The Fall Of The Roman Empire

Episode 131: The First Crusade: A New Hero in ByzantiumWelcome to Echoes of Empires, my new podcast which is the successor to the Fall of the Roman Empire. In this episode, I want to look at the First Crusade. This crusade was quite different from all the others. Not only did it establish and define the entire crusading movement, but it was also probably the largest military expedition put together in Europe since the days of the Roman Empire. Over 100,000 people, a large proportion of whom were knights and foot soldiers, marched east to give battle to almost the entire Islamic world. In the next few episodes, we’ll look at why they did this, what motivated them and what they expected to achieve. But whatever the answers to those questions are, one thing is abundantly clear. The First Crusade was astonishingly successful. The first crusaders were never defeated. Instead, they fought and routed every Islamic army they encountered. From Turkish nomads to Bedouin horsemen and Ethiopian infantry, they triumphed all the way from what is now Turkey down to Egypt. No wonder medieval Europe spent the next century living in the shadow of the success of the First Crusade. The story was recounted repeatedly by troubadours in the banqueting halls of castles and in the market fairs of peasant villages. And it’s little wonder that on the other side of the Mediterranean, Islam was shaken to its very core. It had been shattered and broken by the crusaders. But it would come back. Eventually, the Islamic world found one of its greatest leaders: Saladin. And he would lead an Islamic resurgence that in its turn would break the power of the crusaders. But long before we get to Saladin, I want to go back to the origins of the First Crusade to ask why did it happen at all? What was it that produced the most extraordinary single event of the entire Middle Ages? And to find that answer, I want to start on a cold winter’s day in a field outside the town of Clermont in central France. That day was the 27 November 1095. Support the show For a free ebook, maps and blogs check out my website nickholmesauthor.com

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