Literature and Song of the Crusades

Throughout its history, literature has passed through two broad stages and is still in a third stage. In each of these stages, poets; playwrights; and, in modern times, novelists tended to write about similar subjects, mostly because these were the subjects that interested their readers or listeners. Ancient literature, for example, the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, tended to focus on the activities of gods and their involvement in human affairs. Modern literature, literature since roughly 1700, has focused more on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people in realistic settings. Between these periods were the Middle Ages (roughly 500–1500), when the most common subject matter of literature was neither gods nor ordinary people, but a class of people who fell between the two, larger-than-life heroes.

Many exceptions to these trends can be found, and it would be impossible to assign firm dates to when these shifts took place, just as it would be impossible for a scientist to say specifically when a species of animal first appeared. Nonetheless, some of the most important literary works throughout history show this evolution from the Age
of the Gods through the Age of Heroes to the Age of Realism in literature.

Heroic literature

Much of the literature of the Middle Ages was "heroic literature." Most of it shared two important features. First, the language used was not the Latin of priests and monks working in their monasteries. Latin was considered the language of educated people in Europe during the Middle Ages. Instead, the literature was composed in the "vernacular" languages, or the everyday languages spoken by people in France, England, Spain, Germany, and the other nations of Europe.

Second, most of this literature was not written down, at least until later, sometimes centuries later. Very often, different versions of a literary work survive. Meanwhile, before the invention of the printing press, most vernacular literature was passed along orally, often by wandering poets and musicians who entertained audiences with stories about their "betters." Many of these stories were legends and tales that already existed. Individual poets often could not read, but they had excellent memories, so they could learn lengthy stories and poems to recite. Generally, each would embellish those stories and poems with new details or new story lines, so that as time went on, the stories grew and expanded. Frequently, the later "writer" of a work was simply recording legends that had been passed along for a long time.

Many different groups populated Europe during the early Middle Ages: the Vikings, the Franks, the Goths, the Saxons, the Magyars, and others. They lived in a bloody and violent age. The virtues that ensured survival were not humility, or meekness, but courage, skill as a warrior, and loyalty to a clan or tribe and its leaders. This was a time when heroic kings and warriors strode across the stage of Europe. It was an age of conquerors, of emperors, of warrior dukes and princes, of knights doing battle against chaos, as Europeans tried to emerge from the backwardness of the Dark Ages (as this time period was sometimes called) and form a civilization.

The epic literature of the early Middle Ages, much of it from German-speaking regions, celebrated the deeds of these great men. The epic poem was typically sung or recited to an audience at feasts and on other occasions. Stories such as Beowulf in England or the Niebelungenlied in the Scandinavian and Germanic countries preserved the real world and the values of bloody warriors who survived through cunning and strength in a dangerous, brutal age.

As time progressed and the influence of the Christian church grew wider, the values celebrated in the epics came into conflict with the message of Christ found in the biblical New Testament. The church, therefore, tried to impose a different set of values on people. The ideal people for the Christian church were not the blood-soaked warriors, but monks and saints. These people were humble and poor. They rejected the world and focused on a life of the spirit. They lived lives of holiness, and they very often died for their religious faith as martyrs.

By about the tenth and eleventh centuries, many of Europe's warriors were accepting these values. Stories survive of many nobles—dukes, princes, even kings—who entered the church, became monks, and lived lives of prayer and seclusion, or isolation. They cut their hair in the "tonsure," a ring of hair surrounding a bald area, to imitate the crown of thorns placed on Christ's head when he died. Within the church, the most common form of literature was stories celebrating the lives of saints and martyrs.

Then the Christian church began to expand and flex its muscle. Popes became more powerful and had more influence over the people of Europe than their kings did. To the east, the church tried to win converts among the Slavic peoples. Armed Christians resisted the invasion of Islam in Spain and other parts of Europe. Out of this expansion came a new ideal, one that combined the ideals of the epic warrior with those of the saint. This was the Christian warrior, one who mingled deeply held religious faith with a desire to fight for that faith. His sword, with its long blade and crossing hand guard, became a symbol of the cross on which Christ was crucified and died. This development, the Christian knight, flowered during the Crusades. Now warriors were to fight not for territory or to gain vengeance (revenge) against enemies and traitors, as the heroes of the old epics did, but to win souls for their church and their God. The ideal was not the bloody pagan (believer in many gods) warrior of the Germanic epics but someone like a Knight Templar (see Chapter 9), a Christian noble who entered an elite corps of warrior-monks to fight and, if necessary, die for his faith.

The chanson de geste

The literary form called the chanson de geste emerged from this blending of the ideals of the Germanic warrior and the Christian saint. The term is French and means something like "song of deeds," especially heroic deeds, and the chansons de geste typically celebrated heroic deeds of chivalry (see "Knights, the Crusades, and Chivalry" in Chapter 9). They were poems that could be sung or recited. They used simple but vivid (dramatic) language that relied on the poetic device of assonance. (Assonance is a kind of rhyme in which vowel sounds are repeated, so that, for example, "lake" would rhyme not just with "take" but also with "tale.") Like the earlier epics, they were oral literature, passed along by minstrels and troubadours, medieval musical performers.

The earliest chansons de geste probably were composed in about the ninth or tenth century. The most famous examples of the form came a little later, and many dealt with the life of the Frankish warrior-king Charlemagne, or Charles the Great (742–814). Like many chansons de geste, they were composed in what are called cycles, or separate groupings of poems that look at different parts of Charlemagne's life. Thus, the first group deals with Charlemagne's childhood. The second tells of his efforts to subdue his rebellious vassals (people in service to a lord, who gives them protection). The third treats his battles to extend Christianity to the east. The fourth group deals with his activities before he went off to fight the Moors (or Muslims) in Spain (see "Spanish Islam" in Chapter 1).

La Chanson de Roland

The most famous chanson de geste concerning the life of Charlemagne is contained in the last cycle, which tells of Charlemagne's exploits fighting the Moors in Spain. This poem is called La Chanson de Roland, or The Song of Roland. The poem, as it survives into the 2000s, most likely was written down around the year 1100, and its probable author was a poet named Turold, who came from Normandy in France. The subject of the poem is the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778, fought as Charlemagne and his army were leaving Spain and crossing the Pyrenees to return to France. In real life the battle was against the Basques, an ethnic group that lived in the region between France and Spain. But The Song of Roland turns it into a heroic battle against the "Saracens," as Muslims usually were called in Europe at the time. Ironically, Charlemagne is remembered more for his only defeat than for his many victories, for much of his army was wiped out at the Battle of Roncesvalles.

One who supposedly fell in battle that day was Charlemagne's nephew, Count Roland. He and his troops were the victims of the treachery of Roland's stepfather, Ganelon. Roland had proposed that Ganelon be sent to negotiate peace terms with the Saracens. Ganelon was angry with Roland because the mission was so dangerous. In his anger, he conspired with the Saracens to lay a trap for Roland, who led the rearguard of Charlemagne's army and was ambushed at the mountain pass at Roncesvalles.

According to the legend, Roland was one of the so-called Twelve Paladins, or close advisers to the king. Roland, however, may not have existed, though he may have been based on an actual person. As the story of the Battle at Roncesvalles spread and grew throughout the rest of the Middle Ages, the name of Roland became renowned. Minstrels and troubadours added freely to the legend. Throughout Europe, people knew of Roland's sword Durandal, his trusty horse Veillantif, and the horn of Roland, which he blew to lead troops into battle.

Of course, other chansons de geste were written as well, and some of them had to do directly with the Crusades. One is called the Chanson d'Antioch, or Song of Antioch, and focuses on the siege of Antioch in 1097, during the First Crusade (1095–99; see "The First Crusade" in Chapter 6). It probably was written by an eyewitness to the siege, Richard the Pilgrim, but it was reworked later by a French writer, Graindour de Douai.

Lyrics of courtly love

Another type of literature that evolved during the time of the Crusades was poetry that dealt with courtly love. (Courtly love referred to the "code," or "rules" lovers followed at court.) In France the sources of many of these poems were two separate but related groups of singer-poets. The best known today were the troubadours, who flourished in the southern regions of France, especially Provence, as well as in northern Spain and northern Italy. Many of these poets were knights. The other group were the trouvères, who flourished more in northern France. While both groups sang of courtly love, the songs of the trouvères tended to be more satirical, or humorous and mocking. A third group, called the Minnesängers, sang of courtly love in the German-speaking regions.

An Excerpt from The Song of Roland

Here is a brief sample of La Chanson de Roland, quoted at the Online Medieval and Classical Library:

The battle grows more hard and harder yet,
Franks and pagans, with marvellous onset,
Each other strike and each himself defends.
So many shafts bloodstained and shattered,
So many flags and ensigns tattered;
So many Franks lose their young lustihead,
Who'll see no more their mothers nor their friends,
Nor hosts of France, that in the pass attend.
Charles the Great weeps therefor with regret.

The inspiration behind this form of poetry came from the Arab Muslims (followers of the Islamic faith), both in Spain and in the Middle East at the time of the Crusades. While earlier Christian thinking had seen women as the fallen daughters of the biblical Eve and regarded sex as an animal instinct, the Arabs looked at women with more of a sense of worship. The Crusaders took this viewpoint back to Europe. One of the sponsors of a great deal of courtly love poetry was Eleanor of Aquitaine, who accompanied her husband, King Louis VII, on the Second Crusade, which began in 1146. Many of these poems of courtly love dealt with the theme of a knight leaving his ladylove as he went on Crusade.

Courtly love poetry described the intense emotions and the codes of behavior followed by lovers at court. According to the conventions, or "rules," of the poems, the purpose in life of the courtly lover was to serve his lady. Most of the time, the love affairs in the poems were adulterous, that is, they were relationships outside marriage. This was because most marriages among the nobility were economic and political arrangements and were not based on love. In many other poems, the lover saw his lady as an ideal person whose hand he could never hope to win. The courtly lover saw himself as serving the god of love and worshiping his lady, whom he viewed as a saint. The greatest sin that a courtly lover could commit was faithlessness to his ladylove.

In time, the traditions of courtly love came to be part of much of the literature of the medieval period. One of the great long poems of the late Middle Ages, The Divine Comedy, by the Italian poet Dante (written from about 1310 to 1314), relies on courtly love traditions. The speaker of the poem is inspired by his earthly lover, Beatrice, who serves as his guide to Paradise, or heaven. Even later, in the late sixteenth century, Shakespeare's Romeo sums up the traditions of courtly love when he sees Juliet on the balcony and says, "It is my lady. O, it is my love."

Romance

A final literary form from the late medieval period was the romance. This form combined the traditions of the chansons de geste and of courtly love lyrics. From the chanson de geste they took the theme of the crusading knight who performed noble and heroic deeds while on a quest of some sort. But his search is for an ideal that he can never attain, or achieve, just as the lady of courtly love lyrics was often beyond reach. Reaching the goal was not as important as the quest itself, the striving for something higher and nobler in life. Romances had many elements that today would be called "romantic," but the word "romance" in this context always refers to vernacular languages, such as French and Spanish. These were languages that came from southern Europe and the region around Rome. Although German is not a Romance language, many romances came from German-speaking countries.

An Example of a Courtly Love Lyric

Here is a very brief example of courtly love poetry, a short poem written in the tradition of the German Minnesängers. (Minne- means something like "ideal love.") The German version is above the English translation. Interestingly, this poem, found by Gundrata Sidricsdottir and quoted in the Edinburgh University Medieval Society newsletter, Feudalist Overlord, was written in the margin of a Bible, apparently by a monk to a nun. The letter shows that the impulses of courtly love were not restricted to laypersons:

Du bist min, ich bin din,
des solt du gewis sin,
du bist beslozen in minem herzen,
verlorn ist daz sluzzelin,
danne muost du ouch iemer darinne sin.
(You are mine, I am yours,
you should be sure of this,
you are locked up in my heart,
the little key is lost,
so you must always be inside it.)

The topics of romances were still heroes, usually heroic knights. Many treated what was called the "Matter of Britain." This referred to all the tales and legends surrounding England's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. These stories originated on the British Isles among the people called Celts, but in time they became immensely popular throughout Europe. Sometimes romances treated the "Matter of Antiquity," meaning heroes connected with ancient
cities such as Troy. Finally, the "Matter of France" referred to stories surrounding Charlemagne.

These stories, though, were not like the old epics, nor were they quite like the chansons de geste. The epics were bloody and violent. Mere survival against the forces of chaos was the major goal. The focus of the chansons de geste was heroic deeds. The later medieval romances, in contrast, focused more on the efforts of heroes to make themselves better people or to gain spiritual insight, usually by taking part in a quest. The goal of this quest was often a sacred object, and one of the most commonly sought-after sacred objects was the Holy Grail, generally regarded as the cup that Christ drank out of during the Last Supper. The Grail, however, was a symbol for a higher ideal. This emphasis on the search for a relic, or a holy object, of Christ grew in part out of the efforts of the Crusaders to preserve the holy sites of Palestine and Jerusalem, particularly the tomb of Christ, and relics of the True Cross on which Christ was crucified.

In France one of the major writers of romances was Chrétian de Troyes, who wrote primarily from about 1165 to 1180. Largely during these years, he wrote five major romances, all drawing on the Matter of Britain. Erec tells the story of a wife who shows her love for her husband by disobeying his commands. Cligès is a love story about an unhappy wife who fakes her own death and comes back to life to enjoy happiness with her lover. Lancelot was the name of one of King Arthur's knights, who is a slave to love and to his mistress, Arthur's wife, Guinevere. Yvain tells of a widow's marriage to the man who killed her husband. Finally, and perhaps the most important of Chrétian de Troyes's works, was Perceval; or, The Story of the Grail.

In Perceval; or, The Story of the Grail the title character embarks on an adventurous quest to find the Holy Grail. This story became the basis for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a well-known fourteenth-century English poem. Much of this material became more familiar to English readers in the fifteenth century and after through Sir Thomas Malory's famous Le morte d'Arthur, or The Death of Arthur, which tells the entire story of Arthur's life and death. It is from Malory that most English readers are familiar with Arthur and Guinevere; the adulterous relationship between Guinevere and Lancelot; Merlin the magician; the Knights of the Round Table; and Arthur's famous sword, Excalibur.

The Holy Grail and the search for it have always been a source of fascination. To many, possession of the Grail would be a source of great mystical power. Writers and historians have had different views of what the Grail even was or what it represented. One suggestion, advanced in a long poem by German writer Wolfram von Eschenbach, called Parzival, was that it was a stone from heaven that provided spiritual rebirth. Wolfram, who wrote his epic between 1200 and 1210, claimed that one of the major sources for his poem was a Crusader named Philip, who was the duke of Flanders and had been in Palestine in 1177.

To some, though, the Grail is not even a physical object. Since the Grail held wine that Christ had transformed into his blood at the Last Supper (a ritual that forms a major part of the Catholic Mass), there are theories that the "Grail" is actually Christ's bloodline, or blood descendants. Some historians believe that the Knights Templars, the order of warrior-monks that played a major role in the Crusades, excavated beneath the site of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem (see "Judaism" in Chapter 1) and there discovered the "Grail." But what they discovered was that the Grail referred to royal bloodlines and that earlier French kings were the descendants of Christ. Possession of this knowledge, at least according to legend, was the source of the order's immense power, and it was because of this power that the Templars were destroyed by Pope Clement V in the early fourteenth century (see "Knights Templars" in Chapter 9). Some of these theories are unlikely, but they grow out of traditions of mysticism that many Christians and Jews believed in during the Middle Ages.

The Crusades inspired literature not only in the West but in the East as well. After the conclusion of the First Crusade, a poet named Abu l'Muzaffar al-Abiwardi urged Islam to unite to drive out the Crusaders. His poem, quoted by Francesco Gabrielli in Arab Historians of the Crusades, was typical of the type of call to arms issued by poets in the region, particularly as it became clear that the Crusaders were not leaving. Al-Abiwardi wrote:

We have mingled blood with flowing tears, and there is no room left in us for pity.

To shed tears is a man's worst weapon when the swords stir up the embers [glowing fragments from a fire] of war.

Sons of Islam, behind you are battles in which heads rolled at your feet.

Dare you slumber in the blessed shade of safety, where life is as soft as an orchard flower?

This is war, and the man who shuns [avoids] the whirlpool to save his life shall grind his teeth in penitence [regret].

This is war, and the infidel's sword is naked in his hand, ready to be sheathed again in men's necks and skulls.

For More Information

Books

Gabrielli, Francesco. Arab Historians of the Crusades. Translated by E. J. Costello. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.

Gaunt, Simon. Retelling the Tale: An Introduction to Medieval French Literature. London: Duckworth, 2001.

Gerritsen, Willem P., and Anthony G. van Melle, eds. Dictionary of Medieval Heroes: Characters in Medieval Narrative Traditions and Their Afterlife in Literature, Theatre and the Visual Arts. Translated by Tanis Guest. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell and Brewer, 1998.

Melin, Claude. Chansons de Gestes. Paris: Éditiones Alternatives, 1998.

Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.

Web Sites

Sidricsdottir, Gundrata. "Feudalist Overlord: Letter from the Abbess of Reading Abbey." Edinburgh University Medieval Society (January–February 2003).http://www.lothene.org/feudalist/abbess.html (accessed on July 27, 2004).

"The Song of Roland: Verses I–LXXXVII." The Online Medieval and Classical Library.http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Roland/r1-87.html (accessed on July 27, 2004).