Over the last several generations, crusade historians have turned their attention to various areas: the reexamination and reevaluation of surviving textual sources (crusade letters, narratives, songs, liturgies, and sermons); the histories of emotions and of gender; the effects of crusading on European culture and devotion (including the production of artwork and veneration of relics); and partly under the influence of the turn toward global history, broadening the definition of crusading to include not only campaigns to the Holy Land (1095-1291) but those waged against pagans, heretics, and political enemies and the application of crusading imagery to later phenomena, including civil wars and imperialism. As Lapina makes clear in her introduction, her monograph participates in and contributes to many of these fields of research. She begins by asserting that for centuries, “crusading was a constant throughout Europe,” reflected not only in participation and commemoration but in programs of murals intended for a “wide swath of the population” (2). She argues that from the First Crusade onwards, apocalyptic violence became “normative,” and earlier conflicts “acquired...characteristics of crusades that they never actually had” (3) such that violence became acceptable, even laudable. Yet doubts remained; Lapina is careful to include one series of murals that deliberately queries the sacralization of warfare.
Unlike previous studies of crusader art that investigated material objects produced in the Holy Land, Lapina focuses on texts, sculptural works, and wall paintings produced in western Europe (4). Succeeding chapters explore specific programs of mural paintings surviving in regions that contributed heavily to the practices of crusading: England, Normandy, Aquitaine, Provence, and Burgundy; many of these featured military saints such as Saint George or literary heroes associated with crusading such as Charlemagne or King Arthur (6, 17-20). For the author, these visual testimonies reflect a very localized perspective of crusading, situating it “in the continuum of sacred history” and an “apocalyptic future” (5). Unfortunately, the surviving visual and textual evidence also demonstrates “a trend toward an acceptance and celebration of increasingly varied types of violence” (6) and the dehumanization of enemies (7).
Echoing recent debates regarding what made sermons “crusading” or “crusade-related,” Chapter One sorts examples of visual culture “with crusade-related matter” into three distinct categories: definitely crusade-related (that is depicting crusades or crusaders); probably crusade-related (alluding to or commenting on crusading by comparison to other events); and possibly crusade-related (images depicting Muslims, the cross, and generic battle scenes) (8-9). Some of the images designated as definitely crusade-related are well-known to historians of the crusade: illustrated crusading histories, fragments of the crusading window from Saint-Denis, the Chertsey tiles, a bas-relief potentially depicting the death of Simon de Montfort (10), and commemorative statues of crusaders (12). Lapina also outlines criteria for the inclusion of artwork in the “probably crusade-related” category: an unusual treatment of a common subject, patterns of references, textual sources tying the images to a crusading context, and links between the patron and crusading (12-3).
In particular, crusade-related artwork tended to associate Old Testament stories of sacral warfare with contemporary crusading efforts by invoking Old Testament heroes (Gideon, Joshua, the Maccabees), representations of Jerusalem (embodied as a woman or associated with the Temple, the Purification of the Virgin Mary, and Palm Sunday), idol-worship (Muslims and other opponents were portrayed as equivalent to the pagan Canaanites), and apocalyptic motifs and representations of the cross (13-7, 20-23). Most of these depictions have been described as crusading propaganda intended to spur individuals to take the cross or otherwise support or memorialize crusading and to justify the raison d’être of the fighting class (milites), messages often associated with hostile representations of Muslims, Jews, and heretics (24-7). While many visual artifacts associated with crusading have been lost to the ravages of time, Lapina argues that those that survive indicate the crusades were “perhaps the central event” of the high middle ages, and either critique the crusading enterprise (chapter 2) or reassure those invested in crusading of its benefits.
The remaining chapters of the book provide illustrative case-studies. Focusing on the mural paintings at the Cluniac priory of Berzé-la-Ville (Chapter Two), Lapina argues that “the program contains a network of mnemonic associations that not only served to remind viewers of the ongoing wars against Muslims in the East and in Spain,” (29) but attempted to persuade them that becoming a monk was better than becoming a crusader by depicting spiritual warfare alone as “salvific” (42). Written sources note Abbot Hugh’s concern for converting Muslims in Spain, and Lapina stresses that the paintings also demonstrate that he “considered conversion as a Christian goal in the eastern Mediterranean” (39).
In the following chapter on the parish church of Hardham (England), Lapina notes that by depicting the intervention of Saint George on behalf of the First Crusaders, the murals at Hardham make manifest “the place of the First Crusade...in sacred history” (46). These and other mural programs therefore offer valuable evidence that crusading possessed special significance to the vast majority of those not participating in person in a crusading expedition, and that violence could be viewed as not only meritorious but even equivalent to martyrdom (47). Interestingly, Hardham’s various mural cycles encourage viewers to forge meaning between the events of the early life of Christ and those surrounding the Crucifixion, the Fall, the story of the rich man (dives) and Lazarus, and the martyrdom of Saint George. Understanding these paintings requires a painstaking reconstruction of the history of the parish church and potential patrons of and viewers of the paintings in a sacred space which would have served as a hub for local community and rituals that incorporated individuals into the church militant on earth and triumphant in heaven—baptism, Mass, burial (59).
Lapina posits that Saint George may have become important to users of the church shortly after news of the events of the First Crusade reached England (53). The product of consensus-building, the program of multiple murals therefore provides insight into “popular” conceptions of the First Crusade (61). George’s militancy and martyrdom reflect textual comparisons between crusaders and martyrs, while the unusual inclusion of the fall of idols in the painting of the holy family’s flight into Egypt evokes the belief that Muslims were idolaters and deliberate conceptual connections forged between the Roman persecutors of early martyrs and contemporary “Saracens” supposedly slaughtering eastern Christians. A more sustained investigation of the homiletic and liturgical traditions would have confirmed Lapina’s instinct that the Magi were used as figures for crusaders visiting Jerusalem and perhaps have informed the somewhat problematic interpretation of the story of the rich man and Lazarus (69-70). In later surviving sermons, the Magi are used as metaphors for those (including crusaders) who surrender their wealth to Christ and imitate his suffering on the cross. Similarly, the rich man is not typically read as metaphorically representing a Muslim or Jew but as a rebuke of false and avaricious Christians unwilling to give resources to the poor (including impoverished crusaders) who are then tormented for their sins in purgatory or hell, a fate that most seeking the spiritual benefits offered to those participating in crusading were eager to avoid.
In fact, Lapina points to a nearly identical mural program at the parish church of Poncé-sur-le-Loir (chapter 4) as evidence of association between saintly intervention in the battle of Antioch, the stories of the Magi and the rich man and Lazarus, and depictions of the Last Judgement as “(relatively) commonplace in the Anglo-Norman domains” (75). The mural cycles also depict the Massacre of the Innocents, Christ’s Presentation at Temple, the flight into Egypt, and the Fall and its remediation by Christ’s sacrifice (78-9). Lapina carefully contextualizes the church’s visual program within a rich regional tradition of participation in and commemoration of crusading. The Massacre of Innocents could be interpreted as the precursor of crusaders’ deaths and was thematically connected to the martyrs described in Revelation (Apocalypse). However, Lapina notes “the emergence of salvific violence” (87) with the depiction of victoriously militant crusaders and the metaphorical links forged between the military saints who assisted crusading forces at Antioch and the white horseman of the Apocalypse, enabling the situation of crusading within an apocalyptic framework. She posits that the visual program could have served multiple purposes: encouraging the commemoration of regional cults of military saints; serving as propaganda for future crusades; and positioning crusaders and viewers as participants in sacred history (89-90).
Chapters Five and Six take the reader into new territory. The Templars fully participated in chivalric culture and many women often became benefactors of this and other military orders, some even joining as consorores or donats (105-6). With this in mind, Lapina uses the Templar chapel of Cressac to investigate the cross-fertilization of crusading and chivalric cultures, citing the presence of women in the chapel’s murals as evidence of the Templars embracing the chivalric ethos of a knight performing deeds for his chosen lady (92). She follows Christian Davy in identifying the surviving murals, perhaps produced in the 1190s, as depicting not the battle of Homs Gap (1163) but that of Antioch (1098) (94, 97). The rider on horseback may represent Constantine, and the woman, a personification of the Church. However, Lapina also notes that the scene could also be interpreted as a returning crusader and his beloved—after all, songs and epics presented crusading as an opportunity to win salvation as a knight but also stressed the pain of departure from one’s lover (99, 114). Pointing to the fact that Saint George was associated not only with crusading but also with chivalry (including rescuing a princess from a dragon), and that King Arthur and his knights were often retroactively depicted as crusaders and Jerusalem as a woman in need of rescue (100, 109), she posits that the paintings of Cressac recognized and celebrated women’s role in inspiring knights’ prowess (107).
The last chapter of Lapina’s book is exceptional in many respects, in focusing not on a chapel or church but on a series of murals in the “Tour Ferrande” that celebrated the services rendered by Bertrand de Baux to Charles of Anjou during the latter’s conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily as a form of “political” crusading (118). Lapina argues that these murals were commissioned by Bertrand de Baux, probably between 1278 and 1305, to reinforce the Baux family’s prominence by sacralizing violence against ostensibly Christian opponents and contravening those who argued that “political” crusades siphoned men and money away from the Holy Land (118-9, 126-7). Commissioned after the Angevins lost Sicily and critiques abounded that the Italian crusades had been fought against fellow Christians for warped motives and had diverted resources from the Holy Land, causing its collapse in 1291, the murals literally rewrote history. Combining images of the papal coronation of Charles of Anjou and the mythical Guillaume d’Orange combatting a giant with representations of the defeat of Manfred and Corradin at the battles of Benevento (1266) and of Tagliacozzo (1268), the wall-paintings celebrate Bertrand’s participation in these key events and defend Barral de Baux and others who commuted their Holy Land crusade vows to assisting Charles (129, 133). The murals exploit complex networks of meaning (Charles’s coronation was planned for Epiphany to resonate with the divinely-inspired Magi serving Christ), while Charlemagne (Charles the Great) as the supposed ancestor of the likewise named Charles of Anjou was channeled in the Guillaume d’Orange mural, which also represented Charles as Guillaume conquering the “giant” of the Regno (135, 139-41).
This slim monograph makes important contributions to our understanding of the impact of the crusades on the cultures of Europe. It offers an impressive contextualization of paintings meticulously situated in the devotion and culture of particular localities reconstructed through art historiography, charters and other documentary evidence, narrative sources, and vernacular chivalric and crusading literature. Lapina also demonstrates a keen awareness of contemporaries’ deliberate paralleling of crusading with biblical warfare. In many instances, including that of dives and Lazarus outlined above (but also in references to the Magi, Holy Innocents, Palm Sunday, and Presentation at the Temple), this analysis could have been taken further through reference to surviving liturgies, homilies, and exegetical works. However, I suspect that Lapina would rightly point out that this would have resulted in a vastly different book, whereas she wanted to illuminate the depiction of crusading devotion and the ways in which it was interwoven with chivalric culture, conceptions of sacred history and ritual, and community identity in western Europe. Those goals she has accomplished eloquently, making this a fine volume to introduce advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and early career scholars to the rich world of crusading imagery.