Speculum
- Speculum / Volume 13 / Issue 04 / October 1938, pp 379-412
- Copyright © The Medieval Academy of America 1938
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2849662 (About DOI), Published online: 21 February 2013
Articles
Criticism of Papal Crusade Policy in Old French and Provençal
Palmer A. Throopa1
a1 The University of Michigan
The repeated failure of the crusade against the Moslem in the Holy Land caused more than despair and disappointment in Europe. It aroused the greatest interest in the causes of the failure, an interest most significantly reflected in Old French and Provençal literature. Why did these costly expeditions preached by Holy Church, approved by God, so often result in the defeat of the Cross and the continued triumph of Islam? Peccatis exigentibus—because of the sins of Christians, the Church responded, and peccatis exigentibus became the classic excuse, the chief theological prop of crusade apologists. It served St Bernard as his principal argument in his explanation of the fiasco of the second crusade—that first profound shock to the faithful of Europe, certain of the triumph of their holy cause. As failure followed failure, the defense did noble duty in vernacular crusade excitatoria, and came to be elaborated windily by thirteenth century clergy.
