January 16, 2018 • 39 mins
The most epic holy war of all-time the Crusades- was a response to centuries of Jihad. This is the epic story of how a Christian force from a besieged Europe traveled 3,000 miles to seize the holy land, and conquer Jerusalem.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
The battles of the past to find the present. This
is shields high. Gather around, friends, for I have a
story to tell. A thousand years ago, a military force
assembled in Europe and rallied under the banner of the Cross.
(00:30):
This Christian army believed no less than their eternal salvation
was at stake. These warriors, knights, foot soldiers and peasants
traveled three thousand miles to do battle in the heart
of a vast enemy empire. Despite their religious zeal and bravery,
(00:50):
this army of Christendom was embarking on what could have
been a suicide mission. From a purely military standpoint. They
were outmanned and outmatched. They had no idea of the
enemy's true strength or will to fight. But death in
battle was to be rewarded with the elimination of all
(01:12):
penance four sins. The Pope himself had promised no less.
Before they left behind the familiar castles and farms of Europe,
the true believers sewed the sign of the Cross onto
their shoulders and chests. They called this crucis ignatis for
one with the sign of the Cross, from which many
(01:35):
decades later we would get the term crusade. And in
the year of Our Lord ten ninety five, their initial
call to arms in the defense of Christendom would come
to be known as the First Crusade. This religious and
military quest marked the first time in centuries that the
(01:55):
forces of Christian Europe would strike back at the Muslim
conquest that had consumed so much of the known medieval world.
The incredible, some would say miraculous, success of the First
Crusade would be a harbinger of holy wars to come.
This assemblage of Christian warriors would conquer Jerusalem and set
(02:21):
in motion two hundred years of fighting between warring Muslim
factions and the Crusader city states that were established by
this counter invasion of Christendom. From a d five to
twelve ninety one, the Near East what is currently Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt,
(02:44):
Iraq was enmeshed in crusades and jihad's, But it was
the First Crusade, a military invasion against near impossible odds,
that shook the Islamic world to its foundations and for
the first time in history, allowed the Christian world to
strike at the heart of the Islamic world. Despite what
(03:08):
is taught in Western schools today, the Crusades were not
an act of wanton cruelty by a bunch of barbarous
Christian states. On the contrary, the First Crusade was a
response to centuries of Islamic conquest, aggression, and threats. By
the dawn of the twelfth century, the expansion of the
(03:31):
Islamic Empire seemed nearly unstoppable. At the time of the
First Crusade, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Asia, Minor, Spain, France, Italy,
the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica were all Christian
territories turned into Muslim ones. In fact, about two thirds
(03:55):
of the formerly Christian world at the time of the
First Crusade was ruled by Muslims. Had it not been
for Charles Martel's heroics at the Battle of Tour in
seven thirty two, the forces of Islam would have conquered
the heart of Europe itself. The world as we know
it today would be an entirely different place. Western civilization
(04:19):
would have been extinguished, replaced with the totalitarianism and despotism
of the East. But the victory of Charles the Hammer
Martel was only temporary. The Crescent Moon of Islam already
reigned over immense domains, and its forces were often literally
(04:39):
at the gates of Christendom, just waiting to break through.
On the Iberian Peninsula where modern Spain and Portugal are found,
and all the way across to the gates of Constantinople
in the east, in what is now the city of Istanbul, Turkey,
there was a constant jihadist menace. Islamic raiding parties used
(05:00):
the Mediterranean to launch murderous, pillaging assaults. They would kidnap
Christians to sell into slavery along the coasts of Italy, France,
and Spain all throughout the medieval period. At the end
of the eleventh century, the goal of every caliph, the
leader of the Islamic Caliphate was the same, total domination
(05:23):
of the Christian world through jihad. It was in response
to this threat of spiritual and temporal bondage, this possibility
of eternal subjugation, and the extermination of the Christian faith itself.
In response to all of that, that the First Crusade
(05:43):
was launched. Finally, an alliance of Christian nobles came together
to lead their men to a war unlike anything attempted
since the fall of the Roman Empire. It was in
fact the inheritors of that Roman Empire, the Byzantines, guardians
of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, who said in motion
(06:04):
the events that would lead to the First Crusade. Their
rapid decline and the threat of Constantinople's fall, added to
the persecution of Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy
Land and the Muslim desecration of religious sites such as
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. All of
(06:25):
that together finally woke Europe from its slumber. As described
by the French historian of the Crusades, Joseph Michaud quote,
the Christian faithful had much more to suffer. They were
driven from their houses, insulted in their churches. The tribute
which they had to pay to the new masters of
(06:46):
Palestine was increased, and they were forbidden to carry arms
or to mount on horseback. A leather girdle, which they
were never allowed to be without, was the badge of
their servitude. The conqueror would not permit the Christians to
speak the Arab tongue sacred to the disciples of the Koran,
and the people who remained faithful to Jesus Christ had
(07:09):
not liberty even to pronounce the names of the patriarchs,
including of Jerusalem itself, without the permission of the Saracens.
Other misfortunes awaited the Christians of Palestine. Under Muslim rule,
all religious ceremonies were interdicted. The greater part of the
churches were converted into stables. That of the Holy Sepulcher
(07:32):
was completely destroyed. The Christians driven from Jerusalem were scattered
throughout the countries of the East and quote Christendom was
under assault. The Byzantine Empire was under siege and threatening
to collapse. The forces of the Cross had to rally.
(07:55):
A crusade would be launched to free the Holy Land,
and it would take these god fearing Christian Zealots to
the gates of Jerusalem itself. Chapter one besieged Byzantines. Europe
(08:25):
through the Dark Ages period of a d. Five hundred
to one thousand or so was in chaos. The Dark
Ages was an accurate description. There was constant violence among
petty nobles, lawlessness, widespread ignorance, and deep superstition. Roads built
by ancient Rome were the most useful and well constructed
(08:48):
in Europe until well into the fifteen hundreds. The numerous
barbarian tribes who had sacked Rome and dismembered its empire
in the fifth century, Huns, Goths, frank Saxons were constantly
at each other's throats. The only unifier of what we
now call Europe was Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church. The
(09:12):
only structures in fact built of stone, and most of
northern and western Europe at the time were cathedrals. Many
of those cathedrals and churches built atop formerly pagan temples.
It was very rare in this period for anyone outside
the clergy to be able to read or write. Charlemagne himself,
(09:33):
the great leader who founded the Holy Roman Empire, was illiterate.
Books were incredibly valuable. Dialects of language were so different
that villages of the same tribe just a few miles
apart often had difficulty communicating. During this time, the intellectual, commercial,
(09:54):
and cultural pinnacle of the Christian world was found in
the east, a wondrous city of Constantinople. It was the
Roman emperor Constantine who, back in a d. Three thirty,
became the first Roman empire to recognize Jesus as his Savior,
and he made Constantinople, the Roman Empire's second capital, a
(10:16):
new Rome. In the years leading up to the First Crusade.
In fact, throughout the entire Dark Ages period, the inhabitants
of Constantinople thought of themselves as Romans and their crown jewel.
City was also Christianity's most important fortress against the growing
menace of Islamic conquest. Constantinople it is among the most
(10:42):
important strategic locations in the world. It sits astride a
crucial geographic choke point separating the Black Sea from the Mediterranean.
With a narrow channel called the hellspont or later the Dardanelles,
it can be easily closed off. This is also considered
the gateway to Asia from Europe. After the Islamic advance
(11:07):
from Arabia across the Near East, the only Christian city
that was able to withstand repeated Islamic invasions from the
East was Constantinople. The Islamic Caliphs were hell bent on
taking the city. In fact, there is a headith, a
saying attributed to the prophet Muhammed, specifically citing the conquest
(11:28):
of this ancient Christian city Jihads were launched against Constantinople
time and again, starting in the seventh century. The first
major siege of Constantinople came in a D six seventy four.
It lasted for four years. Muslim forces brought together various
armadas and fought a series of naval engagements. The one
(11:50):
consistent theme throughout the contemporary sources regarding these continued Muslim
military advances against the city is a unique weapon of
the Byzantine Greek fire that Greek fire gave the Eastern
Christians the ability to repel naval assault. After naval assault,
(12:11):
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon, generally deployed by ships
and defensive fortifications against enemies wooden ships, as the order
galleys of the medieval period were composed entirely of wood.
Greek fire was a devastating weapon. Chroniclers of the time
described it as sticky and able to continue burning even
(12:32):
on the surface of the sea. Another major Muslim siege
of Constantinople occurred in a D seven seventeen. This time
the Islamic armies came on land as well as sea.
They tried to blockade the city, but the massive Theodosian
walls three miles of three layered defensive fortifications, with the
(12:53):
innermost wall sixteen feet thick and thirty six ft tall
intersper with sixty foot tall guard towers holding back all
of the Islamic cord. These fortifications were among the most
impressive ever built in the pre modern world, and the
use of Greek fire proved too much for the defenders.
(13:17):
Once again, Constantinople would stay in Christian hands at least
for a time, but by the constant warfare in the
Anatolian Peninsula also called Asia Minor between Byzantines and various
Muslim factions was picking off more and more Christian territory.
(13:38):
With the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, a massive horde
of warriors on horseback from the interior Asian step, and
their conversion to Sunni Islam, the future of Constantinople appeared dire.
Constantinople's defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at
the Battle of Man's occurred in ten seventy one, was
(13:59):
for many the death knell of the once great Byzantines.
Time was running out for the Eastern Christian Empire, and
if Constantinople felt it would become the forward operating base
for Jihad into all of Europe. No less than the
future of the Christian world hung in the balance. In
(14:21):
to avert this catastrophe, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius the First
wrote a desperate plea for help against the Seljouk menace.
The Western Christian world needed to come to Constantinople's aid,
retake the Holy Land of Jerusalem and push back the
Saracen menace once and for all. The Pope received the
(14:42):
plea of help from Constantinople. Hope Urban gathered Christians together
at the Council of Claremont in France on November. He
called for a holy war and stated that whoever was
going to liberate Jerusalem could substitute that journey for any
(15:04):
and all penance in the afterlife. The assembled Christians shouted,
deis volts, deis volts God wills it. Word from this
gathering in Claremont would spread across Europe. In time, an
army of some sixty thousand Christians would take up the call.
(15:25):
The First Crusade was under way. It's goal the conquest
of Jerusalem. Chapter two, The Road to Zion in the
(15:49):
Year of our Lord ten five, the urgent call to
Holy war in the East spread like wildfire across Europe.
While the Pope coordinated with some of the most powerful
nobles and knights to prepare what would be a major
military expedition, there was an unexpected gathering of commoners dedicated
(16:10):
to the same purpose. A firebrand preacher, a priest known
to history as Peter the Hermit, went from village to village,
promising a remission of sins for any who joined him
on his quest to free the Holy Land. By April
of t Peter had gathered around forty thousand men, women
(16:33):
and children in the German city of Cologne and began
with them overland and on foot to Jerusalem. This so
called people's crusade turned into a debacle. They were an
undisciplined rabble without arms or horses. Peter had convinced them
(16:53):
that with God on their side, they simply could not
be defeated. Many fouls of these pauper crusaders never even
made it outside of Catholic Europe's realm. They turned back
on their own accord, or were captured and enslaved by
opportunistic lords along the way. The peasant crusaders even ran
(17:16):
out of food in Hungary and ended up pillaging Orthodox
Christian monasteries. By the time Peter reached Constantinople, his numbers
were already greatly depleted. The Byzantine Emperor Alexius wanted rid
of this mob as soon as possible. He gladly ferried
them across the Bosphorus. The People's Crusade did make it
(17:39):
to Anatolia and found a Turkish force to fight. The
Christian peasants, armed almost entirely with zeal and farm implements,
were annihilated. The crusade led by princes, however, was a
very different story and a very different force. Many of
(18:01):
the most vaunted royal houses of Europe were represented Godfrey
of Bouillon, Count Robert of Flanders, Duke Robert of Normandy,
son of William the Conqueror, Raymond of Toulouse, Adamar of Lepuis,
Beaumond of Toronto, and Tankard of vi. They assembled a
(18:24):
sixty thousand man army, an enormous force for this medieval time,
including approximately ten thousand heavy cavalry. The armored knights that
were to become the most enduring emblem of the European
period of Crusader warfare. This massive expeditionary force set off
(18:49):
for Constantinople and arrived in October of ten It was
the relief force the Byzantine Emperor Alexius had requested so
desperately from the Pope. But Alexius felt something of a
panic when he saw the mass of men at arms
and horsemen. He quickly gave them money and supplies, and
(19:11):
in exchange asked that all Byzantine territory that they conquered
had to be returned to the Emperor. The timing of
this expedition for the Christians was fortuitous. Unbeknownst to them,
there was much infighting among Muslims in the Turkish realm,
with the Shia Fatimid Muslims of Egypt, the Abbasids of Baghdad,
(19:36):
and the Seldiuk Turks all jockeying for power. In early tenn,
the Crusader army crossed into Asia Minor. Their first target
was the formerly Christian city of Nicia. It had been
seized by the Turkish war lord killags Lan and was
now part of the Sultanate of Rum. The Turkish leader
(19:58):
happened to be away on a campaign when the Crusader
army arrived ours land did return to lift the siege,
but had greatly underestimated the strength and ferocity of the
Crusaders and was quickly driven back by their fearsome charge.
The Byzantines sent additional forces to help with the siege
(20:20):
of Nicia. They even brought ships overland by using logs
to roll them, and they deployed on the lake near
Nicia that up until that point had allowed the defenders
to stay provisioned. After a six week siege, the mixed
Byzantine Frankish force brought about the capitulation of Nicia in
(20:41):
June of ten A note here that to the Eastern
Christians and Muslims, all the Crusaders from the West were
referred to as Frange or Francs. But Nicia was just
the beginning of the planned conquest. The ultimate prize for
the Franks was still Jerusalem. There was at least one
(21:05):
major stronghold that blocked their path, the fortress of Antioch,
but to get there it was likely they would have
a major engagement with a Turkish field army along the way.
With that in mind, the two crusailer columns marched deeper
(21:26):
into Anatolia modern day Turkey. Bowman was in the vanguard column,
Godfrey in the rear guard. Killeg Arslan, the Turkish emir
and warlord who had unsuccessfully tried to lift the siege
of Nicia, planned a trap for them. On July one, seven,
(21:47):
the first major field engagement of the First Crusade began,
the Battle of dory Lam. The ambush at the hands
of the Turkish army was well planned and executed. The
Christians had pitched a camp for the night, and at
first light the trap was sprung from the surrounding wooded hills.
(22:08):
Mounted Turkish archers swarmed around the column of Christian knights
and infantry, with the camp followers and supply trains in
the rear. Before the massive Turkish cavalry force could surround
and cut the Christians off, Bowman immediately sent a courier
to the rear guard led by Godfrey, and called for
(22:28):
immediate assistance with all possible haste. Bowman knew he would
have to stand and fight against this Turkish onslaught or
all would be lost. He formed a defensive circle of
nights around the infantry and in the center brought camp
followers into the middle they were swarmed on all sides
(22:50):
by Turkish horse archers. Waves of Turkish cavalry would ride up,
fire volley of lethal arrows, throw javelins, and pulled back
out of the reach of Christian ranks. The Crusader knights
were weighed down by their armor on top of their horses,
and were in general much less nimble than their Turkish opponents.
(23:15):
But when brought into close quarters, the Christians were able
to withstand many more arrows and blows from edged weapons,
and when the Crusaders were able to wield their broadswords,
maces and battle axes, it was with devastating effect. But
killing Arslan and his Turks took their toll on the
(23:37):
densely packed Crusader foot soldiers. The heat and exhaustion that
came with it also began to overcome some of the
front line. Then, just as a situation could have turned
into a catastrophe, Godfrey and his column arrived. His knights
smashed into the Turkish left flank. Bowmaned, seeing this turn
(23:58):
of events, chart with his knights. At the same time,
a wave of Christian Crusaders smashed into the Turkish light cavalry,
who turned and fled the Turks left behind riches and
supplies in their camp, much to the delight of the
victorious Crusaders. But more importantly, the pathway to Jerusalem now
(24:21):
lay open to them. There was only one major obstacle
in their path, the almost impregnable fortress city of Antioch.
(24:45):
Chapter three, The Siege of Antioch. The Crusader army in
October of ten ninety seven was full of confidence after
taking Nicia in a mere six weeks and routing Killage
are Salans. Turkish war ears on an open battlefield. As
the Crusader army arrived outside the gates of Antioch, they
(25:07):
could not have imagined the hardships and losses they would
soon endure. Antioch was once considered arrival to Constantinople by
the Roman emperors of the third and fourth centuries. It
was set in a valley next to the Orontes River
in what is today's Antakia in southernmost Turkey. In the
(25:28):
eleventh century, Antioch was on a crucial trading route. It
was also believed to be the first place in the
world where the term Christian was used for the followers
of Christ. As a fortified position, Antioch was formidable. It
had large thick walls topped with hundreds of towers. Its
(25:50):
citadel was on a mountain, Mount Silpius, that rose a
thousand feet up. The garrison consisted of around five thousand
ter The Christian besiegers had approximately forty thousand at the start.
The only way that Antioch had fallen to an enemy
in over five hundred years stretching back to the reign
(26:14):
of the Emperor Justinian, was through treachery. Antioch had never
been successfully stormed during that period. It had only been
handed over to the enemy from the inside. The Turk
in charge of the defense of the city, Yagi Sion,
was well aware of this. He was crafty and competent,
(26:36):
and knew that the city's majority Christian population was a risk.
In the days before the arrival of the Crusaders, Yagiicion
took action to mitigate this possible fifth column. He directed
the able bodied Muslim men of the city to build
a trench outside the city walls. The following day, Yagi
(26:58):
Sion directed all the Christian men of the city to
do the same. Having seen their fellow antioch Nes come
back without incident from the day before, they calmly left
the protection of the massive fortified walls. Once outside the gates,
Yagion informed the Christians that for the duration of the
(27:20):
upcoming siege, they would have to stay outside with their
fellow Christians the Crusaders. Not only did this ploy limit
the likelihood of Christians siding with their co religionists during
the siege, it created an additional burden on supplies outside
the city walls. Of all the stratagems for Antioch's defense,
(27:44):
hunger would become the most potent. A full on assault
was not possible, so the Crusaders set up upon arrival
camps around the city walls and plan to wait out
the defenders. It quickly became apparent, however, that Antioch was
a far more difficult prize than Nicea. Yagion had made
(28:08):
all the necessary preparations for a long siege. The Crusaders,
on the other hand, were running low on supplies from
the beginning. As the winter set in, disease spread throughout
the Christian camp. The weeks of siege quickly turned into months.
Foraging parties came back empty handed time and again. Hunger
(28:31):
turned to starvation. Nights slaughtered their own horses for food.
Morale plummeted and desertions. Rose yagy Sion managed to harass
the besiegers with sorties outside the city walls. He also
had sent word out to every Muslim war lord of
(28:52):
the Arab world to come to his aid. As the
spring season arrived, starvation faded, but Islamic reinforcements arrived. Ridwan
of Aleppo led the first Muslim army that attempted to
break the siege. Bowman met Ridwan's cavalry with a large
(29:14):
cavalry charge of his own, seven hundred knights that rode
right into the heart of Ridwan's forces and shattered the
Syrian relief effort. The siege continued on, but time was
not on the Christian side. A massive Muslim army was
being raised by Carboga of Mosul, who planned to join
(29:38):
Rudwan of Aleppo. This second attempt to lift the siege
would consist of nearly fifty thousand Muslim warriors. The Crusaders
had already lost thousands of their own. If they failed
to take this city before Carboga arrived outside the city walls,
they would be slaughtered. It was treachery that's save the day.
(30:04):
Bowman had managed secret contact with an Armenian inside the
city walls. He offered money and a title in exchange
for allowing a contingent of Christians to scale the walls
in one sector under the cover of darkness. Boehmand himself
was among them. The plot worked. The Crusaders got inside
(30:29):
the city walls, opened a gate, and thousands of their
brothers in arms flooded in. Frenzied Crusaders hacked thousands of
defenders and civilians to death. Some of the Turks managed
to take refuge in the citadel up on the mountain.
Their only hope was to hold out until the relief
force from Mosl Carboga's massive army arrived. On June five.
(30:56):
Carboga did arrive, the Christian fenders were short on food
once again, and desertions rapidly escalated. The Crusaders were now
stuck inside the city. The besiegers had become the besieged.
They needed a miracle, and they found one. A priest
(31:18):
named Peter Bartholomewle from France said he had discovered a
relic inside the walls of Antioch. The Holy Lance, the
spear that was thrust into the side of Christ when
he was on the cross, had miraculously appeared. The Crusaders
starved into hallucinations and despair. Believed that this was a
(31:40):
sign from God. They gathered together for a final sortie
outside the city walls. It would come to be known
as the Battle of Antioch. The outnumbered and starving Crusaders
gathered behind night Raymond, who held the relic of the
Holy Lance, and they charged. The Turks were no match
(32:03):
for the ferocity of the Franks. Cariboga and his lieutenants
turned and fled from the battlefield. The Turkish holdouts inside
the citadel saw this and immediately surrendered. The Crusaders had one.
One of the great cities of the ancient world was
firmly in their grasp, and the most important city of
(32:27):
all to them, the city of God himself, Jerusalem, was
now within their reach. M H. Chapter four, The Conquest
(32:53):
of Jerusalem. A year after the successful siege of Antioch,
the Crusaders finally marched on their ultimate goal, Jerusalem. They
arrived on June seven of Contemporary chroniclers wrote that many
Crusaders wept with Julie at their first sighting of the city,
(33:13):
but reaching Jerusalem was not enough. A major battle lay ahead.
If the city was once again to be brought into
the domain of Christendom. The defenders were ready. The Fatimid
Muslim dynasty of Egypt had taken the city from the
Selgouk Turks a year before. They had made ample preparations
(33:34):
for the coming Crusader siege, poisoning all the surrounding wells
in the environs of Jerusalem and slaughtering animals in the
field that could not be brought inside the city walls.
The Crusaders were an army fifty thousand strong when they
crossed into Muslim lands. Now they had been depleted to
(33:55):
around twelve thousand. They did not have the manpower to
encircle and cut off the city for a protracted siege,
nor could they risk the arrival of a major Muslim
relief force. Jerusalem would have to be stormed in an assault.
Before this final cast of the die, however, the beleaguered
(34:17):
Christian army marched in procession around the city in a
manner similar to the biblical story of Jericho and the
fall of its great walls. With God on their side,
the Crusaders felt they could not lose Deus voult Deus
vault God wills it. The first attempt to take this
(34:38):
city was repulsed. The situation of the Crusaders became increasingly desperate.
While Jerusalem's fortifications were nowhere near as impressive as Constantinoples
or even Antiochs, siege engines would be necessary to scale
the walls, but there were no trees in the vicinity
of Jerusalem, and thirst was already a constant problem among
(35:00):
the Christian troops. Then, in a stroke of luck, a
Genoese supply fleet of six ships arrived at the porch
of Jaffa to bring aid to the Crusaders. Most importantly
of all, the timber from these ships could be broken
down and reformed into siege engines. This allowed the Crusaders
(35:24):
to build two enormous towers for scaling the walls of Jerusalem.
They were now prepared to assault the city once and
for all. On July, the final assault began in two waves.
The Muslim defenders fought back with flaming arrows and burning pitch,
lighting both siege tower and crusader on fire at every opportunity.
(35:47):
The battle was bloody and vicious, but the double pronged
assault on the walls was victorious. The Crusaders poured over
the battlements and engaged in a bloody slaughter of many
inhabitants of the city. One chronicler described what ensued in
Jerusalem in this way quote. Upon entering Jerusalem, the pilgrims
(36:11):
pursued and killed Saracens and other infidels, even to the
Temple of Solomon and the Temple of the Lord. Gathered there,
the enemy waged a hot battle until sundown, but our
men killed so many that blood flowed through all of
the temple. Finally, after having overwhelmed the Pagans, are Men
grabbed a large number of males and females in the temple,
(36:33):
killing some and sparing others. As the notion struck them,
Tancred and Gaston gave their banners to a great number
of the infidels of both sexes crowded on the roof
of the temple. Soon, the Crusaders ran through all the city,
taking gold, silver, horses, mules, and houses packed with all
kinds of riches. Afterwards, all came rejoicing and weeping with
(36:55):
joy to the Holy sepulcher of our Savior. On the
next rning, Tancred sent forth the command that the Christians
go to the temple to kill Saracens. Upon their arrival,
some began to draw their bows and to kill many.
Another group of Crusaders climbed to the roof of the
temple and rushed the Saracens huddled there, decapidating males and
(37:16):
females with naked sword blades. They cause some to plunge
from the temple roof and others found their death above
end quote. The conquest of Jerusalem was complete. The Crusader
Godfrey of Bouillon would become its leader, and Jerusalem would
(37:38):
join Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli as the Crusader States. They
endured for almost two hundred years of constant warfare and
fighting in the Near East. Many historians have argued that
the Crusades were wasteful, unprovoked, or pointless. This is all nonsense.
(38:00):
The First Crusade was a response to hundreds of years
of Islamic conquest and subjugation of Christians and Jews alike.
It was a response to Jihad, not the precursor to it,
and during the period of the Crusader States, there was
not one major attempt by the Islamic world to invade
the heart of Christendom itself. When the last Crusader kingdom
(38:25):
was extinguished in the thirteenth century. That would all start
to change, though. The Islamic world would have to survive
the Great invasion of the Mongol Horde, but it was
only a matter of time before the forces of Islam
would turn their sights on the conquest of the Christian
world once again, the Great City of Constantinople and the
(38:48):
Siege of fourteen fifty three, but that story will have
to wait for next week. This is buck Sexton. My friends.
Please do spread the word of about this show. You
can follow it on the I Heart app. You can
subscribe on iTunes, Post shields high on your Facebook pages,
(39:09):
send emails with the links of this podcast to your friends.
Until next time, no matter what enemies you face, be
ready to awake Iron
The battles of the past to find the present. This
is shields high. Gather around, friends, for I have a
story to tell. A thousand years ago, a military force
assembled in Europe and rallied under the banner of the Cross.
(00:30):
This Christian army believed no less than their eternal salvation
was at stake. These warriors, knights, foot soldiers and peasants
traveled three thousand miles to do battle in the heart
of a vast enemy empire. Despite their religious zeal and bravery,
(00:50):
this army of Christendom was embarking on what could have
been a suicide mission. From a purely military standpoint. They
were outmanned and outmatched. They had no idea of the
enemy's true strength or will to fight. But death in
battle was to be rewarded with the elimination of all
(01:12):
penance four sins. The Pope himself had promised no less.
Before they left behind the familiar castles and farms of Europe,
the true believers sewed the sign of the Cross onto
their shoulders and chests. They called this crucis ignatis for
one with the sign of the Cross, from which many
(01:35):
decades later we would get the term crusade. And in
the year of Our Lord ten ninety five, their initial
call to arms in the defense of Christendom would come
to be known as the First Crusade. This religious and
military quest marked the first time in centuries that the
(01:55):
forces of Christian Europe would strike back at the Muslim
conquest that had consumed so much of the known medieval world.
The incredible, some would say miraculous, success of the First
Crusade would be a harbinger of holy wars to come.
This assemblage of Christian warriors would conquer Jerusalem and set
(02:21):
in motion two hundred years of fighting between warring Muslim
factions and the Crusader city states that were established by
this counter invasion of Christendom. From a d five to
twelve ninety one, the Near East what is currently Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt,
(02:44):
Iraq was enmeshed in crusades and jihad's, But it was
the First Crusade, a military invasion against near impossible odds,
that shook the Islamic world to its foundations and for
the first time in history, allowed the Christian world to
strike at the heart of the Islamic world. Despite what
(03:08):
is taught in Western schools today, the Crusades were not
an act of wanton cruelty by a bunch of barbarous
Christian states. On the contrary, the First Crusade was a
response to centuries of Islamic conquest, aggression, and threats. By
the dawn of the twelfth century, the expansion of the
(03:31):
Islamic Empire seemed nearly unstoppable. At the time of the
First Crusade, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Asia, Minor, Spain, France, Italy,
the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica were all Christian
territories turned into Muslim ones. In fact, about two thirds
(03:55):
of the formerly Christian world at the time of the
First Crusade was ruled by Muslims. Had it not been
for Charles Martel's heroics at the Battle of Tour in
seven thirty two, the forces of Islam would have conquered
the heart of Europe itself. The world as we know
it today would be an entirely different place. Western civilization
(04:19):
would have been extinguished, replaced with the totalitarianism and despotism
of the East. But the victory of Charles the Hammer
Martel was only temporary. The Crescent Moon of Islam already
reigned over immense domains, and its forces were often literally
(04:39):
at the gates of Christendom, just waiting to break through.
On the Iberian Peninsula where modern Spain and Portugal are found,
and all the way across to the gates of Constantinople
in the east, in what is now the city of Istanbul, Turkey,
there was a constant jihadist menace. Islamic raiding parties used
(05:00):
the Mediterranean to launch murderous, pillaging assaults. They would kidnap
Christians to sell into slavery along the coasts of Italy, France,
and Spain all throughout the medieval period. At the end
of the eleventh century, the goal of every caliph, the
leader of the Islamic Caliphate was the same, total domination
(05:23):
of the Christian world through jihad. It was in response
to this threat of spiritual and temporal bondage, this possibility
of eternal subjugation, and the extermination of the Christian faith itself.
In response to all of that, that the First Crusade
(05:43):
was launched. Finally, an alliance of Christian nobles came together
to lead their men to a war unlike anything attempted
since the fall of the Roman Empire. It was in
fact the inheritors of that Roman Empire, the Byzantines, guardians
of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, who said in motion
(06:04):
the events that would lead to the First Crusade. Their
rapid decline and the threat of Constantinople's fall, added to
the persecution of Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy
Land and the Muslim desecration of religious sites such as
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. All of
(06:25):
that together finally woke Europe from its slumber. As described
by the French historian of the Crusades, Joseph Michaud quote,
the Christian faithful had much more to suffer. They were
driven from their houses, insulted in their churches. The tribute
which they had to pay to the new masters of
(06:46):
Palestine was increased, and they were forbidden to carry arms
or to mount on horseback. A leather girdle, which they
were never allowed to be without, was the badge of
their servitude. The conqueror would not permit the Christians to
speak the Arab tongue sacred to the disciples of the Koran,
and the people who remained faithful to Jesus Christ had
(07:09):
not liberty even to pronounce the names of the patriarchs,
including of Jerusalem itself, without the permission of the Saracens.
Other misfortunes awaited the Christians of Palestine. Under Muslim rule,
all religious ceremonies were interdicted. The greater part of the
churches were converted into stables. That of the Holy Sepulcher
(07:32):
was completely destroyed. The Christians driven from Jerusalem were scattered
throughout the countries of the East and quote Christendom was
under assault. The Byzantine Empire was under siege and threatening
to collapse. The forces of the Cross had to rally.
(07:55):
A crusade would be launched to free the Holy Land,
and it would take these god fearing Christian Zealots to
the gates of Jerusalem itself. Chapter one besieged Byzantines. Europe
(08:25):
through the Dark Ages period of a d. Five hundred
to one thousand or so was in chaos. The Dark
Ages was an accurate description. There was constant violence among
petty nobles, lawlessness, widespread ignorance, and deep superstition. Roads built
by ancient Rome were the most useful and well constructed
(08:48):
in Europe until well into the fifteen hundreds. The numerous
barbarian tribes who had sacked Rome and dismembered its empire
in the fifth century, Huns, Goths, frank Saxons were constantly
at each other's throats. The only unifier of what we
now call Europe was Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church. The
(09:12):
only structures in fact built of stone, and most of
northern and western Europe at the time were cathedrals. Many
of those cathedrals and churches built atop formerly pagan temples.
It was very rare in this period for anyone outside
the clergy to be able to read or write. Charlemagne himself,
(09:33):
the great leader who founded the Holy Roman Empire, was illiterate.
Books were incredibly valuable. Dialects of language were so different
that villages of the same tribe just a few miles
apart often had difficulty communicating. During this time, the intellectual, commercial,
(09:54):
and cultural pinnacle of the Christian world was found in
the east, a wondrous city of Constantinople. It was the
Roman emperor Constantine who, back in a d. Three thirty,
became the first Roman empire to recognize Jesus as his Savior,
and he made Constantinople, the Roman Empire's second capital, a
(10:16):
new Rome. In the years leading up to the First Crusade.
In fact, throughout the entire Dark Ages period, the inhabitants
of Constantinople thought of themselves as Romans and their crown jewel.
City was also Christianity's most important fortress against the growing
menace of Islamic conquest. Constantinople it is among the most
(10:42):
important strategic locations in the world. It sits astride a
crucial geographic choke point separating the Black Sea from the Mediterranean.
With a narrow channel called the hellspont or later the Dardanelles,
it can be easily closed off. This is also considered
the gateway to Asia from Europe. After the Islamic advance
(11:07):
from Arabia across the Near East, the only Christian city
that was able to withstand repeated Islamic invasions from the
East was Constantinople. The Islamic Caliphs were hell bent on
taking the city. In fact, there is a headith, a
saying attributed to the prophet Muhammed, specifically citing the conquest
(11:28):
of this ancient Christian city Jihads were launched against Constantinople
time and again, starting in the seventh century. The first
major siege of Constantinople came in a D six seventy four.
It lasted for four years. Muslim forces brought together various
armadas and fought a series of naval engagements. The one
(11:50):
consistent theme throughout the contemporary sources regarding these continued Muslim
military advances against the city is a unique weapon of
the Byzantine Greek fire that Greek fire gave the Eastern
Christians the ability to repel naval assault. After naval assault,
(12:11):
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon, generally deployed by ships
and defensive fortifications against enemies wooden ships, as the order
galleys of the medieval period were composed entirely of wood.
Greek fire was a devastating weapon. Chroniclers of the time
described it as sticky and able to continue burning even
(12:32):
on the surface of the sea. Another major Muslim siege
of Constantinople occurred in a D seven seventeen. This time
the Islamic armies came on land as well as sea.
They tried to blockade the city, but the massive Theodosian
walls three miles of three layered defensive fortifications, with the
(12:53):
innermost wall sixteen feet thick and thirty six ft tall
intersper with sixty foot tall guard towers holding back all
of the Islamic cord. These fortifications were among the most
impressive ever built in the pre modern world, and the
use of Greek fire proved too much for the defenders.
(13:17):
Once again, Constantinople would stay in Christian hands at least
for a time, but by the constant warfare in the
Anatolian Peninsula also called Asia Minor between Byzantines and various
Muslim factions was picking off more and more Christian territory.
(13:38):
With the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, a massive horde
of warriors on horseback from the interior Asian step, and
their conversion to Sunni Islam, the future of Constantinople appeared dire.
Constantinople's defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at
the Battle of Man's occurred in ten seventy one, was
(13:59):
for many the death knell of the once great Byzantines.
Time was running out for the Eastern Christian Empire, and
if Constantinople felt it would become the forward operating base
for Jihad into all of Europe. No less than the
future of the Christian world hung in the balance. In
(14:21):
to avert this catastrophe, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius the First
wrote a desperate plea for help against the Seljouk menace.
The Western Christian world needed to come to Constantinople's aid,
retake the Holy Land of Jerusalem and push back the
Saracen menace once and for all. The Pope received the
(14:42):
plea of help from Constantinople. Hope Urban gathered Christians together
at the Council of Claremont in France on November. He
called for a holy war and stated that whoever was
going to liberate Jerusalem could substitute that journey for any
(15:04):
and all penance in the afterlife. The assembled Christians shouted,
deis volts, deis volts God wills it. Word from this
gathering in Claremont would spread across Europe. In time, an
army of some sixty thousand Christians would take up the call.
(15:25):
The First Crusade was under way. It's goal the conquest
of Jerusalem. Chapter two, The Road to Zion in the
(15:49):
Year of our Lord ten five, the urgent call to
Holy war in the East spread like wildfire across Europe.
While the Pope coordinated with some of the most powerful
nobles and knights to prepare what would be a major
military expedition, there was an unexpected gathering of commoners dedicated
(16:10):
to the same purpose. A firebrand preacher, a priest known
to history as Peter the Hermit, went from village to village,
promising a remission of sins for any who joined him
on his quest to free the Holy Land. By April
of t Peter had gathered around forty thousand men, women
(16:33):
and children in the German city of Cologne and began
with them overland and on foot to Jerusalem. This so
called people's crusade turned into a debacle. They were an
undisciplined rabble without arms or horses. Peter had convinced them
(16:53):
that with God on their side, they simply could not
be defeated. Many fouls of these pauper crusaders never even
made it outside of Catholic Europe's realm. They turned back
on their own accord, or were captured and enslaved by
opportunistic lords along the way. The peasant crusaders even ran
(17:16):
out of food in Hungary and ended up pillaging Orthodox
Christian monasteries. By the time Peter reached Constantinople, his numbers
were already greatly depleted. The Byzantine Emperor Alexius wanted rid
of this mob as soon as possible. He gladly ferried
them across the Bosphorus. The People's Crusade did make it
(17:39):
to Anatolia and found a Turkish force to fight. The
Christian peasants, armed almost entirely with zeal and farm implements,
were annihilated. The crusade led by princes, however, was a
very different story and a very different force. Many of
(18:01):
the most vaunted royal houses of Europe were represented Godfrey
of Bouillon, Count Robert of Flanders, Duke Robert of Normandy,
son of William the Conqueror, Raymond of Toulouse, Adamar of Lepuis,
Beaumond of Toronto, and Tankard of vi. They assembled a
(18:24):
sixty thousand man army, an enormous force for this medieval time,
including approximately ten thousand heavy cavalry. The armored knights that
were to become the most enduring emblem of the European
period of Crusader warfare. This massive expeditionary force set off
(18:49):
for Constantinople and arrived in October of ten It was
the relief force the Byzantine Emperor Alexius had requested so
desperately from the Pope. But Alexius felt something of a
panic when he saw the mass of men at arms
and horsemen. He quickly gave them money and supplies, and
(19:11):
in exchange asked that all Byzantine territory that they conquered
had to be returned to the Emperor. The timing of
this expedition for the Christians was fortuitous. Unbeknownst to them,
there was much infighting among Muslims in the Turkish realm,
with the Shia Fatimid Muslims of Egypt, the Abbasids of Baghdad,
(19:36):
and the Seldiuk Turks all jockeying for power. In early tenn,
the Crusader army crossed into Asia Minor. Their first target
was the formerly Christian city of Nicia. It had been
seized by the Turkish war lord killags Lan and was
now part of the Sultanate of Rum. The Turkish leader
(19:58):
happened to be away on a campaign when the Crusader
army arrived ours land did return to lift the siege,
but had greatly underestimated the strength and ferocity of the
Crusaders and was quickly driven back by their fearsome charge.
The Byzantines sent additional forces to help with the siege
(20:20):
of Nicia. They even brought ships overland by using logs
to roll them, and they deployed on the lake near
Nicia that up until that point had allowed the defenders
to stay provisioned. After a six week siege, the mixed
Byzantine Frankish force brought about the capitulation of Nicia in
(20:41):
June of ten A note here that to the Eastern
Christians and Muslims, all the Crusaders from the West were
referred to as Frange or Francs. But Nicia was just
the beginning of the planned conquest. The ultimate prize for
the Franks was still Jerusalem. There was at least one
(21:05):
major stronghold that blocked their path, the fortress of Antioch,
but to get there it was likely they would have
a major engagement with a Turkish field army along the way.
With that in mind, the two crusailer columns marched deeper
(21:26):
into Anatolia modern day Turkey. Bowman was in the vanguard column,
Godfrey in the rear guard. Killeg Arslan, the Turkish emir
and warlord who had unsuccessfully tried to lift the siege
of Nicia, planned a trap for them. On July one, seven,
(21:47):
the first major field engagement of the First Crusade began,
the Battle of dory Lam. The ambush at the hands
of the Turkish army was well planned and executed. The
Christians had pitched a camp for the night, and at
first light the trap was sprung from the surrounding wooded hills.
(22:08):
Mounted Turkish archers swarmed around the column of Christian knights
and infantry, with the camp followers and supply trains in
the rear. Before the massive Turkish cavalry force could surround
and cut the Christians off, Bowman immediately sent a courier
to the rear guard led by Godfrey, and called for
(22:28):
immediate assistance with all possible haste. Bowman knew he would
have to stand and fight against this Turkish onslaught or
all would be lost. He formed a defensive circle of
nights around the infantry and in the center brought camp
followers into the middle they were swarmed on all sides
(22:50):
by Turkish horse archers. Waves of Turkish cavalry would ride up,
fire volley of lethal arrows, throw javelins, and pulled back
out of the reach of Christian ranks. The Crusader knights
were weighed down by their armor on top of their horses,
and were in general much less nimble than their Turkish opponents.
(23:15):
But when brought into close quarters, the Christians were able
to withstand many more arrows and blows from edged weapons,
and when the Crusaders were able to wield their broadswords,
maces and battle axes, it was with devastating effect. But
killing Arslan and his Turks took their toll on the
(23:37):
densely packed Crusader foot soldiers. The heat and exhaustion that
came with it also began to overcome some of the
front line. Then, just as a situation could have turned
into a catastrophe, Godfrey and his column arrived. His knights
smashed into the Turkish left flank. Bowmaned, seeing this turn
(23:58):
of events, chart with his knights. At the same time,
a wave of Christian Crusaders smashed into the Turkish light cavalry,
who turned and fled the Turks left behind riches and
supplies in their camp, much to the delight of the
victorious Crusaders. But more importantly, the pathway to Jerusalem now
(24:21):
lay open to them. There was only one major obstacle
in their path, the almost impregnable fortress city of Antioch.
(24:45):
Chapter three, The Siege of Antioch. The Crusader army in
October of ten ninety seven was full of confidence after
taking Nicia in a mere six weeks and routing Killage
are Salans. Turkish war ears on an open battlefield. As
the Crusader army arrived outside the gates of Antioch, they
(25:07):
could not have imagined the hardships and losses they would
soon endure. Antioch was once considered arrival to Constantinople by
the Roman emperors of the third and fourth centuries. It
was set in a valley next to the Orontes River
in what is today's Antakia in southernmost Turkey. In the
(25:28):
eleventh century, Antioch was on a crucial trading route. It
was also believed to be the first place in the
world where the term Christian was used for the followers
of Christ. As a fortified position, Antioch was formidable. It
had large thick walls topped with hundreds of towers. Its
(25:50):
citadel was on a mountain, Mount Silpius, that rose a
thousand feet up. The garrison consisted of around five thousand
ter The Christian besiegers had approximately forty thousand at the start.
The only way that Antioch had fallen to an enemy
in over five hundred years stretching back to the reign
(26:14):
of the Emperor Justinian, was through treachery. Antioch had never
been successfully stormed during that period. It had only been
handed over to the enemy from the inside. The Turk
in charge of the defense of the city, Yagi Sion,
was well aware of this. He was crafty and competent,
(26:36):
and knew that the city's majority Christian population was a risk.
In the days before the arrival of the Crusaders, Yagiicion
took action to mitigate this possible fifth column. He directed
the able bodied Muslim men of the city to build
a trench outside the city walls. The following day, Yagi
(26:58):
Sion directed all the Christian men of the city to
do the same. Having seen their fellow antioch Nes come
back without incident from the day before, they calmly left
the protection of the massive fortified walls. Once outside the gates,
Yagion informed the Christians that for the duration of the
(27:20):
upcoming siege, they would have to stay outside with their
fellow Christians the Crusaders. Not only did this ploy limit
the likelihood of Christians siding with their co religionists during
the siege, it created an additional burden on supplies outside
the city walls. Of all the stratagems for Antioch's defense,
(27:44):
hunger would become the most potent. A full on assault
was not possible, so the Crusaders set up upon arrival
camps around the city walls and plan to wait out
the defenders. It quickly became apparent, however, that Antioch was
a far more difficult prize than Nicea. Yagion had made
(28:08):
all the necessary preparations for a long siege. The Crusaders,
on the other hand, were running low on supplies from
the beginning. As the winter set in, disease spread throughout
the Christian camp. The weeks of siege quickly turned into months.
Foraging parties came back empty handed time and again. Hunger
(28:31):
turned to starvation. Nights slaughtered their own horses for food.
Morale plummeted and desertions. Rose yagy Sion managed to harass
the besiegers with sorties outside the city walls. He also
had sent word out to every Muslim war lord of
(28:52):
the Arab world to come to his aid. As the
spring season arrived, starvation faded, but Islamic reinforcements arrived. Ridwan
of Aleppo led the first Muslim army that attempted to
break the siege. Bowman met Ridwan's cavalry with a large
(29:14):
cavalry charge of his own, seven hundred knights that rode
right into the heart of Ridwan's forces and shattered the
Syrian relief effort. The siege continued on, but time was
not on the Christian side. A massive Muslim army was
being raised by Carboga of Mosul, who planned to join
(29:38):
Rudwan of Aleppo. This second attempt to lift the siege
would consist of nearly fifty thousand Muslim warriors. The Crusaders
had already lost thousands of their own. If they failed
to take this city before Carboga arrived outside the city walls,
they would be slaughtered. It was treachery that's save the day.
(30:04):
Bowman had managed secret contact with an Armenian inside the
city walls. He offered money and a title in exchange
for allowing a contingent of Christians to scale the walls
in one sector under the cover of darkness. Boehmand himself
was among them. The plot worked. The Crusaders got inside
(30:29):
the city walls, opened a gate, and thousands of their
brothers in arms flooded in. Frenzied Crusaders hacked thousands of
defenders and civilians to death. Some of the Turks managed
to take refuge in the citadel up on the mountain.
Their only hope was to hold out until the relief
force from Mosl Carboga's massive army arrived. On June five.
(30:56):
Carboga did arrive, the Christian fenders were short on food
once again, and desertions rapidly escalated. The Crusaders were now
stuck inside the city. The besiegers had become the besieged.
They needed a miracle, and they found one. A priest
(31:18):
named Peter Bartholomewle from France said he had discovered a
relic inside the walls of Antioch. The Holy Lance, the
spear that was thrust into the side of Christ when
he was on the cross, had miraculously appeared. The Crusaders
starved into hallucinations and despair. Believed that this was a
(31:40):
sign from God. They gathered together for a final sortie
outside the city walls. It would come to be known
as the Battle of Antioch. The outnumbered and starving Crusaders
gathered behind night Raymond, who held the relic of the
Holy Lance, and they charged. The Turks were no match
(32:03):
for the ferocity of the Franks. Cariboga and his lieutenants
turned and fled from the battlefield. The Turkish holdouts inside
the citadel saw this and immediately surrendered. The Crusaders had one.
One of the great cities of the ancient world was
firmly in their grasp, and the most important city of
(32:27):
all to them, the city of God himself, Jerusalem, was
now within their reach. M H. Chapter four, The Conquest
(32:53):
of Jerusalem. A year after the successful siege of Antioch,
the Crusaders finally marched on their ultimate goal, Jerusalem. They
arrived on June seven of Contemporary chroniclers wrote that many
Crusaders wept with Julie at their first sighting of the city,
(33:13):
but reaching Jerusalem was not enough. A major battle lay ahead.
If the city was once again to be brought into
the domain of Christendom. The defenders were ready. The Fatimid
Muslim dynasty of Egypt had taken the city from the
Selgouk Turks a year before. They had made ample preparations
(33:34):
for the coming Crusader siege, poisoning all the surrounding wells
in the environs of Jerusalem and slaughtering animals in the
field that could not be brought inside the city walls.
The Crusaders were an army fifty thousand strong when they
crossed into Muslim lands. Now they had been depleted to
(33:55):
around twelve thousand. They did not have the manpower to
encircle and cut off the city for a protracted siege,
nor could they risk the arrival of a major Muslim
relief force. Jerusalem would have to be stormed in an assault.
Before this final cast of the die, however, the beleaguered
(34:17):
Christian army marched in procession around the city in a
manner similar to the biblical story of Jericho and the
fall of its great walls. With God on their side,
the Crusaders felt they could not lose Deus voult Deus
vault God wills it. The first attempt to take this
(34:38):
city was repulsed. The situation of the Crusaders became increasingly desperate.
While Jerusalem's fortifications were nowhere near as impressive as Constantinoples
or even Antiochs, siege engines would be necessary to scale
the walls, but there were no trees in the vicinity
of Jerusalem, and thirst was already a constant problem among
(35:00):
the Christian troops. Then, in a stroke of luck, a
Genoese supply fleet of six ships arrived at the porch
of Jaffa to bring aid to the Crusaders. Most importantly
of all, the timber from these ships could be broken
down and reformed into siege engines. This allowed the Crusaders
(35:24):
to build two enormous towers for scaling the walls of Jerusalem.
They were now prepared to assault the city once and
for all. On July, the final assault began in two waves.
The Muslim defenders fought back with flaming arrows and burning pitch,
lighting both siege tower and crusader on fire at every opportunity.
(35:47):
The battle was bloody and vicious, but the double pronged
assault on the walls was victorious. The Crusaders poured over
the battlements and engaged in a bloody slaughter of many
inhabitants of the city. One chronicler described what ensued in
Jerusalem in this way quote. Upon entering Jerusalem, the pilgrims
(36:11):
pursued and killed Saracens and other infidels, even to the
Temple of Solomon and the Temple of the Lord. Gathered there,
the enemy waged a hot battle until sundown, but our
men killed so many that blood flowed through all of
the temple. Finally, after having overwhelmed the Pagans, are Men
grabbed a large number of males and females in the temple,
(36:33):
killing some and sparing others. As the notion struck them,
Tancred and Gaston gave their banners to a great number
of the infidels of both sexes crowded on the roof
of the temple. Soon, the Crusaders ran through all the city,
taking gold, silver, horses, mules, and houses packed with all
kinds of riches. Afterwards, all came rejoicing and weeping with
(36:55):
joy to the Holy sepulcher of our Savior. On the
next rning, Tancred sent forth the command that the Christians
go to the temple to kill Saracens. Upon their arrival,
some began to draw their bows and to kill many.
Another group of Crusaders climbed to the roof of the
temple and rushed the Saracens huddled there, decapidating males and
(37:16):
females with naked sword blades. They cause some to plunge
from the temple roof and others found their death above
end quote. The conquest of Jerusalem was complete. The Crusader
Godfrey of Bouillon would become its leader, and Jerusalem would
(37:38):
join Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli as the Crusader States. They
endured for almost two hundred years of constant warfare and
fighting in the Near East. Many historians have argued that
the Crusades were wasteful, unprovoked, or pointless. This is all nonsense.
(38:00):
The First Crusade was a response to hundreds of years
of Islamic conquest and subjugation of Christians and Jews alike.
It was a response to Jihad, not the precursor to it,
and during the period of the Crusader States, there was
not one major attempt by the Islamic world to invade
the heart of Christendom itself. When the last Crusader kingdom
(38:25):
was extinguished in the thirteenth century. That would all start
to change, though. The Islamic world would have to survive
the Great invasion of the Mongol Horde, but it was
only a matter of time before the forces of Islam
would turn their sights on the conquest of the Christian
world once again, the Great City of Constantinople and the
(38:48):
Siege of fourteen fifty three, but that story will have
to wait for next week. This is buck Sexton. My friends.
Please do spread the word of about this show. You
can follow it on the I Heart app. You can
subscribe on iTunes, Post shields high on your Facebook pages,
(39:09):
send emails with the links of this podcast to your friends.
Until next time, no matter what enemies you face, be
ready to awake Iron
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Death, Sex & Money
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.