Fulcher of Chartres

Fulcher of Chartres (French: Foucher de Chartres; Latin: Fulcherus Carnotensis; c. 1059 – after 1128) was a priest who participated in the First Crusade. He served Baldwin I of Jerusalem for many years and wrote a Latin chronicle of the Crusade.

Quotes

• Many of the people, deserted by their leaders and fearing future want, sold their bows, took up their pilgrims’ staves, and returned to their homes as cowards.
  • Gesta Francorum Iherusalem peregrinantium, ch. 7, sec. 5 (tr. Martha Evelyn McGinty, 1941)
  • Bari, December 1096

• Who ever heard of such a mixture of languages in one army, since there were French, Flemings, Frisians, Gauls, Allobroges, Lotharingians, Allemani, Bavarians, Normans, English, Scots, Aquitanians, Italians, Dacians, Apulians, Iberians, Bretons, Greeks, and Armenians? If any Breton or Teuton wished to question me, I could neither understand nor answer.
  • Gesta Francorum Iherusalem peregrinantium, ch. 13, sec. 4 (tr. Martha Evelyn McGinty, 1941)
  • Antioch of Pisidia, August 1097

Quotes about Fulcher

• The material is scanty; the historian must read between the lines; he must above all avoid rash generalizations. It is evident that Arnold was right, human nature has not varied much throughout the ages. While it is not possible to form a picture of an average Crusader, as elusive a character as the 'economic man,' it is possible to form some concept of Fulcher's character and limitations, and through him of the acts and points of view of other Crusaders in the time of the First Crusade and in the years when the Kingdom of Jerusalem was still a strong and prosperous colony.
  • Dana Carleton Munro, "A Crusader", Speculum, vol. 7, no. 3 (1932) p. 328