HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

258 PETER AINSWORTHCrusader HistoriesAs Damian-Grint and others 20 have argued, the First and SecondCrusades had a major impact upon the development, in Latin firstof all, of eyewitness historiography. 21 As Jean-Charles Payen has suggested,medieval Palestine was not solely a land of potential conquestfor knights without fiefs; it was, above all, the theatre for anew Exodus to the original Promised Land. 22 ‘Eyewitness’ historiographyof the First Crusade is represented by Baudri de Bourgueil’sHistoria Hierosolymitana, the Anonymous’s Gesta Francorum et aliorumHierosolymitanorum (1098–1100), 23 and Guibert de Nogent’s Gesta Deiper Francos (composed between 1104 and 1108). 24A monk who eventually became abbot of Nogent in 1104, Guibertemphasised the need for an unsullied alliance between Creator andelect if the crusaders were to prove victorious in their struggle toreconquer the holy places. Comprising eight books and composedlargely in prose but incorporating a number of passages in verse,the Gesta Dei per Francos is primarily spiritual in emphasis. Guibertwas also the author of an introspective spiritual autobiography (theDe vita sua sive monodiarum libri tres), 25 and it is, therefore, perhaps notsurprising that one of the central issues in his Gesta Dei per Francosshould be the difficulty of establishing just what it is that motivateshuman conduct. That said, the Gesta Dei extols the achievements ofthe Franks with gusto and provides a well-constructed and well-documentedaccount of the First Crusade that aims to establish thecauses behind events. The Second Crusade produced Odo de Deuil’sDe profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem (ca. 1140) and Raoul the Priest’sDe expugnatione Lyxbonensi (1147), the latter of which provides a mainlyEnglish perspective on the events recounted. 2620Damian-Grint (1999), 72; Reynolds (1990), 47–57.21We should not of course forget the influence of the First Crusade, in particular,on the development of the vernacular Old French epic, exemplified by theChanson de Roland.22Payen (1997), 51–52.23Discussed by Smalley (1974), 131–34.24Guibert de Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos, ed. L. d’Achery (Paris, 1651; repr.in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 156; see also Rec. hist. crois., Historiens occidentaux,vol. 4, [1879], 117–263).25Guibert de Nogent, Autobiographie, ed. and trans. E. R. Labande (Paris, 1981);English trans. by C. C. Swinton, The Autobiography of Abbot G. de Nogent (London,1924).26Cf. Livermore (1990).