Narrating Trauma? Captured Cross Relics in Chronicles andChansons de Geste

Abstract

This essay examines how medieval Christian writers narrate a Cross relic’s capture in battle by Muslims. It seeks to delineate the distinctive ways in which four texts from various genres craft a sense that this event should be perceived by Christians as a substantial collective loss that reshapes communities and individuals. It then concludes by assessing how these varied representations intersect with modern trauma theory in order to answer two questions: (1) Do Western medieval texts represent experiences of relic capture, which might be termed a form of devotional dispossession, in ways that communicate a sense of what is today labelled trauma?; and (2) If so, what might such representations mean for both medieval and trauma studies? Ultimately, the essay argues that these texts intersect with contemporary models of collective trauma and its narration and, in so doing, can contribute both to trauma studies’ rethinking of what trauma narratives look like and to medievalists’ understandings of the affective import of relic capture and the role of crusading texts in the construction of such affect.

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