The First Crusade: The Road to Jerusalem

faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond.

“Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. L. Neonaga, and some of the world's leading historians, as we”

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The podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history.

We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobspacking details, and the latest groundbreaking

research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to poops to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were, and how we got here. The year is 1095.

“The shade of winter is closing in, and a council of great men has gathered at Claremont”

in the Rugged Heartlands of Francia. Archbishop's and Abbots, Nobleman and clergy stand a raid before wooden platform, wrapped in black casks and ornate vestments. Banners strain against the wind, the bustling crowd thickens. The air is tense with expectation.

For this is no ordinary gathering, but a council frated with consequence, called by the father of the flock, Pope Urban II, and he is about to launch a rally in crime that will echo across Christendom. An urgent task belongs to both you and God.

“You must hasten to carry aid to your brethren in the east.”

For the Turks, a Persian people, have attacked them and devastated the kingdom of God. With the sign of the cross on your forehead or chest, set out on the road to the Holy Sepulca, deliver that land from a wicked race and obtain remission of your sins. For a moment, there are silence. Then the crowd breaks, bodies surge, voices rise, days vaults, days vaults, God wills it,

God wills it, and archbishop rises to the pulpit and prostrates himself before the Pope. Begging to be allowed to travel on this illustrious campaign. Nobles poor forth declarations of acclaim and support, a mass frenzy breaks out. Absolution is demanded, penance promised. The cross is taken.

The Pope urbans, the Attrics, have proved a roaring triumph, a spark has been lit. The great stirring that will birth the age of the Crusades is here. Welcome to Ghan Medieval, I'm Dr. Elinoreonaga. Over the next two weeks, Matt Lewis and I are taking you across the length and breadth of Medieval Christendom to tell the tumultuous story of the Crusades.

We'll go from the very beginning.

The first Crusade, when the so-called Holy War, pitted Christian armies against Muslim

lords for possessions of the erid deserts of the Holy Land. Then, we'll explore the remarkable lives of the Crusader queens who played pivotal roles and the Muslim sultans who fought tooth and nail to push back the Christians. We'll dare to look at the darkest years of crusading. When survival meant desperate and dark actions against all morality.

And finally, to the collapse of the kingdom of Jerusalem and the snuffing out of the Crusader dream, 200 years after that first fateful voyage. One thing you need to know from the start, the Crusades changed the very fabric of the Middle

This is a medieval epic written in blood. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

First we need to ask a more basic question.

What exactly was a Crusade? And what caused them? It spurred thousands upon thousands of medieval Christians, noble and poor alike to abandon their homes, and risk their lives on the long and arduous journey to the Holy Land. To answer that, and kick off our series, I met up with Matt for a gone medieval Crusades 101.

I've dragged by co-host Vat Lewis up from his dungeon. Okay, Matt, let's be historians, all right, let's do a little bit of defining our terms. Crusades 101, what's a Crusade? There's a couple of things, isn't there? There's what's a Crusade, and what are we talking about in this series?

Yeah, all right. I mean, when we talk about Crusade, we're probably most likely talking about papal sanctioned attacks on identified targets, generally for a religious purpose. So the classic being, let's go to the Holy Land and retake Jerusalem. I think that's a really important point, because especially later in the medieval period,

we get all kinds of Crusades. You know, you've got your Al-Bajenzine Crusade, you've got the Crusades in the Baltics,

“you've got your Crusades against the Hussites, boo, etc, etc, but that's what I think when”

people do say the Crusades that were usually specifically talking about these expeditions where you're going to the Holy Land, you're attempting to make incursions very specifically. I think against Muslims often, that's what springs to mind. Yeah, because I think these Crusades to the Holy Land are something really clearly defined. So in this series, we're kind of not talking about the Baltics stuff and the Tutonic

Knights up there. We're not really talking about the Al-Bajenzine Crusades. We're not particularly talking about the stuff that's going on in our area, either, which sort of overlaps either side of the Crusading period in the Holy Land. So we frame that because that creates this whole movement, this whole thing that hadn't

really existed before. And I think so here more particularly to when we're saying the Crusades in this context, there's like eight of them, right? You know, you've got your original flavor, first Crusade, aka the one that works. Yeah.

So I'm just going to get into like film cycles of sequels here on me, the first, he's always

the best thing. It's really true, and then they just kind of get on the Saturn weirder from there, which are technical historical terms.

“I think that we can all agree, but it is interesting because I think there's almost”

like this catastrophic success in the first Crusade, that makes it really difficult for people to let go of this idea of Crusading later on. So I guess, well, right, here we are, we're talking about the first Crusade, when does it really start? 1095 is when we would date it from obviously the stuff that's been going on in the

build-up to that that's led to that moment, but that is when Pope Urban II is like, right, I'm going to make something now, yeah, we're not going to call it Crusade, but what we're going to call it? Future historians will call it a Crusade. I'm going to call it an organized effort to marshal European Christendom and send them

to the Holy Land to fend off this threat that has appeared from Muslim forces in the Near East who have taken Jerusalem, who are now knocking on the door of the Byzantine Empire, and

we've got a specific sort of moment that helps kick this off his Emperor Alexios, the first

in Constantinople is sitting there trying to fight off these forces and he's thinking, how am I going to do this? And it's suddenly occurs to him that, okay, we've got this East West breaching Christendom, but actually, they're more likely to be much friends than the Muslims who are now attacking me.

So can I appeal to people who should be religious allies in the West to come and help me to it?

“And I think what Alexios wants is someone to help him bolster his borders and prevent all”

of the incursions that are coming around him. his vision of what he's asking for, I think he's very different from what Urban will end up conceiving and delivering. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you look at the documents that we have from the Constantinople side of things, Alexia's 100% was like, "Haha, I'm going to get these robes out in the West to support me to get my land back." Because fundamentally, the way that

Constantinople is looking at itself is it is a temporarily embarrassed Eastern Roman Empire. It's supposed to control Jerusalem. It's supposed to be controlling most of the Holy Land. And some things have happened. Let's be so real. The Holy Land has been under Muslim control for quite some time. And I guess the state of play at the moment, we have several large Muslim policies. So over in Spain, you've got the Umead Caliphate. Great, fantastic, wonderful to see it. You've got your fadiments

who are oftentimes around in Egypt. You have the Abacids who are kind of around in the Arabian peninsula, that sort of thing. And then you've got your new upstarts. You've got the Turks,

just because Byzantium isn't necessarily controlling the Middle East. It was still easy for you

to go on pilgrimage. If you wanted to go to Jerusalem, that was absolutely fine. You weren't going to be stopped by the Muslims who were controlling it. Because they understand that this is a Holy Land for a lot of people. And also, they're very interested in letting Christians come in. So there wasn't necessarily a problem. But the Seljuks have really messed things up in the area. And it did act of war zone now, right? But Alexias is like, oh, guys, oh, I'm just so sad about the

Christianity. And unfortunately, for him, this is a really good pitch. But urban can frame this very much more as this is about Jerusalem. This is about the Holy Sites that pilgrims should be able to go to, that they have been able to go to. And that they're now having problems with. And that is like an existential problem for the Western Christian church. And isn't quite what

“Alexias has been behind the mind. Well, I mean, I think that the other thing that Alexias”

hasn't really reckoned with is the fact that he has stumbled over to ask the church for help at a time when the church has finally done it. Right? You know, the church has been spending

centuries going, guys, I'm the pope. And I'm the most important person in Christendom. It's me.

It's the Bishop of Rome. So there has been this really long campaign on the part of the papacy to prove that they are important. And here's where we are in the 11th century. We're kind of in the beginning of the Investiture Contest where we have the pope trying to assert his dominance and control over the Holy Roman emperors. We now have this really well solidified church and in the medieval period, how do you prove that you have a unified government, that you are in

control of things? You kind of exercise the ability to do warfare, right? And so this is what urban is testing out. Urbanists saying, okay, well, are we a welcome glomerated legal entity? And it turns out they are. So that means that they can make a call for a Holy War. But obviously, his ideas are going to be really different to that of Alexias. Because, you know, Alexias over in Constantinople, he's the head of the church. This is one going to be like one of the real clashes that these two

religious ideas are going to have. And of course, it's going to go badly for him. But, you know,

“I think that both of them are trying to outscam the other a little bit. Yeah, and I think this is an”

interesting point where we see the Roman church, you know, under Gregory VII, they've kind of spot this Investiture crisis and they've been talking about the secular power of the church. And then much more interested in how the church can get its fingers into the government of all kinds of places, which brings them into direct conflict with kings who don't want church fingers in their business. So this is urban saying, you know, what we could be almost like a super power state.

Well, absolutely. I mean, that is the question, right? Whether or not he wakes up one morning and says, let's prove that we are a superpower. That's very difficult to ascertain. But on the other hand, this is what political powers do at the time. So I guess you kind of can't have this conversation about Pope Urban without talking about the alleged speeches from November 10, 95. Now, I say alleged, right? Because we've got two major places that these barn storming speeches that Pope Urban

gives come from. So we've got Fulture of Shot, who says that, oh, he goes out and he goes this

incredible speech in which he says that there is an urgent task, which belongs to you and God,

“you must hasten to exterminate this vile race. He means the Turks. And to aid the Christian inhabitants”

for all those going that are there for the remission of sins. Now, the problem with, like, you know, the wonderful speeches in this whole idea that everyone starts yelling day as Vult is that all of this is written down a couple of decades after that. It's a lovely benefit of hindsight. I know. And he's like, oh, I remember it like it was yesterday. It's like, thanks, thanks, Fulture. But one way or another, they all agree that some kind of really incredible speech is given. And everyone

says, oh, this is really, like, we're all going to head out. But that's it. We're going to get together. And so much so that I think it's difficult to have this conversation without talking about how really ordinary people are quite moved by this. These speeches may or may not have been given by urban, but we have ordinary preachers who take up this cause, who begin to go out and talk to ordinary people about this. And whether or not the speeches that good, it's difficult for us to say,

but we definitely know the deal is good. Because urban says that you get remission of sins if you die on crusade. If you have this guarantee that you were going to go to heaven, that is something

sit here and talk about all the politics involved in this. But these are people who genuinely, genuinely

believe that this is something that days float, right? God wills. It is interesting that, you know, as you say, we don't know that that's the exact text of the speeches that we're given by urban.

“But I think we've probably have to allow that whatever he said was incredibly effective that”

whoever heard it was deeply moved. I guess the question is, are they filled with religious zeal, or are they filled with the desire for remission of sins? You know, if I just do this, free to get to heaven. And I think we probably have to acknowledge that there must have been some fairly charismatic preachers around because they're not just turn up and saying, go straight to heaven if you come. There is much more of a sense that they're in flaming people and that there must have

been some degree of charisma and an ability to preach that. So we've maybe hit a point where we've just

got really good convincing speech makers and preachers in the pulpits around Europe who are convincing people that this should happen. But at the same time, we also have to acknowledge that they're playing on the real, the genuine religiosity that exists in Europe. It's kind of perfect storm of great speakers and a really receptive audience who want to hear what they're saying and want

“what they're offering as well. And I mean, I think also for ordinary people, let's remember that”

what is it about 70% of the European population are in search right now. But you can leave with this because your landlord can't tell you, no, I'm sorry, you can't go and crusade, right? So if you're really wanting to see the world, if you're really saying, yeah, I want to see Jerusalem,

I want to do these things. This is a way that you can just move on out and no one can do anything

about it because there is a religious mandate, right? So even the most ordinary farmer can pick up and move east, which is again, maybe not what Alexa has had in mind. But you know, that is the trouble with the message with relying on charismatic preachers to move this idea around. And it just creates this argument that I think historian still have quite often about whether the crusades is a top-down thing or a bottom-up thing. And it definitely, we've got Alexa's asking

for help and we've got urban preaching the crusade. But did they mean to mobilize quite so many amongst the peasant classes of Europe? I mean, definitely they want the girls and the jukes and the knights, they want to pile them over there. But it does become a bit more of a bottom-up movement of people saying we want to go on crusade, we want to go and help, we want to go to Jerusalem, I'd say want to be free of this land that we've been tied to all of our lives and here's an

opportunity to do it. Yeah, absolutely. Like the trouble is it's a real be careful what you wish for situation. And so here we are. We have got a bunch of people who have moved east, they are essentially attempting to face off against something, right? So all they kind of understand is there's most

“lips over there, which is a really kind of funny way of looking at things. I think Alexa's probably”

has much more of an understanding of what the political situation is on the ground. Because Alexa's will probably say I'm not worried about Muslims, I'm worried about so jukes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that Alexa is when he asks for help, what he's initially kind of asking for is can we retake Anatolia? Please, right? You know, I want to be able to get back across the boss for a straight and get my lands back there. I think it's been so long. At this point in time, since

Byzantium has really helped Jerusalem or anything like that, that that doesn't really occur to him. But one of the things that these people are really moved to do, what the message that urban and the rest of them are really promulgating is this idea. Oh, no, we're not just going over there to help Alex. Yeah, it'll be cute if we can do that. I'm sure. Yeah, it would be great if there were some Christians who have controlled Anatolia again. But that's not the goal. The goal is to retake

Jerusalem and establish a Christian kingdom back in Jerusalem. Hopefully led by Latin Christians as well. Yeah, and you can't help wondering whether they're thinking if Alexios in Constantinople in the Eastern Church is so weak that they're asking us for help. If we get them stuck in this Latin Christian sandwich, how long would it actually take us to squeeze them out? Yeah, I mean, I would tell you that I'm sure Pope urban is very, very interested in this because the papacy is constantly

attempting to assert dominance over Constantinople and you know, make this argument that they are the people who are descended from Peter, they are the largest, cool successors of the church and the people who should be leading it. Obviously Constantinople, a lot less interested in that. But I think also a part of this top down this idealism is certainly also, we've already mentioned it briefly, the Investiture Controversy. Right. So we have got a new situation where in the papacy

here is the Holy Roman Emperor. And they really flex on this one very recently with our

good friend, Henry IV, who is meant to recant for attempting to put his own bishops on the throne. There's the very famous walk to Knoza where he has to stand outside for four days in the snow, waiting for the Pope to say, okay, you can go put shoes on and you are no longer under

“interject, right? And this might seem kind of dull, I think, to people doubt. But fundamentally,”

up until this point, kings were appointing bishops and so losing this ability to dictate who is going to be your bishop who is going to be an archbishop, that is a real come down for kings in general. So if you are also the pope and you're looking over at Constantinople, who's asking for help, and there's another emperor over there, right? This very much looks as though it is an opportunity to push this boat even further to really use your power in order to possibly take over that

particular secular crown as well. And I would be shocked if that wasn't somewhere in the back of urban's mind. Yeah, but the other side of that is I think we see this increase idea of the church believing, as we said before, that it can create itself as a secular power to oversee that. So for

30 years before the first crusade is called, we've seen the papacy begin to weaponize its ability

to approve of war. So the conquest of Sicily by the Normans, Pope's A.O.K. with that, gets a thumbs up from him. William the conquerors really keen to position his conquest in 1066 as having people backing and having been given a papal banner. It looks much more likely, gets that banner a lot later. But it's interesting that he wants to bat date that to say that his conquest of England is a papally sanctified and approved crusade against Harold, who is an oathbreaker.

“And so the papacy has been for for 30 years, making this move towards, you know, if you want to”

justify war against another Christian, which is a sin. Mm-hmm. Only we can do that for you. There is this idea of of just war that is beginning to emerge and the papacy, I think he's maybe trying to flex some secular power by saying the only person who can say what is a just war is us. And I think this is an incredibly important point because part and parcel with that is this idea that there is a holy war, there is a just war. And so this doctrine of holy war is kind of a new thing.

Right. Previously up into this point, it was more like, well, there is war. Yeah, but it's not very good, is it? Which is a pretty easy tactic to take from a religious organization, right? Like in an ideal world, you wouldn't fight. Sometimes these things happen, you know, as for forgiveness afterwards. But we do know that there are kind of nudges for this. So for example, you know, when we look at our good friend St. Augustine, he writes about whether or not you can have a

just wars. He says in the city of God, the wise man will wage just wars. It is the injustice of the opposing side that lays on the wise man the necessity of waging wars. Really kind of common thing for a Roman Christian to be thinking because there are all sorts of issues that he sees at the time with pagans, as he calls them, coming in and attacking Christians. So yeah, that makes sense. But what do you do in an 11th century context when, well, Europe is more or less Christianized. I mean,

“there are, there are, is the Baltic, et cetera. Where do you kind of point that? What is a just war?”

And this is something that the papacy now that it is this huge legal powerhouse is really grappled with. Yeah. And what's also at a point as well, by this point, the, the papacy has been kind of allowing the sainthood and the martyrdom of warrior kings who have died in battle. You think of St. Oswald in Northumbrian people like that. You know, they've been keen to say that if you die fighting in a Christian cause, you can become a saint in that way. If it's a just war and you

do it properly, you are guaranteeing your position in heaven. Jesus is right hand as one of his, his army of saints. And I wonder whether one of the other things that we ought to consider being at play in this period, too, is, is the climate. We're in the medieval warm period. Things are going through expansion. You know, the Roman Empire hits its peak during the warm period. It allows for crops to grow all over the place. People are really well fed populations explode all over the

place. So you've got a bunch of people with nowhere to go. So there are lots of second sons,

third sons, fourth sons, who aren't going to inherit anything from their father. There is increasing

who says, but there's a bunch of territory over there that doesn't currently belong to Christians, that could belong to Christians. I mean, that is a really important point, right? Now we are seeing this premature taking over as the main way that lands are divided previously in the early medieval period. I mean, go ask Charlomene, what you do. And you just like divide your lands,

“you've to divide your lands. Turns out that's how you might have thought works. So we've gone beyond”

that. And most people have sat out and they've decided that what you do is you just kind of hand everything to your firstborn son. But then, yeah, what happens with all the spares, right? And also, I think, again, like, I know I keep bringing up the Normans, but there is an argument to be made that essentially the Crusades are just another Norman conquest, right? Because the Normans also are really of the opinion that the way that you handle land, the way that you get land is you just

go attack some people and then you give your boys, you know, the spoils, you know, the idea that there is this kind of feudalism, the top-down pyramid that people are taught at school for ages, you know, that doesn't really exist. But Normans sort of do it, but then what happens when there aren't that many issues with succession and you have all these guys, right? When I'm somewhere else, send them over there, is that cynical? Yes, but I don't think that we can count it out as one of

the factors. Why, yeah, if we're not in this warm period where crops are plentiful and people are living fairly comfortably off the land, the peasantry aren't going to be thinking, we're going to up and go to Jerusalem because they're going to be thinking, I've got to feed my family this year and make sure they can survive the winter. So all of those factors play into this willingness for people to move away from where they are and go into this complete unknown, you know, they are

banking on there being an opportunity there that they simply can't access at home anymore because of the way the climate has changed the way politics is being done in Europe. All right, so here we go, we've got a whole mess of circumstances, a mess, but perfect storm. It is exactly like the messiest perfect storm you've ever seen, right? So we've got the medieval warm period, stuff like the three field system, we simply love to see it. We have got too many norms, too Normans, too

furious. You believe there's too many norms, such a thing is too many numbers. You believe that.

We have the primacy of the church, finally coming into play. We have the Seljuk church

showing up and taking away land. We've got several decades of the church trying to create this idea that it's a secular power that can raise armies and approve of wars and fight. It's been doing that for a while. This is kind of the culmination of all of that. We've got this

“investiture crisis that's been playing into, you know, who has real power? Is it secular kings?”

Is it the Pope in Rome? They both think they should have it. And here's a chance for the papacy to really put itself at the forefront and say we are the leading secular power in all of Europe as well. We are going to raise this huge army and we are going to oversee this move into the Holy Land. And so it's then the coming together of all of these very different, apparently disparate elements and factors, create this moment in 1095 when urban

hears this cry from Alexios. He's almost ignoring what Alexios wants and thinking what the papacy wants and needs out of this. And I think he must have been, if he's looking at his desk and he's thinking I can put that there then I can put that there. I can line up all of these things. All of these factors that co-incidence has put in front of me. I can leverage all of those. If I play them, my hand in the right order here, we're going to be on to something. And this is,

you know, he would never have said I'm going to create the first crusade. He wouldn't have called

a crusade. But all of those things are lining up and he is creating the thing that we will call

“a crusade. Absolutely. I mean, I think that this is really a, you know, an immovable”

object versus an irresistible force sort of thing. And what we kind of see is this real desire on the part of the papacy to envelop christendum, to lead christendum. And it is up against this very traditional way of looking at constant noble about this idea of the old empire and what it can be. And I think that neither of these men really understood what they were getting into at the same time. I would argue indeed that if Alexios did know he never would have done this in the first place,

you know, there isn't a whole lot of gain from his standpoint. And it will mean that you just have these Latin christendums in your backyard over and over again. Yeah, the Byzantine side of it is really interesting because we're fortunate enough to have kind of an icon in us who writes this,

this account of her father's reign. So maybe the first female chronicle in Europe telling the story

turn up. And it's like, whoa, this is, this is not what we ordered. This is, this is, this is the

“term of christendum. It's not the one we want. I mean, like that's exactly it though. Yeah,”

a part of the issue is we know from the appeals that Alexios sends that he's, he's really going in hard on the idea that the Seljuk Turks on his border are committing atrocities against christians. This is Muslims, you know, committing horrible, horrible act against christians. Maybe without realising that he's accidentally whipping up the wrong kind of further because he wants people to come and, as you've said, he wants people to come and restore his lands to him. But what he's actually

done is, is set Western Europe on fire with this idea that Muslims are viciously assaulting Christians who can't defend themselves over there. But what's I duty then is christian nights. We have to go over there and defend them. And you can imagine Alexios seeing all of these people coming in going, oh, no. What have I done? Do you know what, it's more than he deserves. What can I say? You know, like this is fundamentally, be careful what you wish for. Here you go. There's that

army that you wanted. And if you are going to make cynical moves like play on religious ideas, don't be surprised when you get religious zealots who show up as a result. And I guess one of the things we want to talk about as well is how much are we, are we

“overplaying the role of urban in creating this because how much should we think about individuals?”

We've talked about the fact that an individual can have of any rank in society can have a fairly complex reasoning behind the desire to go on crusade. And you could put people anywhere on a scale from a true religious zealot who really wants to go to the holy land and believe Jerusalem should be in christian hands. And that has to be delivered to at the far end your average Norman. Who is thinking, I want some land and some territory somewhere in the middle. There's people

who think this is going to be a great adventure. Probably there's lots of people in the middle thinking, I can achieve two things at once here because I can save my soul and I can carve out

a new patrimony that I'm never going to get at home. So it's easy to think, you know, urban makes this

very impressive speech that motivates everybody to go and then this movement happens. The difficult thing is it's hard to pin down those individual reasons and motivations for

“going because nobody is writing my diary of the crusades and why I did it. But I think we have to”

allow that there is this whole sliding scale of individual motivations to go that are also piling into this big pot of bigger issues. And I do think that it is important to kind of note that there are all of these individuals. You know, every charismatic preacher, you know, your Peter the Hermit who goes out there and says, oh, yeah, I think that we should really start moving peasants along. That's a problem for him. Every Norman with a grudge and a horse is going

to be a problem. You're not able to control every single individual's relationship to the message that you've preached fundamentally. You can make the propaganda. You can make it go out into the world. You can preach particular things. But fundamentally, once it leaves your lips, it's out of control. I mean, to the point that we don't even know what he actually said, right? It is one of those kind of leading the genius out of the bottle sorts of things. You can inspire people all you want. But

how they are going to respond to that is ultimately personal. That is also, you know, one of the

things that will sort of continue what will, I suppose inspire the crusading movement long term, this idea that there is this possibility. You can kind of slip loose the bonds of your more traditional surf existence at any point in time. And sometimes that works out for the church too. Other times less so let's just put it that way. I mean, I feel like what we're getting to here is that 1095 looks on the surface like a flashpoint, a real moment that almost comes out of nowhere, where there

is this explosion of a further that is harnessed and crafted into this crusade and directed at the Holyland. But actually, it has a much longer tale to it than all of this. This has been brewing for decades almost and it's part of a, almost part of a European naval gazing about who is really in charge and how things should operate in Europe that grabs onto this thing from Alexios as a way to for the church to flex its self flex its own muscle position itself differently. So,

so that it's not really a flash in the pan in 1095, anything. Everybody in Western Europe suddenly rushes off filled with further. There is something much longer going on and much deeper to about what the Latin church is, what European power is and what it might look like out in the rest of the world too. And certainly you combine this sort of, what does it all mean coming from the church

Byzantium is feeling and then with just some light chaos over in the Muslim world. It's not going to be the first time. We've got a bunch of nomads sweeping across the plains from Asia and making things a little bit uncomfortable in the Near East and that ends up creating what we now call the crusade. The biggest question is, what actually happens on that winter's night

“in Claremont? You know, how is it that this particular message gets spread out into the world?”

I mean, do the crusades go all the way to Constantinople and beyond and for what, you know? And are they going to end up taking the city that is the center of the world for medieval people?

To find out more, I am going to be speaking with the amazing Dr. Tom Smith to dive ahead first

into the rip roaring narrative of the first crusade. Okay, Thomas, thank you so much for coming. You are the man, I think, to answer, you know, some of the more nitty gritty questions about the crusades for us. So I'm going to start you off with kind of a broad one. I mean, what can we say really happens after the Council of Claremont? Because it seems like this message, the people say urbanists preaching really galvanizes a lot of people. Well, thank you so much for

“having me on. I don't know, it's a real pleasure. And that's a great question. I think to start”

because it gets to the heart of what the first crusade is about. And it's not just about churchmen in Claremont preaching their reform messages. It's an idea, I think, which really sparked a fire across Western Europe in terms of participation. And I think the reason why the people

call to the first crusade is so successful is because it taps into these undercurrents of popular

devotion of pilgrimage of devotion to Jerusalem, which already exist. And so I think what happens very early on is the Pope preaches his message expecting to recruit a few hundred nights to go over to the east and help the Byzantine Empire. And actually what happens is the idea grows legs and runs away by itself. And actually this idea of going to Jerusalem becomes incredibly

“popular. And I think that's why we see such large support for the first crusade. And why we end”

up with an army of somewhere between 60 and 100,000 participants, which is a huge army and no one ever seen anything quite like this before. And also, if we're talking about an army of this size, this kind of first group of crusaders who's like, "Come on guys, we're going east." This is not exactly who urban was calling out to. Right, precisely. And I think what's really important is understanding that pilgrimage origin of the first crusade, because pilgrimage have been open to all

so men, women, and children, of course, as well, who go on the first crusade. And I think that's one of the reasons why we see such a wide range of different sort of society taking part in the first crusade, because they're used to this normal participation in pilgrimage being open to everyone. And so if the papacy tries to reduce who is going simply male arms barriers, I think they're not going to have very much success. And I think that that longer tradition of pilgrimage is what

explains why we end up with men, women, and children going on the crusade. And I think what's really fascinating is actually the lives of these people, which are not recorded as much in the source material. And I think that we see women and children on most crusades. And they appear in the sources occasionally. But I think we have this really interesting shadow crusade that's going on of these people who are not often recorded by the male clerical authors who are interested in the deeds of other dudes.

And so they're not writing about these people, which is a shame because they're always stories

which have been lost to history. But I think if we start to think about them, I think that opens up some really interesting possibilities about what the crusade experience looks like, people other than just the Marshall male elite of the top of society. Are you looking for the perfect podcast to hunker down with during the longer, colder, darker nights? Well, look no further than the award-winning after dark myths,

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Yeah, I think that's a really good point because there is this sort of tendency to, I don't know, be a little bit flippant about the people who initially respond to the call for crusade,

“but I think that that to an extent is a way of cutting short our own understanding about what”

this means to be able because the reason the crusades called in the first place is that, you know,

everyone in the Middle Ages really aspires to going to Jerusalem someday. And of course, you're going to respond to a direct call out to do that. And it's difficult to tell a peasant and will be no sorry, like joking. Well, speaking of, you know, the touch paper and the popular movement that comes about as a result of it. We got to talk about him. Can he tell us a little bit about Peter the Hermit and how he assembled what we sometimes now refer to as the people's crusade.

I think Peter the Hermit and the people's crusades are really fascinating aspects of the first crusade. And so I think what happens is when the crusade message starts to spread very rapidly, it picks up currency outside of the church. So it's not just official paperly appointed preachers and the church hierarchy who are preaching the crusade and signing people with the cross. You're also getting lots of

“people doing that outside the confines of the church hierarchy. And I think what we're seeing is people”

promoting a crusading message that is not necessarily the same one as what the papese is promoting and you're getting lots of people going on this expedition who are determined to do it in their own way. And I think again that goes back to this idea of pilgrimage and those pilgrimage

origins of the first crusade where pilgrimage was open to all and you could kind of do it your own

way really. So what happens is Peter the Hermit is a very influential and charismatic unofficial preacher of the crusade who takes his message around Europe and is very successful at recruiting lots of people to join him and so what they do then is they leave too early for a start so they're not following this paper or timeline. So the papese sends out a letter apparently throughout the West where it says the official departure date for the first crusade is the 15th of August 1096.

Now it's a specific date with a specific reason. This is because the harvest will have come in that they'll have access to resources as they make their way across Europe towards the Holy Land.

But the armies of the People's Crusade don't wait for this departure date and there's a sense

that although they're not completely disorganized they are not as well planned out and prepared as their princes crusade and so they leave early around and commit absolutely horrific atrocities in the Rhineland where they massacre Jewish populations because they have this corrupt version of the people crusade message and they think well why do we march all the way to the Holy Land to target the enemies of Christ when as they would see it enemies of Christ that is the Jews are

living among the Christians in Western Europe at the time and so to them it makes sense in a perverse logic that they should target what they see as enemies of Christ in Europe before they go and this leads to a really horrific persecution of Jewish populations especially along the Rhineland so we're thinking about extortion of money we're thinking about forced conversions we're thinking about massacres of the Jewish population and this is strictly forbidden by the

church this is in no way lizard activity and is strictly forbidden by the bishops in the region but the people's crusaders is quite a big force and really the church hierarchy struggles to control it at all have any kind of influence over it so the things the terrible things they do and the sticky end that they come to when they're defeated in Asia Minor and their forces wiped out very soon on a rival in the Near East it's a reason why Chronicles at the time and scholars

sense have wanted to separate this from the rest of the crusade to say that this is something different the reason why they did these terrible things the reason why this part of the crusade did not succeed it did not have God's grace and favor was because it was not part of the same expedition I suppose speaking of that of course there's sort of like the OG commentator at the time which is Anna Komenina and could he tell us a little bit about what Anna has to say about the crusaders

who show up over in Constantinople at the behest of Alexios. Well in short she's not impressed at

“all I think there's a mismatch of expectations here so I think Alexios and the rest of the”

Greek court including Anna Komena were expecting that a small force of European nights mercenaries

history of European nights traveling to the east to fight and help Byzantium so that's what they're expecting a small force with few hundred nights what turns up at Constantinople however is this

tide of humanity which they're not been expecting at all and the the first ones they see other

people crusade who obviously don't make the best impression at all because this isn't the elite although there are some nights among them this is a different type of composition of the army

“and it's less well structured and and it I think poses a threat and the cause of concern to”

the Byzantines so Anna Komenina is the daughter of Alexios Komena so she's a Byzantine princess the daughter of the emperor and she's also a great historian so she leaves us an incredibly detailed and valued source about the first crusade and the era that this takes place in and she's writing this read to promote her father so it's called the Alexiad it's promoting the deez of her father Alexios Komena and what's really valuable about this source is firstly

that it's written by women so we get a female perspective which is incredibly rare actually in this time period and especially rare in the context of crusading sources which as I mentioned are mostly clerical men writing about the deez of other men they're kind of interested in that really only so it's really interesting to have a different perspective both Byzantine and female what's really interesting is we get a very different picture of the crusade so Anna sees the crusaders

as barbarians she thinks that this is a the great unwashed basically have turned up on their doorstep and they don't have any manners and they don't understand the Byzantine civilization and what happens to them is Alexios basically gives them supplies and then ships them over the boss for us as quickly as possible into Asian miners to get rid of this problem and move them on and he does that very successfully because they arrive in Asian miner and they're wiped out pretty

much upon arrival so that's the end of the people's crusade but obviously what's quite interesting is actually some of them do join up with the princes crusade and do actually take part in that so some of the people crusade does continue hey well speaking of the princes crusade can you tell us now about this you know these are the sort of like the more formal armies I suppose we would say who sort of come in the wake of the people's crusade when do they set off

are they adhering to the actual paper timeline so these are the guys who do play by the papese rules or the papese likes these guys so they're firstly in terms of recruitment we're looking at and the first person who actually takes the cross is Adam or Bishop of the Puy and this is an ecclesiastical figure very high ranking in the church very closely connected to paper and the second and he actually becomes the people legates on the crusade which means that

“he is the people representative and he plays a really important role for the majority of the crusade”

because what we're going to see is that actually the leaders come from all different parts of West

in Europe and that Adam is a really crucial figure because he unites them and gives them

spiritual leadership basically but the rest of the army of the crusade the leaders there are no kings on this crusade everyone is a sort of count level so we're looking at the next wrong down the hierarchy of Western European society so the first magnitude takes the cross is Raymond counts of to lose who does so in concert with Adam and this is probably with the agreement of the papese that actually stage managed this so that when they say who wants

to take the cross actually these two guys for their hand up and they say yeah I do and so they go up and get things going so they're the first two but then you've got some really key new ability from Northern Europe you've got count robber the second of flounders count robber of Normandy annoyingly they'll have very similar names which kind of makes it difficult but that's the the medieval way there were only three names that we have any group of Normans that's true

this is true you've got God for your boon as well bolder of the line his brother Bermond of Toronto from southern Italy and tankered as well his nephew also from southern Italy and then you also got some other key leading figures you've got Stephen of Poir also from Northern France and the hero of Vermont who is the brother of King Philip the first of France so what you've got here is a composite host of crusade leaders who are very much at the top rung of society

just below the kings obviously but what's interesting about them is they all have their own particular agendas and priorities and they're going to work together surprisingly effectively but often they come in conflict with each other they are rivals as well and they're not just on the crusade for religious devotion alone that is probably the main driving factor the reason why

“this is a success their appeal of Jerusalem is such that that's what motivates people to give”

up their their homes their families they're probably never going to return most of the normal crusaders

two thirds and three courses the army die on the first crusade and so this is a major

commitment so you're not just doing this to get money or land but some of these figures are out there for those purposes and they're coming in conflict with one another over the course of the crusade well speaking of that I mean we've got yes some people from very high echelons of society but they're coming from really different places do they all head over together or do they sort of like head off in different ways to arrive this is really interesting questions so they all leave

roughly around the time of the papese deadline of August 1096 that's pretty successful and what they seem to do is actually team up with each other so some of them get in touch with each other there are also really strong close-knit kinship networks to play here mostly people are related to each other in some way or another and so actually it makes sense to them to travel together and so some of them make their own way southern Italian's make their own way and then they planned to

converge on Constantinople which is modern Istanbul that is the main area where they all come together and they meet quite successfully their path to the east is not easy and resources are still hard come by and there are some conflicts and problems along the way but actually it passes remarkably smoothly so they're pretty well organized and they do make it Constantinople in one piece so they've done a pretty good job actually and they're logistically they've done a pretty

pretty decent staff of this okay what happens when they get to Constantinople like are we feeling any better about this particular group of crusaders how's that I can name a feel about it

“so I think mixed feelings again here I think again some some of the crusade leaders and she”

finds okay others she finds are uncivilized and she has a big problem with them I think also because they have this mismatch of expectations so I think firstly the Byzantines aren't expecting so many people to arrive and secondly they're quite worried actually that maybe they might try and conquer the city of Constantinople which is what the fourth crusade ends up doing in the at the beginning of the 1200s so when the crusades arrive at Constantinople this city is something

like they've never seen before this is a glittering city of wonders and you have these huge

churches and huge Byzantine walls it's quite incredible they would never see anything like this

before home to so many famous relics and it's such a wealthy city I think it's it's quite incredible for them to see the city and so they're bold over by that they'll sit down understand the Byzantine culture and politics really it's all is quite complex and it's quite different from what they're used to and so there are some there are elements there and opportunities for misunderstanding of how culturally of how they get on with one another but the crux of the issue is

“about their political alliance with Alexios Coneanos so it will remember that he has called on the”

Pope he's called upon the Pope to send warriors out to the east to help him defend his empire against the incursions of the Seljuk Turks who have been invading his territory in Asia Minor for about the last 25 years and they've been doing it very successfully the Byzantines of very much on the back foot and that's why they need Western military support so what they want to do what Alexios wants to do is to get the crusaders to swear on oath of allegiance to him

that all the Byzantine territory that they reconquer they will hand it over to Alexios well yeah no look I personally I wouldn't invite a bunch of Normans into my backyard but perhaps that's hindsight I mean so I've like say we're here it's it's May 1097 and the crusaders are setting out and they are going to advance into the lands that are being held by the Seljuk Turks and then they get a couple quick victories right it's like Nicia and then Doraleum

really really quickly could you tell us a little bit about how those battles played out yeah so I mean the big success of the first crusade is actually that the the difficulty level

the difficulty spike comes quite gradually so the key thing is that they managed to win these early

“victories and they managed to start to work together I think one way of thinking about them is that”

they've never fought together before these are armies which used to fighting doing their own thing and so it's half of them to work together and the challenges that they face in Asia mine and these first battles and seizures actually give them a chance to learn how to work together and we see that happening during the battle so the first challenge they face is the siege of Nicia between May and June 1097 so this is a form of Byzantine city it's very close to Constantinople

and Alexios once it back and he sent a Greek general to Ticcios with the crusaders to help them in a system and they work really well in besieging the city it doesn't last very long

begin to pressing it really aggressively so they're trying to storm the walls they're using siege engines they're trying to break the city quickly but they can't because it's on a lake so

the problem is they've managed to surround the land walls and gates but the Celtics are able

to reinforce this from the water now the crucial aspect here is the Byzantine support so the Franks and the Byzantines are actually working really well in concert with one another

“at this stage contrary to what will later be written about them so I think we want to have one”

eye on that that actually this alliance is working really well in its early stages so the Byzantine sends ships to the lake and basically this allows them then to block a the city properly and the Celtic Turkish rulers of NYC are can see there's no way they're getting out of this and the Greeks offer them a deal the Byzantine go for them to negotiate and they say if you surrender the city to us then we'll prevent a sack and you'll get to walk out of here with your lives

and this is how the city falls and so the crusaders and the Greeks have actually captured

their first city and they've done it very swiftly and they've done it very effectively but

perhaps the crusaders are actually disappointed that they haven't been able to plunder the city so it's very expensive going on crusade scholars think they're probably costs about four times someone's annual income basically to be able to go on this this is hugely expensive and so you're looking to be able to recoup your cost the money you've spent on traveling there on food in terms of

“plundering then cities so they're a bit frustrated I think maybe some of the crusaders that”

they haven't been able to recoup some of their losses by sacking the city but they've they've won this good price and actually they've started to learn how to fight with one another and that's actually probably more important the next challenge they face is the Battle of Doraleum on the first of July 1097 so they're marching their way from NYC and they're marching east through Asia Minor getting towards the Holy Land now what happens here is we see some of the downside of this

conglomerate leadership council that the princes have so they're still not working entirely as a complete unit actually although it's separated from each other and how they're marching across this territory and this could be they're undoing so on the first of July 1097 Kidditch Arslan who is the main Celtic Turkish leader in the region attacks the crusader van guard which is being led by Bermond of Toronto so he realizes the van guard is this the first part of

the army is separated from the main force and he sees this as a good chance to break the army down take out the van guard first and then he can turn to the rest of the army and finish them off and so Bermond his forces get bogged down and what but that actually helps them in a way because the Turkish tactics are to use light horse archers and they harass the crusader forces they pepper them with arrows they just keep losing arrows one after another riding around them

and never engaging and trying to keep out of distance because the crusaders big weapon is the

masked Frankish cavalry charge so they at this stage most of them have still got their own horses they got stronger bigger horses than the horses that are being riddened by the Soviet Turks and so their big tactic their battle-winning tactic is to try and get your enemy into one place get into stay still and then charge them on mass thunder out of them and hit them with your lanters and hopefully break the army there this an incredibly powerful military technique which is unbelievably

successful if you can get your target to stay still and hit it now of course the big problem here is we're seeing two military systems two ways of making war that are completely incompatible with one another and they meet here in an open battle for the first time at Dora Lane and on the start it looks like the Turkish method of using light horse archers moving quickly being mobile and not staying in the same place for too long looks like it's going to win but when the

bowman's vanguard manages to bed down and keep being attacked basically it gives chance for the rest of the crusader forces who are behind them to catch up and then they manage to hit them with their charge and they manage to win a resounding victory just because they get that luck they managed to get kill jarsons forces to stay in one place and then they manage to hit them successfully so these are the two great challenges first actually this is where the crusader start to work together

“really well with one another so the experience they gain from these victories is really crucial”

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the first bunch of crusaders they come up against are the people's crusades and they just knock

them right off you don't even need to worry about that they all die and this is like a united Christian thing right like it's all of these questions all at once in the Middle East people really are not you know there's there's no such thing as a united muslim that you know they they don't even know anything about anything right like their busy fighting each other look it over there taking over new land and you're some Christians and so to me it sort of seems like the Christians

get kind of lucky because there isn't a unilateral response here precise yeah I think we can't understand the success of the first crusade without understanding what's going on

“in the muslim world I think that's absolutely crucial and the crusaders here the reason why I mean”

the first crusade is such a ridiculous thing it's they should never have succeeded there's no

way it's it's crazy like I think when they march out from western Europe I think everyone thought well these guys are never going to come back we're not seeing them again but if we go back to the muslim world the crusaders have this golden-lock set of conditions and one of the key things is that the muslim world is massively disunited when the first crusader arrives in the nearies so in the early 1090s most of the main leaders in this nearies to the muslim world all managed to

die at about the same time so chronicers say at the time muslim chronicers say at the time this is the year of death basically of all the great leaders of the muslim world and so you've got this huge amount of turbulence and change as then there are power vacuums in the nearies to the time and many different people were trying to fill it you also got a lack of experience and there's a lot of uncertainty there so the crusaders are arriving at just the right time and actually the world is

“in no way united and they just not prepared to be able to face the crusader threat and I think there's”

a number of things going on here there's firstly we've got big splits in the muslim world anyway so you've got the sunny subject Turks in the north you've got the sheer facemids Egyptians in the south and so they're kind of fighting each other anyway and there's lots of fighting going on

between local muslim warlords in the region so basically the crusaders are arriving in an active

war zone and so for the muslim powers what they see is this is just another bunch of foreigners who are here to fight so this is nothing this is business as usual in the nearies around the 1090s that's that's fine they don't realise that the first crusaders are obviously there with the aim of capturing Jerusalem with the idea of essentially settling and colonising this land at least colonisation in the sense of spiritual colonisation and really taking over this region they're here to stay that's

what they want to do the muslim powers don't realise that the time this only becomes clear later on they're too busy fighting one another and the other point to make is that actually this brings us

“to question this this myth that the crusaders are clash of civilisation so I think one of the big”

misconceptions about the crusade the scholars are still battling against this idea that the crusades are Christianity versus Islam it's just not the case they're not fighting each other because they don't like the other sides religion if fighting each other because they want control of this territory they don't care who the other side is and actually the crusaders often rely themselves with muslim powers along the way and the muslim powers are very happy to rely themselves with the crusaders

because it meets their aims in terms of expanding their own warlord territories in the nearies so I think you know that's a big thing that we can we can solve to question as well as this cash of civilisation model just doesn't stand up to scrutiny and that's one big misconception that we can blow out of the water right now with the first crusade all right well you know as as they get a little bit further on right they get past door lab and suddenly the journeys get in a little

more difficult right like what starts happening around their environment mentally and and how how is the army dealing with this change yeah so I think it's interesting they're not used to fighting

drier and hotter as they're they're moving on but and they're running out of food as well so I mean

the the big test of the crusades and really probably the the most important siege really is actually

Antioch which they come to October 1097 they arrive at Antioch and Antioch is this huge city though wars are a massive this is the best offended best fortified city that they are going to come across

“on the crusade and I think actually the way that the narratives of the first crusade are written”

is building up towards this climax at Jerusalem that's the combination of the crusade but actually the real military test and the test of devotion the test of longevity and really suffering of the crusaders is Antioch so they arrive here and this siege goes on until June 1098 so you're looking at about a nine-month siege which is incredibly grueling and the key part of this is during the Syrian winter and we have letters from participants like Steven Abbaar and some of Ribbon that are written

around this time and they talk about the Syrian winter I should be really cold and they're like it's not hot like people think it's freezing cold and it's raining all the time and it's horrible and there's no food they're reduced to eating fissils and visible leather shoe and anything they

can to survive basically and this really quite hostile territory and all this while they're trying

to besiege this huge city of Antioch which has a lot of importance to them it's a huge strategic base they can't bypass Antioch but also it has religious connections as well so not the same as

“Jerusalem but it does have importance for them and they find this really important crusading”

relic their religious relic in the cathedral there which plays a key role so the siege of Antioch is the big test of the crusade is where a lot of people actually decide to desert the crusade so the crusade chronicles call them rope danglers because they basically just escape from Antioch and they run back to the west one of the key leaders of the crusade steam of Boar who's on my favorite leaders he writes these letters saying how great he's doing to his wife and

saying how much you know how he's just as good as her father who was William the conqueror and he's trying to big himself up and then a few months later he abandoned the crusade and returns to the west but like this siege goes on for bloody ever you know like and enough time that you can abandon it and then here come you know amissaries from the Fatimid caliphate right yeah so this is really interesting so the history of the crusade is not just one of total warfare all the

time actually there's negotiation going on and so I mentioned that the crusaders strike up these alliances with Muslim powers and the Fatimid Egyptians send them envoys and they try to negotiate

basically the ironic thing about the first crusaders that when the first crusaders called a big

deal is made about the fact that Jerusalem is under the control of the Seljuk Turks and so the crusaders recruited to go out there and take Jerusalem back from the Seljuk Turks but while the crusaders are under way in 1098 actually the Fatimid Egyptians conquer Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks and so well it's only crusaders get there it's like a completely different enemy that they said out to face but they don't care uh basically the Fatimid Egyptians then are writing to the crusaders sending

envoys saying you know can we make some sort of deal here and the crusaders refuse completely there's there's no way they're going to not take up Jerusalem that's the the whole

“reason they're out there but they they try and they try and strike a deal and I think that's”

got to be a place in that wider context of negotiation and again it's not just Christians versus Muslims in the Near East at this time. Oh I mean let's all be real eventually these crusaders that get inside Antioch can you tell us a little bit about how they take the city? Yeah so this is it's probably quite funny for you know from a crusader perspective and not very funny from a anti-Occane perspective so the crusaders really struggled to get into the city and the siege is just

wearing and it's really on the verge of breaking the army and then Beaumont who's quite a wider the commander of the crusaders he manages to strike up a relationship with an Armenian Christian convert in in Antioch called Firurus and he commands one of the towers and he basically makes a deal with Firurus who's really annoyed because he doesn't like his Turkish overlords and commanders who've been bossing him around too much and also there's a rumor that his Turkish

commander had an affair with his wife so basically Firurus is really angry and he's happy to make a deal with Beaumont and the idea is that yeah is it kind of quid pro quo he's going to get something out of this and get rich and he will let the crusaders into the city and he dangles on a and a signed night here dangles down a rope or rope ladder for the crusaders to climb up and what Beaumont does is he goes back to the other leaders and he says to them kind of tricks them

all agree and he says well can we also agree that if one of us could engineer a way to get the

“city that that person would then have a claim to the city and they all say yes we all agree”

he says that's funny because I've actually got away into the city and then they must all go

down at this stage shucks Beaumont and basically he then reveals his hand that he's struck up this relationship

with Firurus and how's away into the city and so during the night time on the inside night Firurus let us down a rope or rope ladder a crack team of the crusade forces climb up get into the city they take out the guards in the tower and the battleman to then open one of the gates and during the night then the crusaders flood in you know you imagine here burning torches burning houses, Frankish war cries being shouted cries of people being slaughtered it's a really brutal

scene when the crusaders get into Antioch they're again a pretty horrific mass slaughter of the population including Firurus's own brother is actually killed by the crusaders so it doesn't all end well for him and then the crusaders imagine capture the city after this but they haven't

captured the citadel so the citadel is what we might think obviously it's big sort of tower basically

palace tower in the middle of the city and it's on a higher point and the crusaders are stuck they haven't got complete control over the city and it's just at this time that Cabagra of Mosul arrives with a relief army and so the crusaders are inside the walls but now perversely they're now being besieged by their enemy from outside so their physician has switched and they now know what it's like to be besieged inside Antioch so they try and work out what to do at this stage and

this is when a figure called Peter Bathol and he comes to the fore and this is a really controversial episode and he means they're kind of fiery end which isn't very good but he basically has a vision and he thinks that if he goes to the cathedral in Antioch that he knows he will find the Holy Lamps this relic of the spear that pierced Christ side of the crucifixion and so he's digging and digging and then fortunately they do actually find this his vision comes true he pulls out a lump of

rusty metal out of the ground and proclaims this to be the very launch of the launch of long giants that pierced Christ side from the crucifixion and a lot of the army perceived this to be

a miracle and a sign of God's favor with them that he's entrusted this amazing relic to them

and allowed them to find it. Now the previous traditional scholarly interpretation of what happens next is that the discovery of the launch then inspires the crucifixion army which was so bedraggled after this long siege and they decide then to suddenly march out and they face Kabogga and when they get outside of its walls they just charge at Kabogga inspired by divine favor and they smash his army and he flees and they've managed to get rid of this threat and then the Citadel surrender and they've

taken anti on properly as a huge prize and the huge success and they've succeeded and there's

“this great test of their devotion because remember this is a pilgrimage and you have to suffer”

on a pilgrimage that's the whole point you have to prove your humility before God and no one has done this more than the crusade there's no one has suffered more than them in the nine months of this siege that's the traditional narrative but actually recent reinterpretations of this have shown that firstly not everyone believes in the Holy Lance in the first place and secondly there's actually a pretty big gap between the time they find the Holy Lance and when they go out

to face Kabogga so we're talking about weeks here so it's not that they suddenly find this and they run out the next day inspired by this discovery to take out Kabogga actually I think the Holy Lance plays a role in this and it does live spirits among those who believe and it probably does consolidate the power of certain of the leaders but really it's desperation of forces them out and

“I think that that sheer force of that desperation is what breaks Kabogga's army I think it surprises”

them when they march out and they just get hit head on by this this frankish charge and that's how they capture anti on and what happens to be about following me afterwards is people don't believe that the Holy Lance is actually what it is and he says oh prove it to you and they agree then that he's going to march across some burning olive branches and the temperatures really high the flames are really high and he walks through this to prove that the Holy Lance is

real and basically unfortunately he expires as a result of this but some people were trying claim that actually he survived for a while and so he was right that it was true yeah it's like he just gets really badly burnt and everyone says no look he died of something else unrelated it's it's one of my favorites stupid deaths of the ages it's got to be up there right

adioc we've also got you know a desert oh yeah there's a little bit about what makes these guys just kind of go off the side quest to a desert yeah they're side questing hard some of these

“guys and they want some of them really want territory and you can see that so I think people”

like tankered boulders of boulders of boulders they're very much vying for power at the stage over they've gone on conquest and boulders and realises that a desert is is looking pretty weak and that he stands a good chance there of getting some territory so he goes over to a desert this is

to the northeast of Antioch and this is the first crusader state that's actually founded in

1098 is a desert is not Jerusalem as one might think and so he goes over to a desert and the guy ruling is called Thorce and he's having a lot of problems holding on to power he's got a pretty weak grip on the situation and he could really do with some backing from bouldwin and so it's kind of long story short here dops bouldwin as his son and they go through a very strange ritual where they both wear a shirt so they're both bare-breasted and they get inside a big shirt and I don't know

I don't know what happens then really but then I guess there's a skiing contact under the shirt

“and this is the this is the ritual which is I think appears very strange the crusaders eyes”

but this is a sign of of their closeness and that he's been adopted as his son but then basically this tells us we're really bad deal for Thorce because he is topward and boredom and takes power

and the star rush is the first crusader state and actually this could be seen as this side quest

where actually it's a diversion from the crusader but actually in this weird twist of fate we talked about these goldilots conditions that the crusaders have and they are in some ways very fortunate with it's not pure like they obviously are great at fighting and they're very devout and they are really good at enduring suffering that's a one thing the first crusaders are really good at on a top-drops car that would be like a hundred points probably is enduring suffering

but really what happens here is when he establishes this state when kabogor of moza is actually on his way to take out the crusaders and to walk and to relieve anti-awk he stops on the way and decides to try and have a crack at boredon in a desa and what this does actually delays his army and so this saves the army of the crusade because if he hadn't have stopped to the desa he would have arrived while the first crusade force was stuck outside the walls and that is the most dangerous position for

a medieval army to be in to be sandwiched between the walls and a relief army that is a terrible position to be in you get squashed and they were in such a poor state anyway they would have probably got wiped out there so the fact that bouldering goes on his side quest takes control of a desa and slows down kabogor of moza when he's on his way to relieve a desa basically saves the crusade okay so here we are we've conquered desa we've conquered adiak and we're on our way to Jerusalem

how much resistance do these guys face on their march down there what's really interesting is that they pick up pace from this point so they're clearly bypassing a lot of territory to get to Jerusalem that is their the main goal and so they're not stopping it on the way they stop the place where Marath's our new man on the way fitnessoriously and they proceed to couple of these smaller places and at Marath's our new man they actually run out of food to the extent that they

commit acts of cannibalism to survive which is one of the most notorious episodes of the first crusade

“and I think it shows how desperate they are at this stage but after this they move very quickly”

down towards Jerusalem the end goal is in sight and this is a very sort of finely tuned and honed military force by this stage most people have died so you've got really just like the really hardcore fighters left is a veteran force they know how to work together everything's becoming slicker and smoother by the time they arrive at Jerusalem they're probably looking at about a force of somewhere around 20,000 strong so if the initial force that left the west is

somewhere between 60 and 100,000 you've lost a huge proportion of the army and really what we've got now is a really well-ord military machine with a clear purpose and that is to take Jerusalem when we get to Jerusalem and what do we got to do we got to be seaship and you seas engines come

into play no yes the most important thing now is access to wood so basically there's not a lot of

woods in the holy land and you need wood to make seas engines and so that really determines the outcome of the first crusade when they arrive before the wars of Jerusalem they they try of course their initial tactic your your first tactic is always to try ahead on a salt and just try and catch them by surprise but that doesn't work so they realize we need to build some sea engines and we're thinking here about big towers on some sort of they they roll them basically towards

arrows down from them but also you can then lower beams some sort of ramp essentially onto the

“walls and then you can storm the walls that's probably the most effective means for the crusaders”

to get in to Jerusalem Jerusalem's a world-funded city it's got a good network of walls but it's

nowhere near the same level as Antioff now the problem is how are they going to get in well they

don't have wood to build sea engines and in the end they miraculously discover somewhere there's a story that one of the crusaders is suffering from probably dysentery and is looking for a quiet place to relieve himself in a cave and he as he's doing so he stumbles across this huge cash of wood which they can use to build sea engines so that's one interpretation of how it comes about but also they dismantle ships that they have and they use some of their local alliances to get some

wood and they build then sea engines which they roll towards the city walls they attack the city from the north and the south simultaneously and on the 15th of July 1099 they are successful in making it over the wall so it's the siege tower of Godfrey weon on the north side of the city and they roll it up to the walls and they drop these beams or ramp on to the walls and you get two

nights from Godfrey's region who make it over the walls first and they get inside they manage to slaughter

some of the defenders open a gate and the crusaders have broken into the Holy City and I mean speak to slaughter we've got one on our hands now right I mean it's it's pretty notorious what is

“significant about this as a reaction to entering Jerusalem so I think for us it seems highly”

problematic the the slaughter that happens when the crusades enter Jerusalem but I think at the time it was probably seen as less problematic because this is the standard rules of war according to common understanding so when a city has taken by siege if it's not surrendered it is accepted that the lives of the inhabitants will not be spared so this is what everyone's expecting they the defenders have resisted and so therefore they know that their lives will not necessarily be

spared the crusaders do begin to massacre the population when they enter the city but what's really interesting about this is in recent years scholars have begun to re-appraise this and there is a massacre is terrible but actually probably they don't kill actually everybody within the city as have been previously thought but there's no denying though that the slaughter is on a

“large scale and it is absolutely horrific and I think what seems really incongruous for modern audiences”

that once the crusaders have taken the city and killed the defenders they then go dripping and go to the church of the Holy Sepulcher to pray to God to thank him for allowing them to succeed and I think for us this seems so strange incongruous and really problematic but I think for them actually the violence the bloodshed and the religious devotion are actually two sides of the same coin. All right so I mean just wrapping up here we are tripping

core in the church of the Holy Sepulcher as God intended it question mark what would you say the main consequences

of the first crusader I'd be like who took charge in these crusader states that they've now

secured to recent and they've secured the success of the first crusade at least those cities that they've captured and what you've got here is are the nuclei of the crusader states this is the crusader states in embryonic form they're really a string of cities you've got a deser you've got antiog you got Jerusalem you've got some other places along the way like jaffa but this is in no way is this a coherent set of political states the crusader states do not exist at this time but what

happens is there's some conflict over who should run Jerusalem and there's a question mark whether they should be called king in the city that Christ rained in and in the end Godfrey of weon wins the contest Godfrey takes over he takes on the title of advacatus which means defender of the Holy Sepulcher and it's a christian religious title really to donate his position so he doesn't call himself king the his successor who is bolder in a balloon who comes and godfrey dies

really quickly you know less than a year later and bolder and comes down and becomes the first king of Jerusalem comes out from a deser takes over the throne and then what they start to do is they start to establish these viable political states so they start to capture the territory around Jerusalem and those other cities and they start with the coastal strategy so the lifelines back to the west of the sea lanes across the Mediterranean through crucially have access to those and

they control those for reinforcements for communications for money for soldiers or as kind of stuff

the eastern Mediterranean seaboard and once they've done that they're in start to penetrate into the hinterland of Palestine and Syria and pursue the hinterland strategy which is less successful but by the 1120s they've established really viable political states for crusade the states of Jerusalem and Tioch, Odessa and Tripoli and they're really viable political units in the region and you've got then a strip of territory which runs along the coast, a contiguous set of territories

and they're a new force to be reckoned with and a really disruptive force in the Near East

“and I think what happens is as the Muslim powers of the region begin to realise what is going on”

they start to rally behind the idea of Gihad and the idea of maybe not fighting each other as much and fighting the Franks to try and push them back into the sea but that's a very long process well Tom that was brilliant you're brilliant thank you so much for coming to talk to us today I really appreciate it oh it's been such a pleasure and so fun thank you for having me on out of the

so with the first crusade concluding in shameful and indiscriminate slaughter

what have we learned that the crusading movement was the culmination of several distinct but intertwined forces that bubbled up throughout Western Christendom in the 11th century and that these were molded into the first crusade by Pope Urban II and Byzantine Emperor Alexios I that the crusaders who set out for Jerusalem were in a more fist and rag tag bunch were very difficult to control and made decisions for their own ends and interests

and that the story of how the first crusade unfolded had as much to do with the fate full

choices of the Seljuk adabegs and fattabit callives as it did with the crusaders themselves

“if you want to find out what happened next then join Matt on Friday for episode two of our series”

on the history of the crusades he'll be talking to Natasha Hodgson about how the crusaders consolidated their rule over the territory they seized after 1099 trading with fighting against and learning from their new Islamic neighbors they'll also be exploring the stories of the

second and third crusades and how the lords of the Muslim Mediterranean sought to push back

this new threat from the barbarian fringes of their structured Islamic world my thanks again to the wonderful doctor Tom Smith for joining me on gone medieval and thanks to you for listening if you loved what Tom had to say then you might want to listen back to his previous appearance on gone medieval about rewriting the history of the first crusade you can also check out his book on the same topic rewriting the first crusade

“at pistolatory culture in the Middle Ages remember you can also enjoy unlimited access to”

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