Fulcher of Chartres

Fulcherius Carnotensis Date of Birth 1058 or 1059 Place of Birth Northern ; probably the Chartrain or Orléanais Date of Death 1127 or 1128 Place of Death Probably Jerusalem

Biography Fulcher of Chartres was born in 1058 or 1059, probably in or near Chartres in northern France. He have been a member of the cathedral clergy at Chartres and could have known the reformer Bishop Ivo (1090-1115), but this is less than certain. His standard of Latinity and knowledge of classical texts suggest a good level of edu- cation; the cathedral school of Chartres had been a noted center of classical learning since the time of Bishop Fulbert (1006-28), and this was probably, therefore, where Fulcher was educated. Fulcher has left no trace in the historical record before the event with which he is now wholly associated, the First Crusade. Fulcher took part in the crusade, initially in the contingent led by Count Stephen of Blois and Duke Robert of . Having journeyed through Italy, the and Asia Minor in 1096-97, en route mar- velling at the city of Constantinople, closely observing the siege of Nicea and surviving the battle of Dorylaeum, in 1097 Fulcher attached himself to Count Baldwin of Boulogne, serving as his chap- lain. He followed Baldwin on the expedition to that was to detach him, and Fulcher, from the main body of the crusade for the next two years. Fulcher accompanied Baldwin on his journey from Edessa to Jeru- salem towards the end of 1099 to fulfil his crusade vow, and on Bald- win’s second journey south in late 1100 to assume the rulership of the nascent Frankish polity in and around Jerusalem after the death of Baldwin’s brother, Godfrey of Bouillon, in September of that year. Baldwin assumed the title of king, making Jerusalem his political base, and Fulcher was based in the city for the rest of his life, continuing 402 fulcher of chartres to serve as Baldwin’s chaplain and accompanying him on some of his military campaigns until the mid 1110s. Thereafter, the connection to Baldwin seems to have become looser, although it has been suggested that at this stage Fulcher became a canon of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with Baldwin’s support in order to further the reform of the community under the Rule of St Augustine. The devotion to the relic of the True Cross, kept in the Holy Sepulcher, that Fulcher expresses in his Historia suggests a strong connection to that church. The Historia Hierosolymitana is Fulcher’s only known composition. He most probably began work on it in late 1100 or 1101; thereafter it was written, party as a broadly contemporaneous record, partly in retrospective bursts after intervals of inactivity, until 1127. The date of Fulcher’s death is uncertain, but is probably to be fixed soon after the last event mentioned in his text, a plague of rats around the summer of 1127.

MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Fulcher of Chartes, Historia Hierosolymitana (1095-1127), ed. H. Hagenmeyer, Heidelberg, 1913, pp. 153, 206, 215, 330, 360, 377, 504, 771 Guibert of Nogent, Dei Gesta per Francos, ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Corpus Chris- tianorum Continuatio Medieualis 127A), Turnhout, 1996, pp. 329, 332, 342, 340, 344 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. and trans. R.A.B. Mynors, rev. R.M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols, Oxford, 1998-99, i, p. 660 Secondary Y.N. Harari, ‘Eyewitnessing in accounts of the First Crusade. TheGesta Fran- corum and other contemporary narratives’, 3 (2004) 77-99 J. Rubenstein, ‘Putting history to use. Three crusades chronicles in context’, Viator 35 (2004) 131-68 R.J. Macrides, ‘Constantinople. The crusaders’ gaze’, in R.J. Macrides (ed.), Travel in the Byzantine world. Papers from the thirty-fourth spring sym- posium of Byzantine studies, Birmingham, April 2000, Aldershot UK, 2002, 193-212 C.T. Maier, ‘Konflikt und Kommunikation. Neues zum Kreuzzugsaufruf Urbans II’, in D. Bauer, K. Herbers and N. Jaspert (eds), Jerusalem im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter. Konflikte und Konfliktbewältigung.Vorstel- lungen und Vergegenwärtigungen, Frankfurt, 2001, 13-30