Michael Lower
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198744320
- eISBN:
- 9780191805707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198744320.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
In the middle of the thirteenth century, two powerful rulers waged a battle for Syria. King Louis IX of France was one of the greatest kings of the medieval west. Baybars was a former slave who rose ...
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In the middle of the thirteenth century, two powerful rulers waged a battle for Syria. King Louis IX of France was one of the greatest kings of the medieval west. Baybars was a former slave who rose to become sultan of Egypt. Despite their different backgrounds, Louis and Baybars shared a powerful commitment to religious confrontation. For Baybars, the battle for Syria would bring religious legitimation to his fledgling regime and a bulwark against a powerful external threat, the Mongols. For Louis, it offered self‐sanctification and the potential re‐Christianization of sacred space. This chapter explores how each tried to define the looming struggle in absolute terms, as a contest pitting a unified, purified community against a religious other.Less
In the middle of the thirteenth century, two powerful rulers waged a battle for Syria. King Louis IX of France was one of the greatest kings of the medieval west. Baybars was a former slave who rose to become sultan of Egypt. Despite their different backgrounds, Louis and Baybars shared a powerful commitment to religious confrontation. For Baybars, the battle for Syria would bring religious legitimation to his fledgling regime and a bulwark against a powerful external threat, the Mongols. For Louis, it offered self‐sanctification and the potential re‐Christianization of sacred space. This chapter explores how each tried to define the looming struggle in absolute terms, as a contest pitting a unified, purified community against a religious other.
Sean L. Field
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501736193
- eISBN:
- 9781501736209
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501736193.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The prologue to part one explains the rise of Capetian power and rise of Capetian claims to form a saintly bloodline by the time of Philip II’s reign around 1200, and introduces members of the French ...
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The prologue to part one explains the rise of Capetian power and rise of Capetian claims to form a saintly bloodline by the time of Philip II’s reign around 1200, and introduces members of the French royal family in the generation of Louis IX.Less
The prologue to part one explains the rise of Capetian power and rise of Capetian claims to form a saintly bloodline by the time of Philip II’s reign around 1200, and introduces members of the French royal family in the generation of Louis IX.
Michael Lower
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198744320
- eISBN:
- 9780191805707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198744320.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
In July 1269, King Louis IX of France was planning a campaign in Egypt or the Holy Land. One year later, his fleet landed on Sardinia, and in a war council held on July 13 Louis declared Tunis the ...
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In July 1269, King Louis IX of France was planning a campaign in Egypt or the Holy Land. One year later, his fleet landed on Sardinia, and in a war council held on July 13 Louis declared Tunis the target of the crusade. What happened between July 1269 and July 1270 to send the expedition in this unexpected direction is shrouded in secrecy. By expanding the narrative to incorporate Mediterranean‐wide networks of interaction, this chapter identifies several key turning points: the visit of the Dominican linguist Ramon Martí to Tunis in 1269; the attendance of Tunisian envoys at the baptismal ceremony of a French Jew at Saint‐Denis in October; the arrival of a Mongol embassy in Paris toward the end of the year; and the dispatch of an Angevin envoy to Tunis the following April, a month after Louis had lifted the oriflamme at Saint Denis to launch the campaign.Less
In July 1269, King Louis IX of France was planning a campaign in Egypt or the Holy Land. One year later, his fleet landed on Sardinia, and in a war council held on July 13 Louis declared Tunis the target of the crusade. What happened between July 1269 and July 1270 to send the expedition in this unexpected direction is shrouded in secrecy. By expanding the narrative to incorporate Mediterranean‐wide networks of interaction, this chapter identifies several key turning points: the visit of the Dominican linguist Ramon Martí to Tunis in 1269; the attendance of Tunisian envoys at the baptismal ceremony of a French Jew at Saint‐Denis in October; the arrival of a Mongol embassy in Paris toward the end of the year; and the dispatch of an Angevin envoy to Tunis the following April, a month after Louis had lifted the oriflamme at Saint Denis to launch the campaign.
Sean L. Field
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501736193
- eISBN:
- 9781501736209
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501736193.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Courting Sanctity traces the shifting relationship between holy women and the French royal court across the long thirteenth century. It argues that during the reign of Louis IX (r. 1226-70) holy ...
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Courting Sanctity traces the shifting relationship between holy women and the French royal court across the long thirteenth century. It argues that during the reign of Louis IX (r. 1226-70) holy women were central to the rise of the Capetian self-presentation as uniquely favored by God, that such women’s influence was questioned and reshaped under Philip III (r. 1270-85), and that would-be holy women were increasingly assumed to pose physical, spiritual, and political threats by the death of Philip IV (r. 1285-1314). Six holy women lie at the heart of the analysis. The saintly reputations of Isabelle of France and Douceline of Digne helped to crystalize the Capetians’ claims of divine favor by 1260. In the 1270s, the French court faced a crisis that centered on the testimony of Elizabeth of Spalbeek, a visionary holy woman from the Low Countries. After 1300, the arrests of Paupertas of Metz, Margueronne of Bellevillette, and Marguerite Porete formed key links in the chain of attacks launched by Philip IV against supposed spiritual dangers threatening the most Christian kingdom of France.Less
Courting Sanctity traces the shifting relationship between holy women and the French royal court across the long thirteenth century. It argues that during the reign of Louis IX (r. 1226-70) holy women were central to the rise of the Capetian self-presentation as uniquely favored by God, that such women’s influence was questioned and reshaped under Philip III (r. 1270-85), and that would-be holy women were increasingly assumed to pose physical, spiritual, and political threats by the death of Philip IV (r. 1285-1314). Six holy women lie at the heart of the analysis. The saintly reputations of Isabelle of France and Douceline of Digne helped to crystalize the Capetians’ claims of divine favor by 1260. In the 1270s, the French court faced a crisis that centered on the testimony of Elizabeth of Spalbeek, a visionary holy woman from the Low Countries. After 1300, the arrests of Paupertas of Metz, Margueronne of Bellevillette, and Marguerite Porete formed key links in the chain of attacks launched by Philip IV against supposed spiritual dangers threatening the most Christian kingdom of France.
Michael Lower
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198744320
- eISBN:
- 9780191805707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198744320.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
King Louis IX of France departed on the Tunis Crusade in March 1270. The campaign was beset with challenges from the outset. Louis had contracted with the Genoese for an expeditionary fleet, but they ...
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King Louis IX of France departed on the Tunis Crusade in March 1270. The campaign was beset with challenges from the outset. Louis had contracted with the Genoese for an expeditionary fleet, but they were two months late delivering the boats. Bored and drunk crusaders rioted in the streets of Aigues‐Mortes as they waited out the long delay. When the crusade did set sail, it made for Cagliari on Sardinia rather than the Near East. Shocked by their arrival, the Pisan garrison that controlled the city at first refused the crusaders entrance inside its walls. At a council of war held on the king’s warship Montjoie, the decision to divert the crusade to Tunis was announced to a stunned rank and file. A peaceful port city was about to move from the periphery to the center of the history of the crusades.Less
King Louis IX of France departed on the Tunis Crusade in March 1270. The campaign was beset with challenges from the outset. Louis had contracted with the Genoese for an expeditionary fleet, but they were two months late delivering the boats. Bored and drunk crusaders rioted in the streets of Aigues‐Mortes as they waited out the long delay. When the crusade did set sail, it made for Cagliari on Sardinia rather than the Near East. Shocked by their arrival, the Pisan garrison that controlled the city at first refused the crusaders entrance inside its walls. At a council of war held on the king’s warship Montjoie, the decision to divert the crusade to Tunis was announced to a stunned rank and file. A peaceful port city was about to move from the periphery to the center of the history of the crusades.
Michael Lower
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198744320
- eISBN:
- 9780191805707
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198744320.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
Why did the last of the major European campaigns to reclaim Jerusalem wind up attacking Tunis, a peaceful North African port city thousands of miles from the Holy Land? In the first book-length study ...
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Why did the last of the major European campaigns to reclaim Jerusalem wind up attacking Tunis, a peaceful North African port city thousands of miles from the Holy Land? In the first book-length study of the campaign in English, Michael Lower tells the story of how the classic era of crusading came to such an unexpected end. Unfolding against a backdrop of conflict and collaboration that extended from England to Inner Asia, the Tunis Crusade entangled people from every corner of the Mediterranean world. Within this expansive geographical playing field, the ambitions of four powerful Mediterranean dynasts would collide. While the slave-boy-turned-sultan Baybars of Egypt and the saint-king Louis IX of France waged a bitter battle for Syria, al-Mustansir of Tunis and Louis’s younger brother Charles of Anjou struggled for control of the Sicilian Straits. When the conflicts over Syria and Sicily became intertwined in the late 1260s, the Tunis Crusade was the shocking result. While the history of the crusades is often told only from the crusaders’ perspective, in The Tunis Crusade of 1270, Lower brings Arabic and European-language sources together to offer a panoramic view of these complex multilateral conflicts. Standing at the intersection of two established bodies of scholarship—European History and Near Eastern Studies—The Tunis Crusade of 1270, contributes to both by opening up a new conversation about the place of crusading in medieval Mediterranean culture.Less
Why did the last of the major European campaigns to reclaim Jerusalem wind up attacking Tunis, a peaceful North African port city thousands of miles from the Holy Land? In the first book-length study of the campaign in English, Michael Lower tells the story of how the classic era of crusading came to such an unexpected end. Unfolding against a backdrop of conflict and collaboration that extended from England to Inner Asia, the Tunis Crusade entangled people from every corner of the Mediterranean world. Within this expansive geographical playing field, the ambitions of four powerful Mediterranean dynasts would collide. While the slave-boy-turned-sultan Baybars of Egypt and the saint-king Louis IX of France waged a bitter battle for Syria, al-Mustansir of Tunis and Louis’s younger brother Charles of Anjou struggled for control of the Sicilian Straits. When the conflicts over Syria and Sicily became intertwined in the late 1260s, the Tunis Crusade was the shocking result. While the history of the crusades is often told only from the crusaders’ perspective, in The Tunis Crusade of 1270, Lower brings Arabic and European-language sources together to offer a panoramic view of these complex multilateral conflicts. Standing at the intersection of two established bodies of scholarship—European History and Near Eastern Studies—The Tunis Crusade of 1270, contributes to both by opening up a new conversation about the place of crusading in medieval Mediterranean culture.
Michael Lower
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198744320
- eISBN:
- 9780191805707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198744320.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, History of Religion
Scholars have long argued that religious differences, when vigorously maintained and defended, usually led to anxiety and violence in the premodern Mediterranean. This chapter sets out an alternate ...
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Scholars have long argued that religious differences, when vigorously maintained and defended, usually led to anxiety and violence in the premodern Mediterranean. This chapter sets out an alternate history of religious difference, one that explores not only its capacity for provoking conflict but also its potential as a source of stability and cooperation in a pre‐secular age. The Tunis Crusade consolidated existing religious allegiances among Muslims and Christians, but with surprising results. Rather than causing chaos and division, the expedition’s powerful affirmations of difference animated a complex network of Mediterranean political, economic, and religious interactions that thrived into the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.Less
Scholars have long argued that religious differences, when vigorously maintained and defended, usually led to anxiety and violence in the premodern Mediterranean. This chapter sets out an alternate history of religious difference, one that explores not only its capacity for provoking conflict but also its potential as a source of stability and cooperation in a pre‐secular age. The Tunis Crusade consolidated existing religious allegiances among Muslims and Christians, but with surprising results. Rather than causing chaos and division, the expedition’s powerful affirmations of difference animated a complex network of Mediterranean political, economic, and religious interactions that thrived into the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
