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the Crusades (Original)

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« Reply #90 on: December 31, 2007, 01:20:35 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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During the First Crusade, when the Crusaders fought the Turks at Antioch, they rode, outnumbered, to meet the enemy and were down to 200 horses.

They could have all gotten slaughtered, but legend has it that a ghostly host of knights then appeared and rode alongside them. The Turks fled in terror, and the Crusaders knew once and for all that God was on their side.

Two days later, they rode out again and slaughtered every man, woman and child they found in a small town only a few miles away.
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« Reply #91 on: December 31, 2007, 01:20:54 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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Oh, and they got hungry and ate a lot of the people they killed there afterwards, too.
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« Reply #92 on: December 31, 2007, 01:21:16 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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30,000 Muslims, Jews, even Christians were slaughtered when the Crusaders took Jerusalem. They were beheaded and burned, their bodies stacked high outside the walls of Jerusalem. The Crusaders offered to allow some of the women and children to leave, then changed their minds, killed many of them, too.

The Crusaders believed that God was on their side, but was God really on their side? Godfrey of Bouillon, the most important leader of the Crusade, died a year after taking the city. Pope Urban the II, who led the call for the Crusade, died before he even heard that Jersalem had been retaken...
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« Reply #93 on: December 31, 2007, 01:21:45 am »

 
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  posted 12-16-2005 08:38 AM                       
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Muslims fight Muslims,Christians fought Christians, Muslims fight Christians, Christians fight Muslims, Pagans fought pagans, Pagans fought Christians, Christians fought pagans, Muslims fought pagans, pagans fought Muslims,

And where may I ask were all the gods while all this fighting was going on?

Maybe earth is the arena and we are the gladiators for the gods.

Better then cable I bet.

[ 12-16-2005, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: Ishtar ]

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« Reply #94 on: December 31, 2007, 01:22:07 am »

Ishtar

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Speaking of fighting, did you know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Truce

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« Reply #95 on: December 31, 2007, 01:22:29 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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Yep, I heard about that. They used to have informal truces like that in WWI.

Another person against it was a Corporal named Benito Mussolini. Along the Italian lines, there was an informal agreement that the fighting would stop at night. When Mussolini joined the unit, he began lobbing grenades at the enemy, both day and night, and that was the end to the gentlemen's agreement.

Some people.
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« Reply #96 on: December 31, 2007, 01:22:58 am »

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The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II to regain control of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Christian Holy Land from Muslims. What started as a minor call for aid quickly turned into a wholesale migration and conquest of territory outside of Europe. Both knights and peasants from many different nations of western Europe, with little central leadership, travelled over land and by sea towards Jerusalem and captured the city in July 1099, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states. Although these gains lasted for fewer than two hundred years, the Crusade was a major turning point in the expansion of Western power, and was the only crusade—in contrast to the many that followed—to achieve its stated goal.

Background
The origins of the Crusades in general, and of the First Crusade in particular, stem from events earlier in the Middle Ages. The breakdown of the Carolingian empire in previous centuries, combined with the relative stability of European borders after the Christianization of the Vikings and Magyars, gave rise to an entire class of warriors who now had very little to do but fight among themselves and terrorize the peasant population.

Outlets for this violence took the form of campaigns against non-Christians. The Reconquista in Spain was one such outlet, which occupied Spanish knights and some mercenaries from elsewhere in Europe in the fight against the Islamic Moors. Elsewhere, the Normans were fighting for control of Sicily, while Pisa, Genoa and Aragon were all actively fighting Islamic strongholds in Mallorca and Sardinia, freeing the coasts of Italy and Spain from Muslim raids.

Because of these ongoing wars, the idea of a war against the Muslims was not implausible to the European nations. Muslims occupied the centre of the Christian universe, Jerusalem, which, along with the surrounding land, was considered one giant relic, the place where Christ had lived and died. In 1074, Pope Gregory VII called for the milites Christi ("knights of Christ") to go to the aid of the Byzantine Empire in the east. The Byzantines had suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert three years previously. This call, while largely ignored, combined with the large numbers of pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the 11th century, focused a great deal of attention on the east. It was Pope Urban II who first disseminated to the general public the idea of a Crusade to capture the Holy Land with the famous words: "Deus le volt!" ("God wills it!")
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« Reply #97 on: December 31, 2007, 01:23:18 am »

 
Jeremy Dokken

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The East in the late eleventh century
Western Europe's immediate neighbour to the southeast was the Byzantine Empire, who were fellow Christians but who had long followed a separate Orthodox rite. Under emperor Alexius I Comnenus, the empire was largely confined to Europe and the western coast of Anatolia, and faced enemies in the Normans in the west and the Seljuks in the east. Further east, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were all under Muslim control, but were politically and, to some extent, culturally fragmented at the time of the First Crusade, which certainly contributed to the Crusade's success. Anatolia and Syria were controlled by the Sunni Seljuks, formerly in one large empire ("Great Seljuk") but by this point divided into many smaller states. Alp Arslan had defeated the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert in 1071 and incorporated much of Anatolia into Great Seljuk, but this empire was split apart by civil war after the death of Malik Shah I in 1092. In the Sultanate of Rüm in Anatolia, Malik Shah was succeeded by Kilij Arslan I and in Syria by his brother Tutush I, who died in 1095. Tutush's sons Radwan and Duqaq inherited Aleppo and Damascus respectively, further dividing Syria amongst emirs antagonistic towards each other, as well as towards Kerbogha, the atabeg of Mosul. These states were on the whole more concerned with consolidating their own territories and gaining control of their neighbours, than with cooperating against the crusaders.

Elsewhere in nominal Seljuk territory were the Ortoqids in northeastern Syria and northern Mesopotamia. They controlled Jerusalem until 1098. In eastern Anatolia and northern Syria was a state founded by Danishmend, a Seljuk mercenary; the crusaders did not have significant contact with either group until after the Crusade. The Hashshashin were also becoming important in Syrian affairs.

Egypt and much of Palestine were controlled by the Arab Shi'ite Fatimids, whose empire was significantly smaller since the arrival of the Seljuks; Alexius I had advised the crusaders to work with the Fatimids against their common Seljuk enemies. The Fatimids, at this time ruled by caliph al-Musta'li (although all actual power was held by the vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah), had lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1076, but recaptured it from the Ortoqids in 1098 while the crusaders were on the march. The Fatimids did not, at first, consider the crusaders a threat, assuming they had been sent by the Byzantines and that they would be content with recapturing Syria, leaving Palestine alone; they did not send an army against the crusaders until they were already at Jerusalem.
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« Reply #98 on: December 31, 2007, 01:23:48 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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The Council of Clermont

In March of 1095 Alexius I sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask Urban for aid against the Turks. The emperor's request met with a favourable response from Urban, who hoped to heal the Great Schism of 40 years prior and re-unite the Church under papal supremacy as "chief bishop and prelate over the whole world" (as he referred to himself at Clermont, [1]), by helping the Eastern churches in their time of need.

At the Council of Clermont, assembled in the heart of France in November 1095, Urban gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy. He summoned the audience to wrest control of Jerusalem from the hands of the Muslims. France, he said, was overcrowded and the land of Canaan was overflowing with milk and honey. He spoke of the problems of noble violence and the solution was to turn swords to God's own service: "let robbers become knights." [2] He spoke of rewards both on earth and in heaven, where remission of sins was offered to any who might die in the undertaking. The crowd was stirred to frenzied enthusiasm with cries of "Deus le volt!" ("God wills it!").

Urban's sermon is among the most important speeches in European history. There are many versions of the speech on record, but all were written after Jerusalem had been captured, and it is difficult to know what was actually said and what was recreated in the aftermath of the successful crusade. However, it is clear that the response to the speech was much larger than expected. For the rest of 1095 and into 1096, Urban spread the message throughout France, and urged his bishops and legates to preach in their own dioceses elsewhere in France, Germany, and Italy as well. Urban tried to forbid certain people (including women, monks, and the sick) from joining the crusade, but found this to be nearly impossible. In the end the majority of those who took up the call were not knights, but peasants who were not wealthy and had little in the way of fighting skills, but whose millennial and apocalyptic yearnings found release from the daily oppression of their lives, in an outpouring of a new emotional and personal piety that was not easily harnessed by the ecclesiastical and lay aristocracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_crusade

The People's Crusade

Urban planned the departure of the crusade for August 15, 1096, but months before this a number of unexpected armies of peasants and lowly knights organized and set off for Jerusalem on their own. They were led by a charismatic monk and powerful orator named Peter the Hermit of Amiens. The response was beyond expectations: while Urban might have expected a few thousand knights, he ended up with a migration numbering up to 100,000 mostly unskilled fighters including women and children.

Lacking military discipline, and in what likely seemed to the participants a strange land (eastern Europe) with strange customs, those first Crusaders quickly landed in trouble, in Christian territory. The problem was one of supply as well as culture: the people needed food and supplies, and they expected host cities to give them the foods and supplies - or at least sell them at prices they felt reasonable. Unfortunately for the Crusaders, the locals did not always agree, and this quickly led to fighting and skirmishing. On their way down the Danube, Peter's followers looted Hungarian territory and were attacked by the Hungarians, the Bulgarians, and even a Byzantine army near Nis. About a quarter of Peter's followers were killed, but the rest arrived largely intact at Constantinople in August. Constantinople was big for that time period in Europe, but so was Peter's "army", and cultural difference and a reluctance to supply such a large number of incoming people led to further tensions. In Constantinople, moreover, Peter's followers weren't the only band of crusaders—they joined with other crusading armies from France and Italy. Alexius, not knowing what else to do with such a large and unusual (and foreign) army, quickly ferried them across the Bosporus.

After crossing into Asia Minor the Crusaders began to quarrel and the armies broke up into two separate camps. The Turks were experienced, savvy, and had local knowledge; most of the People's Crusade—a bunch of amateur warriors—was massacred upon entering Seljuk territory. Peter survived, however, and would later join the main Crusader army. Another army of Bohemians and Saxons did not make it past Hungary before splitting up.
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« Reply #99 on: December 31, 2007, 01:24:10 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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The German Crusade

1250 French Bible illustration depicts Jews (identifiable by Judenhut) being massacred by CrusadersThe First Crusade ignited a long tradition of organized violence against Jews in European culture. While anti-Semitism had existed in Europe for centuries, the First Crusade marks the first mass organized violence against Jewish communities. Setting off in the early summer of 1096, a German army of around 10,000 soldiers led by Gottschalk, Volkmar, and Emicho, proceeded northward through the Rhine valley, in the opposite direction to Jerusalem, began a series of pogroms which some historians call "the first Holocaust" (1991, Jonathan Riley-Smith, pg. 50).

The preaching of the crusade inspired further anti-Semitism. According to some preachers, Jews and Muslims were enemies of Christ, and enemies were to be fought or converted to Christianity. The general public apparently assumed that "fought" meant "fought to the death", or "killed". The Christian conquest of Jerusalem and the establishment of a Christian emperor there would supposedly instigate the End Times, during which the Jews were supposed to convert to Christianity. In parts of France and Germany, Jews were perceived as just as much of an enemy as Muslims: they were thought to be responsible for the crucifixion, and they were more immediately visible than the far-away Muslims. Many people wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were already non-believers closer to home.

The crusaders moved north through the Rhine valley into well-known Jewish communities such as Cologne, and then southward. Jewish communities were given the option of converting to Christianity or be slaughtered. Most would not convert and as news of the mass killings spread many Jewish communities committed mass suicides in horrific scenes. Thousands of Jews were massacred, despite some attempts by local clergy and secular authorities to shelter them. The massacres were justified by the claim that Urban's speech at Clermont promised reward from God for killing non-Christians of any sort, not just Muslims. Although the papacy abhorred and preached against the purging of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants during this and future crusades, there were numerous attacks on Jews following every crusade movement.
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« Reply #100 on: December 31, 2007, 01:24:31 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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The Princes' Crusade

The First Crusade did not end with the disasters of the People's Crusade and the massacres of Jewish people. The Princes' Crusade, also known as the Barons' Crusade, set out later in 1096 in a more orderly manner, led by various nobles with bands of knights from different regions of Europe. The three most significant of these were the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy; Raymond IV of Toulouse, who represented the knights of Provence; and Bohemund of Taranto, representing the Normans of southern Italy with his nephew Tancred. Other contingents were Lorrainers under the brothers Godfrey of Bouillon, Eustace and Baldwin of Boulogne; Flemings under Count Robert II of Flanders; northern French Robert of Normandy (older brother of King William II of England), Stephen, Count of Blois, and Hugh of Vermandois (younger brother of King Philip I of France, who was forbidden from participating as he was under a ban of excommunication).
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« Reply #101 on: December 31, 2007, 01:24:55 am »

 
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Raymond IV of Toulouse (c. 1052-1105, sometimes called Raymond of St Gilles, after a town to the south of Nîmes), was Count of Toulouse, Margrave of Provence, and one of the leaders of the First Crusade. He was a son of Count Pons of Toulouse and Almodis de La Marche, and succeeded his brother William IV as Count of Toulouse in 1094.

According to an Armenian source, he had lost an eye on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before the First Crusade, but this statement probably refers to the fact that he was one-eyed (monoculus). He also fought against the Moors in Spain before 1096, and he was the first to join the crusade after Pope Urban II's sermon at the Council of Clermont.

He was married three times, and twice excommunicated for marrying within forbidden degrees of consanguinity. His first wife was his cousin, and the mother of his son Bertrand. His second wife was Matilda, the daughter of King Roger I of Sicily. Raymond's third wife was Elvira, the illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso VI of Castile, the great Spanish king who also campaigned furiously against the Moors.

Raymond was deeply religious, and wished to die in the Holy Land, and so when the call was raised for the First Crusade, he was one of the first to take the cross. The oldest and the richest of the crusaders, Raymond left Toulouse at the end of October 1096, with a large company that included his wife Elvira, his son Bertrand, and Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy, the papal legate. He marched to Dyrrha****m, and then east to Constantinople along the same route used by Bohemund of Taranto. At the end of April, 1097, he was the only crusade leader not to swear an oath of fealty to Byzantine emperor Alexius I - instead he swore an oath of friendship, and offered his support against Bohemund, both Raymond and Alexius' mutual enemy.

He was present at the siege of Nicaea and the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097, but his first major role came in October of 1097 at the siege of Antioch. The crusaders heard a rumour that Antioch had been deserted by the Seljuk Turks, so Raymond sent his army ahead to occupy it, offending Bohemund of Taranto who wanted the city for himself. The city was, however, still occupied, and was taken by the crusaders only after a difficult siege in June of 1098. Raymond took the palatium Cassiani (the palace of the emir, Yaghi-Siyan) and the tower over the Bridge Gate. He was ill during the second siege of Antioch by Kerbogha, but there was much spiritualistic activity among his followers, which culminated in the discovery of the Holy Lance by a monk named Peter Bartholomew.

The "miracle" raised the morale of the crusaders, and to their surprise they were able to rout Kerbogha outside Antioch. The Lance itself became a valuable relic among Raymond's followers, despite Adhemar of Le Puy's skepticism and Bohemund's disbelief and occasional mockery. Raymond also refused to give up his territories in the city to Bohemund, reminding Bohemund that he should return to the city to Emperor Alexius, as he had sworn to do. A struggle then arose between Raymond's supporters and the supporters of Bohemund, partly over the genuineness of the Lance, but mostly over the possession of Antioch.

Many of the minor knights and foot soldiers preferred to continue their march to Jerusalem, and they convinced Raymond to lead them there in the autumn of 1098. Raymond led them out to besiege Ma'arrat al-Numan, although he left a small detachment of his troops in Antioch, where Bohemund also remained. As Adhemar had died in Antioch, Raymond, along with the prestige given to him by the Holy Lance, became the new leader of the crusade, but Bohemund expelled his detachment from Antioch in January of 1099. Raymond then began to search for a city of his own. He marched from Ma'arrat, which had been captured in December of 1098, into the emirate of Tripoli, and began the siege of Arqa on February 14, 1099, apparently with the intent of founding an independent territory in Tripoli that could limit the power of Bohemund to expand the Principality of Antioch to the south.

The siege of Arqa, a town outside Tripoli, lasted longer than Raymond had hoped. Although he successfully captured Hisn al-Akrad, a fortress that would later become the important Krak des Chevaliers, his insistence on taking Tripoli delayed the march to Jerusalem, and he lost much of the support he had gained after Antioch. Raymond finally agreed to continue the march to Jerusalem on May 13, and after months of siege the city was captured on July 15. Raymond was offered the crown of the new Kingdom of Jerusalem, but refused, as he was reluctant to rule in the city in which Jesus had suffered. He said that he shuddered to think of being called "King of Jerusalem". It is also likely that he wished to continue the siege of Tripoli rather than remain in Jerusalem. However, he was also reluctant to give up the Tower of David in Jerusalem, which he had taken after the fall of the city, and it was only with difficulty that Godfrey of Bouillon was able to take it from him.

Raymond participated in the battle of Ascalon soon after the capture of Jerusalem, during which an invading army from Egypt was defeated. However, Raymond wanted to occupy Ascalon himself rather than give it to Godfrey, and in the resulting dispute Ascalon remained unoccupied. It was not taken by the crusaders until 1153. Godfrey also blamed him for the failure of his army to capture Arsuf. When Raymond went north, in the winter of 1099-1100, his first act was one of hostility against Bohemund, capturing Laodicea from (Bohemund had himself recently taken it from Alexius). From Laodicea he went to Constantinople, where he allied with Alexius I, Bohemund's most powerful enemy. Bohemund was at the time attempting to expand Antioch into Byzantine territory, and blatantly refused to fulfill his oath to the Byzantine Empire.

Raymond joining the minor and ultimately unsuccessful crusade of 1101, which was defeated at Heraclea in Anatolia. Raymond escaped and returned to Constantinople. In 1102 he travelled by sea from Constantinople to Antioch, where he was imprisoned by Tancred, regent of Antioch during the captivity of Bohemund, and was only dismissed after promising not to attempt any conquests in the country between Antioch and Acre. He immediately broke his promise, attacking and capturing Tortosa, and began to build a castle on the Mons Peregrinus ("Pilgrim's Mountain") which would help in his siege of Tripoli. He was aided by Alexius I, who preferred a friendly state in Tripoli to balance the hostile state in Antioch.

Raymond died in 1105, before Tripoli was captured. He was succeeded by his nephew William-Jordan, who, in 1109, with the aid of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem, finally captured the town and established the County of Tripoli. William was deposed in the same year by Raymond's eldest son Bertrand, and the county remained in the possession of the counts of Toulouse throughout the 12th century.

Raymond of Toulouse seems to have driven both by religious and material motives. On the one hand he accepted the discovery of the Holy Lance and rejected the kingship of Jerusalem, but on the other hand he could not resist the temptation of a new territory. Raymond of Aguilers, a clerk in Raymond's army, wrote an account of the crusade from Raymond's point of view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_IV_of_Toulouse
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« Reply #102 on: December 31, 2007, 01:25:15 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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Bohemund I of Antioch (c. 1058 – March 3, 1111), prince of Taranto and afterwards prince of Antioch, was one of the leaders of the First Crusade.

Bohemund was the eldest son of Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, by his first marriage (which was later annulled) to Alberada of Buonalbergo. He was christened "Mark" but came to be known as Bohemund, after a legendary giant of that name.

He served under his father in the great attack on the Byzantine Empire (1080–1085), and commanded the Normans during Guiscard's absence (1082–1084), penetrating into Thessaly as far as Larissa, but being repulsed by Alexius I Comnenus. This early hostility to Alexius had a great influence in determining the course and policy of his reign from time of Bohemund (whom his father had destined for the throne of Constantinople) to King Roger.

When Robert Guiscard died in 1085, Bohemund inherited his father's Adriatic possessions, which were soon lost to the Greeks, while his younger half-brother Roger Borsa inherited Apulia and the Italian possessions. The war was finally resolved by the mediation of Pope Urban II and the award of Taranto and other possessions to Bohemund. Though Bohemund received a small principality (an allodial possession) for himself in the heel of southern Italy, as compensation from Sikelgaita after renouncing his rights to the Duchy, he sought a greater status for himself. The chronicler Romoald of Salerno said of Bohemund that "he was always seeking the impossible."

In 1096 Bohemund, along with his uncle Roger I of Sicily the great count of Sicily, was attacking Amalfi, which had revolted against Duke Roger, when bands of crusaders began to pass, on their way through Italy to Constantinople. The zeal of the crusader came upon Bohemund: it is possible however, that he saw in the First Crusade nothing more than a chance to carve for himself an eastern principality. Geoffrey Malaterra bluntly states that Bohemund took the Cross with the intention of plundering and conquering Greek lands.

He gathered a fine Norman army (perhaps the finest division in the crusading host), at the head of which he crossed the Adriatic Sea, and penetrated to Constantinople along the route he had tried to follow in 1082–1084. He was careful to observe a "correct" attitude towards Alexius, and when he arrived at Constantinople in April 1097 he did homage to the emperor. He may have negotiated with Alexius about a principality at Antioch; if he did so, he had little encouragement. From Constantinople to Antioch Bohemund was the real leader of the First Crusade; and it says much for his leadership that the First Crusade succeeded in crossing Asia Minor, which the Crusade of 1101, the Second Crusade in 1147, and the Third Crusade in 1189 failed to accomplish.

The Emperor's daughter, Anna Comnena, leaves a good portrait of him in her Alexiad; she met him for the first time when she was fourteen, and was quite fascinated by him. She left no similar portrait of any other Crusader prince. Of Bohemund, she wrote:

"Now [Bohemund] was such as, to put it briefly, had never before been seen in the land of the Romans, be he either of the barbarians or of the Greeks (for he was a marvel for the eyes to behold, and his reputation was terrifying). Let me describe the barbarian's appearance more particularly -- he was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms. And in the whole build of the body he was neither too slender nor overweighted with flesh, but perfectly proportioned and, one might say, built in conformity with the canon of Polycleitus... His skin all over his body was very white, and in his face the white was tempered with red. His hair was yellowish, but did not hang down to his waist like that of the other barbarians; for the man was not inordinately vain of his hair, but had it cut short to the ears. Whether his beard was reddish, or any other colour I cannot say, for the razor had passed over it very closely and left a surface smoother than chalk... His blue eyes indicated both a high spirit and dignity; and his nose and nostrils breathed in the air freely; his chest corresponded to his nostrils and by his nostrils...the breadth of his chest. For by his nostrils nature had given free passage for the high spirit which bubbled up from his heart. A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the horrible... He was so made in mind and body that both courage and passion reared their crests within him and both inclined to war. His wit was manifold and crafty and able to find a way of escape in every emergency. In conversation he was well informed, and the answers he gave were quite irrefutable. This man who was of such a size and such a character was inferior to the Emperor alone in fortune and eloquence and in other gifts of nature."
A politique, Bohemund was resolved to engineer the enthusiasm of the crusaders to his own ends; and when his nephew Tancred left the main army at Heraclea, and attempted to establish a footing in Cilicia, the movement may have been already intended as a preparation for Bohemund's eastern principality. Bohemund was the first to get into position before Antioch (October 1097), and he took a great part in the siege of the city, beating off the Muslim attempts at relief from the east, and connecting the besiegers on the west with the port of St Simeon and the Genoese ships which lay there.

The capture of Antioch was due to his connection with Firuz, one of the commanders in the city; but he would not bring matters to an issue until the possession of the city was assured him (May 1098), under the terror of the approach of Kerbogha with a great army of relief, and with a reservation in favour of Alexius, if Alexius should fulfill his promise to aid the crusaders. But Bohemund was not secure in the possession of Antioch, even after its surrender and the defeat of Kerbogha; he had to make good his claims against Raymond of Toulouse, who championed the rights of Alexius. He obtained full possession in January 1099, and stayed in the neighbourhood of Antioch to secure his position, while the other crusaders moved southward to the capture of Jerusalem.

He came to Jerusalem at Christmas 1099, and had Dagobert of Pisa elected as Patriarch, perhaps in order to check the growth of a strong Lotharingian power in the city. It might seem that Bohemund was destined to found a great principality in Antioch, which would dwarf Jerusalem; he had a fine territory, a good strategical position and a strong army. But he had to face two great forces--the Byzantine Empire, which claimed the whole of his territories and was supported in its claim by Raymond of Toulouse, and the strong Muslim principalities in the north-east of Syria. Against these two forces he failed. In 1100 he was captured by Danishmend of Sivas, and he languished in prison until 1103. Tancred took his place; but meanwhile Raymond established himself with the aid of Alexius in Tripoli, and was able to check the expansion of Antioch to the south.

Ransomed in 1103 by the generosity of the Armenian prince Kogh Vasil, Bohemund made it his first object to attack the neighbouring Muslim powers in order to gain supplies. But in heading an attack on Harran, in 1104, he was severely defeated at Balak, near Rakka on the Euphrates (see Battle of Harran). The defeat was decisive; it made impossible the great eastern principality which Bohemund had contemplated. It was followed by a Greek attack on Cilicia; and despairing of his own resources, Bohemund returned to Europe for reinforcements in order to defend his position. His attractive personality won him the hand of Constance, the daughter of the French king, Philip I, and he collected a large army. Of this marriage wrote Abbot Suger:

"Bohemund came to France to seek by any means he could the hand of the Lord Louis' sister Constance, a young lady of excellent breeding, elegant appearance and beautiful face. So great was the reputation for valour of the French kingdom and of the Lord Louis that even the Saracens were terrified by the prospect of that marriage. She was not engaged since she had broken off her agreement to wed Hugh, count of Troyes, and wished to avoid another unsuitable match. The prince of Antioch was experienced and rich both in gifts and promises; he fully deserved the marriage, which was celebrated with great pomp by the bishop of Chartres in the presence of the king, the Lord Louis, and many archbishops, bishops and noblemen of the realm."
Dazzled by his success, Bohemund resolved to use his army not to defend Antioch against the Greeks, but to attack Alexius. He did so; but Alexius, aided by the Venetians, proved too strong, and Bohemund had to submit to a humiliating peace (the Treaty of Devol, 1108), by which he became the vassal of Alexius, consented to receive his pay, with the title of Sebastos, and promised to cede disputed territories and to admit a Greek patriarch into Antioch. Henceforth Bohemund was a broken man. He died without returning to the East, and was buried at Canosa in Apulia, in 1111.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemund_I_of_Antioch
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« Reply #103 on: December 31, 2007, 01:25:32 am »

Jeremy Dokken

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Godfrey of Bouillon (c. 1060 – July 18, 1100, Jerusalem), (Godefroi de Bouillon in French) was a leader of the First Crusade. He was either the eldest or the second son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Ida, daughter of Godfrey III, Duke of Lower Lotharingia.

Early Life
He was designated by his uncle, Godfrey the Hunchback, as his successor in Lower Lorraine, but in 1076 Emperor Henry IV gave him only the Mark of Antwerp, taking back the fief of Lower Lotharingia, as his uncle had no direct descendants, nor heirs-male. Nevertheless, Godfrey of Bouillon fought for Henry both on the Elster and in the siege of Rome, and in 1082 was finally given the duchy of Lower Lotharingia.

Lower Lotharingia was heavily influenced by Cluniac reformers, and Godfrey seems to have been a pious man. "As the bishops, after the triumph of the Cluniac Reform and the struggle over investitures, ceased to support the German emperors, the province soon resolved itself into small feudal estates." (Catholic Encyclopedia, "Lorraine"). Although he had served under Henry IV against the Papacy, Godfrey almost literally sold all that he had and joined the crusade preached by Urban II at the Council of Clermont (1095).

First Crusade
Along with his brothers Eustace and Baldwin of Boulogne (the future Baldwin I of Jerusalem) he started in August, 1096 at the head of an army from Lorraine, some 40,000 strong, along "Charlemagne's road," as Urban II seems to have called it (according to the chronicler Robert the Monk)—the road to Jerusalem. After some difficulties in Hungary, where he was unable to stop his men from pillaging fellow Christians, he arrived in Constantinople in November. He was the first of the crusaders to arrive, and came into conflict with Byzantine emperor Alexius I, who wanted Godfrey to swear an oath of loyalty to the Byzantine Empire. Godfrey eventually swore the oath in January, 1097, as did most of the other leaders when they arrived.

According to William of Tyre, Godfrey was "tall of stature, not extremely so, but still taller than the average man. He was strong beyond compare, with solidly-built limbs and a stalwart chest. His features were pleasing, his beard and hair of medium blond."

Until the beginning of 1099 Godfrey was a minor figure in the crusade, with Baldwin, Bohemund of Taranto, Raymond IV of Toulouse, and Tancred determining the course of events. Godfrey was the first to arrive at the siege of Nicaea, but his only significant achievement during this part of the crusade was helping relieve Bohemund's army at the Battle of Dorylaeum after he had been surrounded by the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan I. Godfrey's army, however, was also surrounded, until another group of crusaders under Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy attacked the Seljuk camp.

In 1099, after the capture of Antioch following a long siege, the crusaders were divided on what to do next. Most of the foot soldiers wanted to continue south to Jerusalem, but Raymond, by this time considered to be the leader of the crusade, hesitated to continue the march. Godfrey, who seems to have been influenced more by religious motives than politics, convinced Raymond to lead the army to Jerusalem. Godfrey was active in the siege of the city, and on July 15 he was one of the first to enter the city, which was the scene of a general massacre of Muslims and Jews. On July 22, when Raymond refused to be named king of Jerusalem, Godfrey was elected in his place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_of_Bouillon
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« Reply #104 on: December 31, 2007, 01:25:50 am »

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Kingdom of Jerusalem
However, Godfrey refused to be crowned "king" in the city where Christ had died. Instead he took the title Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, "advocate" or "defender" of the Holy Sepulchre. During his short reign of a year Godfrey had to defend the new Kingdom of Jerusalem against Fatimids of Egypt, who were defeated at the Battle of Ascalon in August. He also faced opposition from Dagobert of Pisa, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who had allied with Raymond. Raymond prevented Godfrey from capturing Ascalon itself after the battle.

In 1100 Godfrey was able to impose his authority over Acre, Ascalon, Arsuf, Jaffa, and Caesarea. Meanwhile the struggle with Dagobert continued; Godfrey and Bohemund preferred Arnulf of Chocques as Patriarch, but Dagobert wanted to turn Jerusalem into a fiefdom of the pope. Dagobert was able to force Godfrey into a truce, giving Jerusalem and Jaffa to the church if the secular kingdom could be moved to Cairo. However, Godfrey died in July without having conquered Egypt, and the question of who should rule Jerusalem was still unanswered. The supporters of a secular monarchy called on Godfrey's brother Baldwin to take the crown. Dagobert backed down and reluctantly crowned Baldwin as king on December 25, 1100.

Godfrey's death
"While he was beseiging the city of Acre, Godfrey, the ruler of Jerusalem, was struck by an arrow, which killed him," reports the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi. Christian chronicles make no mention of this; instead, Albert of Aix and Ekkehard of Aura report that Godfrey contracted an illness in Caesarea in June, 1100. It was later believed that the emir of Caesarea had poisoned him but there seems to be no basis for this rumour; William of Tyre, writing later in the 12th century, does not mention it.

Godfrey in history and legend
Because he had been the first ruler in Jerusalem Godfrey was idealized in later stories. He was depicted as the leader of the crusades, the king of Jerusalem, and the legislator who laid down the assizes of Jerusalem, and he was included among the ideal knights known as the Nine Worthies. In reality he was none of these things. Adhemar, Raymond, and Bohemund were the leaders of the crusade; Baldwin was the first true king; the assizes were the result of a gradual development.

Godfrey's role in the crusade was described by Albert of Aix, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum, and Raymond of Aguilers. In fictional literature, Godfrey was the hero of two French chansons de geste dealing with the crusade, the Chanson d'Antioche and the Chanson de Jerusalem. His family and early life became the subject of legends as well. The Knight of the Swan legend, most famous today as the storyline of Wagner's opera Lohengrin, was originally about Godfrey's grandfather Helias, who arrives in a mysterious swan-drawn boat to defend the family of Bouillon and marry Godfrey's grandmother.

By William of Tyre's time later in the 12th century, Godfrey was already a legend among the descendents of the original crusaders. Godfrey was believed to have possessed immense physical strength; it was said that in Cilicia he wrestled a bear and won, and that he once beheaded a camel with one blow of his sword.

In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the spirit of Godfrey in the Heaven of Mars with the other "warriors of the faith."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_of_Bouillon
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