Howard Burton - Apocalypse Then: The First Crusade: A Conversation with Jay Rubenstein

Weve all said it at some time or another, determined to assuage those who have, through momentary anxiety, lost their vital sense of perspective: its not the end of the world.

For many who lived in Western Europe towards the end of the 11th century, however, thats precisely what it was, as apocalyptic fervour was all around and played a seminal role in the development of what became the First Crusade.

Or so says medievalist Jay Rubinstein. His award-winning book, Armies of Heaven, is a detailed analysis of this intriguing thesis, one which is naturally couched in a particular religio-historical context.

The word apocalypse is the Greek word for revelation, so when I say Apocalypse in this sense, Im talking about the last book of the Bible and not just the final conflict in human history, or what have you. The illustrated Apocalypseswhen the artist tried to imagine what a seven-headed dragon with ten horns looks like, or what a lamb covered in eyes looks likeare, to use a slightly risky word, trippy: someone was definitely in an altered mental state when he was imagining these things. Its a very powerful, abstract book where the imagery never quite comes together, but thats what makes it, at the same time, a beautiful work that you can think about constantly.

In the course of the Apocalypse, there are, as you probably know, four horsemen who bring plagues and all sorts of trouble to the Earth; there are seven angels sounding seven trumpets; seven angels breaking seven seals; the seven-headed dragon appears; theres a whore of Babylon; theres a Beast of the Earth; and gradually it becomes a story of conflict between Good and Evil, with all these exotic beasts generally on the side of Satan. In the last battle, a Christ figure appears on a white horse. He imprisons the dragon in the Pits of Hell, he inaugurates a thousand year period of peace on Earth, and then theres one more battle before Heaven comes down from the sky and history is brought to an end.

Trippy indeed; and a rather strong contrast with the decidedly less exalted life of your average inhabitant of late 11th century Europe. For Jay, this is hardly a coincidence.

An essential point to appreciate, he stresses, is that for these soon-to-be crusaders, the end of the world was hardly something to be fearful of, but instead wholeheartedly embraced by all segments of society.

One of the things about introducing apocalyptic language into medieval history is that we have trouble approaching it because we are a post-nuclear generation that has a very clear, scientific explanation for how the apocalypse is going to happen in terms of nuclear war.

Weve got a sense that this can explain what all the images about fire coming from the sky means. And weve also naturally developed a sense, through the idea of nuclear holocaust, that this is a pretty scary thing.

So anytime we think of the apocalypse, we tend to think its necessarily something to inspire fear and terror in the people who are experiencing it. But in the context of the Middle Ages, where they dont have these scientific explanations, its something thats kind of cool, something thats exciting.

For them its not an end of history that they must fear but rather the climax of history, in which they might have the lucky opportunity to participate.

Of course, it might not have been quite that straightforward; and Jay is keenly aware that not everyone is convinced by his apocalyptic arguments. History is hardly an exact science and isolating specific causes for specific events in the Middle Ages is bound to produce a spectrum of different views. Still, the First Crusade was such a remarkably unprecedented change in the behaviour of huge numbers of people that its hardly a stretch to believe that it requires some sort of explanation.

Unsurprisingly, then, previous motivations to explain the Crusade abound in the scholarly literature. They include the thrill of plunder, the lure of spiritual absolution for chronically sinful knights, and the opportunity for cheap land driven by the economical constraints of primogeniture.

While he doesnt deny the existence of these factors, Jay is nonetheless persuaded that most scholars have steadfastly refused to recognize the eschatological elephant in the room.

The overall structure of the Bible is that you begin with Creation and you end with the End of the World. The Bible is the history of everything that has ever happened or ever will happen. Christian thinkers, throughout time, have been intrigued by this and have tried to find clues as to when the world is going to end and what the end of the world will look like.

From a Christian perspective its a dicey proposition, because Christ tells his apostles, Nobody knows the hour or the day, not even the angels. Only the Father knows it. So you cant really speculate on when it will happen.

In that same passage however, Christ says, Here are some things to look for: war, rumour of war, disease, earthquakes, signs in the skythe standard litany of apocalyptic signs, most of which then reappear in the book of Revelation.

He says that when you see these signs, its like seeing fig trees about to sprout: when you see that happen, you know the figs are coming; when you see these signs, you know the End of Time is coming. So on the one hand, dont speculate about the day, but then: here are the signs.

Leaping forward in time, the book of Apocalypse is about a war that is fought for the city of God, which is Jerusalem. The Crusade is a war that is fought for Jerusalem. You cant think about what Revelation is and what the Crusade was and not see the obvious parallel. Its pretty straightforward.

Straightforward enough in retrospect, perhaps, but it took considerable time to reach that conclusion himself. The tipping point came when he started looking closely into the crusading narratives of Guibert of Nogent, an intriguingly original French monk whom he had previously written a biography of.

As I read the chronicle narratives, I started to see a lot of this apocalyptic language. It was striking that Guibert used it. This was my entre into thinking about the question. Guibert, when he wrote about the Crusade, became just ecstatically apocalyptic about what was going on. He wouldnt just say, Look at what we have done, but We are fulfilling Gods plan. And in those same passages he would state how now that theres a Christian king in Jerusalem, can we possibly doubt that one day it will rule the world.