simultaneously; he "mollifies" the style and corrects the substance
of previous writers on the Crusades; he argues for some miracles and
against others; he utilizes and attempts to transcend both the
Graeco-Roman and the Judaeo part of the Judaeo-Christian past. As a
rhetorical performance, in both prose and verse, the results are
impressive, since the Gesta Dei per Francos simultaneously reflects
historical reality, and provides some insight into the workings of
the mind of gifted, early twelfth-century French cleric and
aristocrat.



Summary of the Gesta Dei per Francos

Characteristically, Guibert opens the Gesta defensively, justifying
his choice of a modern topic by insisting upon the exceptional nature
of the Crusade, as well as the exceptional nature of the French. The
entire first book is devoted to a selective history of the Eastern
Church and a denunciation of heresies, concluding with an extensive
invective against Mahomet, compounding sex, excrement, and disease.
[37] Guibert then moves forward in time, to the generation before
the First Crusade, to describe a complaint about Muslim lust made by
the Greek Emperor to the elder Count Robert of Flanders. Guibert
also complains about the Greek Emperor's own excessive interest in
erotic motivation for warriors.

Book Two begins with an account that amounts to little more than a
panegyric of Pope Urban II, admired by Guibert at least partially
because he is French. Guibert then compliments the French for their
long-standing loyalty to the Popes, and for their generally Christian