Crusade song

List of Occitan crusading songs#

The following list is only of those songs defined as “Kreuzlied” in Lewent, “Das altprovenzalische Kreuzlied” (Berlin: 1905). Lewent only lists the Crusade songs that have a call to crusade. For a more complete list, see the new database by Paterson.

List of French crusading songs#

The following table is adapted from Smith, Age of Joinville, p. 17, who cites Les chansons de croisade, eds J. Bédier and P. Aubry (Paris, 1909), p. xxxv.

German crusade songs#

The following Minnesänger are known to have composed crusade songs: *Walther von der Vogelweide: Palästinalied, Elegy *Tannhäuser: Kreuzlied *Friedrich von Hausen *Albrecht von Johansdorf *Heinrich von Rugge *Hartmann von Aue *Freidank: Akkonsprüche *Neidhart

Castilian crusade songs#

Only one vernacular crusade song is known from the Iberian Peninsula. Discovered in the second half of the twentieth century, Ay, Jherusalem! is a planto or lament in Castilian. It is recruitment propaganda probably connected either with the First Council of Lyon in 1245 or the Second Council of Lyon in 1274. The anonymous poet laments the plight of the Christians and the cruelty of the Muslims. In form, it consists of stanzas of five lines (two dodecasyllables and three hexasyllables) with the last line always ending in the refrain (estribillo) “Iherusalem”.

Bibliography#

• Cammarota, Maria Grazia. “Tannhäuser’s Crusade Song: A Rewriting of Walther’s Elegy?”. In M. Buzzoni and M. Bampi (eds.), The Garden of Crossing Paths: The Manipulation and Rewriting of Medieval Texts. Venice: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina, 2005. pp. 95–118.
• Choin, Victoria. The Poets, the Popes, and the Chroniclers: Comparing Crusade Rhetoric in the Songs of the Troubadours and Trouvéres with Crusade Literature, 1145–1291. Master’s thesis. Arizona State University, 2019.
• Dijkstra, Cathrynke (1995). La chanson de croisade: étude thématique d’un genre hybride. Amsterdam: Schiphouwer en Brinkman.
• Jordan, W. C. (1998). « Amen ! » Cinq fois « Amen ! ». Les chansons de la croisade égyptienne de Saint Louis, une source négligée d’opinion royaliste Médiévales 34: 79–90 .
• Lewent, Kurt (1905). “Das altprovenzalische Kreuzlied.” Romanische Forschungen, 21(2):321–448.
• Paterson, Linda M. (2003). “Lyric allusions to the crusades and the Holy Land.” Colston Symposium.
• Paterson, Linda M. “Occitan Literature and the Holy Land.” The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, edd. Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. .
• Paterson, Linda (2018). Singing the Crusades. French and Occitan Responses to the Crusading Movements, 1137–1336. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
• Routledge, Michael (2001). “Songs”. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, ed. Jonathan Riley-Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
• Smith, Caroline. Crusading in the Age of Joinville. Routledge, 2016.