Decision-making between contingency and providence. Horizons of action and interpretation of the First Crusade

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jan Keupp
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 465662081

It corresponds to a well-established self-narrative of our presence to contrast the multi-optional ‘culture of contingency’ of modernity with the model of a closed ‘space of expectation’ (‚Erwartungsraum‘) in the Middle Ages, prefigured by divine providence and eschatological finality. Beyond these rather schematic and oversimplified readings, epochal differences in the way contingency is dealt with in terms of social contexts make for a promising field of research, when investigating the historical dimension of the phenomenon ‘decision-making’. The research project focuses on the period of the First Crusade and the first decades of Latin rule in Syria and Palestine. It will thus exemplarily examine events that are shaped by the experience of existential contingency, while, on the other hand, they could be interpreted by both participants and later chroniclers with recourse to divinely guided providence. This specific constellation of events may be considered in two respects as a laboratory for new modes and models of decision-making: Within the heterogeneously composed collective of the crusading army decisional power had to be constructed and constituted by means of complex negotiation processes. After the successful capture of Jerusalem, the crusaders’ decision-making has been remodelled into a coherent overall picture through the historiographic processing of the events in the light of a providential interpretation of history. In this context, different narratives of decision making were composed, distinguished by divergent political viewpoints, genre traditions as well as theological concepts. These accounts provide a solid source basis for the project’s approach, consisting of two complementary analytical perspectives. Firstly, the project inquires into practices and conditions linked to the constitution and attribution of decisional power within the social fabric of the crusaders. Selected case studies will serve to analyse actions, social mechanisms, and institutions that empowered actors to model a given situation in the manner of decision-making. Secondly, the actor-centred perspective is complemented by an analysis of retrospective interpretations. This perspective considers the way contemporary historiography attempted to disambiguate and (re-)conceptualise the events of the crusade. It examines theologically justifiable and narratively representable possibilities of human decision-making within the framework of the divine plan of salvation. By synopsizing these two perspectives, the project will discuss the importance of decision-making as a distinct form of social action in premodern ‘cultures of contingency’ in an exemplary way, assessing it on a differentiated and empirically grounded basis. Focusing on preconditions, practices, and reflections of decision-making, the project will contribute to sharpening our understanding of the crusade as a processual social action.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants