Deus vult

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"Deus lo vult" is the motto of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (1824).

Deus vult (

Catholics during the First Crusade in 1096 as a rallying cry, most likely under the form Deus le veult or Deus lo vult, as reported by the Gesta Francorum (ca. 1100) and the Historia Belli Sacri (ca. 1130).[a][1]

In modern times, the Latin motto has different meanings depending on the context. It has been used as a

far-right and Christian nationalist movements adopted the motto as a catchphrase. Medievalist scholars have criticized this use as harmful and historically inaccurate.[7]

Meaning and variants

The phrase appears in another form in the Vulgate translation of 2 Samuel 14:14 from the Bible: nec vult Deus perire animam ("God does not want any soul to perish").[8][9]

The variants Deus le volt and Deus lo vult, incorrect in Classical Latin, are forms influenced by Romance languages. According to Heinrich Hagenmeyer, the personal pronoun 'le' (or 'lo') was very likely part of the original motto as shouted during the First Crusade at Amalfi, since both the authors of the Gesta Francorum and the Historia Belli Sacri report it.[10] Later variants include the Old French Dieux el volt and the Classical Latin Deus id vult ("God wills it") or Deus hoc vult ("God wills this").[11][12]

History

First Crusade

The battle cry of the First Crusade is first reported in the Gesta Francorum, a chronicle written ca. 1100 by an anonymous author associated with Bohemond I of Antioch shortly after the successful campaign. According to this account, while the Princes' Crusade were gathered in Amalfi in the late summer of 1096, a large number of armed crusaders bearing the sign of the cross on their right shoulders or on their backs cried in unison "Deus le volt, Deus le volt, Deus le volt".[13] Medieval historian Guibert de Nogent mentions that "Deus le volt" has been retained by the pilgrims to the detriment of other cries.[14]

The Historia belli sacri, written later around 1131, also cites the battle cry.[10] It is again mentioned in the context of the capture of Antioch on 3 June 1098. The anonymous author of the Gesta was himself among the soldiers capturing the wall towers, and recounts that "seeing that they were already in the towers, they began to shout Deus le volt with glad voices; so indeed did we shout".[15]

Robert the Monk

Robert the Monk, who re-wrote the Gesta Francorum ca. 1120, added an account of the speech of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont
in 1095, of which he was an eyewitness. The speech climaxes in Urban's call for orthodoxy, reform, and submission to the Church. Robert records that the pope asked western Christians, poor and rich, to come to the aid of the Greeks in the east:

When Pope Urban had said these and very many similar things in his urbane discourse, he so influenced to one purpose the desires of all who were present, that they cried out, 'It is the will of God! It is the will of God!' When the venerable Roman pontiff heard that, with eyes uplifted to heaven he gave thanks to God and, with his hand commanding silence, said: Most beloved brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the Gospel, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them." Unless the Lord God had been present in your spirits, all of you would not have uttered the same cry. For, although the cry issued from numerous mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one. Therefore I say to you that God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! It is the will of God![16]

Robert also reports that the cry of Deus lo vult was at first shouted in jest by the soldiers of Bohemond during their combat exercises, and later turned into an actual battle cry, which Bohemond interpreted as a divine sign.[17]

Tyerman, writing in 2006, suggests that the cheering at Urban's speech was "probably led by a papal claque".[18]

19th and 20th century uses

Deus lo vult is the motto of the

Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a Roman Catholic order of chivalry (restored 1824).[19]

Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914), a Protestant Episcopalian, used the expression for his argument of the dominion of Christ as "essentially imperial" and that Christianity and warfare had a great deal in common: "'Deus vult!' say I. It was the cry of the Crusaders and of the Puritans and I doubt if man ever uttered a nobler [one]."[5]

When Adolf Hitler staged the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, Houston Stewart Chamberlain wrote an essay for the Völkischer Beobachter entitled "God Wills It!" calling on all Germans who love Germany to join the putsch.[20]

The

Italian Blackshirts Divisions sent to Spain in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War to make up the "Corpo Truppe Volontarie" (Corps of Volunteer Troops), or CTV.[21]

In 1947,

criticism of the crusades by Ralph Niger, writing in 1189.[22]

Adoption by far-right as slogan

Deus vult has been adopted by a slogan by a variety of

dominionists.[24] By co-opting the slogans and iconography of the European medieval period, racist movements in the U.S. intend to evoke a fantasy of a "pure" white European heritage, a nostalgic view that is historically inaccurate, and has been denounced by medievalist scholars as a gross distortion of history.[6][7][dubious – discuss
]

The "Deus vult" slogan is used by perpetrators of

2023 Allen, Texas outlet mall shooting.[26] It was among the slogans and symbols used during the violent far-right riot in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.[27]

The slogan, as well as other

AR-15-style rifle.[28] The motto is also used by Christian nationalist groups in Europe; it was portrayed on large banners carried by far-right marchers in 2017 in Warsaw, Poland.[24][29][30]

See also

Look up Deus vult in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Notes

  1. ^ Manuscripts of Gesta Francorum variously have Deus le volt, Deus lo vult, as well as the "corrected" forms Deus hoc vult and Deus vult. Hagenmeyer (1890) cites Barth: "Barbaro-latina vulgi exclamatio vel et tessera est. Videri autem hinc potest, tum idiotismum Francicum propiorem adhuc fuisse latine matrici".

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4725-8285-0
    . In Europe, Christians were convinced that God wanted them to bring the whole region back into the originally Christian fold. Their motto was Deus vult (God wills it).
  2. ^ "Definition of Deus Vult". Merriam-Webster.
  3. S2CID 144793259
    .
  4. S2CID 153831773
    .
  5. ^
    OCLC 409536
    .
  6. ^ a b c d Kim, Dorothy (November 5, 2018). "The Alt-Right and Medieval Religions". Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
  7. ^ a b c d Ulaby, Neda. "Scholars Say White Supremacists Chanting 'Deus Vult' Got History Wrong". All Things Considered. NPR. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  8. ^ Jacobs, Henry Eyster; Schmauk, Theodore Emanuel (1888). The Lutheran Church Review, Volumes 7–8. Alumni Association of the Lutheran Theological Seminary. p. 266.
  9. ^ Vulgate, Regum II, 14:14
  10. ^ a b Hagenmeyer, Heinrich (1890). Anonymi gesta Francorum et aliorum hierosolymitanorum (in Latin). C. Winter.
  11. ^ Le Monde, histoire de tous les peuples ... (in French). Imprimerie de Béthune et Plon. 1844. p. 327 (see bottom right note).
  12. ^ Mrs. William Busk, Mediaeval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders, Or, Germany, Italy, and Palestine, from A.D. 1125 to A.D. 1268, Volume 1 (1854), 15, 396.
  13. ^ Deferunt arma ad bellum congrua; in dextra vel inter utrasque scapulas crucem Christi baiulant; sonum vero 'Deus le volt', 'Deus le volt', 'Deus le volt'! una voce conclamant. Gesta Francorum IV.1 (Hagenmeyer (1890), p. 151.)
  14. ISBN 978-2-7535-5586-0
    .
  15. ^ Gesta Francorum 20.7, Hagenmeyer (1890), p. 304; some manuscripts also mention cries of
    kyrie eleison
    .
  16. ^ Robert the Monk: Historia Hierosolymitana. in [RHC, Occ III.] Dana C. Munro, "Urban and the Crusaders", Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol 1:2, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1895), 5-8 (Medieval Sourcebook).
  17. ^ Hagenmeyer (1890), p. 151, note 10, citing Historia Regum Francorum mOnast. S. Dionysii (ed. Waitz in Mon. Germ. SS. IX p. 405), and for battle cries of the crusaders in general: Ekk. Hieros. p. 90, 234; Röhricht, Beiträge II, 47.
  18. OCLC 71189881
    . During the speech, chanting of the slogan 'Deus lo volt', probably led by a papal claque, established the participation of the congregation in the ritual as well as symbolizing the correct submissive acceptance of divine guidance.
  19. ISBN 9789512913008
    .
  20. ISBN 978-0-231-04860-6
    .
  21. ISBN 84-87690-33-5
  22. ^ George B. Flahiff, "Deus Non Vult: A Critic of the Third Crusade", Mediaeval Studies 9 (1947), 162–188, doi: 10.1484/J.MS.2.306566.
  23. ^ Jones, Dan (10 October 2019). "What the Far Right Gets Wrong About the Crusades". Time. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
  24. ^ a b Sturtevant, Paul B. (22 January 2019). "What politicians mean when they call the border wall 'medieval'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 18 March 2022. In the same vein, far-right Christian nationalists and Dominionists employ Crusader imagery. But only some of those who use Crusader imagery do so to express extreme Christian ideology.
  25. S2CID 240589056
    ..
  26. ^ Aric Toler (9 May 2023). "Tracing the Odnoklassniki Profile of the Texas Mall Shooter". Bellingcat.
  27. ^ Staff (18 August 2017). "Deconstructing the symbols and slogans spotted in Charlottesville". The Washington Post.
  28. ^ Thomas Lecaque (7 June 2022). "Christian Nationalists and the Holy Gun Crusade". Religion Dispatches.
  29. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 2019-11-16.
  30. Times of Israel
    . Retrieved 2019-11-25.

Bibliography

  • B. Lacroix, "Deus le volt!: la théologie d'un cri", Études de civilisation médiévale (IXe-XIIe siècles). Mélanges offerts à Edmond-René Labande, Poitiers (1974), 461–470.
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