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God Wills It: The HOLY WAR That Changed History forever | CRUSADES with Nicholas Morton, Pt. I · The Smart Cookies podcast

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Nicholas Morton is an associate professor in
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Middle Eastern history at Nottingham Trent University
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in the UK and has been teaching medieval Middle
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Eastern history, especially the history of the
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Crusades since 2008. He is the author of many
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books, including Encountering Islam on the First
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Crusade, The Field of Blood, The Battle for Aleppo
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and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East
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and The Crusader States and Their Neighbours,
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a Military History Professor. Welcome to the
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program. Thanks so much for having me on the
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show. I mean, speaking as a European here, is
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there a more spectacularly unique, blood -soaked
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and straight -up feverish chapter in all of our
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history? Because I kind of don't think so. But
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I wonder, what do you think? It's complicated.
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I mean, European history has plenty of blood
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in it, and this is no exception. Touché. But
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yeah, there's plenty of violence in the Crusades,
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although it takes some very unusual forms. In
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many ways, the Crusades is a break from the usual
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cycle of bloodshed that marks Western Europe.
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I'm hoping we'll get into that as the show goes
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on. Definitely. I wanted to talk about the Crusades
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since forever. So I'm barely containing my excitement
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right now. But as always on this pod, before
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we get to the real meat on the bone here, I'd
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like us to set the stage a little bit because
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this is just as fascinating as all the action
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-packed horse riding and such I'm sure we'll
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talk about later on. Okay, so we're in Europe.
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at the turn of the 11th century, right? Now,
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usually we kind of think, at least in the mainstream,
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of the Middle Ages as one big goulash where everything
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is kind of the same for like a thousand years.
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But in reality, I imagine that, for example,
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the 7th century was very different from the 11th
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century. So just before the infamous Pope Urban
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II, I believe, declares the First Crusade, what's
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kind of like the political landscape like? Who
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are the main players? on the chessboard and what
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are some of the big alliances and rivalries in
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europe at the time yes so there is a lot changing
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around the time of the first crusade for a start
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and the underlying factor is that western europe
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western christendom as it was known is expanding
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after a long period where it wasn't in the 900s
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so the 10th century Western Christendom was under
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attack from all sorts of different directions,
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from the Vikings in the north along the coastline
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of northern Germany and France and the British
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Isles, in the east from various groups moving
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westwards, and in the south from Muslim emirates
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either in North Africa or the Umayyad Caliphate
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in Iberia. But that changes. And so from about
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year 1000 onwards, the Vikings begin to convert.
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And rather than attacking Western Christendom,
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they become among its leading proponents. And
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so the Normans, or Northmen as they were known,
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they begin to start conquering territory in the
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Mediterranean, perhaps most significantly Sicily.
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And so there's a change there in Eastern Europe.
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you have the conversion of Poland and Hungary.
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And there too, an area that had been a threat
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to Western Christendom becomes a strength instead.
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And then in much of the Muslim world, there are
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enormous upheavals that I'll probably come back
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to in a bit, which basically mean that the scale
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and frequency of attacks diminish considerably.
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So suddenly the pressure comes off and Western
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Christendom itself begins to expand. And there's
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various processes driving that. It's getting
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a little bit warmer. So crop yields improve.
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And when crop yields improve, people get healthier.
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They can have more children that reach adulthood.
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Society becomes more numerous and ultimately
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more powerful. And they begin to push back on
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their borders. So Christendom is expanding. But
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within this, there's also something called the
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papal reform movement, which is the church, the
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Catholic Church, is looking. to reassert its
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authority. For over a century, it had been very
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difficult for the Catholic Church to maintain
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its institution across Western Christendom, given
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just how riven it was with conflict. But things
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are stabilizing now, as the Church wants to reassert
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itself over the archbishops, the bishops, the
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priests, who provide ecclesiastical governance.
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for its various areas. So the church is looking
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to reassert itself. And what I'm hoping you can
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see in and amongst these various threads are
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various threads that don't necessarily lead to
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the crusade, but will facilitate it, that will
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help it to come about. So it's a sort of sea
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change period. Western Christendom had been on
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the defensive. Now it's on the offensive. What
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are some of the big powers, though? the big kingdoms?
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What's happening between them? Okay, so the main
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powers are, from a church perspective, obviously
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the papacy doesn't have enormous territorial
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power, but in terms of its spiritual authority
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over Western Christendom, it's enormously powerful.
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You then have the German Empire, later known
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as the Holy Roman Empire, which is also very
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powerful and in conflict with the papacy at this
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time, because the papacy is reasserting its authority
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and they're particularly um in dispute over who
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gets to appoint bishops because bishops are big
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landowners in germany the emperors want to make
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sure they maintain control over who's going to
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be a bishop the papacy for its part well the
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bishops are members of the church of course they
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want authority over them you've also got the
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kingdom of france becoming more powerful it's
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gone through a long period where Many of its
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regions were going almost independent, but now
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the kings of France, increasingly over the 12th
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century, the kings of France will get more powerful.
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And then in Iberia, so modern -day Spain and
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Portugal, you've got the beginnings of the northern
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Christian kingdoms of Spain pushing south into
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central and southern Spain, taking territory
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from the Taifa Muslim states in that area. So
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there are various powerful... elements in play
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and that in italy you've got the beginnings of
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the rise of the big merchant cities venice pisa
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genoa and their fleets are starting to contest
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control over the mediterranean mediterranean
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from a commercial perspective but also the mediterranean
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from a military perspective too so there's various
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powers in play and they're expanding oh and the
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last one to mention is the normans Because people
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have normally heard of the Normans in Normandy
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and northern France and perhaps the Norman conquest
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of England. But the Normans are also active in
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southern Italy and Sicily, where they also carve
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out territories for themselves as well. So there's
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a lot going on and various powerful players on
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the map. What about ideas? How do most people,
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and I'm talking about rulers and peasants alike,
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I imagine it can be that different. understand
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the world around them. Okay. So obviously, because
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it's the medieval period, we are much better
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served with the sources for what kings and dukes
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and queens and lords and the elites of society,
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what they were thinking, because these are the
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people who wrote the sources or had the sources
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written for them. We're going to have to make
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do. Yeah, I'll take it. We're going to have to
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make do. The main thing is, the thing to start
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with is always that this is a deeply devout and
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religious society. And it has to start there.
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These beliefs are held entirely sincerely. It's
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not some sort of facade. And so understanding
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just how sincerely and deeply held religious
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views are in Western Christendom is a good starting
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point. This is something that is intrinsic to
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the way people are thinking. I suspect for most
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people that their biggest spiritual concern is
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a very simple one, or two very simple concerns.
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The first is achieving salvation. So at the end
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of their lives, which, and that's not going to
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be very long because life expectancy was fairly
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short in this period, how will you get to heaven?
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And what do you need to do to get there? There's
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a big concern around that. And the other is the
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weather. These are farming societies, almost
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exclusively, and I suspect that your average
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farming family, and of course the lords and knights
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and ladies who depend on these farming families
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to provide them with their incomes, they'll spend
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a lot of time looking at the sky, hoping for
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rain, hoping for less rain, hoping for warmer
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weather, hoping for colder weather, because ultimately
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the ability to raise their crops is fundamental.
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Again, this contextualizes the life in Western
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Christendom at this time. Communications are
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not great. Most people won't go more than 10,
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15, 20 miles from their place of birth at any
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point in their life. And this in turn makes the
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crusade such an extraordinary phenomenon because
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people who had never left their homes and certainly
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not their home regions are suddenly traveling
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thousands of miles. to an area that they had
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scarcely even heard of before, except through
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the stories of the Bible. Wow. This sounds a
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little bit gloomy, though. I gotta be honest.
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Like, the short life expectancy, you know, being
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so concerned about whether you're going to heaven
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or hell after you die, no communications, being
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tied to the land. Because I thought there's like
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a big kind of reversal in modern... um history
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you know we used to call it the dark ages and
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now a lot of historians are saying hey wait a
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minute it wasn't so dark that's a bit of you
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know a bit of prejudice there um but maybe you're
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telling me it wasn't a big woodstock either maybe
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i've maybe i've over i've over painted it in
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negative colors so let me balance it out a little
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bit society at this point is based on communities
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Very close -knit communities. You would be born
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and raised surrounded by a circle of families,
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all of whom would know each other. You would
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probably marry someone from a neighbouring family
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who would already know each other. You will farm
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with people from these neighbouring families.
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It's close -knit, it's supportive, people look
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after each other. And so in the modern age where
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we are increasingly suffering from loneliness
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and isolation, even in deeply packed cities,
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this isn't so much the case in the middle ages
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you've got a community around you the whole time
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and whilst communities can be a bad thing at
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times they can often be a very good thing and
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so there is a support network there in a way
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that there isn't in many cases and life in some
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ways is simpler it's not as um you don't have
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to rush and hurry and have the same hustle and
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bustle that you have in the modern day world.
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You'll live according to the agricultural year.
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You'll plant your crops. You'll look after your
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animals. You'll raise your children. And you
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can do it as a family. So where increasingly
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we're having to sort of have the parents going
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off to work, the children being looked after,
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even the family itself not being able to spend
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much time together. In the medieval period, you're
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together the whole time. You work together as
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a family unit. And that's a nice... A nice thought.
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And of course, even the idea of heaven and hell,
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there is still the promise there of eternal life
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for the majority. And there too is a reassurance
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in that, that that gives meaning to your life,
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even if it can be fairly short. So perhaps there
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is a balancing that needs to be taken there.
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Professor, you tried your absolute best and I
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think you were more than fair. But to be honest,
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if I had a time machine, I think like ancient
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Rome or like ancient Athens or something. for
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me just just saying yeah yeah no i'll take your
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point okay if we trace the idea of a crusade
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back to its very origins i mean surely this one
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pope didn't come up with the grand gesture himself
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when and why does this concept of a spiritual
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or holy war first appear yeah so this is a good
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one um And of course, it's a confusing one. In
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fact, if you'll permit me a slight personal aside,
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this is the reason I wanted to study the Crusades
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back when I was a teenager, because I couldn't
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understand how Christians could believe that
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waging holy war was acceptable in the eyes of
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God, because we're talking about Jesus's teaching,
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right? And Jesus told us to love each other and
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to do good to those that hate you. and to beat
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your swords into plowshares. And when, famously,
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Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane,
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and one of the people who came to arrest him,
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Jesus' disciples sliced off his ear with his
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sword. Jesus then miraculously healed the wound
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and said, those who live by the sword die by
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the sword, which is a fairly, it's not entirely
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clear what that means. But it's not positive
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either about violence. So how do you get from
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that starting point through to believing that
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large scale religious warfare is acceptable?
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And that requires a fair amount of explanation.
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And I've spent decades trying to understand it.
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And even now, I only kind of understand where
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they were coming from, from their own perspective.
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But it goes something like this. The Roman Empire
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converted to Christianity slowly in the years
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after Jesus' death. And then in the 4th century,
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when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity
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and thereafter, it became the official religion
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of the Roman Empire. So the Roman Empire becomes
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Christian. And although there have been converts
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previously, that formal conversion changes a
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great deal because now the Roman Empire has to
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ask itself, how do we, the Roman Empire, who
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wage warfare, who have massive armies, who have
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borders to defend, how do we interpret Christianity
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in the context of a military empire? And various
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thinkers wrote on this, perhaps most famously,
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St. Augustine. And St. Augustine, he came up
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with a theory not for holy war, which is a war
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that God wants or is believed to want, but just
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war. And just war is basically a war that is
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deemed tolerable in the eyes of God. And in many
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ways, St. Augustine's thinking will be recognizable
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today because we still talk about these. um conditions
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for what is a acceptable war and those are just
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cause there has to be a good cause for war typically
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if you're acting in defense of your own borders
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if you've been attacked you do have a right to
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defend yourself just war the other one is right
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intention so if you if you do go to war the people
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carrying out that war, they have to fight with
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the right intention, which is simply to end the
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invasion, end the violence, bring the war to
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a conclusion as quickly as possible with the
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minimum of bloodshed and whilst not indulging
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in looting and stealing and mistreating civilians
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on the way. So it's war conducted just for the
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purpose of ending the war and then it's over.
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And the final one is legitimate authority, which
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is that the wars have to be waged by a king,
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a prince, a recognized authority. It can't be
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waged by just anyone who feels that they want
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to start fighting. So these are the main conditions
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St. Augustine offers, and already we see a shift
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in the direction towards accepting warfare. But
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then the Western Roman Empire collapses in the
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face. of the Goths and the Visigoths and the
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Franks and the Saxons and all the various peoples
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who overthrew the Western Roman Empire. And these
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societies all have military elites. So they're
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governing families. They're fighting families.
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They're the ones who lead their peoples into
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battle. Now, they're not going to give up warfare.
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It's central to their society, but they voluntarily
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adopt Christianity. So again, they too want to
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see, they want to interpret warfare into their
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own idea of Christianity. And there's a fascinating,
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it's a sort of version of the Bible written by
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a Saxon author in the, I think it's the 8th or
17:53
9th century. And he basically rewrites the Bible,
17:57
but within the sort of the Saxon mentality. And
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so he's talking about Jesus and his sword things.
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So you can see already that he's interpreting
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the Bible, but doing it very much in a context
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that makes sense for his own society. And so
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when Jesus goes into the wilderness for 40 days,
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rather than that being the desert in the Middle
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East, he goes into the deep forest. Because again,
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that would make more sense in a northern German
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context. So these things are all bringing about
18:26
changes, but there's always tension. And so you
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have all these sorts of awkward compromises that
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begin to emerge. For example, you've got warriors
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who fight battles. They train for war. They fight
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battles. But after every battle, they repent
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of the people they've killed. So they fight.
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They say sorry for killing people. They fight
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again. They say sorry for killing people. But
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it's a very uncomfortable compromise, obviously,
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but it carries on. And so even when the Normans
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invade the Kingdom of England in 1066, After
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the Battle of Hastings, they repent of the people
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they've killed in battle. But the result of all
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of this is a huge amount of anxiety. Warriors
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are not stupid. They know perfectly well that
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Jesus says you've got to love your enemies. You've
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got to do good to those that hate you. And so
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there's a constant anxiety. I'm a warrior. I
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have to fight. If I don't fight, I'll be thrown
19:24
off my lands by my lord. I have to fight, and
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it's in my culture to fight. But if I fight,
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will that mean I go to hell? So that anxiety
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is always there. I fight, it puts my soul in
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peril. What do I do about that? And basically
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in the Crusade, what the papacy does is it crosses
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the final line in the sand, basically. The papacy
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in this era comes to the belief that monks, and
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hermits should wage spiritual war through prayer.
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They should wage spiritual war against the devil.
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So when you pray, you are waging spiritual warfare
20:03
against the devil. But that begins to spill over
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into a notion held widely by the church, that
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if you can fight spiritual enemies through prayer,
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perhaps Christendom's human enemies can be fought
20:18
in the world. And so the papacy, through the
20:23
combination of these ideas, begins to believe
20:26
it to be acceptable to wage war in the name of
20:29
God. And it finds enormous support for that idea
20:33
because all those anxious knights fighting but
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being concerned that their fighting will send
20:39
them to hell, they're suddenly presented with
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a new idea that will become the crusade, which
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is that warfare is no longer something that they
20:48
should feel anxious about. It's something they
20:50
can do as a direct extension of God's will. And
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that's why the Crusaders' battle cry was, God
20:55
wills it. It's a reaffirmation to them. This
20:59
is something that God actually wants, and therefore
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they're doing something that will actually increase
21:03
their chances of going to heaven rather than
21:06
decreasing them. A long answer, but I hope that
21:10
makes sense. Absolutely fascinating. But you
21:12
said that medieval warriors would be fighting
21:15
and obviously killing people, and then they would
21:17
be praying. and asking for forgiveness afterwards.
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Does that go for, like, if they were killing
21:22
fellow Christians and non -Christians? They're
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particularly concerned about killing Christians.
21:29
Okay. All right. Because they were obviously
21:31
fighting already in Spain and Eastern Europe
21:34
and so forth. There's various wars against pagan
21:36
or Islamic societies, but there's also a lot
21:39
of fighting within Christendom too, and they're
21:41
particularly concerned about that. Right, right.
21:43
Makes sense. What led, we mentioned him a couple
21:47
of times already, but what led Pope Urban II
21:49
then to finally declare the First Crusade? Were
21:53
the reasons truly religious? You said people
21:55
were honestly religious. Or can we assume that,
22:00
you know, good old Urban had other, perhaps a
22:03
bit more Game of Thrones sort of aims on his
22:05
mind as well? Both can be true at the same time,
22:08
right? Yeah, this in many ways is... is that
22:14
the classic question why did urban launch the
22:16
crusade and it's the problem is that is that
22:20
he does tell us but he gives different reasons
22:23
and when he launched the crusade at the council
22:26
of claremont in july 1095 in his we have several
22:31
versions of the sermon he gave launching the
22:35
crusade but the problem is that those different
22:37
versions give different reasons because different
22:41
people attending his sermon wrote down different
22:43
things. He didn't write it himself. He didn't
22:46
write it himself. So we've only got what other
22:48
people said about it. Some of them were present
22:51
and some of them heard his sermon from the reports
22:54
of others. And we don't know. Are they reporting
22:58
exactly what they said? Is he sort of there with
23:01
their pens, writing it down as he's saying it?
23:03
Or are they giving their own version on what
23:05
they think it's about? It's difficult to say.
23:07
But safe to assume that the ones who were there
23:10
are a bit more legitimate than the ones that...
23:12
just heard it afterwards right we hope so all
23:15
right it's difficult to say but there are various
23:18
reasons that make a lot of sense when viewed
23:22
from urban zone agenda so factor one i've mentioned
23:27
already that back centuries before the western
23:29
roman empire fell to all those various peoples
23:33
who crossed the rhine frontier and then into
23:37
the western roman empire but the eastern roman
23:40
empire So that's what would be Greece, the Balkans,
23:44
Anatolia, the Aegean Sea region. That survived
23:48
as the Byzantine Empire. And the Byzantine Empire
23:52
survived for centuries until the 15th century.
23:57
But directly before the First Crusade, the Byzantine
24:01
Empire came under heavy attack because there
24:05
was an enormous migration out of Central Asia.
24:11
by various Turkish peoples who advanced out of
24:14
areas that today would be sort of Turkmenistan,
24:16
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, that sort of area, advancing
24:19
south into Persia, Iraq, and then moving westwards
24:24
into Syria, a massive movement of people. And
24:28
they conquered much of the Islamic territory
24:31
in the Middle East, but they also moved south
24:35
into Anatolia, modern -day Turkey. taking an
24:40
enormous amount of territory. Now, that territory
24:42
belonged to the Byzantine Empire at that time,
24:45
and so the Byzantine Empire is losing land very,
24:48
very rapidly, and there's a series of battlefield
24:51
defeats as well. So the Byzantines are enormously
24:54
worried, and they send a series of envoys back
24:57
to Western Europe asking for help. And some nobles
25:02
set out. Twenty years before the First Crusade,
25:06
Urban II's predecessor, Gregory VII, tried to
25:10
launch a holy war to try and support Byzantium,
25:14
but got very little support. And so there is
25:18
this ongoing need in the eyes of the church to
25:21
raise forces to protect Byzantium. That's one
25:27
factor. Another factor is Jerusalem itself. There's
25:31
been a growing trend of pilgrims going in large
25:34
numbers. to Jerusalem and the Christians in Jerusalem
25:39
themselves are in a very awkward position because
25:42
on one hand you have the advancing Turks moving
25:45
in to Syria and then pushing south down towards
25:48
Jerusalem and then in Egypt you have a Muslim
25:51
empire called the Fatimid Empire and Jerusalem,
25:55
the area around it, becomes a frontier of war
25:58
between the Seljuk Turks, the Seljuks being the
26:00
leading Turkish dynasty in the northeast, and
26:03
the Fatimids in the southwest, and Jerusalem
26:05
is right on the front line. So there's a lot
26:08
of persecution, a lot of suffering, a lot of
26:10
fighting in the Jerusalem area. The persecution
26:14
comes quite a bit before the first crusade, but
26:16
nonetheless, the Christians in Jerusalem are
26:19
suffering a great deal because of the upheavals
26:21
of conflict. And they begin to ask for help there
26:25
too. And returning pilgrims report what the Christians
26:28
in Jerusalem are suffering. And that news also
26:31
gets back. So there's a lot of messengers coming
26:33
either from Jerusalem or the Byzantine Empire
26:36
asking for help. But Urban's got other problems
26:40
as well. Urban knows that in southern France
26:44
and other parts of Christendom, there's a huge
26:47
amount of infighting. Knightly families fighting
26:51
each other, petty lords fighting out their vendettas.
26:54
And Urban himself knows this very well. He's
26:58
the son. of a French aristocratic family. So
27:02
he's been raised as a child in this environment.
27:05
He knows how violent it is. And it's his belief
27:09
that Christians killing Christians in this way
27:11
is utterly unacceptable in the eyes of God and
27:15
has to stop. But the church's attempts to try
27:18
and limit the violence in southern France particularly
27:20
haven't been very successful. And so perhaps...
27:26
The crusade is a way of him taking all those
27:28
fighting knights and sending them to go and do
27:31
something else that he at least believes to be
27:34
more acceptable in the eyes of God. And, sorry
27:39
for your patience, there's even more here. Urban's
27:42
also got even bigger problems or additional problems.
27:46
He is facing an anti -pope, so a rival pope,
27:49
who has been raised by the German emperor, Emperor
27:54
Henry. henry iv and henry iv wants this rival
27:59
pope to become pope and so urban is fighting
28:02
for his own position and so the crusade wasn't
28:07
directed against the german emperor or against
28:10
his rival pope but it might be a way for him
28:12
to assert his authority as the main religious
28:15
authority in western christendom now where exactly
28:20
which within those factors is the most important
28:23
exactly which urban considered to be the most
28:27
central idea for launching the crusade we don't
28:32
entirely know but these seem to be the factors
28:34
in orbit around his thinking when he came to
28:37
launch the crusade If I'm not mistaken, on top
28:42
of everything else that you've just outlined,
28:44
there's the Great Schism, the big split between
28:46
the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
28:48
Happened when? Like 50 years before the events
28:51
we're discussing right now? Yes. So what's called
28:54
the Great Schism is often linked to an event
28:58
where a papal legate, a church representative
29:01
from the Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Patriarch
29:05
in Constantinople, the main religious authority.
29:07
of the Byzantine Empire when they mutually excommunicated
29:10
each other. But in fact, that was fairly short
29:13
-lived. The relationship wasn't broken at that
29:17
point, although it was a major issue. But there
29:21
is growing friction, there's a growing separation
29:24
between the Catholic Church centred in Rome and
29:29
what will become the Orthodox Church centred
29:31
in Constantinople, the centre of the Orthodox
29:34
Church of the Byzantine Empire. And the relationship
29:37
is strained. So yes, certainly if Urban were
29:41
to send troops to support the Byzantine Empire,
29:45
that might go some way to healing the emerging
29:50
rift between them. So yes, that could be a sort
29:53
of a LinkedIn motive connected to supporting
29:57
the Byzantine Empire against the advancing Turkish
29:59
forces. I see. So the separation was not complete
30:03
at that time. yet because i was like okay these
30:06
guys are clearly not bffs anymore and yet the
30:09
west excuse me is responding uh with uh with
30:13
the crusade but by the way what's the role of
30:15
the byzantium king alexios the first what's his
30:19
role in all this so yeah he's calling for help
30:22
okay he calls for help repeatedly before the
30:26
crusade and in fact a few months before urban
30:29
launches the crusade himself At an earlier church
30:32
council in Piacenza in northern Italy, Alexius'
30:37
representatives arrive and specifically ask the
30:40
Pope for military assistance. So this is a very
30:43
live issue for the papacy at this time. But again,
30:48
there's a range of factors. What exactly Urban
30:52
was thinking, we don't entirely know. Okay. All
30:56
right, so when the Pope's proclamation about
30:59
the Crusades reaches various courts, as well
31:02
as, I don't know, town markets, peasant villages,
31:04
whatever, what's the response like? Is everybody
31:08
unanimously enthusiastic about this idea, or
31:12
are there people who are not so keen? It's an
31:16
incredible response, because at this time, Western
31:18
Christendom, Western Europe, it's not that big.
31:22
Its population is probably only in the tens of
31:24
millions. And yet it's estimated that there may
31:28
be as many as maybe 200 ,000 people who went
31:31
on the first crusade. Now, if modern day population
31:35
of Europe, I think is something over 300 million.
31:38
But proportionately, if that number of people
31:40
went today, we would definitely notice that would
31:43
be a mass movement. So a large number of people
31:48
went. There may have been critics and there is
31:51
certainly people who criticize the hysteria that.
31:54
emerged around the launch of the crusade and
31:58
the first crusaders as they began to marshal
32:01
their armies they in many cases those those gathering
32:04
armies also persecuted many jewish communities
32:07
in western europe which is another exceptionally
32:10
violent and tragic moment of the crusade and
32:15
there too there is criticism of that the church
32:17
doesn't want these the jewish communities to
32:20
be persecuted the church places jewish communities
32:22
under its protection So there is criticism of
32:27
the Crusade, but the basic idea that Christians
32:30
can wage holy war, there is surprisingly little
32:33
concern raised about that at the time, at least
32:36
in the surviving sources. But here we may be
32:39
a little bit in the area of seeing history in
32:45
hindsight, because most of the sources describing
32:48
the First Crusade were written after the Crusade.
32:52
In fact, virtually all. And so they all knew
32:55
the crusade did manage to march thousands of
32:58
miles through Eastern Europe, the Byzantine Empire,
33:01
and the Middle East, and it did conquer Jerusalem.
33:05
And to their mind, the fact that it was so successful,
33:08
when from a military perspective, it really shouldn't
33:11
have been successful. I mean, it's a very, it's
33:14
an incredibly ambitious undertaking. It shouldn't
33:18
have succeeded, but it did, from a military perspective.
33:22
And for many people, that is incontestable truth
33:26
that God did want this to happen. And so that
33:30
will probably have played a role in silencing
33:32
criticism because people could just say in response,
33:35
well, if God didn't want this to happen, why
33:37
was the crusade able to conquer Jerusalem? By
33:41
the way, I just thought of this. What did most
33:44
or let's say the educated medieval folks in Europe
33:47
know or imagine about Islam? How did they perceive
33:51
this religion? And I imagine certain places,
33:53
I mean, in Spain, they were fighting against
33:56
the Muslims. But what do they think of Islam?
33:59
That's a great question. And the answer is not
34:02
necessarily what you'd expect. They know virtually
34:05
nothing about it. And they're not interested
34:08
either. Okay. Obviously, as you say, in Spain
34:14
and Portugal, their knowledge is better because
34:17
they're far closer. to neighboring Muslim societies.
34:21
To some extent, the same is true in southern
34:23
Italy as well, because many Italian ports conduct
34:26
trade with North Africa and the Middle East.
34:29
But those areas aside, there is surprisingly
34:32
little knowledge. And in fact, it's notable.
34:37
that when many of the crusaders went on crusade,
34:40
many knights wrote legal documents doing things
34:44
like arranging for their property or settling
34:47
disputes or perhaps making a gift to a local
34:50
monastery before they set out on a crusade. And
34:53
many of these documents briefly summarize what
34:56
they think they're doing. So it might be a document
34:59
on which they say, I, Averard, husband of Sibylla.
35:05
and going on the journey to Jerusalem. They didn't
35:08
call it a crusade, that comes later. And then
35:12
briefly, he might say what he thinks he's going
35:14
to do. And notably, the overwhelming majority
35:18
of those sources say that they think they're
35:22
going to fight pagans. The term they use, the
35:26
Latin term is paganos, which doesn't mean pagan
35:29
in the modern sense. In the medieval context,
35:32
it just means unbaptized. So as far as they're
35:35
concerned, they're going to fight non -Christians.
35:38
They have virtually no idea who they're going
35:41
to fight, apart from the fact they're not Christians.
35:44
And even 30 years after the first crusade, you
35:49
have an English chronicler who feels it necessary
35:52
to explain to his readers, and this is after
35:55
thousands of crusaders have returned home, that
35:58
he has to explain to his readers that the Muslims
36:02
in the Middle East are not the same as the pagan
36:07
peoples in the Baltic region. They believe different
36:10
things. And this is the extent to which they
36:13
don't know what's... out there in the wider world
36:17
then their grasp of the broader context of the
36:20
world is surprisingly limited and so the crusade
36:24
in many ways for the vast majority of participants
36:27
was not waged against islam because they have
36:29
virtually no idea what islam is but they do know
36:33
they're going to fight non -christians i mean
36:36
i'm sorry but it is a bit amusing when you said
36:39
that not only do they not know who they're going
36:41
to be fighting but they're not interested at
36:43
all This is about Jerusalem. Their goal is Jerusalem.
36:49
They're not really seeking to fight any particular
36:52
religion or to fight any particular people. And
36:56
in fact, during the Crusade, the Crusaders are
36:58
perfectly happy to work with Muslim powers. They
37:02
do it all the time. They form all sorts of alliances.
37:04
This is about Jerusalem itself. They want Jerusalem.
37:08
And that's what they're fighting to achieve.
37:10
I mean, what did the Pope say? Like, who are
37:13
you going to be fighting? This is very difficult
37:17
to say because the Crusaders' main opponent was
37:21
the Seljuk Turks. And the Seljuk Turks themselves
37:25
were within a process of conversion to Islam.
37:28
They hadn't fully converted to Islam by this
37:30
point. In their origins, the Seljuk Turks were
37:34
mostly shamanistic. They were nomadic Central
37:37
Asian people. And it's not really until about
37:40
50 or 60 or 70 years after the Crusade. the Seljuk
37:44
Turks have sort of fully converted to Islam.
37:48
By the time of the First Crusade, many Seljuk
37:50
Turks are still doing things like burying their
37:53
dead with grave goods to serve them in the afterlife,
37:56
or they're conducting massive drinking binges,
37:59
which of course would not be permitted in Islam,
38:01
but which is entirely normal for Central Asian
38:04
steppe culture. So their main enemy, the Seljuk
38:07
Turks themselves, are not actually fully converted
38:10
to Islam by this time. So even that's more complicated.
38:14
Right. Because I wanted to ask you what's happening
38:17
in the Muslim world just before the Crusaders
38:20
show up in the Middle East. But I guess this
38:22
question is a bit irrelevant now. Well, it's
38:25
worth going over because about 100 years before
38:30
the First Crusade, The Middle East, from Afghanistan
38:34
in the east all the way across to the borders
38:39
of Egypt, they form part of the Abbasid Caliphate,
38:44
an enormous Sunni Muslim caliphate, and it's
38:50
under a single ruler based in Baghdad. But the
38:53
Abbasid Caliphate is falling apart, and increasingly
38:57
its regions are falling under the control of
39:00
specific Arab, or Kurdish, or Persian dynasties
39:04
who are ruling the individual areas. So it's
39:07
fragmenting. And then into this situation, there
39:12
is the massive migration of the Seljuk Turks
39:15
who overthrow everything. And they're not gentle.
39:19
This is a military overthrow. There's a series
39:22
of battles. The Seljuk Turks conquer and conquer
39:24
again. And they take power across the Abbasid
39:28
Caliphate. and impose their authority on the
39:31
region. And in the process, they displace and
39:35
they overthrow Kurdish leaders, Arab leaders.
39:39
So in the area that the Crusaders will conquer,
39:42
they overthrow Byzantine rulers in Anatolia,
39:46
and they overthrow Arab, Armenian, and Kurdish
39:50
rulers in Syria, southern Anatolia. And they
39:53
do this only about 20 years before the First
39:56
Crusade. When people talk about the Crusaders
39:59
attacking or fighting Muslims, what the Crusaders
40:03
are actually fighting for the most part, the
40:06
people they're fighting, are Turkish peoples
40:10
who have only just conquered the Middle East
40:12
and are themselves only part way through a conversion
40:15
to Islam. And so, as you can see, it's a lot
40:18
more complicated than it's typically given. The
40:22
Crusaders are normally presented as a straightforward...
40:25
battle between a clash of civilizations christianity
40:29
islam it's much more complicated than that jumping
40:34
back to europe for a second so the pope declares
40:37
the first crusade and then there if i understand
40:40
it correctly there are immediately two separate
40:42
expeditions that are organized uh the so -called
40:45
people's crusade uh and the princess crusade
40:49
so one for folks without money and one for the
40:51
more loaded aristocracy. How come they're not
40:54
just doing one big thing? Right. So the papacy
40:57
loses control over the crusade almost immediately.
41:00
Okay. The papacy has no army of its own. It has
41:05
no real way to organize or to manage the crusaders.
41:10
And that's why when the crusaders begin to gather
41:13
their armies, often they attack Jewish communities
41:16
in various cities across Western Christendom.
41:21
even though the church doesn't want that to happen
41:23
because the church has already lost control.
41:25
And because there's so little organization, the
41:29
papacy does send a legate to try and provide
41:32
some leadership, though in fact his authority
41:34
is not total at all. Because there's so little
41:39
organization, groups begin to set out for Jerusalem
41:42
in sort of different groups. There's not a single
41:47
army that forms and marches. There are a whole
41:50
series of armies that march at different times.
41:53
And many of them don't even get to Constantinople.
41:56
In some cases, the Crusaders cause so much disruption
41:58
and so much chaos that the Crusaders are actually
42:02
stopped from entering, for example, the Kingdom
42:04
of Hungary. They just won't let some Crusaders
42:06
in because they're too rebellious, they're too
42:09
violent. And why would the King of Hungary let
42:11
people like that into his kingdom? Other groups
42:14
do march successfully through Byzantium, and
42:18
they do in time sort of gather into, as you say,
42:21
the two big waves of the crusade. The first,
42:25
the People's Crusade, it does contain some nobles,
42:28
but there's also a lot of non -combatant pilgrims
42:32
and people who have just joined who aren't from
42:34
an aristocratic background. And that crusade
42:37
is destroyed almost immediately on entering Anatolia,
42:41
Turkish territory. with an enormous slaughter.
42:45
And in many ways, this is the most predictable
42:47
outcome of the crusade because the warriors of
42:51
Western Christendom marching in these crusading
42:53
armies, many of the people in their ranks are
42:57
not there to fight. They're just there as pilgrims.
43:00
They don't have the capacity to feed themselves.
43:03
Of course, there's no tinned food and there's
43:05
no supply lines. The food they're carrying won't
43:08
last for more than a week, maximum two weeks.
43:11
So they're always hungry. And they've got to
43:14
feed thousands of people and horses and all the
43:17
rest of it. And of course, they've never fought
43:19
the Turks before. And the Turks themselves fight
43:21
in the nomadic fashion, which they've never encountered.
43:25
And so in many ways, getting slaughtered immediately
43:27
is by far the most likely scenario. What's so
43:31
much more remarkable is that when the next major
43:33
wave begins to gather outside Constantinople.
43:36
It's called the Prince's Crusade. In fact, the
43:39
Prince's Crusade is a series of separate expeditions
43:41
that then sort of gather together in Constantinople
43:45
as the capital of the Byzantine Empire and then
43:47
cross into Turkish -ruled Anatolia. This is,
43:53
from a military perspective, it's remarkable
43:55
that that expedition ever got more than a few
43:59
miles into Turkish territory, let alone managing
44:01
to cross Anatolia, Syria, and then push its way
44:05
all the way south to Jerusalem. From a military
44:07
perspective, it shouldn't have succeeded, but
44:10
it did. And that's a very interesting question.
44:13
We're going to talk about that in a second. But,
44:16
I mean, like you said, famously, as the Crusaders
44:20
are making their way to Anatolia, they're not
44:23
all behaving like a league of gentlemen, like
44:25
not exactly a bunch of fairytale knights in action
44:28
a lot of the time, right? In fact, they're wreaking
44:29
havoc in much of... Eastern Europe pillaging
44:33
sometimes, like you said, even massacring local
44:35
populations, especially Jewish ones. I mean,
44:38
is that the first group, like the paupers crusade,
44:44
or is that mainly the second group? It's a mixture.
44:48
The first group seems to have been particularly
44:51
out of control and violent. And there's lots
44:55
of reports of violence. And whether that's because
44:58
they were inherently violent isn't clear. Although,
45:00
of course, much of the violence may simply have
45:03
reflected the fact that they're starving because
45:05
they can't carry enough food to feed themselves.
45:07
So they will then be faced with the fact that
45:10
they either have to take that food or starve.
45:13
And you have Byzantine cities closing their gates
45:17
to the Crusaders because they just don't want
45:19
to let them inside the city because they are
45:20
too concerned about the dangers that would pose.
45:23
But that, of course, will only make the problem
45:25
worse in a sense because it will only increase
45:27
their starvation. So there are various factors
45:32
in play. The later crusading armies led by dukes
45:36
and counts, people like Duke Godfrey of Bouillon
45:38
or Count Raymond of Toulouse, these are a bit
45:42
better organized. But the violence goes both
45:44
ways, too. There are also attacks on pilgrims,
45:47
not just by pilgrims, because in many ways, pilgrim
45:51
groups a long way from home. carrying money to
45:54
buy food and supplies for themselves. That's
45:57
very tempting for local aristocrats or bandits
46:02
to attack because they can be so easily stolen
46:06
from. So all of these reasons create violence.
46:11
So yeah, there is a fair amount of violence going
46:12
on. But why are they specifically targeting Jewish
46:16
communities? This happens mostly in Western Christendom.
46:20
And it's a good question, not least because the
46:23
church tries to prevent it. In some cases, the
46:27
Crusaders seem to have been trying to bring about
46:30
forced conversion, trying to force the Jews to
46:33
convert to Christianity. In some cases, it's
46:35
because they want to take their wealth or property.
46:37
So in order to gather money to go on a crusade,
46:40
they try and take it from the Jewish populations
46:42
near to their own towns or cities. But these
46:48
seem to have been the motives. It may also simply
46:51
be the fact that often when you have large numbers
46:54
of very violent people gathering together against
46:57
a background of hysteria, that can lead very
47:01
naturally to, well, not naturally, but it can
47:03
lead to violence fairly swiftly, almost organically,
47:07
if you see what I mean. Okay, so this first group,
47:11
I mean, this is amazing stuff. This first group
47:13
of a ragtag army full of pilgrims and people
47:17
who are not professional warriors. makes its
47:20
way up to Constantinople, and then they're stuck
47:23
outside of the city's walls, and they're hungry,
47:26
they're starving, they don't have supplies. I
47:30
mean, what happens next there, before we go to
47:32
the kind of real army? What happens to the first
47:35
group? You did say they get annihilated, but
47:37
what happens? Well, this is a bit complicated.
47:43
Let's look at this from the Byzantine Empire's
47:45
perspective. I mean, he did call them, didn't
47:47
he? He called them. In a sense, he asked for
47:51
this. This is what he wanted. Probably not seeing
47:55
what he was expecting, though, with the first
47:56
group, right? Well, that's it. He asked for help.
47:59
I suspect what Alexius was expecting was perhaps
48:04
a few thousand trained knights, not tens of thousands
48:07
of people, some of whom were armed, some of whom
48:12
weren't armed, under very limited control. And
48:16
so, in a sense, Alexius asked for something and
48:17
got something rather different. So his agenda
48:21
really is to get them into Anatolia away from
48:25
his own territory fairly quickly. And so he ships
48:29
them across the Bosphorus. The Bosphorus is a
48:33
sea lane connecting the Aegean Sea to the Black
48:36
Sea. And so he gets them across the Bosphorus
48:38
as soon as possible and sends them on their way.
48:41
Because quite honestly, why would he want them
48:43
outside his own capital city? And they just go
48:47
willingly? Well, their goal is Jerusalem. Right,
48:51
okay. But without supplies and food? That's what
48:55
I mean. They probably took what they could, but
48:59
they've been surviving without supplies for a
49:01
long time. And yeah, there's very little mention
49:05
of that kind of thing. I suspect they just set
49:08
out. Perhaps they thought they would be able
49:11
to loot or pillage what they needed on the way,
49:13
but they got annihilated instead. Right. Okay.
49:16
And then let's stay with this group because this
49:18
is really, really fascinating. Once they cross,
49:22
do they just get immediately like spotted by
49:25
the Seljuk Turks and just annihilated in a day?
49:28
Or does this, yeah, this go any longer? The Seljuk
49:33
Sultan of Anatolia is called Kilij Aslan I. And
49:40
at this point, he's fighting a rival Turkish
49:43
dynasty called the Danish Mended Turks. And he's
49:47
hundreds of miles away from the Byzantine border
49:49
at that specific moment. But he rushes back as
49:53
soon as he hears of the advance of what we know
49:57
as the People's Crusade. And yes, he annihilates
50:01
the army very, very quickly in a series of running
50:04
battles. And only a handful of survivors manage
50:07
to withdraw back to Byzantine territory. Okay,
50:11
we have finally arrived at the horse riding and
50:13
sword wielding part. We have teased at the beginning
50:16
with the Prince's Crusade now. Big question,
50:20
I know. But could you please outline some of
50:22
the major battle engagements of the First Crusade?
50:25
So the People's Crusade is destroyed. The Prince's
50:28
Crusade, as it's later on known, arrives at Constantinople.
50:32
And they form an agreement with Emperor Alexius.
50:36
Essentially, the agreement is that Alexius will
50:39
support them and provide them with supplies.
50:42
And in exchange, the Crusaders will agree to
50:46
return any formerly Byzantine cities that they
50:50
capture. So if a city used to belong to the Byzantine
50:53
Empire, the Crusaders, if they capture it, will
50:55
give it back. Apologies, just a quick question.
50:59
Do the leaders of the Princess Crusade know what
51:02
happened to the so -called People's Crusade?
51:05
Do they get any intel from that? Okay. They do,
51:07
and the handful of survivors merges into their
51:10
ranks. Right. So then the Prince's Crusade advances
51:15
into Anatolia, where they besiege the city of
51:18
Nicaea, which is a city the Byzantines lost very
51:21
recently. And at Nicaea, the Crusaders begin
51:27
to attack the city, and when it becomes clear
51:30
the city can't survive... The Turkish garrison
51:33
negotiates with the Byzantines, not with the
51:35
Crusaders. And in a sort of a nighttime maneuver,
51:41
the Seljuk garrison evacuates the city. A Byzantine
51:45
garrison comes in and then refuses entry to the
51:49
Crusaders, who are then not impressed. I can
51:52
imagine. It is the first phase of the Crusade.
51:55
The Crusaders then advance across Anatolia. That's
51:58
modern -day Turkey. winning a series of battles
52:01
against the local Turkish forces. And following
52:07
a few weeks behind the crusade is the Byzantines'
52:11
main field army, reconquering all this territory
52:14
themselves. Convenient, yeah. They're like a
52:18
snow cloud. They push a route through Turkish
52:21
terrestry, and the Byzantine Empire then gathers
52:23
up all their conquers behind them. Okay, Alexios.
52:28
Play this masterfully, if I may say so, up until
52:30
this point. Indeed, and the Crusaders fully understand
52:34
this. So then they reach northern Syria. And
52:39
in northern Syria, there's a big city called
52:40
Antioch, which again used to be a Byzantine city
52:44
only a little over a decade before. And in an
52:49
eight -month siege, the Crusaders besiege and
52:52
conquer Antioch. And all the local Turkish commanders
52:56
try to lift the siege. So there's three major
53:00
relief armies sent to try and drive the crusaders
53:03
away from Antioch. And the crusaders defeat them
53:06
one after the other in a running series of encounters.
53:11
And the crusaders then take Antioch. Now, when
53:16
they do this. Crucially, the Crusaders refused
53:20
to return Antioch to Byzantine control. And their
53:25
argument is that Emperor Alexius has already
53:29
broken his vow, his oath, in their view, because
53:33
he should have supported them outside Antioch,
53:36
but they consider the support they received to
53:39
have been inadequate. And so they think the oath
53:42
is broken. They're not going to return the city
53:44
to him. And so Prince Beaumont... He's currently
53:48
Bermond of Taranto. He becomes Prince Bermond
53:52
of Antioch. He takes Antioch for himself. And
53:57
this is one of the earliest Crusader states,
54:01
essentially a permanent conquest made by the
54:05
Crusaders in the Middle East, created in 1098,
54:10
and it will survive until 1268. So over a century
54:14
and a half of history. following that initial
54:16
conquest. And during the siege of Antioch to
54:20
the northeast, the crusaders are invited into
54:24
the city of Edessa by the city's population who
54:29
want to get rid of the Turks. And they're invited
54:32
in and they take power in Edessa. They seem to
54:35
have sort of strong -armed themselves into authority.
54:38
And Edessa also becomes a crusader state, the
54:41
county of Edessa. After this, the Crusaders advance
54:46
south, a fairly peaceful march in many respects.
54:52
They're moving into the borderland zone between
54:55
Seljuk Turkish territory and Egyptian Fatimid
55:00
territory. And crucially, the Fatimids up to
55:04
this point have been broadly supportive of the
55:07
Crusaders because the Seljuk Turks are their
55:10
great enemy. And the Crusaders are destroying
55:13
all the Seljuk Turks' armies. So why wouldn't
55:15
they support the Crusaders? And the Crusaders,
55:18
to their point, they support the Fatimids because
55:20
they see a chance for an alliance. But it all
55:24
falls apart in 1099 because during the Crusaders'
55:30
siege of Antioch, the Fatimids march out from
55:33
Egypt and conquer Jerusalem. They'd formerly
55:36
owned it and they've conquered it from the Turks
55:39
because they can see... The Turks are struggling
55:42
so much because they're being defeated over and
55:44
over again by the Crusaders. And so when the
55:48
Crusaders learn this, they say, well, look, we're
55:50
marching to Jerusalem. We're not going to stop.
55:54
And the Fatimids say, well, look, we've taken
55:56
Jerusalem. We're not going to hand it back. Or
55:59
we're not going to hand it to you, I should say.
56:01
And so there is a series of diplomatic negotiations
56:06
that take place as the Crusaders advance on Jerusalem.
56:10
And the Fatimids say, well, look, our best offer
56:13
to you, the Crusaders, is that we will let you
56:17
visit Jerusalem. You can pray at the Christian
56:20
shrines, but then you must go home. And the Crusaders,
56:24
their counteroffer is they say to the Fatimids,
56:28
we will help you to conquer every city you ever
56:32
lost to the Seljuk Turks, but we want Jerusalem.
56:39
Ultimately, neither side can reach a compromise.
56:42
And so it's going to be war. The Crusaders advance
56:45
on Jerusalem. They conquer Jerusalem. And there
56:49
is then a very bloody massacre. There's a series
56:51
of massacres in Jerusalem when the Crusaders
56:54
conquer the city. Right. We're going to talk
56:56
about that. But I wanted to ask, what did a typical
57:00
battle between the Christian forces and the Seljuk
57:04
Turks look like? Are they even fighting in the
57:07
same way? I mean, these guys probably have seen
57:12
each other for the first time, you know, at least
57:14
at the beginning. So this must be really odd
57:16
for some of them. The Crusaders have never encountered
57:20
anything like the Seljuk Turks armies. And for
57:24
the Seljuk Turks, they have encountered similar
57:26
armies, but not the same. And they're very, very
57:30
different. So Western Europe is an agricultural
57:32
society. You have farmers. Then you have knights
57:36
and you have nobles, very simply, and their armies
57:40
reflect this. They have large numbers of infantry
57:43
who are from fairly poor families, so they can't
57:48
afford very good equipment, and they march to
57:50
battle on foot. They'll probably have spears,
57:53
a shield. The wealthier will be able to afford
57:56
a crossbow or perhaps a helmet, but they're not
58:00
that well armoured. They fight on foot. The landowners,
58:04
the knights, They're wealthier. They can afford
58:07
more. They can afford a war horse, a chainmail
58:10
suit, a hauberk as it's known, a helmet, and
58:14
they will have a lance, a shield, a sword. They're
58:17
better equipped. So the way Western Europe fights
58:20
reflects its social structure. And so they march
58:25
into battle with small contingents of knights
58:28
and large contingents of foot soldiers. Essentially,
58:33
knights... from the aristocracy and foot soldiers
58:38
from artisans from a city or farmers from the
58:43
countryside. Seljuk Turks are totally different.
58:46
They come from Central Asia and they are nomadic
58:51
for the most part and their lives previously
58:55
were moving flocks of sheep and herds of goats
58:59
and horses from summer to winter grazing. And
59:03
they move in tents from one area of grazing to
59:06
another. And because they're nomadic, they raise
59:09
their children to ride and shoot bows and arrows
59:13
and to hunt from a very early age. Now, that's
59:18
their basic way of life. And everyone's raised
59:21
the same way. But of course, these are all skills
59:25
with excellent military applications. If you
59:29
have a society where everyone is raised to ride
59:33
and ride in cooperation with other people, and
59:38
they're all excellent shots with a bow and arrow,
59:41
and they're all extremely skilled at hunting,
59:45
then this is going to be a very effective military
59:47
society. And so this then sets up the military
59:52
confrontation between the Crusaders and the Seljuk
59:56
Turks. Crusaders, heavily armoured. Metal weapons,
1:00:01
metal armor, but slow. Most of their army marching
1:00:04
on foot. Quite rigidly disciplined in battle,
1:00:08
so blocks of infantry formed as units, protecting
1:00:12
blocks of cavalry. And then you have the Seljuk
1:00:15
Turks. Very dynamic, much, much faster moving,
1:00:20
but not as heavily armored. So the Seljuk Turks
1:00:24
tend to avoid close combat. Their horses, in
1:00:27
many cases, don't have horseshoes. So their horses
1:00:32
can't bear a heavily armored rider. Their rider
1:00:35
has to be lightly armored. So Western European
1:00:39
armies, they want to enter close combat quickly
1:00:42
because that's where their strengths will begin
1:00:44
to show an advantage. And they realize this immediately.
1:00:48
They learn this very quickly. The Seljuk Turks,
1:00:53
they don't want to enter close combat. What they
1:00:56
want to do is to act a little bit like a flock
1:00:58
of birds around the Crusading Army. Different
1:01:01
companies all the way around the Crusading Army
1:01:04
charge in, shoot a few volleys of arrows for
1:01:09
maybe 100 meters, and then withdraw. And then
1:01:13
just keep doing that over and over again until
1:01:16
the Crusading Army gets bored, gets depleted,
1:01:20
runs out of supplies, does something stupid,
1:01:22
and then they've got them. And yet the Crusaders
1:01:26
keep winning battles against these people who
1:01:29
are trained from birth, who all know how to shoot.
1:01:32
I mean, how is that possible? That's a great
1:01:35
question. And certainly one of the things that
1:01:36
I think characterizes the medieval period as
1:01:39
a whole, not just to the Crusades, but for Eurasia
1:01:43
as a continent, is just how much more effective
1:01:47
nomadic armies are in almost all cases to the
1:01:51
armies raised by agricultural societies. They're
1:01:53
faster. Their adult population is almost all
1:01:57
trained to fight, and they have incredible skills,
1:02:01
particularly with the bow. And so until the advent
1:02:04
of advanced gunpowder weapons, nomadic armies
1:02:07
are more effective than pretty much anywhere
1:02:08
else. What makes the Crusaders so effective is
1:02:13
a number of things. The first one is we do need
1:02:16
to take seriously that they are exceptionally
1:02:19
religiously motivated. They're zealous. And extreme
1:02:24
motivation has, again, military applications.
1:02:30
If you're fighting someone who's not going to
1:02:32
stop and who, more importantly, has no way of
1:02:34
getting home, once they've crossed into Anatolia,
1:02:37
there's no retreat for them or for the majority
1:02:40
of them. They've got nowhere to go. These are
1:02:43
all strengths from an ideological perspective.
1:02:47
But they also have some very effective commanders.
1:02:51
most notably the Norman commander, Bohemond of
1:02:54
Taranto. And the way that he conducts many of
1:02:58
his battles is that when he learns of the advance
1:03:02
of a Turkish army, he will lead out possibly
1:03:06
no more than 700 knights, no infantry, and take
1:03:11
them to a hidden location on the line of march
1:03:16
of the advancing Turkish army. And he'll lead
1:03:19
them out at night. So no one knows that they're
1:03:22
doing this. And then he will wait for the Turkish
1:03:25
army to advance, say, under a hill where his
1:03:28
forces are hidden on the other side of the hill.
1:03:30
And then as soon as it's first light, he'll charge
1:03:33
down and attack them suddenly. Because he knows
1:03:36
if he can get the Turkish army into close combat,
1:03:39
he'll probably win. So a night march and a sudden
1:03:43
dawn charge, a lot of the crusaders' early victories
1:03:47
are achieved by that method. because they know
1:03:51
that in a conventional military encounter, it'll
1:03:54
be much, much more difficult for them because
1:03:56
the Seljuk Turks simply will not accept going
1:03:59
into hand -to -hand combat. They're all on horses,
1:04:01
whereas the Crusaders are mostly on foot, and
1:04:04
they'll simply avoid the Crusaders and carry
1:04:07
on shooting at them. So the Crusade commands
1:04:09
are looking at ways of forcing the Seljuk Turks
1:04:13
into close combat. What are the Muslim or maybe
1:04:18
the Seljuk Turk sources saying about the Crusaders
1:04:21
when they first appear in their lands? I mean,
1:04:24
they must have been quite gobsmacked at the site,
1:04:26
at least at the beginning, no? Well, it's so
1:04:29
unexpected. The situation in the Middle East
1:04:35
on the eve of the Crusade is that you have a
1:04:39
longstanding war with the Seljuk Empire, the
1:04:42
Turkish Empire having conquered. most of the
1:04:45
Middle East, fighting this ongoing war with the
1:04:47
front line, the Jerusalem region, against the
1:04:49
Fatimid Empire, which is a Shia Muslim caliphate
1:04:52
in Egypt. They're used to occasional rebellions
1:04:57
against the Seljuk Turks by Arab or Kurdish or
1:05:00
Armenian groups. This is what life looks like
1:05:03
for them. They're also aware of the ongoing war
1:05:06
with Byzantium. This is what normal life looks
1:05:10
like in the politics of the Middle East. But
1:05:13
then suddenly, this massive, massive army arrives
1:05:18
from a society that has never sent an army into
1:05:22
the region, and it threatens to change everything.
1:05:26
So it's the unexpectedness of it. Many makers
1:05:30
don't even know who the Crusaders are. It's one
1:05:32
of the interesting features of the history of
1:05:36
the Crusades that... Muslim intellectuals or
1:05:39
Western European intellectuals, they actually
1:05:41
acquire a much stronger understanding of one
1:05:44
another, of their countries, of their hierarchies,
1:05:48
of their societies, because they're suddenly
1:05:49
in interaction where they hadn't been previously.
1:05:52
So there's a huge element of surprise in all
1:05:55
of this. But then there is the growing sense
1:05:59
that the crusade is conquering huge amounts of
1:06:02
territory. The upheaval, the shock from this
1:06:05
is palpable. Although at the same time, there
1:06:09
are other communities, both Christian communities
1:06:12
in the Middle East, so Eastern Christian, not
1:06:14
Western European Christian communities, and indeed
1:06:17
some Muslim communities in the Middle East, who
1:06:19
see an opportunity in the crusade to rebel against
1:06:25
the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuk Turkish authority
1:06:28
is suddenly very weak with the advance of the
1:06:31
crusades, and Seljuk Turkish authority is also
1:06:34
new. They'd been there for a few decades and
1:06:37
they weren't gently imposing control. And so
1:06:39
there are a series of rebellions or at least
1:06:43
attempts to assert independence by various Eastern
1:06:47
Christian and in some cases Arab Muslim groups
1:06:51
as well. Notably, many Bedouin families ally
1:06:54
with the crusade and do so very early. All right.
1:07:00
Against all odds, the Crusaders actually managed
1:07:03
to find themselves in front of the big prize.
1:07:06
The thing they came all the way from Western
1:07:08
Europe from, the city of Jerusalem, is in front
1:07:11
of them. We know the outcome, but what exactly
1:07:14
happened there? How come they succeed? So Jerusalem
1:07:18
is difficult from a military perspective. There's
1:07:21
virtually no water in the region and they're
1:07:23
attacking it in July. So this is the driest,
1:07:26
hottest period of the year. There are seasonal
1:07:29
springs around Jerusalem that provide some water,
1:07:32
but they've all dried up by this time of year,
1:07:34
or most of them have. So there's virtually no
1:07:36
water. And in fact, Jerusalem in this era depends
1:07:40
on rainwater collected in enormous tanks in the
1:07:45
city's houses for its water. So this is not an
1:07:50
easy place to attack. There's also virtually
1:07:52
no wood. in order to create catapults, siege
1:07:57
towers, the weapons of siege warfare to attack
1:08:00
Jerusalem. So that's how it goes. You don't bring
1:08:03
siege weapons with you all the way from Europe.
1:08:05
No, you make them. You come somewhere and then
1:08:07
you make them. Okay, got it. That's how it works.
1:08:09
But unfortunately for the Fatimid garrison in
1:08:13
Jerusalem, they made a mistake, which is you
1:08:17
may remember that a year before the Crusaders
1:08:19
arrive at Jerusalem, They conquered Jerusalem.
1:08:22
They conquered Jerusalem themselves. And the
1:08:25
Fatimids brought a large stock of timber with
1:08:28
them to make their own siege weapons. But here's
1:08:31
the problem. They forgot to destroy the timber
1:08:35
stacked outside the city. So the Crusaders can
1:08:39
use some of that timber themselves to make their
1:08:42
own siege weapons. But the problems with water,
1:08:46
they don't go away. You hear about some stories
1:08:48
saying that in the early... early mornings some
1:08:52
crusaders used to lick marble statues or lick
1:08:55
marble columns because there's a very slight
1:08:59
condensation from the morning air on the marble
1:09:03
statues that's how desperate they are for water
1:09:06
that doesn't go away but the crusaders build
1:09:10
their siege weapons they make a series of attacks
1:09:12
on jerusalem jerusalem has two lines of walls
1:09:15
they get through the first wall Once they've
1:09:17
cleared a space in the first wall, they then
1:09:20
roll their siege towers against Jerusalem, against
1:09:24
two separate points in the wall. The defenders
1:09:26
destroy one siege tower, but not the other siege
1:09:28
tower. And the crusaders cross into Jerusalem
1:09:32
and massacre the population. And this is a perfect
1:09:37
ending of the first episode. Professor Morton
1:09:39
will be back for part two of this series real,
1:09:43
real soon. So please stay tuned. I can promise
1:09:45
you. A lot more juicy Crusader stuff is yet to
1:09:48
come. So yes, see you in a jiffy. Thank you,
1:09:52
Professor. Thank you. By the way, for those of
1:09:54
you who support me on Patreon, you'll be able
1:09:56
to access the second episode, the audio version,
1:10:00
immediately. But for the rest, I will indeed
1:10:03
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