Author ORCID Identifier
Degree Year
2023
Document Type
Thesis - Oberlin Community Only
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Religion
Advisor(s)
Cynthia Chapman
Joyce Babyak
Committee Member(s)
Cynthia Chapman
Joyce Babyak
Emilia Bachrach
Keywords
First Crusade, Queen Melisende psalter, Psalter, Crusader art, Forgiveness, Pope Urban II
Abstract
During and following the First Crusade of 1095, Christian understandings of religious violence and forgiveness became closely intertwined. Pope Urban II’s Call to Crusade established a violent pilgrimage as a form of penitence, conflating forgiveness with religious violence. This coalescence shifted understandings of forgiveness as documented through early Crusader art. Looking specifically at Queen Melisende’s Psalter (c. 1131), a history of religious violence surrounding the Crusading Kingdom emerges, showing the intimate relationship between violence and forgiveness that dictated Christianity during this period. By examining the First Crusade and the Psalter, a new understanding of forgiveness and religious violence emerges. Through these two separate instances of Crusader understandings of forgiveness, I argue that there is lingering Crusader guilt surrounding the misappropriation of religious violence as put forth by Urban II, revealed through the Psalter’s portrayal of King David’s biblical journey through sin and violence towards servitude to God.
Repository Citation
Soman, Lucia, "Psalters and Penitence: Forgiveness and Religious Violence in the First Crusade" (2023). Honors Papers. 876.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors/876
