Objects, Matter, and Assemblage: Orientalism and Awe in Robert de Clari’s Constantinople

ABSTRACT

This article proposes to read Robert de Clari’s account of Constantinople through the lenses of vibrant materiality, orientalism and the ethics and affects of colonial pursuit. Why was his account so different from Geoffroy de Villehardouin’s? Why was he so focused on objects, on materials, and marvels? If we position his text, one of the first vernacular prose histories in French, in its relation to romance, to broader narratives of empire and the “Saracen” other, and in regard to the politics of colonial logic, we see that his version of events reflects broader logics and legacies of the Crusades and their attempts to colonize, rationalize, and interpret the “Other” through orientalist, racist, and marvelous lenses. Clari’s account justifies the sacking of a sister empire—a Christian empire—due to the wealth of the relics conquered and the affective power therein, thus rationalizing the imagined end of Christendom at the borders of Byzantium. Clari thus uses the affective power of relics to imagine a united Christendom, united against a foreign, pagan/“Saracen” other, and to participate in the prophesy that, vaticinium ex eventu, Constantinople was always marked for conquest by the “French” and never for truce with the “Saracens.”

KEYWORDS:

• crusade
• romance
• affect
• materiality
• borders
• empire
• marvels

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to both the 2017 Illinois Medieval Association Conference, Medieval Environments, for allowing me to present an early version of this project and for the questions that I received, and the Seminar in Medieval Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study (2021–21) for allowing me to present this work and to get feedback from such esteemed peers. I would especially like to thank Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Carissa Harris, and Nahir Otaño Gracia for generous and generative feedback as well as their encouragement. Lastly, I thank the editors at Exemplaria and my anonymous reviewers for their comments, feedback, and enthusiasm that helped me bring this to fruition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

^1. Confusion between copper and bronze is common in Isidore and he is neither the first nor the last: as the editors of De re metallica note, “Pliny is a good deal confused over the copper alloys, failing to recognize aurichalcum as the same product as that made by mixing cadmia and molten copper. Further, there is always the difficulty in translation arising from the fact that the Latin aes was indiscriminately copper, brass, and bronze” (Georgius Agricola, 1950, 403n43).

^2. See also the copper automata in Lancelot du Lac (1991), 663.

^3. See Julian Eugene White, Jr.’s Introduction in La Conqueste de Constantinople (1968), 1–23.

^4. Clari ends his account with: “Ore avés oï le verité, confaitement Counstantinoble fu conquise … que chis qui i fu et qui le vit et qui l’oï le tesmongne, Robers de Clari, li chevaliers, et a fait metre en escrit le verité, si comme ele fu conquise; et ja soit chou que il ne l’ait si belement contee le conqueste comme maint boin diteeur l’eussent contee, si en a il toutes eures le droite verite contee … ” (“You have now heard the truth of how Constantinople was conquered … which he who was there, and saw it, and heard it, testifies, the knight Robert de Clari, and who put the truth into writing, about how it was conquered; and he may not have written as beautifully as other great writers may have written it, he nevertheless has all the veritable truth recorded …, ” §120.1–8). All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.

^5. “Crestïens comance son conte / … qui trez fu d’un empereor / puissant de richesce et d’enor / qui tint Grece et Constantinoble” (“Chrétien begins his story, which is devoted to an emperor powerful in his wealth and his honor, who controlled Greece and Constantinople” (Chrétien de Troyes [c.1170s] 2006, vv. 45–9).

^6. Fulk’s actual role in recruiting may have been exaggerated, and, after his death, there were concerns about management of the funds that he allegedly raised, which perhaps is alluded to in the following passages in which the Crusade’s finances are front and center. See Queller and Madden 1997, 50 and Phillips 2004, 89.

^7. “ … ’il estoit si preudons que Damedieux faisoit molt grans miracles pour lui; et molt conquist chis prestres d’avoir a porter en le saint tere d’outre mer” (“And he was such a worthy man that Almighty God performed many miracles for him; and this priest got much [wealth] to take to the Holy Land in Outremer” Robert de Clari 2004, §1.13–16).

^8. on the financial situation of the Crusaders at Venice, see Queller and Madden 1997, 40–54.

^9. It is important to recall that the imperative to support Alexius was not only moral, but also lucrative, as Alexius offered silver, provisions, and military support for the Crusaders, and even offered to place the Eastern Church in obedience to Rome, after his throne was regained in Constantinople. Cf. Queller and Madden 1997, 82–5 and Phillips 2004, 127–42.

^10. Note that par raisnavle acoison (§33.13), which I have translated as “that we take the opportunity” for the sake of clarity, is literally “by/through a reasonable motive/opportunity,” and echoes the Doge who earlier says “Seigneur … or avons nous raisnauvle acoison d’aler en Counstantinoble, se vous le loés; car nous avons le droit oir” (“Seigneurs: now we have a good motive to go to Constantinople, for if you approve, for we have with us the rightful heir [of the Byzantine Empire]” §33.3–5). Acoison is a variant on ochoison (CL occasionem), whence Modern French occasion; raisna(u)vle, from CL rationabilis, has myriad orthographic variations in Old French (raisnable, regnasvle, resnable, etc.), whence modern French raisonable (Peter Dembowski notes that CL -ābula, -ābile shows up in Picard as -avle; cf. 1963, §1.3.2). Gérard Jacquin notes the repetition of the phrase but neither he nor other scholars have taken issue with the transcription (1986, 148; 300–1).

^11. Note: forfaire, whence English “forfeit,” can connote paying damages, or, more commonly, causing harm to goods or principalities, stealing or transgressing. Tobler-Lommatzsch’s Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch translates forfaire as “to do harm” (Unrecht tun; schaden) and “to earn/lose on account of debt” (durch Verschuldung verdienen; durch Verschuldung verlieren); the Dictionnaire Godefroy adds “accomplir,” and cites this very passage as the sole example of forfaire as “accomplishing,” which would render Clari’s phrase (“il n’i porroient riens forfaire,” §5; “Adont si porrons forfaire” §33) synonymous with Villehardoin’s (“en Surie ne poëz rien faire”). Hindley’s more recent Old French dictionary suggests to “gain an advantage over s.o. or sth.; exceed one’s authority; stray from the path of duty; transgress, err, sin” as well as “transgress” and Takeshi Matsumura’s dictionary is similar (commetre une crime and the more contradictory mériter/perdre par sa sa faute). Needless to say, forfaire as causing harm or looting is exactly what happened in Zara and will take place in Constantinople, and is attested with much higher frequency. Jeanette Beer translates “Adont si porrons forfaire” as “Then we shall achieve something” (2014, 64–5), analogous to Peter Noble’s “Then we will be able to do something” (La Conquête de Constantinople 2005, §33); Jean Dufournet translates that same phrase as “Ainsi pourrons-nous obtenir des avantages à leur détriment” (La Conquête de Constantinople 2004, §33). Perlesvaus also deploys this verb (as forfere), which Nitze and Jenkins gloss as “to do wrong (to)” (II.5538 and glossary, I.444), and Byant translates in his translation as “to do harm” (151).]

^12. On these translatio narratives, which celebrated the sacking of Constantinople and traffic in relics, see Perry 2015, especially 77–110.

^13. Firmin le Ver (1440) and Guillaume le Tailleur (1420–1440) both repeat “a Sara dicitur, quasi ex Sara genitus” in their definitions of Saracen, showing the persistence of this idea. Firmin uses the synonym paganus and Guillaume offers both gentilis and paganus (Firminus Verris 1994, s.v. “saracenus” and Guillaume le Talleur 2003, s.v. “saracenus”).

^14. We see this when the goddess Diana is alleged to have prophesied a “New Troy” (London) in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s narrative (2007, I§17 ll.305–13), legitimizing Britain as successor to the Ancient World. In Merlin, the prophet glosses over the Last Supper as announcing the grail (§48.35–74), which allows for Perlesvaus to imagine Crucifixion as prophesying, in many ways, the Christianization of Britain (see Derosier 2019). Merlin’s powers themselves are explained as a combination of gifts from the devil (recalling the past) and from God (foreseeing the future; Robert de Boron 1979, §10.9–39).

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Joseph Derosier

Joseph Derosier is Assistant Professor and Lead of the French Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Beloit College. His research focuses on medieval French romance and hermeneutics, and as well as on the intersections of medieval race, gender, nation, territory, and biopolitics. He recently published an article entitled “The Forest and the Heath: Defining the Human in Medieval Romance” exploring the racial and biopolitical stakes of romance and an essay on the ethics of romance in the Arthurian legend.