Godfrey of Bouillon: Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, C.1060-1100

ISBN-13: 9781472458964 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 284 str.

Simon John

Opis

This book investigates the life and posthumous cultural reputation of Godfrey of Bouillon (d.1100). Godfrey is a hugely significant figure in whom a number of crucial themes in medieval history intersect. As duke of Lower Lotharingia, he occupied a position of considerable political importance in the German Empire in the latter part of the eleventh century, the age of the 'Investiture Controversy'. He was a leader of the First Crusade, a seminal event in medieval history. At the conclusion of the expedition in July 1099, he was appointed as the first ruler of the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principal Latin state established by the crusaders in the Holy Land. After his death, cultural traditions regarding his life and character circulated widely throughout Latin Christendom, and within a few generations he had come to be revered alongside figures like Charlemagne and Arthur as a heroic Christian warrior. The book is divided into two distinct yet complementary parts. Part One is a cultural biography of Godfrey, written using only contemporary sources. This is the first full-length biographical study of Godfrey to be written in English in almost 70 years. Part Two is an original contribution to modern scholarship, investigating the development of Godfrey's reputation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It explores how Godfrey was portrayed after his death in a wide range of sources, including Latin and vernacular chronicles (both prose and verse), chansons de geste, charters, hagiographies, letters, pilgrim texts, legal treatises and genealogies. It is argued that twelfth- and thirteenth-century perceptions of Godfrey were shaped by an interconnected series of socio-cultural impulses, including notions of chivalry, contemporary conventions of remembering and recording the past, and, most importantly, the course of crusading history after 1100. By showing how Godfrey was transformed into a cornerstone of the memory of the First Crusade, and a cultural icon of

Spis treści

Introduction 1 - Ancestry and parentage Lotharingia and its place in the Western Empire Godfrey’s maternal ancestry: the house of Ardennes-Bouillon The career of Godfrey the Bearded The career of Godfrey the Hunchback Godfrey’s parents: Count Eustace II and Ida of Boulogne 2 - Godfrey’s career in the West, c.1060-95 Godfrey’s early years and arrival in Lotharingia The succession to the office of duke of Lower Lotharingia in 1076 Godfrey’s matrilineal inheritance The military campaigns of Henry IV of Germany Godfrey’s career as duke of Lower Lotharingia, 1087-1095 3 - The coming of the First Crusade, 1095-96 Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade Godfrey’s response to the call for the First Crusade Godfrey’s preparations for the First Crusade 4 - The First Crusade, 1096-99 Lotharingia to Constantinople, August - December 1096 Constantinople, December 1096 - April 1097 Asia Minor, May - October 1097 Antioch, October 1097 - June 1098 Impasse, June 1098 - May 1099 Jerusalem, May - July 1099 5 - In Jerusalem, 1099-1100 Godfrey’s appointment as ruler of Jerusalem, July 1099 Ruling Jerusalem Godfrey’s death and the succession of Baldwin I Conclusion Epilogue - Godfrey’s reputation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Bibliography Index

O autorze

Simon John is Lecturer in Medieval History at Swansea University. He previously taught at the University of Oxford, and held a Junior Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research. Much of his work to date has focussed upon the crusades and their socio-cultural impact in Latin Christendom. He has published articles in the English Historical Review, the Journal of Medieval History and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and is the co-editor (with Nicholas Morton) of Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and Representations. Essays in Honour of John France (2014).