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The Use of the Bible in the Arengae of Pope Gregory IX's Crusade Calls

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The Use of the Bible in the Arengae of Pope Gregory IX's Crusade Calls 206 Smith Chapter 9 The Use of the Bible in the Arengae of Pope Gregory IX’s Crusade Calls Thomas W. Smith This chapter presents the first analysis and comparison of the arengae (pre- ambles) from a wide range of papal crusade calls, in order to assess how Pope Gregory IX (1227–41) used biblical imagery to justify and promote crusades in a variety of different theatres and against a number of different targets. During his pontificate, Gregory authorized crusades against heretics in Germany, the Baltic and Bosnia, and against his political enemy, John Asen (whom he accused of harbouring heretics). Gregory launched crusades to recover the Holy Land, to support the Latin Empire, and to defend the West from the Mongol invasion. This chapter argues that, while Gregory carefully tailored his use of the Bible in the arengae of his crusade letters, picking out the most rel- evant and powerful analogies for each of the crusade targets, so as to maximize the chances of winning recruits for the campaigns, there were also a number of common themes that transcended the theatre and target of the crusades. Through these shared references, Gregory linked different crusades together as part of a coherent theology of crusading on diverse fronts. The structure of medieval papal letters was quite formulaic. After the salu- tatio, or greeting clause, many (but not all) medieval papal letters contain an arenga, or preamble section.1 The arenga was a rhetorical and theological section designed to persuade the audience to follow the pope’s orders – which were found in the later dispositio section – by expounding his authority and setting the papal orders in a continuum of biblical history. In essence, it was a miniature sermon on the theme of the letter’s contents. Although both com- mon letters (those on routine ecclesiastical affairs, such as the granting of privileges) and curial letters (those on diplomatic matters) contained arengae, those used for common letters were generic ones copied from papal chancery * I wish to thank the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a Study Abroad Studentship (2013–15), during which this chapter was researched and written. I am grateful to the editors of the pres- ent volume, Elizabeth Lapina and Nicholas Morton, for their comments on this chapter. 1 Thomas Frenz, Papsturkunden des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 2nd edn (Franz Steiner: Stuttgart, 2000), 12. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004341210_011 the Arengae of Pope Gregory IX’s Crusade Calls 207 formularies.2 Curial staff reused these constantly since the efficient expedition of such routine business took precedence over impressing the recipient with the originality of the pope’s theological conception of his office. The arengae of curial letters, on the other hand, were often bespoke products, presumably because their intended rhetorical impact relied on originality.3 The pope and his staff invested a significant amount of time and energy in the composition of these arengae, especially in the case of crusade encyclicals, for which they constructed complex preambles drawing heavily on the author- ity of the Bible in order to motivate the recipients to take the cross. Although there has been a great deal of recent interest in the launch of crusades by Gregory IX, the approach adopted in this chapter has never been attempted before, despite the fact that the impact of arengae was of the utmost impor- tance to the launch of a new crusade.4 Not only did arengae serve to stir the 2 Jane E. Sayers, Papal Government and England during the Pontificate of Honorius III (1216–1227) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 101–22; Thomas W. Smith, “Pope Honorius III and the Holy Land Crusades, 1216–1227: A Study in Responsive Papal Government” (PhD diss., Royal Holloway, University of London, 2013), 208–9. 3 Smith, “Honorius III”, 208–9. 4 For the most recent scholarship on the crusades at the time of Gregory IX, see the following works: Rebecca Rist, “Pope Gregory IX and the Grant of Indulgences for Military Campaigns in Europe in the 1230s: A Study in Papal Rhetoric”, Crusades 10 (2011): 79–102; Rist, The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198–1245 (London: Continuum, 2009); Nikolaos G. Chrissis, “New Frontiers: Frankish Greece and the Development of Crusading in the Early Thirteenth Century”, in Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453: Crusade, Religion and Trade between Latins, Greeks and Turks, ed. Chrissis and Mike Carr (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 17–41; Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece: A Study of Byzantine-Western Relations and Attitudes, 1204–1282 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012); Chrissis, “The City and the Cross: The Image of Constantinople and the Latin Empire in Thirteenth-Century Papal Crusading Rhetoric”, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 36 (2012): 20–37; Chrissis, “A Diversion that never was: Thibaut IV of Champagne, Richard of Cornwall and Pope Gregory IX’s Crusading Plans for Constantinople, 1235–1239”, Crusades 9 (2010): 123–45; Francesco Dall’Aglio, “Crusading in a Nearer East: The Balkan Politics of Honorius III and Gregory IX (1221–1241)”, in La Papauté et les croisades/The Papacy and the Crusades: Actes du VIIe Congrès de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East/Proceedings of the VIIth Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, ed. Michel Balard (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 173–83; Dall’Aglio, “‘Contra perfidum Assanum’: Gregorio IX et il progetto di crociata contra Bosnia e Bulgaria, 1235–1241”, Rivista Storica Italiana 121 (2009): 991–1027; Andrea Piazza, “Paix et hérétiques dans l’Italie communale: les stratégies du langage dans les registres du Pape Grégoire IX”, in Prêcher la paix et discipliner la société: Italie, France, Angleterre (XIIIe–XVe siècle), ed. Rosa Maria Dessì (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 103–22. Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 1147–1254 (Leiden: Brill, 2007) and Michael Lower, The Barons’ Crusade: A Call to Arms and its Consequences (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, .
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