Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to We're Not So Different, a
Speaker 1: podcast about how I've always been idiots. Folks. We've got
Speaker 1: no patron questions this week. Because you're hearing my voice
Speaker 1: like this, you know it's time for a very special episode.
Speaker 1: For the past few months, Eleanor and I have been
Speaker 1: working very hard on a limited series with Daniel Bestner
Speaker 1: and Derek Davidson from the American Prestige podcast called Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Crusades The First Crusade. When the American Prestige
Speaker 1: Boys approached us about doing a collaboration, we jumped at
Speaker 1: the chance. After a bit of discussion, looking for a
Speaker 1: medieval topic with contemporary significance, we settled on the First Crusade.
Speaker 1: Despite being one of the most important events in recorded history,
Speaker 1: it is poorly understood by many today, especially those who
Speaker 1: seek to use its ahistorical legacy to perpetuate similar atrocities.
Speaker 1: But more than that, it's also an extremely interesting story,
Speaker 1: filled with a bunch of weird characters and fascinating battles
Speaker 1: and sieges. So we decided to do a ten part
Speaker 1: podcast series chronicling the events of the First Crusade from
Speaker 1: the perspectives of all four of its major players, Catholic Europe,
Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire, the Celgic Turks, and the Fatimid Caliphate.
Speaker 1: We go into the background, separate fact from fiction, and
Speaker 1: follow as the crusader armies of Europe travel from west
Speaker 1: to east in their attempt to reconquer Jerusalem. We also
Speaker 1: discussed how the first is the origin point for so
Speaker 1: many colonial and post colonial problems we face in our
Speaker 1: postmodern world. What you're about to hear today is the
Speaker 1: first episode of the series in title Rome. The second episode, Taranto,
Speaker 1: will also appear in your podcast feed alongside this one. However,
Speaker 1: if you want to hear the rest of the series,
Speaker 1: you'll need to go to American Prestige Dot supporting cast
Speaker 1: FM Slash Welcome, Dash to Dash, The Dash, The Crusades,
Speaker 1: Dash the Dash First Dash Crusade. That's a lot of
Speaker 1: mumbo jumbo hyperlink, but yeah, you know it'll be in
Speaker 1: the show notes, so just check it out. Go there.
Speaker 1: Pay just eight dollars to unlock the final eight episodes
Speaker 1: plus a bonus episode with the reading list for the show.
Speaker 1: That's eleven total episodes for just eight dollars, But that
Speaker 1: price will only last for a couple of weeks, at
Speaker 1: which point the whole series will go up to ten dollars,
Speaker 1: which still seems pretty reasonable if you ask me. Oh,
Speaker 1: and pay should stick around for a special discount code.
Speaker 1: We're very proud of the series and we hope you
Speaker 1: will support us by purchasing it. If you're a fan
Speaker 1: of medieval history and have always wanted a really extensive
Speaker 1: deep dive into the First Crusade, or even if you're
Speaker 1: new to the Middle Ages and just looking for more familiarity,
Speaker 1: then look no further. We'll be back with your regularly
Speaker 1: scheduled We're Not So Different next week, but for now,
Speaker 1: sit back and welcome to the First Crusade.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and thanks for joining this collaboration between American
Speaker 2: Prestige and We're not So Different. I'm Danny Bessner here
Speaker 2: as always with my comrade Derek Davison, and we're joined
Speaker 2: by Eleanor Yanniga and Luke Waters, our favorite medievalists to
Speaker 2: explore the Crusades. We'll talk about everything from the Catholic
Speaker 2: Church to Islam, from the papacy to programs. Thank you
Speaker 2: for joining us on this journey.
Speaker 1: In January ten ninety five, one single decision permanently altered
Speaker 1: the whole long course of world history in ways so
Speaker 1: monumental that it still affects the lives of every single
Speaker 1: human being alive today. However, far from what we might imagine,
Speaker 1: this decision wasn't considered particularly significant or exceptional at the time.
Speaker 1: It was instead an ordinary bit of state craft, a
Speaker 1: mere request to form an unofficial alliance from one world
Speaker 1: leader to another. One of those world leaders, Alexios Comnenos,
Speaker 1: Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, was in desperate need of
Speaker 1: help to reverse a decades long series of territorial losses
Speaker 1: in Anatolia to the Muslim Celgic Turks. Though Constantinople was
Speaker 1: in no danger of falling, the loss of the richest tax, food,
Speaker 1: and martial recruitment base of its empire was in existential
Speaker 1: threats to the empire's long term survival. What's more, they
Speaker 1: couldn't reverse this loss on their own, as the the
Speaker 1: empire's once formidable military had become utterly anemic, incapable of
Speaker 1: pushing the Turks out of Anatolia. So Alexios looked around
Speaker 1: for allies he could trust, but found his options lacking.
Speaker 1: He had no money, for mercenaries and no faith in
Speaker 1: the musliminemies of the Seljuks to be found. The truth was,
Speaker 1: Alexios had only one real choice. He would reach out
Speaker 1: to Pope Urban the Second, the leader of the Catholics
Speaker 1: of Western Europe, just forty one years after the East
Speaker 1: West Schism had torn them apart. So it was that
Speaker 1: Alexios the First came to his fateful decision, sending an
Speaker 1: envoy to the spiritual leader of Western Christendom to ask
Speaker 1: for military aid, a request that Urban, who was looking
Speaker 1: to make his own mark on the Church and history,
Speaker 1: was all too happy to oblige for his own worldly
Speaker 1: and spiritual reasons. Though neither Alexios the First nor Urban
Speaker 1: the Second knew it, disagreement would spawn a mass popular movement,
Speaker 1: now known as the First Crusade, that would grow far
Speaker 1: beyond their ability to control or even properly oversee, such
Speaker 1: that it would reshape all of Europe, much of the
Speaker 1: Levant and swathes of North Africa Beyond that, however, this
Speaker 1: new type of Christian Holy war, this Crusade, and the
Speaker 1: Crusader ideology that it developed in its wake, still haunt
Speaker 1: us to this day. In a very literal sense, the
Speaker 1: First Crusade is the genesis for every colonial and post
Speaker 1: colonial horror that Europe and so called Western civilization have
Speaker 1: committed since that time, an enduring testament to our collective sin.
Speaker 1: But in order to understand how Alexios's request for aid
Speaker 1: an Urban's ready assent spawned all of this, we're going
Speaker 1: to take an in depth look at the First Crusade.
Speaker 1: Over the next ten episodes. We will discuss the conflict
Speaker 1: from the perspectives of all its major players, separate fact
Speaker 1: from fiction, find out why this wasn't some preordained civilizational
Speaker 1: conflict between Christianity and Islam, and hopefully move beyond the
Speaker 1: sanitized Crusader narrative we so often receive. So please join
Speaker 1: us as we begin our journey east from Western Europe
Speaker 1: to the Holy Land, starting in the eternal city that
Speaker 1: is Rome.
Speaker 2: Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Crusades. Before we get going,
Speaker 2: I think it would be useful to talk about why
Speaker 2: the Crusades. What are we trying to understand here? What
Speaker 2: do the Crusades teach us about today? Why are we
Speaker 2: focusing on them?
Speaker 3: I think for me, the deal with the Crusades is
Speaker 3: they're one of the organizing principles of the High and
Speaker 3: Late Medieval period in Europe. These are a series of wars, yes,
Speaker 3: but they're also a series of almost psychically what am
Speaker 3: I trying to say here, psychically driving forces for all Christians.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that begins to happen for
Speaker 3: all Christians in this period is this idea that the
Speaker 3: Holy Land somehow belongs to them and it's something that
Speaker 3: they should always be able to visit and also always control.
Speaker 3: And I think this has massive knock on effects for
Speaker 3: the way we now think about the levant the Near
Speaker 3: Middle East, which for us is almost like something that
Speaker 3: people in the West think that they can dictate or
Speaker 3: should have some say over. And I just do think
Speaker 3: that it all kind of goes back to a thousand
Speaker 3: years ago when some people in Western Europe sought that
Speaker 3: they had a better way of organizing a region that
Speaker 3: they were nowhere near. You know, we still not given
Speaker 3: up that ghost. We still feel that we're the ones
Speaker 3: that you should come to if anything is happening over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And for me, I think a big part of
Speaker 1: it is the scale. This is a mass movement, it's
Speaker 1: not it's not a class movement. It's not a revolution,
Speaker 1: but it is a mass movement. It is a literal
Speaker 1: mass of people, tens of thousands of peasants coming out,
Speaker 1: people who were disabled, the sick and infirm, and the
Speaker 1: elderly just coming out so they could try to go
Speaker 1: to the Holy Land. And this unleashed a fervor amongst
Speaker 1: European Christendom that resulted in you know, pogroms and and
Speaker 1: all of this just stuff. And it started because the
Speaker 1: Pope just didn't understand like how personally the Christians of
Speaker 1: Europe were going to take this and how much they
Speaker 1: they set this thing up as a beacon of hope
Speaker 1: in their lives, and it would be a turning take.
Speaker 1: Retaking Jerusalem and then losing it again would be a
Speaker 1: turning point for Christianity.
Speaker 2: And also, my sense is that we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about Islam a little bit, and so Derek, maybe you
Speaker 2: should talk how does this reshape Islam? How do the
Speaker 2: crusades basically push the world of Islam in a different direction.
Speaker 4: So the immediate effect on Islam, the Islamic world is
Speaker 4: not huge. The effect comes later because this is a
Speaker 4: key point in the road toward the age of Discovery
Speaker 4: and eventually the European conquest of pretty much everything which
Speaker 4: the Middle East is dealing with, you know, the Islamic
Speaker 4: world broadly is dealing with still to the present day. Initially,
Speaker 4: I think, you know, there are effects on the Islamic world.
Speaker 4: Obviously losing Jerusalem, the third holiest city of the faith,
Speaker 4: very important place, the displacement and death that ensues as
Speaker 4: the result of the campaigns, all of these things matter.
Speaker 4: But in the the immediate aftermath of this, well, I
Speaker 4: mean maybe not quite immediate aftermath, but very close to
Speaker 4: the end of the Crusading period, when the final Crusader
Speaker 4: state is done away with, the Mongols come through the region,
Speaker 4: and that's a much bigger deal. So any effect that
Speaker 4: the Crusades might have get sort of washed out by
Speaker 4: the Mongols. But later on, when the Europeans come back
Speaker 4: because their appetite's been wetted for the luxuries of the
Speaker 4: East and all the wonderful things that they found, that's
Speaker 4: really when you start to see this become a bigger deal,
Speaker 4: and it takes on a valance of you know, resistance
Speaker 4: to the Crusaders. The Europeans that show up later are
Speaker 4: regarded as you know, Franks as they called all the Crusaders,
Speaker 4: and you know, it takes on a more emotional basis,
Speaker 4: like we'll talk about you know, if we do more
Speaker 4: of these, we will eventually get to talking about Saladin,
Speaker 4: who's sort of the great Islamic hero of the story,
Speaker 4: at least as far as the Europeans are concerned. His
Speaker 4: reputation really is made centuries later when he becomes a
Speaker 4: symbol of resistance to the Europeans. It's, you know, he's
Speaker 4: known at the time, but it's it's not nearly what
Speaker 4: he becomes.
Speaker 3: I think that's such a good point, Derek, because one
Speaker 3: of the things that is just true of the Middle
Speaker 3: Ages often is this way of Europeans thinking that they
Speaker 3: have some kind of cultural touchstone or they're really organizing things,
Speaker 3: and the Islamic world is like, what, huh, didn't notice it?
Speaker 3: You know, And because of how things have shaken out,
Speaker 3: we tend to put everything at the doorstep of Europeans
Speaker 3: and say, oh, look, these guys are really the ones
Speaker 3: who were having it pop off. And that's not necessarily
Speaker 3: how the medieval world itself works, which is what makes
Speaker 3: the Crusades so interesting.
Speaker 4: I mean, not to like dwell on him because we're
Speaker 4: not going to talk about him in this series. But
Speaker 4: like the my, my concept of Saladin when I you know,
Speaker 4: started studying Islamic history we got to the Crusades was
Speaker 4: completely turned upside down because in Europe he's this like
Speaker 4: great hero. I mean, he's a romantic figure. He and
Speaker 4: Richard are you know, fighting duels all over the place.
Speaker 4: They never actually met in person, but that's the you know,
Speaker 4: that's the sense you get from the European sources is
Speaker 4: like they you know, they were intimately involved with one another.
Speaker 4: And in the Islamic world, like he founds a dynasty,
Speaker 4: he rules Egypt for a while. His dynasty is kind
Speaker 4: of a nothing burger. They're pretty quickly overrun by their
Speaker 4: own slave soldiers. But really he doesn't become a big
Speaker 4: figure until the Europeans come back and make him a
Speaker 4: major figure, both in terms of like, you know, them
Speaker 4: coming with this conception that Saladin is like the great
Speaker 4: figure of Islamic history, and then him taking on the
Speaker 4: resonance of somebody who resisted the European conquest.
Speaker 1: The only Muslim in Dante's Inferno who is not in
Speaker 1: a lower part of Hell. Celady gets to be up
Speaker 1: there at the top circle one with the righteous Pagans.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's what you need to know about how high solid
Speaker 1: and was held in therapy and imaginations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorryveral hundred years later. Yeah, he really occupied a
Speaker 2: particular space. So, as you all know, the title of
Speaker 2: this first episode is Rome. So let's talk about the
Speaker 2: eternal city. What is Rome's function in the medieval period
Speaker 2: during this time? Why is it an important city to
Speaker 2: focus on? And we could talk about a lot of
Speaker 2: different things, from the Gregorian reforms to the investigure of
Speaker 2: controversy over Henry the Fourth, But where's Rome and where's
Speaker 2: the church at this moment in history in the middle
Speaker 2: of the eleventh century.
Speaker 3: So we've chosen to start with Rome for a number
Speaker 3: of reasons. But the first is definitely linked to the
Speaker 3: fact that the Crusades, in one way or another are
Speaker 3: kicked off because over in Constantinople they need some help.
Speaker 3: And fundamentally, Rome and Constantinople are the two anchors, certainly
Speaker 3: of the late Antique period. You know, they are two
Speaker 3: sides of the same coin, and the two religious and
Speaker 3: imperial centers for what had been the Roman Empire. And
Speaker 3: now we make this really clear cut distinction about what
Speaker 3: the antique world is and what the medieval world is.
Speaker 3: But medieval people didn't have that compunction. You know, they
Speaker 3: don't think they live in the Middle Ages. And people
Speaker 3: in Rome still think they live in Rome, and people
Speaker 3: in Constantinople will still tell you that they live in
Speaker 3: the Eastern Roman Empire. So these are the two very
Speaker 3: obvious anchors for Europe at the time. But then, of
Speaker 3: course also we have to understand that in the medieval
Speaker 3: period there's a really different way of thinking about who's
Speaker 3: controlling these situations. Because when I say that Rome considers
Speaker 3: itself to be the inheritor of Rome, the papacy has
Speaker 3: been fighting for hundreds upon hundreds of years to have
Speaker 3: themselves seem as the natural leaders of this romanness. And
Speaker 3: the thing about the eleventh century is these guys have
Speaker 3: finally pulled it off. You know, they spent absolutely centuries
Speaker 3: up to this point being you know, made fun of, like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, buddy, you're the Bishop of Rome. Why don't
Speaker 3: you calm down, Like we're gonna beat your ass in
Speaker 3: the street if the local nobility don't like you. Nobody
Speaker 3: cares about the papacy. But they were grinding it out.
Speaker 3: They were writing at texts all about how important they
Speaker 3: were that they passed down and passed down and passed down,
Speaker 3: and hundreds of years later they've finally done it and
Speaker 3: they celebrate by immediately attempting to start a holy war.
Speaker 3: But so we have this real center of religious and
Speaker 3: temporal power, and now that it's got it, it wants
Speaker 3: to flex itself by doing something violent, which you know, hey,
Speaker 3: who amongst us hasn't been tempted with a little bit
Speaker 3: of light conquest here and there once they gained full power.
Speaker 4: I just want to say something here because American Prestige
Speaker 4: believes that the investiture or the donation of Constantine was
Speaker 4: a real thing. So I don't know, definitely demigrating Rome.
Speaker 4: So like, this is our position on the podcast that
Speaker 4: he definitely gave power to the popes to rule the
Speaker 4: Western Empire.
Speaker 3: Point of disagreeing here, this is our first immediate class
Speaker 3: because we're not so different is team Holy Roman Empire.
Speaker 3: We are imperial in this bitch, you know, we Constantine
Speaker 3: in this monucker. All right, So I.
Speaker 1: Don't really I really didn't expect you to say that, Derek.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 4: You know, I got to stand up for what I
Speaker 4: believe in here, guys.
Speaker 2: Well we believe in Derek and I believe we believe
Speaker 2: in it. I'm the only Jew on this podcast, so
Speaker 2: I will also be playing a particular role. But for
Speaker 2: people who might not be aware of, like the relationship
Speaker 2: between state and church in this period, how does the
Speaker 2: church which actually function? Is it a proto state form,
Speaker 2: does it have an army? How is it actually organized
Speaker 2: at this moment? Because my understanding is that this becomes
Speaker 2: the major question of the late medieval period is one
Speaker 2: of the major questions is the relationship between the state
Speaker 2: and the church and who's going to have power? And
Speaker 2: this is obviously a theme that we're going to be exploring.
Speaker 2: So what's actually happening in terms of that type of
Speaker 2: organization at this moment.
Speaker 1: I think that when we look back on it with
Speaker 1: our with our modern view, we look back on it
Speaker 1: with hindsight, one thing that is very hard, you know,
Speaker 1: because we're not so different. We literally believe that we
Speaker 1: are not so different. But one thing is very that
Speaker 1: is very different and very hard is the pervasive nature
Speaker 1: of Christianity, the way that it is wrapped into everything.
Speaker 1: The way that it is enmeshed in not just the
Speaker 1: spiritual lives or even the cultural lives, but the daily lives.
Speaker 1: In the super it is you know this, it is
Speaker 1: laid on top of and it becomes part of the
Speaker 1: superstructure that keeps the medieval European societies that we know
Speaker 1: in line. They become an integral part of that mechanism.
Speaker 1: So this is a huge thing. But the church itself
Speaker 1: is very i mean structurally very similar to like what
Speaker 1: you might see today. You have the pope, yes as cardinals,
Speaker 1: you have the bishops the on down to the parish priests,
Speaker 1: the nuns, the things like that, and so it's kind
Speaker 1: of like that. But it's power and the way that
Speaker 1: it works in these various European states and principalities is vastly, vastly,
Speaker 1: vastly different than it is today or even one hundred
Speaker 1: years ago. Like it is, they have been fighting the
Speaker 1: investiture controversy with the Holy Roman emperors, and by the
Speaker 1: beginning of our story in ten ninety five, Pope Urban
Speaker 1: the Second and the Pope the Papacy has gotten a
Speaker 1: an upper hand in that regard, at least for the
Speaker 1: time being because of the you know, walk to Canosa Castle.
Speaker 1: He's Henry the forest begging for you know, uh, begging
Speaker 1: in the snow to be forgiven, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so they now have in the in the in
Speaker 1: the big scheme of things, in the power ranking of
Speaker 1: European medieval European political entities, the Catholic Church is now
Speaker 1: on top. They're they're on top of everything for right now.
Speaker 1: They inched above the Holy Roman Empire. And so they
Speaker 1: can call upon these states and they they don't have
Speaker 1: an army themselves, they can call upon these states and
Speaker 1: say we we need you, you know, to do X,
Speaker 1: y or z to move the Muslims out of this place,
Speaker 1: to you know, do kid people out of Sicily, things
Speaker 1: of that nature.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna be talking a bit more when we
Speaker 2: get into the main content, But before we go on,
Speaker 2: I think it would be useful to situate listeners with
Speaker 2: who are the main characters are going to be focusing
Speaker 2: on in this episode? Where did they come from? So
Speaker 2: the big three are Alexios the first, Komenos, Pope Urban
Speaker 2: the second, and Peter the hermit. So who are these
Speaker 2: three wonderful gentlemen, that we'll be spending our time talking about.
Speaker 1: Alexios the First Comninos is the emperor of the Byzantine
Speaker 1: Empire based in Constantinople. He is the first emperor of
Speaker 1: the Komninos dynasty. As I referenced earlier, he overthrew, helped
Speaker 1: overthrow the Duca who came before him, and he and
Speaker 1: Urban are kind of funny because they literally both think
Speaker 1: they're going to get something for nothing out of this.
Speaker 1: They both are like, I'm going to do this, and
Speaker 1: they have a secret motive behind it that they're not
Speaker 1: telling the other party about. And Alexios does this because
Speaker 1: it's his only option and he had no way of
Speaker 1: knowing the hell he called down himself and his empires.
Speaker 1: There's really no way to put it other than that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: eleanor what aout? What about Urban?
Speaker 3: Our buddy Urban, Oh, our buddy Urban. He's a good one.
Speaker 3: Like in the pope rankings, he's one of the wilder ones.
Speaker 3: But one of the things I think is incredibly important
Speaker 3: to understand about Pope Urban the second is our boy
Speaker 3: was actually born Odo of Chatillon, so he's coming from
Speaker 3: a French context, which is going to be a big
Speaker 3: deal in terms of recruitment and who gets pulled onto crusade.
Speaker 3: So we're often used to thinking of pope's as coming
Speaker 3: almost exclusively from the Italian lands, except for, you know,
Speaker 3: the unpleasantness of Avignon in the fourteenth century. Although I'm
Speaker 3: team Avignon, but that's a whole different story, you know.
Speaker 3: And this is a guy who is coming out of
Speaker 3: a milieu that is very much interested in kind of
Speaker 3: taming wild boys, right because they got a boys up
Speaker 3: in France at the time. We have the barely domesticated
Speaker 3: Normans at this point in time, who have just stopped
Speaker 3: being vikings about two seconds ago, who are running around
Speaker 3: speaking French. You have got a lot of chaos in
Speaker 3: the Italian lands, which is just that's basically the rule
Speaker 3: of thumb for the medieval period. But you he comes
Speaker 3: out fighting, he is eventually made the Bishop of Ostia,
Speaker 3: and so he kind of moves over into the more
Speaker 3: Italian mel u and he's able to use this as
Speaker 3: a ladder all the way to the top of the papacy.
Speaker 3: And what does he do with that, Well, he is
Speaker 3: very much of the opinion that the papacy should be
Speaker 3: the organizing principle for Christendom in general, right, you know,
Speaker 3: going back to we mentioned it very briefly, the idea
Speaker 3: of the Donation of Constantine, which is a forged document
Speaker 3: that says that the the papacy was given control of
Speaker 3: Western Europe by the Emperor Constantine when he established Constantinople.
Speaker 3: Big old forgery never happened, but Pope Urban the Second
Speaker 3: would probably go to the mat on that one. Right.
Speaker 3: He's like, the Pope is more or less the emperor
Speaker 3: of the Western Empire, and he kind of stands in
Speaker 3: opposition to Alexios because what he's attempting to do with
Speaker 3: things like the walk to Canosa with the Holy Roman
Speaker 3: Emperor Henry, is he's trying to say, emplers are made
Speaker 3: by the papacy, and they are made by the papacy
Speaker 3: specifically so that the papacy will have an army to
Speaker 3: do whatever it wants. And along comes Alexios saying, oh, hey,
Speaker 3: we need an army, and Pope Urban the Second is
Speaker 3: essentially rubbing his hands together because, like Great, I have
Speaker 3: been delivered an excuse to say, yes, the papacy should
Speaker 3: be able to raise arms and do what it wants
Speaker 3: with violence. But when you are the You can't do
Speaker 3: it yourself. It has to be a reflected thing, right.
Speaker 3: God has given them temporal authority through religion, but anything
Speaker 3: violent needs to be done by the secular arm of
Speaker 3: the world. So essentially, what Urban is trying to say
Speaker 3: is that he is able to marshal armies in the
Speaker 3: name of God. And I always kind of feel bad
Speaker 3: for Alexius in this because I don't think this was
Speaker 3: a stupid move on his part. I don't know what
Speaker 3: other option he really had. It's just he had no
Speaker 3: way of knowing that he was dealing with Odo over here,
Speaker 3: who was a very clever guy and had completely different
Speaker 3: designs on Constantinople.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now let's turn to one of my favorite
Speaker 2: things about the medieval period, which is people with dope names. So,
Speaker 2: Peter the Hermit? Was he a hermit? Why did he
Speaker 2: become a hermit? And tell me about this wonderfully name Peter.
Speaker 4: I like Peter because he's just an absolute scout as
Speaker 4: far as I can tell, Like, he's a crap.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, he was a.
Speaker 4: Priest in Amian. And you know, there's sort of the
Speaker 4: like with as with any great undertaking, you have the
Speaker 4: idea guy. And then you have the guy who goes
Speaker 4: out and makes things happen. And like Urban is the
Speaker 4: one who proposes the crusade. He makes this big speech
Speaker 4: which we'll get to, uh, you know, proposing that everybody
Speaker 4: go on this crusade. But Peter's the one who has
Speaker 4: to go out or one of many, but but he's
Speaker 4: the one who really gets uh gets famous from it,
Speaker 4: has to go out and preach the crusade to the
Speaker 4: people out there, you know, across Europe.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: And just you know, Eleanor can go into much more
Speaker 4: detail about this, but I I he's he's just got
Speaker 4: such a great story because he recruits mostly commoners. And
Speaker 4: and we'll we'll talk about this in a later episode.
Speaker 4: In what's known as the People's Crusade, just a ragtech
Speaker 4: group of people who show up on the doorstep of Constantinople,
Speaker 4: and Alexios is like, what are you people doing here?
Speaker 4: Like this is not what I asked for and leads
Speaker 4: them across, you know, very encouraged by Alexios to get
Speaker 4: them out of Constantinople, leads them across into Asia Minor
Speaker 4: and then pieces out and goes back to Constantinople. While
Speaker 4: they get slaughtered by the Turks, which is just an
Speaker 4: amazing story, and then continues on with the Crusaders to Jerusalem.
Speaker 4: I don't think we know very much about what happens
Speaker 4: to him after Jerusalem's He's not terribly I don't He's
Speaker 4: not like who's never beatified even by the Catholic Church,
Speaker 4: so he's not necessarily well regarded in the Church, but
Speaker 4: just a fascinating figure in all of this for being
Speaker 4: the guy who is kind of moving and shaking on
Speaker 4: the ground to make this all happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is one of the things that's really
Speaker 3: really interesting about this period of time in general, because
Speaker 3: you know, Alexios just wants to get his lands back
Speaker 3: and have a better taxation base, and he didn't realize
Speaker 3: that it's going to rile up every single blessent in
Speaker 3: Western Europe. I mean, then, you know, basically everyone who's
Speaker 3: like completely shocked. They're like, oh no, the poorts think
Speaker 3: they're people and that they have something to do with
Speaker 3: Holy War. I can't believe that I've organized an entire
Speaker 3: society around this point and that normal people are now
Speaker 3: taking part in it and doing bad things fundamentally, And
Speaker 3: this is why, Yeah, the Catholic Church does not claim
Speaker 3: him because he sort of pops up out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: And one of the cool things about the medieval period
Speaker 3: is you've got dudes with names who just scam and
Speaker 3: manage to get followings, doing vaguely religious things at all times,
Speaker 3: and they rise to the top. Baby once in a
Speaker 3: while you get to learn a name, because no one
Speaker 3: expected them to scam so successfully, but they do it,
Speaker 3: and God bless them. They make historiography a much more
Speaker 3: fun place.
Speaker 2: History's first podcast esters. So I think it might make
Speaker 2: sense now to talk about the Crusade itself, and to
Speaker 2: do that, I think let's contextualize it, and let's begin
Speaker 2: with the East West schism, and maybe it might make
Speaker 2: sense to zoom out a bit and talk about conditions
Speaker 2: in Europe and how they engendered this schism that became
Speaker 2: really the one of the major forces of the Crusade.
Speaker 1: So you know, in ten fifty four, the Eastern and
Speaker 1: Western parts of Christianity they split apart because years and
Speaker 1: years of disagreements over various things, things that have been
Speaker 1: building for at that point seven hundred years since Constantine
Speaker 1: really introduced Christianity to the Roman Empire and you know,
Speaker 1: decided to be baptized at his death and everything like that.
Speaker 1: So it's these things that have been bubbling up, and
Speaker 1: it's that the popes in Rome. One of the things
Speaker 1: that popes in Rome feel that they are very, very important,
Speaker 1: and now they are to us, and in the later
Speaker 1: Middle Ages they were, but in the late Antiquity, in
Speaker 1: the Early Middle Ages they were not. They were just
Speaker 1: one of the five patriarchs of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople,
Speaker 1: and Jerusalem. So that was a big thing. Then them
Speaker 1: getting help with the formation of the Holy Roman Empire
Speaker 1: was another big issue that the people in the East hated,
Speaker 1: and in the East did Iconoclasm, which was a one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty year long internal Orthodox fight about stuff
Speaker 1: that people in the West hated. They hated, and the
Speaker 1: first inklings of like the enmity, the long enmity between
Speaker 1: Venice and Constantinople are begin because of Iconiclasm in the
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Empire. So yeah, it's just those things bubbling up.
Speaker 1: But eleanor you know what broke it, what kind of
Speaker 1: you know broke it? What was the big cause there?
Speaker 3: Now for them, the real rift comes from the fact
Speaker 3: that the Catholic Church decides to go all in.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, I've said several times already in one podcast,
Speaker 3: because I simply love to do it that. You know,
Speaker 3: by the time we get to the Crusade, the papacy
Speaker 3: has finally pulled off this confidence trick of saying, guys,
Speaker 3: we control Christendom, we control Christendom, we control Christendom. And
Speaker 3: they've done it at long last. But they've been trying
Speaker 3: this on on Constantinople for centuries, and Constantinople is very
Speaker 3: disinterested in that particular gambit. And indeed, initially the way
Speaker 3: that Constantinople was set up was under what we call
Speaker 3: Sassaro papism, So the idea that the emperor was also
Speaker 3: the head of the church. And yes, you've got the
Speaker 3: five patriarchs underneath him, but really the emperor is the
Speaker 3: one who is doing things very Roman right. So when
Speaker 3: we have Pope Leo the Ninth crop up and send
Speaker 3: delegations over to Constantinople to say, hey, hey, guys, love
Speaker 3: what you're doing over here.
Speaker 5: This is cute, but you get that I'm the head
Speaker 5: of Christianity, right, you know, this is like I receive
Speaker 5: head of Christianity, you receive pat on the back, right,
Speaker 5: and this is a terrible offer as far as we're concerned.
Speaker 3: Over in Constantinople. Meanwhile, as Luke has mentioned, the pope's
Speaker 3: have been doing crazy stuff, you know, as far as
Speaker 3: Constantinople is concerned, like calling other people emperors, crowning Charlemagne,
Speaker 3: like who is this Henry the fourth guy? Right, as
Speaker 3: far as Constantinople is concerned, there's one emperor. He lives
Speaker 3: in Constantinople. Whatever you're doing over there is some kind
Speaker 3: of a joke, and people don't take it very lightly
Speaker 3: when you show up and say, well, you need to
Speaker 3: regularize underneath us, right, And it just goes to show
Speaker 3: that the Church is not as powerful as it thinks
Speaker 3: it is. So essentially, there is this delegation sent by
Speaker 3: Luio the ninth to Michael, the first serularious over in
Speaker 3: Constantinople to say, hey, guys, become Catholic, right, not that
Speaker 3: they use those words, but basically get underneath the Rome.
Speaker 3: They say no, thank you, and both parties excommunicate each other.
Speaker 3: So Constantinople says that's it. The pope is no longer
Speaker 3: a Christian, and the Pope says that's it. Everyone in
Speaker 3: the East are no longer Christians, and this results in
Speaker 3: a lot of ill will, to put it mildly, So basically,
Speaker 3: it's just tough guys trying to arm wrestle each other
Speaker 3: ending up in a slap fight, and we end up
Speaker 3: in a place where everyone is saying that they're going
Speaker 3: to build their own treehouse. Right. Then that's about it,
Speaker 3: and it is basically that dignified as well.
Speaker 2: And Derek let us what's going on in Byzantium, Byzantine area,
Speaker 2: Manzikert tell us about all those good things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there's a couple of things that are happening
Speaker 4: in what we would today consider the Middle East, which
Speaker 4: is a horrible term in general and especially for the
Speaker 4: period we're talking about, but I'm going to use it
Speaker 4: anyway because I'm lazy. There's a couple of things going on. One,
Speaker 4: which we'll get to when we talk about the importance
Speaker 4: of Jerusalem is the destruction of the Church or the
Speaker 4: Holy Sepulcher by the Fatimid califl Hackam, which really sends
Speaker 4: shivers up and down the spines of good Christians in Europe.
Speaker 4: But the more immediate immediate event, I guess that sparks
Speaker 4: Alexios to reach out to the schismatics in the West
Speaker 4: of appeal for help is the Battle of Mansucret, which
Speaker 4: takes place in ten seventy one in eastern Anatolia. The
Speaker 4: Seljuk Turks of the Seljuk ruling house kind of blows
Speaker 4: through what had until that point been a fairly stable
Speaker 4: geographic unit for the Byzantines. And you know, speaking of
Speaker 4: the Anatolian Peninsula, if you go all the way back
Speaker 4: to the seventh century, when Byzantium lost most of its
Speaker 4: territory to the Arabs, to the early Muslim conquest, lost
Speaker 4: the Levant, that lost Egypt, it lost North Africa, et cetera.
Speaker 4: The conquests were stopped at Anatolia because it's surrounded by mountains.
Speaker 4: It's very defensible. It's very difficult to get over the mountains,
Speaker 4: or at least it was at a time, very difficult
Speaker 4: to get over the mountains in a sustainable way, like
Speaker 4: you could get over and do a raid, but it
Speaker 4: was difficult to maintain a supply line back to Muslim
Speaker 4: territory over the mountains. The Byzantines could cut you off.
Speaker 4: They could, you know, lay traps.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 4: It was all very challenging to do an extended campaign.
Speaker 4: There were a couple of times that the Arabs tried
Speaker 4: to besieged Constantinople, but they didn't go very well, and
Speaker 4: so they settled into this thing where the buses and
Speaker 4: teams were kind of secure behind the fortress the mountains
Speaker 4: that surrounded them, and anatotally remained this kind of core
Speaker 4: part of the empire until the Battle of Mansucret, which
Speaker 4: we'll talk about more next time. The upshot is that
Speaker 4: they lost the Battle of Mansacret, and then that kicked
Speaker 4: off a whole and you know, Eleanor and Luke, you
Speaker 4: guys can talk about this, probably more detail than I can,
Speaker 4: but it kicked off a whole series of internal conflicts
Speaker 4: within the Byzantine Empire, basically civil war, succession crisis, and
Speaker 4: as a result, the Byzantines were unable to respond to
Speaker 4: this battle, which had sort of opened up the gates
Speaker 4: basically for the Turks to come in, the Seljuks to
Speaker 4: lead what was essentially a migration, I mean the Celjucks again,
Speaker 4: we'll talk more about them next time, but what they
Speaker 4: led was was as much a migration as a conquest
Speaker 4: into the Middle East, and so they had all of
Speaker 4: the baggage, trains, the families, the herds, you know, everything
Speaker 4: kind of came with them wherever they went. And it
Speaker 4: very quickly became clear that they were starting to settle
Speaker 4: on the Anatolian peninsula and there was not much that
Speaker 4: the buzest Teines could do because they were being racked
Speaker 4: by basically a full breakdown of the political entity. But
Speaker 4: so I'm again, I don't want to talk too much
Speaker 4: about the battle, but that was what prompted the call.
Speaker 4: I'm sort of curious, you know, from your guys perspective,
Speaker 4: what did the Latins know about this? Like what was
Speaker 4: it just through whatever message they got relayed from Byzanty?
Speaker 4: Was there a sense that they were aware that the
Speaker 4: empire was in some danger at this point, like you know,
Speaker 4: what was going on on the Christian side of things.
Speaker 3: Oh, they made it about them. Basically the major way,
Speaker 3: like the major way this news gets back is by
Speaker 3: people who are going on pilgrimage getting over to ad
Speaker 3: Atolia and going, hey, these Turkish people are take me
Speaker 3: down for money. Right, That's like the major complaint, right,
Speaker 3: which is and it's interesting because I think that people
Speaker 3: assume that there is no real back and forth of
Speaker 3: Europeans to the Middle East before the Crusades, and that's
Speaker 3: not true. People are going constantly to the Holy Land,
Speaker 3: and it actually tells us rather a lot about the
Speaker 3: theoretical stability before at this point that you know, you
Speaker 3: could get up one day in tour or something like
Speaker 3: that and decide that's it, I've got to make pilgrimage off,
Speaker 3: I go to Jerusalem. And you could do it. It's
Speaker 3: something that people expected to be able to pull off.
Speaker 3: You would need probably to travel in a group, but
Speaker 3: that standard in the Middle Ages. It's kind of dangerous
Speaker 3: to go alone. You know, a lot take this a
Speaker 3: group of several other Christians also going to Jerusalem, and
Speaker 3: there's Christians kind of everywhere. That's something that I think
Speaker 3: also gets lost oftentimes when we're talking about the Crusades.
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of Christians who live in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: You know. Now we might call them Syriac or Coptic
Speaker 3: or any of these other forms of Christians, but at
Speaker 3: the time, you know, that's just a flavor of Christian
Speaker 3: And so what is actually cycling back is not oh gosh, wow,
Speaker 3: the you know, Manzi Kurt has happened, and these problems
Speaker 3: have broken out in Anatolia for the Eastern Roman Empire.
Speaker 3: What gets back to the Western thing is it's really
Speaker 3: hard to get to Jerusalem now and occasionally Christians are killed.
Speaker 3: The Christians are being bothered at the tomb of the
Speaker 3: Holy Sepulcher. That is what it's getting through because it's
Speaker 3: kind of like your vacation plans are being interrupted, right,
Speaker 3: It's like trying to explain something to Americans, so you
Speaker 3: use a burger. That's the way of doing it. For
Speaker 3: Western christiansom it's like, you know, your Jerusalem is threatened
Speaker 3: and therefore your holiday.
Speaker 2: Right. Obviously this is a Marxist podcast, so I have
Speaker 2: to ask the question what were the material conditions of
Speaker 2: Europe around the time of the First Crusade, and then
Speaker 2: we could talk a little bit about this idea of
Speaker 2: Holy war, which obviously becomes so crucial. So first material
Speaker 2: conditions and then Holy war.
Speaker 1: The material conditions were, I think they varied, for they
Speaker 1: definitely varied between strata of people. But it there is
Speaker 1: a lot of violence there and it is almost endemic
Speaker 1: to certain parts of Western Europe. At this point. There
Speaker 1: is constant fighting in France. In England. You know, we
Speaker 1: are less than thirty years from ten sixty six, you know,
Speaker 1: when the Norman conquest of England, and that's still settling down.
Speaker 1: William the conqueror's sons and bastards are fighting one another
Speaker 1: over who's going to lead what and win what. And
Speaker 1: in Spain there is the Iberian Peninsula. Rather there's you know,
Speaker 1: constant attempts to take it back. The beginning parts of
Speaker 1: the reconquesta are are going on, and you have all this,
Speaker 1: you have all these things, and it is ruining the land.
Speaker 1: It's making things bad for everyday people, for the peasants,
Speaker 1: because if you're a peasant in France and you're anywhere
Speaker 1: near the coast, there's a decent chance your land has
Speaker 1: either been raided and destroyed by some form of former
Speaker 1: Viking reform Viking as Eleanor would say, some you know,
Speaker 1: just just any of these groups, any Frenchman, someone from
Speaker 1: you know, Toulouse or whatever, is just going to come
Speaker 1: through and destroy it. And so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like the world is going to ensue. God is mad
Speaker 1: at us, and when this call comes down, these people
Speaker 1: who are so afflicted, and their lives are very difficult
Speaker 1: and very very hard. There are there are famines and
Speaker 1: everything across the land. They see this as a chance
Speaker 1: to maybe improve their station. But even if they don't,
Speaker 1: they can die and go to heaven and they can,
Speaker 1: you know, and they could deal with that. And that
Speaker 1: was the thing that Urban completely misunderstood here because he
Speaker 1: thought he would get like the warrior peasantry, who are
Speaker 1: like the better fighters when it comes, you know, to
Speaker 1: these little forays between local lords, and they just got
Speaker 1: they got those guys. But then they for every one
Speaker 1: of those, they got ten others and it was you know,
Speaker 1: a few women, a guy missing a leg, a guy
Speaker 1: who has leprosy, and so you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: you just you get all these people and they're just like,
Speaker 1: if I go and I die, then I go to heaven.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. I'll go. And when everything was so bad,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't they go? And then for the second sons
Speaker 1: and the nobility and all that I talked about it earlier,
Speaker 1: but they needed land. They wanted land. For a lot
Speaker 1: of these people. It was a very for I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: not a lot of these people, for a lot of
Speaker 1: people of that stature and above in terms of the nobility.
Speaker 1: They thought about it in those worldly terms, and they
Speaker 1: were like, I am going to make my name for myself.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take some land, and I am going
Speaker 1: to be a big man over here because my big
Speaker 1: brother and my dad suck. And that's what they did.
Speaker 1: And when you combine all those things together, you just
Speaker 1: get this massive call out of people who are tired
Speaker 1: of being poor and hungry and want to go to heaven.
Speaker 1: If they're going to die, they might as well, you know,
Speaker 1: be assured of heaven.
Speaker 2: And I think that leads naturally into this concept of
Speaker 2: holy war and just war and how does that fit
Speaker 2: into this?
Speaker 3: So for Christians there is very, very much a doctrine
Speaker 3: of holy war. And this goes right back to Romanness essentially,
Speaker 3: which you cannot get away from in any way, shape
Speaker 3: or form in the medieval period in general, and certainly
Speaker 3: not when you are talking about the Holy Land. But
Speaker 3: by the time the Roman Empire had Christianized, one of
Speaker 3: the requirements of being a Roman citizen was to become Christianized.
Speaker 3: This is a pretty normal tactic for Christians in general.
Speaker 3: What you tend to do when you're proselytizing is you
Speaker 3: go to the highest level of society you can. You
Speaker 3: try to convert the king, you try to convert a
Speaker 3: couple members of the nobility, and then you hope that
Speaker 3: they organize society in such a way that it encourages
Speaker 3: the uptake of Christianity. And that happens really successfully within Rome.
Speaker 3: So there is this idea of a kind of marshall Christianity.
Speaker 3: Because Rome is first and foremost an empire which does
Speaker 3: things very violent and brutally, so there is very much
Speaker 3: an idea of kind of expanding Christendom that is part
Speaker 3: and parcel with military violence. But then this is written
Speaker 3: a little bit more about by Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Speaker 3: You know, your boy, my boy, we all love the
Speaker 3: city of God, we all love his major concerns about boners,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. But he is one of the
Speaker 3: church fathers as we call them, so basically the guys
Speaker 3: who sat around and came up with the rules of
Speaker 3: Christianity in the late Antique period. And he thinks about
Speaker 3: a lot of this and he says, Okay, there is
Speaker 3: a way of doing a holy war or a just war,
Speaker 3: and it requires a few things. The first one is
Speaker 3: it requires being called by a king or a bishop, right,
Speaker 3: the bishop's being the princes of the church. Right, you
Speaker 3: need someone on that stature to say, okay, let's go
Speaker 3: do violence. They can't just be like a couple of
Speaker 3: cousins having a slap fight in a field. Right. The
Speaker 3: second thing is that it either needs to be defensive
Speaker 3: because of course it's okay to defend you if you're
Speaker 3: being violently attacked, duh, Right's that's absolutely fine, no brainer.
Speaker 3: Or it needs to be involving the recovery of lands,
Speaker 3: which is how we're going to get around this in
Speaker 3: the case of the Crusades. Right. Basically, what we're saying
Speaker 3: is that all of this had been Christendom and now
Speaker 3: it's being overtaken. But then it also requires no excessive violence.
Speaker 3: So you need to use just enough violence, right, And
Speaker 3: that's where things get off track, and that's where there
Speaker 3: is a lot of hand ringing, because excessive violence means
Speaker 3: not only are you not supposed to just be massacring
Speaker 3: people in the street, but it's all the attendant stuff
Speaker 3: as well, because we've got to understand these are not
Speaker 3: professionalized armies. No one is coming in with MREs for them.
Speaker 3: When troops start to move in the Middle Ages, they
Speaker 3: feed themselves by essentially just ravaging the countryside as they
Speaker 3: move through. And so one of the things for things,
Speaker 3: one of the things that is required for a war
Speaker 3: to be just is that you are not supposed to
Speaker 3: be like stealing the pig out of some peasants field.
Speaker 3: You're not supposed to be raising crops of people who
Speaker 3: go through. And that is going to come up time
Speaker 3: and again underneath this. So it's possible to have a
Speaker 3: holy war, but it requires particular rules be followed, and
Speaker 3: that's going to end up being a problem.
Speaker 2: And what about this notion of reconquest the ten sixty
Speaker 2: four Siege of Barbastro, Pope Alexander the Second and ten
Speaker 2: sixty three talking about a Christian emergency, what are the
Speaker 2: are there models for the Crusade and the sort of
Speaker 2: generation before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Siege of Barbastro becomes it really looks like
Speaker 4: the model for the way that the Crusades were called.
Speaker 1: And that was.
Speaker 4: You know, that was a battle in during the Reconquista.
Speaker 4: The Kingdom of Aragon was besieging Barbastro, and you know,
Speaker 4: as you said, Pope Alexander the Third basically called on
Speaker 4: Christians from around you know, the Christian realms to go
Speaker 4: and help because he, you know, says, this is an
Speaker 4: emergency for Christianity. We have to, you know, help retake
Speaker 4: these lands.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: And that sparks knights and you know, random people from
Speaker 4: all over, mostly France, I think Burgundy as well, to
Speaker 4: kind of go meander to Barbastrow and participate in this siege.
Speaker 4: You know, there are a lot of parallels here between
Speaker 4: what Alexander the Third does and what what Urban will
Speaker 4: be doing at Claremont. And the response is definitely I
Speaker 4: think indicates that there is an appetite for this sort
Speaker 4: of thing among Christian knights and Christian Christians writ large
Speaker 4: to participate in something like this. It's it also looks
Speaker 4: a lot like some of the aftermaths of some of
Speaker 4: the sieges we'll be talking about in the series. Is
Speaker 4: because they do horrible things to the Muslim inhabitants of
Speaker 4: Barbastro after the city falls. But it is, it does
Speaker 4: sort of look like a pilot project. I don't know,
Speaker 4: Eleanor and Luke if you guys have other you know, interpretations,
Speaker 4: but it sort of looks like the proof of concept.
Speaker 1: It does, and stuff like that, and the Norman conquests
Speaker 1: of Sicily, which had happened a few years before, a
Speaker 1: few years before ten ninety five, those things were cited
Speaker 1: contemporarily as you know, look, we've done this before, we
Speaker 1: can do this. And sometime between the siege of Barbastro
Speaker 1: in ten sixty four and the middle of the ten seventies,
Speaker 1: the idea of using puleinary indulgences, you know, for the
Speaker 1: forgiveness of sins for people who undertake the journey. They
Speaker 1: you know that that becomes a thing in the world,
Speaker 1: and the popes begin to use that, and you start
Speaker 1: It doesn't all come at once, you don't get because
Speaker 1: they're like smaller Holy wars, and some of the Spanish
Speaker 1: Kingdom's been trying to reconquer their territory for a long time,
Speaker 1: but none of them finally pull it all together where
Speaker 1: you have, you know, the indulgences, the Holy war and
Speaker 1: everything like that, and then in order to get the crusade,
Speaker 1: you have to add the church on top of it,
Speaker 1: managing and organizing the thing, and that's what turns it
Speaker 1: from you know, these kind of piecemeal things into a
Speaker 1: real top down operation in the sense that you could
Speaker 1: call it that because you know, as we said, they
Speaker 1: got a lot more people than they bargained for.
Speaker 3: But you know, yeah, the other thing that I think
Speaker 3: is really important to keep in mind here is all
Speaker 3: of this nonsense is kind of a French thing, right, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, certainly the Riconquisa absolutely involves like the Kingdom
Speaker 3: of Arragon and that you know, lots of people on
Speaker 3: the yes. But when Pope Alexander says, guys, we've got
Speaker 3: a Christian emergency down here, get on it, one of
Speaker 3: the things that's recorded is that a bunch of French
Speaker 3: guys show up. In particular, we have chronicles that state
Speaker 3: a gond chevalier de flans it did bids ultiplicate, right, like,
Speaker 3: so we have the French and the Burgundians, who are
Speaker 3: not the same underlined, you know, show up in order
Speaker 3: to prosecute this war in Sicily. It's Normans, right, and
Speaker 3: you know Normans are just newly Frenchified, right, and you know,
Speaker 3: we've got a French pope that is really pushing for
Speaker 3: everyone to go over on crusade. So this is actually
Speaker 3: really appealing to a really specific group of people.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the things as medievalist that I'm always kind
Speaker 3: of pushing back is the concept of, you know, the
Speaker 3: feudal system, as though there is like one way that
Speaker 3: things work, you know, And that's the idea that you know,
Speaker 3: there's a king at the top and then nobles underneath,
Speaker 3: and they all all apportioned land based on what they
Speaker 3: do for a particular king, right, And it's a massive
Speaker 3: oversimplification and it never really exists anywhere except the closest
Speaker 3: it comes is like with Normans, who were absolutely doing
Speaker 3: that shit right. Like the Normans were one hundred percent
Speaker 3: like ya, homie, if you come over here and help
Speaker 3: me take over this country, you will get a fief.
Speaker 3: We're one hundred percent doing that, right. And so you
Speaker 3: have this group of marauding military guys whose basic reason
Speaker 3: for existing is to take over stuff. And yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: that also applies to for example, the English, but the
Speaker 3: English are Norman at this point, right, So you know,
Speaker 3: you just have a bunch of French speakers being very French,
Speaker 3: who think that they have a right to kind of
Speaker 3: go and mess with anyone who isn't necessarily Christian because
Speaker 3: they're like, well, we got to point these guys at something, right,
Speaker 3: otherwise they're going to come over in my backyard and
Speaker 3: start messing with this thing. So I mean, if you
Speaker 3: had Norman's messing with you, you'd be like, I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: go over to the Holy Land, get like, go on,
Speaker 3: get right. And that links into what we call the
Speaker 3: Peace and Truce of God, which is basically the US.
Speaker 4: Before we get to that, Yeah, I wanted to ask
Speaker 4: you and Luke, like, what is the salience at this
Speaker 4: point of earlier encounters between Latin Christians and Islam and
Speaker 4: not just in in Iberia. That's sort of the frontier,
Speaker 4: the one it's the one place where like Western Christians
Speaker 4: really have first hand encounters with Islam. But there's also
Speaker 4: like going back a couple of centuries, you have the
Speaker 4: Battle of Tours, which gets blown up into this like
Speaker 4: Charles Martel saved Christendom, which a little exaggerated, but like
Speaker 4: you know, it gets this, you know, great reputation, and
Speaker 4: you know, I'm sort of curious whether that was on
Speaker 4: people's minds as well, this idea that Christianity needed to
Speaker 4: be saved from the Muslims and that you know, this
Speaker 4: was a great, great mission that had been you know,
Speaker 4: great men of the past had done this, and we
Speaker 4: have to follow on their footsteps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it definitely was. It is referred they
Speaker 1: are referred to at the time as a barbarian menace, infidels, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, rapers, pillagers, you know, like the whole the
Speaker 1: whole litany of of everything that the stuff that our
Speaker 1: you know, current fear mongering about the Middle East and
Speaker 1: Islam that we see in in Western media is still
Speaker 1: doing today. You know, they are you know, portrayed as
Speaker 1: this you know, barbaric, you know, like hun type force.
Speaker 1: And you know, the the the veneration of Charles Martel
Speaker 1: had already had already begun to some degree. And you know,
Speaker 1: the when they converted to when when the peoples of
Speaker 1: Europe converted to Christianity, they did so and they brought
Speaker 1: along the martial nature that a lot of those tribes
Speaker 1: and groups had across the continent. And when they did that,
Speaker 1: it was okay, we're going to take Christianity to you know,
Speaker 1: whatever they considered at the time to be its logical
Speaker 1: extent or whatever. And it was the if you were
Speaker 1: in Western Europe and you thought about this. For the
Speaker 1: most part, I think it would be because maybe somebody
Speaker 1: had rolled you up into thinking like this about Muslims.
Speaker 1: You maybe maybe a preacher had mentioned it or something
Speaker 1: like that, especially like the encroachment into Iberia, as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: because you know, people in France are going to be
Speaker 1: really worked up about, oh, they're going to come over
Speaker 1: the Pyrenees one day, even though they tried that once
Speaker 1: and they were like, yeah, we're not going to deal
Speaker 1: with that, and they went back and they kind of
Speaker 1: stayed over there. But whatever, that's a different you know whatever,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it was on their mind. However,
Speaker 1: it should be noted that there were people at the
Speaker 1: time who were like, yeah, I know, that's insane. Those
Speaker 1: are just people. And there were you know, business people,
Speaker 1: merchants and and everyone who were just like, you know,
Speaker 1: I own a Mediterranean shipping concern, like I deal with
Speaker 1: Muslims all the time. They are you know, fine trading partner,
Speaker 1: you know. So there, I think I think they could
Speaker 1: uh get the rabble up and raise them into a
Speaker 1: furor about this with anti Muslim sentiment that resembles what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. But there were definitely people who are like, no,
Speaker 1: that's fucking stupid, like you know, no, oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and especially it's a money talks thing, right,
Speaker 3: So it really all depends because you know, I beer
Speaker 3: is such a difficult one in the Middle Ages because
Speaker 3: it really all depends who you're asking and when you're asking, right,
Speaker 3: because there are plenty of people who are just kind
Speaker 3: of fine in terms of muddling along and doing the
Speaker 3: best you can living alongside Muslim people. But then you know,
Speaker 3: every once in a while violence breaks out, and I
Speaker 3: think the thing that we tend to do, you know,
Speaker 3: probably thanks to Aperin and historians like this, is we
Speaker 3: have a tendency to pause it that Christianity and Islam
Speaker 3: have always been in violent contention with each other, Whereas
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess that my thing is I'm like,
Speaker 3: who was it in violent contention with each other in
Speaker 3: the medieval period? Like, I'm sorry, was there like a
Speaker 3: group of people who are like hanging out, not attacking
Speaker 3: each other?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Part of the reason why the Crusaders gets egged on
Speaker 3: or the Reconquista gets built up is because the Church
Speaker 3: is trying desperately to get Christians to stop hitting each other.
Speaker 3: So they're like, why don't you go, I don't know,
Speaker 3: hit some Muslims instead, Why don't you do that?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: And it's not like this is a natural state of
Speaker 3: being between Christians and Islam. It's just that, I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: there's like a lot of war at the time, right.
Speaker 3: And I don't always like saying that about the medieval
Speaker 3: period because people have a tendency to try to characterize
Speaker 3: it as uniquely violent, like as opposed to now when
Speaker 3: things are totally peaceful. Guys like I don't know if
Speaker 3: you've heard about this, but you know, people fight people,
Speaker 3: and they come up with different excuses for why they
Speaker 3: do it. It's just that you've got a really great,
Speaker 3: baked in excuse between Christianity and Islam.
Speaker 2: So now that we've set the stage, let's move on
Speaker 2: to the actual call for the First Crusade. Let's go
Speaker 2: to ten ninety five. So how did Byzantine appeal to Rome?
Speaker 2: What are these councils that took place in ten ninety
Speaker 2: five that eventually lead to the outbreak of the First Crusade,
Speaker 2: And it might make sense to start with the Council
Speaker 2: of Piazenza.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's my favorite council. This is such a good
Speaker 3: So this was this is one for real heads.
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean I think they're all good, but yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: personally to pick a favorite.
Speaker 3: Vide, Oh oh you think you're you think that you're
Speaker 3: into history. Name three councils. Yeah, well, Council of Piacenza.
Speaker 3: That is like up here for me. And this one
Speaker 3: is wild because actually, if you're a big old nerd
Speaker 3: such as myself and you're into the papal imperial rivalry,
Speaker 3: this is a hot one because at the time, the
Speaker 3: big thing that everyone is focused on is that Henry
Speaker 3: the Emperor, Henry's wife eupraxy f Kiev shows up to
Speaker 3: be like, Henry is basically forcing me to do orgies,
Speaker 3: said that I could shag his son and try to
Speaker 3: use me in a black mass, which is awesome and
Speaker 3: gets completely overshadowed, and everyone at the time it's just like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, Henry is so bad. You know, he's
Speaker 3: doing like black masses and having like Satan orgies and
Speaker 3: that that was the headline, right, And it's only later
Speaker 3: that we have said, okay, wow, really the thing that
Speaker 3: was going on at the Atenza is that the ambassadors
Speaker 3: who were sent by Alexias Comminanos showed up and said, Hey, guys,
Speaker 3: who who's heard of Who's heard of? Manzi Kurt? You
Speaker 3: got anyone? Anyone Anatolia, anyone. And but I bring up
Speaker 3: these two things because this is going to part and
Speaker 3: parcel for Pope Urban. The second right, is that on
Speaker 3: the one hand, he's really trying to establish himself as
Speaker 3: the head of Europe, as the guy who calls the shots,
Speaker 3: who tells the Holy Roman Emperor what to do, who
Speaker 3: can point the military forces of Europe in any directions
Speaker 3: that he wants to, which is why he's sitting here
Speaker 3: chatting with the Emperor Henry's wife, who's claiming that he's
Speaker 3: a Satanist or whatever. Right, So, when you have a
Speaker 3: request from Constantinople saying, oh, we have these meanies in
Speaker 3: our backyard, could you help clean them out? You say
Speaker 3: yes because it places you in opposition to an emperor
Speaker 3: who is seen as particularly lax, particularly sexual, and not
Speaker 3: a very good Christian, and that kind of pushes things over.
Speaker 3: So the Council of Vigenza is important because this is
Speaker 3: where the request comes from for Western intervention. And also
Speaker 3: it's just a hot mess. Oh my god, I love
Speaker 3: it so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing here, the
Speaker 1: big thing that I would say to take away from
Speaker 1: this is that there are a lot of ideas surrounding
Speaker 1: it that have flown around, and some of them were
Speaker 1: historical consensus for a long time. But like it's often
Speaker 1: said that Alexios was just kind of like, hey, we
Speaker 1: might need some help, and then when people showed up,
Speaker 1: he were like, whoa, I didn't mean like that, Like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what do you you know? All of
Speaker 1: these people just showed up and I had no idea
Speaker 1: that they were coming, which is completely unbelievable, like absolutely,
Speaker 1: but but but you know, the also that that the
Speaker 1: pope was like that there were no pre machinations about
Speaker 1: this or anything like that, which is completely false because
Speaker 1: the idea of a crusader of this kind of been
Speaker 1: discussed by previous popes and blah blah blah, and they
Speaker 1: and he and Urban and Alexios had even discussed a
Speaker 1: prior kind of military alliance against the patch and eggs
Speaker 1: that fell apart. But it both of both parties in
Speaker 1: this knew what they were going into, they knew what
Speaker 1: they were asking for, and they thought that they were
Speaker 1: going to get something out of it, and there was
Speaker 1: a source that was finally found in like the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties where it's like it's a it's a Greek source
Speaker 1: and the Greek is like you know from it's from
Speaker 1: the early eleven hundreds. And he's like, ha ha ha,
Speaker 1: we got those idiot Latins to come in and we
Speaker 1: tricked them and we're getting we're getting and it totally
Speaker 1: it back and they're just gonna be stuck down there
Speaker 1: in the Holy Lands or whatever. Oh, Alexios fooled them good.
Speaker 1: And it's like, it's so funny because like they both
Speaker 1: sought this. They were like, I'm getting I'm getting this
Speaker 1: for free. You know, Oh you can't. You don't get
Speaker 1: anything for free these days. Yeah, I'll show you, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you got a lot for free.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: But they went to the Council of Pichins and knowing
Speaker 1: what they were asking for, and yeah, that's what they got.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for them anyway.
Speaker 2: So let's move on now to the Council of Claremont.
Speaker 2: And this is a crucial moment in the history of
Speaker 2: the First Crusade.
Speaker 3: So what happened there?
Speaker 4: The response, Yeah, it's I think it's it's great because
Speaker 4: you know, all these councils have like church business. But
Speaker 4: there was also a sex thing, just like piacenza that
Speaker 4: happened as King Philip the First of France had married
Speaker 4: Bertrade de Montforta, and they were both married to other
Speaker 4: people at the time. Whoopsie, So you know there was
Speaker 4: another there's another sex scandal happening in European royalties. It's
Speaker 4: always good, I think, to headline these things with a
Speaker 4: sex scandal before you get into the real reason that
Speaker 4: everybody's there. But the main event happens this is in
Speaker 4: November ten ninety five, and the main event happens on
Speaker 4: November twenty seventh, which is when Urban gives his big,
Speaker 4: you know, big barn burner of a speech calling for
Speaker 4: people to go east to you know, assemble and go
Speaker 4: east to fight the infidels. It's we can talk about this.
Speaker 4: It's not percent clear what he said because they're different
Speaker 4: sources and they all say different things. Of course, that
Speaker 4: would be too easy if they said the same thing
Speaker 4: about what he actually said about Jerusalem and what the
Speaker 4: goal was initially as he set it out. But yeah,
Speaker 4: maybe eleanor you could talk a little bit about how
Speaker 4: all of these different sources go into this, you know,
Speaker 4: describe the speech.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's apparently the speech was good, Like folks, we
Speaker 3: know that, right, But we have tons and tons of
Speaker 3: different versions and they're almost all written down years upon
Speaker 3: years after the fact. And that's one of the big
Speaker 3: issues that we have with it, is no one was
Speaker 3: sitting there that on the day, scribbling away in shorthand
Speaker 3: getting the words down. We think that perhaps the best
Speaker 3: example comes from Fulture of Shout in the guest of
Speaker 3: frank Worum Jerusalem ex Bundinatium. You and I both know
Speaker 3: and love it, obviously, but because he was there, and
Speaker 3: so he was there and he wrote this down first,
Speaker 3: and it's a big, long speech where basically he comes
Speaker 3: up and says like that this is something that the
Speaker 3: Christians in the West need to do for their brethren
Speaker 3: in the east, right, And he's got some good stuff.
Speaker 3: He says, your brethren who live in the East are
Speaker 3: in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten
Speaker 3: to give them that age which has been promised them.
Speaker 3: The Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered
Speaker 3: the territory of Romania, which is the Greek empire as
Speaker 3: far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont.
Speaker 3: So if you permit them to continue thus for a
Speaker 3: while with impunity, the faithful of God will be much
Speaker 3: more widely attacked by them. And so basically this is
Speaker 3: like you know that there's too many of them. You
Speaker 3: need to get over there and basically cut the snake's
Speaker 3: head off, because otherwise things are going to get worse
Speaker 3: and worse and worse. But importantly, what he then says
Speaker 3: is on this account, I, or rather the Lord, beseech you,
Speaker 3: as Christ's heralds, to publish this everywhere, and to persuade
Speaker 3: all people of whatever rank, foot, soldiers and knights, poor
Speaker 3: and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians, and
Speaker 3: to destroy the vile race from the lands of our friends.
Speaker 3: I say this to those who are present, it meant
Speaker 3: also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
Speaker 3: So days volt like this thing like that. God commands
Speaker 3: and wiels these things. And then he says, all who
Speaker 3: die by the way, whether by land or by sea,
Speaker 3: or in battle against the Pagans, She'll have immediate remission
Speaker 3: of sins. So there you go, that's what you need.
Speaker 3: Right immediate remissions of sins. This is for everyone. It's
Speaker 3: your duty, not just if you're here right now, but
Speaker 3: it's your duty to publicize this, to go tell everyone
Speaker 3: about this. And one way or another, all versions of
Speaker 3: the speech agree on this, right. We all agree that
Speaker 3: there was a plentiary indulgence involved. It was said that
Speaker 3: everyone needs to be involved, not just you know, the
Speaker 3: lordly classes. But the only thing we actually have recording
Speaker 3: this is a letter that Urban wrote in ten ninety five,
Speaker 3: and it's a letter of instruction to crusaders, and basically
Speaker 3: he says that the same thing, but in less florid terms.
Speaker 3: So basically he talks about a barbaric fury that has
Speaker 3: been laid waste in the Orient, and he says that
Speaker 3: intolerable servitude has been placed on the church there, and
Speaker 3: so he says that people need to actually go over
Speaker 3: there and do something about this, and he names people
Speaker 3: who should be at the head of this group of
Speaker 3: soldiers that are going over But it's a lot more boring,
Speaker 3: like it's really really dry in comparison to the barn
Speaker 3: storming speeches that we get out of Fulture and people
Speaker 3: like that. So all we know is the basics of
Speaker 3: what went down. But having said that, look, I tell
Speaker 3: you what, minieval people simply love a sermon. For them,
Speaker 3: this is like Friday night television. This is as good
Speaker 3: as it gets. It's like watching WWE. You know, we
Speaker 3: might say, oh, this is kind of boring, but for them,
Speaker 3: they're like, hell yeah, brother, Like I'm going in over there.
Speaker 3: And we get lots of lots of versions. But that
Speaker 3: just tells us how much it still lives rent for
Speaker 3: in the minds of everyone in the medieval period.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think. I think the In the fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties, the academic consensus centered around the fact that
Speaker 1: Urban mentions four specific things that are kind of widely
Speaker 1: agreed upon in the Fulture account, the Robert Account, other
Speaker 1: things like that, But basically it was, We're going to
Speaker 1: liberate Jerusalem because it's Jerusalem. We got to have it back,
Speaker 1: you know, we need it. Two, we are going to
Speaker 1: reunite Christendom. You know we're gonna we're gonna get back
Speaker 1: in communion with the East. Three you guys are too
Speaker 1: fucking violent, we are, And and Fulture says this is
Speaker 1: a quote quote going to export the violence end quote elsewhere.
Speaker 1: So so those three things, and then as Eleanor mentioned,
Speaker 1: the plenary indulgence was also mentioned to some degree, So
Speaker 1: like those are the things that can be agreed upon,
Speaker 1: and there's other stuff that's in there or you can
Speaker 1: make reference from based on later findings. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much that we don't know what it was. It
Speaker 1: was really fiery. People got like they were they were
Speaker 1: the spirit was alive within them after they heard it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it flowed from there there you go,
Speaker 1: and they went out and preached.
Speaker 2: I think maybe the question to end on here then
Speaker 2: is why do historians think that people responded to a
Speaker 2: call to this call? Because I imagine there have been
Speaker 2: calls before and people didn't respond.
Speaker 4: So well, yeah, I mean I want to jump on
Speaker 4: that to it's there's the cynical interpretation that people responded
Speaker 4: because this was a new land to conquer. It was
Speaker 4: a new place to to you know, extract booty from.
Speaker 4: It was a place for all these kind of benighted
Speaker 4: second sons who weren't going to hair to go and
Speaker 4: claim mistake. They're claiming the world. Very material, very worldly
Speaker 4: kind of interpretations. But there's also the genuine interpretation that
Speaker 4: people felt like this was a religious obligation they had
Speaker 4: to do it. It was you know, what Jesus wanted us
Speaker 4: to do was go and you know, kill Muslims and
Speaker 4: take their land and and you know, these things are
Speaker 4: often put in conflict with one another, like you have
Speaker 4: one interpretation or the other. And I sort of I
Speaker 4: want you guys to to kind of make them, make
Speaker 4: them go together, because I don't think you can fully
Speaker 4: explain why people went on the crusade without some genuine
Speaker 4: appeal to piety and feeling like this is this is
Speaker 4: the right thing to do. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: there were material opportunities. It seems like at least on
Speaker 4: this first attempt, right maybe later on it would become
Speaker 4: a parent that like, you're not going to make a
Speaker 4: whole lot of money go on a crusade, But at
Speaker 4: this moment, you could certainly imagine people thinking, Wow, this
Speaker 4: is going to be a good way for me to
Speaker 4: kind of, you know, set myself up for the future.
Speaker 4: So what was the How did these kind of ideas
Speaker 4: or any sort of motivations exist alongside one another.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a really good point, Derek, And
Speaker 3: I think it's super modern of us to say that
Speaker 3: it has to be one or the other, like we're
Speaker 3: trying to separate church and state in our heads. And
Speaker 3: just like Luke said earlier, you can't do that with
Speaker 3: medieval people. Indeed, the concept of the states such as
Speaker 3: it is, well, there is no state, right. There are kingdoms,
Speaker 3: there are Europe, there are principalities, there are empires, and
Speaker 3: these are things that are dictated by God. Right, we're
Speaker 3: not at the divine right of kings yet, that's an
Speaker 3: early modern thing, but there certainly is the idea of
Speaker 3: divine providence and the idea that kings are kings because
Speaker 3: God wishes them to be so. So, yes, there might
Speaker 3: be some monetary gain from you if you go on
Speaker 3: crusade like this, but I also want to point out
Speaker 3: that that is something just for the nobility, right, Like,
Speaker 3: peasants don't think that they're going to go over there
Speaker 3: and they are going to become, you know, the Prince
Speaker 3: of Antioch. That's not what they think is going to
Speaker 3: be happening. It might be something for nobles who have
Speaker 3: the ability to set this up, but peasants are not
Speaker 3: doing it for that reason. And we have a trouble
Speaker 3: with the historiography, which is that you know, we hear
Speaker 3: from rich people. That's who can read and write, that's
Speaker 3: who can store the documents, that is whose voices come
Speaker 3: through loud and clear over time. And so we have
Speaker 3: a tendency to say, oh, these guys are just doing
Speaker 3: it because they're a second son and this was the
Speaker 3: only way for them to get land. But most of
Speaker 3: the people who went on crusade were just a guy,
Speaker 3: and that isn't what they sought to get out of it.
Speaker 3: So I think the way to think about it is
Speaker 3: that this is a genuine religious belief that might have
Speaker 3: some knock on benefits for you as well. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a win win and less of a oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm going to paper over my obvious bloodlust and desire
Speaker 3: for riches with some idea of spirituality. That's a modern
Speaker 3: way of doing things at that medieval people are fundamentally
Speaker 3: kind of uncapable of doing because that's just not how
Speaker 3: they think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think another thing real quick on
Speaker 1: this is that we just need to remember that people
Speaker 1: can hold two things in their heart simultaneously. Cognitive dissonance
Speaker 1: is a is a thing that humans have always had
Speaker 1: and have always struggled with and have always used as
Speaker 1: a coping mechanism. And so, you know, for the for
Speaker 1: the most part, for these people who are dirt poor,
Speaker 1: who are sick infirm, you know, they barely have anything.
Speaker 1: You know, they work for a very poor lord or
Speaker 1: something like that. They rarely have any food to eat.
Speaker 1: You can go over there and you can be like,
Speaker 1: I'm fueled with the righteous fury to retake Jerusalem, while
Speaker 1: at the same time being like, and if I die,
Speaker 1: it's better than dying of starvation in a field. And
Speaker 1: you know, you can go all the way up from
Speaker 1: there to the people who at the top, where you know,
Speaker 1: the high lords who are like, I'm going over here
Speaker 1: to become the Prince of Antioch or whatever. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, some of those high lords were also
Speaker 1: genuinely fueled by religious devotion to some degree. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about them next time we get to the Normans
Speaker 1: and stuff. But you know, they weren't all crass opportunists,
Speaker 1: even though a whole lot of them were. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's just something where the amount to which
Speaker 1: the religious fervor fueled them varies from person to person,
Speaker 1: as it does nowadays. With any religious thing. But if
Speaker 1: you try to dismiss that solely, then you dismiss the
Speaker 1: feelings of ninety seven percent of the people who went
Speaker 1: on crusade, because there's no way the poor peasant from
Speaker 1: Tours is going to think that they're getting a lordship
Speaker 1: in Jerusalem from this. You know that's not a thing.
Speaker 2: So next time we'll talk about the immediate outcome of
Speaker 2: the call and what happened. Thank you everyone for listening,
Speaker 2: and we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1: I Welcome to the Crusades. The First Crusade is co
Speaker 1: hosted by Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison of the American
Speaker 1: Prestige podcast and doctor Eleanor Yannica and Luke Waters of
Speaker 1: the We're Not So Different Podcast. Music by Jake Aaron,
Speaker 1: cover art by James Montalbano. The show is co edited
Speaker 1: and co produced by Jake Aaron and Luke Waters. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much for listening.