Historical writing (or the manufacture of memory)

The First Crusade (1095-1099) was the key event in the closing years of the eleventh century and provided the impetus for an extraordinary increase in the volume of historical writing. The new texts aimed to explain, document and propagate the providential nature of the holy war proclaimed by Pope Urban II in Clermont on 27 November 1095. The torrent of writing was instigated by the nature of the crusade and its novelty: never before had a holy war been proclaimed by a pope on God’s behalf; never before had fighting for God by Christians been characterized as meritorious. The idea of crusade became a key element of Christianity, transforming its development and shaping the course of history for Western Europe. Yet, the First Crusade was neither defined by its instigator nor institutionalized. Its evolving ideology appears rather to have been a spontaneous response of endeavour to meet contemporary enthusiasm for and interest in the events and concerns of the armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The emergent writing by eyewitnesses and historians contributed to the formation of crusader ideology and its theological justification. The process of manufacturing the memory of crusade was well underway even before the triumphant entry of the crusaders into Jerusalem in 1099.