The Count of Saint-Gilles and the Saints of the Apocalypse
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2015 The ounC t of Saint-Gilles and the Saints of the Apocalypse: Occitanian Piety and Culture in the Time of the First Crusade Thomas Whitney Lecaque University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Recommended Citation Lecaque, Thomas Whitney, "The ounC t of Saint-Gilles and the Saints of the Apocalypse: Occitanian Piety and Culture in the Time of the First Crusade. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2015. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3434 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Thomas Whitney Lecaque entitled "The ounC t of Saint-Gilles and the Saints of the Apocalypse: Occitanian Piety and Culture in the Time of the First Crusade." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. Jay Rubenstein, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Thomas Burman, Jacob Latham, Rachel Golden Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) The Count of Saint-Gilles and the Saints of the Apocalypse: Occitanian Piety and Culture in the Time of the First Crusade A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Thomas Whitney Lecaque August 2015 ii Copyright © 2015 by Thomas Whitney Lecaque All rights reserved. iii Acknowledgements In the process of researching this dissertation, I owe a very large number of people thanks. To the archivists and librarians at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the British Library in London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Archives départmentales du Puy-de-Dômes in Clermont-Ferrand, the Archives départmentales du Haute-Loire in Le Puy-en-Velay, the Archives départmentales de l’Aude in Carcassonne, the Archives départmentales du Vaucluse in Avignon, the Archives départmentales du Gard in Nîmes, the Bibliothèque du Faculté de Medicine in Montpellier, the Bibliothèque Municipale of Montpellier, the Bibliothèque Municipale of Avignon, the Bibliothèque Municipale of Arles, the Bibliothèque Municipale of Clermont-Ferrand, the Bibliothèque Municipale of Le Puy-en-Velay, the Bibliothèque Inguimberinte of Carpentras, the Burgerbibliothek of Bern, and especially the Hodges Library of University of Tennessee, both circulation and ILL, I owe the deepest depths of gratitude for their kindness, unfailing goodwill and willingness to allow me not only to look at their manuscripts but to photograph many of them. My research was made possible through the generosity of the University of Tennessee Department of History’s Galen Broeker grant, the Medieval Academy’s Etienne Gilson Dissertation Grant, the University of Tennessee Center for International Education’s W.K. McClure grant, the Newton W. and Wilma C. Thomas Graduate Felloship from the University of Tennessee College of Arts and Sciences, and the Jimmy and Dee Haslam Dissertation Fellowship from the Marco Institute. My thanks to the wide range of people who have helped me through the years as I worked on this project, whose friendship, advice and questions have made this project better in every way: Jay Rubenstein, Thomas Burman, Rachel Golden, Guy Lobrichon, Jacob Latham, Jonathan Phillips, Nicholas Morton, Damien Carraz, Elizabeth Lapina, Sebastien Fray, Simon Parsons, William Purkis, Florian Besson, Martin Gravel, Bradley Phillis, Bernard Sanial, Christian Lauranson-Rosaz, Anthony Minnema, Leonora Neville, Peter Frankopan, Lauren Mulholland, John Pryor, Samu Niskanen, Jean Berger, Matthew Gabriele, Katherine Allen Smith, Kristin Skottki, Philippe Buc, Emir Filipovic, Elizabeth Wilson, Eliana Magnani, and Jake Ransohoff, among many others. To Guy and Marie-Therese Lobrichon, Sebastien and Celine Fray, and Lauren Mulholland and Denis Burdakov, who opened their homes and their lives to me, I can never thank you enough. Without my parents, Patrick Lecaque and Faith Beane, who instilled in me a love of learning and travel, encouraged me every step of the way, and never flagged in their faith of me, and my sister, Emily Lecaque, who has supported me every step of the way my whole life, I would never have been able to get this far. And more than anyone else, to my wife Annie, and my sons Jamie and Jacob, who make every moment of my life worth living: I love you, and without your patience, love, sacrifice, and encouragement, this never could have happened. This dissertation is dedicated to you. iv Abstract This dissertation examines Raymond of Saint-Gilles’ regional affiliation in Occitania (modern southern France) and the effect of that identity on his conduct of the First Crusade. Crusade historiography has not paid much attention to regional difference, but Raymond’s case shows that Occitanians approached crusading in a fundamentally different manner from other crusaders. They placed apocalyptic eschatology in the forefront of the First Crusade and portraying the First Crusade as bringing about the New Jerusalem. To be Occitanian was not merely to be a speaker of Occitan. It was to be part of a Mediterranean culture, halfway between classical Roman and medieval Frank, with a religious culture influenced by Greek saints, Egyptian monasticism, an intellectually and culturally vigorous Jewish population, and repeated Arab invasions and pirate raids. It was also to be imbued with romanitas, a close connection to Rome, to both the Papacy and the material, legal, and cultural legacy of the Roman Empire. At the same time, Raymond was not the only important figure to go on the First Crusade from Occitania. The papal legate, Adhemar of Le Puy, came from the Auvergne, a radically different region where the reaction to the collapse of the Carolingian empire led to a region ruled by the clergy, supported by idol-like statues of saints and organized through the Peace of God. These two disparate identities came together in the First Crusade, a Gregorian Reformist venture conceived and organized with Occitanian leadership. This team, the new Moses and Aaron of the crusaders, effectively followed papal policy in the early stages of the crusade. With the traumatic siege of Antioch and the “discovery” of the Holy Lance, however, a radical shift in the crusade occurred, following the eschatological visions of a handful of Occitanian priests. Though the Kingdom of God did not, in the end, appear, the apocalyptic eschatology that the Occitanians brought with them on the First Crusade led to Raymond of Saint-Gilles refusing the crown of Jerusalem, preferring to leave empty-handed than risk becoming the Antichrist. v Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1 The Count of Saint-Gilles: Romanitas, Eastern Saints and the Urban World of Raymond IV ...................................................................................................................... 21 The Count of Saint-Gilles: The Bas-Rhône Holdings of the Toulousain Second Son .. 22 Romanitas and Raymond: Memories of Empire in Mediterranean Occitania ............. 34 A Land of Violence: Muslim Invasions of the Midi and the Counts of Provence ......... 44 Provençal Christianity and Mediterranean Saints ....................................................... 51 The Church, the Saint, the Lance, and the End: A Provençal Origin of a Crusading Cult ....................................................................................................................................... 63 Chapter 2 The Mountains of God: Incarnate Saints and the Auvergnat Pax ................... 67 Feudal Revolution: Stephen II, Majesty Statues, and the Post-Carolingian Auvergne ....................................................................................................................................... 68 The People’s Peace: The Early Peace of God and the Bishop-Count of Le Puy ......... 87 The Peace of the Saints: Majesties, Miracles, and Processions of Peace in the Massif Central ....................................................................................................................................... 99 A Tale of Two Raymonds: Memories of the Peace and the Role of the Majesties in the Late Eleventh Century Auvergne ........................................................................................ 109 Chapter 3 The Making of a Gregorian Crusade: Pope Urban II, the Count of Saint-Gilles and the Construction of a Papal Crusade Movement .................................................................. 120 The Council of Piacenza and the Birth of the Crusade .............................................. 123 Urban’s Itinerary: Putting the House in Order .......................................................... 133 The Assumption in Le Puy: Organizing the Crusade.................................................. 138 The First Leg: The