In: Crusades / Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, 14 (2015), pp. 1-47. ISSN 1476-5276 (Druck-Ausg.); 2832-7861 (Online-Ausg.)

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Abstract

This article analyses an unusually large and generally ignored corpus of private charters: namely, testaments from eleventh-century Catalonia, some of them as yet unedited, that make reference to an upcoming or consummated pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The documents provide rare information about the testators’ social, financial and spiritual circumstances. They not only open a window to the mindset of medieval men and women, but also enable us to discern changes of devotion over time. An analysis of the pilgrims’ declared goals reveals the paramount importance of Christ’s Sepulchre during the largest part of the eleventh century, whereas the town of Jerusalem gained momentum as an “attractor” already prior to the First Crusade. Similarly, a growth of penitential anxieties can be discerned in the second half of the century. The documents analysed in this article therefore substantiate the narrative sources generally used to study pre-crusade pilgrimage. They also demonstrate that Catalonia in the eleventh century was an area much more closely connected to Jerusalem and Palestine both by land and by sea than hitherto thought. Veneration of the holy sites was strengthened by the construction and dedication of churches and chapels, by the transfer of relics and other material and mnemonic devices. As a result, the call to the First Crusade did not go unheard in eastern Iberia.