05 January 2017
Taking the Cross
Has it changed so much?
By Chin Chin
“A wind of change” blowing across Africa, “a new broom” sweeping clean, “a cleaner floor” with Sudso. The thirst for change for the better is a strong one and it is at its strongest at the start of the New Year. Then it is fortified by an awareness of past over-indulgence. Has the effect of the brandy which accompanied the third rendering of Old Lang Syne quite worn off? Not quite? All the more important to give up brandy for the New Year, along with over-rich puddings, mince pies (oops, there are still some in the larder and one has to be eaten on each of the twelve days of Christmas to ensure a lucky year – perhaps a preset pledge to take effect on twelfth night in relation to mince pies, then?). Also pledges to forbear from chocolates (yes, the ones in the stocking are safely eaten) and all forms of unnecessary over-indulgence. From now on, it will be a life of lentils and vegetables enlivened by fish on Friday, meat on feast days and regular visits to the gym. After all, if mediaeval monks could do it (albeit with toil in the monastic gardens taking the place of the gym), why can’t we?
It doesn’t stop at food and fitness. A really top set of new year resolutions deals with the mind as well as the body. A limit on reading fiction, perhaps. Let’s purge the pleasure of reading with a severe dose of memoirs from recently defunct politicians. No more television save for a compulsory viewing of big brother as a salutary lesson in human baseness. Grace before meals. A period of contemplation after them. A run before breakfast.
If experience is anything to go by, it will not last long. Like atomic radiation, resolutions have a half-life, and for most of us it is only two or three days. That means that if you start with 16 resolutions, eight will have been abandoned by 4th January. By 7th January the remaining eight will be down to four. By 13th January there will be only one left – probably the one about mince pies which will only just have come into effect. And that, of course, is exactly as it should be. The human condition is one of failure followed by repentance. The “not doing that which we ought to have done” and the “doing that which we ought not to have done”, acknowledged by Cranmer in the General Confession, interspersed by moments of regret.
This can be taken too far. Fulk Nerra, the tenth century Count of Anjou from whom our own Royal Family is descended, punctuated his appallingly violent career with acts of repentance and piety. These included three visits to Jerusalem and the foundation and restoration of a series of monasteries. It has even been suggested that to satisfy his hunger for relics he actually bit a piece off one of them. Still, his was an extreme case and the use of the pilgrimage or, after the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, the crusade, as a suppository for the soul was written deep into the spirit of the age. Think of Richard, taking the Cross to purge himself of the sin of causing the death of his father. Think of St Louis, unsatisfied by his role as a great ruler of France, taking his armies south against the Saracen to his own ultimate destruction. For our own rather humbler ancestors, mine and yours that is, it may not have been so easy.
Mother: “Not that girl in trouble. What can you have been thinking of?”
Ancestor: “Oh come on, Mum these are the middle ages. Rape and pillage is expected; it’s an important part of the culture.”
Mother: “Don’t you lecture me on sociology, young man. Rape and pillage is what you do to your enemies, not your liege lord’s daughter. Anyway we all know the little trollop too well to believe that there was any rape and pillage about it. There will be soldiers here for you tomorrow, though.”
Ancestor: “What can I do?”
Mother: “There’s only one thing for it. You must take the Cross”.
Ancestor: “Where to?”
Mother: “I don’t know, wherever it’s going to. Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, somewhere exotic like that.”
And that must have been the difficult bit. We all know that if you went pilgrimming or crusading you put your money with the Templars and your English estates in the hands of trustees, but who did the Thomas Cook side of the business? There were no slick brochures setting out the alternatives: “Sign up for the siege of Acre, top pickings”, “Want to stay in Europe this year? Try our Carcassonne package”. Presumably those who had a choice at all simply signed up with a lord who seemed to be going in the right direction and hoped for the best.
It was an odd movement, and a varied one. People must have joined for many different reasons, some creditable and some otherwise, and, save in the most extreme cases, it is impossible to disentangle them. Still, as a movement the crusades were doomed by the fact that the kingdoms they established were dependent on the support of fresh immigrants. How did you get immigrants? By offering redemption if they fight for the Cross. What do they want to do when they arrive? Fight against the Saracens to earn that redemption. What chance did that leave of living in peace with your neighbour? None. What happens to countries which cannot make peace? They become unstable and vulnerable to unexpected turns of events. Are there, even nowadays, countries in the Middle East which are over-dependent on religiously inspired immigrants? Hmmm!
What can we do about it? It’s hard to say, really. Perhaps the best plan is just to go home and finish the ‘thank you’ letters. If the pace of change in 2017 rivals that in 2016, everything will look different in a month or so anyway.
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