Emotion in Motion: The Rhetoric of Zeal and the Crusades

My work on the development of the idea of crusading as an act of vengeance in the twelfth century highlighted the significance of the term zelus, which was increasingly associated with vengeance and vengeful crusading through the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in Latin crusading texts. Analysis demonstrated that the sentiment behind the medieval term was a composite of passionate love, jealous protectiveness, and angry, competitive hostility. Because the term was conceptually associated with love of God and justice, twelfth-century writers, drawing upon Paul’s New Testament, used the term to mitigate blame. What is particularly interesting is that zeal was clearly perceived as an emotion that led to action. One did not simply feel zealous; one did something because one felt zealous. In this paper I will focus on the two actions associated with zeal in crusading sources: vengeance and self-sacrifice. In my discussion of how one emotion could have been associated with such apparently disparate actions, I will emphasize the twelfth-century substitution of zelus in two Biblical passages (Exodus 20:5-6 and Romans 10:2-3). As I will show, looking at zelus illuminates a religious perspective whereby the discourse of anger and rivalry—transmuted through the terminology of zeal—could be components of piety.