116. The Crusades Begin...The People's Crusade

The stage is finally set: the Western Christians have heard the call to the Holy Land, and have responded with resounding affirmation.

The first of the waves of Europeans to head for Jerusalem wasn't quite what you'd imagine though. Led by the charismatic open-air preacher Peter the Hermit, a band of thousands of untrained soldiers headed East to participate in the early crusade. The results were...mixed to say the least. 

Join us as we explore the honestly kind of terrible People's Crusade. We'll also discuss whether we've been kind to the Anabaptists, what our next Chump Talk should be, and whether Taylor's mom needs to wear sunglasses. 

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Transcript

Jim Salmon (00:00.782)
Hey everybody, welcome to Church History for Trumps. name is John Simon. have Thomas, the good hearted duo, and we've got Taylor, the brazen hearted treadway. Hey guys.

GOBBA GOOL (00:08.309)
Tom Bombadil (00:08.693)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (00:13.974)
I- is that my crusader name?

Tom Bombadil (00:15.431)
And

And who's, what's John? What kind of hearted is John?

Jim Salmon (00:20.896)
I can't give myself a nickname, I don't know, you guys have to...

Tom Bombadil (00:24.767)
John the Half-Black-Hearted Salmon.

GOBBA GOOL (00:26.966)
John the Gentle.

Jim Salmon (00:29.934)
John the Hav- that sounds like I've got like an evil side, but I'm usually okay.

Tom Bombadil (00:36.819)
Yeah, that's kind of what I was going for.

GOBBA GOOL (00:37.066)
John, I'd say John, John the Anabaptist pacifist Simon.

Jim Salmon (00:45.312)
Okay. John the, yeah, I like the gentle hearted Simon. like.

GOBBA GOOL (00:51.158)
Yeah, dude, I've been studying Anabaptists and I was all fired up. Right. I was reading like Blaurock and like all the primary sources, which were all, you know, they were written by Anabaptists. So I was all fired up and like, yeah, you know, Zwingli and his evil followers. And then I sat through a lecture in church history and my very nuanced professor, Dr. Chud, he like went through everything that happened and he was basically like,

Jim Salmon (00:58.37)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (01:13.292)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (01:21.782)
He said it much more eloquently, but he was kind of like, you know, in a way the Anabaptists were sort of asking for it.

Tom Bombadil (01:29.279)
Hahaha! Base Dr. Chud.

GOBBA GOOL (01:31.094)
Dr. Judd said that they like, like at one point, Blaurach, if you're familiar with that era of church history, Blaurach is like the leader of that time period in Reformation history. He like walked into Zwingli's church and Zwingli's like, hey man, what are you doing? And Zwingli's like, I'm, or Blaurach's like, I'm preaching now.

Like, okay.

Jim Salmon (01:57.346)
You know what? No, no, nevermind. That's gonna find something redeeming about it, but no.

Tom Bombadil (02:00.127)
guys are just insane.

GOBBA GOOL (02:03.38)
You know what? Listen, I'm going to go back to my little hole and say that, listen, all they wanted to do was be re-baptized and they were killed for it. No!

Tom Bombadil (02:11.101)
and kill people.

Jim Salmon (02:12.654)
Well, here's the thing, Anabaptists, they were on a spectrum. Not all Anabaptists were made the same, right? Some of them were psychos and some of them were, yeah, some of them wanted to kill you and take over your town. Some of them were pacifists.

Tom Bombadil (02:25.749)
They were definitely on a speck.

GOBBA GOOL (02:28.212)
The Munster rebellion is like a blip, but it was actually a giant blip. It was like a massive black hole, actually. But it dominated, it dominates the discussion. I mean, literally, even to this day, most people, when you think of Anabaptists, all they think of is Munster rebellion.

Jim Salmon (02:41.206)
Add PR. It's bad PR. Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (02:50.306)
Well, and that's why, that's why when we did our episode, had anabaptists in the comments, like you guys missed the mark on this one, which from a pacifist, those are fighting words, bro. but it's because it's because the, you know, all of these dudes, they, eventually evolved into Mennonites and Amish and you know, tree huggers. And we love that. I have no problem with that. Yeah. That's right. Just a, just a, just an angsty teenage phase.

GOBBA GOOL (02:57.256)
Mm-hm.

GOBBA GOOL (03:00.818)
No.

GOBBA GOOL (03:08.82)
Yeah!

That's right. It was a blip on the radar.

GOBBA GOOL (03:18.634)
That's right. Anyway, this isn't Anabaptist for chumps.

Jim Salmon (03:19.928)
Yeah.

Yeah, then not at all. guys, we have to talk about this and, someone started talking about it in our comments. We have to figure out what we want to do for chump talk this month. And LM apparently wants to break up the whole podcast because he really wants us to talk about Christian nationalism. And I don't know, we're not wave chasers, but we could, I don't know. What do you guys think? We, we already kind of know where we stand on this. That's the hard thing.

GOBBA GOOL (03:41.078)
No.

Tom Bombadil (03:46.729)
Where did he comment this?

Tom Bombadil (03:51.509)
Where did he comment that? Was that on the last episode?

Jim Salmon (03:54.099)
He's looking for him. Yeah, I was on Spotify. It's just a general innocuous comment, know, innocent.

GOBBA GOOL (03:55.94)
L-LM, you don't know... you don't know what you ask.

Tom Bombadil (04:03.977)
Yeah, I was innocent for sure. He doesn't know what he's asking for.

GOBBA GOOL (04:04.346)
LM's like 17 and like about to ruin this podcast.

Jim Salmon (04:06.104)
lol

Jim Salmon (04:10.574)
You know what? mean, isn't there enough dialogue about Christian nationalism right now?

Tom Bombadil (04:16.565)
So then he followed it up and said, what about one on Christian mysticism?

Jim Salmon (04:21.708)
That's a little more my speed. I would be super down to do that. It'd really just be me talking straight for an hour though, so.

Tom Bombadil (04:23.925)
You

GOBBA GOOL (04:26.29)
If the problem, the problem with discussing Christian nationalism is defining Christian nationalism.

Jim Salmon (04:35.276)
Well, that's hopefully what we can do. Yeah. Cause you know, there's the old school. Yeah. There's, there's all kinds of nationalism.

Tom Bombadil (04:35.369)
Yeah, I was about to say that.

GOBBA GOOL (04:42.05)
Because because depending by whose definition you're using we're all and I mean we as in The hosts and all of you people listening. We're all Christian nationalists depending on some people's definitions. So

Jim Salmon (04:54.348)
Yeah, but there's definitely ways in which we are not all Christian nationalists, which is, think, where the three of us fall into different places.

GOBBA GOOL (04:58.08)
correct.

GOBBA GOOL (05:02.838)
I think L.M. I think L.M.'s gonna get his wish. Fine! Well, well, oh, that was all he gets. I'm gonna go on record and say I'd be willing to go on record and...

Tom Bombadil (05:05.791)
There you go, LM, you just got it. No, that was it. That was our whole trip.

Jim Salmon (05:10.414)
that's he did.

Jim Salmon (05:18.07)
Hey, we don't do split decisions on this show. We do everything unanimously. I would also be willing. So if we never do one audience, just know it's because of Thomas.

Tom Bombadil (05:27.349)
That's it.

GOBBA GOOL (05:30.407)
Yes.

Jim Salmon (05:31.566)
But yeah.

Tom Bombadil (05:31.957)
It's because I love these guys so much that I don't like being put into tough situations with my friends, but you know, we could do it. We could do it.

Jim Salmon (05:34.636)
Yeah

GOBBA GOOL (05:36.5)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (05:46.478)
Alright, we've had some spats in the past, and I'm sure we'll have more!

GOBBA GOOL (05:49.878)
That's right.

Tom Bombadil (05:50.025)
We've made it. We've only not published one episode, so we can...

Jim Salmon (05:54.21)
That's right. And I...

GOBBA GOOL (05:55.329)
Dude, that was pre-Taylor. I don't even know about that.

Jim Salmon (05:59.023)
Yeah, we'll tell you offline one of these days. It's a good one to not have posted.

GOBBA GOOL (06:00.352)
Did you guys hear or see that Wes Huff went on Sean Ryan? Yeah. Who's Sean Ryan? Tommy, where'd you find this guy? Actually, I found him before.

Tom Bombadil (06:08.819)
No.

Jim Salmon (06:08.832)
No, who's Sean Ryan?

Jim Salmon (06:14.766)
Watch out.

Tom Bombadil (06:15.989)
I've never watched Sean Ryan, I think I know who that is.

GOBBA GOOL (06:19.476)
Dude, Sean Ryan's huge.

Tom Bombadil (06:22.441)
He's like the next Joe Rogan, but he's serious.

GOBBA GOOL (06:26.934)
Yeah, it's a little different, but yeah.

Jim Salmon (06:29.42)
You know what? If someone's claim to fame is being the next Joe Rogan and I don't know who he is, I'm calling that a dub.

GOBBA GOOL (06:36.086)
He's pretty big, but Wes, so Wes Huff went on.

Tom Bombadil (06:39.997)
If you look him up, if you look him up, John, you're gonna recognize his face.

GOBBA GOOL (06:43.242)
They talked for a long time. Guys, I went down a rabbit hole the last week and a half of, you guys know who John Kiriakou is? He was this, no, he was the CIA whistleblower on the torture program. And so he started, he published some books and he started doing podcasting circuits and just telling all his stories.

Jim Salmon (06:43.468)
I think I just did. He's the Navy SEAL dude. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (06:52.366)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (06:57.006)
See you the next Joe Rogan.

Jim Salmon (07:03.057)
wow, okay.

GOBBA GOOL (07:12.61)
And it is fascinating. I have listened to this guy so much. So he was basically like a big deal in the CIA, like an up and coming star, very successful operative. And they started doing the torture and he was not OK with it. And then it blacklisted him. And then he decided to say something about it because it was illegal. It was illegal.

Jim Salmon (07:15.598)
Mmm.

Jim Salmon (07:22.574)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (07:32.204)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (07:39.464)
And he decided to say something and then he went to prison. No one else did. Yeah, it's nuts. No, no, he's out. He's out.

Jim Salmon (07:43.961)
Dang. So is he still in prison now? Like riding from there? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Man. I feel like I've got a whole new appreciation for, for whistleblowers. You know, when I watched that episode of the office, when Andy turns them in, cause the printers are like going on fire. I'm like, heck yeah, Andy, you know, don't, don't hide behind this wall of corporate loyalty. It's a, that's a demon on demonic thing.

GOBBA GOOL (07:52.854)
But that's.

GOBBA GOOL (08:02.038)
man.

GOBBA GOOL (08:09.782)
There's something else we need to ask, by the way. My mom told me that she goes, and John, she said, Tommy looks so nice. You and John need to have more light.

Jim Salmon (08:20.878)
Tom Bombadil (08:24.725)
Thank you, Mrs. Treadway.

GOBBA GOOL (08:26.332)
And I said, Mom, you don't know anything about... You don't know anything about the vibes. So we're going to leave it up to the listeners, guys. You guys killed it in the comments section last week, by the way. You killed it. So this week, I'm sure we'll ask some Crusader related questions. But first and foremost, is Mrs. Treadway right? I don't think so.

Jim Salmon (08:27.768)
Hold on.

Jim Salmon (08:32.207)
Shut your mouth.

Jim Salmon (08:41.474)
true.

Jim Salmon (08:48.142)
feel too bright. I feel too bright now. That's a good question. this is awful. Alright, this I hate this. Well, yeah, I'm not according to mama Treadway, dude. good gravy dude. What am I doing? Just got John dist bro. man. That's crazy.

GOBBA GOOL (08:54.876)
Oof. That's... don't do... Dude, you looked fine before, in my humble opinion.

Yeah. dude, stop it. That hurts my eyes. Get this man to the hospital.

Tom Bombadil (09:06.121)
It looks like you have a liver disease when you turn that on.

Tom Bombadil (09:12.523)
It's like bouncing off of your mic cover and just like...

GOBBA GOOL (09:15.55)
Yeah. Well, hey, say hi to us. Say hi to us on Facebook. Say hi to us on Instagram. Get us.

Jim Salmon (09:18.088)
man. dude. I will have to stay though. Yeah. Well, where we have, we have big news. We have finally, our Haiku drought is over and it's thanks to our good friend Elliot and Elliot, I just want to shout this dude out. So we've often spoken about the beautiful nation state of Singapore and all that it does for the world and Eastern Asia.

GOBBA GOOL (09:29.654)
this is news.

Tom Bombadil (09:30.12)
Jim Salmon (09:47.855)
And, just, you know, they do a lot of good stuff. 18 % Christian. means something, you know? but Elliot clarified that all the Singaporeans who got on board on the chump, on the chump train were through him. He was the one that started us off. He was the, he was the forerunner. So Elliot, and then he threw us a few dollars because he knows that's where haikus come from. So here's my haiku. Dude. Singapore rocks.

Tom Bombadil (10:05.053)
Let's go Elliot.

Jim Salmon (10:17.358)
And we have one guy to thank, Elliot the goat. Thank you, Elliot. We appreciate you, And if you would also like a haiku, just send us $5, $2, $1. Whatever, buy me a coffee, we'll let you send. We'll accept it and we'll write you a haiku because podcasting is expensive and we want to do it for free.

GOBBA GOOL (10:38.996)
Yeah, this ain't free to us. But it's free to you.

Jim Salmon (10:41.838)
it's not it's it's always gonna be free to you

Tom Bombadil (10:42.365)
I don't know what the exchange rate is and I'm not gonna look it up. So I'm just gonna believe in my heart that Elliott gave us his college savings. So thanks, Elliott. That was huge. That was huge.

Jim Salmon (10:53.55)
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, we wouldn't, I wouldn't expect you to redirect your tithing to us. That's not at all acceptable. If you were to replicate what you're tithing to us, I don't know. See what the Lord has to say about that. Um, I'm sorry. Yeah. Another, another 12, maybe on a, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see.

Tom Bombadil (11:07.722)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (11:09.046)
Stop.

Tom Bombadil (11:10.901)
Yeah, leave that 10 % alone, but the other 90 right here.

GOBBA GOOL (11:18.88)
my gosh.

Jim Salmon (11:20.918)
Alright, no more, no more. OK, alright, let's get started. We got we gotta so you guys already know we're knee deep. They were actually probably ankle deep into Crusader nonsense right now, and this is really where the Crusade starts sort of. We'll get into it. I don't know. It's interesting. So we're talking about the People's Crusade today, which we kind of alluded to last week. Do you have a cold open? I have a cold open Taylor.

GOBBA GOOL (11:28.918)
Hmm

GOBBA GOOL (11:47.646)
Hit us.

Jim Salmon (11:48.719)
All right, we kind of tag team this once we're going to go, we're going to be ping pong and back and forth. All right. There we go. Ray, instrumental here. If there's one thing that the crusaders of 1095 had no shortage of, it was zeal. The widespread response of Europeans answering the call to reclaim the Holy land far surpassed anything Pope Urban the second could have imagined.

despite the monumental task of abandoning their homes to venture to an unknown land and face certain danger. As the earliest waves of crusaders would soon discover, however, it takes a lot more than rage and motivation to lead a successful military expedition, and their weaknesses would soon be exposed by a string of unfortunate, even tragic failures. But few moments of the crusades cast a more negative light on the whole journey.

as that of the People's Crusade. Bolstered by the magnetically charismatic preacher, Peter the Hermit, the People's Crusade, sometimes known as the Peasants' Crusade, little classist if you ask me, featured an army in the tens of thousands, composed mostly of lay people and civilians rather than battle-tested soldiers. They soon acquired a reputation amongst the allies who hosted them of being disorderly, violent drunks.

with a tendency to pillage small countryside villages. was not a good look. Perhaps the worst thing about this wave of soldiers was their initiation of the Rhineland Massacres, where they would travel through several towns throughout Western Germany and slaughter or impose forced conversions over hundreds, if not thousands of Jewish citizens. This is a tough part of history, but...

GOBBA GOOL (13:36.222)
Hmm.

Jim Salmon (13:40.738)
I think it's also pretty important. So here we go. The people's crusade.

GOBBA GOOL (13:44.854)
I have a quote, I have a quote from Goubert of Nauzane.

Jim Salmon (13:49.518)
Hit me.

GOBBA GOOL (13:50.903)
This is him describing the people's crusades. Or in layman's terms, are we there yet?

Jim Salmon (14:15.842)
Dude, we.

Tom Bombadil (14:16.32)
my.

Jim Salmon (14:20.014)
I love seeing the overlap in our research because I definitely read an excerpt of that exact same quote, just in different wording of like the kids who were like, is this Jerusalem? And it's like cologne Germany. Yeah. Yeah. Watch out kid. Yeah. So, yeah, the people's crusade. mean, I'll, I'll kind of jump in a little bit. So it was last week we spoke about.

Tom Bombadil (14:21.749)
That's so sad.

GOBBA GOOL (14:28.042)
Hmm. Yeah. Be right not even close, Tim.

Jim Salmon (14:49.262)
Pope Urban and Pope Urban was the so obviously I mean he's a very significant role in terms of being clergy. He was the Pope of course he's the head he's the Bishop of Rome he's the head of the Western Latin Church and so he very much influenced by Taylor remind me Philip the

GOBBA GOOL (15:13.43)
So he's who's influenced urban Gregory 7th Gregory the 7th. Yeah. Well, Philip was the king that they that urban excommunicated before he called for the crusade.

Jim Salmon (15:16.886)
Not Philip shoot. Who is Gregory? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I got Phil's on the brain, bro. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (15:30.124)
That's right. That's right. Yeah. But Urban kind of following this legacy of Pope's decides, hey, papal influence is really low, but also we're getting these reports from the Eastern Orthodox that there's some really awful things happening in the promised land in Jerusalem and we're going to get people together and we're going to do our thing. And so he's going to kind of, he's like in the board meetings. He's the one who's speaking to high level clergy.

who's speaking to kind of the higher ups. But then you have this other dude and he's like the populist. He's like the every man. He's like what I imagine of like the 20th century, super sweaty like tent revival preacher who's just like walking around. I think people always said he was like barefoot, he was dirty and he was just like, he would always give these sermons where he would pace around and he would talk to people.

And around the same time, he's going to basically get this same kind of zeal of like, heck yeah, we got to get the people we got to go. He starts telling this story about how he, uh, tried to make pilgrimage and 10 93. And he got kind of like bullied by the Turks there. And then he got this letter in the mail that was from Jesus himself. That was like, you need to raise up my people to retake this land.

Historians are not convinced that this attempted pilgrimage ever really happened because he was most likely in France gathering his following. But yeah, he's just this real kind of strange, quirky dude from a poor background. Just becomes mega popular and kind of cracks this lightning in a bottle code that Urban had already started to hit on, where people are like, heck yeah, I want to do this. I want to do this.

GOBBA GOOL (17:22.046)
And this is none other than Peter the hermit. I don't think you'd said his name. had like a two minute introduction for him and I'm like, surely John Simon will say his name.

Jim Salmon (17:26.638)
That's right. Yeah.

Did I not?

Jim Salmon (17:33.839)
gosh, that's awful. Alright Taylor you you take it away then you keep you keep going.

GOBBA GOOL (17:39.479)
No, no, you did great. I had actually forgotten in my research for this episode, I'd forgot I hadn't read the letter, but now I'm remembering from previous reading a while ago. Yeah, you had that whole story of like the boy. The boy was given the letter by was it a Marian apparition supposedly or something?

Jim Salmon (18:01.215)
maybe I don't, I didn't read that, but it's very possible. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (18:03.978)
But yeah, the boy is traveling and then comes and gives him the letter from Jesus. That's like, go and make war.

Jim Salmon (18:09.55)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (18:14.668)
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, mean, Peter here, I'll read a little bit of a quote from one of our texts here. The cause of retaking Jerusalem was also taken up by popular rabble rousing preachers, largely unsanctioned and unregulated by the church, which was also true with Peter the hermit. I don't think he was necessarily like an outlier, but he wasn't.

GOBBA GOOL (18:16.192)
Yes.

Jim Salmon (18:44.738)
He wasn't really sanctioned. Like he was a part of the church and he was probably connected with the church, but I don't think there was like a bishop or archbishop who was like, yeah, Peter do your thing. He was just kind of a, kind of a, kind of a wanderer in that regard. Most famous and remarkable of these was Peter the hermit, probably originating from a poor background in Amiens. Also, I'm so bad at pronouncing these French words. So just, I don't know. Someone tell us that we're wrong. Amiens?

GOBBA GOOL (18:58.856)
Right.

Jim Salmon (19:14.254)
There's you don't pronounce the S I mean Northeastern France

GOBBA GOOL (19:16.372)
I don't, I mean, dude, the French are better. The French language makes no sense.

Jim Salmon (19:22.1)
very difficult. He became renowned for his austere itinerant lifestyle, repellent appearance, and unusual eating habits. One noted contemporary said that he lived on wine and fish. He hardly ever or never ate bread. By modern standards he might be deemed a vagabond, but among the poorer classes of 11th century France he was revered as a prophet.

Such was his sanctity that his followers even collected the hairs of his mule as relics. And we know how much Taylor loves relics.

GOBBA GOOL (19:54.455)
Well, and you got to remember also that these people were very superstitious. Albert of Aiken writes that this was actually, he's our main source for the People's Crusades. He was writing mid 12th century, so like 50-ish years after, and it was probably a lot of eyewitnesses.

Jim Salmon (20:02.229)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (20:19.466)
He had some sources they imagined, but this was like during the people's crusade. They claimed that a certain goose was inspired by the Holy Ghost. And a she-goat filled no less with the same, and they had made these their leaders for this holy journey to Jerusalem.

Tom Bombadil (20:39.761)
Wow.

GOBBA GOOL (20:42.334)
So the big thing.

Tom Bombadil (20:43.977)
Makes me think of the last battle where you've got the donkey that they find like the lion skin and they like shift the monkey like puts it over the donkey and says that it's Aslan and they like gather all the people to like all the Narnians like kind of gather around and start following this stupid donkey wearing a lion skin. They like use for all sorts of evil purposes.

GOBBA GOOL (21:03.061)
Mmm.

Jim Salmon (21:08.968)
my god.

GOBBA GOOL (21:09.974)
You know, except this time it was a... It was a goose just, you know, gooseing around, just being a silly little goose. Yeah. The Holy Spirit is for this one, it asks. Except they're French, but I don't know how to do like an ignorant French. the Holy Spirit has inspired this one. We must follow the silly goose. Anyway.

Jim Salmon (21:17.486)
actual goose.

Jim Salmon (21:24.398)
Like a dumb sounding

GOBBA GOOL (21:37.012)
The thing to keep this in mind, the main thing is that Pope Urban had

Tom Bombadil (21:41.373)
or one French listener is just like, bloop.

Jim Salmon (21:44.366)
Yeah, X. I'll find a different podcast.

GOBBA GOOL (21:44.747)
It's done. Pope Ermin had asked, I believe he had asked everybody to wait to leave until like August of 1096. So almost a year after he does the first call, he was basically saying, wait to leave. And what's happened after August, dearest Tommy Wenjon? What's happened after August? Sorry, what happens before August?

Jim Salmon (21:54.094)
Mm-mm.

Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (22:13.171)
Winter before summer.

GOBBA GOOL (22:15.03)
Yes, and what happens at the end of summer relating to food?

Jim Salmon (22:19.394)
gets cold.

fruitless food.

GOBBA GOOL (22:23.614)
No, there's Harvest!

Jim Salmon (22:26.075)
okay. Alright. I'm not a farmer. I don't know.

GOBBA GOOL (22:29.0)
They have harvest. So there's a very big reason the Pope asked them to wait.

Tom Bombadil (22:35.881)
He wanted them to harvest the food.

Jim Salmon (22:36.354)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (22:38.666)
I don't know if he cared about manual labor so much as he cared about you need supplies, which as we tell. As we tell this story, that is probably the main reason. Yeah, so I have man, I have like 15 books open right now. I'm going to read the quote and I'll tell you who it's from. One of the reasons for the catastrophes that befell this first wave of Crusaders was that it left.

Jim Salmon (22:43.17)
They need it all. That's actually huge. Cause yeah.

Jim Salmon (22:51.928)
That's the biggest mistake they're gonna make, is not having enough supplies.

GOBBA GOOL (23:08.186)
Europe before the date set by the Pope, which was August 15 1096, because they left while Western Europe was still in the grip of near famine conditions before the marvelous harvest of that summer. The Crusaders were short of food from the start. And that is a

Jim Salmon (23:24.704)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (23:29.398)
That is Riley Smith, Jonathan Riley Smith Crusades of History, fourth edition. If you could pick that one up, that's a good little kind of snapshot. We also pushed Thomas Ashbridge. He's a main one that we've liked. There's a handful of others. The Crusades and Encyclopedia is a good one.

That's just the Crusades colon and encyclopedia. And it's from like Santa Barbara. It's one of them publishing there, California somewhere. And then also I've got Steven Runciman is considered one of the more authoritative voices. And so he has three volume series. So first volume is where we're at, obviously. But just a little shout out on some sources to grab.

Jim Salmon (24:24.396)
yeah, I've been reading pretty heartily from Christopher Tyerman's God's War, A New History of the Crusades. It's real bulky and he's a little disjointed. I can tell he's an academic because his brain is always moving in a thousand different directions. It's not super linear, but it's very thorough, so good stuff.

GOBBA GOOL (24:45.59)
Well, that's the hard part about this. history is storytelling, right? And depending on how detailed you want to get, got to, it's hard. So, but anyway, Pope Urban said, wait, and Peter the hermit said, nay.

Jim Salmon (24:51.394)
Yeah, yeah.

Jim Salmon (25:07.734)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that there's like this stereotype of the People's Crusade, because this was literally, I mean, I don't remember the exact numbers, but there were like a handful of knights that went along with Peter the Hermit in his first expedition. But it was a lot of just common people who had like no military training, but who were very like excited about kind of joining the mission and kind of like

you know, being a part of this. And I think that their lack of experience and their lack of discipline was a huge detriment to their and a huge factor of to their failures. But I think the biggest thing was exactly what you said, Taylor. They didn't have enough supplies. So when they ran out of food and then they came upon this like small Hungarian countryside village, they just be like,

We'll just take it from them, I guess. And then they just freak out and they just kind of start, you know, start causing trouble because they didn't have what they needed. They didn't have established routes. And yeah, they kind of work themselves into a frenzy on more count than one.

GOBBA GOOL (26:23.06)
Yeah, once. go ahead, Tommy.

Tom Bombadil (26:23.189)
So you guys have studied Peter the hermit more than me.

Do you feel like he was self-interested in some way or was he just insane? Cause he's gonna, I'm sure you'll get into it more, but he's gonna suspiciously avoid some of the consequences of the people's crusade personally, which makes me have questions about being self-interested. But what's your guys thought on that? Like the not waiting, the not heeding, the call to wait.

Is that because he's a lunatic or because he's more interested in something for himself?

GOBBA GOOL (27:09.748)
Well, let me answer first if that's okay, John. So I know that some people doubt whether Peter went to the Holy Land, but the source that we have for that is from Anna Komnenes. I don't know how to pronounce that, but that's Alexios' daughter.

And so she wrote something called Alexiad, Alexiad. And that is like her, that's a good primary source we have for this era. And she wrote this about Peter when he got to the church of the Holy Sepulcher.

She writes this, He saw many forbidden and wicked things occurring there, so he sought out the patriarch of the Holy Church of Jerusalem and asked why Gentiles and evil men were able to pollute holy places and steal away offerings from the faithful, using the church as if a stable, beating up Christians, despoiling pilgrims through unjust fees, and inflicting on them many sufferings. The frustrated patriarch threw up his hands in exasperation. Why do you reprimand me and disturb me in the midst of

fatherly cares. I have but the strength and power of a tiny ant when compared to those proud men. We have to redeem our lives here by regular tribute payments or else face death-dealing punishment." So they're just talking about the jizya, the taxed. So...

Jim Salmon (28:37.826)
Okay.

Tom Bombadil (28:40.085)
So he gets to the Holy Land and he's like, after losing a 20,000 person army himself, and then he's like, hey, why aren't you handling matters here to the patriarch?

GOBBA GOOL (28:54.1)
Yeah, yes. And then their sources also differ on whether Peter was at the Council of Claremont in the first call. But he probably, if we believe this, and he's not just an insane guy, he was probably one of the earlier voices. Because you got to remember, the pope didn't just walk up and say, let's go.

and no one else had thought about it before. It was obviously in the water. It had been in the water for decades as we saw. So he was definitely, he was probably one of the people that it was, it was in the water. And then when the Pope said it, was like, press the gas, baby.

Jim Salmon (29:21.326)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (29:26.977)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (29:35.021)
Yeah. I mean, I, I said, I read a source that said that Peter himself had gathered 15,000 troops within six months of Claremont and yeah, troops, bakers and bankers and like, yeah, yeah, exactly. But so, I mean, I, I don't know. I don't think he was.

GOBBA GOOL (29:45.75)
Air quote troops Dude very few nights Yeah

Jim Salmon (30:02.67)
crazy guy. mean, like, like we said, like this was a perfect storm of zeal that the people had gotten like swept up in. And I think that I don't, I don't think we should exclude him from that same kind of frenzy that the same people who wanted to follow him to Jerusalem were also affected by. I think he honestly thought, cause there was, there was so much traversing they were doing.

through like allied lands, like going all through France and Germany and Hungary, which was also Latin and we'll talk about Hungary. Like they weren't marching off to fight anybody, you know, in a week. Like it was going to be months. And I think he just thought I've got a couple nights. I've got, I've got some dudes I can lean on. Let's just, let's just send it. I think he was really reckless. I don't necessarily think that he was.

you know, out for himself. I do think he was an egomaniac, but I think most, you know, nomad traveling preachers tends to be too. So yeah. for sure. For sure. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (31:09.974)
That's a good question, Tommy.

GOBBA GOOL (31:16.042)
Why don't you tell us how the, when he leaves the Rhineland or not, no, before he gets to the Rhineland. Why don't you, why don't you set us up, John, for that leaving and of France.

Jim Salmon (31:27.884)
Yeah, yeah, let me see.

Jim Salmon (31:34.415)
Uh, so I don't have a ton on that, but I can go for a little bit. Um, so when he. So, like I said, they are going to have to pass through a ton of territory territory during this time. Um, so it's going to be a lot of work. And one of the things, and this was what I was telling Taylor off the, off the mic before we started my favorite, like small, almost irrelevant character from this time period.

is a column in the learned the king of hungry around this time because i think that i might my european geography is always pretty bad but i think that hungary is one of the last like states that separates the western and eastern territories and so hungry was actually pretty well used to accommodating western travelers that were coming through

and mostly to make pilgrimage. So they kind of had an agreement with like the Germanic, the Germanics and the Franks like, yeah, if you want to come through, like we'll, you know, we'll open our markets to you so you can buy refreshments. We'll make sure that you're good to go. We'll give you lodging. Like, you know, we'll kind of have an agreement here. You guys will kind of contribute to the tourism fund for Hungary and stuff like that. So he had agreed to kind of see Peter through

But when Peter got through with these like, with like 15,000 people who were not at all used to traveling like this, like Coleman was like, ah, gosh, okay. You guys are, oh wow, okay, this is a pretty big party and I didn't expect all of this and you guys are, oh look, look, they're drunk. Oh, and they're knocking over stuff. Okay, great.

Tom Bombadil (33:18.141)
Mm-hmm

Jim Salmon (33:26.034)
And he literally had to like make an agreement with Peter where he's like, Hey, you guys can pass through. It's fine, but I really need you to not like pillage the countryside. Like that's literally like, I need you to not like, you know, destroy my small villages in these like country areas because you guys freak out and run out of food. And, and that's not going to go very well. And there's a story where a dude by the name of goats chop.

Tom Bombadil (33:36.82)
you

Jim Salmon (33:55.961)
was, he took over for recruitment after Peter started his voyage. And he also got a band of a few thousand people who followed Peter maybe like a month or so later. poor Coleman had the same deal. He was like, look, just like don't mess with the villagers, please. Like, you don't get to terrorize my people. I'm doing you guys a solid.

And once again, it didn't go anywhere. The people just did not lack the discipline. They were freaking out over the supply shortage. And so they still messed around. Coleman gathered them together and said, listen, you guys can stay here on your voyage, but you need to, we're going to confiscate your weapons because you guys keep messing around and we can't, we can't deal with that. And the Europeans were like, all right, all right, that was our bad. That's fine. We'll, we'll give you guys our weapons.

And then the Hungarians killed them all. Cause I don't know that's, know, you gotta, you gotta protect the payload, I guess. So it just gets worse and worse with Coleman trying to play the house guest who never wanted to be a house guest.

Tom Bombadil (34:59.967)
to it.

GOBBA GOOL (35:07.22)
So one of the things I was tasked with researching for this episode was this guy named Walter Sans Avoir, who actually joins up later with Peter, but doesn't wait at Cologne and moves forward. So he's going first with a much smaller group. And call him in.

Jim Salmon (35:28.451)
Mmm.

GOBBA GOOL (35:36.817)
actually dealt with him first and let him go through, and they gave him food and provisions, and they went through hungry. Walter and his band went through hungry without incident. But what happens is they get to Belgrade,

Jim Salmon (35:40.022)
Okay, okay.

Jim Salmon (35:54.635)
Okay, okay.

GOBBA GOOL (36:02.262)
So Bulgaria, and I wonder if Kallemann heard of this. they, there's, and there's multiple, there's differing accounts within the primary sources of what actually happens, but 16 of Walter's men either attempt to rob a merchant or the merchant robs them.

Jim Salmon (36:27.798)
Was this about the shoes or the shirt or something like that?

GOBBA GOOL (36:31.424)
Well, they they strip them of their clothing and their arms and then they send them back naked across the Belgrade.

Jim Salmon (36:34.09)
Okay, because there was legitimately a story. I want to try to find it. But it was literally like, got into an argument with a local merchant about like a pair of shoes and it led to like this brawl where like six people were killed. It was something crazy.

GOBBA GOOL (36:51.592)
Yeah, I mean that kind of stuff is happening the entire time that they're moving through. And it just goes back to if they had just waited for the full army and all the supply chains to be set up, if they had just waited for the real first crusade, which does prove historically successful.

Jim Salmon (36:57.249)
right.

Jim Salmon (37:16.15)
Right. dude, here we go.

GOBBA GOOL (37:20.616)
right? Spoiler alert for a few episodes. But this one, as we've already said, like does not. And it's just that the whole time is just a mess. Sorry, go ahead, John Simon.

Jim Salmon (37:23.33)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (37:24.074)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (37:28.91)
Yeah. With a small military escort of lesser German nobility leading his rabble, Peter finally began his eastward trek following in Walters' Things went well until they reached Semlin, a small Hungarian frontier town, where 16 of Walters' men had run afoul of the law, been stripped of their arms and sent on their way. Their weapons were still hanging on the town's walls for all to see, and the sight sent wild rumors flying through the Crusaders' ranks.

Hostility toward the Hungarians grew until an argument over the sale of a pair of shoes sparked a riot and the Crusaders attacked the townsfolk, shops and markets were looted and hundreds of Hungarians were killed.

Tom Bombadil (38:13.326)
my gosh.

GOBBA GOOL (38:13.674)
That's right, so was Walter's guy's stuff was still hanging on the wall, even though they were gone at that point. Isn't that crazy?

Jim Salmon (38:19.64)
That's right. And he was like, what did you guys do with Walter? Like what's, what is this doing here? Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (38:23.785)
you

GOBBA GOOL (38:24.784)
Well, we took their stuff and now it's hanging here for some reason.

Jim Salmon (38:28.307)
Exactly. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (38:29.919)
I have to imagine that as the people's crusade moves across Europe, that it's that it's not orderly like you would have a regular army, you know, like they're not all getting up at the same time and forming ranks and marching. I mean, I don't, I don't know this for sure, but if I had to take a bet, I would say that it's more like a swarm of locusts just kind of moving.

GOBBA GOOL (38:53.718)
A mass exodus. Yeah, I mean, it's just a bunch of peasants and like sprinkled throughout a handful of nights. Walter had somewhat more of a military contingent with him. But he was up ahead and I mean, apparently setting up Peter for failure, so.

Tom Bombadil (38:57.214)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (39:09.474)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (39:17.446)
I don't know. It's like, imagine that you go to like a big concert, like a giant concert with like five, 7,000 people there. Then imagine all of a sudden you and all the people who are there have to travel like for days at a time together. And you have to make sure that you can like find places to sleep.

and you have to find food and like there's a couple liters, but it's not very well defined. It's like that sounds like a nightmare.

Tom Bombadil (39:49.493)
be horrible. Well, I've been so that's funny you mentioned a concert because I've been kind of like thinking about different stadiums that might hold a certain amount of people. The number that I saw for the People's Crusade is 20,000. Is that the same number you guys were working with?

Jim Salmon (40:04.494)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (40:09.322)
I saw 20 for the original group that Peter brought out, but I think there were several waves.

Tom Bombadil (40:09.749)
you said five to seven

Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (40:17.558)
Yeah, don't know off the top of my head how many Walter came with him. I know he had a handful of knights and then still had, I mean, he had enough to have a small army, so probably at least a couple thousand.

Tom Bombadil (40:17.997)
Yeah, okay.

Jim Salmon (40:29.997)
Right.

Yeah. Taylor, you, do you have, did you look at a Zerogorodos, the kind of great, great fall of the people's crusade?

GOBBA GOOL (40:43.83)
Talk about when they get massacred by the Seljuks? Yeah, I mean, long story short, I don't have the specific dates, but it was just, it was the same ignorance. They go out, they're not listening to anybody. They get to Constantinople relatively unscathed. Now the Jews in the Rhineland...

Jim Salmon (40:46.807)
yeah.

Jim Salmon (41:03.586)
Yes.

Tom Bombadil (41:05.205)
I think it was 1096 that they got there.

Jim Salmon (41:08.398)
It was a September of 1096. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (41:09.886)
September's, yes. All of this is happening within 1096. But okay, so yeah, September, they finally arrive at Constantinople and against anybody's wisdom, they basically march out completely unprepared because they don't know what they're doing and the Seljuks who are, you know, professionals at killing basically just destroy them.

Jim Salmon (41:14.286)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (41:37.132)
Yeah,

GOBBA GOOL (41:37.246)
And then the remnant that gets away and or stayed back, they have to wait for the main crusading group to finally arrive. So they're just like refugees. Hit us, Tommy.

Jim Salmon (41:50.862)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (41:50.911)
I've got a couple quotes on this.

Jim Salmon (41:53.324)
Yeah, yeah, go for it.

Tom Bombadil (41:55.445)
Anna Comnena writes, so great a multitude of Celts and Normans died by the Ishmaelite sword that when they gathered the remains of the fallen, lying on every side, they heaped up, I will not say a mighty ridge or hill or peak, but a mountain of considerable height and depth and width. So huge was the mass of bones. And then Gwebert of Nogent, born 1054, talks about those who were left alive.

Since the Turks divided up among themselves some of the captives whose lives they had spared or rather reserved for a more painful death and submitted them to dismal servitude at the hands of cruel masters. Some were exposed in public like targets and were pierced by arrows. Others were given away as gifts while others were sold outright and taken to Khorasan in Antioch where they would endure wretched slavery under the worst masters imaginable.

They underwent a torture much longer than that endured by those whose heads were severed swiftly by the sword. I think that that's actually gonna end up playing into when we talk about the first crusade, those events are going to factor into kind of how the crusaders operate once they get to Anatolia and they see this, because they're actually gonna encounter this huge, huge pile of bones later when the soldiers get there.

Jim Salmon (42:57.88)
Gosh.

Jim Salmon (43:19.982)
Wow.

Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, so like Taylor said, the People's Crusade is going to get to Constantinople and they're going to make much of the same kind of grief for Alexios and for the Byzantines that they had made the entire way through, just being rambunctious and difficult to deal with. And again, we've talked in episodes in the past that

The Byzantines and Latins already kind of have that. I don't know what it's kind of like the elves and the dwarves in like a Lord of the Rings, where it's like you see one is like the higher class, know, bougie got educated. And then the other one is like the grimy, like dumb, uneducated, drunk all the time. So they already don't like the Latins. They're like.

Tom Bombadil (44:08.445)
Right.

Jim Salmon (44:19.586)
They're cool with it because they're like, you guys are going to go take back, take back, take back, you know, Jerusalem for us. That sounds cool. But they get to Constantinople and they're still making a fuss. And so Alexios tells them the same thing that Urban had said. He said, all right, you guys need to just wait until the rest of the Crusaders get here. But because Constantinople was so close geographically to Nicaea.

which was Seljuk territory, all the freaking, you know, jittery crusaders got super excited and then they kind of broke rank and started pillaging small villages out there.

GOBBA GOOL (45:03.304)
Yeah, and here's the sick part. So they did have some little bit of military victory. They didn't break Nicaea, which was the Seljuk capital. They did not capture the city. They just basically burned the countryside and pillaged, which was also Christian.

Tom Bombadil (45:23.125)
Hmm.

Jim Salmon (45:23.286)
Yeah, yeah, which.

GOBBA GOOL (45:24.054)
Yeah, so they attacked Christians. I mean, I don't, I guess I'll say it. This is horrible. But I mean, it was said that they roasted babies on spits. I mean, so you just have these.

Tom Bombadil (45:36.885)
Hmm.

Jim Salmon (45:39.352)
So this was a countryside outside of Nicaea that was still Byzantine territory.

GOBBA GOOL (45:45.718)
Well, remember the Seljuks let Christians exist

Jim Salmon (45:49.582)
you're right. geez. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (45:53.535)
So were they roasting babies because like they were being horrible and torturous or were they like basically desperate and cannibalizing other Christians?

GOBBA GOOL (46:04.726)
It would seem that Steven Rensemin is saying the latter.

Jim Salmon (46:13.006)
Okay.

GOBBA GOOL (46:15.432)
No, sorry, the first. It wasn't hunger. It was they were being brutal. This is this is his lax. This is his exact line. They sack the villages in the suburbs, rounding up the flocks and herds that they'd found and torturing and massacring the Christian inhabitants with horrifying savagery. So even at

Tom Bombadil (46:16.241)
It's crazy what...

Jim Salmon (46:17.578)
for it was it was they're just being savages

Tom Bombadil (46:33.397)
my gosh. They're like, these Greeks are swarthy looking. They must be Muslims.

Jim Salmon (46:39.254)
Yeah. Well, then they, they, yeah, they could have been.

GOBBA GOOL (46:39.86)
Yeah, exactly. And you got to remember, so they are ignorant. I mean, we're all ignorant in some capacity, but these guys are ignorant. don't know what an Eastern Christian looks like. And I mean, the Turks did try to like sent out a detachment from the city, but they won. Like the Westerners won.

Tom Bombadil (46:48.093)
Amen.

Jim Salmon (46:56.003)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (47:06.174)
And so then they return and they sell all their booty and like they sell, they sell all the stuff that they took. And this is what's crazy. So this profitable raid, this is Ritzeman, this profitable French raid roused the jealousy of the Germans. And so now you have the Germans taking like 6,000 men going out beyond Nicaea and pillaging. But these didn't, the Germans didn't kill the Christians.

Jim Salmon (47:06.423)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (47:24.43)
Mmm.

Jim Salmon (47:37.194)
Okay, interesting.

GOBBA GOOL (47:38.294)
Well, until they came to Zara Gordon, as you had mentioned.

Jim Salmon (47:42.569)
Right, right. And Zerogordis is kind of the siege where people consider the people's crusade coming to an end. It's going to be led by Reynald of of Broyus, who was an Italian Lord serving under under Peter. And yeah, so people are going to start attacking these these country sides. They're going to start attacking the people outside of Nicaea. And so.

they're going to storm this fortress called Zaragoardus, which I think was already mostly abandoned. I read that somewhere. I don't know exactly where, so don't quote me on that listener, but yeah, they found Zaragoardus. They were able to take it as this big fortress. And like, as soon as they got in, the Seljuks were like there on horseback to siege them.

Tom Bombadil (48:40.265)
Mmm.

Jim Salmon (48:40.802)
And they'd never been sieged before, because they'd just been traveling for the past couple of months and making messes wherever they went, but they'd never been a part of something like this. They were completely unprepared to be sieged. They did not have adequate supplies. I'm reading a quote that said that they were in such distress from thirst that they bled their horses and drank the blood and just...

There's also some other stuff that I'm just not going to say because it's really gross. Yeah, they drank each other's urine and stuff like that. And then the siege broke and the Turks stormed them and they were slaughtered just brutally.

GOBBA GOOL (49:11.03)
They drink pee pee

Tom Bombadil (49:24.789)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (49:25.556)
Well, dude, not but we're forgetting, Rinalda apostatized first.

Jim Salmon (49:31.18)
That's right. Yeah, he converted to Islam, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right.

GOBBA GOOL (49:31.998)
Yeah, so it gets even better. Yeah. Yeah. Not all of them were slaughtered, though. Some of them were sent into slavery.

Tom Bombadil (49:37.62)
Horrible.

Jim Salmon (49:41.858)
That's true, that's true. Happy ending. No, awful, awful stuff.

GOBBA GOOL (49:45.92)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (49:48.167)
It's kind of like looking back, it's kind of hard to like at this point, it's hard to like blame the Seljuks in a way for what they like, what are you going to do when 20,000 fanatics just roll into your territory? And then the first thing you see them do is kill a bunch of their own co-religionists and,

Jim Salmon (50:14.337)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (50:15.709)
And then also they're like, and we're and you're next. And it's like, okay. Like it's so it's like, man, like I don't like offering any, anything that looks like a dub to, to the Muslims in history, but it's also like, what did they think was going to happen? It's, it's so horrible. It's such, it's such a sad story.

Jim Salmon (50:19.502)
That's right. I'll kill my own family and then I'll kill you.

GOBBA GOOL (50:20.709)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (50:35.779)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (50:39.374)
Yeah, the notion of blood lust really kind of comes in heavy here. And again, like we talked about this, like one of the reasons so many people in Europe were willing to go to war was because they were part of a warrior class. Like they were in many ways kind of raised and forged in the fires of warfare as a part of their culture. And so,

GOBBA GOOL (50:40.062)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (51:06.828)
Yeah. The opportunity to have a flesh and blood enemy that you could travel and like behead and do these kinds of gruesome things. that, that I think in our modern sense of warfare, like we can't really relate to this. And I'm kind of grateful for that. think that's pretty gruesome. and in fact, I think the most gruesome might be yet to come, cause I'm going to read about the Rhineland's massacres.

GOBBA GOOL (51:36.182)
Well, before you jump back in time, let me put a bow on this. the main force, keep in mind the main force hasn't even done anything yet. So Zara Gordon happens and the main army is still there. Peter has gone, I believe.

Jim Salmon (51:36.951)
Jim Salmon (51:40.419)
sure sure.

Okay.

GOBBA GOOL (51:58.697)
to Constantinople or they're in constant Peter leaves to go get wisdom and kind of figure out some stuff. So he leaves and Walter and a few of the other guys are hanging out as with with their army and they're waiting and some people say, okay, let's wait for Peter to get back to figure out what we're going to do. And they're like, no, we got to go avenge our boys and Sarah Gordon. We got to go.

And they, on October 21st, they decide to, and all, like 20,000 men march out from Civetot. Yeah, okay, so they're in Civetot, Peter's in Constantinople, and they basically only leave behind, like, the old men, the women, the children, the sick. Everyone else is going out to battle. And then, like, three miles from the city, they get completely massacred.

Jim Salmon (52:28.546)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (52:58.032)
The Turks were waiting for them. Yeah, I mean, they just get destroyed. This says there was no real resistance.

Jim Salmon (52:58.178)
Gosh, that's just awful.

Jim Salmon (53:10.606)
That's so true. So I mean, you guys have to remember, mean, like, of course, it's too late for the Crusaders to remember this, but the Seljuks were a massive military force. Like these dudes, they were like the predecessors of the Mongols as being this like nomadic horseback arrow shooting, like wave of military force and violence. So like

GOBBA GOOL (53:11.221)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (53:38.151)
And they're well rested on home turf.

Jim Salmon (53:40.866)
Yeah, mean, literally every every military advantage is offered to them. And then you've got, you know, Jim the accountant like swirling a flail around like, let's go get him boys.

GOBBA GOOL (53:54.375)
yeah, not even probably dude, not even a flail, probably a spear, right? Yeah. And so after the army gets like attacked, if they're only three miles away, they turn and start running back to the camp and the Turks follow and then the Turks get there and then just kind of like kill everybody. So yeah, they just basically get wiped out.

Tom Bombadil (53:59.519)
farming equipment.

Jim Salmon (53:59.927)
Yeah, like a pitchfork or something. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (54:18.061)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (54:23.734)
And I would say this all goes back to their bad decisions were because it just constant bad decision after bad decision because they left before Urban had said to leave.

Jim Salmon (54:38.668)
Yeah. And I mean, like, dude, even if this goes well, like, Nicaea is not Jerusalem. Like you're attacking these people completely unprovoked. Like, I don't know. mean, like I get the, the concept of, you know, well, well, we believe that there's these awful graven justices happening in the Holy land, which is why we want to deliver them. But how does that justify?

kicking down some randos door and like trying to slaughter this whole town. Like, mean, it's, I mean, it's lit. This is literally the perfect encapsulation of like play dumb games, win dumb prizes. It's like, what the heck were you even doing? Like the whole, the whole journey would just seems like not just foolish, but like violently foolish. Like there's like an evil in this, honestly.

GOBBA GOOL (55:31.635)
Yes. Let me read one fire quote. Then I'll stop reading Runciman, but he's been my main source for this one. He said this, the people's crusade was over. It had cost many thousands of lives. It had tried the patience of the emperor and his subjects. And it had taught that faith alone without wisdom and discipline would not open the road to Jerusalem. Tell me that's not a hard quote.

Jim Salmon (55:58.509)
Yeah, that's actually way harsher than a lot of the other dudes I read. All right, we gotta get one more major event out of the way before we can open up the floor to closing comments. this is the Rhineland's Massacre. It's a pretty well-known thing that happened as part of the People's Crusades.

GOBBA GOOL (56:12.427)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (56:22.21)
So this is actually going to happen not directly under Peter the hermit, even though Peter the hermit is going to be involved in some of these like assaults on Jewish communities. But this string is going to happen under a dude by the name of count emic of Flonheim. He is going to lead his own army as part of the people's crusade influenced by Peter the hermit, but they're not traveling together. So like I said, there's, there's waves of things happening.

You know, we had talked before, like Peter the hermit and Pope Urban had very different approaches. Pope Urban was very like, we have to liberate our brothers. We have to assert the power of the West and assert the power of the papacy. And Peter the hermit's preaching from all I could tell was very sensationalist, but also very apocalyptic. was very like, we have to bring.

Tom Bombadil (57:14.282)
Boogity boogity boogity boys, let's go crusading.

Jim Salmon (57:17.526)
Yeah, it's like we have to bring doom wherever, wherever God's enemies are. They should be fearing, you know, the people of God. It's kind of this thing. So, and then you have to think of a lowly minority that is neither Muslim nor Christian, throughout European history, which of course are the Jews. And Jews have even in this point in history.

had a fairly contentious relationship with the Christians. More often than not, they're able to coexist in Christian cities and in Christian communities, but it's not uncommon for the Christian leaders to have to see to it that special arrangements are made so that the Jews are not vulnerable to this type of like mob violence. And that's basically what's gonna happen.

Upon entering the Rhinelands, which is an area of Western modern day Germany, Count Emmick is going to launch several targeted attacks on the Jews living within several of these cities. Starting in Spire, the Christians are going to kill a dozen Jews who will refuse to be forcibly baptized. One bishop in the area, I think his name was Bishop John, so shout out to that dude. He actually helped

Tom Bombadil (58:41.045)
I saw that.

Jim Salmon (58:41.676)
to protect the Jews of his city from these men. And he saw to it that several perpetrators had their hands cut off as a penalty, which is maybe the least awful thing that happens in this whole episode. Next in the town of Worms, which is a city with great Reformation relevance, was the next target. Count Emek is this time going to use

GOBBA GOOL (58:51.734)
Shout out Bishop John.

Jim Salmon (59:09.996)
the citizens of this town to support the attacks on the Jews and they're going to kill several Jews. Hundreds of Jews will be killed in these attacks. They will burn and desecrate Torah scrolls, destroy synagogues, et cetera. The worst of these accounts and the most documented is from the town of Mainz, which was a major city of Jewish learning and culture as well as business. Here's a quote.

On Emic's appearance before their gates, which the Archbishop had ordered to be shut against him, some townspeople provoked riots. The Jewish leaders bribed the Archbishop to protect them and tried to buy off Emic with a gift of seven pounds of gold, to no avail. The gates were opened on May 26th. The killing and looting lasted two days. The Archbishop reneged on his promise of protection and fled.

The Jews sheltering in his palace, despite initial vigorous armed resistance, were slaughtered with the rest. The search for money and Jews throughout the city was thorough. The synagogue was destroyed. Some Jews apostatized, others chose suicide.

GOBBA GOOL (01:00:21.718)
I heard the majority of them refused to apostatize.

Jim Salmon (01:00:25.644)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. There is a story that's well circulated. A lot of these stories are actually, it's really sad because when we as Christians look to the stories of like, you know, the Roman persecution and persecution in several places throughout the world, they're like our martyr stories. They're the stories of perseverance.

GOBBA GOOL (01:00:27.339)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:00:51.818)
modern day Jews and Jews throughout European history are actually going to look back on these incidents as moments that show their people's fortitude, but also show Christianity's antagonism. There's a story of a woman named Rachel who is actually going to opt to slay each of her children herself to save them from the violence of the crusaders.

And when they would find the woman after she killed her children, they demanded that she show her, show them the money hidden in her sleeves. Because to them, that's, that's, that's the association that Jews were, you know, they had money hidden everywhere. I think one of the worst things about this is this was all just like Taylor, said about the Nicaea stuff. This was happening in Western Christian areas. Like.

GOBBA GOOL (01:01:47.05)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:01:47.139)
Their political leaders were Catholics. Their religious leaders were bishops and archbishops. Like they already had agreements to coexist with the Christians. They were taxpaying members of society. Like this is just like such a, like a,

Tom Bombadil (01:02:02.611)
think it highlights the I think it highlights the just the danger of of a mob like because you get enough people together and even in a like really well ordered or swells or a highly structured society like we live in that has lots and lots of law enforcement and military you get enough people together and together

GOBBA GOOL (01:02:02.708)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:02:29.522)
now I think you're still here.

Tom Bombadil (01:02:30.734)
Shoot sorry it can get kind of challenging Yeah, just switch the other mic I think it can get kind of challenging to to handle the that mob you like you get enough people together and even even if Like in Western Germany at this time or in Germania we know that they weren't really that unified, you know, there's a lot of

GOBBA GOOL (01:02:38.528)
That's fine.

Tom Bombadil (01:02:59.398)
Tribal leaders and these are the guys that are getting called around this time to head to the Crusades so you have this, you know huge groups of people gathering together to fight and I Don't I just I don't know what they could do. I mean it sounds like they're the bishops in these cities were Attempting to hide Jews because they couldn't necessarily fight back

against these mobs. couldn't control it.

GOBBA GOOL (01:03:31.378)
Yeah, I mean, you're right. The danger of a mob. think also, you know, wherever you land on just war theory, you can be on like the far end and kind of even be considered like holy war. You can think holy war is OK. But that's not even what was happening here. So it's kind of like what you said earlier, John. OK, there's one thing if the powers that be say,

Tom Bombadil (01:03:55.066)
Right.

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:01.419)
We want to go liberate Jerusalem so that pilgrims can go safely and sort of take this historical place that's important to us. We want to take this back, like that's one thing. But then to just do what the People's Crusade did, it just...

path of chaos and carnage is quite another matter. That's not holy war anymore, it's just barbarism.

Jim Salmon (01:04:33.646)
Yeah, it's a hundred percent barbarism and like, I don't know. mean, I know we're past the hour mark, so we'll, we'll start kind of wrapping up, but it just, like this is literally the stuff that Alexios wrote to urban saying that the Muslims were doing to Christians. Like they were violating them. They were forcing them to convert. They were abusing their women.

destroying their holy texts, like is that they're doing the exact same stuff. And the irony is that there's more evidence to support that the Christians did this to the Jews than there is to support that the Muslims did this to the Christians. And so this, this just to me, this, this feels like, I mean, I know it's going to be an ongoing conversation as to like,

the justness of these events. I know that no one here, or I don't think anyone even listening would justify what happens here. But this, this to me, it just seems like such rotten fruit that it makes me think maybe the tree is diseased. Like maybe there's a deeper problem here. Cause I mean, I don't know. Like this is, this is such an egregious thing. And like, you know, I used to brag about this more when

Israel was less of a controversial topic. I used to live in Israel for six months and even the messianic Jews out there still don't like calling themselves Christians because of incidents in history like this and because of ongoing incidents that throughout the crusades are going to continue happening like this. So I don't know. To me, it just seems like a huge indicator that there's a bigger problem at hand here.

Tom Bombadil (01:06:17.402)
I think

Tom Bombadil (01:06:21.274)
I'll offer a, I'll offer not a pushback, but maybe a different dimension or angle to look at this through. You know, we, we know Christians by their fruit. Like you just said, nobody listening would acknowledge this as a good thing. And we also know that at this time in history, in this area of the world, like you have a lot of

baby Christianity if Christianity at all. It's still mixed with paganism. And so we see mobs of people who I don't know that from a Christian perspective, maybe from a historian's perspective, who's just purely operating with kind of like an atheological perspective would look at this and go, you got these people in the name of Christ doing these

horrible things, but we know them to not be Christians by what they were doing. then you do have the church through these massacres in every city, the church, the Catholic church is endeavoring to protect the Jews. So I think that to paint with a broad brush and say that, look what the church did.

wouldn't be fair because the actual official acts of the church here are in defense of the Jews and those who are not operating like Christians at all are the ones perpetrating these acts. I think that that's something to consider.

GOBBA GOOL (01:08:06.228)
I mean, you gotta remember, Tommy, that the church is just so fractured right now. Like, I see your point. I see your point. Like, there's real Christianity.

Tom Bombadil (01:08:12.9)
The deeper problem, as we've talked about before, even outside of the Crusade series, is the question of discipleship. In Europe, there's different ways that Christianity encounters different cultures. And sometimes it's this really nice kind of slow burn where there's not a lot of violence and there's a lot of discipleship going on. And then you have other places.

like modern day France, where that wasn't the case hardly at all. And it's a very tumultuous time as the church starts to grow, which breeds more violence in the future, like the French Revolution, for example.

GOBBA GOOL (01:08:56.304)
yeah, mean, France has just always been, as we talked about, Clovis in the sixth century converting. then that turns into Martel and Charlemagne or whoever. Which one was first? Charlemagne or Martel and then Charlemagne was his grandson. I mean, and then that turns into the first large swath of crusaders. And so you're right. I mean, there's something in the water there.

Tom Bombadil (01:09:09.028)
Martell.

GOBBA GOOL (01:09:26.366)
I do think we see evidence of real Christianity. I don't know if the capital C Catholic Church at the time was very healthy. I don't think it was. I don't know if anyone would argue that it was. But you gotta remember, at the end of the day, this guy leading the People's Crusade, Tommy, was also an ordained priest of the church in France.

So it's like.

Jim Salmon (01:09:55.277)
With like a semblance of support, I mean, like I said before, he was probably a little bit of a traveling nomad, but I also, know, nobody was decrying him. He was so well loved that people saw the hairs of his mule as holy relics.

GOBBA GOOL (01:09:57.684)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:11.839)
I couldn't find anything what Urban said about him. Did you find anything about that?

Jim Salmon (01:10:16.61)
I don't think they ever actually met each other. Yeah, I think the closest is that he might have been a part of Claremont, but I don't think they actually met each other.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:19.71)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:25.878)
And dude, I wonder if Urban was like, this guy's a nut job, but he's getting the people going. Wait!

Tom Bombadil (01:10:30.47)
He's like, what have I done?

Jim Salmon (01:10:31.458)
Yeah, I know. mean, like, I, I want to say, just to clarify, I, I absolutely believe that the, that the church of Christ was like the heart of Christ's church was beating in those bishops who were trying to save these people from these demons masquerading as Christians. I think my bigger thing is like, this seems like a fruit born out of this crusading ethic that I

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:49.439)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:11:01.44)
I think I just, you know, I don't know. I've yet to see anything in our story and our research that makes me think, a good thing, a good, thing that we've uncovered, you know?

GOBBA GOOL (01:11:12.092)
I think the success that we'll read about and talk about over the next few weeks in Jerusalem might give us a little bit more hope of like, okay, this wasn't all bad.

Jim Salmon (01:11:26.232)
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:11:28.148)
Dude, I can, I know we gotta finish. I just cannot get over that they're like, did you hear what they did to our boys? Yeah, let's go. And then they like ransack a countryside and it's like a bunch of Christians that they're killing. my gosh.

Jim Salmon (01:11:41.326)
Yeah.

Yeah. Alrighty gang. Well, we'll be back next week with a shoot. Do we have our topic for next week yet? Oh yeah. No Thomas. You're doing a you're leading us on God free of boy on right. Very good.

Tom Bombadil (01:11:57.574)
That's right. Yep.

GOBBA GOOL (01:11:58.218)
Yeah, we'll start the organized First Crusade. But doesn't include a massacre of Jews. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:12:02.264)
That's right.

That's right. Yeah

Tom Bombadil (01:12:07.15)
It's actually going to be really encouraging compared to today.

Jim Salmon (01:12:11.126)
Yeah, well, thank you guys for listening so much. We appreciate you. We'll see you. We'll see you next week. Take care.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:11.808)
Good.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:18.378)
Bye bye!

Tom Bombadil (01:12:21.094)
Bless you.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:25.472)
Come on. Bye bye. I know this is gonna get edited out.

Jim Salmon (01:12:26.99)
I'm trying dude.

Tom Bombadil (01:12:29.99)
This has never happened before.

Jim Salmon (01:12:32.088)
weird. I mean, it definitely will, but do I just refresh the page?

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:36.126)
I would love it if Ray... I would love it if Ray left this in.

Jim Salmon (01:12:42.498)
What's going on? Hold on.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:43.242)
Just have this playing over the ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.

Jim Salmon (01:12:50.424)
Dude, this is so weird. I'm like hitting stop and it won't do anything.

GOBBA GOOL (01:12:55.104)
Did you guys hear Brandy start cackling when I said they drank pee pee? Did you hear her in the background just lose it? yeah. I hope that makes it in the recording.

Tom Bombadil (01:13:00.922)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:13:00.943)
I didn't I didn't hear it. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna refresh it but I'm really it should it should be it uploads it as it goes so it should be fine. All right.

GOBBA GOOL (01:13:15.51)
Let's see what happens.

Tom Bombadil (01:13:18.775)
snap.

GOBBA GOOL (01:13:20.094)
Well, yeah, I mean, we knew that was gonna happen.

Tom Bombadil (01:13:23.334)
But it's recording. So is he going to be able to... Okay, there he is.

GOBBA GOOL (01:13:28.513)
Can you stop it now?