Untitled [Allegorical Map of the Crusades]
- Title:
- Untitled [Allegorical Map of the Crusades]
- Alternate Title:
- Allegorical Map of the Crusades
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Marshall, William
- Date:
- 1639
- Date 2:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2338.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2338_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- Before 1800
- Subject:
- Allegorical
Pictorial
Other War & Peace
Bias
Religion - Measurement:
- 21 x 16 on page 28 x 18 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This allegorical map of the crusades is the frontispiece of Thomas Fuller’s landmark “Historie of the Holy Warre.” Fuller was a Cambridge-educated Protestant minister and strongly anti-Catholic. “In spite of its prejudices,” Fuller’s work has been called “the first serious general history of the crusades to treat them as fully in the past and to raise the question of their legitimacy.” Constable 2001, 7.
In the course of his thorough historical review, Fuller forcefully set out his view that the Church was primarily responsible for the profound losses - of lives and treasure - in the crusades, “a plot of the Pope’s begetting.” P.11. “Much also this warre increased . . . the Pope’s revenues. Some say, Purgatory-fire heateth his kitchen; they may adde, the Holy warre filled his pot, if not paid for all his second course. . . . If the Pope . . . thrusteth thousands of souls into Hell, none may say to him, Why doest thou so? It is presumption then to make him answer for money, who is not accountable for men.” Pp. 250-51.
The allegorical map shows Europe as a church at the top, and to the left a road filled with crusaders marching on “The Temple of the Sepulchre” in Jerusalem at the bottom. They are led by the fiery preacher Peter the Hermit, who according to Fuller, “when the siege grew hot, his devotion grew cold” and, using a “trumpet to sound a march to others, secretly sounded a retreat to himself, ran away from the rest of the Christians, and was shamefully brought back again for a fugitive.” Pp. 11-12.
The English poet John Cleveland wrote a “Declaration of the Frontispice” [sic] describing the order of the marchers: first Kings, then Captains, followed by groups of Prelates and Friars. Next come the fighting men, “the main Battalia.” After them are “A troup of Ladies in the next degree,” followed by a group of children, and finally “A band collected out of Hospitals and Spittles” [mental institutions].
The right side of map, from bottom to top, chronicles the fate of the crusaders. First “The incensed Angel with his flaming blade/Great slaughter of perfidious souls hath made./To teach us truth and justice, see how God/Scourges their falsehood with a fiery rod.” The survivors are then laid waste by the “Surley black Saracen.” Finally, the remaining forces are set upon by disease and death, “Sickness and casualtie on either hand.” In sum, “Thus our soldiers fell/By the Angel, Turk, and Death; heaven, earth and hell.” And at the top right, returning to the church in Europe, only a few on the trail back, “vestige pauca retrorsum.”
To the left of the church is a great sack filled to the top - with gold, or perhaps men’s souls - and the statement, “We went out full.” To the right of the church the same sack is empty, so light that a hand from the heavens can easily lift it: “But we came back empty.” Finally, beneath the title, Fuller takes aim once more at “the plot of the Pope’s begetting” with a quote from Acts 5:38, “If the counsel be of men it will come to nought.”
At the top left of the map is a medallion portrait of Godfrey de Bouillon, a leader of the First Crusade who was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from its capture in 1099 to his death in battle the following year. The legend surrounding his portrait comes from the report that he refused a “crown of gold where Christ was crowned with thorns.” Facing him is a medallion portrait of Saladin, with a legend reflecting his own religious piety: “This black shirt is all Saladine Conquerour of the East hath to his Grave.”
Fuller concludes with his view that the holy war will “probably . . . not be brought on the stage” again. “Princes are grown more cunning, and will not bite at a bait so stale, so often breathed on. The Popes ends in this warre are now plainly smelt out; which though through prettie and pleasing at first, yet Princes are not now, like the native Indians, to be cozened with glasse and gaudie toys.” P. 277.
Interestingly, the word “crusade” does not appear in Fuller’s work; it was not commonly used to refer to these wars in English until the 18th century. Constable 2001, 11-12.
For other maps in the collection attacking the Church, Search > "Catholic."
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Fuller, Thomas. 1639. The Historie of the Holy Warre. Cambridge: Thomas Buck.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.