H-France Review Vol. 5 (January 2005), No. 2 Daniel H. Weiss and Lisa Mahoney, Eds., France and the Holy Land: Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. xx + 376 pp. Figures, maps, bibliography, notes, index. $44.95 (hb). ISBN 0-8018-1823-3. Review by John Tolan, Université de Nantes. This volume brings together thirteen studies on the art and culture of the Crusader territories of Acre and Cyprus, primarily during the second half of the thirteenth century, and on the culture of crusading in France. The articles are revised versions of papers given at a conference at Johns Hopkins University in March, 2000. The individual contributions, of generally high quality, range over topics as diverse as Anatolian ceramics, Cypriot icons, payment of mercenaries, ribbed vaulting, and composition and illustration of chronicles. It is impossible in a short review to do justice to this rich and varied collection of essays; I will concentrate on a few of the articles. A number of articles deal with the culture of crusading in France. Daniel Weiss makes a convincing case that the lavishly illuminated manuscript known as the Morgan Picture Bible was produced in France under the patronage of King Louis IX and that its painters gave particular emphasis to scenes of warfare and sacrifice; a number of images involve the problem of sacred kingship. Weiss argues that the choice and presentation of these Old Testament scenes show the artists’ (and patron’s) preoccupation with issues related to the crusades, that indeed the goal is to present the crusades as a continuation and culmination of the turbulent history of the struggle of God’s people against his enemies. Stephen Nichols provides a detailed analysis of several poems dealing with crusader themes. He shows how, in Macabru’s A la fontana del vergier, the theme of crusade can be used to undermine the traditional tropes and themes of the canso: in this poem, the narrator encounters a beautiful woman by a fountain in an orchard and expresses his love for her. The woman’s response is uncharacteristic of the genre: she replies that springtime and words of love can bring her no joy, since her amic is away fighting the Saracens in Spain; her only response can be tearful grief and abstinence. The woman’s voice (and Macabru’s poem) provides an inherent reproach against those who put fin’amors ahead of the crusade; the canso undermines the very topoi on which the genre is based. The majority of the articles deal with the art and culture of the Latin East. David Jacoby provides a broad survey of the presence of different ethnic and religious groups in Acre and the impact that these groups (and the interactions between them) may have had on art produced in the city. Among the European residents, there were the Poulains (or local-born Catholics of European descent), different communities of merchants (from Venice, Genova, Pisa, Barcelona . . .), and a continually fluctuating population of pilgrims and crusaders. These different communities competed to produce churches and monasteries in the styles of architecture of their homelands. There were also numerous Eastern Christians (Melkites, Syrian Monophysites, etc.) who had their own places of worship, not to mention Jewish residents and Muslims (principally traders and travelers). They spoke a confusing mix of languages, with French dominant and Arabic and Latin important. The art produced in Acre (and elsewhere in the Latin East, notably Cyprus) bears the marks of this hybridism: while scholars have traditionally tried to pin labels such as “Islamic,” “Greek,” or “Crusader” on objects produced in the region, it seems that artists borrowed techniques and stylistic elements across these ethnic and religious divisions and often produced objects for a diverse public of patrons and buyers. Anthony Cutler shows how objects which we consider “art” (for example, silver bowls or painted icons) exchanged hands between members the various religious and ethnic groups of the region. This exchange took the form of gifts, of booty, and of purchase and sale; this movement of goods, in addition to the mixing of people, could provide models to inspire silversmiths, painters, etc. Here again, Cutler emphasizes, efforts to distinguish what is “Arab”, “Armenian”, “Crusader”, etc., are often misguided. Several other articles in this collection bear out Jacoby’s and Cutler’s general analysis and provide depth to this picture. Scott Redford studies a group of ceramics from Kenet in Eastern Anatolia, showing how local potters produced pieces designed to be sold (primarily through Italian merchants) throughout the region. He pays particular attention to the “small army of saqis” (p. 285) or cup-bearers that adorn numerous drinking cups. While earlier scholars had dubbed them “Islamic” for stylistic reasons, Redford shows that in fact the theme is not common in pottery from the Muslim world. These ceramics, a major item of trade in the region, combine principally local techniques with themes drawn from the realms of astrology, heraldry and ritual. They show how the material culture of the Poulains is indistinguishable from that of eastern Christians. Annemarie Weyl Carr provides another example of how cultural borders (in this case between Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic Christians in fifteenth-century Cyprus) were more permeable than often thought. Whereas many scholars have tended to present icons as an essentially Greek or Oriental phenomenon to which Latins were impervious, Carr shows that in Cyprus this was not so. A number of icons, churches and monasteries firmly within the Greek Church received the devotion and patronage of Latins, notably of the kings and queens of Cyprus. Even when Latins in the East consciously imitated European artistic or architectural styles, the results were often quite different. Robert Ousterhout, through a close comparative study of ribbed vaulting in French and Holy Land architecture of the thirteenth century, shows how in the Holy Land, Gothic architecture was literally superficial, present in the decoration of buildings in Acre and elsewhere, but not in the structure. Whereas in European Gothic buildings, such ribbed vaulting was an integral part of the structure, in Acre it was generally used as an applied visual element: the structure remained heavy and closer to Romanesque, in the style dominant in the region. This suggests that the people who built these structures were more familiar with local construction techniques than with those used in French Gothic. The reader might at times appreciate a bit more rigor and consistency in the ethnic and linguistic labels used. Daniel Weiss, in the introduction and in chapter one, uses “Frankish” and “French” as if they were synonyms. This does indeed translate an ambiguity present in many of the Latin texts: historians tend to translate “Franci” as “Frenchmen” or as “Franks” depending on the context. Yet many of the texts of the time (in Latin, French, Greek, or Arabic) at times find it useful to distinguish the “Franks” (Francs, al-Ifranj, etc.), a term used to designate Latin Europeans in the Levant, from the “French” (Français, al-Faransi, etc.). Weiss does not make such distinctions and one is surprised to find Louis IX presiding over the “Frankish court” (p. 6). In Rebecca Corrie’s article (p. 231), “Frankish” becomes an adjective used to describe the culture of Angevin Italy. Occasional factual errors appear, the most surprising being Anthony Cutler’s attribution (pp. 261-62) of the Treaty of Jaffa (1229) to Louis IX of France, rather than to the Emperor Frederic II. Diversity of training and approach leads to a diversity of opinion among the different authors of these essays. There is nothing wrong, of course, with such diversity, yet at times one has the impression that the authors of the articles did not listen to each other at Johns Hopkins--or at least that they did not take into account the divergent views of other colleagues in preparing the texts of their articles. The most problematic instance of this is the treatment of Hugo Buchtal’s pioneering study, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1957). David Jacoby gives a fairly detailed critique of Buchtal’s work, showing (pp. 115-117), with reference to recent scholarship, that many of the manuscripts to which Buchtal assigned an origin from Acre or the Latin East were in fact most likely produced in Europe. Yet a number of other authors of this book’s essays refer to Buchtal’s work as fundamental, without issuing any reserve: Daniel Weiss (p. 20 n. 1), Bianca Kühnel (p. 163, 181 n. 1). Jaroslav Fulda cites Buchtal as an authority (p. 139-40) and subsequently accepts without qualification his attribution of a manuscript known as the Riccordiana Psalter to Acre (p.143), even though Jacoby had argued at length (p. 116), citing recent scholarship, that the manuscript was produced in Southern Italy. Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, in an interesting article, “Amazons and Crusaders”, concerning the (relative) importance of representation of Amazons in four manuscripts of the French chronicle known as Histoire universelle or Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César, do indeed acknowledge Jacoby’s arguments, but counter that Buchtal’s attribution is “widely accepted” (p. 216 n. 2). Since the identification with Acre is central to the argument of their article, they begin by gingerly asserting that these manuscripts “have been assigned to Acre” (p. 187) and subsequently identify them as “crusader copies” (p. 189). When we reach the final paragraph (p. 215), we find that a key element of their conclusion hinges on this identification: “since the manuscripts were produced in Acre, a destination for military women”, they infer, the patrons of these manuscripts may have been women. But this is a circular argument: Buchtal’s identification is indeed “widely accepted”, as Jacoby himself laments--but only, it seems, among those who choose to ignore recent scholarship. The editors are to be commended for bringing together a collection of high-quality essays that together pose, in new and innovative ways, interesting questions about the material and artistic culture of the Latin East, accenting its hybrid nature due to its interaction with its neighbors. The book should be an important addition to the library of those interested in medieval European and Mediterranean cultural history. LIST OF ESSAYS Part I: Art and Poetry in Crusader Paris Daniel H. Weiss, “The Old Testament Image and the Rise of Crusader Culture in France” Stephen G. Nichols, “Urgent Voices: The Vengeance of Images in Medieval Poetry” Part II: Frankish Presence in the Levant Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The Crown of France and Acre, 1254-1291” Gustav Kühnel, “Heracles and the Crusaders: Tracing the Path of a Royal Motif” Robert Ousterhout, “The French Connection? Construction of Vaults and Cultural Identity in Crusader Architecture” Part III: Acre as a Cultural Center David Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre” Jaroslav Folda, “Before Louis IX: Aspects of Cruader Acre at St. Jean d’Acre, 1191-1244” Part IV: The Uses of Secular History Biana Kühnel, “The Perception of History in Thirteenth-Century Crusader Art” Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, “Amazons and Crusaders: The Histoire Universelle in Flanders and the Holy Land” Rebecca W. Corrie, “Angevin Ambitions: The Conradin Bible Atelier and a Neapolitan Localization for Chantilly’s Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César” Part V: Cultural Exchange in the Age of Crusades Anthony Cutler, “Everywhere and Nowhere: The Invisible Muslim and Christian Self-Fashioning in the Culture of Outremer” Scott Redford, “On Saqis and Ceramics: Systems of Representation in the Northeast Mediterranean” Annemarie Weyl Carr, “The Holy Icons: A Lusignan Asset?” John Tolan Université de Nantes john.tolan@humana.univ-nantes.fr Copyright © 2005 by the Society for French Historical Studies, all rights reserved. The Society for French Historical Studies permits the electronic distribution for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that full and accurate credit is given to the author, the date of publication, and its location on the H-France website. No republication or distribution by print media will be permitted without permission. For any other proposed uses, contact the Editor-in-Chief of H-France. H-France Review Vol. 5 (January 2005), No. 2 ISSN 1553-9172 For earlier reviews, please see H-Net's Review Archive Maintained by the H-France Web Editorial Team