Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

eligious processions. These public displays of religious behavior carried out
by the soldiers themselves and by the civilians remaining at home were designed
to gain God’s favor for Carolingian arms. Thus Charlemagne wrote
to Fastrada, his wife, noting the matrix of religious rites and ceremonies in
which his soldiers and priests had participated, including singing psalms,
fasting, and singing litanies. He then told Fastrada to mobilize similar
prayers and other ceremonies among the leading magnates of the kingdom.
Carolingian military traditions, including religious traditions, were
continued in both the eastern and western successor states of the Frankish
imperium. During the prelude to the famous battle on the Lech River between
King Otto the Great of Germany and Hungarian invaders in 955, the
latter laid siege to the city of Augsburg. While preparing his men for the
fighting, Bishop Oudalric of Augsburg established an entire program of religious
rites and ceremonies that were designed both to bolster the morale
of the individual soldiers and to obtain God’s support for the defense of the
city. To this end the bishop organized processions of nuns around the inner
walls of the city. These religious women carried crosses and prayed to God
and the Virgin Mary to bring safety and victory to the defenders. Oudalric
also celebrated a public mass and ensured that each of his soldiers received
the Eucharist. He then preached to his men, assuring them that God was
on their side. A very similar program of religious ceremonies was organized
for William the Conqueror’s army in 1066 before the battle at Hastings.
William of Malmesbury reported in his Deeds of the Kings of the English
that the Norman soldiers spent the entire night before the fight confessing
their sins. In the morning, the men went to mass and then received the host.
While the soldiers were securing their own personal salvation, William’s
priests prayed to God on behalf of the army as a whole. They spent the entire
night in vigils singing psalms and chanting litanies. Then during the
battle itself the priests continued to pray for victory.
The Crusades
Much like their fellow soldiers fighting in profane wars, soldiers serving in
crusading armies against the Church’s enemies in the Holy Land, Spain,
southern France, and Prussia required a panoply of religious rites and ceremonies
to maintain their morale and military cohesion. From the very
early stages of planning for the great armed pilgrimage to the East, Pope
Urban II and his advisors were concerned about the pastoral arrangements
for the army. The soldiers required priests to hear their confessions, assign
penances, celebrate mass, intercede with God on their behalf through
prayers and public religious rites, bless their weapons and battle flags, and
carry holy relics along the line of march and into combat. These were the
standard elements of Western military religion before Pope Urban preached
Religion and Spiritual Development: Ancient Mediterranean and Medieval West 451