If you are new here, we are reading David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Catch up and join us on Thursdays in 2025. My first slow read here on Substack in 2023 was David Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything. These two books showcase his thesis on the development of humanity by looking at how people organised themselves and their world around human values and choices. Unique among his peers, Graeber still asks the big questions in anthropology.
Dear Reader,
I got a hankering for Kenny Rogers (a chicken roast franchise flourishing outside of the USA) cornbread muffins this week. I had great childhood family memories of eating there on some Sundays. It was a great meal alternative to fried chicken. But it was the cornbread that I wanted.
Google heard me and served me up an Instagram recipe from Pepper which was so easy to do that I made it in less than an hour. I had rough cornmeal that I wanted to get rid of. The recipe turned out good. I would reduce the sugar drastically and the suggested cornmeal amount (cups vs. grams is driving me crazy now!) The honey can also be omitted. It is a quick snack but not the taste of my memory. Yet. So I will continue to tweak this recipe.
We are still in Chapter 10 on the Middle Ages pp. 291, 293-296 (on my PDF copy). Graeber briefly mentioned the knight as the merchant-adventurer—a figure of romance and mystery.
Let’s see where the path leads.
Melanie
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The Romance of War and Adventure
David Graeber briefly mentioned knights, especially the Holy Land crusaders, as bankers. No further explanation. No doubt, financing a long multiple-year journey did require money (a lot of it) but he missed one crucial point. As I have argued previously, Graeber’s Marxist background discounts the spiritual aspect of the Age of Faith—the emotional and spiritual motivation to atone for sins and purchase eternal salvation.
Men and the nobility at that period went to war far beyond money, though the promise of loot and riches also beckoned. Crusading is a religious and spiritual pilgrimage to purchase redemption and its promise of cleansing one’s sins.
The concept of ‘adventure’ is an essential component of this.
Aventure, which in its literary occurrences before the courtly romance means fate, chance, has become, in the knightly-courtly system of relations, an event that the knight must seek out and endure.
p. 5 Ideology of Adventure by Michael Nerlich
Graeber links this term from the merchant-adventurer of the Italian armed merchants and the other participants of the fairs in Champagne, France.1 It was here that the poet Chretien de Troyes (1130-1191) wrote the four romances of French chivalry based on the court life of his patron Henri the Liberal (1152-1181) and his wife Marie, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine. This became the singular vision and basis for crusading that characterised the Middle Ages.
Mythmaking: medieval tournament
Armed men were unruly subjects of the land. If the hanse was difficult to define as a group, the knights were equally elusive. Graeber says the term has no equivalent in reality. He characterises them as freelance warriors from minor nobility who seek their fortune. Lacking wealth, status, or combat experience, they tended to be rabble-rousers and therefore, in need of direction and control.
Tournaments, Graeber remarked, were controlled battlegrounds defined by rules of participation and conduct. It allowed minor nobilities to redirect their energy in heraldic displays.
A month after Pentecost the tournament assembled, and the jousting began in the plain below Tenebroc. Many an ensign of red, blue, and white, many a veil and many a sleeve were bestowed as tokens of love. Many a lance was carried there, flying the colours argent and green, or gold and azure blue. There were many, too, with different devices, some with stripes and some with dots. That day one saw laced on many a helmet of gold or steel, some green, some yellow, and others red, all aglowing in the sun; so many scutcheons and white hauberks; so many swords girt on the left side; so many good shields, fresh and new, some resplendent in silver and green, others of azure with buckles of gold; so many good steeds marked with white, or sorrel, tawny, white, black, and bay: all gather hastily. And now the field is quite covered with arms. On either side the ranks tremble, and a roar rises from the fight. The shock of the lances is very great. Lances break and shields are riddled, the hauberks receive bumps and are torn asunder, saddles go empty and horsemen ramble, while the horses sweat and foam. Swords are quickly drawn on those who tumble noisily, and some run to receive the promise of a ransom, others to stave off this disgrace.
Jean de Santré jousts with a Spanish knight Enguerrant, by Antoine de la Salle circa 1470. British Library
…They grasp their reins by the knots and their shields by the inner straps. They both had fine arms, and strong swift horses, and good shields, fresh and new. With such fury they strike each other that both their lances fly in splinters. Never was there seen such a blow. They rush together with shields, arms, and horses. But neither girth nor rein nor breast-strap could prevent the king from coming to earth. So he flew from his steed, carrying with him saddle and stirrup, and even the reins of his bridle in his hand. All those who witnessed the jousting were filled with amazement, and said it cost him dear to joust with such a goodly knight. Erec did not wish to stop to capture either horse or rider, but rather to joust and distinguish himself in order that his prowess might appear.
vv.135-2292 from Erec et Enide by Chretien de Troyes
These tournaments were theatre and stylised ritual but also financial risks akin to gambling, the very heart of calculated aventure. Knights borrow sums to arm themselves and can lose their armour and horses.
The point was, according to Michael Nerlich, jousting was a celebration of ‘voluntary daring.’ A knight’s highest ideal is the quest for unpredictable risk, but also to endure such dangers and achieve honour êre—the highest ethical achievement in the courtly knight ideology.
Mythmaking: the sacred and the affective
In the shadow of the tournaments, Pope Urban II (1088-1099) understood how such courtly rituals could be harnessed for his conversion mission. Having grown up in Champagne, he would have been familiar with the knight ideology. Jonathan Riley-Smith suggests in his work on The First Crusade that the leaders in Constantinople sought help from the pope as the Byzantine Empire lost most of its territory to the Turks. Between August 1095 to September 1096, Pope Urban II traveled around France to recruit for the divine war for Christ.2 This was a liberation libertas or liberatio, one that was justified in the Augustinian precept as a response to injury. In this case, an injury that befell fellow Christians and the loss of Jerusalem.
Moreover, the crusades (and there were eight of them running for two hundred years) are seen as a meritorious pilgrimage. Previously, I have discussed the relationship between the crusades and papal indulgences. It is essentially a balance sheet when sin is cancelled through forgiveness (erasure) or via good deeds (banking or saving up). This accounting sheet appears dry and transactional as I described it.
It is missing the power of emotions and faith of this period. Medieval scholars studying emotions show that tears become intimately connected with the ‘compassionate devotion to the suffering Christ.’ Tears lacrime were equated to the washing away of sins.
Crusading was an act of remembering, repeating, and following Christ to wage war to wash away their sins imitatio Christi according to Kurt Villads Jensen.
Robert the Monk (Robert Monachus) in Historia Hierosolymitana (c. 1110), a widely popular report about the First Crusade, describes tears entwined with the religious battle for Jerusalem
Oh sweet Jesus, when your armies caught sight of the earthly walls of Jerusalem, how many waters did their eyes not let out?...They fought against your enemies in Jerusalem, although they came from so far away, and they spurred you to come to their help. They fought better with tears, than by trusting spears, because although they let their tears flow everywhere onto the land, they also ascended to heaven before you, their defender.
p.101, Crying Crusaders by Kurt Villads Jensen
Interestingly, there is little account of tears in the Northern Crusades during the twelfth century. It seems the Danes detest weeping. However, Jensen noticed that another type of external devotion is driven by rage ira or a feeling of zeal that drives one to take revenge and kill unbelievers. This is part of what is called herem-theology or an Old Testament theology that refers to the wrath of God, His ira, whichwill be quenched only by the execution and sacrifice of pagans. This revenge compassion is the flip side of the internal tears shed for Christ.
Just as there are different types of merchants (size, background, language, hometown), there are different types of participants in the Crusades. These differences matter little because every participant in the military service— soldier, knight, layperson, monk, adventurer, criminal or desperate—is rededicated and sanctified as a crusader. A crusader is a monastic knight with a set of rules, discipline, and taboos that reign in private mercenaries and brigands.
Such a persona was inspired by the religious life of warriors observed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and documented in his De laude novae militiae. Here, his new knight battles internal imperfection by imposing chastity, poverty, and obedience unto himself; as well as, fighting the external threat of Islamic armies on the battlefield. Both are for the cause of Christendom and the redemption of the individual warrior. These warriors were accountable only to the pope.
Since crusading was temporary, conversions and conquered lands enticed knights to stay or were formally recruited as permanent warriors in the area. Such was what happened in Riga and the Livonia conquests. Victorious warriors were awarded money and land. In turn, these assets were used to build castles that granted them political power and control over the surrounding territory. Indeed, Graeber emphasised the tactical after reaching their goal and this was probably what he was emphasising.
The Teutonic Order
The shape of the governance structure of Northern knight orders stemmed from the Jerusalem Crusaders. My interest is to continue our story of the Northern Baltic Crusades. Three groups in the region eventually incorporated themselves: the Brothers of the Knighthood of Christ in Livonia (Sword Brothers), the Order of the Dobrzyń and the Teutonic Order which is the larger of the two
We ended in 1227 from our previous post when Riga was conquered and the Brotherhood of the Sword was incorporated. This group of knights, under the purview of Bishop Albert of Buxtehude, needed a small group to remain in the area permanently.
A second group was formed by Bishop Christian in 1206 who was attempting to convert the Prussians in the lower Vistula River. He recruited fourteen German knights who were awarded a fort at Dobrzyń. They were calling themselves the Fratres Militie Christi de Livonia contra Prutenos (or the Order of Dobrzyń)
Instead of a cross, they have a star on their emblem. Illustration by Alex Tora Wikipedia
These two minor groups served at the behest of the popes and had minimal wealth that they controlled except for the land that was awarded or conquered. In contrast, the Teutonic Order that came to continue their work in the region had larger assets under their control. In 1250, they possessed
twelve bailiwicks or land complexes that garnered them revenues and rights in Germany and with land came recruits
over a hundred commanders from all across Germany
donations trebled between 1210 to 1230; by 1290 the total amassed in 1230 was doubled (no specific amount given)
By the fourteenth century, the estimated manpower the Order possessed included 2000 knight-brothers, 3000 priests, nuns, and serjeants (who supported the warrior knights and managed the wealth and administrative work of the Order).
The size of their wealth can be attributed to the charter issued to them by the towns—the Kulmischer Handfest that allowed them to share profits, extract annual rent, coin their own money, and landownership from territories that they conquered. These exclusive rights granted them autonomous control and access to income from trade with merchants.
It appeared that settlement, rather than a temporary pilgrimage, triggered what Graeber described as the expansiveness of banking and asset building to maintain the presence of the Order in the Baltic territories, for example.
A pilgrimage requires transitioning into a worthy individual. The knight’s Order imposes strict requirements and rigorously applies monastic requirements on the warriors.
Recruiting warrior monks
Their recruits come from both noble and non-noble origins but it was only in the 1340s onwards that the grandmaster, the titular head, preferred the wolgeboren for the position of the knight-brother.
The onboarding process followed the Templar system by asking postulant candidates five questions:
Do you belong to any other Order?
Are you married?
Have you any hidden physical infirmity?
Are you in debt?
Are you a serf?
The answer should be five noes.
After this another set of five questions is asked
Are you prepared to fight in Palestine? Or elsewhere?
To care for the sick?
To practice any craft you know as ordered?
To obey the Rule?
The answer should be five yeses.
Once confirmed they professed allegiance to the Teutonic Order:
I, Cuno von Hattenstein, do profess and promise chastity, renunciation of property, and obedience, to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to you, Brother Anno, Master of the Teutonic Order, and to your successors, according to the Rules and Institutions of the Order, and I will be obedient to you, and to your successors, even unto death.
p. 83, The Northern Crusades
They then begin to shed their differences and enter a state of uniformity.
They were issued with a pair of shirts, a pair of breeches, two pairs of boots (neither loose nor tight), one surcoat, one sleeping-bag, one blanket, one breviary and one knife. He could have two or four mounts as ordered, but they were not his own; they belonged to the convent. He was not allowed to consort with laymen, and his fur-coat had to be cheap: goatskin or sheepskin. He had to sleep in his shirt, breeches and boots, and was not allowed to put a lock or fastening on his box.
p. 84, The Northern Crusades
Disciplining warrior monks
The admitted knights begin a regimented life much like a monk following the Consuetudines maiores, that combines the Templar rule book and the Dominican routine. Every commander group had a copy. These were read three times a year and sections were explained every Sunday.
The content provided a full routine of religious observances both within their garrisons and during field combat. They received the sacrament seven times a year and performed rigid fasts.
There was Lent, and a further meatless season lasting for most of November and December; nor could meat be eaten on any Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, or on any one of twenty other stated fast-days. Eggs, milk, porridge and water formed their staple diet.
p. 83, The Northern Crusades
As part of their daily life, they are to remain silent during meals, their march and whenever they go to the latrine. The only approved activity was woodworking.
All the courtesy and conviviality of secular knighthood was forbidden. He could not display his own coat of arms, if he had one: argent, a cross sable, was good enough for all. He was not allowed to joust, or to hunt most forms of game; he could kill only wolves and bears, but without the assistance of hounds. He could let his beard grow, but his hair had to be short and neat.
p. 84, The Northern Crusades
Though they were not entitled to individual shares in booty or property, he was allowed to trade for income for his house.
All this was for the atonement of sins through self-sacrifice says Eric Christiansen, equal to that of a friar or a monk.3
Crusading: Paying an Unpayable Debt
Understanding crusading requires looking at its myth and the emotions generated by deep Christian faith. Sin is a curious entity. It can be erased through indulgences or acts of good. Like a debt that can never be repaid, one can simply bank and add on good deeds for redemption.
Crusading must be understood as debt repayment and salvation. It has its internal forms of self-sacrifice which consists of deprivation and poverty. Yet, its most external manifestation is the forced conversion of non-Christians and material conquests. Both are interpreted as the way of God.
This form of debt repayment required massive wealth accumulation and financial expenditure with the cost shouldered by the conquered, the kings/princes, and the papal monarchy. It is only by a combination of adventure ideology, holy promises, and material security that can move men’s wills and hearts thousands of miles with only death looming on the horizon.
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The crusade can be seen as a form of debt repayment to an unredeemable sin. It has two components: internal and external acts of self-sacrifice
(internal) through a rigid disciplining of the body and mind, a crusader cleanses himself from one’s sins.
(external) through a holy war against non-Christians and retrieval of the Holy Land, one can exercise justice and revenge
One achieves eternal redemption through tears and rage.
This singular mission is made possible by a rigid recruitment and daily routine that creates warrior monks capable of personal discipline and obedience in warfare. Spiritual debt repayment is materially costly. It requires a combination of multiple land grants, conquered lands, and town charters to sustain these Orders from temporary pilgrimage initiatives into permanent garrisons of military security.
These fairs rotated in four towns (Bar-sur-Aube, Lagny, Provins and Troyes) and were held six times a year. These were the centre of financing, trade, and currency exchange and the heart of the commercial revolution in the Middle Ages. See Sheilagh Ogilvie.
This is the reason why the Holy Land Crusade was considered a predominantly French mission for those who continued onward. The German Franks held their own crusading and hospitaller (tending to the sick) missions for pilgrims.
The other members of the Order included Priest-brothers, half-brothers and sisters who performed charity, education and preaching. This is primarily directed at their hospitals in which they grant alms, and provide asylum and masses (but not medicine), similar to the rules established by the Order of St. John.
