(from Bibliotheque Boulogne-s-mer)

LITERATURE OF THE CRUSADES:  Online Sources in English Translation

   

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Chronicles:

• The Spanish Reconquest proved to be a protracted struggle between Christians and Muslims beginning in the eighth century (about three hundred years before the beginning of the Crusades) when Muslims conquered much of the peninsula, and the conflicts did not end until 1492 when Isabella and Ferdinand expelled the remaining Moors. Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne includes Charlemagne's campaign in Spain to fight against the Muslims in 778 C.E.(Medieval Sourcebook). Hispanic Peninsula: A Guide to Online Sources contains links to chronicles and other primary sources about the Reconquest (ORB).
• Islamic Caliphate Page provides links to Muslim chronicles written throughout the various Crusades (George McDowell, University of Michigan).
• Excerpts from Robert the Monk, William of Tyre, Rabbi Elizier bar Nathan, and Ibn Al-Athir appear in  First Crusade: Sanctifying War (Norton Topics Online). Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade in 1096 in response to the Turks' invasion of Byzantine Empire lands; it ended in 1099 when the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem.
• In excerpts from the  Alexiad  by Anna Comnena about the First Crusade, the Byzantine princess praises her father, the Emperor Alexius I whose request to Pope Urban for military assistance initiated the Crusade, and criticizes the Crusaders (Medieval Sourcebook).
•  Gesta Francorum is a chronicle of the First Crusade written by an anonymous French writer (Medieval Sourcebook).
•  Annales Herbipolenses provides a hostile view of the Second Crusade of 1147-1149. Ostensibly the Second Crusade responded to the emir Zanghi's capture of Edessa, but the Crusade also involved attacks on Jews, Wends, and Slavs (Medieval Sourcebook).
•  Roger of Hoveden relates the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187, which leads to the Third Crusade of 1189-1192 (Medieval Sourcebook).
• Geoffrey de Villehardouin narrates events from the Fourth Crusade of 1202-1204, in which the Venetians encourage the Crusaders to sack Constantinople (Medieval Sourcebook).
•  Chronica Regiae Coloniensis tells of The Children's Crusade of 1212 (Medieval Sourcebook).

Epics/Romances:

• The Song of Roland is an Old French epic that celebrates Charlemagne's victory and laments Roland's death in the fight against the Spanish Muslims (OMACL). Though set at the Battle of Roncesvals in 778, the surviving manuscript dates from about 1100, the time of the First Crusade. This epic serves as a prototype for later epics and romances about the Crusades. For example, Orlando Furioso (OMACL) is an Italian amplification; there are Middle English Charlemagne romances (TEAMS) that also conflate the wars of Charlemagne with the later Crusades.
• Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar's skirmishes with Muslims from 1065-1099 inspire the Spanish epic El Cid (OMACL).
• In  The Divine Comedy , the allegorical epic of the afterlife written by Italian writer Dante during the early 1300s, Dante places in Canto XVIII of the Paradisio the famous warriors who fought against Islam, including Charlemagne, Roland, and the leader of the First Crusade, Godfrey of Bouillon. Conversely, in the Inferno he places Muhammad and Ali in Canto XXVIII. Dante assigns Muslims he admired in Limbo (Canto IV of the Inferno), including Saladin, who recaptured Jerusalem, and philosophers Averroes and Avicenna. The Saracen Queen Semiramis appears among the carnal in Canto V(Digital Dante).
• Alliterative/Stanzaic Morte Arthure ,anonymous fourteenth-century English poems, depict Arthur as a Crusader king (TEAMS). Arthur as a Crusader king becomes a standard feature in the Arthurian tradition, as seen in Malory's  Le Mort d'Arthur (Project Gutenberg) and Spenser's  Faerie Queen (Renascence Editions, University of Oregon).
• Jerusalem Delivered is an Italian epic by Torquato Tasso written in the 1570s celebrating the successes of the First Crusade (OMACL).
• Arabs and Muslims also wrote epics and romances celebrating their victories over the Crusaders. For a summary of these epics, see M. C. Lyons' The Arabian Epic, Cambridge UP, 1995. The most relevant of the Arabian epics is the Sirat Antar, parts of which are translated by H. T. Norris in The Adventures of Antar, published by Aris and Phillips in 1980. Some Counter Crusade epics and romances become subsumed by Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night--see the description and links below under framed tale collections.)

Framed Tale Collections:

• Sir Richard Francis Burton's complete translation of the anonymous Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night contains tales and romances that satirize the Crusaders (Project Gutenberg). I have excerpted from Project Gutenberg and updated Burton's language for the following tales from the Arabian Nights :  "Tale of King Omar bin al-Nu'uman and his sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan" (Vols.2 & 3) is an excerpt from a long romance, as is "Ali Nur Al-Din and Miriam the Girdle Girl (Vols. 8 &9); "The Prior and Moslem" (Vol. 5),  "The Moslem Champion and the Christian Damsel" (Vol. 5), "The Man of Upper Egypt and his Frankish Wife" (Vol. 9) are short tales.
• For tales on Crusaders or Saracens in  The Decameron see the following stories (the day is the first number, the story number the second): 1.3--Saladin seeks to trick a Jew, Melchisedech; 1.5--King Phillip of the Third Crusade is spurned by a Marchioness; 2.7--The Sultan of Babylon's daughter sleeps with nine men; 2.9--Madonna Zinevra disguises herself to become the Sultan's servant; 4.4--Gerbino falls in love with the daughter of the King of Tunis; 5.2--Two lovers find one another in Tunisia; 5.6--King Frederick of the Fourth Crusade intends to marry a woman against her will; 10.9--the friendship and generosity of Saladin and a merchant. Christian writers, such as Boccaccio, were often complimentary of Saladin, the Muslim leader who captured Jerusalem (Decameron Web).
• See "The Man of Law's Tale" in Chaucer's   Canterbury Tales (Librarius.com) .

Poetry:

•  Poetry of the Spanish Moors (Medieval Sourcebook) and   Primary Documents on Andalusia  (New York University) are two websites that provide translations of lyric poems by Muslims in the Iberian peninsula from various periods. One frequent theme is the ubi sunt ("where are they now?"), poems lamenting the destruction of such grand cities as Cordoba as a result of the Berber invasions and wars with the Christians.
• Christine de Pisan wrote a poem about Joan of Arc in the 1400s, imploring Joan to reinvigorate the Crusades (Southern Methodist University).

Travel Literature:

•  The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, 1184 is an account by a Muslim traveling through Crusader States (Cornell University).
•  Marco Polo  is an Italian explorer of the thirteenth-century who traveled to China (Medieval Sourcebook).
•  The Travels of Sir John Mandeville is fourteenth-century English fiction; this work reflects European fantasies about the Islamic East and about Prester John, the imaginary Christian king who Europeans hoped would join the Crusades (Romanization.com).

Other Sources:

The following Medieval Studies websites contain sections on the Crusades, which provide additional links to literature of the Crusades in English translation:

• Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• Labyrinth
• ORB

 
Copyright @ 14 June 2004