The relationship between heavy metal and the history
of the Crusades is old, close, and well-tested. For most of us, our first
musical contact with the subject came from the European school: Grave Digger’s
monumental Knights of the Cross (1998) set the terms of the game, capturing the
rise and fall of the Templars with grit, epic grandeur, and theatricality.
However, the history of medieval religious wars has
many facets—some of them so dark and tragic that they defy imagination. To
discover them, we need to cross to the other side of the Atlantic and stand
before an underground "hidden force" of the American heavy sound.
In 2006, Chicago’s Bible of the Devil released their
fourth album, titled The Diabolic Procession, through Italy’s Cruz Del Sur
Music. Instead of the geopolitics of powerful knights, the Americans chose to
shed light on the most controversial, blood-soaked, and betrayed page of the
13th century: the Children's Crusade (1212).
The result? A staggering concept album that functions
as a timeless, chilling parable.
1. The Birth of Illusion and Blind Fanaticism
The story begins with two parallel movements in France
and Germany. Two young boys, Stephen of Cloyes and Nicholas, claim to have seen
visions of Christ, who commanded them to gather an "army of the
innocent" to liberate Jerusalem peacefully. The promise? The sea would dry
up before them so they could walk all the way to the Holy Lands.
Bible of the Devil open the album with the
instrumental, ominous "Ecclesia Novorum Innocentium" ("The
Church of the New Innocents"), immediately setting the philosophical
framework:
“Timeless fable of a generation lost / Countless
thousands perished for the cross… Of the body count a holy war will bring / And
the power lust of he, who would be king”
Musically, the band avoids symphonic excesses.
Instead, they deliver a seminar in pure, fan-driven heavy metal with a
twin-guitar attack that marries the melody of Thin Lizzy with the galloping
nerve of early Iron Maiden and Riot.
In "Sepulchre", the lyrics introduce us to
the "false Messiah" and the hypnosis of the masses. Experienced
soldiers failed in previous campaigns, so the "youthful legions"
blindly follow the lie: “Youthful Moses / Rally cry / Bring the children / Feed
the lie”.
In the tracks "Orphans of Doom" and
"Millenialism", we enter the heart of religious hysteria. The term
"Millenialism" describes the blind faith in an imminent golden age of
peace. The prophet promises the destitute serfs that they do not need weapons
because faith will illuminate the darkness (“Faith shall illuminate the
darkness”). For the children of poor peasants, this fairy tale looks like
salvation compared to the daily tortures of poverty. The band comments
cynically: “Minds of the youth / Have gone insane / A world reborn in innocence
through massacre”.
In "Legions of the Oriflamme", the army
begins its march along the Rhone River, with the boy from Cloyes leading upon a
gilded chariot, while the lyrics foreshadow the slaughter: “Emblazoned in red /
For blood to be shed”.
2. The "Elusive Miracle" and the Betrayal of
the Judas Ships
When the destitute armies finally reach the shores of
Marseilles (France) and Brindisi (Italy), harsh reality strikes like a hammer.
The miracle does not happen. The sea does not open.
"The Elusive Miracle" is the crushing
turning point of the album. The sea ignores them, faith gives way to terror,
and shame returns the "romantic" youth to reality: “Youth leaves me
ripe for exploitation / By savages known and feared”. In "Heinous
Corpus", the horror culminates as thousands of children die of hunger and
disease on the way back or are slaughtered in local conflicts.
But this is where the darkest epilogue of history is
written. In Marseilles, two local merchants, Hugh the Iron and William the Pig,
appear as "saviors" and offer to transport the children to Palestine
for free on seven ships, supposedly out of Christian charity.
The track "Judas Ships" exposes their
absolute hypocrisy through the lyrics:
“He's Hugh the Iron, I'm William the Pig / Seven
vessels shall bear the flesh cargo / Quite a price they'll fetch in Bujeiah /
At the helm are the agents of profit”
There was no charity. They were ruthless slave
traders. They steered the ships straight to the ports of North Africa and sold
the children into the slave markets of the Saracens.
The album closes with the epic "Slaves".
Eighteen years later, a priest who survived returns to Europe and reveals the
truth. Two ships were wrecked off Sardinia, drowning everyone, but the
remaining five delivered their live cargo: “And remain as slaves / Slaves / The
master changed / But their fate's the same”.
3. The Dark Parable: The Road to Hell
Bible of the Devil’s choice to name the album The
Diabolic Procession hides the entire philosophical weight of their work. This
album is the living confirmation of the proverbs stating that "the road to
hell is paved with good intentions" and that "the devil can appear
even as an angel of light".
Those thousands of children started with the purest,
most innocent intentions, chasing a holy vision. Yet, blinded by ignorance and
manipulated by propaganda, they became pawns in a "diabolic
procession."
The band underlines something that remains relevant
across the centuries: those who preach fanaticism, self-sacrifice, and grand
ideals, most of the time do so for self-interest. Whether they are religious
leaders thirsting for power ("power lust"), or opportunists hiding in
the shadows to plunder, rob, and exploit the desperation of the masses, the
victim remains the same: the ordinary, unsuspecting human being.
4. The Tragic Irony of History
For the end, history itself kept a terribly ironic
twist, which seals the magnitude of the tragedy.
While the fate of the French Stephen was lost forever
in the slave markets of Africa, the German "prophet," Nicholas, had a
different destiny. After leading his part of the army all the way to Rome, Pope
Innocent III ordered them to return to their homes, seeing the futility of it
all. During the painful journey back through the frozen passes of the Alps, the
majority of the children died of cold and starvation.
Nicholas, however, survived. And here comes the
absolute irony: a few years later, now an adult, he took part as a regular,
armed soldier in the Fifth Crusade, fighting on the battlefields of Egypt. The
child who once preached the peaceful and bloodless liberation of the Holy Lands
ended up a gear in the very same bloody, warlike machinery that had enchanted
his childhood years.
With The Diabolic Procession, Bible of the Devil
delivered a historical and social manifesto. Through their rushing guitars,
they did not hymn the glory of swords, but mourned the most betrayed generation
of the Middle Ages, reminding us that when reason sleeps, the monsters of
fanaticism awake.
Nick Parastatidis
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