Robert de Clari

Robert de Clari (Robert de Cléry ^[1]) was a knight from Picardy. He participated in the Fourth Crusade with his lord, Count Peter of Amiens, and his brother, Aleaumes de Clari, and left a chronicle of the events in Old French.^[2] Robert's account of the crusade is especially valuable because of his status as a lower vassal; most other eyewitness accounts are from the leadership of the crusade, such as nobles like Villehardouin. Robert's descriptions often shed light on some of the crusader activities that are otherwise glossed over by the nobler sources.

Robert's brother, Aleaumes, was an armed cleric who distinguished himself during the final siege of Constantinople, when the usurping emperor Alexius V "Murzuphlus" Ducas was routed by the crusaders. Robert included in his chronicle a brief account of his brother's apparently foolhardy bravery during the final capture of the city, when Aleaumes was the first man within the walls, and later mentioned a dispute concerning the division of spoils which Aleaumes deserved. One of the prominent noble leaders of the crusade, Count Hugh of Saint-Pol, judged in favor of Aleaumes.

Robert was one of the few documented witnesses to the Shroud of Turin before 1358. He reports (1203) that the cloth was in Constantinople: "Where there was the Shroud in which our Lord had been wrapped, which every Friday raised itself upright so one could see the figure of our Lord on it."^[3] The historians Madden and Queller describe this part of Robert's account as a mistake: Robert had actually seen or heard of the sudarium, the handkerchief of Saint Veronica (which also purportedly contained the image of Jesus), and confused it with the grave cloth (sindon).^[4]

References

• Robert de Clari. La Conquête de Constantinople (1924) edited by Philippe Lauer
• The Conquest of Constantinople (1996 reprint) translator Edgar Holmes McNeal

Notes

1. ^ Jean Longnon, Les Compagnons de Vilalehardouin.
2. ^ Robert of Clari's account of the Fourth Crusade
3. ^ With regard to the whereabouts of the shroud: after the Fourth Crusade, in 1205, the following letter was sent by Theodore Angelos, a nephew of one of three Byzantine Emperors who were deposed during the Fourth Crusade, to Pope Innocent III protesting the attack on the capital. From the document, Codex Chartularium Culisanense, fol. CXXVI (copia), National Library Palermo, dated 1 August 1205: "The Venetians partitioned the treasures of gold, silver, and ivory while the French did the same with the relics of the saints and the most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before the resurrection. We know that the sacred objects are preserved by their predators in Venice, in France, and in other places, the sacred linen in Athens."
4. ^ Madden, Thomas, and Donald Queller. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Second edition. page 139.