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Between Text and Reality Between Text and Reality The usages of Jerusalem in the Carmina Burana and their connection to perceptions upon contemporary practices Virginia Brendel 10399666 30-06-2017 Thesis Research Master History Guy Geltner Table of contents List of abbreviations 1 Introduction 2 Historiography 3 The Carmina Burana 8 Method and Structure 11 1. Jerusalem in crusading poems 13 On those who have been signed with the cross 16 Saladin's reconquest of Jerusalem 19 Connections between the heavenly and the earthly city 24 2. Textual metaphors? 30 Babylon 30 Zion 33 The End of Time 36 Other references to Jerusalem 41 3. Living closer to God 43 Crusades 44 Church reform 48 Development of cities, urbanization 51 Apocalypse 55 Conclusion 58 Bibliography 62 Sources 62 Secondary works 63 List of abbreviations CB FKB Carmina Burana, Latin translation by Carl Fischer, Middle High German translation by Hugo Kuhn and critical notes by Günter Bernt (Zürich and Munich 1974). CBM Carmina Burana, translated by Tariq Marshall, critical edition, 3rd edition (Los Angeles 2013). CBV Carmina Burana, translated by Benedikt Konrad Vollmann, critical edition (Frankfurt am Main 1987). KJ21 21st Century King James Version of the Bible. 1 Introduction The Carmina Burana is one of the most extraordinary manuscripts from the Middle Ages. This thirteenth-century codex contains a collection of over two-hundred songs, ranging from subjects like love and money to corruption within the Church and crusading. As Peter Godman points out, a lot of research has already been done on this codex.1 However, many aspects still remain untouched, one of which is the ways in which Jerusalem is being imagined within the Carmina Burana: How was it described? In which ways was the place being invoked? This is particularly interesting because Jerusalem has such an important place within Christianity. It is the city where several important moments in the life of Christ took place, amongst which the Last Supper, his crucifixion and his resurrection. Every year a stream of pilgrims would come to see his grave, and it still continues to this day. However, most people never undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and one can therefore wonder how important Jerusalem was outside the Church. The destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009 by al-Hākim was only noted by two contemporary chroniclers, Rofuldus Glaber and Ademar of Chabannes.2 However, ninety years later a large group of armored pilgrims conquered the city, freeing it from the hands of the Saracens, marking the end of what would later be called the First Crusade. Jerusalem, it seems, had undergone a change in the way it was perceived. In fact, Jerusalem never even had a set definition as it could mean more than just the city. For example, it could stand for the Church and the human soul.3 As Suzanne Yeager notes, Jerusalem was 'like a palimpsest ready for inscription'.4 Every individual author could therefore mold it for his own uses. The meaning derived through this sculpting may in turn tell us something about the author and how he understood his world. This leads to the central question of this thesis: What can the different usages of Jerusalem in the Carmina Burana tell us about the ways contemporaries perceived their world? The Carmina Burana contains a whole range of songs with direct or indirect references to the Holy City. The fact that these songs are not liturgical, come from different 1 Peter Godman, 'Rethinking the Carmina Burana (I): The Medieval Context and Modern Reception of the Codex Buranus', Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 45:2 (2015) 245-266. 2 John France, 'The Destruction of Jerusalem and the First Crusade', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47:1 (1996) 1-17, there 3. 3 Bianca Kühnel, From the Earthly to the Heavenly Jerusalem. Representations of the Holy City in Christian Art of the First Millennium (Freiburg 1987) 72. 4 Suzanne Yeager, Jerusalem in Medieval Narrative (Cambridge 2008) 1. 2 places within Western Europe and have been composed for different purposes during the eleventh until the beginning of the thirteenth century, makes them very suitable for gaining some new insights on the diverse usages of Jerusalem within texts. Songs, like other medieval texts, offer us a glimpse into the medieval world. They tell us about love, drinking, gambling, but also about celebrations or sad events. Not only can it give us a better understanding of social practices, but also how at least the author thought about it. The poems in the Carmina Burana too tell us something about the contemporary world. Therefore, rather than only focusing on how Jerusalem figures within these texts, I will explore what these poems are about and how Jerusalem then is featured to convey a message not necessarily centered on the Holy City. In what ways was Jerusalem mentioned and why? What can it tell us about the importance of the real city and how do contemporary events have influence on the diverse usage of Jerusalem as a topos? I will also look at different approaches amongst historians towards the significance of the city and touch upon the discussions about the crusades and the Apocalypse. Historiography If we take a look at the research that has already been done on the ways Jerusalem was imagined in Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages by for example the clergy and pilgrims, we can distinguish a few notable things. First, most attention for this subject seems to come from art historians. For instance, Bianca Kühnel's From the Earthly to the Heavenly Jerusalem sets out to give an overview of the representations of Jerusalem within Christian art.5 Here she looks mainly at the distinction between Jerusalem as an earthly city and as a heavenly one, which St. Augustine introduced in De Civitate Dei. The former is the city which we can all visit and where the Biblical events have taken place. The latter symbolizes the perfect city made by God which will descend from heaven at the End of Time.6 According to Kühnel these two cities were so important that contemporary Jerusalem was almost completely ignored by the church fathers.7 Even within the Carmina Burana the Biblical and exegetical city take precedence over the contemporary one. There also seems to be less emphasis on the architectural aspects of the city, than in the art Kühnel has observed. 5 Kühnel, From the Earthly to the Heavenly Jerusalem. 6 Ibidem, 55-59. 7 Ibidem, 78. 3 Of the more recent studies a significant part still focuses on the visual aspects of the imagined Jerusalem, as two edited volumes published in 2012 show: Jerusalem as Narrative Space. Erzählraum Jerusalem and Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West.8 While the former also has a few articles about Jerusalem within text, the latter solely concerns visual sources. By focusing on textual sources my thesis will thus form a contribution to the research on the imagined Jerusalem. One article in these volumes by Kühnel is worth noting. Here she recalls the fact that there were several places in Europe where representations of Jerusalem have been built. These places would have the function of 'bridges to the loca sancta' of Jerusalem.9 People could visit Jerusalem in their minds without physically going there by visiting one of these places. Jerusalem could therefore also be experienced elsewhere. The development of spiritual pilgrimages to replicas of Jerusalem or the Holy Sepulchre is also mentioned by Guy Stroumsa. He connects this with other phenomena: the Crusades and the advent of Passion Plays.10 In his view the Crusades had spurred a renewed interest in the earthly city which led to an increased construction of churches made to resemble the Holy Sepulchre. These churches could become spiritual replacements for the real one in Jerusalem. According to Strousma this development together with the fact that Passion Plays began to be enacted in churches throughout Western Europe, led to an increase in spiritual pilgrimage. Believers could see and imagine the Passion of Christ even when they were not in Jerusalem. Especially after the Fall of Jerusalem in 1187 this caused the earthly Jerusalem to become less important, while the image of the heavenly one would become prominent, says Stroumsa.11 Jerusalem, in a manner of speaking, could be everywhere. Even a monastery could be seen as a 'Jerusalem in anticipation', as Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) said of his abbey.12 Cities also could be imagined as being Jerusalem, like in the cases of Rome, Aachen, Paris, Orléans, Pepuza and Tymion.13 London too has been described by William Fitz Stephen in ways which remind us of heavenly Jerusalem.14 This significant shift 8 Annette Hoffmann and Gerhard Wolf ed., Jerusalem as Narrative Space. Erzählraum Jerusalem (Leiden 2012); Lucy Donkin and Hanna Vorholt ed., Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West (New York 2012). 9 Bianca Kühnel, 'Jerusalem between Narrative and Iconic' in: Annette Hoffmann and Gerhard Wolf ed., Jerusalem as Narrative Space. Erzählraum Jerusalem (Leiden 2012) 105-123, there 122. 10 Guy Stroumsa, 'Mystical Jerusalems' in: Lee Levine ed., Jerusalem. It's Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity and Islam (New York 1999) 349-370. 11 Stroumsa, 'Mystical Jerusalems', 351, 352, 357 and 364. 12 Ibidem, 361; Kühnel, From the Earthly to the Heavenly Jerusalem, 135. 13 Stroumsa, 'Mystical Jerusalems', 352-353; Kühnel, From the Earthly to the Heavenly Jerusalem, 116-118; Alexei Lidov, 'A Byzantine Jerusalem' in: Annette Hoffmann and Gerhard Wolf, Jerusalem as Narrative Space. Erzählraum Jerusalem (Leiden 2012) 63-103, there 82. 14 Britt Rothauser, '”A reuer … brighter ƥen bo ƥ e the sunne and mone”: The Use of Water in the Medieval Considereation of Urban Space' in: Albrecht Classen ed., Urban Space in the Middle Ages and the Early 4 can perhaps also be traced in the Carmina Burana where one song, CB 52, may provide a connection between Solignac, its monastery and Jerusalem.
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