A Porous Boundary: Natural and Supernatural in the Hystoria de via

The Hystoria de via is the sole surviving crusader chronicle from Southern Italy, which, while drawing on the Gesta Francorum and the Gesta Tancredi, still contains numerous original passages. Within them, the role of nature as prodigy, obstacle and threat reflects a highly contextual understanding of the natural world as background to human action, canvas of God’s will, and pathetic fallacy reflecting the crusaders’ path of war and faith. This article will analyse the way the chronicle’s narrative constantly blurs the line between natural and supernatural, joining realistic and detailed descriptions of the landscape encountered by the crusaders to natural miracles in which faith moves mountains and manipulates fires, and God’s might and support of the crusade is revealed through the “streaming stars and roads of fire” that announce it and open the way to Jerusalem. The article will contextualise the Hystoria’s understanding of both natural and supernatural within the larger trends of crusader chronicles and the rich tradition of chronicle-writing at the abbey of Montecassino, where it was probably written. By thus precisely situating the Hystoria’s depiction of natural and supernatural phenomena and constant exchange between the two, this article will investigate a specific understanding of the way nature and divinity interact in the world during the heightened religious experience of the crusade, and one little-explored in secondary literature.