Lauren Russo
Summary:
In Count Stephen of Blois’ Letter to His Wife, Stephen recounts events that happened in the siege of Antioch with much embellishment. The letter is romantic and quite wordy through its retelling of how the army came to recapture Cappadocia, Assam, and then Antioch from the Turks.
Analysis:
From the handful of recordings of Urban’s speech at Clermont, it’s easy to tell that the Church wanted to make crusaders think as though they were doing a great act of God in fighting for and taking back these lands. Count Stephen’s letter reflects a much similar atmosphere and perspective. The letter holds a constant voice of nobleness and holiness for Stephen’s actions. He speaks in a way to make himself and his expedition look better in the eyes of people back home starting with his introduction about how the chosen army of Christ has already won much honor for him as well as how he claims to be the “leader, chief and director of their whole expedition” despite how he’s not (Rosenwein 294).
Pretty much every sentence of the letter has some sort of descriptive tag referring to the will or aid of God or the soldiers being the soldiers of Christ, it’s a lot of religious language whose primary purpose is to bolster the morale of the people back at home and give better justification to their cause. Stephen rarely mentions anything negative on their side of the battle, nor anything positive to the Turks side of the battle. For example, "... fought under the fiercest courage, under the leadership of Christ." Stephen states here that their battle is being fought bravely by Christ’s lead against the “wicked” or “perfidious” Turks (Rosenwein 294).
In this portion of the letter, Stephen brings up one of the more tempting aspects of the crusades that Urban promised to all participants:
Summary:
In Count Stephen of Blois’ Letter to His Wife, Stephen recounts events that happened in the siege of Antioch with much embellishment. The letter is romantic and quite wordy through its retelling of how the army came to recapture Cappadocia, Assam, and then Antioch from the Turks.
Analysis:
From the handful of recordings of Urban’s speech at Clermont, it’s easy to tell that the Church wanted to make crusaders think as though they were doing a great act of God in fighting for and taking back these lands. Count Stephen’s letter reflects a much similar atmosphere and perspective. The letter holds a constant voice of nobleness and holiness for Stephen’s actions. He speaks in a way to make himself and his expedition look better in the eyes of people back home starting with his introduction about how the chosen army of Christ has already won much honor for him as well as how he claims to be the “leader, chief and director of their whole expedition” despite how he’s not (Rosenwein 294).
Pretty much every sentence of the letter has some sort of descriptive tag referring to the will or aid of God or the soldiers being the soldiers of Christ, it’s a lot of religious language whose primary purpose is to bolster the morale of the people back at home and give better justification to their cause. Stephen rarely mentions anything negative on their side of the battle, nor anything positive to the Turks side of the battle. For example, "... fought under the fiercest courage, under the leadership of Christ." Stephen states here that their battle is being fought bravely by Christ’s lead against the “wicked” or “perfidious” Turks (Rosenwein 294).
In this portion of the letter, Stephen brings up one of the more tempting aspects of the crusades that Urban promised to all participants:
- "And in all these seven battles, by the aid of the Lord God, we conquered and most assuredly killed an innumerable host of them. In those battles, indeed, and in very many attacks made upon the city, many of our brethren and followers were killed and their souls were borne to the joys of paradise." (Rosenwein 294)