The Crusade Lyrics: Old Provencal, Old French and Middle High German, 1100-1280.

Abstract

This dissertation treats the crusade lyrics composed in Old Provencal, Old French, and Middle High German during the period of the crusades. The genre is traced from its origins in the pilgrim songs of the early twelfth century through its flourishing at the end of that century until the disintegration and demise of the officially sanctioned crusade movement in about 1280. The dissertation consists of three sections, the first of which treats the "Aufrufslieder," songs composed to exhort participation in the crusade. It is demonstrated that these songs are poetic representations of crusade doctrine as developed and preached by the Church. In the second section, the use of the love element in crusade lyrics is discussed. This theme most often expresses the conflict between the service of God and the attachment to a lady, and allows the poets to explore their ambivalence toward the crusades. In earlier poems the conflict is usually resolved in favor of participation in the crusade, but later the disillusionment stemming from the crusades' repeated failure is expressed in the love songs and develops into the realistic and ironic lyrics of the thirteenth century, discussed in the final section. The realism of these songs is diametrically opposed to the idealism of the abstract, propag and istic songs of the early crusades. After more than a century, crusade doctrine had become so firmly established in all thinking about the crusades that the later poets launched their protests by using that doctrine to conclude, ironically, that God Himself must be bringing about the crusaders' defeats. Once the doctrine which had promised victory to the crusaders had been rendered untenable, the crusade lyric could not continue to develop. Though the crusades were the subject of lyrics after this date, none of these later, retrospective poems are discussed. A new definition of the crusade lyric is proposed: a poem which has the crusade as its subject and the tenets of crusade doctrine as its conceptual framework. This definition unifies the corpus by including the love lyrics and the anti-crusade protests as well as the songs of exhortation, as divergent views on the same matter. Not every extant crusade lyric is discussed, nor are the melodies which have survived for many of the poems considered.