ABSTRACT

Hanging above the altar of the Holy Sacrament in the cathedral of St.-Bertrand de Cummings one could once view the body of a stuffed crocodile. Part offering, part memento, part relic; a symbol of another place. It is an odd object to have above the altar, the location of the commemoration of Christ’s passion and resurrection in the Mass. In the late-nineteenth century, some believed the crocodile to have been brought back to the small Pyrenees town by a returning crusader, perhaps offered as a sign of thanks for a safe passage, as token of victory (however fleeting) on the Nile.1 A similar act of crusader adornment was once visible on the walls of the “tower of Gouffier” in the castle of Pompadour, the stronghold of the lords of Lastours in central France. Writing in 1183, Geoffrey, a prior of the Benedictine house of Vigeois, near Limoges, described how “‘the walls of the tower were more beautifully decorated than was customary’ because of certain ‘cloth-hangings’ (pallia) that a ‘prince’ of Lastours had brought back from Jerusalem.”2 Cloth, whose warp and weft were made of fibers new to the European touch, including linens and damask, silks from Limassol and camelin from Acre, was one of the most common items to return with crusaders from the East.3