Oliver of Paderborn and 1222: the return to the West after the Fifth Crusade, a stopover in Famagusta, and the collapse of Limassol Cathedral

ABSTRACT

This brief paper reexamines Oliver of Paderborn’s description of the aftermath of the Fifth Crusade in light of different dating practices, Caesarius of Heisterbach’s remarks, and Cypriot documents. It concludes that Oliver remained in the East far longer than often thought, that his coverage of events is thus more direct, that in September 1222 the crusade leaders stopped in Famagusta where a famous meeting was held, and that in May of that year an earthquake must have destroyed Limassol Cathedral, killing the bishop.

KEYWORDS:

• Fifth Crusade
• Earthquake
• Limassol
• Famagusta
• Oliver of Paderborn
• Caesarius of Heisterbach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to a contemporary scribe’s note in Città de Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Palatinus Graecus 367, f. 180r, for which see Spyridon Lambros, ‘Kypriaka kai alla eggrapha ek tou Palatinou Kodikos 367 tes vivliothekes tou Vatikanou’ [Cypriot and other documents from Codex Palatinus 367 of the Vatican Library], Neos Ellenomnemon 15 (1921): 344; Peter Schreiner, Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1975–9), 1: 199; Costas N. Constantinides and Robert Browning, Dated Greek Manuscripts from Cyprus to the Year 1570 (Nicosia, 1994), p. 161b, no. 11.

2 Oliver of Paderborn, Historia Damiatina, §86, in Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters, späteren Bischofs von Paderborn und Kardinalbischofs von S. Sabina Oliverus, ed. Hermann Hoogeweg (Tübingen, 1894), 159–280, at 279.13–19.

3 Hoogeweg, Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters, xxxiv–xxxv.

4 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, d. 10, cc. 48–50, ed. Joseph Strange (Cologne, 1851), 2: 251–2.

5 A similar logic is found in the start of an extract from the Chronica Regia Coloniensis, ed. Georg Waitz (Hanover, 1880), 252–99, translated by Graham Loud, The Royal Chronicle of Cologne, 1222–49, https://ims.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/02/Cologne-Chronicle-1222-49.pdf. For the ‘year of the Lord 1222’, first is mentioned Henry VII’s coronation by the archbishop of Cologne ‘on 8th May’, followed by ‘On 11th January in this same year, in the first hour of the day, there was a great earthquake in Cologne’. Only later do we find the entry for 1223.

6 See the data in E. Guidoboni, G. Ferrari, G. Tarabusi, G. Sgattoni, A. Comastri, D. Mariotti, C. Ciuccarelli, M.G. Bianchi, G. Valensise G., CFTI5Med, The New Release of the Catalogue of Strong Earthquakes in Italy and in the Mediterranean Area, Scientific Data 6, Article number: 80 (2019), no. 105, 239–59, at 241, http://storing.ingv.it/cfti/cfti5/pdf_med/000013-091411_EMB.pdf.

7 Friedrich Karl Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie; das Zeitrechnungswesen der Völker, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1914), 166.

8 E.g., Hermann Hoogeweg, ‘Oliver von Paderborn’, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1914), 3:166. he had learned of the Caesarius of Heisterbach problem by the time he wrote Hermann Hoogeweg, ‘Die Kreuzpredigt des Jahres 1224 in Deutschland mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Erzdiöcese’ Köln, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 4 (1890): 54–74, at 64.

9 Paul B. Pixton, The German Episcopacy and the Implementation of the Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1216–1245. Watchmen on the Tower (Leiden, 1995), 317 and the literature cited in n. 335.

10 Oliver of Paderborn, The Capture of Damietta, trans. John J. Gavigan, in Christian Society and the Crusades, ed. Edward Peters (Philadelphia, 1971), 137–8, very slightly modified.

11 Chroniques d'Amadi et de Strambaldi, ed. René de Mas Latrie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1891–3), 1: 115.

12 The Cartulary of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom of Nicosia, ed. Nicholas Coureas and Chris Schabel (Nicosia, 1997), no. 83.

13 From the angle of Pelagius, see also the brief remark in Joseph P. Donovan, Pelagius and the Fifth Crusade (Philadelphia, 1950), 106 and n. 48, who cites the opinion, from the perspective of John of Brienne, of Ludwig Böhm, Johann von Brienne, König von Jerusalem, Kaiser von Konstantinopel (um 1170–1237) (Heidelberg, 1938), 67, that at least they all arrived together in Brindisi in late October or early November.

14 Jochen Burgtorf, ‘Das Netzwerk der Montaigus zwischen Okzident und Orient’, Ordines militares colloquia Torunensia historica. Yearbook for the Study of the Military Orders 19 (2015): 9–26.

15 Cartulary of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom of Nicosia, ed. Coureas and Schabel, nos. 82 and 84.

16 Bullarium Cyprium I: Papal Letters Involving Cyprus 1196–1261, ed. Chris Schabel (Nicosia, 2010), nos. c-35, 40, 52, 55, 62, 64.

17 Cartulary of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom of Nicosia, ed. Coureas and Schabel, no. 95.

18 The papal confirmation of the 1222 Famagusta agreement, dated 21 January 1223, is addressed to all four unnamed bishops and their chapters on Cyprus: Bullarium Cyprium I, ed. Schabel, no. c-47. The confirmation quotes Pelagius’ version of the 1222 Famagusta agreement, which lacks the clerics’ signatures but refers to the earlier 1220 Limassol agreement as involving ‘Bishop R. of Limassol’. I thus wrongly guessed that the papal confirmation was addressed to ‘[R.] of Limassol’. This is also the case for letters c-48 of 19 July 1223, c-53 of 18 January 1224, and c-73 of 25 February 1226. The only explicit mention of Bishop R. is in the October 1220 agreement itself and the documents of 1221, 1222, and 1223 that quote it or refer to it: Cartulary of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom of Nicosia, ed. Coureas and Schabel, nos. 82–42; Bullarium Cyprium I, ed. Schabel, no. c-47. The next mention of a bishop of Limassol by name, ‘T.’, does not come for another decade. R.’s successor was perhaps elected soon after the Famagusta meeting, but whether the new bishop was T. or one or more bishops of Limassol reigned in between R. and T. is unknown.

19 Caesarius of Heisterbach, The Dialogue on Miracles, d. 10, c. 48, trans. H. von E. Scott and C.C. Swinton Bland, 2 vols. (New York, 1929), 2: 211.

20 That is, unless we are prepared to consider the possibility that it was a Greek cathedral that collapsed with a Greek bishop inside, in which case Caesarius of Heisterbach could be referring to Paphos or Limassol, although Caesarius himself does not seem to have been aware of this possibility and hence did not specify.

21 Unfortunately, these new details come too late to be incorporated into the latest surveys: Angel Nicolaou-Konnari and Chris Schabel, ‘Frankish and Venetian Limassol’, in Lemesos. A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest, ed. iidem (Newcastle, 2015), 196–359, and Chris Schabel, ‘The Ecclesiastical History of Lusignan and Genoese Famagusta’, in Famagusta. Volume II: History and Society, ed. Gilles Grivaud, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, and Chris Schabel (Turnhout, 2020), 297–362.