William of Tyre

The First Crusade founded several Christian territories in the East. In order of their founding, they were the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the County of Tripoli.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem's first ruler was Godfrey of Bouillon. He and his successors expanded the borders of their kingdom, covering approximately where Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon are today.

This included the city of Tyre, the birthplace of William II of Tyre c.1130. Though growing up in Jerusalem, he went back to Europe to study Liberal Arts and canon law in the universities (where he knew a man named Hilary who studied Classical literature while William was there). He studied theology in Paris under Peter Lombard (whose writings became the standard for theological education) and Bologna (probably around the same time as Peter of Blois, who was the same age).

William came back to Jerusalem in 1165, where King Amalric I appointed him ambassador to the Byzantine Empire, and sent Amalric's son, the future king Baldwin IV, to live with and be tutored by William. Baldwin had been born in 1161, so was quite young. Over time, William was to notice something very different about the boy (but more on that later).

When Amalric died in 1174, William became Chancellor to the still-very-young Baldwin, appointed by the regent, Raymond III of Tripoli. William was also made Archbishop of Tyre. In 1179, William led the Jerusalem delegation to the Third Lateran Council, called by Pope Alexander, that declared education should be made free to those who could not afford it, and that expanded the Truce of God.

William also wrote. His account of the Third Lateran and a history of the Islamic states have not survived, but his Latin work called alternately Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum ("History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea") or Historia Ierosolimitana ("History of Jerusalem") was translated into French soon after his death and then into other languages, so has survived.

William's status was connected to his relationship with the king. There had been a brief regency after Amalric died, and Baldwin did not become king in his own right until 1176. There was some debate about his accession to the throne, but he was the only appropriate option at the time. What was the cause of the concern? It had been clear since his childhood that there was something different about him, something wrong, actually, and it would not necessarily prevent him from being king, but it would prevent him from extending the dynasty.

Tomorrow we'll look at Baldwin IV and the sad case of his illness that William noticed even when Baldwin was a child—especially when he was a child.

The Peace and Truce of God

I once mentioned how the end of the Carolingian Empire and the loss of its centralized administrative system made it difficult to mail a letter. Unfortunately, the loss of a centralized postal service was perhaps the least of the problems created in the 9th century. Without a strong central command, shifting politics and borders created numerous opportunities for warfare. This situation was not only undesirable in and of itself, it also affected innocent bystanders.

In 989, at the Council of Charroux, the Church proclaimed the Pax Dei, the "Peace of God," which declared clergy and other non-combatants "off limits" during military conflicts. Excommunication was the penalty for robbing a church, for robbing peasants of their goods or livestock, for striking or robbing a member of the clergy (unless he is bearing arms). Women and children were specifically added to the list of protected classes. In 1033, merchants and their wares were added to the list. A malefactor could avoid excommunication by making reparations.

This proved to be very popular in Western Europe. Local clergy had the responsibility to adopt and declare the Pax Dei in their region. The Abbey at Cluny gathered to itself a large territory, and many abbeys allied themselves to the Cluniac reforms. Once Cluny declared the Pax Dei, an enormous area was protected.

The Treuga Dei, or "Truce of God," was different. Created in Caen in Normandy in the 11th century, it declared that military hostilities could not take place on Sundays or any saints or feast days when daily work was suspended. Whereas the Pax Dei was declared locally by clergy, the Treuga Dei was universal. It was extended to Advent, Lent, and Rogation days (days of prayer and fasting). Over time, other days were added: Thursdays in memory of the Ascension, Fridays in memory of Good Friday, Saturdays because it was the day of the Resurrection. The Third Lateran Council in 1179 extended the Treuga to the entire Church.

How was this received by those inclined to wage war, and which influential churchman argued against the Treuga? Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you.

Parochial School

One of the decrees that came out of the Fourth Lateran Council of Pope Innocent III was that "every cathedral or other church of sufficient means" was to have a master or masters who could teach Latin and theology. These masters were to be paid from the church funds, and if the particular church could not support them, then money should come from elsewhere in the diocese to support the masters. The interest of the Roman Catholic Church in providing education has a long history.

This did not start in 1215, actually: the Third Lateran Council of 1179 (called by Pope Alexander III) had already declared that it was the duty of the Church to provide free education "in order that the poor, who cannot be assisted by their parents' means, may not be deprived of the opportunity of reading and proficiency."

One wonders how carefully churches complied with this. Because the school was integral to the church it was attached to, records are not as abundant as they might be if the school were a separate legal entity with its own building, property taxes, et cetera. We have to look for more anecdotal and incidental evidence.

Among Roger Bacon's unedited works is a reference about schools existing "in every city, castle and burg." John of Salisbury (c.1120-1180), English author and bishop, mentions going with other boys as a child to be taught by the parish priest. (Note that this is long before the Lateran Council decrees; it seems they may have simply affirmed and extended a long-held practice.)

Schools for young boys stayed attached to churches for a long time. A late-medieval anecdote of Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire (pictured here; believed to be the alma mater of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII) tells that a visiting clerk (priest) complained that the noise of the boys being schooled was so great that it disturbed the services taking place. And Shakespeare's Twelfth Night acknowledges these schools with the line "Like a pedant that/Keeps a school i' the Church." It would be a long time before schools for the young were deemed to need their own buildings.