The task of tracing the direct influence of Innocent III's crusade plan in the sermons of the preachers of the Fifth Crusade is rendered difficult by the nature of the available sources. Alone among the existing collections, the Rommersdorf letter book, which was designed to serve the needs of the abbot of Rommersdorf in his preaching of the crusade, reveals a conscious effort to bring together the letters of Innocent III and the constitution, Ad liberandam, for this purpose.1 On the basis of this source, it is possible to infer the important role that Innocent's ideas played in the formation of crusade sermons. Unfortunately, little direct evidence of the sermons themselves has survived.2 This situation is not unusual, since we possess none of the crusade sermons of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, whose works exercised an enormous influence on subsequent preachers and on Innocent III himself. We know St. Bernard's ideas only from his letters and treatises. Among the preachers of the early thirteenth century, we have no crusade sermons of Fulk of Neuilly, who certainly helped to shape the preaching of James of Vitry, Robert Courçon, and perhaps also Oliver, scholasticus of Cologne.3 It is strange that more such sermons have not been preserved. We can only speculate that their specialized character and the fact that they did not fit into the usual sermon cycles of feasts de temporibus et de sanctis were chiefly responsible for their loss. Thus the Fifth Crusade is not unique in the paucity of sermon material and is, in fact, somewhat better served than other crusades, most notably by the Ordinacio de predicatione S. Crucis, in Anglia attributed to Philip of Oxford; by the sermons of James of Vitry; and by various exempla and notices of sermons preserved in other sources.4
The Ordinacio is not a sermon but a guide for the development of a sermon on the preaching of the cross to the laity. The author says that he has aimed chiefly at lucidity and directness, in keeping with the needs of this audience. Two concepts emerge from this treatise. First, the crusade is an imitation of Christ. This imitatio is made clear in Christ's suffering and death on the cross. Devotion to the cross is central to this approach. Second, the crusade is a vocatio, a vocation. The crusader is raised to a new state, and although the nature of this state is not made explicit, it is exalted above the ordinary life of the laity because it is specially sanctified.5
The emphasis of the Ordinacio is on the Bernardian theme of the crusade as a means of salvation. The liberation of the Holy Land has to some degree receded into the background, to be replaced by the concern of the individual Christian for his soul. The crusade represents the “shortest road” to the imitation of Christ, “so that the death of temporal life may be like a door and entrance of the kingdom of heaven and unfailing life.”6 The crusade is bound closely to the whole salvific mystery. There is a total integration of the human experience of sin and salvation with the crusade: “In the beautiful wood of paradise death was hidden under the mantle of life, so, on the contrary, in the deformed and horrible wood life was hidden under the mantle of death, just as life is concealed, in the case of the crusaders, under the mantle of a labor, which is like death.”7 Salvation is in Jerusalem, the “umbilicus of the earth,” but not merely the city of Jerusalem, but that Jerusalem where “the lamb conquered the roaring lion on the cross”; it is the cross that cleanses “hearts of sins.”8 “Christ on the cross inclines himself to offer the kiss of peace to the sinner, and stretches forth his arms on the cross to embrace him.”9
This portrayal of the crucified Christ as the source of divine mercy and love, drawn from the increasingly popular images of the suffering redeemer, builds upon one of the major devotional strains of the second half of the twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. There can be no question but that the art of the period served as an inspiration to the preacher, since he refers to the single nail that passed through the feet of Christ, a representation that had become popular in northern European art during this period. It is difficult to trace earlier connections between the growth of the devotion to the crucified Christ and the Crusade, but there can be no doubt that such a relationship existed.10 The integration of the idea of human suffering with that of the suffering Christ represented the devotional expression of a renewed theological emphasis on the humanity of Christ, of a Christ made near to mankind, a Christ to be imitated.11 The potential for the imitation of Christ that was at the heart of the movement to restore the vita apostolica was also at the heart of the crusade movement in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The crusade was thereby integrated into the spiritual and devotional life of the church. This process is made even clearer when we note the role of Mary as the mediator between Christ and the sinners at the foot of the cross. The full realm of twelfth-century spirituality had become identified with the crusade movement, perceived as an imitation of Christ. “The Lord on the cross describes for us our whole life that we might imitate him, because every action of Christ is our instruction.”12 There is no direct evidence of borrowing from the ideas of Innocent III in this approach, though the consistency with his views is evident. Perhaps the Ordinacio, as an example of the main currents of crusade ideology in the early thirteenth century, might better be regarded as typical of the sources from which the pope himself drew his inspiration.
The crusade was also integrated into the moral teaching of the church.13 The service of the crucified Christ was not merely military service rendered by knights; in fact, that service was subordinated to the service of Christ that must be rendered through the life of the good Christian. The preacher stresses the need for a previous reformation of life: “Just as water falling on the ground does not return to the vase, so the impenitent sinner does not return to God, from whom he has departed after baptism.”14 Innocent III had made this same point.15 The conversion to penitence of which he spoke was a moral preparation for the crusade. The point was given a legal expression in the careful manner in which this text formulated the crusade indulgence: “And therefore the Lord Pope justly remits for crusaders the punishment for sins and obligates the universal church in their behalf.” The terminology is precise. It is the punishment that is being remitted through the treasury of merit (universalis ecclesia). It continues: “They can be cleansed through their own contrition, confession, labor, through prayer and alms-giving, which are done by all Christians on behalf of the pilgrims to the Holy Land.”16 Thus the whole work of the crusade has been integrated into the penitential system of the church, not as a substitute for, but as a kind of heroic culmination of that system for the laity.
The preacher viewed the crusade in terms of a “vocacio hominum ad crucem.”17 The idea of vocation was rich in connotation.18 God called man to his service. That summons referred particularly to the priestly and religious vocation, but not exclusively so.19 Its application to the crusade carried with it the same sense of the urgency of responding to the call of God to the religious life that we find in St. Bernard.20 This section of the Ordinacio attempts to illustrate the importance of responding to the call of God to accept the cross: “Therefore, do not despair of Christ, but keeping firm to your faith in Christ and your desire of coming to him, rise up by the washing in his blood, which he has shed for us, and follow him on the cross.”21 Innocent III had put it in stronger terms: “those who are not willing to pay him the service that is his due at the time of his greatest need will merit a just sentence of damnation at the last judgment.”22 The preacher chose to emphasize the positive response to the summons. For example, he spoke of James of Avesnes. His companions wished to retreat from battle because their friends were dying all around them, but James said: “I will go forth more willingly and let no man hold me back.”23 The terms are explicit: “The Lord calls you through his apostles and prophets and us preachers so that, by taking up his cross, you may have that [eternal glory] for which you were made.”24 The Lord offers this eternal peace to those who seek it, “provided that contrition and confession precede.” And refusal to respond to the call meets with a similar response to that which Innocent III had forecast: “What will you say on the last day when the Lord asks: ‘Why weren't you willing to follow me, when I commanded you?’ Beware, lest he say to you, ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, I do not know you’ [Matt. 25 : 12] and lest he say to you, ‘Go, ye cursed, into eternal fire.’” (Luke 13 : 25–27)25 Just as Innocent had used the term debita servitudo, the preacher speaks of servus obediens. The idea of vocatio removed the crusade from the realm of the voluntary. Those who have received the summons of the Lord have an obligation to respond to the crusade, or else they will imperil their souls.
If we see in the Ordinacio some similarity to the ideas of Innocent III as expressed in Quia maior, we may well wonder whether such was generally the case with the crusade sermons delivered by the preachers of the Fifth Crusade. Though we possess no sermons of Oliver, the scholasticus of Cologne, he does tell us enough about his preaching to suggest that he followed similar themes.26 More valuable is the evidence from the sermons of James of Vitry, who preached the crusade and then journeyed to the East with the crusaders. Among his numerous sermons are two of particular interest to us, since they are addressed “Ad crucesignatos.” They were not written or delivered during the preaching for the Fifth Crusade, but they confirm in significant ways our analysis of the Ordinacio.
In Soli autem gementes, James asks about those “who hear that the Holy Land is trampled underfoot by the enemies of Christ, and are not moved to sorrow, or do not seem to care?” He speaks in Bernardian terms of the crusade as a test of the loyalty of Christ's vassals. He develops this point in much the same way that Innocent III did in Quia maior, by comparing Christ to a feudal lord. He speaks of crusaders as those “who today he has caused to be summoned to aid him in battle.” But James draws back from the implications of this statement to say that the crusaders were not bound to Christ by the feudal law, but that he offered them such great rewards in the remission of their sins “quantum ad poenam et culpam” and also eternal life, that they ought willingly to run to his aid.27 Thus, in this short piece he managed to dwell on the reward for crusade service while hinting at the vocation of the crusader.
In Precepit nobis Dominus, these ideas are more explicit. This sermon also opens with theme of the cross as the key to salvation. James argues that the crusade stands as an outward sign of the internal acceptance of the cross in the hearts of the crusaders. It thus has the character of a sacramental. Like the Ordinacio, James of Vitry's sermon is closely tied to contemporary devotion to the crucifix, given concrete form in the image of the loving embrace of the crucified Christ. The cross is a moral symbol signifying the rejection of earthly vanities. For crusaders, the salvific action of the cross is dependent on true contrition and confession, and it is on the basis of this conversion that they are considered to be martyrs, “free at the same time from venial and mortal sins, from every penance inflicted on them, absolved from the penalty of sin in this world, from the pain of purgatory in the next, secure from the torments of Hell, crowned with glory and honor in eternal beatitude.”28 Moreover, their wives and relatives share in this benefit to the degree that they share in the financial and other burdens of the crusade. James here provides an explanation for the extension of the crusade indulgence to those who support the crusade, as expressed in the writings of Innocent III and the constitution Ad liberandam. James sees this extension in terms of the meaning of the “plena et integra indulgentia” granted to the crusaders by the pope from the power of the keys. This indulgence is not merited, any more than the laborers in the vineyard merited the reward they received, according to the gospel parable.
James uses an exemplum, the story of the testing of Gobaud, the son of the emperor Charles, to illustrate how those who did not obey the command of the Lord would not receive a reward. Charles asked his son to take and eat part of an apple that he held in his hand, but the young man refused. Then Charles offered the apple to his brothers, Louis and Lothar, and each in turn accepted it. Charles rewarded them with kingdoms, but when Gobaud saw this and changed his mind, the emperor told him that his response had come too late. Clearly, there would be no reward.29 The summons of the Lord was not to be left to the will of those who would either accept or reject it. The urgency of this summons is made clear by James in his citation of the Bernardian theme: “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation.” Finally, James, too, stressed that the crusader is responding to a heavenly vocation through obedience. The idea of the compelling nature of the crusade vocation had thus become a significant feature in the crusade preaching of the early thirteenth century.30
The evidence of the sermons shows that by the early thirteenth century the crusade had been integrated into the spiritual and devotional life of the church along lines strikingly consistent with the movement for the return to the apostolic life. The crusade was recognized as an imitation of Christ. The stress placed upon the necessity for conversion as a prerequisite to participation in the external work of the crusade had come to dominate the sermons. If there were still promises that the Holy Places would be liberated, this liberation was subordinated to the quest for the heavenly Jerusalem. It was this internalization of the crusade movement that gave meaning to the idea of the crusade as a vocation, one that commanded obedience from those summoned in a manner analogous to the priestly and religious vocation. The crusade had become a tool of conversion as well as a pathway to salvation.
The emphasis on vocation and obligation must be read against the background of Innocent's effort to substitute service in the crusade for internal conflict. Vocation has a sacred character; Christ summons the crusader. The rationale that Bernard of Clairvaux had applied to the crusading orders, particularly the Templars, was now extended to the knightly class as a whole, with the aim of transforming society. Implicit in the Innocentian program for the crusade was a vision of Christian society united in fulfillment of the divine plan. The hierocratic significance of that program cannot be ignored. Its achievement under the leadership of the papacy would have led to the submission of all disputes that might have disturbed the internal peace of Europe to ecclesiastical supervision and judgment, while placing the secular leadership at the head of the crusade. But it is apparent that neither Innocent nor the crusade preachers had in mind an appeal aimed only at the knightly class. The conception of a Ritterfrömmigkeit is simply too narrow to encompass the broad streams of lay piety to which they were attempting to appeal.31 As we have seen, Alphandéry's levée en masse was actually a molding of the crusade into an instrument for the reform of all segments of Christian society.32 All would contribute according to their means, and all would share proportionately in the rewards. But we must be careful not to impute more to the Innocentian program for the crusade than the evidence permits. If the potential for a hierocratic interpretation exists, there is no evidence that its application went beyond the immediate needs of the crusade. Whatever conclusions might follow logically from the Innocentian program and its implementation under Honorius III, there is no evidence that either pope was prepared to draw them. Indeed, it was only the existence of broad-based support for the crusade that could explain the appeal of this kind of program in the first place. The evidence of the sermons supports this view. They assume the existence of substantial popular support for the crusade as the means of ensuring that even the reluctant will fulfill their vows. The positive value attached to the crusade enables preachers to develop the idea of vocation, which raises the crusader to the level of a religious, a monk. This notion was further developed in the conception of crusade as an imitation of Christ. These links with both monastic and popular piety were the foundation on which Innocent built his conception of crusade and from which he drew his vision of the relationship between crusade and reform.
What was new in all of this was not so much the ingredients, most of which had been around for a long time, but their integration into a coherent program. Roscher was quite right in perceiving the way in which the crusade took on a new priority under Innocent III.33 The sermons that we have analyzed suggest that Innocent was responding and giving direction to a broadly based view that gave the crusade a more central role in the life of the church than previous popes had envisioned. Innocent III seems to have been particularly sensitive to this potential. In broadening the base of participation beyond that of direct combatants by ensuring that all who supported the crusade movement could share in the indulgence, he had opened the movement to the masses, providing an oudet for their devotion and tying them more closely to the official effort of the church. What was occurring was a forging of bonds between the institutional church and the popular modes of religious expression that had captured the minds and hearts of many in this period. If the conflicts aroused in France during the legation of Robert Courçon show how difficult it was to translate this approach into a practical program, a letter written by Gervase of Prémontré to Innocent III shows that there was a mounting popular response that fully justified the initiative taken by the pope.34 But it is not enough to measure that response in the vague terms possible through an examination of the chronicles and annals of the time. Their concern is entirely with the numbers taking the cross. The success of Robert Courçon, of Oliver Scholasticus of Cologne, of James of Vitry, and of numerous others lay not only in calling forth large numbers to take the cross, but also in the degree to which their message evoked a response in their hearers. Was the message of imitatio, conversion, and vocation accepted and acted upon by those who heard their words? No analysis of the chronicles can provide an adequate answer to this question.
The crusade preachers were mediators between the clerical elite and the laity. As members of the former group, they expressed views that were certainly formed within that group, especially in their understanding of the Innocentian theology of crusade. In the process of communicating these ideas, however, they faced the need to appeal to the understanding and experience of their audience. The traditional vehicle for this translation of abstract concepts into concrete teachings was the exemplum, defined as “an account or story, a fable or parable, a morality or a description, employed to support a doctrinal, religious, or moral explanation.”35 Crusade preachers were masters of the exemplum, and many of these have been preserved in collections such as those of James of Vitry or Caesar of Heisterbach.36 The importance of the exemplum to this study lies not merely in any incidental historical information that we might thereby gain, but from the insight it furnishes into the mentality of the preachers and their understanding of their audience. The exemplum provides one of the few means available for grasping some aspects of popular values. In the absence of sufficient data to test the statements found in our sources about the popular response to the preaching, the exemplum enables us to examine more concretely the basis on which the preachers appealed to their lay audience and to evaluate, although in a limited way, the message they were attempting to communicate. It also gives us a somewhat better idea of the manner in which that message was understood by the audience.
In the early thirteenth century, the crusade had developed deep roots in almost every part of Europe. Despite the impression of an episodic character that the study of successive military campaigns has given us, it had become a permanent aspect of medieval society that was especially manifested in the crusading orders—the Hospitallers, the Templars, and the recently founded Teutonic Order. Heavily composed of members of the knightly class and supported by kings, the feudal aristocracy, and the citizens of the urban communes, the orders’ numbers and wealth provide an important index of the degree to which the crusade had gained an important place within the outlook of the aristocracy. While it is possible that many of those who found their place among the ranks of the crusading orders were younger sons who found service in the crusade more in keeping with their station than membership in the clergy, the bonds thus created served to draw their families more directly into the crusade movement. The founding of the Teutonic Knights in the early 1190s and their rapid expansion under their distinguished grand master, Hermann of Salza, testifies to the increasing popularity of the crusade among German knighthood.37 There is, moreover, considerable evidence in the sources that the preaching of such men as Oliver Scholasticus met with enthusiastic response, even if we allow for some exaggeration.38 Yet some historians have suggested that commitment to the crusade was already waning and that criticism was on the rise.39 What was the real state of affairs? There are certainly prominent examples of crusaders who avoided or postponed their obligation. Is it possible to understand better the reasons for their reluctance? An examination of exempla does shed some light on the efforts of crusade preachers to address these kinds of concerns for their audience.
One of their goals was to establish an image of the ideal crusader. As we have already seen, the Ordinacio described James of Avesnes, who, faced with insurmountable odds in battle against the Saracens, responded to his companions who counselled retreat: “I will advance the more willingly and no man will hold me back.” What makes this story interesting is that James, who fought in the Third Crusade, had a son in the Fourth Crusade. Moreover, a Walter of Avesnes participated in the Fifth Crusade. At least part of this crusade tradition of the Avesnes family could have been known to the audience, reinforcing the image of selfless generosity illustrated in the exemplum. In another story, an unnamed knight was captured by the Moslems and hung on a wall. The Christians were hurling rocks against it to break it down, but they stopped when they saw their comrade suspended there. He called on them to keep up the siege. They did, and the rocks broke the gibbet on which he was hanging and freed him. This exemplum concludes by advising the audience to have trust in Christ.40 Still another recounts the tale of a knight who was wounded four times in battle. The physicians said that his wounds were mortal, but he insisted on returning to battle, saying: “My Lord Jesus Christ suffered five wounds for me; I will return to battle and suffer a fifth for him.”41 While the preacher was clearly evoking the conception of the crusader as an imitator of Christ in these exempla, he was also drawing on his knowledge of those characteristics that were valued by the knightly class itself. The willingness to take risks, to suffer, and even to die were fundamental to knighthood. These incidents illustrate the degree to which the Bernardian view of knighthood in the service of Christ was brought within the popular grasp. They suggest that the ideals enunciated had already gained a considerable acceptance, that they would, in fact, be received with approval by a large segment of their audience.
Other exempla deal specifically with the problem of reluctant crusaders. Caesar of Heisterbach, a Cistercian whose abbey was involved in crusade preaching in the Rhineland and Frisia, has preserved the story of a certain usurer named Godescalcus related to him by his fellow monk Bernard. Godescalcus, a rustic, had assumed the cross but had redeemed his vow with a donation well below what he could afford to pay. He had lied to the one dispensing him about his circumstances. For this reason, the “just Lord, to show how pleasing the labor and expense of the crusaders were” handed him over to Satan. During the night, the devil drew him out of his house and asked him to throw away his cloak, which bore the cross. He did so, and the devil led him through hell to view the punishments of sinners. When Godescalcus returned home, he told his wife about the terrible things he had seen and said that in three days he would die and receive the reward of his perfidy. His wife sent for the priest, who reminded the man that God would forgive him and that he should not despair, but Godescalcus refused to believe him. He died and went to hell.42 Caesar also reports that Oliver Scholasticus had administered the cross to a certain rich and honest knight whose wife was about to bear a child. But at the onset of labor she grew so ill that her life was despaired of. Oliver, after talking with her husband, went to her and said: “If you will agree to my advice and permit your husband to fight for Christ, you will be freed from this imminent danger without pain.” The woman did as Oliver suggested and gave birth “almost without pain.”43 Another story, little more than an allusion, tells how Oliver found that the crusade was being impeded because of the murder of a rich Frisian noble.44 Examples such as these indicate that very human problems, things that touched the personal lives of crusaders, rather than criticism of the crusade, posed the most significant problems for preachers in securing adherence to the crusade vow. This conclusion suggests that, just as political interests hindered the powerful, local and personal concerns dominated the world of the lowly. The papal peace program was, in a sense, a political counterpart to efforts by preachers to resolve the numerous personal problems that hindered the crusade. In neither case can we argue that reluctance to participate in the crusade had its roots in a growing dissatisfaction with the crusade movement.
Preachers were also at pains to demonstrate the spiritual value of the crusade not merely to participants, but also to the Moslems. One of the most famous of the exempla concerned the appearance in the Frisian sky of two crosses during the preaching of Oliver Scholasticus. This sign made so profound an impression on the crowd that many of them took the cross.45 There are numerous stories that relate the divine favor shown to crusaders. One of the more unusual is that of Eberwach, an honest servant of the bishop of Utrecht. Accused by envious colleagues and unable to defend himself against their unjust charges, he entered into a pact with the devil to protect himself. He succeeded but was exposed when Oliver came to Utrecht to preach the crusade. The cross was his undoing, and he died impenitent and went to hell. But God took pity on this man, who for so long had been honest, and offered him another chance. He who had sinned through the cross could make satisfaction through it. He returned to life and took the cross and served his bishop on crusade, providing for all an example of penitence. Returning home to his wife, he “was touched with a sacred fire.” He died, and “even to this day, there is in his body, the heat of fire without pain.”46 Such was the miraculous character of the crusader cross, a benefit that extended also to the Moslems. During the captivity of the bishop-elect of Beauvais after the battle of August 29, 1219, a woman from Cairo approached him with her son, who was ill and near death. She had dreamed that if the bishop baptized him, he would recover. In the morning, she and her relatives brought the boy to the bishop for baptism and he was immediately cured.47 There is in these stories some sense of the expectations of the crusaders. The crusade was translated into terms that directly touched their lives. Its potency was confirmed by divine signs and miracles. Whether cast in terms of fear or hope, their efficacy spoke of widely shared values.
But did these exempla correspond in any way to the real experience of crusaders? At least some of them had a genuine historical context. But the important point is not whether they were historically true, but whether they reflected the perceived reality that was experienced by many of the audience who listened to the preachers. Did they represent shared experiences? Of course, notorious sinners had gone on pilgrimage as penance for their sins for centuries, and likewise on crusade, but what of ordinary people? Did they translate the salvific benefit of the crusade into their own lives? The evidence of this is sparse and not entirely direct, but it would seem so. There is, for example, a charter of Adelaide, countess of Greifenstein, granting freedom to her slave Geltruda and her children.48 The children were named Albert, Berthold, and Geltruda. Adelaide states that she granted this charter, “in part for the love of God and for the remission of her soul and those of her ancestors, and in part for the love of her brothers.” Her brothers were named Albert and Berthold, and in 1221 Berthold went on crusade. In another charter, the parish priest of Pragelato, a certain Stephen, made arrangements with another priest, named Peter, to take responsibility for the parish while he was on crusade. But his chief concern was the care of “a certain young man” for whom he had provided.49 There are no words about penitence in these charters, but the circumstances certainly bear the construction that the time had come for these individuals to straighten out some of their twisted ways and that by going on crusade they were setting forth on a new journey that differed from the one on which they had been travelling.
It is impossible to say how often and how deeply the crusade touched individual Christians in the way in which the preachers intended. What is more certain is that there was a broad acceptance in the early thirteenth century of the importance of the crusade not only as a distant war for the liberation of the Holy Places, but also as part of the salvific work of the church. This view served as the foundation on which Innocent III built his crusade program, particularly that aspect that dealt with recruitment. The theology of the crusade was founded on the belief that the crusade was a fitting instrument for the moral transformation of the individual Christian and of Christian society as a whole. Nowhere was this more definitely spelled out than in the enunciation of the vocation of the crusader, with all its religious and monastic connotations.
The reluctant crusader was the one who did not respond to the vocatio Christi, because he was too immersed in mundane affairs. The preachers aimed their exempla at persons of both sexes and various stations of life, clergy and laity, high and low.50 They defined participation broadly in both spiritual and temporal terms. They assumed the merits of the crusade and merely aimed at making its benefits evident to their audience. There is no indication that they felt the need to defend it against any major opposition, though the emphasis they placed on the theme “Now is the acceptable time” may well have been a response to an effort on the part of some to argue that God would take care of the Moslems and liberate his Holy Places in his own good time. This argument was at least partially tied to currents in contemporary spirituality that stressed an eschatological view of human history. It would probably be a mistake, however, to regard the proponents of this view as opposed to the crusade. Aside from the views expressed by some heretics, there was no real opposition. The reluctant crusader had other, more practical, reasons for avoiding the fulfillment of the crusade vow. It is through a study of recruitment that we can better understand the complex manner in which men became crusaders.
NOTES
1. Kempf, “Rommersdorfer Briefbuch,” 521–23.
2. Schneyer, Geschichte der katholischen Predigt, 172–73; Lecoy de la Marche, La chaire française, 75–76.
3. PL, 182 : 564–68, 921–40; Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and Merchants, 1 : 36.
4. SS, 3–26; for other sources, see notes 28 and 36 below.
5. Paulus, “Werkung,” esp. 731–32.
6. SS, 4.
7. Ibid., 7–8.
8. Ibid., 8.
9. Ibid., 12; but, see Alphandéry, Chrétienté, 2 : 164, where he states that this devotion is not found in Innocent III.
10. Compare, e.g., Peter of Blois, De Hierosolymitana Peregrinatione, PL, 207 : 1058–70.
11. Alphandéry, Chrétienté, 2 : 169.
12. SS, 13.
13. Alphandéry, Chrétienté, 2 : 160, notes the influence of ideas about moral reform on the preaching of Fulk de Neuilly.
14. SS, 18.
15. PL, 216 : 817.
16. SS, 9.
17. Ibid., 18.
18. See L. Sempe, “Vocation,” DTC, 15 : 3148–81; Roscher, Innocenz III, 273–84.
19. LfTK, 2 : 274–75; Paulus, “Werkung,” 731–32.
20. DTC, 15 : 3160–62.
21. SS, 25.
22. PL, 216 : 817.
23. SS, 20; see Ambroise, Crusade of Richard the Lion-Heart, 265–66.
24. SS, 21.
25. PL, 216 : 817.
26. Cf., Oliverus Scholasticus, Schriften: 285–88; Alphandéry, Chrétienté, 2 : 166.
27. Pitra, Analecta, 2 : 421–22; Greven, “Frankreich,” 25–26.
28. Pitra, Analecta, 2 : 426.
29. Ibid., 430.
30. Ibid.
31. Waas, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge; Brundage, “Recent Crusade Historiography,” esp. 499.
32. Alphandéry, Chrétienté, 2 : 152.
33. Roscher, Innocenz III, 142.
34. RHGF, 19 : 604–5. Gervase depicts the enthusiasm of the lesser crusaders. Given the date of this letter, he can only be referring to crusaders who had enlisted as a result of the mission of Robert Courçon.
35. Welter, L'Exemplum, 1; Brémond, LeGoff, and Schmitt, L'Exemplum, 27–38. On the interpretation of exempla, see esp. Ibid., 101.
36. On James of Vitry, see Funk, Jacob von Vitry, 176–84; Frenken, Jacobus de Vitriaco, Exempla Jacob von Vitry; and Jacobus de Vitriaco, Exempla or Illustrative Stories. For Caesar of Heisterbach, see T, 162–79, 344–45.
37. For a discussion of the literature and historiographical developments relating to these questions, see Wojtecki, Studien, 3–4. For social origins of the knights, see ibid., 78–79. For papal and imperial support of the order in this period, there are two interesting manuscripts in the Archivio di Stato della Catena, Palermo: Ms 6, “Tabulario della Chiesa della Magione,” fols. l–38v; and Ms 7, “Privilegi,” fols. 1–26. The charters found there illustrate the high favor that the order enjoyed both from Pope Honorius III and Emperor Frederick II. On the diplomatic role of Hermann von Salza, see H.-B., 1 : 2 : 863.
38. See Caesar of Heisterbach, T, 178.
39. Such is the view of Van Cleve, “Fifth Crusade,” 384; but it is not shared by Mayer, Crusades, 202. See also Throop, Criticism of the Crusade, 29–31; and Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, 2–3.
40. SS, 25. See also Jacobus de Vitriaco, Exempla or Illustrative Stories, 39.
41. SS, 25.
42. T, 162–64.
43. Ibid., 171–72.
44. Ibid., 178.
45. T, 176; Ol. chap. 9; Oliverus Scholasticus, Schriften, 285–86, 287.
46. T, 172–75; see also Jacobus de Vitriaco, Exempla or Illustrative Stories, 55–56.
47. T, 172.
48. Codex Wangianus, 322–33, 143.
49. Le carte della prevostura d'Oulx, 250–51, 242.
50. In addition to those cited, other examples are: a Cistercian conversus (Jacobus de Vitriaco, Exempla or Illustrative Stories, 56), a virgin (T, 164–65), sailors (ibid., 166), and common people (ibid., 169–70).