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Abstracts - Post-Medieval Crusades
Dr Matthew Birchwood (Kingston University)
‘Fatal and Dreadful Revolutions’: John Nalson’s History of the Crusade and the crisis of toleration.
Published in 1685, John Nalson dedicated his translation of The History of the Crusade to the Earl of Clarendon, citing the ‘admirable Maxims and Instructions’ of the chronicle for the benefit of statesmen. Translating from a French source, Nalson recalls the Lord Privy Seal’s own exile in France during the period of the English Revolution and invites his readership to draw a direct comparison between medieval history and the crisis of allegiance precipitated by the accession of a Catholic monarch. Nalson was a prolific controversialist and strident opponent of the oppositional consenus which coalesced around nonconformity and anti-Popish sentiment in the latter decades of the seventeenth-century. This paper seeks to situate this work in the wider context of English engagement with histories of East-West relations and the construction of tolerationist debates of the early Enlightenment.
Prof. Jonathan Burton (West Virginia University)
Dramatic Structure and Racial Schemata in Thomas Heywood’s Crusading Drama
No extant dramatic work from the Elizabethan period treats the First Crusade with the sustained attention of Thomas Heywood’s The Four Prentices of London. However, Heywood’s play has garnered little critical attention, dismissed as simplistic juvenilia by scholars of the drama, and disregarded in the face of political documents by scholars of Crusading discourse. There is no questioning that the play’s structure is repetitive, that it strains the romance trope of concealed identity, or that the play’s author was unseasoned at the time of its composition. Heywood himself admitted as much when the play went to press, describing the play as ‘written many years since, in my Infancy of Judgement’ and confessing, ‘ that it comes short of that accurateness both in Plot and Stile, that these more Censorious days with greater curiosity acquire. ’ Yet Heywood also goes one to suggest that the play had become ‘seasonable and fit’ for publication. In my talk, I will speculate about the ways in which the conditions of reception for Heywood’s play had become more ‘seasonable and fit, ’ such that the very qualities for which the play is routinely condemned may have made it compelling. In doing so, I will contextualize the play not only in an evolving theatrical history, but also in a transitional period in the history of English ideas about crusading, between William Caxton’s 1481 translation of Godeffroy of Boloyne, or The Siege and Conqueste of Jerusalem and Thomas Fuller’s 1639 Historie of the Holy Warre. More specifically, I will locate The Four Prentices in a crucial moment when the racial inflection of crusading histories was shifting from late medieval notions of cultural difference to a pseudo-scientific, early modern discourse. Finally, I will reflect on how the transforming racialization of others in early modern crusades discourse may cast light on the language of crusading deployed on each side of the U.S.-lead conflict with al-Qaeda.
Dr Matthew Dimmock (University of Sussex)
Crusadoes and Renegadoes: Writing Holy War in Elizabethan England
Although the notion of Renaissance crusades has been increasingly accepted by historians of crusade in recent years, the idea of 'late' (particularly post-Reformation) crusades is widely accepted to be 'contested'. In a Protestant English context in which even defining heresy was 'difficult' (in Diarmaid MacCulloch's phrase), the legitimacy of any papally sanctioned action was vehemently challenged. That crusade and the associated sale of indulgences had been denied and debunked by Martin Luther in his opposition to the papacy and Rome would further suggest that for Protestants the concept was profoundly illegitimate. This is only exaggerated in an Elizabethan context following the Northern Rebellion in 1569 which marched under the crusading banner of the five wounds of Christ, and the related excommunication of Elizabeth I by Pius V in the following year. Yet England had an illustrious crusading past that continued to be celebrated in chronicle and romance, and English men and women continued (in certain contexts) to recognise the possibility of a legitimate holy war - some were even involved in fighting for such a cause.
This paper will explore just how 'contested' ideas of papally sanctioned holy war were in the particular circumstances of Elizabethan England. Beginning with a series of pamphlets that respond to the 'crusading' Spanish Armada of 1588, it will consider the generation of a unique rhetoric of 'pretended' holy war from the perspective of the wronged recipient. The language in which this polemic is constructed offers valuable clues to how early modern England negotiated its own crusading past. What did holy war mean in Protestant terms? Finally, I hope to look at a few prominent examples of Elizabethan individuals who chose to engage in holy war, and consider the wildly differing ways in which they were represented by the popular press.
Dr Almut Höfert (Universität Basel)
Portraying the enemy: Ethnographic Knowledge on the Ottoman Empire in Continental Europe (1450-1600)
This paper will deal with two connected yet different developments in 15th and 16th-century Turcica, dealing mainly with Italian, French, Latin and German sources.
(1) As a result of the rise of the printing press and the subsequent increase of communicational density that one of the most powerful discourses in Early Modern Europe took its starting point: the discourse of the “Turkish Menace” that continued and changed medieval concepts on crusade. Now, it was in the face of the “Turks”, that an imagined community of Christians was invoked and linked to a geographical space: Europe as the authentic home country of Christian society, as Enea Silvio Piccolomini put it. Henceforth, Europe became intrinsically linked by Christianity, considered as the only true faith with a unique set of values that was threatened by the “Turks.”
(2) Another effect of the printing press can be observed in the field of printed travel reports. Descriptions on the Ottoman Empire were always linked to the purpose of providing the necessary knowledge in order to defeat the “Turks”. At the same time, ethnography was one of the main fields of knowledge that underwent a deep epistemological change. The dramatic rise of available knowledge had put the question at stake of how knowledge should be organised. In the second half of the sixteenth century, a principle was developed by which any field of knowledge should be organised by a hierarchical set of categories. Concerning ethnography, three main categories were established in the intertextual practice of travel writing about the Ottoman Empire: (1) information about court, government and military; (2) information about religion; (3) information about customs and manners. It is in this context of new epistemological order that we find one of the first incidents of the (pre)modern concept of “religion”.
Dr Kathryn Hurlock (Manchester Metropolitan University)
The Changing Identities of British Crusaders, 1400 – 1600
This paper will consider the ways in which the participation from the British Isles, primary Scotland, Ireland and Wales, changed from 1400-1600, focussing particularly on how the relationship between the Celtic countries and the kingdom of England affected how, when and why men participated in crusading. Whereas in the first centuries of crusading, constant warfare with England had impacted upon participation from Wales (and, to a lesser extent, Ireland), in the period 1400-1600 the Anglicisation of the Welsh gentry led them to view crusading in a different light. So too in Ireland, but here it appears that the Irish used crusading ideology, which had previously been used against them, as a form of opposition to religious changes in the sixteenth century. Particular case studies, notably that of Sir Hugh Johnys in Wales and James FitzMaurice FitzGerald in Ireland, show how different areas of the British Isles engaged in crusading in this way. The paper will also look at the domestic response to those who had been on crusade after the Reformation, such as the Welshman Richard Clough, whose status as Knight of the Holy Sepulchre proved unpopular under Elizabeth I. In independent Scotland, the relationship with England was often hostile; thus the identity of those who could and would crusade was often defined by the interests of the Scottish crown. It was also often affected by the Anglo-Scottish wars in the same way that Welsh participation had been hindered in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Therefore those who could and did participate declined as the period progressed, and the contribution of Scotland was overshadowed by its domestic disputes.
In all areas of the British Isles, the changing identity of crusaders was shown too in the interest they displayed in crusade themed material, such as stories from the Charlemagne Cycle, which were translated into Irish in 1400, significantly later than elsewhere in Europe, and examples of engagement with crusading such as this will be looked at. So too will the rise of the gentry in Ireland and Wales, and links to families and crusade participants in England, which naturally led to a change in the status of those who traditionally took the Cross. Finally, this paper will analyse where crusaders chose to fulfil their vows, and whether the lure of Jerusalem, in an era when crusading against the Turk was most popular, was still strong in the British Isles.
Prof Claire Jowitt (Nottingham Trent University)
'Giants, Pirates and Crusade: Reading Limorando in Wroth's Urania, Part II (1621-26?)'
This paper explores the connections between piracy and crusade in The Second Part of the Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, evident in Wroth’s representation of the Italian pirate Dolimandro’s defeat of the evil and incontinent Persian giant Limorando. It questions the extent to which Dolimandro’s piracy is championed by the text and what a positive or a semi-positive representation of piracy as holy war might mean to a 1620s readership, at a time when James I sought to suppress pirates and piracy by a variety of means. It also explores the implications of Limorando’s Persian identity for understanding the political subtext of Urania, Part II. Through a contextual reading of Wroth’s depiction of pirates in Urania Part I (1621), and in other contemporary romance writing – such as John Barclay’s Argenis (1621) – the paper seeks to assess the extent to which the ways piracy is represented, and the values it represents, show increased politicization in the 1620s. The paper suggests that in the last years of James’s reign piracy possesses a stronger political bite since it offers a means by which to conduct a sophisticated debate about controversial political issues: the way pirates are dealt with by characters becomes a means of measuring a regime’s, and a monarch’s, political failures and successes.
Dr Stewart Mottram (Aberystwyth University)
Crusade and the reunion of Christendom: Ben Jonson's Prince Henry's Barriers (1610)
Performed at Whitehall in January 1610, Prince Henry's Barriers stages the revival of chivalry under Henry Frederick and his father, King James. It likens Stuart Britain to King Arthur's British empire, celebrating the 'strength' of Stuart empire through comparisons between Henry and his heroic forebears, among them the crusaders Richard Coeur de Lion and Edward I. Critics have rightly noted Ben Jonson's careful accent in these comparisons on 'arms defensive', an accent calculated to appeal to James' own self-image as rex pacificus, the peace-loving king. But Jonson’s crusading kings do more than gratify a kingly ideal. Crusades are defensive wars par excellence, but the language of crusade also had specific currency at the Stuart court in the context of James's ambitions for peace in Christendom, his calls for unity in the Church. In a proclamation of February 1604, James spoke publicly of his plans to convene a pan-European council of protestants and Catholics, plans that would become the focus of heightened diplomacy between Britain and Rome over the next few years. In letters and proclamations, James writes of crusade against the Infidel as one of the fruits of Christian peace. This essay will read James’ diplomatic language into the Barriers, inviting us to see in Jonson's language of crusade a celebration of James' vision of the church. This is a vision reflected also in surviving stage designs for the Barriers by Inigo Jones. In these, a scene of Roman ruins opens to reveal a Rome rebuilt in part-classical, part-Gothic style. Jones departs significantly here from the architectural precepts of Palladio and the classical revival, his blend of Roman and Gothic styles a pointed gesture towards James' vision of an ecumenical Catholic-protestant Church. The essay explores Jones's eclectic architecture alongside Jonson's language of crusade, uncovering in both the blueprint of James' plans for the unity of Christendom
Dr Marco Nievergelt (Université de Lausanne)
Three views of a crusade: the Great Schism, beleaguered Christianity and the Despenser Crusade in later fourteenth-century literature.
Beyond a strictly factual account of historical events, popular attitudes and responses to crusading remain notoriously hard to gauge, particularly in the already complex cultural and political environment of the Great Schism in the late fourteenth century. The Despenser crusade in particular, so often invoked as a crucial turning point in the ‘decline’ of late medieval crusading, appears to have triggered a multiplicity of often contradictory responses among contemporaries. Chroniclers provide divergent points of view, and the Commons’ or even Bishop Despenser’s own attitude remains to be fully explored. Wyclif, Langland, Chaucer, Gower may all be commenting on the events, yet an equally rich and problematic range of responses can be found in the so-called ‘popular romances’. Three texts in particular seem to engage in great detail with some of the issues raised by the Despenser campaign: the Alliterative Morte Arthure, The Siege off Melayne and The Siege of Jerusalem. All three works interrogate the shifting notion of ‘Holy War’ in the aftermath of the Schism, revealing deep anxieties about the status of an enemy that is no longer easily reducible to the cultural, ethnical and religious stereotype of the saracen. The blurring of the mental categories for the construction of the ‘other’ in turn entails an anxiety about the ‘self’, particularly in terms of religious identity that is no longer monolithically Christian, but split between Urbanists and Clementists. Hence in all three poems the rhetoric of Holy War provides the conceptual means to explore and redefine a new, shifting sense of Christian identity, plagued by the combined effects of the Schism, the failure of Ricardian calls to revive a crusade to the Holy Land, and the additional internal threat of the Wycliffite Heresy. Seen in this light, the years ca. 1380-1400 mark an important stage in the emergence of a ‘national’ and ‘inter-confessional’ crusading mentality characteristic of the post-reformation period.
Dr Gregory O’Malley (Independent Scholar)
Hospitaller Attempts to Shape Opinion in England, 1407-1540
This paper looks at attempts by the order of St John of Jerusalem’s central convent and English priory to garner and maintain support for the order’s activities in the south-eastern Aegean in this period, with a particular concentration on the order’s response to the challenge posed by the Ottoman sultanate to its tenure of Rhodes between the late 1440s and 1522/3. It concentrates on four media through which the order sought to influence opinion – formal diplomatic and other correspondence, personal contacts, the publicisation of indulgences and privileges in the order’s favour, and printing. Changes in the language and mechanisms which the convent on Rhodes and its officers used to express their concerns are discussed in the light of the threats and opportunities facing the order. The reception of the order’s initiatives is examined, as far as this is possible, through a summary consideration of grants made to the order by monarchs, testators, and purchasers of indulgences, but more particularly through an analysis of royal letters and actions in its favour, and of those few records that provide evidence for more immediate and personal opinions of the order than can be found in formal correspondence.
Prof Sabine Schülting (Freie Universität Berlin)
Protestant Crusaders in the East: Religious Performance in Anglo-Ottoman Encounters
My paper will focus on early modern English travelogues to the Ottoman Empire and discuss the ways in which English Protestant travelers responded to the inherited notion of a Christian crusade against Islam as well as the Catholic concept of pilgrimage to the Holy City. It has rightly been stressed that after the Reformation and in the wake of England’s economic ambitions in the East, previous diatribes against Islam softened and gradually gave way to more pragmatic approaches to the ‘Turks’. However, religious conflict continued to overshadow early modern Anglo-Ottoman encounters and the discourse of crusade and pilgrimage pervades early modern textual production about the East, even if it is explicitly rejected by Protestant travelers who constructed themselves as anti-pilgrims. My paper will explore this ambiguity and – with reference to theories of performativity – analyze the travelers’ contradictory self-fashioning against Islam, Judaism, and Roman Catholicism as discursive performances that, frequently, turned them into ‘Protestant crusaders’ in the East.
Dr Christopher Tyerman (Oxford)
From Polemic to History: Some themes in Crusade Historiography 1550-1700
Crusading in early modern Europe operated in three distinct spheres; political; confessional and literary, at times all three at once. From the Turkenbuchlein of the 1520s to the Ottoman wars of the 1680s, from the French wars of religion to Leibniz’s bizarre advocacy of an new crusade under Louis XIV to invade Egypt, from the Erasmian and Lutheran debates on holy war, though radical Protestant condemnation, rational Baconian disdain to Anglican disapproval and Gallican appropriation, the crusades remained lively in public debate and popular attitudes towards the medieval past. Responses continued to be negotiated by a reluctance to disclaim continuity from a past acknowledged to have been instrumental in the creation of modern institutions of monarchy, church and state. This paper will extract a few threads from this dense weave of cultural positioning to show how the crusades were incorporated into a narrative of European history to parallel more traditional religious interpretations based on concepts of Christendom. However, to argue the shift was merely one of secularisation would be glib and misleading. The theme of corrupted piety was pursued by Gallican Roman Catholics as much as by Protestant and Anglican historians. A combination of forces transformed interpretations away from polemics such as those of John Foxe. One was the academic appraisal and editing of medieval sources, not least by Lutheran and Calvinist scholars. Another was the annexing of the crusades into national self-promotion, for example by Henry IV of France. A third factor was changing perceptions of the Ottomans. Where Etienne Pasquier looked for domestic repercussions of the crusade on French politics and society, a century later Claude Fleury located them in a general scheme of superior western progress, preparing the scene for the Enlightenment critique.
Prof Andrew Wheatcroft (University of Stirling)
The Last Crusade and the End Of Enmity ?
The Danubian crusades – from Nikopolis in 1396 to their terminus ad quem in the Treaty of Sistova in 1791 have never fitted very easily into any Western crusading framework. Yet from the viewpoint of the protagonists – Ottomans and their Western adversaries – there was never any doubt that this was the Holy War.
Of course, the language and attitudes of Holy War were contingent upon circumstance. The annual raiding parties that set out across the Austrian frontier into Ottoman Hungary or from Ottoman Bosnia into Austrian Styria were after slaves and plunder, to the irritation of the officials in Vienna and Buda who were responsible for keeping peace along the frontier. It was only when the endless frontier marauding became official – when Grand Viziers and Sultans – or the Emperor – were directly embroiled, that crusade and jihad were invoked. The assaults on Vienna in 1529 and in 1683 are the classic cases.
The Siege of Vienna in 1683 is by common consent held to be the end of the Danube crusades. There was no new Ottoman advance on Vienna t. Yet between 1684 and 1788 there was a resurgence of crusading attitudes as the Habsburg armies reconquered Hungary and looked to take over the Balkans. Their principal inspiration was the Spanish reconquista of the 15th century; the ambition rapidly emerged to reconquer Constantinople.
Yet after the final peace – Sistova – in 1791 and the discovery of a new mortal enemy – Revolutionary France – attitudes towards the Turk altered profoundly. They were incorporated into the heroic past of the Austrian empire - the abhorred enemy became the noble foe. Yet the ancient motifs of hatred remained deeply buried: they were evoked in the last years of the 20th century.
Abid Masood (University of Sussex)
The (Proto)Crusade Narratives and Persian Identity in Early Modern England
The rise of a new dynasty in Persia under Shah Ismail Safavi in the early sixteenth century was an important event in the early modern world. The most conspicuous feature of the Persian identity in early modern Europe was the anti-Ottomanism of the new Persian dynasty which engaged the Ottomans on the Eastern front. The anti-Ottomanism of the Persians, as well as reports of Ismail’s ancestral relations with the Christians of Trebizond from his mother’s side promulgated a strong image of proto-Christian Persia which resulted in the silencing of Persian Muslim identity in early modern English texts.
As Persia had multiple faces in the early modern imagination, we find a re-emergence of Persian Muslim identity in England of the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The most distinguishing feature of the new identity was the use of the title of Sultan for the Persian ruler rather than the more common “Sophy.” The title of Sultan for the Persian ruler has direct link with the narratives of the first crusade which mention a Sultan of Persia whose help was sought by the governor of Antioch, then besieged by the crusaders. From the crusade narratives, the Sultan of Persia enters the world of medieval romance and the late sixteenth century romances translated into English by Anthony Munday follow the same tradition of representing the Persian ruler as the Sultan of Persia.
This paper focuses on Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata and Heywood’s Four Prentices of London to demonstrate the role of Crusade image of Persia in fashioning the images of contemporary Persia. The major impact of going back to the crusade narrative for the Persian identity in early modern Europe as well as England was the rediscovery of strong Persian Muslim identity. The choice of Sophy as an ally of the Sultan of Babylon by Heywood in his play is the epitome of the new identity where, anachronistically, the contemporary Persian monarch is presented as an anti-Christian and anti-crusader rather than a saviour of Christendom, the other dominant image of the Persian Sophy in early modern England which led to the early modern European fantasies of Ottoman destruction by joint forces of Christians and Persians.