprave the opponent of his material resources: monasteries and churches that were founded and
supported by baronial families were seen as an extension of their powerbase, and as such an opportune
prey for the enemies.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
4
The use of violence on crusade was neutral as such. Again, it was only the primary intention that
marked the act either virtuous or sinful. In canon law, crusade was set aside as a special case. To kill
on crusade was not a homicide, and indeed not a sin at all, but a meritorious act. At the same time
canon lawyers’ views were mostly limited to consider the circumstances, in which it was legal to
take up the arms against the enemies of Christendom. The reality of battle, and the means of
actually slaying the enemy were not discussed. In most of the cases, crusader offensives are treated
in an uncomplicated manner.
The word violentia is not mentioned frequently in the sources, but the reader should not be misled
by the sparse use of the term. The word mostly indicates here a subcategory of the mortal sin of
avarice, criminal violence and robbery stemming from greed. The use of the term is thus far more
limited than in its modern meaning, and what we understand with it is mostly spoken in terms of
hatred and envy.
To basic premise of the ecclesiastics was that to kill was bad, but that in special circumstances it
might me reckoned as necessary. In the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II, while
launching the First Crusade, called the barons lascivious idiots, dirty oppressors and children of
perdition, hands stained with murderous blood and blatantly incapable of separating right from
wrong.3 Urban reminded his audience of the eternal damnation as a punishment for previous
sinning, including homicide and other major offences. The new warriorship of Christ, however,
represented a sharp contrast with this sinful past.4
3 Certe via ista pessima est, quoniam omnino a Deo remota est. Fulcher of Chartres, Historia
Hierosolymitana (1095-1127), H. Hagenmeyer ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung 1913,
126; Vos pupillorum oppressores, vos viduarum praedones, vos homicidae, vos sacrilegi, vos alieni juris
direptores…Certe via ista pessima est, quoniam omnino a Deo remota est. Baudry of Dol, Historia
Jerosolimitana, Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, Vol. IV. Paris: Académie
royales des belles-lettres 1879, 14-15; Fulcher of Chartres, 125-6; Homo peccator, filius perditionis. Guibert
of Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos, R.B.C. Huygens ed. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis 127A.
Turnhout: Brepols 1996, 114.
4 Nunc fiant Christi milites, qui dudum exstiterunt raptores; nunc iure contra barbaros pugnent, qui olim
adversus fratres et consanguineos dimicabant; nunc aeterna praemia nanciscantur, qui dudum pro solidis
paucis mercennarii fuerunt. Fulcher of Chartres, 136; Horrendum est fratres, horrendum est, vos in
Christianos rapacem manum extendere. Baudry of Dol, 14.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
5
The primitive rule of the Templars states that the armed company of knights may kill the enemies of
the cross without sinning. The major transgressions, punished by expelling from the order are
simony, revealing the inner decisions of the chapter to outsiders, killing or voluntarily causing the
death of a Christian man or woman, stealing from the chapter, leaving a fortification by other way
than the prescribed gate, conspiring, leaving the house and going to Saracens, being found guilty of
heresy, and leaving the banner and fleeing for fear of the Saracens.5 The lesser discriminations that
cause a brother to lose his habit and be put in irons include a forbidden contact with a woman,
giving away chapter’s belongings, mistreating horses, hitting a brother and so on: all the mentioned
delicts are restricted to contacts between the brothers or the brothers and other Christians.
The typical knightly offences, treason, rebellious behavior against lordship, and disloyalty to the
members of the kin and class are also present in the crusader chronicles and epic poetry. Violent
behaviour is essentially linked with prerequisites of what is understood to be honourable or
dishonourable rather than virtue or vice. However, resentment of especially vicious deeds that we
would call crimes against humanity, such as cannibalism, were extended to the whole of the human
kind. When famished crusaders were reported to cook Muslim corpses for food or cutting the
deceised enemies open in the hope of finding gold, the sources unanimously judge these acts as
sinful. 6
Divine resentment was aroused by sinning against fellow Christians. In the sources, this often
implies betrayal of the cause in the physical form of desertion, which developed into an especially
serious problem in 1097-1098 during the long siege of Antioch. Fulcher of Chartres describes many
weary crusaders turning back, the poor first and wealthier later, to escape starving to death.7 The
5 The Rule of the Templars, J. M. Upton-Ward ed. and trans., rule 57, p. 33; rules 224–232, pp. 73-74.
6 Baudry of Dol, 86F-87A; Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana, Recueil des historiens des croisades,
Historiens occidentaux, Vol. III. Paris: Académie royales des belles-lettres 1866, 788, 848-49; Radulf of
Caen, Gesta Tancredi, Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, Vol. III. Paris: Académie
royales des belles-lettres 1866, 675A-B.
7 De nostris nonnulli…se removerunt…propter mortis timorem, primum pauperes, deinde locupletes. Fulcher
of Chartres, 228; Gesta Francorum et aliorum hierosolimitanorum, R. Hill ed. London: Thomas Nelson &
Sons 1962, 57, 74.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
6
authors clearly favour the wealthier crusaders, accusing the poor of loose morals, abandoning the
holy cause, and resorting to cannibalism and cruelty.
Deserters were pronounced traitors and publicly humiliated for their treason when caught. The
anonymous writer relates the attempted desertion of Peter the Hermit and William of Melun, who
were captured and dragged back to the camp, where they were reproached for their shameful flight
in public.8 Shame was such as important deterrent for knightly crusaders that after being publicly
reprimanded for cowardice, William was not able to bear the stigma and fled again. 9 Lowborn Peter
coped with the situation far better, and continued the march towards Jerusalem with the rest of the
army.10
If deserters ever reached home, they were anathematized and socially stigmatized along with their
families.11 Among the leaders of the crusade Stephen of Blois and Hugo of Vermandois returned to
Europe in midstream. Although military realism and problems with health had clearly determined
Stephen’s decision, sources describe his decision in terms of cowardice and treason.12 The
8 O infelix et infamia totius Franciae. Gesta Francorum, 32-4.
9 Guibert of Nogent, 178-82.
10 Peter’s desertion, however, was a major event able to provoke a chaotic following. To encourage the
people, leaders swore in public not to escape. Ut iurarent omnes sacramentum quod nullus illorum
[Bohemond, Raymond of Toulouse, Robert of Normandy, Godfrey, Tancred, and Robert of Flanders]
fugeret. Gesta Francorum, 59.
11 Precamur etiam, ut de falsis peregrinis consilium capatis, quatinus aut signum salutiferae crucis iterum
cum paenitentia adsumant et iter Domini peregant aut pericula excommunicationis subiaceant. Anselm of
Ribemont to Archbishop Manasses of Rheims in July 1097. Epistolae et chartae, 160. Pope Paschal II
anathematizes deserting crusaders in a letter sent to French ecclesiastics in December 1099. Epistolae et
chartae, 175. According to Guibert of Nogent, if a crusader took back his word, after accepting the badge or
making the vow, he should be anathematized. Guibert of Nogent, 274-278.
12 E.g. Gesta Francorum, 63.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
7
restoration of familial honour eventually overrode more personal preferences and, after having
renewed their vows, Stephen and Hugo marched back east with the Crusade of 1101, where they
died honourably in the name of Christ.
Heterodoxical values are excluded from the sources, and non-Christians doomed as a default. The
imminent threat of an attack on the Christian community serves as the justification of military
conflict. The aggressor represents the powers of diabolical evil, which may engender menace
encircling the society (Saracens, antichrist), or rising amidst it (Jews,13 heretics). What is important
is that in each case, the enemy is seen as other, an external evil launching an assault on the flock of
the true believers. Crusaders are nominated as the avengers of the damage whether already done, or
suspected to take place in the future.
The sinfulness of the enemy is distinct from Christian vice. The Saracen adversary is depicted as
powerful and devilish, represented by tyrants, persecutors, idolaters and wicked infidels thirsty for
Christian blood. According to Humbert of Romans, crusaders were obliged to eradicate these worst
of men and banish their filthy practices.14 The sources mention blasphemy as the cardinal sin of the
enemy, manifesting itself in false prophecy, denial of sacraments, spiritual laxness and pollution,
envy of true believers, moral opportunism, loose sexual morals, perversion, and idolatrous
practices15 – all ageless accusations that typically pop out in ideological propaganda irrespective of
time and space.
Unsurprisingly, pollution and sexual behaviour occur simultaneously in the sources. In Robert the
Monk’s account, Saracens pollute churches, pour blood onto altars and baptismal vessels, torture
13 On the other hand, attacking peacefully submitting Jews within Christendom was also understood to be
a sin.
14 Humbert of Romans. Opus Tripartitum. Ed. by E. Brown. In Appendix ad Fasciculus rerum expetendarum
et fugiendarum. 2 vols. London, 1690, 188-189, 193, 200-206; Finucane, Ronald C. Soldiers of the Faith.
Crusaders and Muslims at war. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1983, 166; Cole, 1991, 202-17.
15 See, e.g., the writings Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in
Cantica Canticorum, Sermo LXV, De clandestinis haereticos. PL 183, Col. 1089A-1095B. Cap. 1 (1089A): [Heretics are
like] generis vulpium qui sunt adulatores, detractores, ad seductorii quidam spiritus, gnari et assueti mala sub specie
boni inducere; Cap. 4. 1091D vastatia vineae [the metaphor of wasted grapevines referred to]; Cap. 8. 1093A:
Fecimusne aliquid? Puto quia fecimus. Cepimus vulpem, quia fraudem percepimus. Manifesti sunt qui latebant falsi
Catholici, veri depraedatores catholicae.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
8
Eastern Christians and defile women.16 In the western forgery of the letter from Alexius I to Count
Robert I of Flanders, the emperor claims that Saracens perform forcible circumcisions over
baptismal fonts and compel boys to urinate into them, force Christian men to commit sodomy and
deflower virgins.17
In the crusader propaganda against Muslims, there appears a link between the ungodly Saracen,
attacking Christendom from outside by polluting Christian sanctuaries, and the obscene Saracen,
attacking Christendom from inside by contaminating Christian blood.
In general, the presence of women threatened the virtue of the expedition. While sexual relations
with Saracen women were especially dangerous,18 the threat of carnal sin lurked within the crusader
camp as well. While Raymond of Aguilers mentions that marital sex did not provoke God’s wrath, 19
other sources indicate a belief that any sexual activity might enrage him.20 Robert the Monk
Sermo LXVI, De erroribus haereticorum circa nuptias, baptismum parvulorum, purgatorium, orationes pro defunctis et
invocationem sanctorum. Cap. 1. Capite nobis vulpes parvulas, quae demoliuntur vineas [another reference to foxes
despoiling grapevines, Cant. II, 15]; 1094B: Rusticani homines sunt et idiotae, et prorsus contemptibiles: sed non est,
dico vobis, cum eis negligenter agendum. Multum enim proficiunt ad impietatem, et sermo eorum ut cancer serpit (II
Tim. II, 16, 17); Cap. 3. laetentur in perditione hominum. Tolle de Ecclesia honorabile connubium et torum
immaculatum (Hebr. XIII, 4); nonne reples cam concubinariis, incestuosis, seminifluis, mollibus; Cap. 7. Immundis
autem, et infidelibus nihil est mundum, sed polluta est eorum mens et conscientia (Tit. I, 15); Petrus Vallis Cernaii,
Historia Albigensis. PL 213, Cap. 8; Cap. 43. Peter the Venerable agrees on the false prophecy of Muhammad: nec
propheta fuerit, nec Dei nuntius, sed seductor et profanus sequentia declarabunt. PL 189, Cap. 29, Col. 0698A. See also
Kurpiewski, Christopher M., “Writing beneath the shadow of heresy: the Historia Albigensis of Brother Pierre des
Vaux-de-Cernay”. Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005): 1-27; Frassetto 1999; Moore, R. I., The Formation of a
Persecuting Society. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, 17-19.
16 Robert the Monk, 827
17 Epistulae et chartae, 131-2.
18 Guibert of Nogent, 219.
19 Raymond of Aguilers, 269E-F.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
9
describes Bohemond declaring in a public speech that crusaders have renounced all pleasures of the
flesh,21 and Guibert of Nogent refers to crusaders living like austere monks rather than knights.22
Fulcher of Chartres refers to the miserable circumstances during the siege of Antioch as a
punishment for male crusaders committing fornication.23 The crisis was solved by the expulsion of
all women from the crusader camp in 1097.24 Baudry of Dol mentions the removal of brothels and
prostitutes from the camp during the sieges of Nicea and Antioch after a priest had received divine
orders to repel harlots in a vision.25 In these cases it is not clear, what the social status of the
expelled women actually was.26
20 Brundage, James, “Prostitution, Miscegenation and Sexual Purity in the First Crusade.” In Crusade and
Settlement, Papers read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study for the Crusades and the Latin
East and Presented to R. C. Smail, P. Edbury ed. Cardiff: Univ. College Cardiff Press, 1985, 57-65.
21 Robert the Monk, 748.
22 Guibert of Nogent, 233.
23 Robert the Monk, 821.
24 Fulcher of Chartres, 222-23.
25 Baudry of Dol, 28F, 66G.
26 Alan Murray states that female crusaders whose husbands died during the crusade needed to ally with
someone else as soon as possible. The existence of these irregular unions would indeed explain the
presence of a significant number of pregnant, unmarried women during the latter part of the crusade.
Murray, “The Problem of Prostitution in the History of Crusades.” Conference paper given at the
International Medieval Conference, University of Leeds, 11 July 2006.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
10
Sexual crimes were punished severely. Guibert of Nogent mentions penalties imposed on
unmarried, pregnant women in Antioch, and describes how an apostate monk and his mistress,
caught in adultery, were stripped naked, whipped through the crusader camp, and convicted by the
ordeal of glowing iron.27 In Albert of Aachen’s version, the couple was similarly stripped and beaten
with sticks, so that others might be afraid and abstain from sin.28
In listing crusader sins, Fulcher of Chartres and Raymond of Aguilers mention rapina,29 which
additionally to the basic sense of marauding may also refer to rape. In chivalric narratives, the
requirement of proper behaviour towards the members of the knightly class primarily refers to other
males. The fact is that while noble ladies had their knights to protect them from other knights, no
one seems to have cared for the lower social classes. In medieval warfare, pillaging customarily
involved the abuse of women and children.30 The First Crusade was a pilgrimage, and the ideal
picture of a pilgrim was hardly to be reconciled with military practice of rape. It is hardly a
coincidence that the sources remain discreet about sexual violence committed by crusaders.
On Sacred Violence: Conclusions
In the turn of the twelfth century the whole concept of Christian warfare was rapidly changing. The
Cluniac reformism prompted a new classification of justifiable killing, shifting the emphasis within
the doctrine of sacred warfare from the justness or unjustness of the fighting to the virtuous or sinful
intention behind the use of force.
Crusader sources convey a strikingly split concept of the world, where the wicked necessarily have
to act as a counterweight for the pious. This kind of fundamental evil could only be eradicated by
27 Guibert of Nogent, 196.
28 Albert of Aachen, Historia Iherosolimitana, S. Edgington ed. Oxford Medieval Texts 2007, 379.
29 Fulcher of Chartres, 222-223; Raymond of Aguilers, 269E-F.
30 Kaeuper, Richard, “Chivalry and the Civilizing Process.” In Violence in Medieval Society, R. Kaeuper ed.
Woodbridge: Boydell Press 2000.
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
HCAS
11th Global Conference: Human Evil and Wickedness
Salzburg, 15-19 March 2010
11
extreme means. The chosen people of God represent the good, whereas those outside the Christian
circle naturally belong among the wicked, who deserved to be slain and consigned to hell.
The sources unanimously accept military conflict with non-Christians. In sacred warfare revenge
and booty did not contradict piety. Crusader sins included treason, absence of loyalty, envy and
greed, whereas the enemy is accused of blasphemous and pollutive practices. Simultaneously, the
heroes of the holy war were equated with the champions of the Old Testament slaying the Philistine
Goliath once and once again by the sword of virtue.
The basic themes in crusader propaganda concern sin, guilt, suffering, and the need to protect
Christians against infidel expansion. The concept of a perfect world reveals a universal Christian
commonwealth under the papal see. The ultimate goal was the eradication of non-orthodox belief
by the end of time.
Brave Christian knights, God keep you in his strength!
Well might you say that you are lucky men,
That in your lifetime you can your faith defend;
You who are born in sin and wickedness,
For which you all are damned and your souls dead,
By striking blows with blades and steel unchecked
Your sins will be absolved and your souls blessed;
There is no doubt of this – you have my pledge;
Rise up at once sweet Jesus to avenge!
You will be saved – or may I go to Hell!31
Sini Kangas, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
P.O. Box 4 (Fabianinkatu 24)
00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
+358-9-191 23489
[email protected]
31 Chanson d’Aspremont. Newth ed. and trans., laisse 46. Last decades of the twelfth century. Imagined pagan invasion
of Italy during the reign of Charlemagne. The pope preaches to the knights.