Death on the altar: The rhetoric of 'otherness' in sources from the early period of the crusades

Abstract

The article poses a thesis that the chroniclers of the First Crusade were tapping into a preexisting literary tradition of religious conflict in the process of shaping an image of an enemy. It centres on an analysis of the symbolic significance of the particular description of a priest's death at the hands of the Turks on the altar during the celebration of mass found in several sources describing the massacre of Christians in Civetot during the First Crusade (Gesta Francorum, Tudebode's Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere, Baldric of Dol's Historiae Hierosolymitanae libri IV, Guibert of Nogent's Gesta Dei per Francos, Robert the Monk's Historia Hierosolymitana, and Oderic Vitalis' Historia ecclesiastica). The article argues that the presented description could be considered an example of a rhetorical strategy employed in the crusading accounts, used for the purpose of depicting the enemy as religious and cultural 'other'. Furthermore, the article discusses the intertextuality and the potential influence of ancient and scriptural motifs on the literary workshop of the chroniclers in their versions of the story.