117. The Crusades Begin...Godfrey of Bouillon

The Crusades have officially begun, and let's be honest: the crusaders have let us down a little bit. The People's Crusade was a nightmare, and the pillaging of Jewish communities in Rhineland was also not great. Okay it was pretty awful.

But what happens when an army of crusaders is led by a man with pious character, integrity, and (apparently) a head of flowing, golden locks? Well, we get today's feature: Godfrey of Bouillon. A key military figure of the First Crusade and first political leader of Jerusalem. 

Speaking of the Crusades, we want to hear from the people: How are you enjoying the Crusades series so far? Should we stay the pace, or take a break and cover some different topics? Let us know in the comments!!

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Transcript

Jim Salmon (00:00.726)
Hey everybody, welcome to Church History for Chumps. My name is John Simon. I'm here with Tommy the Gunn, do well, and with Tiny, Taylor Treadway.

GOBBA GOOL (00:11.607)
That's what they call me, Tiny Taylor.

Jim Salmon (00:14.476)
Yeah, I was going for like a Goodfellas kind of vibe, like a gangster nickname. Also, Tommy the Gun? Crushes. Yeah. I don't know. There was a dude who used to, in the actual Goodfellas movie, who used to say the same thing over and over again, and they called him Tony two times. And I was like, that's kind of a cool name, but I don't know. The name's not Tony.

GOBBA GOOL (00:17.219)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (00:20.857)
Tommy the God. That's pretty good.

GOBBA GOOL (00:22.253)
What's your gangster nickname?

GOBBA GOOL (00:38.839)
What? Johnny three steps.

Jim Salmon (00:42.476)
Johnny three steps. Making fun of my limp.

Tom Bombadil (00:43.214)
only three steps.

GOBBA GOOL (00:45.209)
I don't know what it means, it gets the people going. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (00:49.646)
It's all right, I like it. That's right, it's provocative. man, well dude, Mama Treadway won the day today because I think for the first time in months we're recording an episode when the sun is out. So we can't be dark and moody Twitch streamers anymore.

Tom Bombadil (00:52.12)
Huh.

GOBBA GOOL (00:58.774)
I know.

GOBBA GOOL (01:04.835)
I know, it's weird.

GOBBA GOOL (01:09.409)
right. Now we are elegant, refined historians.

Jim Salmon (01:13.464)
Bright and bubbly. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (01:17.739)
bright, our YouTube viewers can see us clearly.

GOBBA GOOL (01:20.921)
Yep. All 29 of them.

Jim Salmon (01:21.4)
Yeah, I guess.

You've been counting subscribers, haven't you?

GOBBA GOOL (01:26.305)
Honestly, if you're if you're a YouTube watcher, if you have found us recently on YouTube, comment, let us know. Let us know.

Jim Salmon (01:36.556)
Yeah, we give a lot of love to our Spotify peeps, which absolutely we should and we will. But, yeah, we all know that people don't blow up without YouTube. So we got to, you're from YouTube, thank you for what you're doing. You're supporting the, shoot. have to speak in a Spotify. I'm remembering that freaking. So, so Jackson, first off, thank you, Jackson. Cause I know Jackson is a, is he's, he's a self-taught Frenchman. and he corrected.

GOBBA GOOL (01:51.565)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (02:05.381)
yeah, you have to- you have to say the sentence.

Jim Salmon (02:06.442)
that, yeah, cause we were talking last week about, Peter the hermit or Peter of, think I called them Amin Amin's, Amiens and, Jackson said it's Amian, which is stupid by the way. but whatever. then he was like, John Simon, please try to pronounce this sentence. So for all the French speakers out there, I'm sorry. And for all the Americans stand behind me.

Tom Bombadil (02:06.86)
yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (02:33.058)
Just butcher every vowel. Just butcher every vowel and you'll get there.

Jim Salmon (02:37.974)
No dude, I'm gonna really put it in there. I'm gonna really... Alright, here we go.

Tom Bombadil (02:52.303)
Wow

GOBBA GOOL (02:52.32)
I see it. Wow.

Jim Salmon (02:52.408)
Get off my porch. I don't know what that means. Hopefully I didn't just insult somebody's mother. If that's the case, Jackson, that tough, tough stuff. I should probably check these things before I go to air. yeah. Ooh, Johnny Perry. I like that. That's not too bad. Jean-Pierre.

GOBBA GOOL (02:58.04)
Ugh.

GOBBA GOOL (03:04.46)
That's on you. That's on you, big dog.

GOBBA GOOL (03:10.933)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (03:11.087)
There's your gangster name, Johnny Perry.

GOBBA GOOL (03:13.684)
Jean-Paul-Yi. No, Jean Jean-Paul-Yi.

Tom Bombadil (03:18.057)
Jean Paris

Jim Salmon (03:20.608)
I did know a dude whose name was Jean Baptiste and he was a Frenchman. The name like that, you're either a Frenchman or from Haiti, I think. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (03:32.376)
That's right. That's right.

Tom Bombadil (03:32.483)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (03:34.912)
Yeah. Dude, Tommy, you said you were, you had a class to teach today. What were you teaching, man?

Tom Bombadil (03:40.781)
Yeah, we had a class for people who are becoming new members at our church. And in the past we've done it. was telling Taylor we used to do it like over the course of five weeks. They'd have to come early to church, but we just put it all in one day. So it was a big long class, but we got it all done. So it was good. Yeah. Some cool people joining the church. We had somebody from, who was born in India. she and her husband met in Ukraine.

Jim Salmon (03:46.424)
Nice.

Jim Salmon (03:55.214)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (03:59.843)
Very cool. Yeah, that's awesome. All right. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (04:11.033)
He was born in North Carolina and then we had people from Tucson, of course, and then we had somebody who was born in South Korea, lived her whole life in Indonesia and is now studying at the U of A as a PhD student. So we had people from all over the world. It was kind of fun.

Jim Salmon (04:30.648)
That's awesome.

GOBBA GOOL (04:33.11)
That's cool.

Jim Salmon (04:33.442)
Yeah, super cool. Yeah. Starting to look like Taylor's neighborhood a little bit.

GOBBA GOOL (04:38.732)
That's right. I love it, dude. So I was in I was in South Carolina. And a few days ago, and I was I was at an event. Now this was Myrtle Beach was I've been in South Carolina more than I've been in California.

Jim Salmon (04:48.32)
Metal Beach.

Tom Bombadil (04:54.127)
Is that just an intrusion of thought or was that some sort of?

GOBBA GOOL (04:57.856)
No, I was in Myrtle Beach before.

Jim Salmon (05:00.718)
That's what Carolina Hacks said. Myrtle Beach.

Tom Bombadil (05:01.036)
Okay.

GOBBA GOOL (05:02.294)
This time I was in I was in Charleston and anyway long story short they don't got a

Jim Salmon (05:08.546)
Why does Taylor get to be the accent guy? I can be the accent guy. Myrtle bitch.

GOBBA GOOL (05:12.32)
you. You can't be the accent guy after that. Look, it'd be Myrtle Beach. We was in Myrtle Beach. South Carolina. Anyway.

Jim Salmon (05:25.975)
thank you, Sensei.

Tom Bombadil (05:26.703)
John just sounds like he has Tourette's

GOBBA GOOL (05:29.666)
I

Jim Salmon (05:30.412)
Meridal Beach.

GOBBA GOOL (05:34.041)
Yeah. Long story short, they don't got Asians out there. And one of the girls came up to me. She's a student at the school I was at. She comes up to me and she goes, I was like, you know, you're getting ready to graduate. What are you thinking about for seminary? And she's like, I need to go back to the West Coast. I'm from the West Coast. I need to get back to my Asians. And I knew exactly what she was talking about. You just get used to it, man.

Jim Salmon (05:55.681)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (06:00.033)
It's like when you're from Tucson and you go somewhere and there's no Mexicans, you're kind of like, whoa, I don't like this.

Jim Salmon (06:00.245)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (06:04.367)
what's happening.

Jim Salmon (06:05.644)
I feel like it'll be weird if I were to go somewhere like Miami or New York, because they have a lot of Spanish speakers, but they're like a different flavor of Spanish speakers. Yeah, and the Cubanos.

GOBBA GOOL (06:15.768)
Yeah, Puerto Ricans. Have you seen that TikTok? I felt, I this. I felt like a Spanish up in here. I felt Puerto Rican. Have you seen that one? Oh, that's my favorite. But yeah.

Jim Salmon (06:24.334)
No, I haven't seen that one.

Tom Bombadil (06:24.591)
No.

Jim Salmon (06:29.794)
One of my favorite deep cuts of Spanish culture is how much beef there is amongst the Spanish speakers in different regions or cultures. Ask someone from Mexico or really anywhere in South America how they feel about Spaniards and they're like, stuffy Europeans with their Lithp.

GOBBA GOOL (06:48.49)
So they all think they're better than another one. But then so like

Jim Salmon (06:54.648)
think that's the thing, they perceive the Spaniards as looking down on them. Right.

GOBBA GOOL (06:59.512)
Right. There's like multiple levels of team up. Right. So South America teams up against Mexico. Like South America thinks they're all of them unite. But then you get a Salvadorian and like a Chilean and they'll argue over who's better. And then you get the Puerto Ricans who like know that they're better than all of them. Like it's like in. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (07:03.598)
Mm-hmm.

True.

Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (07:14.467)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (07:24.652)
Because they are American. They make fun of Mexico for trying to be American, but not being American. And Puerto Rico's like, baby, we got citizenship. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (07:29.442)
That's right. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (07:34.23)
Right. I don't know, man. They all are constantly in a fight.

Jim Salmon (07:40.11)
And then you've got Brazil, this massive Portuguese monolith where nobody speaks Spanish and there's a bunch of black people for some reason, but we know the reason.

Tom Bombadil (07:49.667)
You know what always trips me out about?

GOBBA GOOL (07:50.328)
What's the what's the reason? don't know.

Jim Salmon (07:53.87)
What was that Thomas?

Tom Bombadil (07:56.079)
What always trips me out about when you meet like a Portuguese speaker or a native Spanish speaker and you ask them is like it seems to me like Spanish and Portuguese are a lot alike and they're like always like no, nope, not alike at all. And then yeah. And then like tons of the words are just the same. And it's like, okay, like this is.

Jim Salmon (08:09.934)
They're like offended by the notion of it.

GOBBA GOOL (08:13.547)
Yeah

Jim Salmon (08:17.706)
It's just AO instead of O or something like that, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (08:20.361)
No, dude, we're about to get so many people in the comments being like, Tommy, you ignorant swine!

Tom Bombadil (08:20.866)
Right.

Tom Bombadil (08:24.299)
I don't care. I don't care.

Jim Salmon (08:24.398)
I don't dude dude. I have spoken to enough people for like I had friends where they were best pals. Mm-hmm

Tom Bombadil (08:32.023)
Our friend Kelly, Kelly, Kelly Helmuth is this way. She speaks Portuguese and I'm like, can you speak Spanish? And she's like, not really, but I feel like if she had to, she could get by.

Jim Salmon (08:42.474)
I've had friends who spoke Portuguese and Spanish and they would speak to each other and be able to basically put together what they were saying. It was sloppy, but it works.

GOBBA GOOL (08:52.792)
Italians can do that too with Spanish. Yeah, it's close enough. So this is why English, dude, English is such a jacked up language. Nothing is similar to it. All the rules are made up and make no sense.

Tom Bombadil (08:52.921)
There you go.

Jim Salmon (08:56.502)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom Bombadil (08:56.623)
Mmm.

Jim Salmon (09:03.21)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (09:08.598)
Well, it's because we've acquired rules from all these different groups of languages.

Tom Bombadil (09:13.337)
So many different places.

GOBBA GOOL (09:15.05)
Yeah, it's Latin and then German. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (09:18.07)
Yeah, yeah, so it's funky. But I love English. What can I say?

GOBBA GOOL (09:24.492)
Well, let us know what your favorite language is in the comments.

Jim Salmon (09:27.566)
That's right. Maybe we'll do a whole episode in a different language. Maybe Taylor will speak all will teach all of us how to speak Klingon.

Tom Bombadil (09:36.559)
I feel like a whole episode where he just speaks like Creole would be pretty cool.

Jim Salmon (09:41.006)
I'm

GOBBA GOOL (09:42.956)
That's one of the accents I cannot do, but I've.

Jim Salmon (09:45.4)
How does a creel or occasion say Myrtle Beach?

GOBBA GOOL (09:49.917)
I don't even know how they would they wouldn't say it. They have no reason to say it. John's thinking about doing it. Like he's thinking about trying right now.

Tom Bombadil (09:54.297)
Heh.

Tom Bombadil (09:58.671)
you

Jim Salmon (09:58.675)
Here's the thing, that's the one accent that I can't butcher because I actually have a lot of family from Louisiana and it's disrespectful. I'll save it, I'll save it.

Tom Bombadil (10:04.227)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (10:07.244)
You know, my favorite thing, my favorite thing about Creel is they use the term and it's not a swear word, but they just refer to people as coon asses. And it sounds so offensive. No, it sounds so offensive, but they're just like, yeah, dead boy is a coon ass. And what they mean is like, he lives on the bayou. Yeah.

Jim Salmon (10:17.214)
Mm-hmm. Well, we're flagged now.

Tom Bombadil (10:19.311)
You

Jim Salmon (10:29.964)
This is the first episode we'll never be able to stream in Saudi Arabia because Taylor the Sailor Mouth, actually that's your mafia nickname.

Tom Bombadil (10:29.999)
I've never heard that so I was not ready for that.

GOBBA GOOL (10:37.816)
It's I'm not I'm telling you it's not a swear word for them. It's not it sounds It's so it's so absurd, but the people people that live on the bayou, that's what they call them dead serious

Jim Salmon (10:48.302)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (10:53.423)
I'm gonna go try that and get shot and drowned in the lake.

Jim Salmon (10:53.462)
Ray, could you put two separate beeps? Hey everybody.

GOBBA GOOL (10:57.336)
Dude, dude, if Ray, if Ray, Ray does the edits and it just sounds like I'm saying the most offensive thing in the world. yeah, that boy's a deet deet. my gosh. You guys need to travel more. You guys need to travel more. Okay. I actually need, I need listeners that have somewhat familiar with Louisiana to help me out here.

Tom Bombadil (11:08.559)
Ha!

Jim Salmon (11:11.508)
just dubs you over actually saying a slur?

all the time.

Jim Salmon (11:24.386)
Alright, stop having the listeners bail you out, brother. Alright, we're way over time. We gotta jump in. Tommy, this is you. This is our man Godfrey. As you guys probably know, we've been working through the Crusades for quite a while. We've kinda set the stage. Last week we spent some time in the People's Crusade, also known as the Peasants' Crusade. And Tommy's gonna lead us through one of the key figureheads of the Crusaders.

GOBBA GOOL (11:26.776)
Hahaha

Jim Salmon (11:53.261)
Mr. Godfrey of is I'm not going to pronounce it. I'm going to mess it up. Godfrey of Boy, I was right. Gosh dang it. All right. Well, take it away.

Tom Bombadil (11:56.751)
Boy on. Boy on. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (12:01.975)
You know who can pronounce French words?

Jim Salmon (12:05.614)
Creels. Metal beach.

GOBBA GOOL (12:06.521)
Creoles, yeah.

Tom Bombadil (12:08.093)
yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (12:10.745)
my gosh.

Tom Bombadil (12:13.881)
So this is going to be.

quick intro to kind of this little sub-series we're going to have going on. So similarly to how Taylor had the series on the deaths of the apostles where he was pulling heavily from Sean McDowell's book on the topic. I'm going to do the same with Raymond Ibrahim's Defenders of the West, which will cover various people from throughout the history of the Crusades, which I think will be

encouraging work as we go along because it's going to highlight some of the more like respectable honorable people from the Crusades and kind of how they fit into whatever time frame they lived in. But since we're at the first crusade we're going to start with Godfrey and yeah I'm going to rely heavily on Ibrahim. Ibrahim's stuff is

footnoted to high heaven. He includes an enormous amount of primary sources. So I will read some chunks of what he's written, but embedded in it will be a lot of primary sources. I've tracked those down and I will let you know who they are along the way. But let's begin. I've got a little cold open for you.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger. The story of a young man making a name for himself through exploits and jousting, choosing honor instead of a meaningless life. I was captured by stories of King Arthur and the knights of the round table, of men who accepted the call to arms to protect the innocent and vanquish evil in the name of the king.

Tom Bombadil (14:05.123)
History is always more of a mixed bag than we would like it to be. The characters in our history books are flawed. They are complicated because they are sinners. And not every knight in history was chivalrous like Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain. But there is at least one knight in history who bore the standard of Christ well. A knight who was more interested in others than he was in himself.

a knight who walked away from his wealth and lands for an opportunity to restore lands to others who had lost them unjustly. This knight is Godfrey of Boyan, otherwise known as the Duke.

Jim Salmon (14:50.516)
good nickname. The Duke. Man, that's awesome. This is a great nickname episode. yeah, would be The Duke.

Tom Bombadil (14:51.993)
Duke, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (14:54.681)
ZADUKE

Tom Bombadil (14:54.841)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (14:59.513)
it too.

Tom Bombadil (15:02.425)
Sir Duke, like Stevie Wonder, that's a good song.

GOBBA GOOL (15:05.187)
Zah, Zah, Zah-doo-ah

Tom Bombadil (15:09.423)
So, Godfrey was born in 1060 in what is now Belgium. was born to Eustace II, who was the count of, I'm gonna say Bolognese, because I feel like it would feel really weird to just say he was the count of Bolognese, even though it's like spelled like the exact same way. I feel like maybe we don't say Bolognese correctly. Bolognese, how about that?

Jim Salmon (15:35.79)
Count, count of baloney. Sounds like someone was making fun of him. yeah, it's count of baloney over there.

Tom Bombadil (15:39.253)
Yeah, yeah, Mr. Campoloni. Let's see here. He was descended from Charlemagne and Charles Martel, so he had royal warrior blood. He would have been fluent in German and French, and he had cool parents. So, Godfrey, his dad, had fought along

aside William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. Godfrey would have been around six years old at the time. And his mother was known for her piety and she used her wealth to fund monasteries. one historian says that she took the best care of her children, nursing them herself lest they be contaminated by evil influences. And nursing means like in this context raising her boys.

didn't just have a, you know, their family was wealthy, so she didn't just let some other woman do that work. She was invested in raising her boys. Godfrey's brother is going to become important, very important later in the story, his younger brother. So his life would have been like what you might imagine a young knight growing up kind of in medieval times.

would have been like. He's got some lands, his family has lands, they've got some royal blood, and he would have been training to be a warrior probably before the age of 10. And a lot of that training would have been learning how to fight on horseback. The knights were known for their ability to fight on horseback and that's going to be an important factor when he is going to fight against

the Muslim forces later in his life who were known for their horseback fighting as well. So having good horseback fighters for the Crusaders is going to be important. At 16 he was described by Lambert of Hirsveld who actually knew Godfrey

Tom Bombadil (17:58.871)
described him as an energetic young man very eager for military action. And then as he reached manhood, William of Tyre, who I'm going to quote from a lot, William of Tyre was born in the kingdom of Jerusalem, so that's kind of in the generation after Godfrey and the first crusaders, and William interviewed a lot of the people who knew Godfrey.

And so William is an important chronicler of the first crusade, and he has a lot of biographical information on Godfrey in the same way Luke, the gospel writer, has a lot of information in the gospels. He interviewed lots of eyewitnesses of these events. So William of Tyre says that as he reached manhood, he was tall of stature, not extremely so, but still taller than the average man.

He was strong beyond compare, with solidly built limbs and stalwart chest. His features were pleasing, his beard and hair of a medium blonde. And then Robert the Monk, another contemporary, adds that Godfrey was handsome, of lordly bearing, eloquent, and of distinguished character. William Tyre continues, he was a man of deep religious character, devout and God-fearing, merciful and just. He scorned the vanity of the world.

a trait rare at his time of life, and especially in one belonging to the military profession. He was constant in prayer, assiduous in good works, and noted for his liberality. In the use of arms and in the practice of military tactics, he was in the judgment of all, without a peer." He was apparently well known for his religious fervor. He seemed like he was more of, I don't know, just kind of like a

was gonna say sound mind, but maybe like even keeled would be a good way to put it. Like he was just a steady amongst, we've talked a lot about how a lot of these people who are going to participate in the first crusade are just itching for kind of like a purpose to their warfare as they were warring tribes. And Godfrey is kind of like a head above the rest and he's got a clear head. He's interested, he's serious about his Christianity. He's got good character.

Tom Bombadil (20:23.279)
He seems to be well liked by his peers and even people who other contemporary historians who were more in the camps of some of the other like lords who led the crusades spoke well of him. So it wasn't just like his boys that were like, yeah, he was cool. He's like super handsome, super tall. Like other contemporaries spoke really well of him as a man devoted, totally devoted to war and God. I think Ralph of...

I don't know if it's Saiyan or K-an, don't know how to pronounce it. He wrote that. So anyway, sounds like a good dude. He is growing up in this time where young men are preparing for battle. They obviously, as he's growing up, he doesn't know that he's going to end up traveling to Jerusalem. So he has some other exploits. I'm gonna read you.

Although he possessed all the qualities of a natural born leader, his elder brother Eustace inherited all of their father's holdings. However, their maternal uncle, Godfrey IV, Duke of the Lower Lorraine, who had no children, took a liking to his young namesake and designated him his heir. In 1089, when Godfrey was about 29, he became the Duke of the Lower Lorraine, an especially important duchy that buffered between Germany

France. So he didn't inherit his father's lands, but his uncle who didn't have an heir gave him his lands, and it was actually pretty important land to protect. The duke's renown spread well before the First Crusade. Once, for example, another noble voiced a territorial grievance against him before Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and demanded single combat to resolve the matter. Godfrey performed

preferred a more amicable resolution, but the other insisted and the emperor decreed it. So this sounds like classic, like two knights, they're gonna like, you know, have a battle to sort it out. During their battle, Godfrey broke his sword at the hilt from an especially powerful blow to his opponent's shield so that barely half a foot beyond the hilt remained in his hand. Seeing this disadvantage, the nobles called for a truce and pled with the emperor to stop the duel and settle on a compromise.

Jim Salmon (22:33.078)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (22:49.271)
At which point the duke declared positively that he declined to take advantage of the efforts of the would-be peacemakers and with determined obstinacy returned to the field to renew the combat with nothing but a broken blade. His properly armed opponent renewed the duel with increased ferocity. Urged on by anger at the other's lack of honor, Godfrey rushed forward with the hilt of his broken sword in his hand and dealt his adversary such a mighty blow on the left temple that he was thrown half-dead to the ground.

The duke cast aside his broken sword, picked up his vanquished enemy's weapon, and stood over him. Instead of exacting vengeance, however, he again suggested that a peaceful compromise be reached so that his opponent might be spared an ignominious death, and it was so granted.

GOBBA GOOL (23:35.105)
I love that. So Godfrey was expecting his opponent to be like, no, we're not going to continue fighting. Yeah, that makes sense. And then Homeboy's like, no, dog.

Tom Bombadil (23:48.879)
Yeah, I feel like I've seen this in a movie, right? Yep. He had some other battles. There was one battle in particular that he fought. The Emperor chose Godfrey as leader of an expedition against Rudolph, who was the so-called pseudo-king of the Great Saxon Revolt from 1077 to 1088.

GOBBA GOOL (23:50.946)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (24:15.375)
Godfrey very reluctantly and unwillingly accepted the eagle from the hands of Henry IV and did as he was bid. He fought really well in that battle and became well known for his fighting ability. This is all before Urban's call from Clermont. So, well known warrior, respected by people, serious about religion. This is Godfrey up to this point.

GOBBA GOOL (24:43.926)
And he's a looker.

Tom Bombadil (24:45.794)
And he's a look.

Jim Salmon (24:45.998)
And people can't stop talking about how handsome this guy is.

GOBBA GOOL (24:50.851)
Back then, that means he probably had most of his teeth.

Tom Bombadil (24:54.113)
Yeah. I don't think they ate sugar back then. So they probably had plenty of teeth, but did you ever think about that? Like, I've always wondered, like, how do people in history, like, how did they survive without like brushing their teeth? And it's like, they didn't eat fricking processed sugar all day, every day.

GOBBA GOOL (24:55.747)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (25:14.861)
John is so deep in thought.

Tom Bombadil (25:15.619)
Also dentists are cool. John, did you think everybody in history just has messed up teeth?

Jim Salmon (25:17.518)
I don't know.

Jim Salmon (25:22.72)
I do think dental care is better today than it has been. I mean this is the middle ages. I feel like isn't it kind of a common stereotype of like showing the peasants with like rotten teeth and stuff like that? I don't know. don't know. I'm my dental history is off. I'm not sure.

Tom Bombadil (25:25.888)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd agree.

Tom Bombadil (25:35.192)
Yeah. Yep.

Tom Bombadil (25:40.141)
If all you ate was like vegetables out of the ground and wild game, like, I don't know. I feel like you'd have pretty decent, just natural dental hygiene.

Jim Salmon (25:50.094)
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Alright, side quest. Carry on.

Tom Bombadil (25:53.449)
Side quest. So, now we have Pope Urban's call from Clermont, and he decides that he wants to go help. Because actually, prior to Urban's call, Godfrey had once declared, what assistance fellow warriors can we hope for from God? We who, while His churches are perishing, not only do not come to their defense,

but do not even put forward any word of objection." So he was, even before Pope Urban's call, felt like, why do we even ask God for help and stuff when we won't even go help, you know? Yeah. So he was one of the first nobles to take up this call, and his brothers Eustace and Baldwin joined him on this call. And before they set out,

GOBBA GOOL (26:34.937)
dang.

Tom Bombadil (26:52.003)
The brothers, quote, made a series of unusually rich donations to different churches and religious houses between 1090 and 1096. To help fund their crusade, they sold or mortgaged much of their lands and properties, often cheaply. This included Godfrey's Castle of Bullion, founded by Charles Martel. According to a charter from 1096 recording Godfrey's and Baldwin's land donations to the Abbey of Nivelle,

brothers did all this, moved by the hope of an internal inheritance and by love, and are preparing to fight for God in Jerusalem after having sold and relinquished all their things." Now we talked about how a lot of these crusaders took up the call in hopes that they could like win lands and riches for themselves. In this case, these guys already had the land and riches. They were pretty powerful already, and they sold their things so that they could go participate.

in the holy war without and we're going to find out later in the story that these guys were not particularly interested and super motivated to rule lands in the holy land. It's going to happen but kind of reluctantly and we'll get into that.

so, no, you can spoil it, spoil away. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (28:12.505)
Am I going to spoil with this question? Doesn't Baldwin Baldwin has some disease or something?

Tom Bombadil (28:21.455)
can't remember if Baldwin has a disease. haven't.

GOBBA GOOL (28:24.055)
What's the one Edward who's the one Edward Norton plays and he has the sick mask.

Tom Bombadil (28:29.692)
yeah, that's like, that's later. So bald, that's a later Baldwin. So,

Jim Salmon (28:30.137)
that like silver face mask.

GOBBA GOOL (28:34.982)
wait, there's two Baldwin's in the Crusades?

Tom Bombadil (28:38.083)
So Baldwin, yeah, the first Baldwin is Godfrey's brother. And then there's like, I think a series of like, there's a royal line of Baldwins. So I think that's like fourth crusade or something that the kingdom of heaven and moon.

Jim Salmon (28:38.2)
Baldwin's like John back then,

GOBBA GOOL (28:50.842)
because Kingdom of Heaven is way late. Okay.

Tom Bombadil (28:54.863)
Yeah. Yeah. The good qu- I actually looked that up so that I had the same thought. I was like, whoa, is this Edward Norton? Spoiler alert, it's Edward Norton. Okay, let's see. So on August 15th, 1096, Godfrey, at the head of 80,000 crusaders, 10,000 knights and 70,000 infantry, set out for...

GOBBA GOOL (29:00.397)
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Tom Bombadil (29:24.664)
Anatolia.

GOBBA GOOL (29:25.561)
Did y'all catch that date? August. Not... not February 1st or whenever the peasants all decided to wander over there.

Tom Bombadil (29:30.35)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (29:31.182)
Yeah, not freaking... yeah, that's right.

Tom Bombadil (29:38.084)
my gosh, yeah. Well.

GOBBA GOOL (29:40.291)
So how many, can you say the number again? Cause I think that's really important. Cause this is like the

Jim Salmon (29:44.046)
Say 80,000?

Tom Bombadil (29:46.351)
80,000.

GOBBA GOOL (29:47.502)
Jeez. So this is the date Urban said that they had all prepared for and had supply lines and a plan.

Jim Salmon (29:47.554)
Yeah, that's crazy.

Tom Bombadil (29:56.697)
Yep. So, and this is just one of the groups that was going. So they had to go in stages. So these lords who were bringing these massive armies had to plan ahead and stage their advance across Europe because the land and like the people couldn't support like that many people coming through all at once. And Taylor I think talked about this in the last episode of how that was kind of a challenge.

GOBBA GOOL (30:04.057)
.

Jim Salmon (30:19.15)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (30:24.193)
in and of itself trying to figure out how to get these armies across without just completely pillaging the lands that they were traveling through. So some of the other important names, leaders of the First Crusade were Hugh the Great, younger brother of Philip the First, King of the Franks, Robert, Duke of Normandy and eldest son of William the Conqueror, Robert the Second, Count of Flanders.

Bohemond, who's gonna be pretty important in the First Crusade stories, he's a Norman Lord, and Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, and these guys are all bringing their own armies and they're all gonna be traveling together. And they have varying levels of integrity. Some of them are there, very interested in capturing cities in Asia Minor for

Jim Salmon (31:10.85)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (31:18.095)
for themsel- to liberate them, but then they're hoping to set up shop there. Whereas Godfrey and his brothers seem a little bit- they're pretty focused on getting to Jerusalem, and everything else is kind of, like, secondary to them.

GOBBA GOOL (31:34.915)
Do you think Godfrey and his brothers are just, it sounds like they're high honor people, right? Like, so Godfrey did the honorable thing in the duel and then he was upset when the guy didn't do the honorable thing. So do you think they sold all the land thinking like, okay, this is the right thing to do. And so you think that they were hoping that the church would then turn around and like take care of them after?

Tom Bombadil (32:03.183)
I'm not totally sure like what they thought the end game was I think that if they came back What we see for the Crusaders who don't stay, but they do return to their lands. They are highly Warmly received and highly honored and so I'm sure whether it's the Emperor or the Pope, you know Take care of those guys And some of them just left their stuff behind. Like you said there was laws protecting, you know

Jim Salmon (32:26.702)
Hmm

Tom Bombadil (32:32.493)
their stuff from being taken. these guys, in order to fund the war effort, just sold their own stuff. So I'm not totally sure what the end game was.

Jim Salmon (32:43.11)
I might've just, I might be asking a question that you just answered, but so yeah, was there, did people know as they were going over there that they were planning to like stay in setup shop or like, was it just not really established? I don't know. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (33:02.543)
I think that I read something that said that some of these guys definitely were planning on staying and taking those lands for themselves. And I think that was part of the deal even, like from the Pope. You'll see that when they take over like Antioch, that's gonna be a really big kind of like, not a battle, they don't actually fight each other over it, but there's a pretty...

Jim Salmon (33:18.126)
Sure.

Tom Bombadil (33:30.187)
serious discussion about which of the lords is going to get to be the Lord of Antioch after they take it over.

Jim Salmon (33:36.589)
Interesting. Okay. Yeah. And did that stir up any controversy? Because I, this is something that I read probably a few weeks ago, so it might be a little rusty, but like, I thought that when Alexios had brought in the crusaders to liberate the land, he was kind of hoping they would do it as mercenaries and then give it back to the Byzantines. So was there conflict when they took that land over and then they were basically like,

This is Western now.

Tom Bombadil (34:07.577)
Yup, yeah, specifically with Antioch, I believe. I think Alexios was hoping to have that for himself. And the Crusaders, in particular, Bohemond, who's the one who's gonna be the Lord of Antioch, is like, no. Like, you kinda double-crossed us at Nicaea, which he does. Alexios is not exactly, like, totally on the same side as the Crusaders.

Jim Salmon (34:12.919)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (34:27.821)
wow.

Jim Salmon (34:37.41)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (34:37.517)
Alexios really just wanted his lands liberated didn't seem like he necessarily had the liberation of the Holy Land in mind and so when the Crusaders just like keep going and keep winning I think Alexios is like, okay, I guess I'll take that since like these are my lands and they're like no, that's not that's not how this works. Yeah

Jim Salmon (34:45.582)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (34:56.398)
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, because I understand that like the parts of Asia Minor that had been taken by the Turks had only been taken from the Byzantines over the past like maybe 10 or 15 years. But the promised land like, or the Holy Land that had been in Seljuk territory since like, I think the early, I'm getting them mixed up, but like 10th or 11th century. Oh, for that long, really?

Tom Bombadil (35:20.419)
I think it's the 600s. It's, well, yeah, I think it was the late seventh century that they took over Jerusalem for the first time.

Jim Salmon (35:31.682)
feel like there was a little back and forth, but I'll let you keep going. I'll check on that.

Tom Bombadil (35:36.975)
Okay, cool. I have it somewhere in my notes. I don't know where it is. So yeah, if you can find it, that'd be great. Okay, so by May of 1097, the entire Crusader army, all those armies put together are now gathered and it's around 600,000 people, women and children included. And that's not the People's Crusade either. Like that's in addition to the People's Crusade. So we're just talking about an enormous amount of people.

And they get to Nicaea and they besiege it. And the siege is really tough. The Turks figured out how to make this combustible mixture that they would pour over the walls to light their battering rams on fire. it was just like this is what you would imagine just like a brutal siege looking like, just smoke and fire rising from the city walls. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (36:33.026)
Like grog, grog from the siege of Minas Tirith. Grog, grohn, grohned, yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah.

Tom Bombadil (36:37.015)
Rond, yeah, rond, yeah, rond, rond, yeah.

Jim Salmon (36:43.566)
All right. Sorry, just to jump in. so we were both right. So the Byzantines had lost, the Byzantines had lost Jerusalem way back when like Islam was super early under the Rashidun, uh, caliphate, but the Seljuks took it from the Fatimids in 1071. So the Seljuks had just taken over the, Jerusalem, but it had been an Islamic control for hundreds of years.

Tom Bombadil (37:12.877)
Okay, okay. On May 20th, the Seljuk Sultan, Kilij Arzlan, shows up with a massive army to deliver his capital city of Nicaea. And Godfrey and Bohemond just ride right out to meet him with their armies and they just absolutely rout the Muslim army that came to meet them. And then they go back to the siege.

and they eventually get in and on June 19th of 1097 the Turks surrendered Nicaea and they were going to capitulate to Alexios. So Nicaea actually Alexios gets

Jim Salmon (38:10.318)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (38:11.503)
And then they move on. So the Crusaders resume their march southward through Anatolia. And on July 1st, 1097, Bahamond's force met 30,000 Muslims. So like another Muslim army shows up riding towards them. And Godfrey and his men come to the rescue. And I'm just...

Skipping around a little bit. There's so much history here like we don't have time to like go into the details of every battle We might come back to some of this but

After much bloodshed on both sides, Christian heavy Calvary charges eventually broke up the battle lines of the infidels and put them to flight with dreadful slaughter. All the chroniclers indicate that Godfrey fought with distinction. The Gestafrancorum simply says he was reckless, a word with no pejorative connotation then, and brave. In the aftermath, 4,000 Christians were massacred, including nobles such as Tancred's brother William.

and Tancred himself nearly died in that battle. Not only was the, so this was called the Battle of Dorilayum, not only was Dorilayum the first pitched battle between the Crusaders and Turks, it was also where the Europeans first truly experienced the Turkic way of war. Unlike their heavily armored Christian counterparts, the Turkish army consisted primarily of light cavalry.

It would gallop around, always avoiding what the crusaders sought and excelled at, which was cavalry charges in close combat, and let fly volley after volley of arrows, regularly described in both Muslim and Christian sources as blotting out the sun that would kill or incapacitate their enemy. Sources tell of crusaders looking like hedgehogs or found dead with 40 arrows protruding. Yeah. So it's like.

Jim Salmon (40:10.42)
gosh, that's crazy. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (40:12.21)
So I wonder.

Tom Bombadil (40:15.575)
That line from 300, we fight in the shade.

Jim Salmon (40:17.922)
Dude, that's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (40:18.059)
Right. I wonder if the the initial charge from the Seljuks as they were trying to, you know, stop the siege of Nicaea. You got to remember the last time they fought a bunch of Latins, they destroyed them. So right.

Tom Bombadil (40:34.735)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (40:34.798)
Yeah, they were holding spatulas and mop handles.

GOBBA GOOL (40:38.973)
Right. And so I wonder if they were like, OK, round up the boys. Let's just go clean this up, too. And then you're like, these are real soldiers.

Jim Salmon (40:44.93)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (40:48.579)
Yeah, and we see this pretty consistently throughout the first crusade. There's many moments where it's like the 300 Spartans, where it's like the odds are insane and somehow the crusaders keep winning. And the impression that I got was that it seems like the Muslims, whether it was the Turks or I forget who who'd you say the group was who holds Jerusalem at this point? The Fatimids.

Jim Salmon (41:15.064)
Fadimids.

Tom Bombadil (41:17.355)
It seems like they just kept underestimating how violent these Frankish warriors were and how good at fighting they were and how serious they were. And so...

Jim Salmon (41:32.399)
Well, as to be fair, hadn't really like the the Franks really only fought themselves. Like the Normans were known for kind of like, you know, pick and fights with the Muslims or with the Byzantines. But, you know, like, like we said, there is something to be said about comparing Mohammed's impact in unifying the scattered Arabian Peninsula and then what Urban had done to unify the scattered.

like Europeans, so they were just unfamiliar. had never crossed swords with these guys before, so it was definitely a learning experience.

GOBBA GOOL (42:09.625)
What's interesting to me is you have this like Frankish warfare and I'm sure they were excellent warriors, but the Seljuks were also like equally terrifying. And like these two and their different styles of fighting had never really encountered one another before. And so I'm sure both sides were really frantically trying to figure out how to win. How many battles were fought?

Jim Salmon (42:30.99)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (42:37.038)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (42:40.077)
during this first crusade, Tommy.

Tom Bombadil (42:42.479)
Well, you have the Battle of Nicaea, then you have the Battle of Dorialum, is that, am I saying it right? Dorileum, then you have the Siege of Antioch, then you have the Siege of Jerusalem. So it's.

GOBBA GOOL (43:03.925)
And well, the one so the Crusaders wiped the floor outside of Nicaea, right, with the Sultan. But then after that, nothing was like free, so to speak.

Tom Bombadil (43:16.259)
Yeah, they struggled after that and what we're gonna find, the next thing that happens is they, so they keep marching and they get to march relatively unopposed for about three months after that battle, but they really start to encounter some serious issues with like plague and thirst and hunger and the Muslims kind of switch tactics and start kind of doing like guerrilla warfare stuff and like pot-shotting them.

GOBBA GOOL (43:38.041)
oof

Jim Salmon (43:44.59)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (43:46.243)
and they just start losing men like crazy over the course of time that they're now still trying to travel to Antioch and the Holy Land.

Jim Salmon (43:56.513)
I read too, Thomas, I don't know if you saw this, but I read that I think especially between Antioch and Jerusalem, there were one of the things Crusaders just kind of ran into was just they had a ton of deserters. I think there were a lot of probably the more inexperienced soldiers who were just getting flustered by the physical demand. But yeah, I read about that.

Tom Bombadil (44:20.335)
That's exactly right. they... One contemporary historian writes, And so you had like 600,000 at the beginning.

And then I mean you could see cemeteries just like all along their path is they're burying their dead all the way across Anatolia I forgot to read this earlier a little Holy Land update little dispatch from the Holy Land to kind of give a little context For guys like Godfrey that are a little bit more interested in the the liberation effort and this provides an answer to

GOBBA GOOL (45:05.817)
Ha!

Tom Bombadil (45:18.445)
what you and I were deliberating, John. This is what Ibrahim writes about the condition of the Holy Land over the centuries. Not every Muslim leader was committed to the destruction of churches and persecution of Christians. Some were more pragmatic, leaving Demis alone on payment of jizya and acceptance of social inferiority. That said, as in other Muslim-occupied territories,

Jim Salmon (45:20.814)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (45:45.741)
Whether the next ruler would be radical or moderate, to use an anachronistic but familiar dichotomy, was always a coin flip away. As for the Muslim populace then as now, mobs were always ready to rise against and plunder Christians under any pretext. Even the Holy Sepulcher, Christendom's most sacred church, was not spared. In 936,

The Muslims in Jerusalem made a rising and burnt down the church, which they plundered and destroyed all they could of it, records one Muslim chronicler. Similarly, in 1009, Fatimid Caliph Hakim B'amr Allah ordered one of his officials to destroy the Sepulcher church and have the people plunder it so thoroughly all traces of it were obliterated. He did exactly that.

Jim Salmon (46:37.816)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (46:37.837)
Such wanton vandalism plunged the entire Church and the city of Rome into deep grief and distress. quote the Pope of the time, Sergius IV, not content, Hakeem further ordered the destruction of, according to Muslim accounts, some 30,000 churches throughout Egypt and greater Syria.

So, and the, yeah. That's the whole time, yeah. Okay, so that knowledge is important, and I brought it up then to highlight. This is what's gonna keep some of these guys driving forward, even under the circumstances. They're like, we set out to go to Jerusalem, we wanna get there anyway.

GOBBA GOOL (46:57.059)
Poor cops, man.

Just their whole existence.

Tom Bombadil (47:22.403)
There's this really interesting little side note that happens before they get to Antioch. I'm not gonna read the whole story. It's really cool. There's some cool historical reports of this. But Godfrey, like on a hunt, while they're trying to hunt for some wild animals to feed the army, hears this roar that like shakes like the forest. And he...

rides to it and he encounters this enormous bear and he gets into a fight with this bear and it almost kills him and part of what makes it even worse is while he's trying to like swing his sword and fight the bear off of him he like slices his own calf and like almost cuts his own leg off trying to get away from this bear and so for a while in the

Jim Salmon (48:16.599)
Mm.

Tom Bombadil (48:18.913)
in the accounts of the First Crusade from the various historians, Godfrey kind of like disappears from the story for a while because he almost died at the hands of this bear. So he's like the revenant for a little while.

Jim Salmon (48:28.963)
Hmm

GOBBA GOOL (48:33.002)
man.

Jim Salmon (48:33.196)
Hahaha.

Tom Bombadil (48:36.719)
Another thing that starts happening as they are traveling through this area and getting closer and closer to the Holy Land is indigenous Christians, Syrians and Armenians, love to see the Crusaders coming. And they're feeding them, they're taking care of them, they're celebrating them, making their way to the Holy Land. So by October, the Crusaders make it to Antioch and they besiege Antioch.

Now, this is a whole, I feel like maybe this is one that we could potentially return to and do. Maybe we could do an episode where we go into more detail on the sieges of Antioch and Jerusalem and talk a little bit more about the back and forth just in the interest of time. I think I'm gonna skip it for now, which is a bummer. I'm looking forward to returning to it because there's a really interesting like back and forth that occurs between the Muslims and the Crusaders at this time.

Jim Salmon (49:19.906)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (49:36.035)
They're having delegations speak to each other and the Muslims are like, what the heck are you guys doing? Like this is our land and the Crusaders are essentially saying, actually it's not. You feel like it's your land because you've been here for a couple decades but you slaughtered Christians and took it from, it's always been Christian land, you took it from them, therefore this is a just war on our part.

So the story of Antioch and how they get in is, it's brutal. The siege is really hard on both sides. To make it short, when they finally get into Antioch and take it over, as soon as they get in there, right after they get in there, a Muslim force shows up and besieges them. And so they're like, yeah, they're like, yeah. And so they're like.

Jim Salmon (50:26.219)
gosh, musical chairs.

Tom Bombadil (50:31.609)
There's no stores in the city because they just besieged it for a long time and they end up like they're having to like eat leather shoes and like bleed their horses and drink the blood like that level of like siege horrors. We'll tell the story in greater detail in the future, but somehow they are able to beat off those attackers and they now have Antioch. So,

Jim Salmon (50:35.694)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (51:00.975)
While the rest of the lords are arguing about who's going to get Antioch, Godfrey was, quote, greatly anxious for the journey to Jerusalem and incited people to it. He became the first of the major leaders to resume the crusade. In the end, he and the others led a tiny fraction of the original number of first crusaders, 1,200 knights and 12,000 infantry, to their final destination.

Jim Salmon (51:28.248)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (51:28.953)
That's... wow.

Tom Bombadil (51:29.135)
So out of 600,000, we've got like 13,000 guys now.

Jim Salmon (51:33.72)
Holy moly, that's crazy. Yeah, I just read that the siege of Antioch took place between October 1097 and June of 1098. That's an eight month long siege. Like that's awful. That is so long.

Tom Bombadil (51:50.337)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jim Salmon (51:54.115)
Are we not getting into the Holy Lands yet? Okay, sweet, sweet.

Tom Bombadil (51:57.289)
We're here. We've reached Jerusalem. It'll go pretty quick. Again, I won't tell a ton of details about the siege of Jerusalem so we can go back to it, but...

Jim Salmon (52:07.079)
no no no, the holy lance.

The Holy Lance, the spear that pierced Jesus' side? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Did you? Oh, bro, okay, we'll get into that in Antioch. That's a A tier side quest to go down.

Tom Bombadil (52:12.748)
the holy lance! I don't have that.

Tom Bombadil (52:23.009)
Okay, cool. Sweet.

GOBBA GOOL (52:24.811)
A side quest.

Jim Salmon (52:26.305)
You

Tom Bombadil (52:26.863)
yeah, I don't think I have anything on that. So that'll be fun.

Jim Salmon (52:32.076)
Yeah, long story short, because I already brought it up, was just like this dude named Peter Bartholomew, who was like another big character, not really as a military leader. I think he was more of like a priestly figure. He claims like they find this rusty spear and they're like, my gosh, this is the lance that pierced the side of Christ. And it's associated with all of these like

miracles that happen and you know kind of these incredible come from behind victories or because they found the spear and they lifted it to the heavens and all that stuff. It's probably a little on the hagiography side but I mean again we know these guys like relics a lot so it's it's par for the course but it's interesting we'll get more into it later future episode.

Tom Bombadil (53:14.031)
sweet. Let's see here. So as they make their final approach to Jerusalem, the indigenous Christians are helping them along the way. They're celebrating them. They're giving them advice on the best routes to take.

GOBBA GOOL (53:30.297)
It's just that's so Middle Eastern. No Habibi, you go this way. Habibi. No, no, no, no.

Tom Bombadil (53:33.903)
Yeah.

Jim Salmon (53:36.696)
You're going to want to take a right. No, you want to take the second right right around here. Yeah, you're to see a camel depot. If you hit the camel depot, you went too far.

GOBBA GOOL (53:38.392)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (53:45.369)
That's right. No, kind of it's so funny. I just I've seen a lot of travel videos for guys that go even in like people going to like Afghanistan now. They're all just super friendly like. No, no, don't go that way. Go this way.

Jim Salmon (53:58.873)
We need to start a church history for chumps grape juice drinking game where every time Taylor says habibi you take a shot of Welches.

Tom Bombadil (54:07.833)
haha

GOBBA GOOL (54:08.641)
You know, man, I love my habibis.

Jim Salmon (54:11.682)
I know you do bro, I think it's good.

Tom Bombadil (54:12.761)
habibi in itiopia

GOBBA GOOL (54:15.161)
Ethiopia, dude, I gotta go back. It'll be a year in a few months. I gotta go back.

Jim Salmon (54:15.489)
Ethiopia.

Jim Salmon (54:21.494)
It's calling for you, bro.

GOBBA GOOL (54:22.869)
It is. Anyway.

Tom Bombadil (54:25.113)
So Raymond of Aguileres describes one reason why these indigenous Christians were so excited is a lot of them had basically had to go underground with their Christianity. If they didn't give up Christianity, he writes that their children either had to be circumcised or converted to Islam, or oftentimes their children were kidnapped.

Obviously their churches and altars were desecrated and many of them, their male youths got placed in brothels and the mothers oftentimes were not even allowed to show sorrow for these things. So when they see these guys coming in to liberate them, they're really happy. And I think this is to kind of like shine a light on, this is the

This is like the goodness, the justness of the first crusade mixed in with the whole mess of the people's crusade mixed in with the whole mess of the theological salvation promises that Pope Urban was giving mixed in with the varying motivations that these knights have. This is why they came was to liberate these people that have been under the thumb of Islam for hundreds of years.

GOBBA GOOL (55:49.965)
Yeah, the modern equivalent is the Iraqis that hated Saddam that were like more than happy to help US forces do what they needed to get done.

Tom Bombadil (55:55.651)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (56:02.265)
That's a good point. So on June 7th, 1099, the Crusaders finally reached their destination. And I'm just going to do like a quick off-the-dome summary of how this works. But essentially, they besieged Jerusalem, and there's only like a few thousand of them, and they're totally worn out. They...

They're continuing to lose men just from exhaustion. They are freaking out because they can't find fresh water. Finally, they get some reinforcements. There's a bunch of Italian ships that park on the coastland with a bunch of supplies they need to make new siege equipment. But it's like 40 miles away. So in three weeks, they like run over there. They get all this siege equipment. They bring it back. They're totally exhausted.

And this time, instead of battering rams, they build a couple really, really, really tall siege towers. So know those towers, they're like on wheels, and you can put a bunch of soldiers in them and roll them up to the gates.

GOBBA GOOL (57:09.119)
as seen at the Battle of Helm's Deep.

Tom Bombadil (57:11.489)
Yes. Have you ever seen the documentary of the Battle of Helms Deep? So basically what happens, quick summary, is they succeed in getting these towers up to the city walls. Godfrey stands at the top of his tower and they make their way in and the Muslims are freaking out. They're like pulling

GOBBA GOOL (57:17.625)
That's right.

Tom Bombadil (57:39.529)
out tricks that they hadn't even seen before. Like they've got like these like sorceresses that they got up on the walls like trying to like call down curses on the crusaders and like a big like stone like crushes these sorceresses. It's like a crazy crazy battle. Godfrey fights very very strongly and wins the day and the crusaders make it in the walls and

When they get in, they totally slaughter the population of the inside of Jerusalem. Ibrahim writes, he says, all Christian sources indicate that the carnage was so horrific that once the battle frenzy had subsided, even the victors experienced sensations of horror and loathing, writes William of Tyre, adding, it was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain.

without horror. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves dripping with blood from head to toe in ominous sight which brought terror to all that met them." He goes on and he says, one historical point of view holds that the chroniclers exaggerated the slaughter in apocalyptic terms as a way of underscoring God's righteous judgment against the heathen. Either way, they definitely killed a lot of people when they got into Jerusalem.

GOBBA GOOL (59:06.105)
What happened, Godfrey?

You think he lost control of his voice?

Tom Bombadil (59:13.945)
I don't know, it's kind of what happens when you make your way into a besieged city, but...

GOBBA GOOL (59:15.906)
Right.

Jim Salmon (59:18.978)
frenzy takes over. I also read and this is worth saying just for historical context, this was definitely a time when the slaughter of civilians was not, you know, there was no Geneva Convention back then. They weren't like, Whoa, you're taking it too far. So I don't know, pretty commonplace. But yeah, every every source I've read, I've read a couple from from even Islamic sources that just say, yeah, it's just it was gut wrenching, just

Tom Bombadil (59:20.783)
Ahem.

Jim Salmon (59:48.258)
really gruesome stuff.

Tom Bombadil (59:51.919)
After they win, William of Tyre writes, Godfrey was the first to decide that prayer rather than bloodshed befitted their first hours in Jerusalem and set the example to the others by withdrawing from the carnage and going barefooted, clad simply in a clean linen garment to the sepulcher of our Lord to return thanks that he had thus allowed them to accomplish their pilgrimage and fulfill their vows. Godfrey was followed

by all, and the indigenous clergy of the faithful citizens of Jerusalem come out and meet them. These Christians who for many years had borne the heavy yoke of undeserved bondage were eager to show their gratitude to the Redeemer for their restoration of liberty. Bearing in their hands crosses and relics of saints, they led the way into the church to the accompaniment of hymns and sacred songs.

After that, there's this question of, okay, who's going to rule this city? And so they decide that they're going to have a vote. So they have various candidates. And they figure that the way that they're going to judge the merits of the candidates is they're gonna interview the men of these leaders. And so they go around, this was pretty funny, I literally wrote LOL like on the side of my...

notes. When they got to Godfrey and his men on oath, they said that the most vexing thing they recalled him doing was spending an inordinate amount of time in church after Mass had concluded and questioning the clergy on theological issues so that his companions became excessively bored. Worse, the meal prepared for them after Mass had grown cold and tasteless.

GOBBA GOOL (01:01:46.457)
He made us late to the hometown buffet after church.

Jim Salmon (01:01:46.702)
That's funny.

Tom Bombadil (01:01:51.083)
Yeah, yeah. Classic theology, bro.

Jim Salmon (01:01:55.971)
Yeah, when your liberator kicks down your door and immediately just wants to argue about baptism, it's like, gosh dang it, dude.

Tom Bombadil (01:02:05.849)
So he did not want to... so they end up... everybody votes for Godfrey to be the new ruler, and he doesn't want it. And he had... so that... remember that Duchy of Lorraine that belonged to him? It was a pretty important land to rule, and if he had returned, he would have been...

Ibrahim says more honored than the Emperor upon his return. On the other hand, remaining in Jerusalem in this small Christian island surrounded by a Muslim sea meant non-stop threats and warfare. So, hands up accepting, but he refuses, he says that he doesn't want to be called the King of Jerusalem, but he rather would be called the Defender of the Holy Sepulcher for, quote,

God forbid that I should be crowned with a crown of gold where my Savior bore a crown of thorns." So he ends up becoming the defender of the Holy Sepulcher, rather the ruler of Jerusalem, and within a year he dies. He spends some time securing some of the land, some of the towns surrounding Jerusalem to kind of build up some of their

defenses and ebrahim is under the impression that he was poisoned by some muslims that he was meeting with a delegation of muslims and they were offering him food and he was like no no and they finally got him to eat it and and he got poisoned and he died so he no not very habibi

GOBBA GOOL (01:03:55.117)
That wasn't very Habibi of them.

Jim Salmon (01:04:01.581)
I've read that's a little contested. It sounds like some are considering that he may have died of typhoid and some Muslims say he just got struck by an arrow. So I think there's a few different views on his how he died.

Tom Bombadil (01:04:01.707)
So on

Tom Bombadil (01:04:08.463)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (01:04:13.071)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (01:04:16.631)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, it's not super clear. July 18th of 1100, slightly less than one year after his coronation, the defender of the Holy Sepulcher died aged 40. Let's see here. Due to his exemplary life by at least medieval Christian standards, Godfrey became the quintessential model of Christian virtue for the descendants of the first crusaders.

Quote, to us he seems not merely a king, but the best of kings, a light and mirror to others, wrote William of Tyre, who was born in Jerusalem 30 years after Godfrey's death and interviewed those who knew the duke. He scorned the pomp and vanity of the world to which every creature is prone. It was in the spirit of humility that he declined the crown which would perish in the hope of attaining hereafter one that would never fade. Last thing, this is just, I found really fascinating. He got buried.

near the tomb of Jesus as a special honor. His tomb was there until 1808 and it got destroyed in 1808. But his sword was left and Mark Twain saw it. Mark Twain was there in 1867 with some other Americans. While he was there, he wrote this, the relic that touched us most was the plain old sword of that stout crusader

Godfrey of Bullion, King Godfrey of Jerusalem. No blade in Christendom wields such enchantment as this. No blade of all that rust in the ancestral halls of Europe is able to invoke such visions of romance in the brain of him who looks upon it. None that can pray of such chivalric deeds or tell such brave tales of the warriors of old. This very sword has cloven hundreds of Saracen knights from crown to chin in those old times when Godfrey

wielded it. also adds, Mark Twain says, can never forget old Godfrey's sword now. And he says that apparently, satirically, that he would like to use it to kill all the Muslim infidels in Jerusalem in revenge for the massacres they were still visiting upon the Christians of the Holy Land. A few years before his visit, Mark Twain wrote this in 1861 about what was going on in Jerusalem in the 1860s.

Tom Bombadil (01:06:40.847)
5,000 men, women, and children were butchered indiscriminately and left to rot by the hundreds all through the Christian quarter of Damascus. The stench was dreadful. All the Christians who could get away fled from the city, and the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the infidel dogs. The thirst for blood extended to the high lands of Herman and anti-Lebanon, and in a short time, 25,000 more Christians were massacred and their possessions laid waste. How they hate a Christian in Damascus.

and pretty much all over Turkey as well, and how they will pay for it when Russia turns her guns upon them again. That was Mark Twain.

GOBBA GOOL (01:07:18.201)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (01:07:19.565)
So I think Ibrahim adds that at the end to highlight as a cop himself, these battles are still being fought today. Like being a Christian in the Holy Land is tough business all throughout time basically. But that's Godfrey.

Jim Salmon (01:07:39.945)
Alright, another fun fact is that Godfrey is, he's in, not Dante's Inferno, because that would imply he's in hell, no, he's in Paradiso in the Divine Comedy. Dante writes him alongside with Roland, who was the military leader under Charlemagne. I think I'm a little, I'm glad that there were some,

Tom Bombadil (01:07:50.211)
Really? cool.

Tom Bombadil (01:07:58.543)
Wow, that's cool.

Jim Salmon (01:08:08.056)
Just from what I'm reading, again, very scant reading, it sounds like he was a dude who had such a dynamic legacy amongst his contemporaries. I do wonder if there was a little mythologizing that happened as history kind of unfolded, which, like I said, we saw that with the apostles too. Somebody just has a name that carries a lot of weight.

But yeah, it seems like by all accounts he was a pious dude as far as crusaders go. Yeah, that's cool.

Tom Bombadil (01:08:41.667)
Yeah, Ibrahim had something about that where he says, In the end, without taking anything away from Godfrey's well-earned reputation, it must be acknowledged that without the other crusade leaders, not to mention the nameless foot soldiers who bled and died on the road to Jerusalem, there would be no duke to speak of. The success of the First Crusade was above all a collective effort. His brothers Eustace and Baldwin, the Normans, Bohemond and his nephew Tancred,

Count Raymond of Toulouse, Count Robert of Flanders, Count Robert of Normandy, and so many more, named and unnamed, each played important roles in the recovery of Jerusalem from Islam. And there are not a few historians who might argue for one of these in the place of Godfrey. Still, in electing him as effective king of the Holy Land, a land so important to them that they were willing to sacrifice everything, including their lives and possessions, it was these other lords who decided who was greatest among them. As William of Tyre writes,

For no one can doubt that one who was unanimously singled out as the best by famous princes who are said to be unequaled in the world was a very great man indeed.

Jim Salmon (01:09:50.872)
Solid, solid, Yeah, man, good stuff. All right, gang. Well, next week we'll be back. We're probably going to do some deep dives into some of these sieges because they're very, very relevant and I think there's a lot more to explore. So I think we'll probably do a siege of Antioch followed by the siege slash fall of Jerusalem after that. And then, yeah, I don't know. We'll start planning maybe the second crusade. So yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:09:52.653)
Good job, Tommy.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:03.895)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:19.991)
I think we could do a post fall of Jerusalem episode, where we kind of look at how that went. Well, like a, yeah, yeah.

Jim Salmon (01:10:27.094)
Little reflection.

Tom Bombadil (01:10:30.031)
with the development of the King of Jerusalem.

Jim Salmon (01:10:32.746)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. Definitely. Yeah, but hey, let us know in the comments how you feel about Mr. Godfrey, how you're feeling about the Crusades or maybe even our just our depictions of them so far and

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:45.741)
Right? Or if you want the podcast to switch to Baptist Boys for chumps, let us know.

Jim Salmon (01:10:51.449)
That's right. Yeah. And, make sure you just email those comments to Taylor at chumpchalk.com and, he'll get back to you real shortly. All right. Thank you, gang. Love you guys. Thanks for listening. Talk to you later.

GOBBA GOOL (01:10:59.833)
Bye bye!