A Letter from the First Crusade: The Conquest of Jerusalem, 1099

I'd like to share with you today a letter from the First Crusade. This is a letter that went out from the Archbishop of Reims to the Bishop of Arras. Essentially, this is a letter announcing the conquest of Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond IV of Toulouse at the end of the First Crusade. This is the sort of communication that would have been very common right after this great triumph. All over Western Europe, people were talking about how the Crusaders had just taken Jerusalem. So I'd like to share this with you. This is Manassas II, Archbishop of Reims to Lambert, Bishop of Arras. Manassas, by grace of God, Archbishop of Reims to Lambert, his brother, Bishop of Arras. Greeting in Jesus Christ. Be it known to you, dearest brother, that a true and joyful rumor has recently come to our ears, which we believe to have come down not from human knowledge, but from the divine majesty. To wit, Jerusalem stands on high with joy and gladness, which it has so gloriously received from God in our times. Jerusalem, the city of our redemption and glory, delights with inconceivable joy, because through the effort and incomparable might of the sons of God, it has been liberated from most cruel pagan servitude. And let us also be joyful, whose Christian faith in such times as these has been placed in a mirror of eternal clarity. We, therefore, admonished, summoned, and compelled, not only through the letters of Lord Pope Pascal, but also through the most humble prayers of Duke Godfrey, whom the army of Christ, by divine direction, elected as king, as well as by the mellifluous entreaties of Lord Arnold, whom they have chosen unanimously as patriarch of the Sea of Jerusalem. We command, with equal affection, that you have every one of your parish churches, without fail, pray with fasts and almsgiving, that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords crown the King of the Christians with victory against the enemy, and the patriarch with religion and wisdom against the sects and deceptions of heretics. We command, likewise, and admonish, through your obedience, that you constrain by threat all who vowed to go on the expedition and took the sign of the cross upon themselves to set out for Jerusalem, if they are vigorous of body and have the means to accomplish the journey. As for the others, however, do not cease skillfully and most devoutly to admonish them not to neglect aiding the people of God, so that not only the first, but likewise the last, may receive the shilling which is promised to those laboring in the vineyard. Farewell. So a couple of interesting things about this letter. Notice how this archbishop, he's telling the bishop of Arras, who's under him, that he needs to make everybody who took the cross but didn't go to go ahead and go now. And he also says, and also try to get more people to take the cross. So that's interesting. After the taking of Jerusalem, there wasn't this feeling of, oh, well, everything's done now. There was a feeling that we need to bring help to this small army of Christians who are still in Jerusalem under the authority of Godfrey Bouillon. And he even says in there, oh God, you know, grant Duke Godfrey, well, actually he says he's called him the king, grant him victory over the heathens. Now, that's interesting too, you know. So he's talking about there is still going to be fighting in the Holy Land. Godfrey is still a military commander who's going to be engaged in warfare with the local Muslims, although Jerusalem has been secured. And of course, we know at this point, the kingdom of Jerusalem was very much, it was barely a state at all. It was just Jerusalem and a couple of coastal cities and a few other sites that had not really been unified by the taking of the full country. And yeah, he calls him king, which is interesting. Of course, we know Godfrey Bouillon did not take the title of king. He took the title of advocate of the Holy Sepulchre. But there probably was still a fairly widespread idea in certain areas that he was the king of Jerusalem at this point. And I like too where the archbishop talks about how this happened. He says it happened through the incomparable might of the sons of God. Very interesting. He's talking about, of course, the crusaders. But yeah, it's just an interesting way of describing them, the sons of God. There really was this sense among Latin Christianity that they were God's people, almost like an emulation of the Old Testament's idea of the Israelites as the chosen people. They were God's society here on earth. For 11th century Christians, there was a very strong idea of political Christianity, Christendom as this society representative of God on earth. And of course, also, he talks about how this is the work of God. God is spreading this news. It's interesting. He says it's a rumor at first that he heard that Jerusalem had fallen, and then he's recently had it confirmed. That's kind of the way news traveled in the medieval world. You know, you'd hear sort of some chatter at first. Eventually, you'd get some solid confirmation of that. And he says here that he thinks God himself is spreading this word. Really interesting letter. This is from a book called The First Crusade, The Chronicle of Fulcare of Chartres and Other Source Materials, edited by Edward Peters. It's a great little collection of primary source accounts of the First Crusade. I recommend you pick it up. So again, thanks for listening to this. My name is J. Stephen Roberts. 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