William of Tudela's biography
William of Tudela in Canso de la Crozada (1210)
"William is a clerk in holy orders and was educated at Tudela in Navarre. From there he went to Montauban where he remained eleven years, but in the twelfth year he went away because he could foresee the tragedy which lay ahead. He had long studied geomancy and was skilled in this art, so that he knew that fire and devastation would lay the whole region waste, that the rich citizens would lose all the wealth they had stored up, and the knights would flee, sad and defeated, into exile in other lands, all because of the insane belief held in that country. For this reason, as you have heard, he left Montauban and went to join Count Baldwin -- may Jesus guard and guide him! -- at Bruniquel, where the count was delighted to welcome him." -- Laisse 1
"Baldwin later had William appointed, unopposed, to a canonry at Bourg St Antonin, which he had garrisoned. Master Tecin and Geoffrey of Poitiers both did all they could to help Master William in this matter.
And then William composed and wrote this book. Once he began it, he thought of nothing else till it was done and indeed scarcely gave himself time for sleep." -- Laisse 1
"My lords, listen to my song, for now the pace quickens. Master William began it in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1210 in the month of May when the trees put forth their leaves, while he was living in Montauban." -- Laisse 9
Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)
"Guillaume de Tudela came from a very different background [from Pierre des Vaux de Cernay]. A Spanish clerk in minor orders, he began the Chanson in Occitan in 1210 and stopped writing in late 1213. The Chanson therefore covers only the early years of the crusade, from its inception in 1208 to the eve of the battle of Muret in 1213.Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)
...
Guillaume of Tudela was also in Languedoc during many of the events which he described; he had left Spain by 1204 at the latest and was living in Montauban in 1211 and later at Bruniquel." (p.18)
"During the early years of the Occitan War, William of Tudela served in the household of Baldwin of Toulouse, half-brother of Raimon VI yet one of the most important allies of the crusade. This means that, like Peter, William either witnessed many of the things he wrote about or knew those who did, and he served a noble who became a member of the inner circle of the crusade. William's portion breaks off abruptly in 1213, suggesting that he died but that it was compiled soon after the events it covers." (p.25)William of Tudela's bias
Jacques Maudale in The Albigensian Crusade (1967)
"... author of the first part of the Chanson de la Croisade and favourable to the Crusaders though a Southerner." (p. 67)Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)
"William of Tudela, the first author, supported the papacy and the northern French and their allies, although with some qualms now and then at particular acts of cruelty." (p.1)
"William is emphatically a loyal Catholic who deplores la fola erransa of the heretics and thinks it an unfortunate necessity, indeed their own fault, if they are slaughtered." (p.2)
Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)
"... pro-crusader in approach, but with an awareness of the suffering of the victims of the crusade as well." (p. 7)
Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)
"Guillaume de Tudela's loyalties lay with Baldwin, the younger brother of the Count of Toulouse." (p. 122)
"Guillaume de Tudela ... has been viewed as writing from an entirely different perspective [from Pierre des Vaux de Cernay]. Although it is clear that he was never a supporter of heresy, the fact that the Chanson was written in Occitan, coupled with the author's obvious connections to the family of St Gilles, have given the impression that Guillaume was presenting the Languedoc version of the crusade. ... Guillaume was certainly never afraid to criticise the actions of the crusaders when he felt it appropriate, showing his disgust at the sack of Beziers in 1209, for example, in no uncertain terms: 'I believe that such savage butchery has neither been planned nor carried out since the time of the Saracens.'" (p. 19)Graham-Leigh goes on to contrast Pierre Les Vaux De Cernay's description of Raimon VI's visit to Pope Innocent III in 1209 with William of Tudela's description, and she concludes:
"Neither of these accounts should be taken literally. ... Innocent is ... unlikely to have received the count as an honoured guest in the way that Guillaume relates. To be shown the Veronica, let alone be allowed to touch it, was a signal honour and one not usually allowed to excommunicate suspected supporters of heretics and murderes of papal legates. Evidently, both authors described Raimond VI's reception at Rome according to their own prejudices." (p. 20)
"Guillaume de Tudela's audience ... might have been expected to have approved of Raimond's attempts to obtain absolution from his excommunication and be received back into the Church. ... For Guillaume it was entirely appropriate that the Count of Toulouse should be well received at Rome and this was the only possible way in which Raimond's reception by the Pope could be described if Guillaume was to be able to continue to show the Pope in a good light.
The unanimity of Pierre and Guillaume in their attitude to the Pope is hidden by the requirements of their different audiences, so that both writers portrayed the Pope as their audiences would have liked him to have been. This agreement in the underlying portrayal, if not in the surface details, of the Pope who called the crusade indicates a more general similarity in attitude between these two writers who are often regarded as completely opposed, and casts doubt on Guillaume de Tudela's status as an anti-crusade commentator." (p.22)
"Guillaume's apparent identification with both the crusaders and the Count of Toulouse has led to the description of the Chanson as a work containing inherent contradictions and to the charge that Guillaume would change his support according to the victories of either side. The assessment of Guillaume as a writer who was essentially confused by conflicting loyalties towards both the Count of Toulouse and the crusaders is somewhat unfair, the result of the persistent assumption that Guillaume's work is in some way representative of the Languedoc side in the Albigensian crusade. In fact, the contradictory nature of the Chanson has been overstated; Guillaume's support for the crusade may have been more whole-hearted than has often been thought." (p.23)
"Guillaume's connection with the family of the counts of Toulouse, apparent throughout the poem, was not so much with Count Raimond VI, the opponent of the crusade, but with his younger brother Baldwin. ... Guillaume had the highest opinion of Bladwin, describing him as 'more valiant than Roland or Oliver', and his identification with the Count of Toulouse was plainly for Baldwin's sake. When the brothers were at odds, Guillaume did not fail to take Baldwin's side, arguing that 'Baldwin would never have wanted to make violent war on Raimond, if the latter had not so very wrongly had his castle of Bruniquel sacked.' Guillaume's identification with Baldwin was unproblematic as far as his support for the crusade was concerned, since by the time Guillaume was writing Baldwin had changed sides and surrendered Bruniquel to Simon de Montfort. The only contradictions in his account originated from the split between Baldwin and his brother the Count of Toulouse. In 1213, Raimond VI was to have his brother executed for his support for the crusade and it is possible to suppose that, had Guillaume been writing after this date, he would have taken a far harsher attitude towards the count." (p. 23)
"Guillaume de Tudela's work cannot be regarded as anything other than as pro-crusade and, while it was not written from within the crusade establishment, its approach differs less from that of Pierre des Vaux than has been supposed. Guillaume de Tudela did not speak for all Languedoc, only for that part of it which, like Baldwin, actively supported the crusade." (p. 24)Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)
"Although supportive of the crusade, he was no crude panegyrist. Baudoin de Toulouse was his sometime patron ... and the loyalties of this lord partially shaped his outlook. Nevertheless, there was much moral and metaphoric ambiguity in his attitude to the crusaders. He was always trying to sing his way through events that seemed dictated by a providence too brutal to be completely benign." (p. xxii)
"Guilhem was like all those Provencal nobles who signed themselves with the cross; he believed in the rightness of the crusade and yet the massacres unnerved and disturbed him." (p. 130)
Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)
"William has traditionally been viewed as a loyal Christian but also a southerner who did not always approve of the way the crusade was conducted. Actually, his background as a southerner but role as a cleric make William perhaps the least biased of any of the major chroniclers. He often provides detail that Peter Vaux-de-Cernay does not, such as his recounting of the branch of the crusade which attacked Casseneuil in 1209. In other cases he corroborates what Peter says, thus increasing our confidence in the way certain events probably took place." (p.25)William of Tudela's style
William of Tudela in Canso de la Crozada (1210)
"The book is well made and full of good writing. Listen to it all of you, great and small, and you will learn both wisdom and eloquence, for the man who wrote it is brimming over with both." -- Laisse 1Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)
"... William was a good competent writer .... William can tell a good story and is careful to leave us in no doubt that he was a well educated literary man ('Never in the host of Menelaus from whom Paris stole Helena were so many tents set up on the plains below Mycenae...')" (p.2)Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)
"The chanson de geste was a particularly pro-crusade medium and the choice of this model, unusual for a work in Occitan, by Guillaume de Tudela can be regarded as an indication of where he considered himself to stand. In his introduction, he stated that his work was composed on the model of the Chanson d'Antioch, a poem which was part of the cycle celebrating the First Crusade, and this statement was undoubtedly intended as a signal to the audience of the stance taken by the Chanson towards the Albigensian crusade." (p. 24)
William of Tudela's reliability
Zoe Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur (1959)
"He describes the scene [of the sack of Beziers] in such detail that he must have taken it from an eyewitness" (p. 113)(but then on p. 115 states that what William of Tudela describes next "is somewhat hard to credit")
Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)
"William of Tudela used eye-witness testimony when he could, and quoted his sources .... He also points out that he could have made his song much better if he had been able to ride with and get to know the crusaders .... William's chronology lacks detail, but the only inaccuracies scholars have found is that he transposes the dates of the fall of Terms and the council at St Gilles (laisse 58) and exaggerates the duration of the siege of Termes. He also locates at Arles a council which is porbably but not certainly the same as one that took place at Montpellier (laisse 59). All the other events he describes are correct, in so far as they can be checked form other sources. This means that we can trust him when he mentions events not recorded elsewhere, such as the crusade from Quercy and the Agenais (laisses 13 and 14), and the attempt made by Peter II of Aragon to achieve a settlement during the siege of Carcassonne (laisses 26-32)." (pp. 4-5)
Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)
"Both authors [He and Pierre des Vaux de Cernay] were keen to present their accounts as founded on reliable information and personal experience. ... Guillaume de Tudela was also careful to present himself as a reliable informant by admitting various instances when he was not able to speak from personal experience, as for example his comment in his description of Raimond Roger, Viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne that he had only met him once.
The credentials of both Pierre des Vaux and Guillaume de Tudela mean that their accounts can be regarded as generally well-informed and together they provide a large part of the information available on the Albigensian Crusade." (p. 18)Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)
"He often provides detail that Peter Vaux-de-Cernay does not, such as his recounting of the branch of the crusade which attacked Casseneuil in 1209. In other cases he corroborates what Peter says, thus increasing our confidence in the way certain events probably took place." (p.25)William of Tudela's patrons
William of Tudela in Canso de la Crozada (1210)
"Indeed, if he [Master William] had had the luck of many a foolish minstrel or wretched knave, he would not now be suffering for want of some good, honest man who would give him a horse or a Breton palfry to carry him pacing across the plain, or clothes of silk, precious embroideries or rich brocades! But daily we see the world turning to perdition, and wealthy men who ought to be virtuous are evil and refuse to give away so much as a button. For my part, I don't ask them for the value of the filthiest bit of ash lying on their hearths, and may God who made the heavens and the firmament confound them all, God and his blessed Mother!" -- Laisse 9
Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)
"Baudoin de Toulouse was his sometime patron (he gave him a canonry at Bourg Saint-Antonin in 1211 or 1212), and the loyalties of this lord partially shaped his outlook." (p. xxii)
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