Latin Literature and Frankish Culture in the Crusader States (1098–1187) The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Yolles, Julian Jay Theodore. 2015. Latin Literature and Frankish Culture in the Crusader States (1098–1187). Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467480 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Latin literature and Frankish culture in the Crusader States (1098–1187) A dissertation presented by Julian Jay Theodore Yolles to The Department of the Classics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Medieval Latin Philology Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2015 © 2015 Julian Jay Theodore Yolles All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Jan Ziolkowski Julian Jay Theodore Yolles Latin literature and Frankish culture in the Crusader States (1098–1187) Abstract The so-called Crusader States established by European settlers in the Levant at the end of the eleventh century gave rise to a variety of Latin literary works, including historiography, sermons, pilgrim guides, monastic literature, and poetry. The first part of this study (Chapter 1) critically reevaluates the Latin literary texts and combines the evidence, including unpublished materials, to chart the development of genres over the course of the twelfth century. The second half of the study (Chapters 2–4) subjects this evidence to a cultural-rhetorical analysis, and asks how Latin literary works, as products by and for a cultural elite, appropriated preexisting materials and developed strategies of their own to construct a Frankish cultural identity of the Levant. Proceeding on three thematically different, but closely interrelated, lines of inquiry, it is argued that authors in the Latin East made cultural claims by drawing on the classical tradition, on the Bible, and on ideas of a Carolingian golden age. Chapter 2 demonstrates that Latin historians drew upon classical traditions to fit the Latin East within established frameworks of history and geography, in which the figures Vespasian and Titus are particularly prevalent. Chapter 3 traces the development of the conception of the Franks in the East as a “People of God” and the use of biblical texts to support this claim, especially the Books of the Maccabees. Chapter 4 explores the extent to which authors drew on the legend of Charlemagne as a bridge between East and West. Although the appearance of similar motifs signals a degree of cultural unity among the authors writing in the Latin East, there is an abundant variety in the way they are utilized, inasmuch as they are dynamic rhetorical strategies open to adaptation to differing exigencies. iii New monastic and ecclesiastical institutions produced Latin writings that demonstrate an urge to establish political and religious authority. While these struggles for power resemble to some extent those between secular and ecclesiastical authorities and institutions in Western Europe, the literary topoi the authors draw upon are specific to their new locale, and represent the creation of a new cultural-literary tradition. iv Table of contents Part I: Latin literature from the Crusader States Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Latin literature from the Crusader States: a survey .................................................................... 9 1. Rationale for the organization of this survey .................................................................. 9 2. Historiography .............................................................................................................. 11 3. Poetry ............................................................................................................................ 89 4. Pilgrim guides ............................................................................................................. 129 5. Sermons....................................................................................................................... 138 6. Monastic literature ...................................................................................................... 149 7. Non-literary Latin texts ............................................................................................... 162 8. Coda: Latin orientalism and writings of problematic provenance .............................. 165 Part II: Latin literature and Frankish culture in the East Introduction: The problem of cultural identity in the Latin East ................................................ 171 2. Classical antiquity and the Latin East ..................................................................................... 181 1. Introduction: medieval Latin literature and the classics ............................................. 181 2. A survey of classical literature in the Latin East ........................................................ 184 3. Excursus I: Stephen of Antioch and the copying of rhetorical texts ........................... 189 4. Modernity vs. antiquity in the Latin East.................................................................... 191 5. Excursus II: Monuments of antiquity in the Levant ................................................... 196 6. Mapping classical myth onto the Holy Land .............................................................. 200 7. Excursus III: classical heroism in Ralph of Caen ....................................................... 209 8. Roman history in the Latin East.................................................................................. 212 9. The crusade of Titus and Vespasian ........................................................................... 220 10. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 230 3. The Bible and the Latin East ................................................................................................... 233 1. Langue chrétienne? Medieval Latin as a Christian language ..................................... 233 2. Cultural memory in the Holy Land: biblical imagery as a form of cultural expression ......................................................................................................................................... 236 3. The crusaders: Populus Dei? ...................................................................................... 237 4. The First Crusade as Exodus....................................................................................... 247 5. Excursus I: Lamentations of the Fall of Jerusalem ..................................................... 254 6. The kingdom of David: Biblical kings in Frankish Jerusalem ................................... 256 v 7. Excursus II: Gideon’s paradox in William of Tyre .................................................... 267 8. “New Maccabees” in the Latin East ........................................................................... 269 9. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 294 4. In the footsteps of Charlemagne? Latin authors between East and West ............................... 299 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 299 2. Charlemagne in the Latin East .................................................................................... 303 3. Excursus I: An Antiochene song of Roland ................................................................ 318 4. Contesting Frankish identity ....................................................................................... 321 5. Marvels in the East: Between Paradise and the court of al-ʿĀḍid .............................. 331 6. Excursus II: Arabic philosophy and Latin intellectual authority ................................ 343 7. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 348 5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 350 Appendix: list of manuscripts cited ............................................................................................ 360 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 367 vi Acknowledgements Over the course of writing this dissertation, I have benefited from the intellectual and emotional support of innumerable friends, relatives, and colleagues, only a few of whom I will be able to mention here. Firstly, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the warm intellectual community of the Classics Department at the University of Amsterdam, where I learned the value of thorough philological investigation. Likewise, the Department of the Classics at Harvard University has proven to be supportive, stimulating, and remarkably generous. My advisor at Utrecht University, Babette Hellemans,