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Robert of Reims, also known as Robert the Monk, was one of the Benedictine
brethren at the monastery of St-Rémi in Reims. He was the author
of an influential history of the First Crusade. Robert's narrative, which
Christopher Tyerman judges 'heavily Francocentric' was based on the Gesta
Francorum, and seems to have been the most widely read of the various
accounts of the crusade that circulated in the decades following the capture
of Jerusalem. The section most often quoted from Robert's account is the
rendition of the speech of Urban II at Clermont, which officially set
the expedition in motion.
Few biographical details are known concerning Robert. Tyerman calls him
a 'failed abbot and popular historian', writing some time before 1108.
In his preamble to his history, Robert stated that Bernard, his abbot,
had called him to set down his account of the campaign. Bernard had obtained
a history of the crusade, which was deemed unsatisfactory on various levels.
This manuscript was evidently the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum,
an Latin account written in around 1101 by an unnamed crusader close to
Bohemond of Taranto. It seems Robert's superior considered the Gesta Francorum
to be flawed in its composition and incomplete in its scope, failing,
for example, to fully cover the Council of Clermont, which (from an ecclesiastical
perspective) was a defining moment. Robert stated that he was personally
present at the famous council.
Robert considered the capture of the Jerusalem to be the most marvellous
happening since the resurrection of Christ. Part of his purpose in writing
seems to have been to show the significance of the Council of Clermont
as the launch pad for the venture. He began his account with the council.
He did not mention how Jerusalem was lost to the Muslims in the first
place, but reported Pope Urban's stories of Turkish outrages- their slaughtering
and torturing Eastern Christians and (what seemed even more offensive
against the sensibilities of the day) profaning altars. Robert's account
of Urban's speech is the most inflammatory of the versions that survive,
and may be a distortion. However it is easy to imagine how these wild
allegations of Turkish crimes instilled in the audience a sense of collective
injury as Christians and a desire for vengeance.
Robert had Urban appealing to the pride of the Frankish warrior caste,
portraying them as a new chosen people, and praising their glory in arms
and greatness of spirit. He also had the Pope painting an enticing picture
of the Holy Land, full of riches, flowing with milk and honey, and ripe
for the taking. Another part of Robert's account of the address concentrates
on the allure of Jerusalem, the Holy City. Jerusalem is personified almost
as a damsel in distress, who 'begs and craves to be fee, and prays endlessly
for you to come to her aid'. The message thus appealed to the audience
on a number of levels- to their vengefulness, piety, vanity, covetousness,
chivalrous impulses and sense of racial manifest destiny. No wonder, as
Robert reported, they were moved to shouts of 'God wills it!'
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