Pod Insights Gone Medieval The Crusades: Battle for the Holy Land About this episode Today we dive into the Second and Third Crusades with major players Eleanor of Aquitaine, Saladin and the bold entrance of Richard the Lionheart. Matt Lewis is joined by Dr Natasha Hodgson to trace the twelfth century struggle for the Holy Land.
They explore the wildly successful campaigns and disastrous battles such as the Field of Blood, royal marital struggles and pilgrims dragged into fighting with no more than a pot on their heads.
MORE
The Hospitallers: Warrior Monks
Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-hospitallers-warrior-monks/id1564113746?i=1000741854656
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/4lX5650EiEImsAQGFxRf6l?si=9613bca3e3fd4aeb
What Are The High Middle Ages?
Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-are-the-high-middle-ages/id1564113746?i=1000711186009
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VpSMApHvW8m5Rc6fTb5Z8
Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.
Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 13,435 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Matt Lewis? From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
0:42 Speaker 01 In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glennie, and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.
0:57 Speaker 02 It's one of the first times, really, that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.
1:06 Speaker 01 In Our Time. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:11 Speaker 03 Tea or coffee?
1:12 Speaker 01 Love a cup of tea.
1:15 Speaker 03 I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one.
1:22 Speaker 04 And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact? Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
1:43 Matt Lewis? Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gob-smacking details, and latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots, and murders to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.
2:21 Matt Lewis? The year is 1187. The charred bones of countless crusaders litter the parched plains of Galilee, and a bleak crisis has enveloped the fragile Christian states of the Holy Land. Jerusalem, the holy city seized from the Saracens less than a century prior, is under siege. Its city walls draped with the banners of the cross are surrounded by the forces of the irrepressible and mighty Sultan Saladin. The air is thick with the wistful peal of ancient church bells. Citizens scramble for refuge, and yet, for now, the city is not yet lost. An Englishwoman on pilgrimage finds herself trapped within the city through bad luck
3:06 Matt Lewis? and poor timing, but she doesn’t give up hope. Donning a borrowed coat of armour and a cooking pot for a helmet, she helps defend the city walls. Her name is Margaret of Beverly, and shunned both for fear and the punishingly narrow expectations imposed on medieval women, she fights like a warrior. She hurls rocks from a slingshot at Saladin’s armies below. She ferries water along Jerusalem’s narrow streets to support the defenders. Then, a catapult missile ploughs into the ramparts and sends shards of masonry and shrapnel flying in all directions. Margaret is wounded, and when the city falls, she’s taken captive and forced, like all the other prisoners, to buy her freedom.
3:50 Matt Lewis? Left penniless and dressed in rags, she wonders a land in which crusader authority has all but collapsed. Margaret’s story is not the exception. It’s the consequence of a near-century of crusader conquest. In the wake of the First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, Christian kingdoms were carved out in fervour and held through strife. But in 1187, they now stand exposed. The age of crusading has reached a reckoning. But how did it get here and what might follow? This is the story of the Battle for the Holy Land. Welcome to Gone Medieval, I'm Matt Lewis. Over the next two weeks, we're travelling across the length and breadth of medieval
4:35 Matt Lewis? Christendom to tell the tumultuous story of the Crusades. For nearly 200 years, these so-called holy wars pitted Christian armies against the Muslim lords of Egypt and Syria for possession of the arid deserts and sacred shrines of the Holy Land. Sanctioned by the papacy and fought by Western knights in a perilously hostile and unfamiliar world, the Crusades changed the very fabric of the Middle Ages, a medieval epic written in blood. Earlier this week, Eleanor and I launched our special four-part series by exploring the deep roots of the Crusading movement and the actions of scheming popes and desperate
5:18 Matt Lewis? emperors that brought it into being. If you haven't listened, do go back and dive in. Next week, we'll be turning to the 13th century, taking a look at the disasters and divisions which splintered Christendom before ending with a final collapse of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the wake of a Mongol and Mamluk storm. Today, though, we pick up in the aftermath of the First Crusade to chronicle the age of Crusading in the 12th century. We'll follow the queens and kings who sought to build on the foundations laid by this first holy war, and Muslim lords who organised rousing resistance against them. We'll explore how Western settlers fit into the complex cultural and religious blend
6:03 Matt Lewis? of the eastern Mediterranean and the gripping crises that placed everything they had built at risk. To help us chart nearly 90 years of Crusading history, a period which takes in English kings, French queens, German emperors and a Muslim sultanate uniting Egypt and Syria for the first time in two centuries, I'm joined by Crusading historian and director for the Centre of Research into History, Heritage and Memory Studies at Nottingham Trent University, Dr Natasha Hodgson.
6:37 Matt Lewis? Welcome Natasha, thank you very much for joining us.
6:39 Speaker 05 Hi Matt, how are you?
6:40 Matt Lewis? I'm not too bad, thank you. How are you doing?
6:42 Speaker 05 Yeah, I'm good. I think we've got a lot to discuss today, so.
6:46 Matt Lewis? Absolutely. We are in the very unfair world with this series of trying to get people to explain the intricacies of the Crusades very quickly. So we have got a lot of ground to cover. We left the Crusades after the, flushed with success after the first Crusade, what the Christians from Europe would have felt like achieving their aims. After all of that success in 1099, how do they go about maintaining or creating some control over the lands that they've conquered?
7:14 Speaker 05 Oh, this is an interesting one. I mean, the first thing we need to know about, you know, post first Crusades, that a lot of them actually just went home. They didn't want to stay and they decided that, you know, they were going to head back home. They'd had enough. They'd been out for a very long time, gone through some very tough sieges. And it was time for them to pack their bags and go home. So actually, only a very few, like in the small numbers of hundreds, knights stayed in the Holy Lamb to sort of carve out some areas of land for themselves. But they do this around the four areas that they establish. So first of all, of course, they had the county of Edessa and principality of Antioch, which they set up during the first Crusade. And then, you know, with the capture of Jerusalem, they set up the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And then slightly later on, the county of Tripoli is the fourth, what we call Crusader state.
7:59 Matt Lewis? So they're very much taking the approach of creating, carving out new states and new structures of power. They're not looking to take over the existing Muslim structures that are already in the Middle East. They're looking to create something new that they can run for themselves?
8:14 Speaker 05 Yeah, I suppose, I mean, it's interesting to sort of think about how, you know, these different, you know, ones are principality, others are counties, and then you have the Kingdom of Jerusalem. So how these different kind of entities form, they're all kind of in their own right. Certainly, there's a sense that some are establishing their own power bases. But clearly, the Kingdom of Jerusalem is really important because this is governed by the Holy City. It's also the seat of a patriarchate, which means it's really important for the church. And so, you know, the process of setting up the Kingdom of Jerusalem is really significant.
8:49 Matt Lewis? You can kind of imagine them setting up Edessa and thinking, I'm going to be the Count of Edessa. And then someone comes along and says, well, I'll be the Prince of Antioch then. And somebody else comes along, I'll be the King of Jerusalem then. I didn't realise we were playing that game.
9:01 Matt Lewis? And given that so many European Christian crusaders go home, do we see any kind of organised resistance from the people that they've defeated? Do they see an opportunity in this? Are they able to fight back at this point?
9:14 Speaker 05 At this point, I think it's in Jerusalem itself, the Holy City, there is, you know, a significant massacre of the inhabitants which takes place after the city is captured. And therefore, no, you know, there isn't that kind of presence there. They've also taken a lot of slaves. So they've got people who are doing work for them. And their main kind of goals really are to secure the port areas, that side of really important sea coast, where you can tax people coming in because they're bringing goods, you know, you can control the trade so that they're nice and lucrative. Once you've got some money, you can pay for supplies, you can pay for your troops, you can even hire mercenaries if you need to. And you've got a sort of consistent supply of people coming from the
9:56 Speaker 05 West. There is almost immediately a big kind of new boost of numbers, even though some of them go home, because they hear about the successful capture of Jerusalem and lots of people want to go and visit. So you then get the 1101 Crusade, which happens and, you know, the the numbers of people that go on that are almost as big as that of the first Crusade.
10:15 Matt Lewis? And what influence do we start to see the the Italian city-states have? Because they're quite interested in that access to trade suddenly in that area, aren't you? So genuine in particular will be will be really dominant in that region with the trade. Are they are they out for their own interests? Or are they offering support to the Christians? Or are they able to do both? Because supporting the Christians actually benefits them financially.
10:35 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think and I think, you know, this is, this is something that goes across all of the Crusades, is this idea, oh, did they go for God or gold? And the thing is that actually, in the medieval period, there wasn't really a massive distinction between between those two things. If you go and fight on behalf of God, and you're successful, you will be rewarded with not only spiritual benefits, but also potentially material goods. So yeah, the peasants, the Genoese and the Venetians are the three big players in the Mediterranean at this time. And they're all keen to get a slice of the action as the Crusader states are established. So Were important in helping bringing supplies for the first crusade. So even as early as that,
11:17 Speaker 05 they were kind of getting involved. And then gradually we see the Peseans and the Venetians kind of getting involved in that process too. As we move further into the 12th century, we begin to see, you know, them requesting like almost their own areas of of land inside the cities, their own quarters, which they can pretty much run as if they were the king themselves. They're taking kind of royal rights to produce to, and they get tax exemptions and all sorts of nice things in return for helping to capture some of these places. So the city of Tyre, in particular, the Venetians, the Venetians did that.
11:52 Matt Lewis? Seems like a bit of a wild west going on and everybody has suddenly realised that there's land up for grabs, there's power up for grabs, there's money up for grabs and everybody is sort of piling in to to piggyback off the success of the first crusade?
12:03 Speaker 05 Yeah, in a sense. I mean, I think there's clearly, there's still clearly like religious motivation for people going because a lot of the time the pilgrim traffic all arrives at Easter time, you know, they can't really sail very easily across the Mediterranean in the winter, it's too dangerous. But everyone kind of arrives in time for Easter so they can kind of see the holy places at this special religious time. And sometimes they just stay for a sort of tour of duty, like they visit the holy places, they do a bit of fighting and then return home. But then others do kind of try and stay, make that connection and actually kind of, yeah. So I think it really depends on like individual circumstances and and reasons for going.
12:45 Matt Lewis? And that boost in the pilgrim, I was gonna say trade, pilgrim trade, is that fair? But that boost in pilgrimage numbers going to the Near East and heading for Jerusalem in the early 12th century, kind of feeds into the the creation, the emergence of the military orders that will become so associated with the Christian crusades in the Middle East. Unfair question number 52 for today. Can you give us a kind of a brief overview of what we mean when we're talking about the military orders and how and why they emerged? What are they for?
13:14 Speaker 05 Sure, okay. Well, if we're talking early 12th century, really, there's only two big players in the Holy Land at this time. Later on, there's a big proliferation of them. But the main ones are the Knights of the Hospital of St John, which we later become known as the, we know them as the Hospitallers, and the Knights Templar. The Templars are kind of a slightly later foundation. The Knights of the Hospital actually come from the establishment of a hospital in Jerusalem in the late 11th century. So they actually predate the Crusades. And they start with this kind of caring role where they're looking after sick pilgrims who've finally made their way all the way to Jerusalem, usually with loads of illnesses and ailments and sore feet and anything else.
13:59 Speaker 05 And they look after them. That's their job. The Templars come out of a kind of later, a post Crusade kind of period, where in the early 1119, 1120, we think, you know, they start, they have a presence. But it's not until Q of Payne goes back to the West in 1127 and asks the Pope to kind of establish them as a proper military order, that they become a thing, as it were. And what they are essentially is an order of monks who are allowed to fight, which is quite a kind of big turnaround theologically in some respects. You think, you know, surely monks are supposed to be peaceful and stay inside their monasteries. And most of them are supposed to be peaceful and stay inside their monasteries.
14:42 Speaker 05 So these are essentially fighters who are knights already usually, and are living according to a monastic rule. The Templar's purpose was to protect pilgrims travelling to and from the Holy Land. Whereas the Hospitallers started off with the hospital care and then gradually took on military roles as well. And really, it's by kind of the mid 12th century that they become increasingly important because they start to be used for garrisoning castles and all that kind of thing. So they become really involved in the strategic defence. But the big problem is, the only people they're answerable to is the Pope. So when kings want them to do stuff, they can say, no, actually. Don't really fancy doing that.
15:26 Matt Lewis? Don't fancy that. We'll check with the boss.
15:28 Speaker 05 So they're really, really independent. And so, and that has its pluses and minuses when it comes to kind of coordinating some kind of strategic defence of the Holy Land.
15:36 Matt Lewis? They seem like an interesting response to maybe a lack of manpower. You've got people kind of multitasking. They're performing a religious function and they're controlled by a religious rule, but they're also able to fight and to protect pilgrims. Yes, but we will know that later during the crusading period, they become a really strong, powerful offensive force, particularly the Templars. So it's kind of, is it a way of making up for a lack of manpower in the Holy Land to get people doing more than one role? Or is there some other reason that suddenly religious orders are fighting?
16:07 Speaker 05 I think that in part, that, you know, that you're right, that what they need is a permanent fighting presence. And what crusading doesn't offer as a practice is, you know, that kind of permanent fighting force. You've either got the settlers who are there and they have their own knights and each fief is supposed to deliver a certain number of knights to fight on the battlefield. But there's a lot of warfare going on. So a lot of people are dying in those wars. They're also dying a lot from disease and difference in diet and all of those kinds of things. So they need this, you know, an extra flow of kind of supporting fighting forces. And if people are coming on crusade and going home, that's not going to plug the gap. Whereas the military orders as a permanent fighting
16:49 Speaker 05 force can do that. And also they have lots and lots of supporters back in the West and lots of houses back in the West. So they can kind of collect money and financial support as well as then kind of sending people out to the Holy Land.
17:03 Matt Lewis? And as these military orders are beginning to emerge, in 1119, we get an episode that's remembered as the Field of Blood. I wonder if you could just talk us through a little bit about what that is and what it means for the crusader states?
17:14 Speaker 05 Well, I guess, you know, the early period of settlement is quite, it's quite successful in many respects. I mean, not, not, not, you know, straight down the line. We have periods where, you know, all of the main kind of rulers of the different principalities are taken into captivity or whatever at some points. It's not all a big story of success, but they do gradually expand and establish some stability.
17:35 Speaker 05 But in 1119, we have Ilgaazi from Aleppo. He starts off as a ruler of Mardin, and then he becomes Aleppo. As ruler of Aleppo, he comes in and essentially ambushes the army of the Prince of Antioch, Roger of Salerno, and really destroys their forces in that northern principality of Antioch and leaves a real power gap. And he himself, the Prince of Antioch, is killed during the battle. And then, you know, the crusaders really have to, or the settlers, really have to think about how they're going to maintain the principality of Antioch. And the King of Jerusalem has to bail them out. It's Baldwin II by that point, who comes up and acts as regent to try and sort out and plug the gap.
18:20 Speaker 05 But yeah, it's a very serious defeat and probably one of their most serious defeats in that early 12th century period.
18:27 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And I want to get to Baldwin II himself in a little moment too. But I wondered if you could also talk us through, so we mentioned that crusader states were established, we get two counties, a principality and a kingdom. How does the monarchy work in the Kingdom of Jerusalem? Who are kind of the first kings? How were they appointed? And what kind of power do they actually have?
18:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, we tend to think about kingship as being, you know, inherited to the eldest son and all the rest of it. And this is, you know, a clear tradition from the year dot. But actually, monarchies across medieval Europe are all quite different and have their own idiosyncrasies. This one, because it's captured by a collective of people, the city of Jerusalem, they start off by electing the King of Jerusalem, but even briefly discuss having a religious ruler instead of one of the knights. But they end up in the end choosing Godfrey of Bouillon, who was one of the key leaders of the First Crusade. And they select him partly because of stories about his bravery and things that he did
19:27 Speaker 05 on the crusade, but also partly because he seems to be one of the ones who's willing to stay. You know, a lot of the others are returning home. It starts as elective. But Godfrey dies very quickly after having taken, and he decides that, he says actually, I don't want to be called king. I don't deserve to be called king in the city where Christ was walked. So, so he seems to be quite humble. But the next one, Baldwin, his brother, who was the ruler of Edessa, decides to take over from his, after his brother's death, and he becomes Baldwin the first of Jerusalem. He is a really significant figure in establishing the successful capture of those port towns, Sidon, Cesaria, Acre, in that early kind of expansion period.
20:11 Speaker 05 He also works very closely with the, with the church. He's very close to Arnolph of Shok, who later becomes patriarch of Jerusalem. And together, they kind of work to expand the Latin kingdom and organise some of the structures that, that stay in place for, for quite some time after that. And then he has, he, he kind of makes alliances. He gets married to the daughter of an Armenian lord, who we know as Arda. She, they then get divorced in rather shady terms, and he marries another wife from the west, Adelaide of Sicily, who brings lots of wealth and money to help him with his campaigns. So that's essentially what they need is money to keep fighting during this really early period. But he doesn't treat her terribly
20:53 Speaker 05 well and sends her back home after having spent all her money, which isn't very polite.
20:58 Matt Lewis? He was, he was sounding like a reasonable guy up until that point, you know, he was doing quite well and, and working with the church and all that sort of stuff. But turns out he's a rotter.
21:06 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah. Well, the guy who was in charge of the church was a bit of a rotter as well, but therein lies another tale.
21:14 Speaker 05 So, yeah. And then we have Baldwin the second, who kind of follows on that legacy. And interestingly, again, you know, the throne could have been elective at that point. It could have passed to Eustace, who was the third of these three brothers, Godfrey, Eustace and Baldwin. Eustace was back in the west by this stage. But essentially, another cousin, Baldwin of La Bork, nipped in at the 11th hour, and Eustace was still packing back in the west to come and take the crown of Jerusalem. He, he already said, no, I'm here, I'll do it. And he had like 18 years of experience ruling the county of Edessa. So he was, you know, well known by everyone, well recognised and, and seemed to be a good, stable pair of hands. So he got the job.
21:55 Speaker 05 So it's still elective even by that point. So and it's only really at the end of his reign that it begins to change.
22:01 Matt Lewis? And almost a little bit of a meritocracy in that it seems like both of both the Baldwins have come from experience in Odessa of ruling part of the Holy Land to step. It's like a promotion to then become king of Jerusalem rather than someone who has zero experience
22:16 Speaker 05 And they were all, you know, integrally involved in the first crusade as well, which I think gave them a lot of power and kudos. You know, they weren't sort of later settlers coming out. I think had Eustace come out, he would have struggled in that role.
22:28 Matt Lewis? And crisis hits when Baldwin II dies without a male heir. Can you just talk us through what happens then? Because he kind of, he has Melisandre daughter, but he's, he's looking to find her a husband. And the relationship between Melisandre and the husband that she gets seems a little bit tricky. Are we clear what Baldwin II intended to happen?
22:49 Speaker 05 Yeah. So it is clear he was quite happy to have his eldest daughter as his heir. I mean, he has four daughters, Melisandre's the eldest, and he, you know, is, is mentioning her as heir in charters before his death. She's, she's specifically described as his heir. And, and she's not alone in, you know, inheriting a ruling kind of area in this time period. Women do inherit property and they do inherit, not always a kingdom, but, but they do inherit property if they're the eldest female heir. But it is expected or hopeful that they will have a partner, a husband or a partner who will then do the military service and engage with that side of things. So they really want a good partner for her and they choose Fulk of Anjou, who most people might be familiar with because
23:32 Speaker 05 he's the grandfather of Henry II of England. But he gives up his patrimony in Anjou and comes out to marry Melisandre. And William of Taya tells us that even though the, the couple get together, they have a child, Baldwin III, in around 1130. As Baldwin II was nearing his death, he was a bit worried that Fulk was trying to edge Melisandre out of power or maybe was, might think about just taking over in his own right. So he says that Baldwin made them inherit together jointly, husband, wife and child, which is quite an unusual constitutional situation to see in a medieval kingship. But it has kind of ramifications then for the reign of Melisandre as well.
24:15 Matt Lewis? Yeah, it's interesting how all of these things happen because they've got this new kind of kingship to forge and create and maybe they're still playing around with the best way to do it. How much power do we actually see Melissande wielding during her reign? Because I guess, you know, listeners will be aware that we associate particularly traditional Western Europe with excluding women from any form of power during this period. And yet, in the Latin East, you do seem to have several women who will rise to positions of quite significant power. So how powerful is Melissande while she's queen of Jerusalem?
24:53 Speaker 05 Okay, so in terms of Melissande herself, she is really powerful. She clearly has the support of the nobility who kind of know her, know her family. She's been there, you know, she's been established there for quite some time. Whereas Phoc is kind of the newcomer with all his new guys that is kind of getting annoying. He's putting all his friends in the top jobs that is annoying everyone. So it's partly about her own power, but partly about her support network that makes her important. Baldwin was also very clever in that he married off her sisters to important positions in other crusader states. So we have Alice in Antioch and we have Hodierna later in Tripoli. She has these dynastic
25:36 Speaker 05 family connections to other people who can help her if needs be. But she is, Phoc does try to exclude her from power, we think, because she's not in many of the early charters for their reign. And it's only after they have a big spat around 1134, which results in the revolt of Melissande's cousin, Hugh II of Jaffa, that means that the situation changes and Phoc apparently has to do, you know, has to say mega sorries for being such an idiot and accusing her of having an affair, which potentially he did. And at that point onwards, she's back in the charters. So her power's back and she's got authority in the kingdom. So you can kind of see it in the historical record as well. But she does a
26:19 Speaker 05 lot of things jointly with Phoc. They build a lot of castles, they patronize a lot of castles, they undertake other kind of patronage work of the church. So spending money is a big way of showing your power and authority. And then he dies in eleven forty three and she then is a regent for her young son, Baldwin the third, but she's also in this odd position where she is the legitimate heir alongside her son. And that then leads to conflict a bit with Baldwin as he gets to his kind of what would be a normal age of of maturity. But, you know, they had so they they too come to blows briefly, but then that's kind of sorted out and she kind of retires a bit a bit gracefully at the
27:00 Speaker 05 end of her career. But clearly he still listens to what she says. She's she's involved in various different councils and has quite a key role. So she is the kind of linchpin. She is the sort of steady person through the mid 12th century that keeps the Kingdom of Jerusalem of like.
27:15 Matt Lewis? I find it just so fascinating that kind of within half a less than half a century of establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem, it's so radically different from the the Western European kingdoms that these people have come from, that, you know, they're willing to have women in positions of power. And when you get men like Falk come over with their Western European attitudes, that already the institutions and the structures that are in Jerusalem are able to stand up against Falk and allow Melisandre to assert her position. He's not able to just sweep her away in a way that he might have wanted to.
27:48 Speaker 05 Yeah, I mean, I guess so. But there are plenty of women who do get swept away in
27:54 Speaker 05 in some of these, you know, like, like, you know, the wives that are unwanted sometimes. But having said that, I would challenge a little bit, that was the situation in Western Europe. I think a lot of modern scholarship now on queenship and on and on kind of women in power more generally. So looking at not just queens, but countesses, duchesses, all of those different roles. If you start to plot all of the women who actually have quite significant roles, either as regents or inheriting land or all of those types of things, it's not that exceptional. There are quite a lot of women doing it. We just tend to think about because people say, well, there were no real female, you know, ruling queens before Elizabeth I in England. Therefore, there were none across no, no women had any power across all of Europe.
28:37 Speaker 05 But in fact, that's not the case. But it's because the chronicles don't talk about it so much, but the charters do. So when you look at the charters, you begin to see actually, oh, there are a lot of women who have a say over what happens to land, what happens to wealth, what happens to that sort of thing. And they do take on legal roles and they do direct military stuff as well. So yeah, I think it's it's not as unusual as you might think. I think that it being a crusader state and the fact that there is a high turnover of men because people are dying quite a lot, you know, leaving widows, holding patrimonies and those sorts of things, maybe, but that's the same, say, you know, I don't know, in other wars across Europe. So I don't think it's necessarily as different as we think it is.
29:22 Matt Lewis? Yeah, interesting. And so just after folk dies, kind of around 1144, we get the emergence of a man named Zengi, who will be the first kind of real, real threat to the Crusaders. Can you tell us a bit about how he emerges and the threat that he poses?
29:40 Speaker 05 Yeah, so I mean, Zengi is kind of a key early figure in this kind of, I guess, developing unity in northern Syria. And he's really, you know, kind of starts to put up a significant, he's basically, you know, kind of a, he's a bit of a conqueror. He starts to build his own kind of base of power, which is expanding in northern Syria. He's trying to get towards Damascus, which is kind of the key threat area for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. So he's already a big presence around the principality of Antioch, but his domain is sort of expanding further south and is causing concern for those. So the big things that
30:25 Speaker 05 he does really is to kind of unite. I mean, he starts off as kind of governor of Baghdad, and then he becomes governor of Mosul, and then Aleppo, and then he takes Hamas. He marries the widow of Burri of Damascus, who is a woman called Zumarud, fantastically named Zumarud. She's like a terrifying person in herself. But, and he also, yeah, he has a reputation for being extremely terrifying, both amongst Christians and Muslim authors who write about him. He was kind of quite a brutal ruler. So when it comes to 1144, essentially, he starts expanding into Odessa and he successfully
31:06 Speaker 05 manages to to sack the city of Odessa. Jocelyn II is the ruler at the time, so he is kind of squeezed out. The Prince of Antioch doesn't come to help and gets a lot of criticism for that. And essentially, he is extremely brutal to the Latins, but not necessarily to the other Syrian Christians who live in that in that city.
31:28 Matt Lewis? Yeah, it's an interesting distinction, I guess. And is it mainly Zengi's sort of taking down of Odessa? Is it the shock of that that ultimately leads to the Second Crusade? Because it's around about this time that we get the Second Crusade being called in Europe.
31:42 Speaker 05 There's different kind of theories about that. It certainly is a key impetus and the papacy is very concerned about, you know, the news of the shock of Odessa. I mean, it's the city itself is taken, I think, on Christmas Eve, 1144. And it takes a bit of time, obviously, for the news to get back to the West. And we think that Louis VII of France, who goes on the Second Crusade, was also thinking about going on a crusade around that stage. So there is that sort of crossover. You know, did he decide, is it his thing? Or is it because of because of events in the Holy Land? But I think ultimately, you know, we get another major expedition. And the big change this time is having kings. So you've got Louis VII, you've got Conrad of Germany, and these are the two kind of
32:27 Speaker 05 key players that take part in the Second Crusade. But we also have a bit of the expansion with the Second Crusade, because they include not just crusades to the Holy Land, but in Iberia and in Northern Europe as well against pagans, so so-called pagans. So you have this kind of real expansion of crusading activity during the Second Crusade. So it says to me that it's not all about Odessa. And certainly, when they get to the Holy Land, they don't actually do anything about Odessa.
32:56 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And was it considered a boon to have two kings going? What difference does that make? Because there is the recipe for disaster there in terms of, you know, who is the senior figure on the crusade?
33:09 Speaker 05 Yeah, yes. But I guess that was also a problem with the first crusade because that was a conglomerate of various different knights and magnates, which perhaps potentially is even more confusing. So the good thing about kings is they got loads of money. So they can afford to, you know, help people come, they can pay for troops, they can organise finance and go in style, as it were. But potentially also, you know, there is that there is that risk of conflict because of people's egos and, you know, power, the power of kings and who's going to take ultimate kind of authority for what's going on. And the two kind of do seem to work quite separately. I mean, one of the big issues with the second crusade, of course, is that the German crusaders go first and then they're followed by the
33:53 Speaker 05 French. And the French kind of, you know, complaining all the time that the Germans have stripped everything bare, or that they haven't, you know, or there's been indiscipline and therefore they meet lots of hostility from people. So yeah, there are all sorts of issues with having those two different groups on crusades. But I think it's not necessarily a new problem for crusades. Like, there's always problems with who's going to pay for it and who's going to be in charge. And that, you know, whenever there's a major expedition, it's always an issue.
34:37 Speaker 06 If you love a good story, why aren't you listening to Dan Snow's History Hit Podcast? It's a show where we tell you every amazing, crazy and important thing that's ever happened in human history. From the perilous voyages of the first Polynesians, the discoveries of Captain Cook, the deadly Viking raids on Britain and Ireland, the rise and fall of the great English kings and queens. We'll tell you how Waterloo was won, the Alamo was lost, and all the history in between. So make sure you check it out. Dan Snow's History Hit, for the best true stories ever told, wherever you get your podcasts.
35:15 Speaker 03 I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one.
35:22 Speaker 04 And I'm Carter Roy and this is What the Fact. Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
35:55 Matt Lewis? And I guess they also, as you mentioned, they highlight one of the persistent problems of simply getting to the Holy Land because neither army have a particularly safe or comfortable or easy journey there. They're being harassed, you know, almost as soon as they cross into Asia.
36:10 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, sort of straight away, you know, the Germans have some really serious setbacks in against the forces of the Sultanate of Rum. Conrad himself has to turn back and, and kind of stay in Byzantium for a while and is looked after by the Byzantine Emperor. When the French troops go, travel down, they end up being caught out at the Battle of Mount Cadmos, they're kind of get strung out over the mountains and they're easy pickings for the Turkish forces. They're slowed down by their baggage train and this leads to, you know, a very serious defeat. They lose a lot of their supplies and also their troops. They, interestingly, this is when the military orders come to the fore because Louis has
36:52 Speaker 05 to hand over the army, the discipline in the army to the Templars. Because it's become so indisciplined to get them, you know, safely, what's left to Antioch. He has to hand them over to the Templars. And then, you know, they arrive in Antioch and this is of course where the situation with Eleanor of Akitane, his wife flares up, so.
37:12 Matt Lewis? Yeah, I was going to mention that we shouldn't go too much further without giving a massive shout out to Eleanor of Aquitaine, a big fan of hers. And obviously, she will get mired in an awful lot of controversy around this. So the idea that she had an affair with her uncle Raymond, a later, you know, much later invention, the idea that she was going to run off with Saladin and all kinds of things swirl around her. But how significant is Eleanor's presence on the ground during the crusade? Is it kind of, is it blown up because of the later stories that get attached to her? Or is it significant that she's there?
37:43 Speaker 05 I think it's, you know, it's always significant when a queen goes on crusade in some form or other. The problem that we have is that possibly because of her divorce from Louis later on, she does obviously get quite a bit of negative press, but she also, she seems to have been kind of partly removed from one of the main sources that we have for the French part of the crusade. She's also, but what we know about her, you know, she does have lords with her who are from the region of Aquitaine, that, you know, her duchy. So she is kind of, in a sense, there on as a feudal lord. We also have, we know that she wrote letters to the Empress of Constantinople. So she was doing a bit of diplomacy.
38:25 Speaker 05 They were exchanging letters and talking to each other as they went through Byzantium. And then we have this situation where she gets to Antioch and essentially, her uncle, Raymond, is Prince of Antioch at this time, he marries the daughter of Alice, Constance, and he wants Louis to help him fight in northern Syria. He wants help and support in order to kind of pursue his aims in northern Syria against Aleppo, you know, and that's his goal. The natural way to achieve that is to sweet talk his wife and kind of say, can you put in a good word for me with Louis and do this? But clearly, there are rumours that they get too close or that, you know, something else is going on, or Louis just doesn't want to do it.
39:08 Speaker 05 And it seems that Eleanor gets annoyed with the fact that Louis doesn't want to help her uncle. And she says, well, actually, I'll stay, you know, you go, you go on to Jerusalem, I'll stay with, you know, my people and I'll, I'll help my uncle. And he won't have any of that. So he takes her with him by force. And I think this is what causes then the, the, the kind of big dispute between them.
39:28 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and I always think that one of the interesting things that's going on just beneath the surface there is that clearly Raymond of Antioch has his own preoccupations and his own motives for what he's trying to convince Louis to do. But Louis is willfully ignoring the advice of a man who is on the ground about where they should go, where they should attack, where they should target, how they should behave in the Holy Land. And he's almost, you know, he's saying, no, no, I'm going to ignore all of this advice that is born of experience and I'm going to do what I think is right. And almost you get a sense that Eleanor is saying, that is absolutely mad. Why are you going to ignore all of this advice and expect me to abandon my uncle as well when he says he needs help, you know, and that all of that is what gets turned into this idea that she must have been having
40:11 Matt Lewis? an affair because how else could Raymond have got into her head if he wasn't getting into her bed kind of thing. But nevertheless, they decide to ignore Raymond and they head off to lay siege to Damascus, which kind of doesn't go very well.
40:24 Speaker 05 Well, no, I mean, it's a complete waste of time, to be honest. They're only there for a few days. They fight for a bit. They have really tough, like, three days fighting through orchards where people are, you know, like snipers with arrows all around the trees, really tough fighting, managed to make some headway. And then, for some unknown reason, they decide to move camp to the other side of the city and then realise there's no water and they can't support the troops. They had loads of water and fruit in the orchards, but they go around to the wrong side of the city and then it's game over. And after three days, they have to give up because the only way to, the only way to overcome it would be to go back through the orchards again. And they've got a worry that Nuredine is
41:07 Speaker 05 coming. So they really can't, you know, they can't stay and they decide to withdraw. So it really comes to nothing. But that decision is a, is a very poor one, to go to Damascus, generally.
41:18 Matt Lewis? I love the idea that when they get back home, you know, Louis has to go to Eleanor and Eleanor's like, so how did it go? How did ignoring Uncle Raymond go? Did you get what you wanted? Did you? Might it have been an idea to listen to Uncle Raymond?
41:29 Speaker 05 Well, there's a bit of marriage counselling that goes on on the way back home because they have to stop off at Rome and Eugenius III, the Pope, knows that they're having these marital problems and he says, you have to stay in my, you can stay in my bed.
41:44 Speaker 05 In order to make up and they do later on have a daughter. So clearly it it works for a little while, but after that it's like, okay, that's that's enough now game over. Yeah. And that's when she decides to get divorced.
41:57 Matt Lewis? And the second crusade is is ultimately, it's a failure. I mean, Louis and Eleanor get to Jerusalem. They spend some time in Jerusalem, which, you know, must have been an incredible thing for them to witness and to be there for Easter and things. Is there is there a cause of the failure of the second crusade? Do we do we have a sense of why it fails so badly?
42:17 Speaker 05 Oh, it's a difficult one. So they, I mean, they had the choice. So they have this council at Palmaria. Louis there, Eleanor's there, Conrad's there, Melisande, the Queen Melisande is there with her son, who's still a minor sort of at this stage. And they have to decide, are they going to go for Ascalon? Are they going to go for Damascus? Ascalon, they need to capture, but it's going to be difficult because it's the it's the kind of port that the Fatimid Egyptians are holding at that time. Damascus, they are worried that Nuredine might take it. So they're keen to go there, but they have a truce with Damascus. So it's not in the interest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to break a truce with, that they've organised with Damascus. So it doesn't leave them in good stead with the Damascusians after that. But it's not the only thing that goes wrong.
43:03 Speaker 05 You know, there's all of the logistical problems that happened on the way. There's the the battles that they face as they come through Aetemania against the Seljuk's of Rome. There's this failure to kind of pick up on the opportunity to do something in Antioch. And they've also completely forgotten about Edessa. It's like, what about Edessa then? They just realise, I mean, I think, you know, when they get to Northern Syria, they they realise that it's just not feasible to to save at that stage. But but still.
43:32 Matt Lewis? This was not the package holiday that we signed up for.
43:35 Speaker 05 But having said that, if you look at some areas, some other areas in the Second Crusade that could be called successes, you've got an Anglo Norman fleet, which successfully helps capture Lisbon in Portugal. You've got the Generees successfully capturing Almeria and Tortosa in in Spain.
43:51 Speaker 05 So there are some small successes, but not the main one to the Holy Land is a washout.
43:56 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. Not where the kings are, which is where they would have liked it. And you mentioned Noor al-Din emerging there. So he's Zengi's son and he will ultimately take control of and leverage the wealth and the power of Egypt. So does the Muslim threat becoming slightly more unified, but also shifting its base to Egypt? Does that change the dynamic in the Near East?
44:20 Speaker 05 Absolutely, yeah. As Syria becomes more and more consolidated under one ruler, that is when, you know, they can begin to look towards Egypt and think about how to capture Egypt. So, and if you can imagine kind of the way that the eastern Mediterranean seaboard looks, basically, you know, you've got this thin strip of Latin states along the coast. And then you've got Syria on one side of that, and then you've got Egypt on the other side. And if those two are united, it's a really dangerous position for those Latin states to be in because they're in between and not cracker, basically. It's as if they won't last. So it's a, you know, you have kind of Noor al-Din then building his power.
45:03 Speaker 05 One of the things that he does do successfully is his authority over Damascus. You know, he's the one that achieves what his father couldn't do and brings Damascus into the fold as well. And is kind of increasingly expanding. He does seem to have been prepared to ally with the Christians sometimes though, which is quite interesting. So he does make alliances, both with the Byzantine Emperor and with Baldwin III in Jerusalem. But then after 1163, he seems to have had a bit of a kind of personal conversion moment and become a bit more religiously inclined, starts making more use of the idea of jihad
45:43 Speaker 05 in kind of getting involved in warfare. And he goes on the Hajj as well. He does the pilgrimage to Mecca.
45:49 Matt Lewis? And all of this is bad news for the Crusaders and the Crusaders states that the Muslim world, they'd essentially been so successful because the Muslim world was so fractured when they arrived there. But the fact that they're coming together now must have felt like it was a growing threat. And Noor al-Din. Will will die in 1174, but he'll be succeeded kind of Saladin will steal power, I guess, in Egypt a little bit. And he's a name, you know, people will know the name of Saladin being associated with this period of crusading. And we see Saladin really jumping on that idea of jihad and ramping up the the idea of of holy war. Do we have a sense of how much, to what extent that is genuine religious zeal and how much of it is the ways in which
46:30 Matt Lewis? he's come to power? It suits him to focus attention outside and on the the threat of the crusade estates and and point people at them rather than worrying about too much about his legitimacy? So having solidified his power in kind of northern Syria and around Damascus and things like that, how does Nuredin manage to take Egypt?
46:49 Speaker 05 Well, I mean, there's this whole period really in the 1160s when it's a bit of a race between Nuredin and the forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under then King Amalric as to who's going to get Egypt. They really want Egypt. There's lots of natural resources there. There's a river Nile coming up with all of the sort of agricultural produce coming all the way up through Africa. You've got sort of slave trade. You've got good tax collection, really good tax system. So it's good to make money. And what gets Nuredin in there is that the the rulers at this stage are really very weak in terms of the Fatimah Caliphate and that's kind of infighting between the viziers who are kind of basically
47:28 Speaker 05 in control. So in 1163, Nuredin actually gets invited by one of the viziers, Shawa, in order to help support him against his enemies in Egypt. And obviously, once invited in, you know, that you're never going to get rid of him. So he keeps sending troops to aid things. And then Amalric, the King of Jerusalem, he tries to invade Egypt like five times. So there's constant kind of battles and strategic warfare going on there throughout the 1160s. But really, it's by 1169 that the general Shirku takes, Nuredin's general Shirku, takes charge of Egypt. And then when he dies, it's Saladin, his nephew, who takes over.
48:07 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And Saladin is a name that will be familiar, I think, to anyone who knows anything about this period of crusading. And Saladin will kind of really lean into that idea of jihad and of moving against the Christian Crusader states. Do we have a sense of how much of that on Saladin's party's religious zeal? Has he simply spotted a weakness in the Christian Crusader states that he could exploit? Or is this partly because of the ways in which he's come to power in Egypt? It suits him to focus attention outward on somebody else and unite people against a common foe?
48:39 Speaker 05 I think that in a sense, it's the last thing that you mentioned there is the key because we have to remember that there are two caliphates at this time. You know, there's the Sunni caliphate and the Shiite caliphate, and the Fatemi caliphate is the Shiite one. So what the first thing that Saladin wants to do in Egypt to assert his own authority is to make sure that people are following Sunni Islam. So this is part of the reason why he gets involved in that process. There's a political element to it for him, which has got nothing to do with the Crusaders, it's actually, you know, to do with establishing himself in Egypt. But the benefit of that for him is also that those policies that he puts in place then do have this additional end of unifying that both the Syrian and
49:22 Speaker 05 Egyptian Muslims under this banner of Sunni Islam. And, you know, so it helps to establish his authority there. But, you know, there are lots of Coptic Christians in Egypt and various, you know, there's lots of different groups. I think we, you know, we often forget that this isn't just a Christianity versus Islam. There are so many different sects and, you know, there's Eastern Christians, there's Jewish people, there's all of these different groups that are involved. So, and largely, you know, they are able to exist within the Islamic world as long as they pay taxes. Yeah, they might not get to positions of power and authority, but they still form a part of the some administration and have particular roles. So, and that, you know, Saladin seems to stick to. I think that he
50:06 Speaker 05 does get canny about using kind of religious calls for getting military support to fight against the Crusaders and positioning himself as the champion of Sunni Islam only helps with that. But it's not necessarily something that he's doing specifically to oppose the Crusaders. It has lots of benefits for him too.
50:41 Speaker 07 The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance. Definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.
51:12 Speaker 03 I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one.
51:19 Speaker 04 And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact. Three facts a week, each with the whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
51:52 Matt Lewis? And around this time, Saladin is consolidating his power. Jerusalem is facing a new crisis in that there's Baldwin the Fourth there who develops leprosy, and this leads to kind of a dynastic crisis, which sees the emergence of another powerful woman, Sibyl of Jerusalem. So how bad is this situation for the Kingdom of Jerusalem? And how significant is Sibyl during all of this?
52:15 Speaker 05 I mean, it's an interesting one. Yes. So Baldwin the Fourth, bless him, suffers this awful and terrible disease, which is discovered really in his early teen years. And it is going to be quite, you know, it's a debilitating disease. It means that he needs regents. He needs people to rule in his power. Not all the time. And I would like, in his defense, so he was a very active king when he could be. And he, you know, shows bravery on the battlefield. He has Big successful defeat of Saladin at the Battle of Montgizard in 1177. So he's not just an ailing kinglet, but there is this issue that he won't be able to have heirs. He won't be able to have children. So who's going to come next?
52:57 Speaker 05 And there are two options. There's his full blood sister, Cibilla, who's the daughter of Agnes of Cortone alongside Baldwin. And then his half sister Isabella, who's the daughter of Maria Comnena. And that's the Malric second wife. And it's clearly Cibilla is the preferred heir. She had had a son, Baldwin the fifth, but he dies sadly shortly after he is he's crowned. So after Baldwin the fourth dies, Baldwin the fifth, and he's just a child at the time. So at that stage, really, it's Cibilla who needs to to take the throne. Isabella is a potential option, but her husband doesn't fancy throwing his hat in the ring and says, no, thanks. And the big stumbling block is Cibilla's husband, Guy of Lusignan,
53:42 Speaker 05 who gets quite a rough ride in a lot of the chronicles because he's the king who presides over the Battle of Hatine. But it's said that they tried to kind of divorce Guy and Cibilla before she took the throne. But then she took Guy back as her husband and said she she wanted him. So he can't have been completely horrendous.
54:01 Matt Lewis? About as much of a glowing endorsement as he's going to get anywhere, I think, isn't it? It can't have been all that bad.
54:07 Matt Lewis? We mentioned the Battle of Hatine there, which is, you know, that that's a crushing blow for the Christians and for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And and hot on its heels, the city of Jerusalem falls. So how how does this affect the region? And how should we compare Saladin's capture of Jerusalem to the First Crusade's capture of it in 1099, which was, you know, horrifically bloody affair?
54:31 Speaker 05 Yeah. So the Battle of Hatine really is the big, significant one because that is where most of the nobility, the Latin army, like the big problem with that is that Guy stripped all the garrisons bare and the whole army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was on the field. So when they failed and they were surrounded by a larger number of troops, most of them were taken into captivity, but Saladin deliberately killed all the military orders. So it's not like there was no bloodbath at all. He kind of singled them out and thought they're the worst. I'm going to get rid of them all.
55:01 Matt Lewis? But Guy has very much put all of his eggs in one basket with this battle. He's got everybody down there. So this is, this is make or break.
55:06 Speaker 05 And so that is why Saladin is able to sweep across and, you know, kind of basically kind of besiege one town, city or fortified town or castle after the other, and they end up capitulating. Jerusalem is a 15 day siege. We have the fantastic story of Margaret of Beverly, who walks, she's from Yorkshire, who, who arrives in the city just in time for the siege to start. And she fights on the walls of the city with a cooking pot on her head. But it only lasts for 15 days, after which it's given over by a negotiated truce. And that means if you're wealthy enough, you can pay a ransom to escape. But a lot of people aren't wealthy enough and get taken into slavery. So it's a bit less bloody
55:50 Speaker 05 than the 1099 capture and a bit more organised. Saladin does then burn the laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. So he kind of makes a statement about, you know, what he wants to happen. And yeah, he installs the minbar that Nuredine had built to put in the city of Jerusalem to kind of show his, yeah, his, his power and authority. But yeah, it seems to have been a more civilised affair.
56:16 Matt Lewis? And getting on to, what are we on? About unfair question number 422 for today? Because we're now going to try and power our way through what becomes known as the Third Crusade. Presumably, unlike Odessa, the fall of Jerusalem is a genuine existential crisis for the Catholic Church in Europe.
56:34 Speaker 05 Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's a, so immediately we get the bull for the papal bull for the Third Crusade, Sainte-Audita Tremendi. And this is kind of circulated widely. People do take it very seriously. And most, one of the things that they're most upset about is the loss of the piece of the true cross that was found by the crusaders after the siege of Jerusalem initially. It's captured at the Battle of Hattin. And it's mentioned in lots and lots of the literature. So that's clearly another kind of sign of divine disfavour, which is, is a horrendous shock to people. Gradually, they start To build up the impetus to do this and the key players are involved. So you've got the King of France,
57:15 Speaker 05 who at the time is Philip II. You've got the King of England, who, when the initial news come out is Henry II, but he then dies, Richard the Lionheart takes his place. And Frederick Barbarossa in Germany, who had taken part actually in the Second Crusade already. So he was a seasoned, inexperienced crusader and also the Holy Roman Emperor. So you have three very powerful monarchs taking part in this expedition.
57:40 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And I mean, the Second Crusade, we'd said it was positive that we'd got two crowned heads involved in that. Well, now we're ramping it up to three, promising to be even better. Except that, you know, to what extent is personal, are personal relationships at play here? Because Philip and Richard in particular aren't good friends. They seem quite competitive to me. So again, is having that, that many cooks going to spoil the broth?
58:08 Speaker 05 I think, yes, partly, but I also think it depends, kind of. People went into this crusade with a lot of different agendas, I think. And we have the issue that Frederick Barbarossa goes, but he dies on the way. He cleverly decides to swim across a river in his elder years. Yeah, not, not the best way. So he, he dies. And because of his death, a lot of the troops who were going to come on that crusade then go back to Germany for the new election of the, the new king. So really it's more about that relationship between Richard and Philip. And Richard really does almost everything he possibly can to annoy Philip on this crusade. I really did. He's just, um, then they have had a reasonably good relationship in the past.
58:51 Speaker 05 They had allied with each other in the past against Richard's father. So, you know, they, they clearly did have sometimes a friendly relationship. But Richard was betrothed to Philip's sister, Alice. And he used the crusade, I think, as an excuse to get out of that marriage because Philip couldn't attack him while they were on crusade. And brought his new bride along, Berengaria, and married her. He also managed to capture Cyprus and didn't want to share any of the loot with Philip.
59:21 Speaker 05 So he kind of broke a lot of promises, was doing what he wanted to do. And, and I think he was kind of doing it deliberately.
59:31 Matt Lewis? And I guess then Philip's nose is rubbed even further in the dirt. When Philip gets there first, they're laying siege to Acha and it's kind of long, prolonged, hard, difficult siege. And kind of Richard turns up and it's almost like the next day they win the siege. And Richard's like, well, obviously that's because I'm here now.
59:47 Speaker 05 Yeah. Well, but to be fair, he also turns up with a massive stack of cash that he got from Cyprus and was literally throwing money at people, saying, I'll give you this much money if you if you get over the walls first, you know. So, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, Philip, it added insult to injury, I think. And Philip decided not long after to go home. Whether, you know, specifically to go back and attack Richard while he was away, or whether he was genuinely ill, as some sources say, is open to question. But yeah, he thoroughly got annoyed. And I think probably rightly so, with the way Richard behaved.
1:00:22 Matt Lewis? I think it's really just to get across that there is, you know, Guy is still there, but there is also a comrade of Monfrat who's cropping up. And it's kind of just, you know, to what extent are the Crusaders pulling themselves apart here? Because there seems to be a real lack of unity. And, you know, Philip and Richard are playing out their own rivalry through these two kind of candidates to rule Jerusalem. And, you know, are the Crusaders sort of setting themselves on fire here?
1:00:48 Speaker 05 There is a history of kings of Jerusalem reaching out to the rulers in the West to help them make decisions about things like succession and other other stuff. You know, they want to get the powerful kings on side to help kind of secure succession and that sort of thing. So it's not exceptional that they get involved in the politics that are going on there. Clearly, Guy of Lusigna is struggling, although he's the one who starts off the siege of Acha. You know, he could have just disappeared, but, you know, he goes to Tyre and Conrad of Monfrat is the is holding Tyre against Saladin and says, I'm not giving this to you. I've earned it with my hard work. And so this is why then Guy decides, okay, well,
1:01:28 Speaker 05 I'll go and lay siege to Acre instead. But by this stage, Sybil has died, his wife, who is the kind of key link to the throne of Jerusalem. So it makes it much more difficult. And also, there's that whole legacy of Hattin makes it much more difficult for him to hold the position. So it makes sense, really, to kind of buy him off with Cyprus and then to put Conrad in place. But then, of course, Conrad is murdered by assassins very soon after his elevation to the kingship of Jerusalem through marriage to Isabella, the new heir. And, you know, some people suggested, is Richard behind this or not? Did he want to get rid of him? And then it's a cousin of Richard, Sieve Champagne, who then marries Isabella. Poor Isabella, she has about four husbands. And he becomes king of Jerusalem.
1:02:13 Matt Lewis? And the stated aim of the Third Crusade is to recapture Jerusalem after it fell to Saladin. How close do they get to that? Was it ever a realistic aim for them to have?
1:02:26 Speaker 05 Well, again, you know, the most important thing they have to do first is get the ports back. You know, they have to kind of expand the areas they're holding on to. So, you know, so Conrad managed to hold on to Tyre, they have the siege of Acre, and they managed to get Acre back. And then it's Jaffa, there's this big kind of battle at Arsuf, where Richard shows off how brave he is. Because then you can always get support in, you know, you can, you can send ships and get, you know, more and more people to come in. The problem with Jerusalem is it's inland, and it has very little strategic importance. Its importance is mainly religious. So it's important culturally and to people's mindsets. But actually, in
1:03:07 Speaker 05 terms of a trade centre or anything else, it's not that viable. And it's difficult to keep supply lines open. So they do try, they try twice to get to Jerusalem, but they just can't, they can't make it because the supply lines get sort of stretched out and it doesn't happen. So in the end, they have to solve it by a treaty. And they decide to to negotiate with Saladin. So they have the Treaty of Jaffa in 1192.
1:03:33 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And there's a really interesting dynamic between Richard and Saladin, I think, isn't there? They they kind of seem to respect each other, almost like each other. But maybe that's also a recognition that neither were were going to be able to defeat the other as well. I mean, Richard is is wildly successful as a commander and a general in the Holy Land without doing anything as spectacular as recapturing Jerusalem. But Saladin is is also, you know, consolidating his power. So it's kind of the the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. And as you say, the the is the Treaty of Jaffa just a result of that stalemate?
1:04:07 Speaker 05 It is partly. I think, you know, Saladin's kind of overreached himself and is at a stage where he needs to kind of consolidate and can't continue with this level of campaigning. And Richard is, you know, he's he's cautious enough that he can hold on to what what he's gained. But he also knows that Philip is threatening his lands back at home. He needs to get back to to make sure that those are protected. So he can't stay. So the in that situation, the only thing you can do really is to is to make a make a truce.
1:04:39 Matt Lewis? And then once Richard does leave for home and find that Philip has been thoroughly harassing all of his lands. How does the dust settle in the Holy Land? Because again, we we've mentioned Sibyl Sibyl's sister Isabella has risen to prominence again. So there is another powerful woman in Jerusalem. How can we leave it in the wake of the Third Crusade?
1:04:58 Speaker 05 What the what the Third Crusade achieves really is a continuation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Although the city of Jerusalem is no longer in Crusader hands, the kingdom is now based at Acre. And that's kind of the the kind of royal area. Isabella and her husband, Henry of Champagne, they continue ruling, I think it's till 1197. Henry has a weird death.
1:05:22 Speaker 05 And then, and then she gets married to Guy of losing the house brother, Amory. So she's, but again, she goes on to have female children. So there's always, there's a continuation of this kind of female heirs to the throne Jerusalem. But I think this is not necessarily a problem or an issue. They are kind of inheriting the throne. There's a tradition of inheriting the throne. And it also means that they can encourage new crusaders to come out from the West to marry, bringing troops, bringing support, bringing finance. And that, so it can be actually a positive in this kind of frontier situation.
1:05:59 Matt Lewis? And if we've left Saladin having overstretched himself, does the treaty of Jaffa buy him time? What happens to Saladin and his dynasty, his empire?
1:06:09 Speaker 05 Well, sadly, Saladin dies not too long afterwards. He dies in 1194, I think. So, and this kind of unity that he's forged between Syria and Egypt is quite fragile. And pretty soon it kind of breaks up again into two separate entities as his heirs kind of are fighting over who, who's going to take charge of various bits. So in a way that gives the new sort of kingdom of Acre a bit of a breather in order to establish itself and recover from, you know, some of the really devastating defeats that Saladin inflicted.
1:06:44 Matt Lewis? Can't help wondering whether Richard ended up wishing he hadn't gone home. I mean, given that everything that happens on the way and what happens to him when he gets home. If he, if, you know, if he'd stayed in the Holy Land for a little bit longer, Saladin would have been gone. And he would have been able to exploit maybe some of those breaches that were appearing in, in the Muslim unity that Saladin had forged. So maybe he'd have been better if he'd stayed there a little bit longer.
1:07:03 Speaker 05 Potentially, yeah, there is that, there is that possibility. He'd had a big boost of cash and various different things from the conquest that he'd had. But he also kind of needed to quit while he was ahead. Because that would have disappeared very quickly, I think, had they stayed longer.
1:07:21 Matt Lewis? Always key to that forging of a myth and a legend, isn't it?
1:07:23 Speaker 05 Yes.
1:07:24 Matt Lewis? To crit at the peak of your powers and get out while you're winning. Is it fair to say that the story so far, up to the end of the Third Crusade, of military activity in the Near East during this period seems to be a story of initial Muslim disunity and then growing Muslim unity tying in with Christian fracturing? And then all that seems to be swinging backwards and forwards a little bit to determine who is ever kind of on the up.
1:07:52 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think, obviously, this is a time and just a period generally where land equals power in a sense. You know, it's an agrarian society, the more lands you have, the more troops you can call on. I mean, cash is also good, but if you're, you can look at the Byzantine Empire and mercenaries and sort of say, well, how successful are they? I think it's, it is partly about the amount of one ruler can control a large area of land. They've got a lot of resources to call on, they can be quite successful. What's interesting with the Crusades, of course, is that they aren't all just one ruler's initiative. There's kind, they really are a mixture of peoples from different places, with different agendas. And that kind of makes it difficult then for them to have a clear objective sometimes,
1:08:37 Speaker 05 because people go with with different objectives in mind. I think for the settlers, you know, their objectives are reasonably straightforward, but because they're broken into these four different pieces, they also have their own personal objectives. And we do see conflict in the settler states as well, as they're kind of, you know, establishing themselves and allying with one another against each other. I think if unity can be forged, it can be a very powerful tool. But there are a lot of ambitious people vying for power and a lot of different interest groups. So it very much depends on the individual power and the person in power, their relationships with people as to how successful they are.
1:09:21 Speaker 05 And once that person goes, like when Saladin dies, it's hard for a successor to repeat that process unless they're equally skilled.
1:09:30 Matt Lewis? Well, thank you very much, Natasha, for this. I mean, I joked about how many unreasonable questions I've asked you, but you've.
1:09:37 Speaker 05 It's a bit of a whistle stop time.
1:09:40 Matt Lewis? Well, you've taken us through two crusades and everything before, in between and after. So, thank you very, very much for handling that with such incredible ability. You've swept us through all of those complex events and made it really understandable for us. So if you need to go and have a lie down in a quiet room with a glass of something strong, I think you've probably earned it.
1:10:01 Speaker 05 Yes, maybe, yes.
1:10:01 Matt Lewis? Yeah. But thank you very, very much for joining us and explaining all of that to us, Natasha.
1:10:06 Speaker 05 You're very welcome. It's been a pleasure.
1:10:09 Matt Lewis? Well, that was such a fun and interesting conversation and we covered so much. It's probably worth recapping a little bit. With the age of crusader kings and queens rising and faltering across the 12th century, the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 wasn't the end of the story, but the beginning of a fragile and experimental new political world. The crusader state survived not simply through force of arms, but through negotiations, diplomacy and uneasy coexistence with their Islamic neighbours. And the struggle for the Holy Land was shaped as much by figures like Zengi and Saladin as by the ambitious Baldwin, Melisande and Richard the Lionheart. If you want to discover what happened when that delicate balance began to fracture,
1:10:54 Matt Lewis? then join Eleanor next week for episode three in our series on the Crusades. She'll be exploring the disastrous course of the Fourth and Fifth Crusades, the sack of Constantinople and the extraordinary career of the excommunicate crusader Emperor Frederick II. Moments when crusading turned in on itself and the movement began to splinter under the weight of its own contradictions. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and a huge thanks to Dr Natasha Hodgson for joining us. If you want to hear more from her, go and listen to our fantastic episode with Eleanor on Women Crusaders in our back catalogue. There are new instalments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please do come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history.
1:11:36 Matt Lewis? Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Head over to historyhit.com/subscribe right now. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.
1:12:22 Speaker 01 In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glennie and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.
1:12:37 Speaker 02 It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.
1:12:46 Speaker 01 In Our Time, listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.
1:12:55 Speaker 03 I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one.
1:13:02 Speaker 04 And I'm Carter Roy and this is What the Fact? Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
Previous The First Crusade: The Road to Jerusalem Next How Islam came to Iran Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated