The Normans and the 'Norman Edge' by Keith J Stringer Andrew Jotischky

Author:Keith J Stringer, Andrew Jotischky [Keith J Stringer, Andrew Jotischky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Medieval
ISBN: 9781317022534
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2019-11-26T05:00:00+00:00

It is striking that on this occasion – two decades after the crusader conquest of Syria and Palestine – the followers of Count Pons are described three times as Provençals, a term which relates to their evident Western origins. This usage is one that probably derives from linguistic differences. The vast majority of the Frankish population in the states of Jerusalem, Antioch and Edessa, whether nobility, knights, clergy or burgesses, may have been relatively diverse, but most of them spoke some dialect of Old French, and could generally have understood each other. The county of Tripoli, by contrast, was settled by the followers of Raymond of Saint-Gilles, who came from all over southern France and the kingdom of Burgundy: Provence, Languedoc, Auvergne, Gascony and Catalonia. The blanket term Provençals was probably applied to all of them by the crusaders from northern and central France because Raymond’s principal title was marquis of Provence. However, the main feature which distinguished them from the other French crusaders was their language, or rather their range of dialects, which linguists categorise as Occitan and Franco-Provençal, in contrast to the Old French of the northern and central parts of the kingdom. These diverse forms of what later became known as the langue d’oc (from its word for ‘yes’ in contrast to the ouil of Old French) would not have been readily understood by those who spoke French dialects, particularly those such as Norman, which had certain phonological and lexical features placing it at the extreme periphery of the linguistic spectrum of French. This linguistic dimension was probably an additional factor in the hostility between the followers of Raymond of Saint-Gilles and those of the other leaders that repeatedly manifested itself in the course of the crusade, and which was especially marked between the Normans and the southern French. Ralph of Caen tells of an occasion when Bohemond’s troops got into a dispute with the southerners while foraging, and fighting immediately escalated as other crusaders were sucked into joining in on the side of one or other of the two parties: on one side, ‘those from Narbonne, Auvergne, Gascony and all of the Provençal people’; on the other, ‘the Apulians and the rest of those from France, especially the Normans’.35

35 Ralph of Caen, Tancredus, ed. E. D’Angelo (Turnhout, 2011), p. 85: Qui alterutri linguae consonabat, modo cum ea uerberabat, interdum pro ea innocens uerberatur. Narbonenses, Aruerni, Wascones, et hoc genus omne Prouincialibus: Apulis uero reliqua Gallia, presertim Normanni conspirabant; Britones, Suevos, Hunos, Rutenos et hujusmodi linguae suae barbaries audita tuebatur.

This linguistic fault line gives us a sense of some of the new parameters of ethnic identity as it was evolving in the new settlements of Outremer. Surrounded by hostile Muslim polities to the north, east and south, Western settlers unsurprisingly wished to stress their common identity, particularly in the early period when the northern principalities of Antioch and Edessa were repeatedly dependent on military assistance from the kingdom of Jerusalem and the county of Tripoli. It is

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.