Rationalising the First Crusade (1095–1099): Rupert of Deutz, the Roman Conquest of Jerusalem, and the Twists of Salvation History

Abstract

Many contemporaries considered the crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 as a significant moment in Salvation History. This article investigates how the reception of the Roman conquest of the city (70 CE) contributed to such an understanding. The important Benedictine exegete Rupert of Deutz (c. 1070–1129) refers to the Roman conquest in 79 passages within his opus, notably in his various biblical commentaries. This case study shows how the past event provided a rationale, exegetical and providential in nature, to understand three dimensions: (a) the role of the Jews, especially that it had been necessary to deprive them of the Holy Land; (b) the current situation of and purpose of Christians in the Holy Land; and (c) the End of Time, which was expected in Jerusalem, and which Rupert anchored already significantly in his own present. His commentary on John’s Revelation even asserted that the Roman conquest had opened the sixth of seven seals (Rev. 6:12). Therefore, the Apocalypse had been ongoing since 70 CE—but only in the Holy Land, a fact that made it necessary for Christians to travel there. The article thus demonstrates that biblical commentaries are potent sources for both crusade studies and historical research in general.

1. Introduction

The Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, that is, the successful conclusion of the First Crusade, heralded a new era in the Latin West, in particular as to how Latin Christians located themselves within the scheme of Salvation History. Significantly, this included the question of how close the End of Time might be, or if it had perhaps already begun, a prognosis that would elicit meaningful incentives to action. Recent scholarship has made more than clear that the First Crusade was understood as a deeply apocalyptic event: especially when the Christians effectively overcame the walls of the holy city, many seem to have believed that their actions were initiating the Last Days. And as the same scholarship has shown, the massacre of Jews and Muslims that followed thereafter, especially within the confines of the Temple mount, was an expression of precisely these apocalyptic hopes (see Kedar 2004; Rubenstein 2012, 2016; Buc 2015, pp. 102–11, 278–84).

However, there was another model for slaughter and mayhem in Jerusalem, which was meaningful and well-commemorated in the West: the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The emperors Titus and Vespasian had crushed therein a Jewish revolt, events that ended in massacre and expulsion for the Jewish people, as well as in the destruction of both the Second Temple and large parts of the holy city. But the conquest was even more important to the origins of Christendom: all four Gospels were written in the years subsequent to it, and were essentially informed by its shadow (see, e.g., Döpp 1998; Hanska 2025). Focusing on Rupert of Deutz (c. 1070–1129), this article is devoted to exploring the intersection between rationalising the First Crusade and deploying the Roman conquest in texts written in the years after 1099. Rupert, an important Benedictine exegete, penned roughly 25 works consisting of more than two million words altogether (word-count of the digitised Patrologia Latina). His life spanned three main stations: the city of Liège (until 1116); the abbey of Siegburg, a town south of Cologne (1116–1120); and his time as the abbot of Deutz, a monastery located beyond the walls of Cologne (1120–1129) (see the biographical sketches in Arduini 1987, pp. 23–101; Leichtfried 2002, pp. 10–51). His opus reveals at least 79 passages which discuss the Roman conquest (see the list provided in this article’s Appendix A). His exceptional interest in this event raises the question of why it was so important to him, and if perhaps the recent conquest of the same city contributed to it.

The case study presented in this essay is part of a much larger project devoted to investigating the reception of the Roman conquest in Latin texts between c. 400 and c. 1300.1 Previous studies have often focussed on the reception of Flavius Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum, an eyewitness to the conquest, but I am particularly interested in the historical dimensions of deploying this event.2 In my research hitherto, two important dimensions have surfaced: (a) The conquest was a meaningful device for adding a Roman element to Christian identity, thus furthering the appropriation of the Roman past in various historical and political settings. This was often accompanied by a desire to demarcate the Christians with respect to other groups and specifically to the Jews—the Roman conquest was usually understood as God’s vengeance on the Jews for the crucifixion of Christ.3 Investigating this event can shed light on both the societal processes of negotiating identity and anti-Jewish sentiments, which often informed specific policies and actions. (b) The conquest also served as a rich resource for endowing current phenomena with meaning that was primarily exegetical and providential in nature. This is especially true for the various medieval conquests of Jerusalem, a method that created meaningful typological trajectories within Salvation History (see, e.g., Ohly 2005; Buc 2012; Sønnesyn 2015). As I have shown in a recent case study, Martin of León (c. 1130–1203) used the Roman conquest to explain Jerusalem’s fall to the Muslims in 1187, the event that triggered the Third Crusade (1187–1192). By drawing a parallel between the two events, embedded in an exhortative sermon, he suggested to his audience that they might now turn into the new Jews—unless they enthusiastically took part in the crusade (Marx 2024a, pp. 38–41). We see consequently that the Roman conquest could serve meaningful historical purposes, often even providing incentives to action.

A substantial part of this larger project consists of creating an open-access database which catalogues all the occurrences of the event that I can find. This endeavour relies upon harvesting full-text databases such as the Patrologia Latina, extensive surveys of unpublished manuscript materials, and a number of further resources. The database currently consists of c. 1200 entries, including roughly 200 deriving from manuscripts, and will probably end up with more than 2000 eventually.4 This enables us to situate Rupert’s use of the conquest within a larger picture, and to determine where he deviates from his patristic and Carolingian predecessors, plausibly engendered by the need to rationalise contemporary events. The dataset shows in general a significantly heightened interest in the Roman conquest in the years after the First Crusade—compared to a much smaller number of occurrences in the years before. Even though Rupert leads the field here with his 79 passages, other important authors follow, including Gerhoch of Reichersberg (c. 1090–1169) with 33 occurrences or Hervé de Bourg-Dieu (c. 1080–1150) with 37 occurrences. And it appears in other important places, such as Causa 23 of the Decretum Gratiani, which argued that it is legitimate to kill unbelievers—the Roman conquest serves here as a precedent (Decretum magistri Gratiani 1879, pp. 945–46). Similarly, it is found in several chronicles of the First Crusade, such as that of Fulcher of Chartres (c. 1059-c. 1130), accounts which thus directly relate it to the recent conquest (PL 155: 920); and such strategies were still deployed in later chronicles such as the one by Roger of Wendover (d. 1236) that interlocks the Roman conquest with the battle of Ascalon in 1099 (Roger of Wendover 1841, p. 153).5 The dataset, therefore, betrays a heightened interest in the Roman conquest at the time—which can likely be explained by a need to classify the recent conquest, but let us see if Rupert’s extensive discussions can shed more light on the specific arguments, purposes, and providential ideas that are at play here.

2. Methodological Issues and the Exegetical Lens

Rupert’s discussions of the conquest appear primarily in his biblical commentaries, for instance, in those on Isaiah, Matthew, or John’s Revelation—but are placed in numerous different sections and contexts, and are complemented by occurrences in other works such as his De officiis. A forthcoming article, concerned with the use of Is. 11:10 (erit sepulcrum eius gloriosum) in the crusading context, demonstrates that there are other significant instances in his commentaries, for example, in the one on Zachariah, where he demonstrates a serious interest in crusading (see Marx, forthcoming). In a nutshell, Rupert was devoted to endowing the presence and purpose of Christians in the Holy Land with providential meaning. He was certainly someone with an interest in this historical arena—as opposed to the idea of a monk who did not care much about what was happening beyond his abbey’s walls (a notion better to be discarded for the medieval period in general). Philippe Buc in particular has demonstrated, with a focus on the late twelfth century, that biblical commentaries are rich and pertinent sources for the historian (Buc 1994). Similarly, Katherine Allen Smith has embedded the First Crusade’s chronicles in their broader exegetical setting, that is, the framework and categories that informed the shape of these chronicles (Smith 2020, pp. 15–47). However, commentaries are complicated sources that pose a number of methodological challenges. This makes it necessary to delineate some important premises.

We start with two seemingly contradictory but noteworthy facts: (1) It is clear from both Rupert and other authors that there was a heightened interest in the Roman conquest at the time, and the obvious hypothesis would be that this renewed interest was a result of recent events in the Holy Land. (2) Biblical commentaries, however, hardly mention contemporary events explicitly, including the First Crusade—at least not in a way one would expect.6 This brings us to the first important premise: We must not impose the wrong expectations on these sources. The description of events was not their purpose, in contrast to chronicles—so why should one expect such narrativity in commentaries? Similarly, one may suppose that they do not state the obvious, that there was a horizon of knowledge. Why should they refer to the First Crusade if this was the topical event that everybody already knew about? References to contemporary events may also appear in ways that are not per se understandable for us today. This tackles two crucial dimensions: On the one hand, crusade scholars have always struggled with the fact that medieval Latin authors did not know our modern terminology of “crusade” and “crusader”, but instead deployed a large variety of expressions for designating the phenomenon; and overall, they simply did not share our desire to endow crusading with a distinct label (Tyerman 1998, pp. 20–24, 49–55, 76–83; Maier 2021). On the other, the Bible provided the lens via which commentaries broached matters; contemporary references may be disguised by its often enigmatic imagery and complex exegetical traditions, just as biblical elements were the main vehicle for speaking about the crusades (see, e.g., Marx 2024b; Rubenstein 2019). Lastly, there was another major reason why authors may have been reluctant to make contemporary references too explicit: the lingering shadow of Augustine (354–430), who had advised that one must not speculate about the manifestation of God’s will on earth (all had already been fulfilled in Christ) and that God alone knew when the final judgment would come (Landes 2011, pp. 18, 29–35; Fried 2001, pp. 47–51). Any corresponding speculation thus posed a personal threat to a cleric if the predictions did not come to fruition—dynamics that unfolded their full historical impact with Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090–1153), who was heavily criticised after the failure of the Second Crusade (1145–1149) (see, e.g., Glaser 1969; Kahl 1996). Even though times had changed by the early twelfth century, this Augustinian rationale—and its remaining supporters—did still exist. Therefore, it may have been the safe strategy either to put contemporary references in between the lines or to disguise them with enigmatic biblical language.7

It follows that (a) we must remain cautious about imposing any misleading notions regarding these texts; (b) we must subject them to a close analysis, decoding their biblical language and staying clairaudient about contemporary references hidden under the same language; and (c) we must assemble chains of knowledge and meaning by bringing multiple texts and genres together. In that way, exploring the commentaries can also shed new light on the chronicles and hence on previous scholarly ideas about the crusades. Whereas the chronicles usually mention the Roman conquest in passing (the same with other pertinent elements), the commentaries are much more elaborate: they can elucidate the meaning inherent in using the conquest in a chronicle and can thus help us to develop a better understanding of such a chronicle or even of the historical events themselves. This is true even if the commentary is not explicitly concerned with the contemporary events: commentaries were these immense machines in the medieval period, constantly producing meaning that was then implemented in sermons, chronicles, and other textual genres.

The Bible and its exegesis were the tools to which clerical authors turned; it was their natural method of rationalising and ordering matters, in particular if a phenomenon had an unprecedented or enigmatic nature—but then it was precisely the task of exegetes to create precedent via exegesis, thus embedding the event in the arc of Salvation History. Katherine Allen Smith wrote about these processes: “[the] First Crusade posed unique descriptive and interpretive challenges because it seemed to break the historical mould; the suffering of its participants, the brutality of its battles and sieges, and the glory of its victories, above all the conquest of Jerusalem, sent many would-be historians scrambling for interpretive cover. […] perhaps what was needed to describe it was not the ordinary language of men, but the words of God.” (Smith 2017, p. 29). Similarly, Matthew Gabriele asserted with regard to the politics of Urban II (r. 1088–1099), the pope who unleashed the First Crusade, and his reception of earlier exegetical works: “Frankish exegesis gave Urban a language to understand the movement of sacred history and how Old Testament prophets spoke to events past and present.” (Gabriele 2012, p. 814). The exegetical approach also points to an important dimension in the medieval understanding of time and history; there was a concept of a certain timelessness, of understanding history as a single continuum, which allowed past, present, and future to mingle in ways that are not always easy to understand for the modern observer (see, e.g., Smith 2020, p. 29; Gabriele 2024, pp. 37–46). This was based on the Augustinian vision of the Church as a fulfilment of prophecy, a realised eschatology; history had already reached its conclusion. But it also derived from the basic idea that timeless heaven always existed in parallel to earthly existence in the Christian model of the world. The commingling of past, present, and future found its most powerful expression in the liturgy, where these dimensions met in a ritual framework in which every Christian could participate (Gaposchkin 2017, pp. 29–64, 156). Rupert’s treatise De officiis will therefore be of interest in the following pages.

Finally, a word needs to be said on the pertinence of the arguments proposed here, specifically regarding the state of the art in crusade studies. This field has traditionally focused on the chronicles, often taking them as direct windows onto the phenomena themselves and overall reproducing their narratives and narrativity in modern scholarly works (see, e.g., Asbridge 2010; Tyerman 2006—but one could take here many other examples as well). However, considering that chronicles are artificial and tenuously transmitted works that perhaps never left the walls of a monastery and were plausibly hardly read by anybody, the question arises if the results they deliver are representative. A recent monograph of mine contested the chronicle narrative with regard to the Third Crusade: examining numerous sermon texts hitherto unknown among scholars, it spawned a picture that is in many ways more local and more empirically sound than the one based on the chronicles. It is also different in some notable instances; for example, sermons show us that the Third Crusade was considered as a deeply apocalyptic event—a perspective that had largely disappeared in the chronicles, since the expedition had failed and thus disappointed eschatological hopes too (Marx 2024b). Generally speaking, commentaries were far more widely received and much more broadly transmitted than the chronicle reports. They developed authoritative readings about the current state of the Church, that is, about specific events, places, and groups. This makes them key sources for understanding the First Crusade and the intellectual fabric that processed its experience—and therefore commemoration—in the Latin West. But as my mentor Philippe Buc always used to say, if an argument could have been used a posteriori for explaining or justifying something, why should it not also have been effective for shaping a cause a priori? Thus, even though all of Rupert’s works date after 1099, they may also illuminate a world of ideas that shaped the expedition itself.

Studying Rupert under the lens of the crusades is worthwhile simply for the reason that it has not yet been done—save for a few remarks in Katherine Allen Smith’s exegetical survey in the context of the First Crusade and a few more in Brett Whalen’s book on crusade and apocalypticism, neither of which really engaged with Rupert’s texts (Smith 2020, pp. 23, 28; Whalen 2009, pp. 79–81, 84–85). Contrariwise, the scholarship that exists on him is very much theology-focussed—little has been done to contextualise his texts and their interests historically. Reading the extant scholarship, one could get the impression that this was a conservative monastic exegete who did not care much about what was happening in the world (see, e.g., various contributions in Finger 2009, or Leichtfried 2002). Reading his own works, however, one gets quite a different picture. Wanda Zemler-Cizewski has already pointed to the fact that we should be cautious about the old antithesis between monastery and university, and that Rupert was a more original exegete than has often been assumed (Zemler-Cizewski 2008; see also van Engen 1983, pp. 371–72). This article, therefore, pursues the goal of resituating one of the major figures of early twelfth-century Church history, illuminating what such a figure can contribute to understanding a phenomenon as important as the crusading movement. This is achieved specifically via engaging with his methods of performing exegesis and asking about the ultimate purpose of this endeavour. The article will show that Rupert was an early advocate of promoting the literal sense of Scripture, and he thus placed the focus on the earthly Jerusalem (on this development, see Jaspert 2011, p. 83; Flori 2007, pp. 233–37). In some instances, he even foreshadowed the infamous Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135–1202) (see Gatto 2022).

Proceeding with the analysis, we will encounter various commentaries as well as different types of arguments—and Appendix A provides information on all the cases. There are, for example, works in which the conquest makes a frequent appearance, like in Rupert’s commentary on the prophet Amos (ten passages). Others unfold impressively elaborate discussions around it, like in his commentary on John’s Revelation: the pertinent argument stretches over roughly 18 pages in the modern edition. The questions driving this investigation are thus: Why is the conquest included? Why does Rupert feel the need to refer to it? And how may it relate, implicitly or explicitly, to concerns of his own present? The last is an especially pertinent question considering that exegesis was not an exclusively intellectual exercise in the medieval period but served as a device for approaching God (encompassing literal journeys to the Holy Land) and securing one’s own salvation, significantly including the aspect of teaching others in these matters, primarily via sermons. Broaching this key question, it is worth returning to my dataset: even though the conquest appears in thousands of medieval texts, there are authors who do not refer to it, including important figures like Bernard of Clairvaux. Placing it in a text was thus a conscious decision by the author, whereas others apparently felt a distaste for it. This is especially apparent in comparing the two Church Fathers Augustine and Jerome (c. 345–420): while I have only found a single passage on the conquest in the vast and seminal opus of the first (and here only mentioned in passing), there are 82 passages in the opus of the latter. Jerome, therefore, occupies the prime position in my database, followed by Rupert of Deutz, and then by the Carolingian exegete Haymo of Auxerre (active in the 840s and 850s), whose works include 76 passages, according to the preliminary results of the database.

3. A Pilgrim’s Vest: An Exegesis of Soph. 1:8

Rupert penned an extensive commentary on the twelve minor prophets, which amounts to more than 800 pages in the edition; and these are generally rich sources for references to the Roman conquest (in Rupert’s case, 29 passages). His comment on Soph. 1 is of particular interest: the chapter is concerned with God’s judgment over Jerusalem, specifically addressing people who wear, depending on the translation, a “foreign” or “pilgrim” vest (induti sunt veste peregrina)—a perfect template for talking about the contemporary events in the Holy Land. Thus, the question arises if an author in the early twelfth century could even discuss such perfectly fitting passages without evoking the current situation in the East? Probably not, even if it was not his intention—Rupert’s commentary is generally dated to between 1122 and 1125, when he was Abbot of Deutz (Arduini 1987, p. 95). It is therefore a plausible hypothesis that the First Crusade was the automatic and dominant association of such a story and that an author would have to state clearly that he is only interested in the spiritual sense of Scripture if this association were to be avoided. But Rupert does precisely the opposite. At the outset, he cites Soph. 1:7–9: the day of judgment is at hand (juxta est dies Domini), and God will judge various groups of people, including all those who wear a pilgrim vest (super omnes qui induti sunt veste peregrina). The argument following thereafter is worth citing in full:

“Silete a facie Domini Dei, quia juxta est dies Domini? [Soph. 1:7] Jam ante dictum est, eum qui sic incipit, congregans congregabo omnia a facie terrae, Christum Dei Filium esse, qui exaltatus a terra, deberet omnia trahere ad se [John 12:32], et judicare vivos et mortuos in novissimo die, de quo postmodum dicit: Juxta est dies Domini magnus, juxta est, et velox nimis [Soph. 1:14], et quod ante illud ultimum judicium duo judicia facturus erat, super illam terrenam Jerusalem, quae jam fecit, alterum per Nabuchodonosor et exercitum Chaldaeorum, propter sanguinem prophetarum quem effuderunt, alterum per manus Romanorum, propter ipsum prophetarum Dominum quem occiderunt.” (PL 168: 650)

“[What does the line mean:] Be silent in the presence of our Lord and God, for the day of the Lord is at hand? [Soph. 1:7] As has already been said, Christ, the son of God, has started thus: I assemble (and will still assemble) all people of the earth. Raised above the earth, he is, therefore, responsible for dragging all people unto him [John 12:32]. This happens in order to hold judgment over the living and the dead on that very last day, about which the prophet says later: Near is the magnificent day of the Lord; it is near, and it approaches rapidly [Soph. 1:14]. And before this last judgment, he spoke two other verdicts over the terrestrial Jerusalem; those have already happened: the one through the agency of Nebuchadnezzar and the army of the Chaldeans, because of the blood of the prophets which they [the Jews] have shed; the other through the agency of the Romans, because of the Lord of the same prophets whom the Jews have killed.”

He complements his quotation of Soph. 1:7 with Soph. 1:14, thus underlining that the day of judgment is not only close but imminent (velox nimis). He explains that this means that Christ will draw all people unto Jerusalem (omnia trahere ad se), the venue of the judgment, whose localisation is consequently underlined (once more when speaking specifically of terrena Jerusalem). This denotes the necessity to travel there if one wishes to receive one’s verdict. The meaningful quotation of John 12:32 is also used in others of Rupert’s commentaries for discussing the phenomenon of crusading (e.g., PL 167: 1322), just as many of the Third Crusade’s preachers implemented it for the purpose of calling their audiences to travel East (Marx, forthcoming; Marx 2024b, pp. 196–98, 314–18). As a result, it is clear that Rupert is concerned with Latin Christians doing precisely that, seemingly to participate in the apocalyptic events. Note that nowhere in these passages, including beyond the text cited, does he explicitly locate the Apocalypse in the future. Even though Soph 1:7–9 is quoted with its original future tense, Rupert’s exposition on it suggests that he tackles something that is happening right now and thus fulfils this prophecy. Then, he introduces two precedents for this final judgment (ultimum judicium): the Babylonian conquest in 587 BC, revenge for killing the prophets, and the Roman conquest, revenge for killing Christ, the classic argument about this event (on identifying the Jews as killers of Christ, see Cohen 1983).8 The implications are twofold: (a) such a conquest of Jerusalem always represented a rectification of an unlawful state, and (b) implementing the method of typology, the two past conquests with their specific episodes, protagonists, and venues were providing a resource for imagining the events which were supposed to happen in Jerusalem in the course of the final judgment. Similarly, it is significant that Rupert even connects the End of Time with a conquest of the city, another indicator that points to recent events in the East.9 However, even though he anchors Soph. 1 in his own present, it remains unclear if the First Crusade was already this final judgment or only a prelude to it. Given that he penned these lines roughly 20 years later, plausibly the latter is the case.

Some lines below, the Benedictine proposes an exegesis for those who wear the pilgrim vest, that is, for Soph. 1:8, explaining that this vest has meanwhile acquired a hypocritical nature: the pilgrims appear as wolves in sheep’s clothing (et super omnes qui induti sunt veste peregrina? Putasne hypocrisis vestis est peregrina? Utique nimium peregrina. Quid enim in vestibus magis peregrinum, quam sunt lupis rapacibus vestimenta ovium?). A few lines before, he identified the filii regis, another element from Soph. 1:8, with the Jews (PL 168: 651). The argument is reminiscent of the discourse that unfolded after the Second Crusade when clerics who were forced to explain the expedition’s failure made claims about the hypocritical nature of the participants (see, e.g., Rubenstein 2019, pp. 116–22). Did Rupert prepare the ground here within an exegetical register for what was then implemented in the political context of the Second Crusade? This is at least a hypothesis, especially in consideration of the fact that someone who was likely Rupert’s student, Gerhoch of Reichersberg, played a key role in explaining the failure of that crusade.10 It is also worth pondering on the specific moment when Rupert penned these lines, that is, between 1122 and 1125. It was a time of intensified waves of crusading; and a Christian army had just been crushed in the Battle of the Field of Blood (1119), a devastating event that raised questions about why God did not support them.11 The glorious days of the First Crusade dated back a whole generation, while the Latin states in the East experienced instability and misfortune, which sparked bewildered reactions of Western observers. This historical context helps to explain why Rupert suddenly attributed a hypocritical nature to a pilgrim’s vest; he also seems to be playing with the double meaning of peregrinus: the pilgrims have turned into foreigners due to their sins.12 That he was innovative here in his exegesis, and thus likely devoted to rationalising his own present, becomes apparent if one searches for the line of Soph. 1:8 in the full-text databases. The few hits that turn up are present in the works of his two major predecessors in commenting on the minor prophets: Jerome (PL 25: 1346) and Haymo of Auxerre (PL 117: 198–199). However, when reading their thoughts on this reference, nothing of Rupert’s argument is present yet. This is noteworthy because composing commentaries was often an exercise in recycling earlier exegetical works (even if adapting them in the details), but Rupert’s argument was entirely original; he significantly deviated here from tradition, probably because current circumstances prompted him to do so.

Some lines later, Rupert broaches another significant element: Christ’s cleansing of the Jewish Temple, a story that was frequently aligned with the Roman conquest (as it is here). It was also referred to repeatedly in the chronicles of the First Crusade, especially as a device for rationalising the ruthless massacre of Jerusalem’s inhabitants by the crusaders (see Smith 2017). We are thus looking at a threefold cleansing of the Temple: (a) by Christ, (b) by the Roman emperors, and (c) by the crusaders in 1099, events that were typologically connected in the exegetical mind. They foreshadowed and conditioned each other in their actions and incentives, logics that likewise conveyed to an audience (particularly through sermons) what they were supposed to do in Jerusalem. A few lines later, Rupert continues as follows:

“[…] contritio magna a collibus, id est, a templo et arce civitatis, ubi Eleazarus talis erat dominus, qui aram ipsam templi sanguine imbueret, et mortuis indigenis per atria divina stagnum faceret diversorum cadaverum sanguinis. Quid tantum passa es, o miserrima civitas a Romanis, quantum a tuis et indigenis? Imo quae unquam civitas vel gens talia pertulit ab extraneis, qualia tu a propriis? Sed cesset omnis commiseratio, cum tu proprio sis condemnata judicio. Dixisti enim: Sanguis ejus super nos et super filios nostros [Mt. 27:25]. Sequitur ergo tam dura quam justa contritio.” (PL 168: 653)

“An overwhelming punishment came down from the hills, that is, from the Temple and the citadel of the city, where Eleazar was such a dominant leader that he saturated the same Temple’s altar with blood. Using the native dead, he created a lake of blood out of various cadavers, which filled the divine halls. What have you thus suffered, oh most miserable city, as much from the Romans as from your own and indigenous people? Is it true that what the city or the people have once suffered from foreigners, they have as much suffered from their own people? But all the pity stopped when you have been condemned through your own verdict [that is, Christ’s crucifixion]. Thus, you have said: His blood comes over us and our children [Mt. 27:25]. It follows therefore that the punishment was as cruel as it was justified.”

The passage depicts an exorbitant amount of bloodshed in the Temple, supposedly carried out by Eleazar, one of the three Jewish leaders who defended Jerusalem against the Romans.13 However, the narrative elements rather evoke another Eleazar, an Old Testament high priest responsible for sacrificing animals in the Temple (see Num. 19; but the Bible does not include the story in the form it is given here). The exegete uses these elements to contrast the suffering Jerusalem experienced at the hands of the Romans (a Romanis) with that sustained from its own inhabitants (a tuis et indigenis). This is reminiscent of the argument proposed about the hypocritical pilgrim vests—something is wrong within Jerusalem. The Eleazar story may consequently have been a template for tackling a contemporary issue, just as Jerusalem could always serve as a proxy for speaking about the state of the Church (though such an argument could still straddle the earthly Jerusalem too).14 The argument climaxes in the words of Mt. 27:25, a classic locus for referring to the Roman conquest—Rupert applies it in 28 passages altogether. It critically evokes the idea that bloodshed was not over with Christ’s Passion (as one branch of Christian theology would have it), but especially for the crime of betraying Christ, bloodshed would come over the following generations too (super filios nostros), be they Jews during the Roman conquest or whoever misbehaved in Rupert’s own times: hypocritical Christians, Muslims, or Jews. Importantly, the story of a lake of blood, stemming from corpses and flowing through the Temple, is very much reminiscent of descriptions of the 1099 massacre, a curious parallel—we shall return to this below. In conclusion, we see how contemporary references, and the discussion of topical circumstances, can be hidden under biblical language, which formed the lens through which exegetes spoke about these matters. Furthermore, it is significant that nowhere in these passages does Rupert divert towards the spiritual sense of Scripture; nowhere does he say that these matters need to be understood metaphorically; but his reading is literal and eschatological, thus referring to the earthly Jerusalem and current events in the East.

4. The Locus of Jerusalem: An Exegesis of John 11:48

Another common reference for broaching the Roman conquest was John 11:48 (venient Romani et tollent nostrum et locum et gentem): the Romans will come to take both locus and gens from the Jews, that is, Jerusalem, the centre of their religion, and their status as God’s chosen people—the classic Christian argument of transferring salvation from the Jews to the gentes. This reference is found in several of Rupert’s works (14 passages); and it builds on a long-standing exegetical tradition, which makes more than clear that the term locus was a specific marker for Jerusalem (currently 49 passages in my database). The Glossa Ordinaria, composed around the same time as Rupert’s works, epitomises this when commenting on John 11:48 (locus est Hierusalem quem perdiderunt).15 As was common within the exegetical realm, simple words may have been charged with heavy meaning—and we shall keep the meaning of locus in mind. Rupert stands firmly in this tradition, yet it is worth considering what he proposes in detail. For example, his De victoria verbi Dei (composed 1123–1124), that is, a large exposition on the course of Salvation History, expounds on the seven heads of the beast from John’s Revelation (Rev. 12). The sixth head has crushed the Jews and destroyed their locus, an implicit but certainly obvious reference to John 11:48 (gentem Judaeam bestia ista comedit atque comminuit, et reliqua pedibus suis conculcavit, quia locum destruxit, et gentem percussit in ore gladii [Lk. 21:24]). The sixth head is thus equated with the Roman conquest, a bold apocalyptic argument that we shall keep in mind (PL 169: 1446; for another edition, see MGH QQ 5: 346). Significantly, the Benedictine understands the whole of Salvation History as a succession of bella domini against various enemies, even identifying Scripture itself as “the book of the wars of the Lord” (sacra Scriptura dicatur liber bellorum Domini).16 Could one more clearly express that this is driven by a need to rationalise the crusading movement? Similarly, in his commentary on the Psalms, explaining both Ps. 34:1 and Ps. 34:20, he writes the following:

“[…] Judaei Christum nocentes atque impugnantes, judicati atque expugnati sunt, perdito templo, et amissa terra, cujus in iracundia, juxta hunc psalmum, loquentes dolos cogitabant [Ps. 34:20], dicendo: Ne forte veniant Romani, et tollant nostrum locum et gentem [John 11:48]. Nimirum et usque hodie, in iracundia ejusdem terrae loquentes dolos cogitant [Ps. 34:20], nimio quippe feruntur odio, ut nec nomen Christi audire sustineant, non ignorantes, licet negitent, quia propter sanguinem ejus perdiderunt terram. Recte igitur hic psalmus subsequitur: Judica, inquiens, Domine, nocentes me, expugna expugnantes me, apprehende arma et scutum [Ps. 34:1–2], videlicet Romanorum Titi et Vespasiani imperatorum. Et exsurge in adjutorium mihi, ut abducantur in omnes gentes captivi [Lk. 21:24], ne remanente illis loco, gente et pulchro templo, majus fiant scandalum evangelicae fidei.” (PL 167: 1194; see also CCCM 22: 1356)

“The Jews, harming and combatting Christ, have been punished and conquered. After they had lost the Temple and the Holy Land, against which, according to this Psalm, they devised and propagated deceits in their rage [Ps. 34:20], they said: if not the Romans would come, to take our place and our status away [John 11:48]. Evidently, it is still very much like this until today: in their rage, they still devise and propagate deceits against the Holy Land [Ps. 34:20]. They are obviously still full of hate so that they cannot stand to hear the name of Christ. It is not that they would not know the name of Christ, but they deny it. Because of the shedding of his blood, they have lost the Holy Land. Thus, this Psalm rightly follows: Punish, oh Lord, those who do harm to me; fight against those who wage battle against me; take on the armour and the shield [Ps. 34:1–2], evidently of Titus and Vespasian, the emperors of the Romans. And rise to my help so that they are led into captivity under the yoke of all the gentiles [Lk. 21:24], therefore they do not remain in their place, nor remains their status, nor their beautiful Temple, since they cause an even larger disgrace for the faith of the Gospel.”

He relates the locus more explicitly to the Temple and the Holy Land, using for the latter an unspecified terra, here dependent on Ps. 34:20. Right after citing John 11:48, he creates a nexus to his own present, asserting, once again with reference to Ps. 34:20, that the Jews conspire still today (nimirum et usque hodie), in order to do harm to the Holy Land (in iracundia ejusdem terrae loquentes dolos cogitant). Note that he adapted the Psalm’s verb into the present tense.17 He, therefore, saw a continuum between Jews past and present. The argument that they were conspiring against the Holy Land obviously indicates that they were doing so in alliance with the Muslims. This is reminiscent of the so-called crusade encyclical of pope Sergius IV (r. 1009–1012). Even though its authenticity is debated, those scholars voting for a forgery date it to the time of the First Crusade—which would make it even more pertinent to our argument. This text sees a conspiracy involving Muslims and Jews, where the latter contributed to the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre in the early eleventh century; and significantly, it compares these events with the Roman conquest (sicut fuit in diebus Titi et Vespasiani, qui Dei filii mortem vindicaverunt), culminating in a call for the audience to crusade in the Holy Land.18

In Rupert’s De officiis (composed c. 1110), that is, a treatise devoted to expounding on the meaning and purpose of liturgical feasts, he links John 11:48 with the Easter season (on the work’s date, see Leichtfried 2002, p. 20). Dealing with the Passion Sunday (the fifth Sunday in Lent, that is, the one before Palm Sunday), he elaborates that this day has a notable anti-Jewish meaning:

“Bene ergo illa lectio Hieremiae prophetae praemittitur adversus canes illos, qui Dominum circumdederunt, adversus illud concilium malignantium quod obsedit illum: Domine, omnes qui te derelinquunt, confundentur, et recedentes a te in terram scribentur [Jer. 17:13], et post pauca, pravam sollicitudinem eorum intuens qua dicunt: Venient Romani et tollent nostrum locum et gentem [John 11:48]. Paveant, inquit, illi, et non paveam ego. Induc super eos diem afflictionis, et duplici contritione contere eos [Jer. 17:18]. Quod factum est per Titum et Vespasianum, quando regno Dei jam perdito, locum quoque et gentem perdiderunt. Quamvis autem multoties Judaei Dominum quaesierunt occidere; nam et lapides non semel sustulerunt ut illum lapidarent, ministros quoque miserunt pontifices et Pharisaei, ut illum apprehenderent. Recte tamen de hoc concilio dixit evangelista: Ab illo ergo die cogitaverunt ut interficerent eum [John 11:53].” (PL 170: 128; see also CCCM 7: 155)

“Therefore, the reading of the prophet Jeremiah has well been sent ahead against these dogs, who surrounded the Lord, and against whom they spoke evil things which beset him: oh Lord, all those who relinquish you will be destroyed; and those who abandon you will be written in the earth [Jer. 17:13]. Shortly afterwards, they reconsider their crooked concern when they say: the Romans will come, to take our place and our status away [John 11:48]. They shall be terrified, he says, but I shall not be. Bring upon them the day of punishment, and crush them via a twofold defeat [Jer. 17:18]. This has been done through Titus and Vespasian: when the Jews had already lost the kingdom of God, they also lost their place and their status. However, the Jews sought many times to kill the Lord, since they brought not only once the stones for stoning him. The priests and Pharisees also sent their followers to detain him. The Evangelist rightly uttered about this: From this day on, they thought about how to kill the Lord [John 11:53].”

The Benedictine distinguishes that it was not only necessary, through the agency of Titus and Vespasian, to deprive the Jews of the heavenly kingdom (regno Dei jam perdito), but also, with reference to John 11:48, to take locus and gens from them (locum quoque et gentem perdiderunt). This would seem an unusual argument for earlier Christian exegetes with their focus on a primarily spiritual understanding, but here we see once again how important the literal sense was to Rupert, that is, how important it was that the physical Jerusalem rested in the right hands. It is noteworthy how often he broaches this key question in various works—including the passage from the Psalm commentary discussed above. Moreover, he describes the Jews as dogs (canes illos), a label that other contemporaries used for the Muslims, just as they drew many connections between Muslims and Jews: the two groups became increasingly interchangeable in Latin texts (see, e.g., Cohen 1999, pp. 156–65). It is significant that Rupert’s treatise survived in a manuscript (Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 211) dated after the Second Crusade, together with a letter of the First Crusade, the so-called Laodicea letter. Addressing the pope, it reported on the 1099 massacre on Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem (Smith 2024, pp. 123–31). What we can read more implicitly in the passage cited is thus made explicit in the composition of the manuscript.

It is important to underline that this discussion was placed here in a treatise De officiis; it taught priests about the meaning of specific feast days, and what they were supposed to convey to their congregations, notably via sermons. This included Rupert himself: he was an ordained priest; and he wrote a treatise in which he defended the rights of monks to preach in public churches (entitled Altercatio monachi et clerici quod liceat monacho praedicare).19 Similarly, the fact that Urban II was a Benedictine may have been important here; Rupert praised him in a poem written precisely at the time of the First Crusade.20 The pertinent passages of his De officiis could have been (1) a device for broaching spiritual issues—but no such dimension is present in Rupert’s argument; or (2) it could have stirred up anti-Jewish sentiments, perhaps even triggering violence against local Jewish communities;21 or (3) it could have been a template for tackling the current situation in the Holy Land and hence preparing pilgrims and crusaders, a strategy in which the Jews would have served as a proxy for the Muslims. In agreement, Jessalynn Bird has argued that treatises De officiis were sources for crusade preachers too, who usually situated their sermons within the established framework of the liturgical calendar (Bird 2018, p. 156).22 The crucial point is that such treatises were protean in nature, allowing a priest to carry their ideas in the direction he wanted to on specific occasions. It is worth considering two examples of precisely that: first, in fourteenth-century Aragon, the liturgy of Holy Week gave rise to a disturbing ritual where references to the Roman conquest in that liturgy led people to begin reenacting it by attacking local Jews (Nirenberg 1996, pp. 214–21; see also Buc 2017, pp. 329–30). Second, I referred above to the sermon of Martin of León that drew parallels between the Roman conquest and Jerusalem’s fall in 1187. This sermon was meant for Maundy Thursday; it was liturgically close to Rupert’s discussions of the Passion Sunday. Martin therein repeatedly labelled his listeners as Jews (iudaei)—though he was doubtlessly speaking to a Christian audience. This insult was meant to stir them into going to the Holy Land (Marx 2024a, pp. 38–41). We see that ideas such as those proposed in Rupert’s treatise could generate specific outcomes. It is telling in this regard that the treatise survived in c. 70 manuscripts, half of them from the twelfth century, including copies beyond the Holy Roman Empire, and from important venues like Clairvaux or Saint-Victor in Paris—the work was thus indeed used by priests (see van Engen 1983, p. 66; Haacke 1967, pp. xvii–xliii). We have also seen how past and present could flow together in the powerful ritual of the liturgy, just as the passages on Soph. 1 have shown how present and future could be intermingled (a dimension also expounded on multiple occasions in liturgical texts).

The Roman conquest appears in many sermons devoted to the Easter season; and another De officiis also connects the event with Easter (the one by Sicard of Cremona, c. 1200). This nexus was built on a meaningful idea: surprisingly many medieval texts dated the conquest to Easter (42 cases catalogued at the moment in the database, from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries)—even though Flavius Josephus clearly tells us that it had taken place in the summer. Jussi Hanska has argued that they did this because they intended to directly mirror the crucifixion, driven largely by a liturgical and providential understanding, since the conquest had been an act of vengeance for the crucifixion (Hanska 2012, p. 36). This finding sheds intriguing light on both how willingly medieval authors distorted historical facts and the powerful significance a feast day could embody (on the conquest’s place within the liturgy, see also Linder 1987). Here, we see specifically how the most important feast of Christendom acquired a flavour that was very much anti-Jewish in nature and could lead to horrendous historical consequences. Another instance where Rupert entangles the Roman conquest with Easter is found in his commentary on Ezekiel (PL 167: 1447).23 In passages focused on Ez. 4:1–2, that is, the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem, he includes an extensive exposition on the Roman conquest. This is divided into six sections, which fuse into a seventh concerned with the Last Judgment, and whose titles say the following:

CAPUT XXI. Quanta sit evangelizandi necessitas eis quibus dispensatio credita est, secundum id quod ait: Speculatorem dedi te domui Israel, et quod per haec subversio pronuntietur Hierosolymorum, quae subsecuta est passionem Domini, et praedicationem apostolorum.

CAPUT XXII. De civitatis obsidione, quomodo portentum ejus fuerit, quod dormire jussus est propheta super latus suum sinistrum, et portare iniquitates domus Israel trecentos et nonaginta dies, et dormire in latus suum dextrum, et portare iniquitates domus Juda quadraginta diebus.

CAPUT XXIII. De misera obsidione Hierusalem, facta a passione Christi anno quadragesimo primo sub Tito et Vespasiano imperatoribus.

CAPUT XXIV. Quomodo passio et carceres Evangelii praedicatorum eorumdem abjectio quoque praesignata sit in propheta isto, et quam pessima quamque horrenda fames obsessorum praesignetur in ejusmodi pane, quem propheta sibi coquere in stercore, et comedere jubetur.

CAPUT XXV. Quomodo Judaei reliqui tanquam pili capitis, aut barbae, gladio acutissimo abrasi sint, Hierosolyma a tribus tyrannis crudelissimis funditus destructa.

CAPUT XXVI. Mala omnia quae Hierosolymis acciderunt, maxime pro culpa accidisse sacerdotum, Scribarum et Pharisaeorum, et ergo consequenter nunc dici: Haec dicit Dominus montibus et vallibus: Ecce ego inducam super vos gladium.

CAPUT XXVII. De horrore et magnitudine diei judicii, in quo majora cunctis praeter-itis malis recipient impii, et hoc esse quod dixit: finis venit, venit Finis super quatuor plagas terrae. (PL 167: 1444–1453; see also CCCM 21: 1670–1682)

The key point here is that these sections construct an intrinsic causality between the Old Testament, the Roman conquest, and future events in Jerusalem (perhaps understood as already happening in Rupert’s own present). The focus is on the fulfilment of prophecies and how signs are showing what will happen in the future—the Roman conquest being one such sign. Once again, this provided a rich resource for imagining the End of Time, but also for drawing specific conclusions about what Christian protagonists were supposed to do in that context. Compared to the comment on Soph. 1, however, definite references to current circumstances are absent here. This reads primarily like an abridged version of Josephus’ account of the events; it thus delivered a manageable resource for learning about the conquest, just as pieces provided here could have been included in sermons. It would have been possible to present this abridged version as an individual work, but Rupert decided that the proper way to situate these events within the arc of Salvation History would be to include them in his exposition on Ezekiel. This incorporates two noteworthy details: in section (27), he notes that the Last Judgment, identified as “the day of killing”, is close (venit tempus, prope est dies occisionis) (PL 167: 1452), citing some lines later the familiar Soph. 1:14 that expresses the same idea (PL 167: 1453). In section (26), he asserts that the Jews worshipped idols in the Temple, which were destroyed by Christ (ecce ego inducam super vos gladium, et disperdam excelsa vestra, et demoliar aras vestras, et confringentur simulacra vestra, et dejiciam interfectos vestros ante idola vestra, etc. [Ez. 6:3–4]. Malorum omnium quae hic dicta sunt, maxime principes sacerdotum et Scribas ac Pharisaeos causa premit. Idcirco et Dominus postquam flevit super civitatem [Lk. 19:41], et haec omnia mala illi ventura praedixit, continuo ingressus in templum coepit ejicere vendentes in illo et ementes [Lk. 19:45]) (PL 167: 1451). The fulfilment of Ez. 6 constructed here thus ties an element to Christ’s cleansing of the Temple that does not exist in the Gospel narratives: idol worship or paganism, which was, according to the imagination of the Latin West, the trait of Muslim religion (see, e.g., Tolan 2002, pp. 126–28; Skottki 2017, pp. 267–70). This is once again an example where the Jews are used to denote a contemporary group in the Holy Land.

5. The Providential Context: Entangling Past, Present, and Future

A key question has emerged: what role exactly did the Roman conquest play for Christians of the Middle Ages when trying to locate themselves within the providential scheme? We have seen that the End of Time crops up frequently in the texts, and given the evident apocalyptic dimension of the First Crusade, this raises the question of the extent to which talking about the Apocalypse was perhaps tantamount to talking about the First Crusade? For this reason, it is worth turning to Rupert’s elaborate commentary on John’s Revelation that accounts for almost 400 pages in the edition and dates to between 1118 and 1121 (see Arduini 1987, pp. 83, 428). The Roman conquest appears therein in several places, but most significant among them is the extensive discussion he offers on the opening of the seven seals (Rev. 6). By proposing a strongly literal reading of this motif, he foreshadows Joachim of Fiore—even though the specific arguments diverge from and are sometimes even more radical than Joachim’s (on the latter, see Wannenmacher 2005). As John van Engen put it: it was “the most innovative commentary on the Apocalypse before Joachim” (van Engen 1983, p. 372; see also Kamlah 1935, pp. 75–104; Rauh 1979, pp. 206–35). An essential difference between the two lies in the fact that Rupert does not align the seals with a historical sequence, but in the case of seals one to five, each is dedicated to a specific subject, for instance, the issue of heresy.24 These five subjects are all building towards the sixth seal, which is identified with the Roman conquest—a highly significant choice. In his treatment of the first five seals, he broaches the conquest on five occasions (a number that is perhaps not a coincidence), thus signposting the climax towards which the whole exposition is building. Furthermore, there is one possible reference to the conquest of 1099 (see below); one reference to John 11:48, thus reminding his audience of the meaning of locus; and one passage that underlines the localisation of Christ’s Passion in Jerusalem. In addition, further motifs such as that of vengeance build towards the climax of the conquest. That it represents the culmination of the whole argument is especially apparent in the fact that the seventh seal is simply not present. At the beginning of the chapter, Rupert mentions that there are seven seals (PL 169: 940), but his exposition stops with the sixth seal and the Roman conquest (PL 169: 958)—after that, he moves on to Rev. 7, devoting himself to other concerns.25 It seems a plausible hypothesis that Rupert did not discuss the seventh seal here because this seal designated the events currently happening in the Holy Land. It was perhaps a matter on which he did not dare to make a prognosis, a matter on which a monk behind the monastery’s walls could not pen to parchment, since it was performed by Christians in the East. But let us slow down for a second and examine what Rupert’s text says in more detail. The following discussion will cover four aspects: (a) his exposition on the fifth seal, which is building towards the sixth; (b) what meaning inheres in the fact that he equates the sixth seal with the Roman conquest; (c) what exactly is happening at the end of his chapter; and (d) the broader context of the work, specifically considering its prologue as well as the manuscript evidence—in particular since this work is published in the Patrologia Latina only.

The exposition on the fifth seal is quite extensive (roughly five pages) and primarily deals with the subject of Rev. 6:10, that is, vengeance for the blood of the martyrs (vindicas sanguinem nostrum de his qui habitant in terra). Note that Rupert’s text includes the claim that the targets of this vengeance live in terra, an unspecified term that often refers to the Holy Land (Marx 2024b, p. 307); and the Benedictine himself corroborates this reading:

“Judaei namque quia toti habitabant in terra, quia terrae inhaerebant, quia coelestia non quaerentes, tantummodo terrena depressis animis intuebantur, et cupiebant; idcirco sanctos interfecerunt propter verbum Dei, et propter testimonium quod coelesti regno Dei perhibebant, non probantes, imo redarguentes illorum cupiditatem terrenam. Ipsum quoque Dominum propter ejusdem terrenae habitationis causam fictam interfecerunt. Dixerunt enim: Si dimittimus eum sic, venient Romani et tollent nostrum et locum et gentem [John 11:48]. Unde culpans eos Spiritus sanctus per Psalmistam: Et in iracundia, inquit, terrae loquentes, dolos cogitabant [Ps. 34:20].” (PL 169: 949)26

“Since all the Jews lived in the Holy Land, since they clung to the land, since they did not seek the celestial things, they only considered and strove for terrestrial matters with their humiliated spirits. They, therefore, killed the saints because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which the saints bestowed to the celestial kingdom of God. The saints did not approve, but even rebuke their terrestrial desire. The Jews also killed the Lord because of their delusional cause for (permanent) terrestrial residence. Thus, they said: if we let him go on like this, the Romans will come to take both our place and our status away [John 11:48]. As a result, the Holy Spirit accuses them through the words of the Psalmist: And in their rage about the Holy Land, they devised and propagated deceits [Ps. 34:20].”

He underlines that the Jews lived in this land (past tense) and that they deserved vengeance, an argument accompanied by two familiar references: John 11:48 and Ps. 34:20. The eschatological act of vengeance for the martyrs is thus firmly tied to this geographical region, just as those dying on a crusade expedition were often considered as martyrs by Western observers (see, e.g., Buc 2015, pp. 84–85, 167–76; Tamminen 2018, pp. 169–201). After that, Rupert mentions Christ’s cleansing of the Temple, which prefigured the Roman conquest (ipse terribili praefiguravit signo, quando fecit quasi flagellum de funiculis, et omnes ejecit de templo), an idea familiar from the comment on Soph. 1 (PL 169: 950). Finally, he broaches Old Testament bloodshed in Jerusalem:

“[…] caeteros autem non paucos deinde reges et principes Judae interfecerunt, praecipue Manasses, de quo Scriptura refert, quia suum quoque filium traduxit per ignem, et sanguinem innoxium fudit multum nimis, donec impleret Jerusalem usque ad os [4 Reg. 21:16]. Verum ut de illis et sequentibus taceam, et ad evangelica tempora, quando haec dicebantur, perveniam, sanguis sanctorum innocentum, sanguis sancti Joannis Baptistae, sanguis ipsius Domini, de quo dixerunt, sanguis ejus super nos et super filios nostros [Mt. 27:25]; sanguis istorum prophetarum […]” (PL 169: 950)27

“The kings and princes of Judea then killed, not only a few, but all the remaining ones; this is in particular true for Manasseh, to whom Scripture refers, since he also sent his own son through the fire, and he shed so much innocent blood until Jerusalem was filled with it, so that it piled up unto people’s mouths [4 Reg. 21:16]. However, I shall remain silent about these and the following things, and I shall proceed to the age of the Gospel when these things have been said: the blood of the innocent saints, the blood of saint John the Baptist, the blood of the Lord himself, about whom they said: his blood and the blood of those prophets comes over us and our children [Mt. 27:25].”

The passage entangles the Old and the New Testament, epitomising the latter in Mt. 27:25, an important marker for the Roman conquest. However, the reference designating the Old Testament (4 Reg. 21:16) is quite uncommon in exegetical and other medieval texts. Only a handful of hits turn up when searching the full-text databases; and three of them are found in Rupert’s works: two in his commentary on Revelation, and one in the commentary on Amos—which also has ten passages on the Roman conquest. It is likewise telling that 4 Reg. 21:16 stands in the Glossa Ordinaria without any comment whatsoever.28 We encounter here another substantial instance where Rupert deviated from exegetical tradition (as he did with Soph. 1:8), creating his own, entirely original argument. And once again, this seems to have been prompted by current circumstances: the image that so much blood fills Jerusalem that it is towering up unto people’s mouths (donec impleret Jerusalem usque ad os) is very much reminiscent of the expressions used by several chroniclers of the First Crusade for describing the massive bloodshed of the 1099 massacre. Some stated that the blood reached up to the horses’ bridles (ad frenos equorum), a quotation of Rev. 14:20; others used similar expressions, such as ad talos or ad bases (see Kedar 2004, pp. 65, 72). Rupert’s reference was thus most likely meant to evoke the events of 1099. I suggest that he did not turn to the obvious reference of Rev. 14:20 because he needed one from the Old Testament to construct the fulfilment with the New Testament. Recalling that we are here in the comment on Rev. 6:10—vengeance for the blood of Christians—this fulfilment was concerned with turning the tables: in the same way as Christians have been killed in the past, the perpetrators shall now be killed, until Jerusalem is filled with blood (on this dynamic, see Marx 2019b; Buc 2015, pp. 105–11, 167–73).29

A few paragraphs below, towards the end of his exposition on the fifth seal, Rupert constructs a causality with present and future by asserting the following:

“Nam ubi Christus passus est; tunc, ut jam dictum est, dealbatae sunt stolae eorum in sanguine ejusdem Christi [Rev. 7:14]. Clamor autem ille jam dudum audiri coeperat, ex quo occisus est primus ille Abel, dicente Deo: Vox sanguinis fratris tui clamat ad me de terra [Gen. 4:10]. Item quod dictum est eis, ut requiescerent tempus adhuc modicum, non idcirco dictum est, ut cessavit clamare, non enim clamare cessat aut cessabit usque in finem saeculi sanguis eorum, quippe cum de jam dicto Abel dicat Apostolus, quia per fidem suam defunctus adhuc loquitur, quandiu in Ecclesia clamans dicet: Vindica, Domine, sanguinem servorum tuorum qui effusus est [Rev. 6:10] […].” (PL 169: 952–953)30

“The place where Christ has suffered is the same, as already said, where the garments have been purified through the blood of Christ [Rev. 7:14]. But this clamour already started to be heard a little while ago, that is, since the time when Abel had been killed. Back then, God said: the voice of your brother’s blood shouts to me from the earth [Gen. 4:10]. Likewise, it is said that they quieted down in times which have been moderate; however, it is not said that their blood has stopped shouting. It does not stop and will not stop shouting until the End of Time, just as the Apostle says about the same Abel: the dead man can still speak through his faith as long as he shouts these words in the Church: Avenge, oh Lord, the blood of your servants that has been shed [Rev. 6:10].”

He begins by underlining that the place for vengeance and bloodshed is Jerusalem, the place where Christ has suffered (ubi Christus passus est), a phrase often used for denoting that an author is concerned with the actual Jerusalem (see, e.g., Marx 2024b, pp. 200, 251, 313). Then, he stresses that this is not a lesson belonging to the past—which would be the Roman conquest, without any present-day implications—and that the blood of the martyrs will not stop crying for vengeance until the End of Time (non enim clamare cessat aut cessabit usque in finem saeculi sanguis eorum). The lesson taught by this event still lingers today, and it will continue to be pertinent until Salvation History’s conclusion: it is a call to an audience to spring into action. The passage thus stresses the ambivalent nature of blood: it is salvation for the righteous and punishment for the sinner (an idea epitomised in Rev. 7:14). The progress of Salvation History necessitates that the tables turn: the victims need to become the avengers.

Then follows the exposition on the sixth seal, which starts with the following words:

“Et vidi, cum aperuisset sigillum sextum, et ecce terraemotus factus est magnus, et sol factus est niger tanquam saccus cilicinus, et luna tota facta est sicut sanguis, etc [Rev. 6:12]. Terraemotum istum, et solis nigredinem, atque lunae sanguineum ruborem, stellarum casum, et caetera malorum prodigia, quae hic scripta sunt, plerique ad novissimam persecutionem et ad Antichristi tempora referunt. Nos autem proposito tenemur, et scripturarum lucernam librique reserati claritatem, qua possumus, via sequi conamur. Coeptum ergo sequamur ordinem. Quando repellentibus Judaeis verbum Dei et indignos se vitae aeternae judicantibus, apostoli ad gentes conversi sunt, ac deinde circumdata est ab exercitu Romano Jerusalem, et ceciderunt in ore gladii [Sir. 28:22], et captivi ducti sunt in omnes gentes [Lk. 21:24], tunc utique sextum agnus libri sigillum aperuit, quia videlicet multa quae de hoc scripta erant, tunc adimpleta sunt. Unde et in Evangelio ipse Dominus, quia dies, inquit, ultionis hi sunt, ut impleantur omnia quae scripta sunt [Lk. 21:22]. […] Multa sunt valdeque sonora et ad intelligendum aperta quae sub isto sigillo continebantur, id est, quae Judaeorum desertionem atque gentium vocationem claris vocibus legis et prophetarum atque psalmorum futuram testificabantur. Nunc jam ejusdem sigilli sexti reseratum locum spatiosum perambulemus. Cum, inquit, aperuisset sigillum sextum, ecce terraemotus factus est magnus [Rev. 6:12]. Et est sensus: Ut impleretur id quod de Judaeorum dispersione atque gentium convocatione in sacris litteris continebatur, mota est terra, commotus est orbis Romanus, Vespasiano et Tito arma undique contrahentibus et Jerusalem exercitu suo circumdantibus.” (PL 169: 954)31

“And I saw how the sixth seal opened up; and behold that a large earthquake occurred, and the sun turned black like sackcloth, and the moon turned red like blood etc. [Rev. 6:12]. Many exegetes relate this earthquake, the black sun, the bloody moon, the falling of the stars, and other portents of evil things, which are penned here, to the very last persecution and the time of the Antichrist. But we make another proposition; and we shall try to follow—as much as we can—the shining clarity of the open book and the Scriptures. We have in fact already started to walk on this timeline: when the Jews rejected the word of God, and were deemed unworthy of eternal life, it happened that the Apostles turned to the gentiles, and then Jerusalem was enclosed by the Roman army. When the Jews thus fell victim to the sharpness of the sword [Sir. 28:22], just as they have been led into captivity under the yoke of all the gentiles [Lk. 21:24], it was then indeed that the lamb opened the sixth seal of the book, because clearly many of the things which have been written about the seal in the Scriptures have been fulfilled in these events. Consequently, the Lord himself said in the Gospel: since these are the days of vengeance, all the things that the Scriptures foretold are fulfilled [Lk. 21:22]. […] The noises are thus many that permit the understanding of things that were comprised in the opening of this seal; those testified to the devastation of the Jews and the future calling of the gentiles with the clear voices of the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. We shall now roam already the spacious place that the sixth seal has opened up. It is said that a large earthquake occurred with the opening of this seal [Rev. 6:12] This is the understanding: in order to fulfil the things contained in the Holy Scriptures about the dispersal of the Jews and the vocation of the gentiles, the earth was shaken: the whole Roman Empire has been stirred into commotion when Titus and Vespasian gathered their weapons and completely surrounded Jerusalem with their troops.”

This is another meaningful instance where Rupert deviates from tradition: he notes that the established reading understands the words of Rev. 6:12 (earthquake, black sun, and red moon) as referring to the time of the Antichrist. However, he contests this reading (nos autem proposito tenemur), since he sees that many of these signs had already been fulfilled in the Roman conquest (multa quae de hoc scripta erant, tunc adimpleta sunt). The conquest, therefore, designates the opening of the sixth seal—so he asserts in the perfect tense, while underlining that this is certain (tunc utique sextum agnus libri sigillum aperuit). This is a remarkable claim: with the opening of the sixth seal, we are right in the middle of the eschatological scenario, and locating this moment in the year 70 CE means that the Apocalypse had begun back then—while Rupert says nowhere that this needs to be understood metaphorically or only as a partial fulfilment of prophecy (on the latter, see Buc 2015, pp. 74–77, 284). Quite the contrary, his reading is literal and historical throughout. But what does it mean that the Apocalypse began more than a thousand years ago? When we continue reading, it is clear that this is about transferring salvation from the Jews to the gentes, but not only in the spiritual sense of establishing the Church—as the Church Fathers would have it. Rather, it is concerned with ownership of the holy city, because the Jews have been deprived of it via the Roman conquest, so Rupert emphasises repeatedly (plus on further occasions beyond the text cited). He epitomises this key argument when stating that “we” shall now roam the spacious locus that the sixth seal has opened (nunc jam ejusdem sigilli sexti reseratum locum spatiosum perambulemus). Several dimensions are remarkable here: (a) The phrase nunc jam not only indicates a matter of pertinence for his own days, but an apocalyptic urgency: prophetic predictions have already materialised (Buc 2017, pp. 310–11, 334). (b) The sixth seal has opened up a space (locum spatiosum)—we remember that there was an established meaning behind the term locus, deriving from John 11:48, a reference that Rupert cites explicitly a few passages before (PL 169: 949). (c) From this follows the call, in the present tense subjunctive, that “we” shall now roam or explore this space—as Christians were then doing in the Holy Land; the opening of the sixth seal had granted them this opportunity.

It is, therefore, an essential conclusion that the Apocalypse was not only a matter of time but of space: the eschatological events were happening in the Holy Land; and this had been the case since the days of the Roman conquest—but the implication seems to have been that the Latin Christians had only recently realised (with the First Crusade and the increasing pilgrimages of the eleventh century) that they could participate in the eschatological scenario. Rupert’s understanding that the Apocalypse was spatially determined—and thus that Christians needed to travel to it—was far from unique. This was, for example, a common understanding among the preachers of the Third Crusade and a major argument which they used in calling their audiences to travel East. Jerusalem consequently formed an eschatological or even apocalyptic state (Marx 2024b, pp. 394–98). However, it is unique that the Benedictine tied this idea to the sixth seal, while locating its opening in the year 70 CE. Other authors remained silent on when they thought this state had begun; the Third Crusade’s preachers might have understood the First Crusade as the point of origin—but it was an unspoken subtext. Judging from what I have catalogued so far in my database, Rupert was the only author who developed this remarkable exegesis of the seven seals (on the traditional understanding, see Whalen 2009, p. 77). The expression sigilli sexti reseratum locum spatiosum was likewise his invention; no other hits turn up in the full-text databases. Lastly, it is significant that textual bits and pieces that Rupert used in these passages were deployed by chroniclers to describe the conquest of 1099, especially in the account of Albert of Aachen (c. 1060-c. 1120) (PL 166: 548–549; see also Edgington 2024).32 This does not necessarily mean that the two directly interacted, since these were common features for addressing the Roman conquest, but it shows that it was an established practice to interlink precisely these elements with the contemporary conquest of Jerusalem.

Some lines later, the Benedictine continues with an exegesis of Rev. 6:14—the coelum has been rolled up like a scroll (coelum recessit sicut liber involutus). The border between heaven and earth has disappeared in the Holy Land; earthly and heavenly Jerusalem combine, a well-known feature within the realm of crusade ideas (Marx 2024b, pp. 233–302; 2021; Schein 2005). Yet it is once again significant to examine the details which Rupert added to this established idea. He uses the image of the rolled-up coelum for denoting again the transition from Judaism to Christianity: the coelum retreating from the first thus moved to the latter for whom it is now reseratus et apertus—he uses the same vocabulary for the locus that opened via the sixth seal (et illis quidem a quibus recessit hoc coelum, hic coelestis liber involutus, imo et signatus est; nobis autem, ad quos venit recedendo ab illis, reseratus et apertus est) (PL 169: 956–957). Importantly, this is not only a metaphorical way of speaking about the Church, it is concerned with the place where heaven had opened up—Rupert reminds us of this, just a few lines below, by mentioning the Roman conquest once again. These findings fit in perfectly with a general trend at the time that consisted in increasingly spatialising and materialising concepts that had been solely spiritual before—this was done, for example, by Otto of Freising (c. 1112–1158) when anchoring Augustine’s civitas Dei in time and space (Rubenstein 2019, pp. 126–31; Goetz 2007, pp. 110–11). A few lines down, Rupert includes once more Christ’s cleansing of the Temple, adding here two interesting details: instead of the merchants, he speaks of expelling Pharisees and priests, hence evoking the Jews more broadly; and he says that they were not only expelled from the Temple, but also de loco suo—a phrase that does not exist in the original Gospel narratives (Pharisaei atque pontifices, eo modo quo jam dictum est, de locis suis moti sunt, ejiciente illos Domino Jesu de templo suo et de loco suo flagello iracundiae suae) (PL 169: 957–958). It is another instance in continuing with the exegesis of John 11:48, strongly anchored in an approach of literal exegesis, and consequently meant to underline that this is concerned with the physical Jerusalem.

We have arrived at the conclusion of Rupert’s 18-page exposition on the seals, where, as noted, he ends with the sixth seal. It is worth citing the final lines in full to substantiate the hypothesis of why he omits the seventh seal:

“Quoniam, inquiunt, venit dies magnus irae ipsorum, et quis poterit stare? [Rev. 6:17] Dies irae ipsorum, scilicet sedentis super thronum, et Agni, Patris et Filii, Domini, et Christi ejus, adversus quem astiterunt et convenerunt principes isti [Ps. 2:2], jam venit, et adhuc veniet; quia videlicet initia dolorum sunt omnia haec: finis autem eorumdem dolorum, finis inconsummabilis et consummatio infinita erit in gehenna. […] Bene autem illi erit quicunque pro eo quod non stetit aut resistit, tunc poterit iram fugere. Simile quid in eodem Hierosolymorum excidio juxta litteram factum est: Appropinquante namque bello Romano et exterminio Judaicae gentis, oraculo admoniti omnes, qui erant in provincia Christiani, longius discesserunt, ut ecclesiastica narrat Historia, et trans Jordanem sedentes manebant ad tempus in civitate Pella, sub tutela Agrippae regis Judaeorum, cujus in Actibus apostolorum mentio est, qui cum ea, quae sibi obtemperare volebat, parte Judaeorum, semper Romanorum imperio subditus agebat.” (PL 169: 958)33

“[What does the line mean:] seeing that the great day of wrath has come over them, who will be able to stand? [Rev. 6:17] The day of wrath over them, evidently of the one who is sitting on the throne, that is, the lamb, the Father and the Son, the Lord and Christ, against whom those princes assembled [Ps. 2:2], has already come and will still come a second time, since one realises that all these things are clearly only the beginning of the suffering. The end of the same suffering, the incompletable end and never-ending conclusion will be in hell. […] However, those who will not resist him will stand on his side, and hence will be able to avoid his rage. Similarly, in the same siege of Jerusalem, this has been done literally: when the Roman war and the annihilation of the Jewish people drew near, all the Christians who were in this province have been warned by a sign, and they fled, as told by the Ecclesiastical History [of Eusebius of Caesarea]. They settled for a time beyond the Jordan, in a city named Pella, which was ruled by Agrippa, king of the Jews, who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, and who still acted as a vassal to the Roman Empire, in agreement with the portion of the Jews who still intended to obey the Romans [end of the chapter].”

Commenting on Rev. 6:17, he asserts that the day of wrath has come, equating it with the Roman conquest, but he also intertwines past and present: the enemies marching against Christ have not been stopped in 70 CE; therefore, Christ will come a second time (adversus quem astiterunt et convenerunt principes isti [Ps. 2:2], jam venit, et adhuc veniet). The conquest has only been “the beginning of the suffering” (initia dolorum)—the Apocalypse is ongoing. The Jews possibly figure here once again as a proxy for the Muslims, especially when he speaks of their annihilation (exterminio Judaicae gentis). This seems evident recalling that the Decretum Gratiani likewise presented the conquest as an example for justifying the annihilation of contemporary enemies of the Church (Decretum magistri Gratiani 1879, pp. 945–46). However, the end of the chapter is puzzling: Rupert includes a detail from the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–c. 340), an important work that transmitted parts of Josephus’ account of the conquest (Huntzinger 2020). It mentions that some Christians settled after 70 CE in a city “beyond the Jordan” (trans Jordanem sedentes). Why did Rupert end the exposition on the seals with this detail? It may well have been a reflection on current circumstances; the Jordan represented the border for the Latin states in the East. Evoking Christians who lived beyond it thus seems to be an attempt to create a desire to bring release to them too, just as it may have embodied the wish to expand territorial control within the Holy Land—ambitions that found an expression when an army of the Second Crusade advanced towards Damascus. Some participants perhaps believed that they needed to open the seventh seal performatively—presupposing that these ideas had been conveyed to them via sermons. Rupert has thus made clear throughout these pages the pertinence of both past (Roman conquest) and future (John’s Revelation) for his own present.

It is now time to contextualise the work in a broader setting, since one may rightly ask if works like Rupert’s perhaps never left the monastery or an intellectual discourse—a criticism I have made above about the scholarship focused on the chronicles, where this seems to have been the case in many instances. The prologue of the Apocalypse commentary, however, provides significant insights about the historical implications of this work (PL 169: 825–827). It is dedicated to Frederick of Schwarzenburg (c. 1075–1131), archbishop of Cologne from 1100 to 1131, who was involved in various political conflicts, notably related to the Investiture Contest, and can be deemed a preeminent supporter of Church reform.34 Rupert speaks in the prologue repeatedly about the terra for which “we” should strive, making clear from the start via various Old Testament references that he is dealing with the Holy Land. This feeds into the following words: “Terra quam lustravimus devorat habitatores suos [Num. 13:33]; ipsi non possederunt eamdem terram.” (PL 169: 826). The verb lustrare is an interesting one: what seems clear is that it refers to a place or space, but it can be translated as either “to visit, to roam” or “to purify, to cleanse”. The biblical reference embodies both meanings, consequently delivering a perfect template for broaching the situation after 1099. We can translate the passage thus: the land that we have purified and/or visited (perfect tense) devours its inhabitants (the previous ones, before the crusaders came); these people, therefore, do not possess this land anymore, thus Rupert’s comment on Num. 13:33. The choice of the biblical reference is once again original: as with 4 Reg. 21:16, the Glossa Ordinaria remains silent on the verse.35 And searching the databases only yields hits in Jerome’s commentary on the Book of Numbers (PL 28: 366) and a generation after Rupert, in the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor (c. 1100–1178) (PL 198: 1228)—but five hits in various of Rupert’s works, including an elaborate discussion in his De officiis (PL 170: 213–215).

Compared to the very literal and eschatological passages we encountered throughout the commentary, the prologue is more open to connecting the senses of Scripture: it links the terra to Scripture, which is the tool for understanding the same terra; and there are several senses hidden in a single word (in verbis singulis multiplices latent intelligentiae). However, Rupert then declares that the (material) matters of the present surpass the figures and shadows of Scripture (quantum umbram aut figuram praecellit corpus aut res) (PL 169: 826). This is a remarkable argument—corpus et res override here spiritual matters; this seems like a radical break with Christian tradition, probably prompted by the experience of the First Crusade. Following suit, he tackles once again the Holy Land: “Ut igitur terram istam possideamus, fidelium exploratorum, qui mites fuerunt, exemplum sequamur dicendo contra immites haereticos, huic terrae detrahentes, quoniam terra quam circum-ivimus valde bona est.” (PL 169: 826). In order to possess this land, they shall follow the example of the fideles exploratores—it sounds as if he is calling his addressee to a crusade, a plausible hypothesis considering the political standing of the archbishop of Cologne.36 Database searches show once again that the expression seems to have been Rupert’s invention; only later authors used it occasionally, perhaps directly inspired by our exegete (for example, Raymond Lull, c. 1300). Lastly, he explicitly announces what we have seen on multiple occasions in this essay, that he will openly break with exegetical tradition:

“Sed dicet aliquis: Jam satis est, quod alii meliores et sanctiores nihilominus et doctiores invenerunt atque scripserunt. Illicitum est, temerarium est, adjicere quidpiam ad ea quae a nominatis catholicisque Patribus dicta sunt, atque ita fastidium legentibus facere, augendo multitudines commentariorum. Ad haec, inquam: Nimirum sanctarum spatiosus ager Scripturarum, omnibus Christi confessoribus communis est, et tractandi illas nulli jure negari potest licentia, dummodo salva fide, quod sentit, dicat aut scribat.” (PL 169: 826–827)

“But someone will say: it is already sufficient what some better, holier, and more learned men have invented and written down. It is illicit, and it is reckless, to add anything to that already formulated by the distinguished and catholic Fathers; and it is haughtiness to suggest (new) readings, or to add anything to the multitude of their biblical commentaries. To those, I say: the soil of the Holy Scriptures is evidently so spacious, and common to all confessors in Christ, that one cannot deny the possibility by any law to examine it, provided that the things are said and written to the salvific nature of the faith that one feels.”

He was unhappy with the established readings of the Fathers and the reluctance of some contemporaries to further develop their exegeses, probably because these readings were not sufficient anymore for understanding contemporary circumstances.37 These words were aimed towards an important political protagonist, to whom he was now going to teach the twists of Salvation History.

It also speaks to its relevance that Rupert’s Apocalypse commentary has been transmitted broadly compared to many other commentaries which often survive in not more than one or two copies. At least nine early manuscripts exist: there is one copy (MS Erlangen 79) from the Cistercian abbey of Heilsbronn (northern Bavaria, early thirteenth century); one from Rupert’s first monastic home, Saint-Laurentius in Liège, dating to the twelfth century (MS Brussels 9607); one originally from Erfurt, dating likewise to the twelfth century (MS Pommersfelden 218); and one from Polling, south of Munich (BSB Clm 11329, early thirteenth century). Moreover, there are five copies that all date from the aftermath of the Second Crusade, and all come from southern Germanic regions: (a) MS ÖNB 723 (dated to 1150–1174), from the Benedictine monastery of Mondsee (Upper Austria); (b) MS Heiligenkreuz 88, a Cistercian house close to Vienna (dated to 1150–1175); (c) MS Klosterneuburg 254, a community of regular canons, likewise close to Vienna (dated to 1150–1175); (d) BSB Clm 22230, from the Premonstratensian abbey of Windberg in eastern Bavaria (dated to before 1191); and (e) Salzburg, St. Peter a VIII 6, a Benedictine house (dated to the 1160s).38 The transmission consequently includes a range of geographical areas as well as several monastic orders, facts that speak to the wide reception of this work. This is even more pertinent if we consider manuscripts as archaeological artefacts that only existed because of specific goals and interests that triggered their production (see Rouse and Rouse 1991). In this regard, the cluster dating after the Second Crusade is noteworthy—and we remember that there is also a manuscript (Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 211) dating to the same period that combined Rupert’s De officiis with a letter of the First Crusade. Preachers and other clerics had a heightened interest at the time to reconsider the lessons that Salvation History had taught them, especially within the context of the Second Crusade’s failure—let us recall the hypocritical pilgrim vests that Rupert talked about.39 As a result, they may have turned to an elaborate and sophisticated work like Rupert’s, which was informing them that the Apocalypse was ongoing in the Holy Land and had been since the days of the Roman conquest, and that the Christians could take the very same conquest as a lesson: learning and gaining inspiration from it. They were thus called upon to travel to the Holy Land and to reenact the conquest for the purpose of approaching and participating in the final judgment.

6. Conclusions

So, what have we learned by examining the Roman conquest in various of Rupert’s works through the lens of the crusading movement, notably in the aftermath of the 1099 conquest?

(1)

On a basic level, we have learned about the complex meanings embodied in motifs like Jerusalem and specific events like the Roman conquest. These provide insight into the ideas that people had when they decided to depart to the Holy Land, just as these ideas would have guided their perception and actions once they were in the East. This means that, even if a commentary is not explicitly concerned with contemporary events, it still teaches us a lot about matters that were pertinent to the crusading movement and what the same motifs meant when they appeared, for example, in a chronicle—but there with far less elaboration and explanation. Sermons, on the other hand, show us that these ideas were indeed transported beyond the clerical realm. I have occasionally noted parallels with the Third Crusade’s preachers in this article (such as the utilisation of John 12:32); and it would now be worthwhile to examine sermons of the early twelfth century, for example, those of Honorius August-odunensis (c. 1080–c. 1150), a figure who was close to Rupert, both geographically and intellectually (see, e.g., Beinert 1973; Whalen 2009, pp. 73–74). We have also seen how contemporary references can be hidden under biblical language; it takes, therefore, significant effort to decode this language. Sometimes, we are able to determine how specific biblical motifs served as templates for speaking about matters of the present.

(2)

The frequent nexus between the Jews and Jerusalem helps us in understanding why crusaders turned so eagerly against Jews on the eve of both the First Crusade and other expeditions (on the pogroms, see, e.g., Shepkaru 2012; Shagrir and Amir 2017). They saw an intrinsic causality, providential in nature, between the suspicious group they found at home and the objective of their journey to the Holy Land. It is noteworthy how often Rupert addressed the nexus between Jews and Jerusalem in his commentaries and how important the question of who owned the holy city was to him, very much indebted to an increasingly predominant approach of literal exegesis. This stands in sharp contrast to earlier exegetical tradition; and Rupert often diverged vehemently from the commentaries of his predecessors, just as he adapted biblical references to make them fit his providential readings. As a result, he proposed a ruthless anti-Judaism, which presented this community as the killers of Christ.40 In that way it seems that the crusaders, imitating the Roman emperors, could not help but punish the Jews they found at their doorstep. Once again, the appearance of these ideas in many sermons indicates that these were also transported to broader audiences, though this still needs to be examined in depth (on thirteenth-century sermons, see Hanska 2025).

(3)

Rupert’s commentaries also shed light on a complex relationship between past, present, and future, which surfaces most powerfully in the liturgy; following suit, the Roman conquest is also present in Rupert’s De officiis. The conquest with its specific parameters was providing a script for imagining and eventually for reenacting these events at the End of Time, that is, in the Holy Land. And we have seen a number of noteworthy parallels between Rupert’s texts and those describing the events of the First Crusade, specifically relating to the Temple (a place also imbued with meaning by Christ’s cleansing of it), and especially powerful in the image that so much blood fills Jerusalem that it is piling up unto people’s mouths. Rupert’s commentaries have unveiled how strongly he intertwined his own present with the End of Days, often by talking about the eschatological events as if they were happening right now, just as he frequently directed exhortations at his audience by using the first-person plural. These dimensions have surfaced most remarkably in the claim that the Roman conquest had opened the sixth seal. The Apocalypse was thus already ongoing, but only in the Holy Land, a fact that created the necessity for Christians to travel there—et voilà, there is the crusading movement. This article thereby substantiates a recent trend in crusade studies, that is, to understand the extent to which the crusades were an apocalyptic movement and how eagerly Christians engaged in the End of Time. These conclusions clearly contest previous characterisations of Rupert’s Apocalypse commentary as a meditation book for the cloister (Kamlah 1935, pp. 102–3; Rauh 1979, p. 232); and those verdicts are symptomatic of a broader issue in a research field where such works are often considered as exclusively exegetical or monastic endeavours.

Even though Rupert was sometimes unique in the specific imagery and arguments he developed (like his thoughts on the sixth seal), it is important to note that the underlying ideas were widespread at the time, notably the belief that something apocalyptic had been going on since the First Crusade (see, e.g., Whalen 2009, pp. 72–99; Rubenstein 2019). Studying his works can thus shed light on a broader contemporary mindset, yet he dared more than others in his attempts to bring coherence and specificity to Salvation History, something that Augustine and his followers had rejected for a long time. It is probably not too much to say that the First Crusade had created this urge for reaching more definite conclusions about the course of the providential plan. While the failure of the Second Crusade may have engendered second thoughts initially, eventually these conclusions were reinforced rather than discarded (Marx 2024b, pp. 341–67). Those five manuscripts of Rupert’s Apocalypse commentary that date to the second half of the twelfth century are symptomatic of this trend. The excavation of this cluster also represents a first step in conducting more thorough research on the involvement of the southern Germanic regions in the crusading movement—a subject whose investigation is long overdue. Ultimately, however, this article has only covered a few snippets of thousands of pages of commentaries. There are many more passages on the Roman conquest that have not been addressed here (but all are catalogued in Appendix A), just as there are many other subjects in these texts which are pertinent to both crusade scholars and other historians, for instance, those related to political conflicts like the Investiture Contest. Similarly, the works of other contemporary exegetes could teach us about the providential and exegetical meanings that were tied to the events in the Holy Land, perhaps also how they debated different interpretations among themselves (for such an example, see Marx 2024a, pp. 28–33). Furthermore, as already noted, it would be worth bringing the commentaries together with the rich transmission of sermon collections from the period in order to examine if and how these ideas were transported to broader audiences (some perhaps not, or in a less complex form). In conclusion, I hope this article has shown that these materials are indeed a very worthwhile subject for historians; they can very much develop, but in some ways also contest, our understanding of the crusading movement.