Table Of ContentCMYK
PMS 0mm 156+5mm
K
e
m
p
Robert the Monk’s history of the First Crusade (1095–99), f
a
which was probably completed c. 1110, was in the nature of a
n
medieval ‘bestseller’, proving by far the most popular narrative of d
the crusade events; the number of surviving manuscript copies far B
u
exceeds those of the many other accounts of the crusade written
l
l
in the early decades of the twelfth century, when literary retellings
(
e
of the crusaders’ exploits were much in vogue.
d
s
)
This volume presents the first critical edition to be published
since the 1860s, grounded in a close study of the more than 80
manuscripts of the text that survive in libraries and archives across
Europe. In their detailed introduction the editors explore the
R
vexed problem of the author’s identity, as well as the date of the
T The Historia
text, its manuscript transmission, and the reasons for its success, O
h 2
3
for example among monasteries belonging to the Cistercian order e 4
B H Iherosolimitana of +
in southern Germany. 6
E m
i
s m
R t
Damien Kempf is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University o
r
of Liverpool. T ia ROBERT
T I
h
Marcus Bull is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of H e
r
Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of North o
E s
o
Carolina, Chapel Hill. l THE
Mim
i
t
O a
M
n ONK
N a
o
K f
Edited by
D. Kempf and M. G. Bull
an imprint of BOYDELL & BREWER Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and
668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US)
www.boydellandbrewer.com
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:50:35 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
the historia iherosolimitana
of robert the monk
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:50:35 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 1 15/02/2013 12:17:09
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 5129, fol. 2v.
By permission of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:50:35 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 2 15/02/2013 12:17:10
The Historia Iherosolimitana
of Robert the Monk
Edited by
. . .
d kempf and m g bull
THE BOYDELL PRESS
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:50:35 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 3 15/02/2013 12:17:10
Editorial matter © D. Kempf and M.G. Bull 2013
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
The right of D. Kempf and M.G. Bull to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published 2013
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978 1 84383 808 1
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mount Hope Ave, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate
Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products
made from wood grown in sustainable forests
Typeset by Word and Page, Chester, UK
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:50:35 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 4 15/02/2013 12:17:11
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations viii
Introduction ix
The Historia Iherosolimitana of Robert the Monk ix
Authorship and Date xvii
Manuscript Transmission xlii
Previous Editions xlvii
The Base Manuscript and Editorial Principles l
List of Manuscripts lxv
Historia Iherosolimitana 1
Apologeticus sermo 3
Prologus 4
Book I 5
Book II 13
Book III 22
Book IV 35
Book V 47
Book VI 56
Book VII 67
Book VIII 83
Book IX 96
Select Bibliography of Secondary Works 1 1 1
Index 1 17
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:52:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 5 15/02/2013 12:17:11
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:52:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 6 15/02/2013 12:17:11
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The editors would like to offer their thanks and appreciation to the
Arts and Humanities Research Council, whose generous award
of a research grant brought into being the project, based at the
University of Bristol, that has led to this volume. They also wish to
thank the staffs of the many libraries and archives who facilitated
access to manuscripts of the Historia Iherosolimitana as well as
providing microfilm and digital copies. Dr Steven Biddlecombe,
formerly the doctoral student attached to the AHRC project, was a
valued third member of the project team. Dr Brendan Smith, who
assumed formal responsibility for the project in its final stages when
the principal investigator left the University of Bristol, has done
outstanding service, probably much more than he anticipated, as
a facilitator. Our warm thanks also go to Caroline Palmer and the
staff of Boydell and Brewer.
vii
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:53:05 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 7 15/02/2013 12:17:11
ABBREVIATIONS
GC Gallia Christiana in Provincias Ecclesi-
asticas Distributa, ed. D. Sammarthanus,
P. Piolin and B. Hauréau, 16 vols (Paris,
1739–1877)
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
PL Patrologiae cursus completus, series
Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris,
1844–64)
RHC Recueil des historiens des croisades, ed
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-
Lettres, 16 vols in 17 (Paris, 1841–1906)
RHC Occ. Recueil des historiens des croisades:
historiens occidentaux, 5 vols (Paris,
1844–95)
viii
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:54:27 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 8 15/02/2013 12:17:11
INTRODUCTION
The Historia Iherosolimitana of Robert the Monk
The First Crusade (1095–99) was the stimulus for a remarkable
burst of historical writing in the early decades of the twelfth century,
beginning with the so-called ‘eyewitness’ accounts by participants
and extending to numerous second-generation treatments that drew
upon the eyewitness narratives, each other, and the memories of
veterans of the crusade.1 Perhaps the closest pre-modern analogue
to this thematically tightly focused body of historical writing is the
corpus of works that chronicled the campaigns of Alexander the Great
in the 330s and 320s bc.2 There is also the fundamental difference,
however, that the contemporary or near-contemporary Alexander
narratives are now lost, and our knowledge of them must derive from
very late and incomplete reworkings, whereas we can be reasonably
confident that the greater part of the Latin narrative corpus generated
by the First Crusade survives, if not always in versions that fully
preserve their original forms. This survival rate permits us to make
comparative judgements not only about the genesis of each text,
its sources and influences, but also about its reception and impact.
The history of the crusade now known as the Historia Ihero-
solimitana was, by some margin, the most successful of these
1 For a useful survey of the narrative sources for the First Crusade, see R. Hiestand, ‘Il
cronista medievale e il suo pubblico: alcuni osservazioni in margine alla storiografia
delle crociate’, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Napoli,
n.s. 25 (1984–5), 207–27. See also S. B. Edgington, ‘The First Crusade: Reviewing the
Evidence’, in The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. J. P. Phillips (Manchester,
1997), pp. 55–77; J. Flori, Chroniqueurs et propagandistes: Introduction critique aux
sources de la Première croisade (Hautes études médiévales et modernes, 98; Geneva,
2010). For helpful remarks on the nature of eyewitness testimony in First Crusade
narratives, see Y. N. Harari, ‘Eyewitnessing in Accounts of the First Crusade: The
Gesta Francorum and Other Contemporary Narratives’, Crusades, 3 (2004), 77–99;
E. Lapina, ‘“Nec signis nec testibus creditur . . .”: The Problem of Eyewitnesses in
the Chronicles of the First Crusade’, Viator, 38 (2007), 117–39.
2 See L. I. C. Pearson, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great (New York, 1960); N. G.
L. Hammond, Three Historians of Alexander the Great: The So-Called Vulgate Authors,
Diodorus, Justin, and Curtius (Cambridge, 1983); idem, Sources for Alexander the Great:
An Analysis of Plutarch’s Life and Arrian’s Anabasis Alexandrou (Cambridge, 1993).
ix
This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:55:36 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
HI-prelims-vsn05.indd 9 15/02/2013 12:17:11
