Bonus: Shields High Ep #2: The First Crusade

of a vast enemy empire. Despite their religious zeal and bravery, this army of Christendom was embarking on what could have been a suicide mission. From a purely military standpoint. They were outmanned and outmatched. They had no idea of the enemy's true strength or will to fight. But death in battle was to be rewarded with the elimination of all penance four sins. The Pope himself had promised no less.

Before they left behind the familiar castles and farms of Europe, the true believers sewed the sign of the Cross onto their shoulders and chests. They called this crucis ignatis for one with the sign of the Cross, from which many decades later we would get the term crusade. And in the year of Our Lord ten ninety five, their initial call to arms in the defense of Christendom would come

to be known as the First Crusade. This religious and military quest marked the first time in centuries that the forces of Christian Europe would strike back at the Muslim conquest that had consumed so much of the known medieval world. The incredible, some would say miraculous, success of the First Crusade would be a harbinger of holy wars to come.

This assemblage of Christian warriors would conquer Jerusalem and set in motion two hundred years of fighting between warring Muslim factions and the Crusader city states that were established by

this counter invasion of Christendom. From a d five to twelve ninety one, the Near East what is currently Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq was enmeshed in crusades and jihad's, But it was the First Crusade, a military invasion against near impossible odds, that shook the Islamic world to its foundations and for the first time in history, allowed the Christian world to

strike at the heart of the Islamic world. Despite what is taught in Western schools today, the Crusades were not an act of wanton cruelty by a bunch of barbarous Christian states. On the contrary, the First Crusade was a response to centuries of Islamic conquest, aggression, and threats. By the dawn of the twelfth century, the expansion of the

Islamic Empire seemed nearly unstoppable. At the time of the First Crusade, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Asia, Minor, Spain, France, Italy, the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica were all Christian territories turned into Muslim ones. In fact, about two thirds of the formerly Christian world at the time of the First Crusade was ruled by Muslims. Had it not been for Charles Martel's heroics at the Battle of Tour in seven thirty two, the forces of Islam would have conquered

the heart of Europe itself. The world as we know it today would be an entirely different place. Western civilization would have been extinguished, replaced with the totalitarianism and despotism of the East. But the victory of Charles the Hammer Martel was only temporary. The Crescent Moon of Islam already reigned over immense domains, and its forces were often literally at the gates of Christendom, just waiting to break through.

On the Iberian Peninsula where modern Spain and Portugal are found, and all the way across to the gates of Constantinople in the east, in what is now the city of Istanbul, Turkey, there was a constant jihadist menace. Islamic raiding parties used the Mediterranean to launch murderous, pillaging assaults. They would kidnap Christians to sell into slavery along the coasts of Italy, France,

and Spain all throughout the medieval period. At the end of the eleventh century, the goal of every caliph, the leader of the Islamic Caliphate was the same, total domination of the Christian world through jihad. It was in response to this threat of spiritual and temporal bondage, this possibility of eternal subjugation, and the extermination of the Christian faith itself. In response to all of that, that the First Crusade

was launched. Finally, an alliance of Christian nobles came together to lead their men to a war unlike anything attempted since the fall of the Roman Empire. It was in fact the inheritors of that Roman Empire, the Byzantines, guardians of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, who said in motion

the events that would lead to the First Crusade. Their rapid decline and the threat of Constantinople's fall, added to the persecution of Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land and the Muslim desecration of religious sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. All of that together finally woke Europe from its slumber. As described by the French historian of the Crusades, Joseph Michaud quote, the Christian faithful had much more to suffer. They were

driven from their houses, insulted in their churches. The tribute which they had to pay to the new masters of Palestine was increased, and they were forbidden to carry arms or to mount on horseback. A leather girdle, which they were never allowed to be without, was the badge of

their servitude. The conqueror would not permit the Christians to speak the Arab tongue sacred to the disciples of the Koran, and the people who remained faithful to Jesus Christ had not liberty even to pronounce the names of the patriarchs, including of Jerusalem itself, without the permission of the Saracens. Other misfortunes awaited the Christians of Palestine. Under Muslim rule, all religious ceremonies were interdicted. The greater part of the

churches were converted into stables. That of the Holy Sepulcher was completely destroyed. The Christians driven from Jerusalem were scattered throughout the countries of the East and quote Christendom was under assault. The Byzantine Empire was under siege and threatening to collapse. The forces of the Cross had to rally. A crusade would be launched to free the Holy Land, and it would take these god fearing Christian Zealots to

the gates of Jerusalem itself. Chapter one besieged Byzantines. Europe through the Dark Ages period of a d. Five hundred to one thousand or so was in chaos. The Dark Ages was an accurate description. There was constant violence among petty nobles, lawlessness, widespread ignorance, and deep superstition. Roads built by ancient Rome were the most useful and well constructed

in Europe until well into the fifteen hundreds. The numerous barbarian tribes who had sacked Rome and dismembered its empire in the fifth century, Huns, Goths, frank Saxons were constantly at each other's throats. The only unifier of what we now call Europe was Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church. The only structures in fact built of stone, and most of northern and western Europe at the time were cathedrals. Many of those cathedrals and churches built atop formerly pagan temples.

It was very rare in this period for anyone outside the clergy to be able to read or write. Charlemagne himself, the great leader who founded the Holy Roman Empire, was illiterate. Books were incredibly valuable. Dialects of language were so different that villages of the same tribe just a few miles apart often had difficulty communicating. During this time, the intellectual, commercial, and cultural pinnacle of the Christian world was found in

the east, a wondrous city of Constantinople. It was the Roman emperor Constantine who, back in a d. Three thirty, became the first Roman empire to recognize Jesus as his Savior, and he made Constantinople, the Roman Empire's second capital, a new Rome. In the years leading up to the First Crusade. In fact, throughout the entire Dark Ages period, the inhabitants of Constantinople thought of themselves as Romans and their crown jewel.

City was also Christianity's most important fortress against the growing menace of Islamic conquest. Constantinople it is among the most important strategic locations in the world. It sits astride a crucial geographic choke point separating the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. With a narrow channel called the hellspont or later the Dardanelles, it can be easily closed off. This is also considered

the gateway to Asia from Europe. After the Islamic advance from Arabia across the Near East, the only Christian city that was able to withstand repeated Islamic invasions from the East was Constantinople. The Islamic Caliphs were hell bent on taking the city. In fact, there is a headith, a saying attributed to the prophet Muhammed, specifically citing the conquest of this ancient Christian city Jihads were launched against Constantinople

time and again, starting in the seventh century. The first major siege of Constantinople came in a D six seventy four. It lasted for four years. Muslim forces brought together various armadas and fought a series of naval engagements. The one consistent theme throughout the contemporary sources regarding these continued Muslim military advances against the city is a unique weapon of the Byzantine Greek fire that Greek fire gave the Eastern

Christians the ability to repel naval assault. After naval assault, Greek fire was an incendiary weapon, generally deployed by ships and defensive fortifications against enemies wooden ships, as the order galleys of the medieval period were composed entirely of wood. Greek fire was a devastating weapon. Chroniclers of the time described it as sticky and able to continue burning even on the surface of the sea. Another major Muslim siege

of Constantinople occurred in a D seven seventeen. This time the Islamic armies came on land as well as sea. They tried to blockade the city, but the massive Theodosian walls three miles of three layered defensive fortifications, with the innermost wall sixteen feet thick and thirty six ft tall intersper with sixty foot tall guard towers holding back all

of the Islamic cord. These fortifications were among the most impressive ever built in the pre modern world, and the use of Greek fire proved too much for the defenders. Once again, Constantinople would stay in Christian hands at least for a time, but by the constant warfare in the Anatolian Peninsula also called Asia Minor between Byzantines and various Muslim factions was picking off more and more Christian territory.

With the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, a massive horde of warriors on horseback from the interior Asian step, and their conversion to Sunni Islam, the future of Constantinople appeared dire. Constantinople's defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Man's occurred in ten seventy one, was for many the death knell of the once great Byzantines. Time was running out for the Eastern Christian Empire, and if Constantinople felt it would become the forward operating base

for Jihad into all of Europe. No less than the future of the Christian world hung in the balance. In to avert this catastrophe, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius the First wrote a desperate plea for help against the Seljouk menace. The Western Christian world needed to come to Constantinople's aid, retake the Holy Land of Jerusalem and push back the Saracen menace once and for all. The Pope received the plea of help from Constantinople. Hope Urban gathered Christians together

at the Council of Claremont in France on November. He called for a holy war and stated that whoever was going to liberate Jerusalem could substitute that journey for any and all penance in the afterlife. The assembled Christians shouted, deis volts, deis volts God wills it. Word from this gathering in Claremont would spread across Europe. In time, an army of some sixty thousand Christians would take up the call. The First Crusade was under way. It's goal the conquest

of Jerusalem. Chapter two, The Road to Zion in the Year of our Lord ten five, the urgent call to Holy war in the East spread like wildfire across Europe. While the Pope coordinated with some of the most powerful nobles and knights to prepare what would be a major military expedition, there was an unexpected gathering of commoners dedicated

to the same purpose. A firebrand preacher, a priest known to history as Peter the Hermit, went from village to village, promising a remission of sins for any who joined him on his quest to free the Holy Land. By April of t Peter had gathered around forty thousand men, women and children in the German city of Cologne and began with them overland and on foot to Jerusalem. This so called people's crusade turned into a debacle. They were an

undisciplined rabble without arms or horses. Peter had convinced them that with God on their side, they simply could not be defeated. Many fouls of these pauper crusaders never even made it outside of Catholic Europe's realm. They turned back on their own accord, or were captured and enslaved by opportunistic lords along the way. The peasant crusaders even ran out of food in Hungary and ended up pillaging Orthodox Christian monasteries. By the time Peter reached Constantinople, his numbers

were already greatly depleted. The Byzantine Emperor Alexius wanted rid of this mob as soon as possible. He gladly ferried them across the Bosphorus. The People's Crusade did make it to Anatolia and found a Turkish force to fight. The Christian peasants, armed almost entirely with zeal and farm implements, were annihilated. The crusade led by princes, however, was a

very different story and a very different force. Many of the most vaunted royal houses of Europe were represented Godfrey of Bouillon, Count Robert of Flanders, Duke Robert of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, Raymond of Toulouse, Adamar of Lepuis, Beaumond of Toronto, and Tankard of vi. They assembled a sixty thousand man army, an enormous force for this medieval time,

including approximately ten thousand heavy cavalry. The armored knights that were to become the most enduring emblem of the European period of Crusader warfare. This massive expeditionary force set off for Constantinople and arrived in October of ten It was the relief force the Byzantine Emperor Alexius had requested so desperately from the Pope. But Alexius felt something of a panic when he saw the mass of men at arms

and horsemen. He quickly gave them money and supplies, and in exchange asked that all Byzantine territory that they conquered had to be returned to the Emperor. The timing of this expedition for the Christians was fortuitous. Unbeknownst to them, there was much infighting among Muslims in the Turkish realm, with the Shia Fatimid Muslims of Egypt, the Abbasids of Baghdad, and the Seldiuk Turks all jockeying for power. In early tenn, the Crusader army crossed into Asia Minor. Their first target

was the formerly Christian city of Nicia. It had been seized by the Turkish war lord killags Lan and was now part of the Sultanate of Rum. The Turkish leader happened to be away on a campaign when the Crusader army arrived ours land did return to lift the siege, but had greatly underestimated the strength and ferocity of the Crusaders and was quickly driven back by their fearsome charge. The Byzantines sent additional forces to help with the siege

of Nicia. They even brought ships overland by using logs to roll them, and they deployed on the lake near Nicia that up until that point had allowed the defenders to stay provisioned. After a six week siege, the mixed Byzantine Frankish force brought about the capitulation of Nicia in June of ten A note here that to the Eastern Christians and Muslims, all the Crusaders from the West were referred to as Frange or Francs. But Nicia was just

the beginning of the planned conquest. The ultimate prize for the Franks was still Jerusalem. There was at least one major stronghold that blocked their path, the fortress of Antioch, but to get there it was likely they would have a major engagement with a Turkish field army along the way. With that in mind, the two crusailer columns marched deeper into Anatolia modern day Turkey. Bowman was in the vanguard column,

Godfrey in the rear guard. Killeg Arslan, the Turkish emir and warlord who had unsuccessfully tried to lift the siege of Nicia, planned a trap for them. On July one, seven, the first major field engagement of the First Crusade began, the Battle of dory Lam. The ambush at the hands of the Turkish army was well planned and executed. The Christians had pitched a camp for the night, and at first light the trap was sprung from the surrounding wooded hills.

Mounted Turkish archers swarmed around the column of Christian knights and infantry, with the camp followers and supply trains in the rear. Before the massive Turkish cavalry force could surround and cut the Christians off, Bowman immediately sent a courier to the rear guard led by Godfrey, and called for immediate assistance with all possible haste. Bowman knew he would have to stand and fight against this Turkish onslaught or

all would be lost. He formed a defensive circle of nights around the infantry and in the center brought camp followers into the middle they were swarmed on all sides by Turkish horse archers. Waves of Turkish cavalry would ride up, fire volley of lethal arrows, throw javelins, and pulled back out of the reach of Christian ranks. The Crusader knights were weighed down by their armor on top of their horses, and were in general much less nimble than their Turkish opponents.

But when brought into close quarters, the Christians were able to withstand many more arrows and blows from edged weapons, and when the Crusaders were able to wield their broadswords, maces and battle axes, it was with devastating effect. But killing Arslan and his Turks took their toll on the densely packed Crusader foot soldiers. The heat and exhaustion that came with it also began to overcome some of the front line. Then, just as a situation could have turned

into a catastrophe, Godfrey and his column arrived. His knights smashed into the Turkish left flank. Bowmaned, seeing this turn of events, chart with his knights. At the same time, a wave of Christian Crusaders smashed into the Turkish light cavalry, who turned and fled the Turks left behind riches and supplies in their camp, much to the delight of the victorious Crusaders. But more importantly, the pathway to Jerusalem now

lay open to them. There was only one major obstacle in their path, the almost impregnable fortress city of Antioch. Chapter three, The Siege of Antioch. The Crusader army in October of ten ninety seven was full of confidence after taking Nicia in a mere six weeks and routing Killage are Salans. Turkish war ears on an open battlefield. As the Crusader army arrived outside the gates of Antioch, they could not have imagined the hardships and losses they would

soon endure. Antioch was once considered arrival to Constantinople by the Roman emperors of the third and fourth centuries. It was set in a valley next to the Orontes River in what is today's Antakia in southernmost Turkey. In the eleventh century, Antioch was on a crucial trading route. It was also believed to be the first place in the world where the term Christian was used for the followers of Christ. As a fortified position, Antioch was formidable. It

had large thick walls topped with hundreds of towers. Its citadel was on a mountain, Mount Silpius, that rose a thousand feet up. The garrison consisted of around five thousand ter The Christian besiegers had approximately forty thousand at the start. The only way that Antioch had fallen to an enemy in over five hundred years stretching back to the reign of the Emperor Justinian, was through treachery. Antioch had never been successfully stormed during that period. It had only been

handed over to the enemy from the inside. The Turk in charge of the defense of the city, Yagi Sion, was well aware of this. He was crafty and competent, and knew that the city's majority Christian population was a risk. In the days before the arrival of the Crusaders, Yagiicion took action to mitigate this possible fifth column. He directed the able bodied Muslim men of the city to build a trench outside the city walls. The following day, Yagi Sion directed all the Christian men of the city to

do the same. Having seen their fellow antioch Nes come back without incident from the day before, they calmly left the protection of the massive fortified walls. Once outside the gates, Yagion informed the Christians that for the duration of the upcoming siege, they would have to stay outside with their fellow Christians the Crusaders. Not only did this ploy limit the likelihood of Christians siding with their co religionists during the siege, it created an additional burden on supplies outside

the city walls. Of all the stratagems for Antioch's defense, hunger would become the most potent. A full on assault was not possible, so the Crusaders set up upon arrival camps around the city walls and plan to wait out the defenders. It quickly became apparent, however, that Antioch was a far more difficult prize than Nicea. Yagion had made all the necessary preparations for a long siege. The Crusaders, on the other hand, were running low on supplies from

the beginning. As the winter set in, disease spread throughout the Christian camp. The weeks of siege quickly turned into months. Foraging parties came back empty handed time and again. Hunger turned to starvation. Nights slaughtered their own horses for food. Morale plummeted and desertions. Rose yagy Sion managed to harass the besiegers with sorties outside the city walls. He also had sent word out to every Muslim war lord of the Arab world to come to his aid. As the

spring season arrived, starvation faded, but Islamic reinforcements arrived. Ridwan of Aleppo led the first Muslim army that attempted to break the siege. Bowman met Ridwan's cavalry with a large cavalry charge of his own, seven hundred knights that rode right into the heart of Ridwan's forces and shattered the Syrian relief effort. The siege continued on, but time was not on the Christian side. A massive Muslim army was being raised by Carboga of Mosul, who planned to join

Rudwan of Aleppo. This second attempt to lift the siege would consist of nearly fifty thousand Muslim warriors. The Crusaders had already lost thousands of their own. If they failed to take this city before Carboga arrived outside the city walls, they would be slaughtered. It was treachery that's save the day. Bowman had managed secret contact with an Armenian inside the city walls. He offered money and a title in exchange for allowing a contingent of Christians to scale the walls

in one sector under the cover of darkness. Boehmand himself was among them. The plot worked. The Crusaders got inside the city walls, opened a gate, and thousands of their brothers in arms flooded in. Frenzied Crusaders hacked thousands of defenders and civilians to death. Some of the Turks managed to take refuge in the citadel up on the mountain. Their only hope was to hold out until the relief force from Mosl Carboga's massive army arrived. On June five.

Carboga did arrive, the Christian fenders were short on food once again, and desertions rapidly escalated. The Crusaders were now stuck inside the city. The besiegers had become the besieged. They needed a miracle, and they found one. A priest named Peter Bartholomewle from France said he had discovered a relic inside the walls of Antioch. The Holy Lance, the spear that was thrust into the side of Christ when he was on the cross, had miraculously appeared. The Crusaders

starved into hallucinations and despair. Believed that this was a sign from God. They gathered together for a final sortie outside the city walls. It would come to be known as the Battle of Antioch. The outnumbered and starving Crusaders gathered behind night Raymond, who held the relic of the Holy Lance, and they charged. The Turks were no match for the ferocity of the Franks. Cariboga and his lieutenants turned and fled from the battlefield. The Turkish holdouts inside

the citadel saw this and immediately surrendered. The Crusaders had one. One of the great cities of the ancient world was firmly in their grasp, and the most important city of all to them, the city of God himself, Jerusalem, was now within their reach. M H. Chapter four, The Conquest of Jerusalem. A year after the successful siege of Antioch,

the Crusaders finally marched on their ultimate goal, Jerusalem. They arrived on June seven of Contemporary chroniclers wrote that many Crusaders wept with Julie at their first sighting of the city, but reaching Jerusalem was not enough. A major battle lay ahead. If the city was once again to be brought into the domain of Christendom. The defenders were ready. The Fatimid Muslim dynasty of Egypt had taken the city from the

Selgouk Turks a year before. They had made ample preparations for the coming Crusader siege, poisoning all the surrounding wells in the environs of Jerusalem and slaughtering animals in the field that could not be brought inside the city walls. The Crusaders were an army fifty thousand strong when they crossed into Muslim lands. Now they had been depleted to

around twelve thousand. They did not have the manpower to encircle and cut off the city for a protracted siege, nor could they risk the arrival of a major Muslim relief force. Jerusalem would have to be stormed in an assault. Before this final cast of the die, however, the beleaguered Christian army marched in procession around the city in a manner similar to the biblical story of Jericho and the

fall of its great walls. With God on their side, the Crusaders felt they could not lose Deus voult Deus vault God wills it. The first attempt to take this city was repulsed. The situation of the Crusaders became increasingly desperate. While Jerusalem's fortifications were nowhere near as impressive as Constantinoples or even Antiochs, siege engines would be necessary to scale the walls, but there were no trees in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and thirst was already a constant problem among

the Christian troops. Then, in a stroke of luck, a Genoese supply fleet of six ships arrived at the porch of Jaffa to bring aid to the Crusaders. Most importantly of all, the timber from these ships could be broken down and reformed into siege engines. This allowed the Crusaders to build two enormous towers for scaling the walls of Jerusalem. They were now prepared to assault the city once and for all. On July, the final assault began in two waves.

The Muslim defenders fought back with flaming arrows and burning pitch, lighting both siege tower and crusader on fire at every opportunity. The battle was bloody and vicious, but the double pronged assault on the walls was victorious. The Crusaders poured over the battlements and engaged in a bloody slaughter of many inhabitants of the city. One chronicler described what ensued in

Jerusalem in this way quote. Upon entering Jerusalem, the pilgrims pursued and killed Saracens and other infidels, even to the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of the Lord. Gathered there, the enemy waged a hot battle until sundown, but our men killed so many that blood flowed through all of the temple. Finally, after having overwhelmed the Pagans, are Men grabbed a large number of males and females in the temple,

killing some and sparing others. As the notion struck them, Tancred and Gaston gave their banners to a great number of the infidels of both sexes crowded on the roof of the temple. Soon, the Crusaders ran through all the city, taking gold, silver, horses, mules, and houses packed with all kinds of riches. Afterwards, all came rejoicing and weeping with joy to the Holy sepulcher of our Savior. On the next rning, Tancred sent forth the command that the Christians

go to the temple to kill Saracens. Upon their arrival, some began to draw their bows and to kill many. Another group of Crusaders climbed to the roof of the temple and rushed the Saracens huddled there, decapidating males and females with naked sword blades. They cause some to plunge from the temple roof and others found their death above end quote. The conquest of Jerusalem was complete. The Crusader Godfrey of Bouillon would become its leader, and Jerusalem would

join Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli as the Crusader States. They endured for almost two hundred years of constant warfare and fighting in the Near East. Many historians have argued that the Crusades were wasteful, unprovoked, or pointless. This is all nonsense. The First Crusade was a response to hundreds of years of Islamic conquest and subjugation of Christians and Jews alike.

It was a response to Jihad, not the precursor to it, and during the period of the Crusader States, there was not one major attempt by the Islamic world to invade the heart of Christendom itself. When the last Crusader kingdom was extinguished in the thirteenth century. That would all start

to change, though. The Islamic world would have to survive the Great invasion of the Mongol Horde, but it was only a matter of time before the forces of Islam would turn their sights on the conquest of the Christian world once again, the Great City of Constantinople and the Siege of fourteen fifty three, but that story will have to wait for next week. This is buck Sexton. My friends. Please do spread the word of about this show. You

can follow it on the I Heart app. You can subscribe on iTunes, Post shields high on your Facebook pages, send emails with the links of this podcast to your friends. Until next time, no matter what enemies you face, be ready to awake Iron