Giles Constable

The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries

The years between 1146 and 1148 were signalized in the annals and chronicles of Medieval Europe by Christian campaigns on all fronts against the surrounding pagans and Moslems. The most important of these was directed towards the Holy Land, against the Moslems, who had recently seized Edessa. It consisted of no less than five expeditions. The two largest armies, commanded by the Emperor Conrad III and King Louis VII of France, followed the same route overland across the Balkans to Constantinople; both met with crushing defeats in Asia Minor and finally reached the Holy Land, as best they could, by land and sea. A third force, under Amadeus III of Savoy, moved down Italy, crossed from Brindisi to Durazzo, and joined the army of Louis at Constantinople late in 1147. In August of the same year a naval expedition led by Alfonso of Toulouse left the South of France and arrived in Palestine probably in the spring of 1148. At the same time, a joint Anglo-Flemish naval force sailed along the north coast of Europe, assisted the King of Portugal in the capture of Lisbon, proceeded around the peninsula early in 1148, attacked Faro, and presumably reached the Holy Land later that year. Meanwhile, in the northeast, four armies co-operated in a campaign against the pagan Wends across the river Elbe: a Danish army joined the Saxons under Henry the Lion and Archbishop Adalbero of Bremen in an attack on Dubin; another, larger, army led by Albert the Bear of Brandenburg and many other temporal and spiritual lords advanced against Demmin and Stettin; a fourth expedition, finally, under a brother of the Duke of Poland attacked from the southeast. In 1148, on the south shore of the Mediterranean, a powerful fleet under George of Antioch extended the control of Roger II of Sicily over the entire littoral from Tripoli to Tunis. In the West, four campaigns were directed against the crumbling power of the Almoravides. The Genoese in 1146 sacked Minorca and besieged Almeria. During the following year, the Emperor Alfonso VII of Castile advanced south through Andalusia and captured Almeria with the aid of a strong Genoese fleet, which in 1148 sailed north and joined the Count of Barcelona in his campaign against Tortosa. In the previous year, Alfonso Henriques of Portugal had captured Santarem and secured the assistance of the Anglo-Flemish fleet for an attack on Lisbon, which fell late in 1147.

Libellus de diversis ordinibus et professionibus qui sunt in aecclesia

Introduction Libellus de Diversis Ordinibus et Professionibus qui Sunt in Aecclesia Indexes

Medieval Latin Metaphors

This article studies the concept and use of metaphors in medieval Latin literature. After a brief discussion of the theory of metaphors, which were regarded, following Cicero, as transfers of words from one meaning to another and were called translationes and transumptiones, the article studies how metaphors were used in practice, both as multiple metaphors by the same author and single metaphors used by many authors. It concentrates on metaphors drawn from biology, life and death, eating and drinking, insects, water and the sun, and military activities, but there are also brief discussions of metaphors drawn from other fields. They were used in various ways but always involve two elements, based either on similarity or opposition, and they throw light on many aspects of medieval thought.

The Book of St. Gilbert

The Book of St Gilbert was written by a canon of the Order of Sempringham and is presented here in its first, full, critical edition. It contains all the documents of the canonization process of St Gilbert and his life, including a dossier of letters concerning a major crisis of his rule, the revolt of the lay brothers; a detailed account of the canonization process; and two collections of his miracles. The book is especially revealing of the procedures of canonization at a crucial stage in its formation and provides a central body of material for the history of the Order in its first sixty years.

Aelred of Rievaulx and the Nun of Watton: an Episode in the Early History of the Gilbertine order

Although the story of the nun of Watton by Aelred of Rievaulx was published by Twysden in the seventeenth century and reprinted by Migne, it has never been studied in detail for the light it throws on religious life and attitudes in the twelfth century and on the history of the order founded by St Gilbert of Sempringham. This neglect has been the result less of ignorance than of the nature of episode, which was described as ‘disgraceful and fanatical’ by Dixon, ‘distressing’ by Eckenstein and by Graham, ‘painful’ by Powicke, ‘strange’ by Knowles, ‘of almost casual brutality’ by Nicholl, and as ‘curious’ and ‘unsavoury’ by Aelred Squire.

Three treatises from Bec on the nature of monastic life

Preface AbbreviationsIntroduction Tractatus de professionibus monachorum The Professions of MonksDe professionibus abbatum The Professions of AbbotsDe libertate Beccensis monasterii On the Liberty of the Monastery of BecIndex of Citations General Index

The Papal Bulls for the Chapter of St. Antonin in Rouergue in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

The ancient abbey of St. Antonin in Rouergue was located in the valley of the Aveyron, from which came the name Nobilis Vallis, or Noble Val, by which the site has been known since at least the thirteenth century.1 During the thousand years or more from its reputed foundation in the eighth century until its dissolution at the time of the French Revolution, the abbey went through two major crises. The first, with which this article is largely concerned, was its transfer in the late eleventh century from a house of monks into a chapter of regular canons. The second was during the Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, when the town of Saint-Antonin was a center of the Protestant reform move-

Metaphors for Religious Life in the Middle Ages

L’article etudie en particulier les metaphores de la vie monastique (avec trois metaphores supplementaires dans la conclusion) presentees par Honorius Augustodunensis dans son bref traite intitule Sur la vie claustrale. A celles-ci s’ajoutent des metaphores sur la croissance des plantes, leur refroidissement et leur rechauffement, ainsi que sur les combats et activites guerrieres, qui etaient aussi couramment appliquees a la vie religieuse au Moyen Âge.

Monastic Tithes: From Their Origins to the Twelfth Century.

Part I. Tithes in the Early Middle Ages 1. The Christian theory of tithes 2. The early practice of tithing 3. Carolingian legislation on tithes Part II. Monastic possession of tithes: 4. From the seventh to the eleventh century 5. The policy of the reformed papacy 6. Monastic possession of tithes in the twelfth century 7. Opposition to monastic possession of tithes 8. The defence of monastic possession of tithes 9. The end of the opposition Part III. Monastic Payment of tithes: 10. Monastic payment of tithes before the twelfth century 11. The growth of monastic freedom from tithes in the first half of the twelfth century 12. The crisis of monastic freedom from tithes.