[In the following prologue, Fulcher outlines the story that will be told in his A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem and describes the Crusade as a “pilgrimage in arms.”]

HERE BEGINNETH MASTER FULCHER'S PROLOGUE TO THE WORK WHICH FOLLOWS

It is a joy to the living and even profitable to the dead when the deeds of brave men, especially those fighting for God, are read from written records or, retained in the recesses of the memory, are solemnly recited among the faithful.¹ For those still living in this world, on hearing of the pious purposes of their predecessors, and how the latter following the precepts of the Gospels spurned the finest things of this world and abandoned parents, wives, and their possessions however great, are themselves inspired to follow God and embrace Him with enthusiasm [Matth. 12:29; Marc. 10:29; Luc. 18:29; Matth. 16:24; Marc. 8:34; Luc. 9:23]. It is very beneficial for those who have died in the Lord when the faithful who are still alive, hearing of the good and pious deeds of their forebears, bless the souls of the departed and in love bestow alms with prayers in their behalf whether they, the living, knew the departed or not.

2. For this reason, moved by the repeated requests of some of my comrades, I have related in a careful and orderly fashion the illustrious deeds of the Franks when by God's most express mandate they made a pilgrimage in arms to Jerusalem in honor of the Savior. I have recounted in a style homely but truthful what I deemed worthy of remembrance as far as I was able or just as I saw things with my own eyes on the journey itself.²

3. Although I dare not compare the above-mentioned labor of the Franks with the great achievements of the Israelites or Maccabees or of many other privileged people whom God has honored by frequent and wonderful miracles, still I consider the deeds of the Franks scarcely less inferior since God's miracles often occurred among them. These I have taken care to commemorate in writing. In what way do the Franks differ from the Israelites or Maccabees? Indeed we have seen these Franks in the same regions, often right with us, or we have heard about them in places distant from us, suffering dismemberment, crucifixion, flaying, death by arrows or by being rent apart, or other kinds of martyrdom, all for the love of Christ. They could not be overcome by threats or temptations, nay rather if the butcher's sword had been at hand many of us would not have refused martyrdom for the love of Christ.

4. Oh how many thousands of martyrs died a blessed death on this expedition! But who is so hard of heart that he can hear of these deeds of God without being moved by the deepest piety to break forth in His praise? Who will not marvel how we, a few people in the midst of the lands of our enemies, were able not only to resist but even to survive? Who has ever heard of the like? On one side of us were Egypt and Ethiopia; on another, Arabia, Chaldea and Syria, Assyria and Media, Parthia and Mesopotamia, Persia and Scythia. Here a great sea³ separated us from Christendom and by the will of God enclosed us in the hands of butchers. But His mighty arm mercifully protected us. “Blessed indeed is the nation whose God is the Lord” [Psalm. 32:12].

5. The history which follows will tell both how this work was begun and how, in order to carry out the journey, all the people of the West freely devoted to it their hearts and hands.

HERE ENDETH THE PROLOGUE

Notes

1. The Prologue appears in most manuscripts of the second redaction, which was begun in 1124, and, oddly enough, in MS I (Br. Museum, King's Library 5 B XV) of the first redaction. Hagenmeyer suggests that the Prologue was written between 1118-20, at about the same time as a reference to the Maccabees that occurs in Book II, chap. liv, and after the death of Baldwin I in 1118 but before 1120, the last date in MS K (HF 115, note 1).

2. Fulcher's characterization of his style as “homely” is a reminder that he came from Chartres, then famous for its classical studies. Fulcher must have been aware of this and indeed often quoted classical authors. He used medieval rather than classical Latin and apparently was a little sensitive about it. He also reveals at this point that he was an eyewitness to the First Crusade.

3. The Mediterranean.

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