The Troubadours and the Rhetoric of the Crusades
How rhetoric reflected their thoughts on the later Crusades
Jun 6, 2009
In the earlier Crusader poems, there is an aura of confidence and optimism surrounding the missions to liberate the Holy Land. There is a strong emphasis that the Knights were engaged not in a secular war, intent on the acquisition of new territory and riches, but that the Crusades had a higher purpose and were fought in the name of God; the Knights were engaged in a Holy War.
Medieval writing was full of symbolic imagery and words, and the crusader poems of the Troubadours was no different.
Rhetoric of the Early Crusader Poems
Within the rhetoric of the Troubadours, there was a firm focus on the spiritual gains rather than the material gains. Specifically, they focused on the promise of eternity in Heaven for Crusaders killed in battle while in the Holy Land; Crusader Knights would be “Crowned a Martyr in Heaven” one writer proclaimed. Indeed, the poetry further emphasized the Knightly characteristic of humility; the Knights acquired honour not through their strength and valour in battle alone, rather through the act of using these skills in the name of God, and in defense of the Christian faith against the Infidel.
Rhetoric of Later Crusader Poems
The rhetoric of the later Crusader poems is a suitable juxtaposition to the rhetoric used in the earlier poems. These later poems used three primary emotions in order to try and change the focus of the later Crusades: fear, shame, and anger.
The Troubadours were appalled by the way in which religious leaders such as Pope Innocent III, and the secular leaders of Europe such as King Louis VIII, had abused the idea of the Crusades for their own political gain through the persecution of ‘heretical’ Christians such as the Albigensians in southern France.
There was a strong focus upon the terrible consequences of not fighting the Infidel in Spain or the Holy Land, but fighting other Christians instead. The later poems urged for a return to the original Crusader ideals, “with honourable deeds, you can avoid Hell.” These honourable deeds included the termination of all Crusades against Christian followers, and the return of the original Crusader idealism.
Anti-Clerical Sentiment
Anti-Clerical sentiment is evident in the later poems as well, but only during the years of the Crusades against Christian nations; the years preceding, following, and in between these Crusades there is virtually no evidence of anti-clerical sentiment.
This is a reflection of the Troubadours frustration and shock at how they would use the idealism of the Crusades to further their own political agenda’s. Perhaps the most shocking statement of all was written by the Templar Ricaut Bonomel; he wrote that Christians would never be successful against the Infidel because they had lost God’s approval, and He had shifted his approval over to the Muslims. “Neither the Cross nor the Christian faith help or protect me […] God wishes to support them to our detriment.”
He goes on to explain how, to his great dismay, Muslims were exhibiting the traits of Christian chivalry and knighthood (honour, respect) and that the Christian knights were acting as the pagan Infidels (greedy, violent). This was why Christians had lost favour in the eyes of God and why they would inevitably fail in their quest to re-take the Holy Land.
The shift in rhetoric from the earlier poems to the later poems is very clear, and it was undoubtedly caused by the new motives of the Crusaders. They had failed to re-conquer the Holy Land, and were using the Crusader ethic and idealism to conquer wayward Christian nations, which in the eyes of the Troubadours, were the greatest sins of all.
The poems of the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras ed. and tr. Joseph Linskill. The Hague: Mouton, 1964.
Akehurst, F.R.P, Judith M. Davis. A handbook of the Troubadours. University of California Press, 1995
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