Gesta crucigerorum Rhenanorum

The Gesta crucigerorum Rhenanorum[1] ('Deeds of the Rhineland Crusaders')[2] is an anonymous Latin eyewitness account of the Fifth Crusade written by a cleric from Neuss who travelled with a fleet from the Rhineland.[3][4] It covers the period 1217–1219 and was written shortly after the capture of Damietta. It ends with the return of the Rhenish crusaders and does not describe the disastrous end of the crusade.[3]

The text is divided into seven sections. There is an English translation of the first part covering the siege of Alcácer do Sal.[5] Georg Waitz suggested that the Gesta was written by the same Goswin who wrote the Carmen de expugnatione Salaciae, a poem about the siege of Alcácer.[6] Unlike the Carmen, the Gesta does not report any miracles in connection with the capture of Alcácer.[4] The Gesta is especially valuable for its report that at the time of the decision to attack Alcácer in the summer of 1217, it was known among the crusaders that King Frederick II of Germany would not be departing on crusade that year.[3][7]

The Gesta was used as a source by Caesarius of Heisterbach and was incorporated with some modifications into the third continuation of the Chronica regia Coloniensis.[4] There are two manuscript copies of the Gesta:

Notes
  1. According to Geschichtsquellen 2022, this title was bestowed on the text by Röhricht 1879.
  2. Lay 2009, p. 221.
  3. Bird, Peters & Powell 2013, p. 154.
  4. Wilson 2021, pp. 118–119.
  5. In Bird, Peters & Powell 2013, pp. 154–158, based on the Latin edition of Röhricht 1879, pp. 29–34. The full text in Röhricht runs to p. 56.
  6. Geschichtsquellen 2022.
  7. Powell 1986, p. 120 n23.

Bibliography
  • Bird, Jessalynn; Peters, Edward; Powell, James M., eds. (2013). Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • "Gesta Crucigerorum Rhenanorum". Geschichtsquellen des deutschen Mittelalters. Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  • Lay, Stephen (2009). The Reconquest Kings of Portugal: Political and Cultural Reorientation on the Medieval Frontier. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Powell, James M. (1986). Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1221. University of Pennsylvania.
  • Röhricht, Reinhold, ed. (1879). Quinti belli sacri scriptores minores. Geneva.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Wilson, Jonathan, ed. (2021). The Conquest of Santarém and Goswin's Song of the Conquest of Alcácer do Sal: Editions and Translations of De expugnatione Scalabis and Gosuini de expugnatione Salaciae carmen. Routledge.
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