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Download PDF | (Rulers of the Latin East) Simon John - Godfrey of Bouillon_ Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, C.1060-1100-Routledge (2018).

Download PDF |  (Rulers of the Latin East) Simon John - Godfrey of Bouillon_ Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, C.1060-1100-Routledge (2018).

300 Pages



Godfrey of Bouillon

This book offers a new appraisal of the ancestry and career of Godfrey of Bouillon (c.1060-1100), a leading participant in the First Crusade (1096-1099) and the first ruler of Latin Jerusalem (1099-1100), the polity established by the crusaders after they captured the Holy City. While previous studies of Godfrey’s life have tended to focus on his career from the point at which he joined the crusade, this book adopts a more holistic approach, situating his involvement in the expedition in the light of the careers of his ancestors and his own activities in Lotharingia, the westernmost part of the kingdom of Germany. 






















The findings of this enquiry shed new light on the repercussions of a range of critical developments in Latin Christendom in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, including the impact of the ‘Investiture Conflict’ in Lotharingia, the response to the call for the First Crusade in Germany, Godfrey’s influence upon the course of the crusade, his role in its leadership, and his activities during the initial phases of Latin settlement in the Holy Land in its aftermath.
















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).

















Rulers of the Latin East

Series editors

Nicholas Morton

Nottingham Trent University, UK Jonathan Phillips

Royal Holloway University of London, UK



Academics concerned with the history of the Crusades and the Latin East will be familiar with the various survey histories that have been produced for this fascinating topic. Many historians have published wide-ranging texts that either seek to make sense of the strange phenomenon that was the Crusades or shed light upon the Christian territories of the Latin East. Such panoramic works have helped to generate enormous interest in this subject, but they can only take their readers so far. Works addressing the lives of individual rulers — whether kings, queens, counts, princes or patriarchs — are less common and yet are needed if we are to achieve a more detailed understanding of this period.




















This series seeks to address this need by stimulating a collection of political biographies of the men and women who ruled the Latin East between 1098 and 1291 and the kingdom of Cyprus up to 1571. These focus in detail upon the evolving political and diplomatic events of this period, whilst shedding light upon more thematic issues such as: gender and marriage, intellectual life, kingship and governance, military history and interfaith relations.


















Acknowledgements

I began my doctoral research, upon which this book is based, in 2008. Since that time, I have been the fortunate recipient of a great deal of support and assistance. It is my sincere pleasure to acknowledge that help here. In 2008 I was awarded a Swansea University Research Scholarship, without which I would have been unable to embark on doctoral research. I also benefitted from the award in 2011 of a Scouloudi Junior Research Fellowship by the Institute of Historical Research, for which I would like to thank the Scouloudi Foundation and Miles Taylor, the director of the IHR at that time. Swansea University’s College of Arts and Humanities, the History Faculty at Oxford University, and the Royal Historical Society generously provided funding which enabled me to visit libraries or attend conferences. 
































Over the years numerous friends and colleagues have variously read work in draft and offered instructive comments, granted me access to specialist materials or work in advance of its publication, acted as a sounding board for ideas, and generally supported me and my work. These include Johanna Dale, Peter Edbury, Susan Edgington, Leonie Exarchos, M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Richard Haines, Tom Horler-Underwood, John Law, Jill Lewis, Simon Parsons, Charlie Rozier, Jay Rubenstein, Iris Shagrir, Tom Smith, Matthew Stevens, Carol Sweetenham, Mark Whelan, and Deborah Youngs. Between 2013 and 2016 I taught in Oxford, during which time I was fortunate to work alongside the Balliol history fellows (Lesley Abrams, Martin Conway, John-Paul Ghobrial, and Simon Skinner), and with supportive History Faculty colleagues including Catherine Holmes and Matthew Kempshall. My time in Oxford was greatly enriched by the friendship of Antonia Fitzpatrick, Ingrid Rembold, Alex Paulin-Booth, and Robin Whelan. As a doctoral student at Swansea, I was privileged to work under the supervision of John France and Daniel Power.

































 I owe them both a considerable debt of gratitude. Their advice, encouragement and support were instrumental during my doctoral studies, and have remained so since. I returned to Swansea to take up a lectureship in the autumn of 2016, and I have put the final touches to the book since then. I have taken great pleasure in finishing this project in the same place in which I began it. I would also like to thank all the staff at Routledge who have assisted me, and Nicholas Morton and Jonathan Phillips, the editors of the Rulers of the Latin East series, for their help in guiding my efforts to transform my doctoral thesis into the book that you hold. That thesis was devoted to Godfrey of Bouillon’s life and posthumous reputation. The former is the main focus of this book; I intend in the future to return to the latter. Finally, I would like to extend my deepest thanks to my family, and above all my parents, who have always supported me in every way imaginable. I dedicate this book to them, and I offer it with my love and everlasting gratitude. SAJ Swansea

May 2017





















Introduction

Standing high over the cobbles and tramlines of the Place Royale in Brussels is a gigantic bronze statue. It represents a warrior, who sits astride a muscle-bound steed captured in mid-gallop. The warrior holds aloft a war banner in his right hand, and a shield in his left. He wears at his belt a sheathed sword, and atop his head a crown. The warrior is depicted gazing ahead, downhill toward the ornate guild-houses and churches of central Brussels. The identity of the warrior is revealed in the following inscription on the front of the statue’s pedestal:


GODEFROID DE BOUILLON

PREMIER ROI DE JERUSALEM

NE A BAISY EN BRABANT

MORT EN PALESTINE LE 17 JUILLET 1100 

DECRETE LE 2 NOVEMBRE 1843 INAGURE LE 24 AOUT 1848

SOUS LE REGNE DE LEOPOLD I'




















The warrior whose statue dominates the Place Royale, then, is Godfrey of Bouillon. By any estimation, Godfrey was a significant historical figure. He was born around 1060, and was the second son of the count of Boulogne, an important figure in northern France and the surrounding regions. Through his maternal ancestry, Godfrey was a member of a prominent dynasty in Lotharingia, the westernmost region of the Western Empire. During his career, he attained the office of duke of Lower Lotharingia, in which capacity he was active in regional politics. In 1096, he set out at the head of a large army on the First Crusade, and, after its forces captured Jerusalem in July 1099, he was selected as the ruler of the incipient Latin polity centred upon the Holy City. Godfrey ruled in Jerusalem for a year, before dying after a brief illness on 18 July 1100.













Godfrey came to enjoy rich fame after his death. In the Middle Ages, he was enshrined as the hero of the First Crusade, and his name became shorthand for the entire crusading ‘movement’. He also came to be regarded as an icon of chivalry, and was often held up as an epitome of aristocratic values and martial virtues. His reputation continued to develop in the early modern and modern periods.” Crucially, however, the various portrayals of Godfrey produced between his death and the present day are generally more revealing of the social, cultural, and political contexts in which those portrayals were created than they are of Godfrey’s own career and epoch. 

































The afore-mentioned statue of Godfrey in Brussels, for example, sheds more light on the preoccupations of mid—nineteenth-century Belgium than it does on the life of the historical figure whom the statue purports to depict. The ‘historical’ Godfrey and the later traditions which surround him are enmeshed so tightly that it is not a straightforward task to unravel them. Even the most rigorous and influential modern historians have sometimes discussed Godfrey’s life in the light of his later status as a hero of the First Crusade and paragon of chivalry. As a result, many aspects of Godfrey’s life have been misconstrued in the past few generations of scholarship.

























There is a vast corpus of modern scholarship on the crusades, a not insignificant proportion of which is relevant to Godfrey’s family and career.’ Existing biographical studies of Godfrey are, however, far from satisfactory. A few examples will serve to illustrate this. Andressohn’s 1947 biography is still generally cited by modern Anglophone scholars as standard.* Yet in the seventy years since its publication, scholarship has advanced considerably. Moreover, Andressohn was chiefly interested in Godfrey’s exploits on the First Crusade, and so paid rather less attention to his career in Lotharingia. The present book challenges some of Andressohn’s findings, particularly those regarding Godfrey’s career in the West. Aubé’s 1985 biography offers a more comprehensive treatment of Godfrey’s life.° However, Aubé’s study is undermined as a work of scholarship by the lack of a critical apparatus. His analysis features long quotations from primary sources and incorporates arguments formulated by other modern authorities, none of which have full citations. 




























As a result, the uninitiated reader often must guess the origin of Aubé’s information from the works listed in his bibliography. Dorchy and Mayer have both carried out useful studies of Godfrey’s career before the First Crusade.® Focussing on one discrete period of Godfrey’s life afforded these scholars the scope to apply sustained critical scrutiny on the pertinent sources to profitable effect. However, this approach also negated the possibility of drawing connections between the different phases of Godfrey’s life and to the careers of his ancestors. The rich vein of modern writing on the First Crusade will help shed light on Godfrey’s preparations for and participation in the expedition. This includes the narrative histories of the expedition by scholars including France, Asbridge, and Rubenstein, and the influential work of Riley-Smith, Bull, and others on its ideological and devotional context.’ While modern historians of the First Crusade have shed light on Godfrey’s involvement in the expedition, however, they have generally relied on the work of other scholars — above all Andressohn — for their assessments of his life in the West, with the result that they have come to problematic conclusions.



















The present book draws from scholarship which details Godfrey’s ancestry and career in the West. As regards Godfrey’s dynastic origin, Parisse has produced a comprehensive genealogy of Godfrey’s maternal ancestry (the house of Ardennes-Bouillon), while his paternal lineage, the history of the counts of Boulogne, has been thoroughly investigated by Tanner.® Murray has produced a detailed and insightful prosopographical survey of Godfrey’s ancestors, family, and companions on the crusade. His work will be invaluable in what follows.’ The present book also incorporates work on politics and authority in the kingdom of Germany and the Western Empire in the eleventh century, including Cowdrey’s biography of Pope Gregory VII, Robinson’s biography of Henry IV of Germany, Weinfurter’s study of the Salian dynasty, and the range of modern scholarship on the ‘Investiture Conflict’.'°




















As a biography of a medieval figure, the present book keys into a recent wave in biographical writing by scholars of the Middle Ages. This trend is perhaps epitomised by the appearance in 2016 of a new biography of William the Conqueror by Bates.'! Bates’ study, an instalment of the Yale English Monarchs series, supersedes the earlier biography in that series by Douglas, as well as Bates’ own previously published popular biography of the same figure.'? The Rulers of the Latin East series, in which the present book appears, is intended to enhance biographical scholarship on figures who participated in crusading expeditions and those who occupied prominent positions in the Latin East.

































The approaches deployed in other modern biographies of medieval figures will provide methodological models for this book. Much has been written on the exigencies of biography.'* As those discussions have shown, this is rarely a straightforward endeavour. A scarcity of relevant source material often hampers such ventures. Moreover, while the actions of a particular individual from the Middle Ages can sometimes be established, the thoughts, motivations, and feelings upon which those actions were contingent are often very difficult to fathom. 
















































The contemporary material which describes Godfrey’s life — and especially his involvement in the First Crusade — is such that it will be possible at points to discuss his thinking and worldview in relation to certain key events and issues. However, for the most part it is not the overarching aim of this book to recover the ‘inner’ Godfrey of Bouillon. Rather, it is conceived as a cultural biography, that is, a study which uses Godfrey as a prism for interrogating the dynamics which shaped the course of his life, the events in which he participated, and the cultures to which he belonged. To emulate Gillingham’s approach to the composition of his seminal biography of Richard I, this book is ‘less a question of what I think he was “really” like, but rather of the many ways in which contemporaries portrayed him’. 































































A key aim of the book, then, will be to establish how the perceptions that Godfrey’s contemporaries had of him can illuminate, inéer alia, the nature of Lotharingian politics in the age of the ‘Investiture Conflict’, the recruitment drive for the First Crusade in the kingdom of Germany, the subsequent course of the expedition, and the early phases of Latin settlement in the Holy Land. This book follows a number of recent biographies of individuals who occupied prominent offices in the West before —- and in some cases after — participating in crusading expeditions. Gillingham’s afore-mentioned study of Richard I constitutes a particularly instructive example, as a key argument of his book is that Richard’s formative experiences in the West shaped how he acted whilst on the Third Crusade. Other recent scholarship in this vein includes Freed’s work on Frederick Barbarossa, Evergates’ study of Henry the Liberal, count of Champagne, and Perry’s appraisal of John of Brienne.”























This book explores Godfrey’s dynastic origins and his career in the West, before turning to his experiences on the First Crusade and in Jerusalem in the expedition’s aftermath. It suggests that Godfrey’s involvement in the crusade can perhaps best be understood in the light of his experiences in Lotharingia and the familial traditions which helped shape his worldview. In short, Godfrey the duke of Lower Lotharingia is just as important to this book as Godfrey the ruler of Latin Jerusalem.























The first chapter surveys the nature of power in the kingdom of Ger many and the Western Empire in the eleventh century, before examining the place of Godfrey of Bouillon’s maternal ancestors in Lotharingian and imperial politics. Particular attention is paid to the careers of Godfrey the Bearded (his grandfather) and Godfrey the Hunchback (his uncle), both of whom preceded him as duke of Lower Lotharingia. The chapter pinpoints evidence which suggests that from the mid-1050s until the early 1070s, Godfrey’s maternal ancestors had close dealings with the reform papacy. The chapter also explores how Godfrey’s predecessors interacted with ecclesiastical authorities in Lotharingia, above all, the bishop of Liege and the monastery of St Hubert. Finally, the chapter examines the lives of Godfrey’s parents, Eustace II and Ida of Boulogne, in order to establish the circumstances in which Godfrey and his brothers Eustace (III) and Baldwin were born.


















The second chapter investigates Godfrey’s career between his birth in about 1060 and the coming of the First Crusade in 1095. It assesses the fragmentary evidence for his earliest years before his emergence in Lotharingian politics in 1076, and then charts his struggles to attain the office of duke of Lower Lotharingia, and his appointment to it in 1087. It is suggested that Godfrey was not firmly aligned with Henry IV of Germany in this period, and that he did not participate in Henry’s grand military campaigns in Saxony and Italy in the 1070s and 1080s. It is also contended that, like his uncle and grandfather before him, Godfrey maintained links with the bishop of Liége (who in about 1082 instituted the Peace of God in his diocese at an assembly in which Godfrey participated) and the monks of St Hubert (from whom Godfrey received instruction about sin and penitence).












ThethirdchapterconsidershowUrbanII’sappealfortheFirstCrusademight have reached Godfrey, and discusses his response to that appeal. It suggests that in 1095-1096 Godfrey had access to a number of channels of communication, both ecclesiastical and aristocratic, and that any one of them could have been the conduit along which the official papal message concerning the crusade reached him. It also identifies the dynastic ties which bound Godfrey to the aristocracy of northern France, emphasising the permeable nature of the frontier between the region and Lotharingia. This chapter makes the case that Godfrey’s positive response to Urban’s appeal for the First Crusade might be best understood in the light of his maternal ancestors’ efforts to support the reform papacy, his own participation in the episcopal Peace assembly in Liége, and the influence of the monks of St Hubert on his devotional thoughtworld. The third chapter also examines how Godfrey prepared in 1095-1096 for the First Crusade, and discusses the composition of the army at whose head he departed Lotharingia in August 1096.



















The fourth chapter, the longest of the book, is devoted to Godfrey’s career on the First Crusade. It charts his exploits from his departure on the expedition through to the capture of Jerusalem by the crusader armies on 15 July 1099. It examines Godfrey’s influence on the crusade relative to that of the other leading participants, suggesting that while Godfrey proved himself to be a brave and effective warrior in his own right, he was one of a number of prominent figures who shaped the course of the First Crusade. The chapter suggests that up until the final few months of the expedition, Godfrey remained largely in the shadow of Bohemond, a redoubtable general who possessed a wealth of military experience, and who was the single most dominant participant in the crusade, and Raymond of Toulouse, who was the richest and most distinguished of the leaders. The argument is drawn that it was only in the early months of 1099, at the very end of the expedition, that Godfrey came to the fore and began to surpass the other leaders in influence and authority.























The fifth chapter explores Godfrey’s tenure as ruler of Latin Jerusalem. It begins by considering the circumstances of his appointment as ruler of Jerusalem in July 1099. It asserts that he did not take the title of king, and then examines a range of possible explanations for why he did not do so. The chapter then charts his year-long tenure as ruler of the Holy City and traces his efforts to establish the institutions of government in the new Latin polity. The chapter concludes by examining the circumstances of his death on 18 July 1100, and the developments which culminated in him being succeeded by his younger brother, Baldwin, who was inaugurated king of Jerusalem in Bethlehem on Christmas Day 1100.





















There follows at the end of the book an epilogue which examines how perceptions of Godfrey developed over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is contended that depictions of Godfrey in that period were shaped by an interconnected series of historical, socio-cultural, political, and literary impulses, the most important of which was the course of crusading history between 1100 and 1300. The fortunes of crusading expeditions and the condition of the Latin states established by the First Crusaders in the Holy Land had a principal influence upon how he was regarded during this time. The epilogue casts the development of Godfrey’s reputation as one reflex of the wider process through which the momentous events of the First Crusade were assimilated into the cultural consciousness of Latin Christendom.” The success of the First Crusade captured the imagination of the Latin Christian world, and this helped to stimulate interest in Godfrey and his career.





















The five core chapters of the book rest on sources which date to the eleventh century or within five or so years after Godfrey’s death in 1100. The majority of this evidence consists of texts which this book will, for convenience’s sake, refer to as chronicles and charters.'’ Charters yield important information on the careers of Godfrey and his ancestors. Members of the family issued their own charters, and they are also named in documents issued by other parties.’* The diplomas issued by the kings of Germany/emperors are of particular use, for they contain witness lists which illuminate the crown’s political connections at a given moment. The most informative texts for Godfrey’s ancestry and early life, however, are chronicles, above all, those which originated in Lotharingia. The most important of these is the chronicle known as the Cantatorium, which was written in stages at the monastery of St Hubert down to 1106.



























 The events described in the latter part of the Cantatorum took place at the time of the great dispute between Gregory VII and Henry IV. In describing those events, the St Hubert chronicler sided firmly with the papacy. St Hubert was situated close to Bouillon in the diocese of Liége, and its monks had close dealings with members of Godfrey’s family. This text therefore contains a wealth of information about their careers. Godfrey and his predecessors acted as advocates for the abbey, and this undoubtedly had a bearing on how they were portrayed in the Cantatorium. It should be noted that it was not the principal purpose of this text to record information about members of the house of Ardennes-Bouillon. Its chief aim was to provide a written record of the various lands and properties that St Hubert acquired during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, and information about Godfrey and his forebears was included only when doing so assisted that function. Other useful sources from Lotharingia include Anselm of Liége’s mid—eleventhcentury account of ecclesiastical affairs in the diocese, a set of annals compiled at the monastery of St James in Liége, and the account of Sigebert of Gembloux which terminates in 1111, but which was written in stages down to that point, and contains very little about the period after 1099.?°









































The book also draws from eleventh-century sources which originated further afield in the kingdom of Germany. Among these is the set of annals written at the Bavarian abbey of Niederaltaich (the Annales Altahenses Maiores or Annals of Niederaltaich) , a text which details events in the kingdom in the earlier part of the eleventh century.”! Lampert of Hersfeld’s monumental account of events in the Empire in the late eleventh century offers arange of important insights on the exploit of Godfrey’s ancestors and relatives.” Lampert focussed his account on the struggles between the Salian kings of Germany (of whom he was a fierce critic), and those who rebelled against them, especially the Saxons (for whom he expressed support). Like Lampert, Bruno of Merseburg wrote an important account of the German crown’s wars in Saxony.

























 This book also draws from the work of Berthold of Reichenau and Bernold of St Blasien, who wrote in the duchy of Swabia. Both these authors were staunch supporters of Gregory VII.** Also of use is the chronicle of Frutolf of Michelsberg.”? Of particular use is the work of an author who wrote a continuation of Frutolf’s account in about 1106. This continuation is a valuable source, providing a German perspective on the First Crusade and the early phases of Latin settlement in the Holy Land.” To these will be added sources from Italy which shed light on the conflict between Henry IV and Gregory VI. The pope’s own register is a particularly valuable repository of evidence.’ Also of use are the writings of Gregory’s partisan Bonizo of Sutri, the pro-Henry Benzo of Alba, and the account written at the abbey of Monte Cassino by Leo Marsicanus and his continuator.”


































Godfrey’s career on the First Crusade is served by a wide array of evidence. Anna Komnene’s account of her father Alexios Komnenos’ reign as emperor of Byzantium provides important information.” Though Anna wrote later in the twelfth century, her work stands outside Latin Christian historiographical traditions, and so will be used here to illuminate the Byzantine perspective on the expedition. The present book rests above all on the wide range of Latin sources for the First Crusade. The letters written by the leaders of the crusade during the course of the expedition are particularly revealing, for they shed important light on their ideas at particular junctures while the expedition was in progress.” This book makes consider able use of the various Latin chronicles of the crusade.*! The most influential of these is the Gesta Francorum, which was probably written soon after the First Crusade ended in August 1099 by an individual who had been associated with Bohemond and his contingent of Normans from southern Italy.








































Although historians have sometimes regarded the Gesta Francorum as a narrative record of events witnessed by the author, studies have shown that it is more sophisticated than it might at first seem. It has been argued, for example, that the author of this account artificially skewed its narrative towards Bohemond, and that he deployed a number of techniques to denigrate Alexios and the Byzantines, from whom Bohemond had become estranged by the end of the crusade.*












































In the first years of the twelfth century three veterans of the First Crusade used the Gesta Francorum as a basis for their own chronicles of the expedition. As a result, there emerged an influential tradition of historical writing on the crusade centred upon this text. The Poiteven priest Peter Tudebode copied the Gesta Francorum almost verbatim, but altered certain passages and added a few snippets of information based on his own experiences.

















Probably before about 1102, Raymond of Aguilers used the Gesta Francorum to write a substantially new account of the First Crusade.” He had been a canon of the cathedral church of St Mary in Le Puy, and became a chaplain of Raymond of Toulouse during the course of the crusade. This author provides a great deal of original information, particularly on relations between Raymond of Toulouse and the other leading figures of the crusade.


















Fulcher of Chartres was another author who used the Gesta Francorum early in the twelfth century to write his own account of the First Crusade.*° Fulcher set out on the expedition in the company of Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois, but during the course of it he joined the contingent of Baldwin (Godfrey’s younger brother) and became his chaplain. Fulcher remained in the Holy Land after the end of the crusade, and it was while he was resident in the Latin East that he began to write. He finished the first version of his account of the crusade in 1106, and it soon began to circulate in that form. This first version was used by an author who probably worked soon after in the West to compose a separate account of this expedition. 







































This account, the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem Expugnantium, was attributed in the seventeenth century to an otherwise unknown author named Bartolf of Nangis. Though there is no evidence for that attribution, it will be convenient to refer to this source as the ‘Bartolf’ text as a shorthand.” Significantly, Fulcher later extended his account to cover the history of the Latin East down to 1127. He added to his account of the First Crusade (book I) treatments of the reigns of Baldwin I (book II) and Baldwin II (book III). The extant versions of Fulcher’s account of the First Crusade likely reflect his later reworking, meaning his work poses difficulties to the diachronic approach being adopted in this book. It is important, then, to consider how Fulcher originally treated the First Crusade by cross-referencing his work with the ‘Bartolf’ text as far as possible.



































By far the most crucial source for charting Godfrey’s activities on the First Crusade and thereafter in Jerusalem is the voluminous account written by Albert of Aachen.** Working in Lower Lotharingia — not far from Godfrey’s chief holdings — Albert wrote about the crusade from an imperial perspective. Significantly, then, Albert’s account stands entirely apart from the tradition of near-contemporary historiography on the First Crusade centred upon the Gesta Francorum. A reading of his account shows that he treated many aspects of the expedition in a way that differs to the viewpoint advanced in the sources of the Gesta Francorum tradition.” Moreover, Albert’s account is considerably longer and more detailed than any sources of that tradition. It consists of twelve books, the first six of which cover the First Crusade. Edgington has argued that Albert completed these books soon after the events they describe.*° To these books he added a further six (books 7 to 12) which cover the history of the Latin East down to 1119. Albert did not participate in the First Crusade or go to the Holy Land, and he seems to have drawn his information from oral reports provided by crusaders who had returned to Lotharingia. He was able to accumulate awealth of unique material on Godfrey’s exploits on the expedition and in Jerusalem.




































The Gesta Francorum and the writings of Peter Tudebode and Raymond of Aguilers all cease immediately after the closing act of the First Crusade (the battle of Ascalon in August 1099). It is thus a smaller corpus of sources that detail Godfrey’s tenure as ruler of Jerusalem. In terms of the chronicle accounts, relevant information is contained in the ‘Bartolf text, in the account of Fulcher of Chartres, and, most fully, the work of Albert of Aachen. Also of use for Godfrey’s tenure are a few contemporary and nearcontemporary letters concerning events in the Holy Land, and a number of charters which describe actions undertaken by or involving Godfrey."























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