Original scientific paper
Biblical Intertextuality in the Cronicle from 1204. The Conquest of Constantinople by Robert de Clari
Patrick Levačić
; Department of French language and literature, University of Zadar
Abstract
A poor and devout crusader from Picardy, Robert de Clari, is the author of The Conquest of Constantinople that chronicles that event that occurred in the year 1204. He was a witness to the Forth Crusade and he finished his chronicle in the year 1216. It gives a distant historical perspective of the positive and negative aspects of the crusade. In view of the fact that the Fourth Crusade unexpectedly deviated from the path to the Holy Land, Clari, with other devout crusaders, express their disapproval and search for truth and moral justification. The crusader ideology is subordinated to the worldly interests of Venice and for that reason the location of Constantinople loses its sacred religious value in Villehardouin's chronicle. In contrast, with Clari, in the episode Wealth and wonders of Constantinople, Constantinople retains it sacred quality and the numerous relics are not viewed only as valuable spoils. Among all of the relics mentioned in the work, particular analysis is made of the crystal vial, not only because Villehardouin made no mention of it, but also because that relic has specific biblical significance. Clari joins worldly events with forgotten spiritual aspects of the crusade which is similar to a pilgrimage discourse because it places its ontological value on man as homo viator on the road to eschatological Jerusalem. Clari uses the Bible to combine the worldly and the spiritual. On the intertextual level, the real Constantinople is thus connected, in the form of an urban mirabilis, with the desired ideal city, the unattained Jerusalem.
Keywords
crusade chronicle; urban mirabilis; relics of Passion; intertextuality; Constantinople and eschatological Jerusalem
Hrčak ID:
126120
URI
Publication date:
19.8.2014.
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