The First Crusade Letter Written at Laodicea in 1099: Two Previously Unpublished Versions from Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 23390 and 28195

This article analyses the author’s discovery in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 23390 of a fourth recension of the letter written by the leaders of the First Crusade at Laodicea in September 1099 (Hagenmeyer no. XVIII). A different version of the same letter from the second recension, unearthed in Clm 28195 by Benjamin Kedar in the 1980s, is also analysed and both letters are published for the first time. It is argued that these copies of the letter testify to flourishing interest in the crusading movement in the monastic houses of southern Germany and Austria in the period between the Third Crusade and the Crusade of Frederick II. The letters were probably copied as part of a celebration and commemoration of German participation in the crusades, which culminated in the recovery of Jerusalem by Frederick II in 1229. The present article also contends that greater attention should be given to the regional manuscript traditions of the letters of the First Crusade, so as to reveal more about their popularity and transmission in the Middle Ages.