143. The Third Crusade: The Tragic Fall of Frederick Barbarossa

Frederick I was no ordinary crusader. 

As a young man, he'd participated in the disastrous Second Crusade. Now in his sixties, Frederick was adamant to not follow in the footsteps of those who attempted to liberate the Holy Land before him. Discipline, organization, and preparation were pivotal to how his massive army would be run. 

And yet the German crusade through Asia Minor would end in sudden and abrupt tragedy on a fateful day in June of 1190.

Join us as we discuss the other side of the Second Crusade, as we gear up to finish the Siege of Acre next week!

Also do you guys want a Chump Nation discord? Let us know!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Hey everybody! Welcome to Church History for Chumps. My name is John Simon and I am here with Mr. Silly himself. Mr. Silly, Senor Silly pants. That's right. How you doing, man? Oh, dude. Well, I'm all sunburnt. You got a little You're looking a little uh a little tomato-y today.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

My my my face, I think, is like kind of okay, but uh my arms are just like cooked.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I Can I ask a question? Yeah. Why is it tan people? Like why do people try to get tans because that looks attractive, but nobody gets red like why has red skin never gotten into our brains as like attractive? Like pinky red burn skin. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Well, I know tan is attractive now because that shows that's like oh, they have time to be outside, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Oh, interesting. Okay. They're outdoorsy.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

I think that's the psychology behind it. Because before being white as possible was like in the olden times.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

It meant you weren't a laborer, which means you were probably like an elite.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

They also liked the the plus sized gentleman too. They did. They didn't.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

You and I would have been you and I would have been top tier.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Well, but here's the thing you couldn't afford to be plus sized unless you were wealthy. And you and I don't make don't make enough money to have been so we would have been fit. Pac-Men. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I would have been tan and skinny.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

The beauty beauty standards really are quite unfair.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Especially for men. Just kidding. But I don't know why the red thing, I don't know why red is never seen as like, ooh, look at that nice red burn. Oh, wow. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Have you been in the sun lately?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

You're looking you're looking uh crimson. Our little uh our little church band played a little concert today after church. Yeah, we had a big old World Cup watch party.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

And uh so we played we we like pr the I was very proud of them. We practiced a bunch of songs that we don't normally play, and you know, what do we do? We did uh we did some Taylor Swift, did some Disney songs.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Oh, that's fun. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Some nice light-hearted, you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Family friendly. So what uh what'd you what'd you get up to today?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Did you watch the World Cup? I did not. Honestly, I kind of once all the North American teams got ousted like two rounds ago, I just I felt no pride in my heart. Like I don't know enough about Argentina aside from it was a well-traveled haven for escaped, you know, Nazi members. And I don't think I don't think there's any affiliation between the current Argent Argentine team and that failed regime, but you never know. Just playing it safe.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I just playing you never you never know.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Um and then Spain, I don't know. I'm cool with Spain. I I think their Spanish sounds kind of funny, but they probably think everyone else's Spanish sounds kind of funny. What is it about all the colonizers? Like all all of the like when we listen to English people, they're like, oh, potate, and we all think that sounds funny. And then if you ask a Mexican how they feel about Castilian Spanish, like, oh Buenos días, señor, and it's like, oh gosh, that sounds so bad. Why is that? I've got a lot of questions today, Taylor.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

I have uh I I I don't know why their Spanish sounds so silly. But uh yeah, we have a guy in our office who grew up in Spain as an MK.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Oh, that's cool. Interesting MK and Ethana.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

So we like there's like tons of Mexicans in our schools, so they'll be like, it's not like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

It's it's so I I never knew because like if I met a British person, I and I think we're on the same page here. If I met a British person, my mind immediately goes to, oh, that is so cool. And then I immediately want to talk to them about being a British person and the difference in languages. When like my my wife is a teacher, she has a lot of Mexican students. She had a student one time who was a refugee from Venezuela who just went through like the most awful collapsed dictatorship ever, and all the other kids made fun of this poor kid because his Spanish was different, because he used like different like vote vocab for stuff, and he said chao instead of hola, and they're like, Oh, look, miss this stupid kid.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Well, that's that's just kids having no empathy developed in their brains.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

That's probably true. It's just I love how ruthless certain cultures can be. Uh sharing the same language, but just on on different lines. I don't know. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

I do, I do when I hear British people, I think that sounds really cool. Yeah, like Australians. Yeah. I like the the British, um, like the the like real cockney London. Like the that's the voice.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

That's like the orc voice. That's the voice. Yeah, that's that's a well a well-used voice for your Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. I know. I know. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

I love it. It's hard to do uh like the the posh British accent, it's clean.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah. Well, dude, did you ever watch Ted Lasso? Yeah. I never realized how many English accents there were, but the every every English character in that show has like a different accent. Yeah. Roy's my favorite. Roy's good. Roy's a funny guy. Yeah. Which watch with your parents, kids, if you're listening. It is it is a little on the mature side, uh, just in case we have any kids listening. Um, hey, I've got a question, not for you, Taylor, but for our listeners for Chump Nation. First off, thank you to everyone who uh responded to our cue of the week last week and gave me some great worship songs to add to my playlist. My question this week is a little bit more on the practical side. We've had people ask about this before. We had another person ask just recently, I'm curious, I'm interested, but I want to know what Chump Nation thinks. Should we start a Discord? Even if it's like us and like five people, I think it'd be fun to like once a week be like, hey guys, working on the episode and found this this week and thought it was interesting, but I don't know if I'll talk about it on air. Or just like sending memes. I don't know. If it's like a group chat of like us and LM and like just the hall of fame of Trump commenters, that'd be great. I wouldn't mind it at all. But let me let me know what you guys think. Tell us if we should have a Discord or not.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

I I want to answer uh Caliber's question real quick when he says, Is there any are there any primary sources that have evangelism evangelistic hopes for the Muslims at that time? It's a great question. Caliber, they did not think about missions the way that we do. So in their mind, evangelism was conquering and forcing people to be baptized. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Well, I guess you could say that was there, kind of because cause they would be baptized, they would also have to be catechized and all that stuff, right? So that sort of missions. Yeah. You're not handing out any pamphlets, but but it comes through the conquering comes first, then you catechized.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Yeah, yeah. And I don't know I don't they they were more concerned with like wiping them off the face of the earth than subjugating them.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Well, it's like when when Bernard wrote about wrote in in advocating for the crusades, he had that one like use of the Latin word for evil where he basically describes the Muslims as an expression of evil. So like you've already decreased their human their like their like personhood. You're not like, oh, I hope I can meet up with Ibn al-Bakr and talk to him about Jesus. It's like, no, we've gotta we've gotta slay these people.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Right. Right. The modern missions movement of the 19th century has like really taken hold and changed how we think about uh evangelism and and missions as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

That would be an interesting like like episode, maybe like little spin-off episode to have. Is like, you know, obviously I mean, we've talked about doing like what if we did a 2,000-year stretch of the history of missions. This is a great plug.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

So so like this we're getting ready to record Chump Talk for the month. So this month's Chump Talk, catch it on Friday. We got an executive producer, Brian. So Brian, shout-out. You'll get a full you get a get a huge shout out in the uh in the actual episode. And then next month we have another sponsor, uh, the Heinen family. And they they have sponsored an episode on sort of an overview of missions. So if you've got that question in your back of your mind, wait till August, you'll get that. And then September is up for grabs for sponsoring.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Honestly, if you guys keep throwing, if you guys keep trying to executive produce our podcast, we we might have to do two chump talks a month one day. That's true, actually. That's true. But hey, if you're interested, the link is as always is in our show notes. Uh there are several perks that you can look into, not just executive producing an episode. But yeah, if you want to throw us a little scratch, help us keep the lights on. Well, I mean, keep the recording light on, I guess. Um help us out. Pay for help us cover the cost of producing the show. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's that's probably more accurate. Because, you know, these hosting websites aren't cheap. Well, they're cheap, but they're not that cheap.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Well, and follow us on uh Spotify, Instagram, yep. Yahoo.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I think we need to pick a date. I I think we need to pick a date for our watch party, dude, because I I'm afraid that people are gonna think we forgot and we didn't forget, but we're no well the hard we have to we have to figure out when the third crusade ends. What if we just pick a date and just say third crusade whether the series is over or not, we just do it. Let's say like end of August. I'm I'm feeling like all right, let's do five o'clock last Saturday in August. That's a great idea. I wish I I wish I came up with that myself.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

And we'll send out um we'll send out uh we'll we'll just start posting a link for it and we'll we gotta get the Discord going, but we gotta see if we actually have interest in a Discord or we'll think of another way.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah, yeah. Let us know if you wanna if you want to do if you want us to have a Discord. We'll have some giveaways, it'll be fun. We'll be fun. Thank you to everyone who just skipped all the banter and definitely not all of the uh slips of the tongue that Taylor and I just had that we also had to edit out. Uh we're gonna get into the episode right here. If you guys followed along, last week we kind of ended on a cliffhanger. We were in the siege of Acre or Acre, if you don't really care for the French pronunciation. But today we're gonna be kind of zooming north. I know you don't, man. We're gonna be going to the Germans. This is this is the German crusade, and this is a very interesting story. And I I think that for those who like us are always looking for the for the piety. You know, we've like we've talked about there's there's the humble heralds, there's the crusading carls, there's the pious Peters, like there's all different flavors of crusader. We're always curious French prostitutes. Right. There's uh there's there's a there's a mini many a flavor of Christianity that's that's at work in this in this time. Uh but I think the story of Frederick of Bar or Frederick Barbarossa is very interesting because, in my opinion, he might be the most pious of all the crusader kings talk about. Absolutely. So here's my cold open, I'm real proud of it. Here we go. Ray cue the music, please. At the dawn of their journey, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire addressed his men. He was an aged man in his late sixties. He no longer had the reddish blonde hair that had earned him his nickname as a young man. Frederick Barbarossa, also known as Emperor Redbeard, remembered his younger years with contempt. As you all surely know, began Frederick, I accompanied my father on the Second Crusade. We longed to free the saints of Edessa from their captors. Suddenly he looks down with disgust. It was a catastrophe. Our soldiers broke rank, acted out with no discipline, no reverence for God's law, and as God's obedience left us, so also did his favor. We were mowed down by pagans as judgment for our sins. But such will not be the case today. Not in my army, not in my presence. You will clothe yourselves with piety and temperance. There will be no rowdiness, no debauchery. Storinfried will not be tolerated. All of the young men in the crowd move anxiously as they recognize this German word Storinfried, which means troublemaking. Amidst the ranks of men, a single young man scoffed a quiet scoff, almost an imperceptible sound, yet a scoff nonetheless. Immediately the Emperor's gaze met his eyes piercing with burning fire. Suddenly the ranks parted like the Red Sea, leaving the man standing alone to face the descending tyrant. A single flash of steel, like a kingfisher's strike, and the man collapsed and lost his life. Stolen fleed will not be tolerated Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

I played up the anime stuff a little bit, but I was just about to say I feel their eyes blocked. Is this is this what you see the future of the we just do like church history anime? Maybe a little bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Church history for weebos or something. Yeah, there you go. Um, yeah. So this this is the story of, like I said, the German crusade. As we mentioned last week, uh, there's a big difference. So we've got the two kings. Uh we've got Richard the Lionheart, King of England. We've got Philip Augustus, the king of France. They're gonna sail down. And don't forget King Guy. And can King Guy, the the the one who was who had lost Jerusalem and then marched into Acre to take it back with him and a sword and a mule and a dream.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

And a dream.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

And uh and 12 bakers and a butcher.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Um but uh but but there's uh on up north, up in Asia Minor, there's gonna be a totally different crusade that's being fought, of course, with the same spirit, with the same intention. And uh and this is the crusade of uh the Germans or the Holy Roman Empire, which is largely modern-day Germany, uh, and the king slash emperor Frederick of Barbosa, which means uh which is Italian for red beard, because he was blonde, but apparently he had kind of a red tint, and people called him the red beard, which is Did he really cut some smart aleck down? Not not that story was a little embellished, um, the spirit of it. But here's the thing. Here's the thing it's it's you know, you know what they say about John chapter nine, the story about like uh Jesus with the woman uh accused of adultery. It's like this story may not have happened because the transcripts are a little shaky, but the important thing is that it could have happened based on what we know of Jesus. Same thing here. This is a story that, yes, I did make up, but and we'll and we'll get all I needed to hear. No, but here's the thing that I'm gonna read some primary sources that are going to absolutely reflect the spirit of this story.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

It's like you wouldn't be surprised if Frederick. 100%. 100%, yes. Alright, I'm in. I'm in.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

So we'll we'll get to it. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

So funny.

unknown 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Did I make it a yes, maybe? All right, so uh we'll well our story starts March 27th, 1188. Uh they're going to hold a diet, which is kind of like this official gathering uh called Kuria Christi, which is where Frederick of Barbarossa is going to take the cross and pledge his commitment to uh going on the Third Crusade. This is also a really interesting time because Frederick Barbarossa absolute so so it's worth saying that there's always been a tension between the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church because the way that it's situated, you're technically not acknowledged as an emperor until you've been like kind of given the stamp of approval by the Pope. And so the implications for that is that essentially the emperor of this giant territory is kind of second fiddle to the Bishop of Rome. And different leaders have had different issues with that for a long time. But Frederick is straight up like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to acknowledge the Pope as like my my head. So literally for 20 years of his reign as emperor, he is like actively fighting. I think there is a time when he actually sends troops into Rome, and like there is literally blood shed because of how much he's pushing against Rome's influence over him, or like attempt to put influence over him.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

That is fascinating. So he doesn't necessarily see himself as a Roman Catholic.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I think he would still call himself Catholic, but he really doesn't like the idea. I think I think in his mind, it it's kind of like it's kind of got like this foreshadowing of the Reformation. He's like, I'm a political leader, he's like, I'm a king, I'm an emperor, no other king needs to be like, you know, sending in their permission slips to the Pope. Why do I have to do that? So he's kind of just advocating for like, why can't I just do my own thing? Um, so he's not he's definitely still Catholic, and we'll see that in how he kind of goes about the crusade, but he is like So it's more of a it's more of a political thing of 100%, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Rome needs to see us as an empire. Right. Right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Um so so one of the big things that happens at Korea Christi uh on March 27, 1188, is that he actually, as he takes the cross and affirms that he is going to go on the Third Crusade to fight for the liberation of Jerusalem, uh he also makes peace with the Archbishop of uh Cologne, which is a big kind of like, hey, for 20 years I've ac really, really hated you guys and we've tried to kill each other. But for the sake of Jerusalem, let's clasp hands. And I mean it it reminds me of Richard and Philip. Like you've got two dudes who seriously don't like each other, and that's where I can kind of see the religious devotion here. They're like, we have plenty of reasons politically to not like each other, but we're gonna we're gonna, you know, uh link arms together for the sake of our of our religious desires. So that that found that I found really interesting. Um probably the most compelling thing to me uh about Frederick is that he was in the second crusade. So again, he's super old. I mean, by this time standards, but like really I think by any king leading an army standards, he's like 64 or something when he takes the cross. Like he is very old. And he was at he was like a young duke in the second crusade. And as we've mentioned before, the second crusade was uh undisciplined, there was they were very ill prepared, they kind of ran into a several bands of Seljuk Turks who already had experience fighting Latins and they just got demolished. And he and I remember when all the soldiers came back from the Middle East and from Asia Minor. The people did not receive them warmly. Like it was embarrassing. So Frederick has this mentality of like, I am not going to embarrass my people again. Like, we are going to do this as well as we possibly can. So Frederick is going to basically ensure, and this, this for all of our Baptist listeners, I'll have I'll have three main points, which is that uh he's going to be organized, he's going to be disciplined, he's going to be prepared. And so uh because the the second crusade was, you know, the opposite of all of those things. So the first thing he does is his army that he leads is gigantic. There were estimates, and this was probably on the higher end of estimates, but also not completely removed from reality. Uh 50,000 knights and a hundred thousand infantry. Good man. And I also read from another. He did not. He either raised the money himself or he encouraged the crusaders to raise their own funds. But he did not tax the people for this. Interesting. Yeah. Uh I also read elsewhere, I it might have been Asbridge, I'm not sure, but there were numbers that were up to like he was marching an army of a quarter of a million people. Wow. Um, which is insane. So that that makes up the that makes sense for the logistics of why he couldn't sail like the English and the French were. It's just it is crazy to sail that many people. Uh it actually was a lot more just economical to to just march them instead.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah. So instead of him being too poor to sail, it was more like nobody could have afforded to sail this many people.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

And I think it would have taken forever, too. Like they uh there was like a quote that I read that said something like, it took three days from like the beginning of the army to pass for from like start to back, like the art the whole army to pass through. Like you've just you've got 250,000 people or 150,000 by like a lower estimate. Like it's just gonna take forever for you to get anywhere. Yeah. Um, yeah. Now, my favorite thing about him, Taylor, I think you're gonna like this too. This man had a strict policy for discipline. We talk about this a lot. It's kind of a running joke, and it's honestly a little weird to have as a running joke at this point. Crusaders love to travel through villages that have a lot of Jewish people and just burn down synagogues and beat people up, and it's crazy. Uh, we, of course, we covered the Rhineland massacres of the first uh crusade. There's another big pogrom that happens in England um around the time of the third crusade. Frederick is gonna say, you are not to bother the Jewish populations as you travel through their town.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

I think he he tells them it's something like if you if you touch them, you die. Right?

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah, it's it's eye for an eye. He literally says, if you maim a Jewish person, you will be maimed, if you kill a Jewish person, you will be killed. And then I think there was even a this might have been back at Mainz when he took the when he took the cross, that when he was first speaking against these anti-Semitic acts, he like rode his horse alongside like the head rabbi of the region, which was a very like symbolic, like we are standing in solidarity with with these Jewish people. They are not to be like uh yeah, like bullied or messed with. Um I have another quote that kind of talks about just his general policies of discipline. It said, loudish behavior led to loss of hands, theft led to execution. Such harch, such harsh discipline was coupled with a constant emphasis on the pious nature of the operation. At Vienna, Frederick purged the army of undesirable elements, hear me here, including the prostitutes. So he was straight up like, we're not doing any of this stuff. Like he I could see him getting rid of anyone that he saw as being a troublemaker. And yeah, if you uh if you act loudishly, it cut off your hand. If you stole something, like you know, we always say the floor is looting and it's an impossible game for crusaders. They're like, if you steal something, we will execute you.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

This is very um German. No nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

I mean, it might have that might have been a uh a thing about it.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Is there any lollygagging or frolicking taking place? You will be punished.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah, so there's there's something there. Um all right, so there's a quote that I want to read because I love this quote. Uh it's a quote from Ibn Shaddad, who was writing a letter to Saladin about the German army. And no one's really sure if this is like propaganda or if it's legit, but uh Christopher Tierman, our our one of our favorite historians, definitely thinks it might be legit. It says this uh the Germans are of varied races in strange ways. Their cause is a great one, and they are serious in their enterprise and of prodigious discipline. So much so that if one of them commits a crime, the only penalty is to have his throat cut like a sheep. I was informed about one of their nobles that he did wrong to a page of his and beat him beyond the limit. The priests gathered to give judgment, and the case by general decisions demanded that his throat be cut. Many petitioned the emperor on his behalf, but he paid no attention and had his throat cut. They have forbidden themselves pleasures, even to the extent that if they hear that anyone has allowed himself any pleasure, they treat him as an outcast and chastise him. All this because of grief for Jerusalem. Wow. Yeah. So I just love it's like that, uh it's like that Parks and Rec meme where it's like, you know, undercooked fish, jail, overcooked chicken, jail. And it's like, you know, mess with a Jewish person, throat cut. Like steal something, throat cut.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Like it's look at a Jewish person the wrong way, believe it or not. Throat cut.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

That's right. Talk to a prostitute, throat cut. Throat cut. So uh so yeah, he is running a very, very tight ship. And I I do think it's like on one hand, I think he wants to avoid the shame of the Second Crusade. He also believes that the Second Crusade armies were being punished by God for being sinful, so he was probably doing this strategically as a way to like bolster their chances. But I think he was genuinely just kind of a no-nonsense guy. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

We are gonna be pious. We're not gonna give the Lord any reason to take favor away from us.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Exactly, which is a very shad, sad foreshadowing because uh things do not work out great for our friend Frederick, but we'll keep going. Um, so Frederick is is an interesting guy. The the fact that he's in his 60s and that he's been ruling for so long means that he's just got diplomacy down to a T. And one thing I love, uh this guy just seems like a very like strict, like very well-organized communicator. So he is going to send either envoys or ambassadors or letters to everyone that he whose territory he's gonna be passing through. So he sends letters to the Hungarians, he sends one to the emperor of the Byzantine of the Byzantines, he sends one to the Seljuks, who's actually a guy that he's been allied with for a while, one of the Muslim armies, and he sends a letter to Saladin, just being like, hey, just so you know, we are on our way, and uh we will be supporting the Latins, of course, but we didn't want to show up unannounced. Uh, but just just being being a generous guy, I guess. Wow, he's a gentleman. He really is, yeah. Uh but everyone So you know we're coming to kill you. Didn't want you to be surprised. I didn't I you know I I hate to come uninvited. Right. Um, but pretty much every step along the way is gonna be a challenge for him. He he's gonna get through Hungary uh pretty pretty easily, which is good. Uh when he gets to the Byzantines, this is gonna be one of those stories. Like I said, everything that we've talked about literally for the past like several months, I feel like is just building towards this crazy climax conflict that's gonna lead to the sack of Constantinople and the Fourth Crusade. So anytime we see interactions between the East and the West, I'm always thinking that in the back of my mind. And this is a good example of like, oh, they really didn't like each other. Like they they weren't even playing nice at this point, they they did not like each other. So uh he's gonna reach out to the emperor, I think his name is Isaac the Second. Um this is actually a weirdly contentious time in Byzantine history because there's all these very bloody coups and overthrows that lead to him taking the throne. And by all accounts, Isaac seems like a pretty awful emperor. Like he's just he's not a good diplomat, he's not a good communicator, and what you see with how he chooses to deal with the Germans is like it's like he's so power hungry, but without any type of military might to actually defend it's like it's like you just look at him like, what was your plan here, dog? Like, what were you thinking was gonna happen? So initially he says, Oh yeah, free passage through here to get to Asia Minor, no problem, not an issue at all. And then he thinks about it and he's like, you know what? I kind of hate these guys. Like I hate, I hate that they that they never gave us back Antioch, which is a constant thing you see the Byzantines referring to all the way back to the first crusade. This is a hundred years ago at this point. They're still mad they didn't get Antioch. And as we've mentioned before, the Crusader states have very little benefit to the Byzantines at this point. So the Byzantines are kind of like they're constantly afraid that the West is gonna just invade them at a moment's notice, which, again, not yet, but soon. Uh, and they just kind of think they're they think they're they're backstabbers. They're they're they're liars and they they don't follow up with their word. The West, on the other hand, they still have old resentments about the Greeks not helping them out when they needed them, but they also think it's weird that the Greeks don't really want to participate in the crusade. Because they're like, we're both Christians. Shouldn't you care about the holy lands too? So there's a lot of like subtext here.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

I think the Westerners in this situation have somewhat of a case. Yeah. Because because remember, the reason they didn't feel too keen to give back Antioch is because Alexios literally turned around or left them to die. And then they kept the city basically because of like a heroic push.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah. I don't think it's yes, I think there are cases to be made. And I think that if you're talking to a crusader at this time, they're like, Oh yeah, we're why will we give it back to them? They didn't help us when they said they would.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Right. And then as far as I think I think there is a case to be made of why don't you guys care about the crusades if you're at least at least understanding the Western worldview at the time. Right. They're like, Why don't you want these pilgrim sites? But then that's where the Orthodox people are like, they let us go to them. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

They don't hate us, they hate you. And it's also like, why would we care about the pilgrim sites? Like, they're not ours, and they're yours. Like you took them. Like this is just Western territory. Like, we don't even have any impact here anymore. Um, so there's a lot of old wounds, and again, like the great schism was 150 years ago, so pretty fresh. Um, so Isaac is basically gonna say, Hey, uh, remember when I said that you guys could travel freely through uh my my territory? Psych, I'm actually gonna take your ambassadors and I'm gonna throw them in prison and I'm going to stop your armies from traveling through, and I'm gonna give you all these weird stipulations. So basically, Isaac reaches out to Saladin and is like, maybe if I can get this alliance with the Muslims, then when the Muslims kind of kick all the crusaders out, we can kind of leverage a little bit more territory back in Palestine, which when you really think about it, there's very little reason for Saladin to follow up with any of that because the big crippling thing for Isaac and the Byzantines is their army is is is buns right now. Like they have no army to intimidate anybody with, whether it's the Muslims or the West. So it's uh one when I was reading Christopher Tyrman, he made a really excellent point, I thought, which was the the biggest fear that the Greeks had was that the the Latins were going to have a full-scale invasion and attack them with their giant military. But it's like if you're afraid of getting punched in the face, why are you like poking somebody in the forehead? Like you're literally aggravating them, which is going to make them attack you.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

So you're saying you're saying the Greeks are not being the most strategic here.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

No, no, I think they're this is this is not not the move. Um and so yeah, so uh the Greeks, yeah, they come up with these stipulations and then they say, Well, listen, we'll let you pass through as long as you're safe, but when you get when you guys do take territory back through this crusade, we want either a commission of some of the stuff, like like money, we want you to pay us off when you get back, or we want some of the territory. And Frederick, who remember had already negotiated safe passage before this, is like, you gotta be freaking kidding me. Like, this is ridiculous. Like, we we literally had agreed to terms, and now you're like trying to strong arm us, and you're trying to strong arm us with nothing. Like, because if we wanted to attack you right now, we could and we would demolish you guys. So why are you talking so big? And so that's basically what Frederick does. Frederick reaches out to a couple of uh Byzantine territories, I think it was like the Serbians and one more, who were trying to leverage their own independence from the Byzantines, and he was just like, You guys want to team up and kill these dudes? And then when Isaac heard about that, he was like, Oh, oh, actually, I don't think we need to do that. Um, you know, why don't you just travel through safely? And then they renewed the treaty, and it really did nothing but waste six months, but it really slowed Frederick down.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

He slowed them down for six months, yeah, man. Man, I'm surprised Frederick didn't just say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go through here and take what I want.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

It's he's an honorable guy. Yeah, and and you know, like it reminds me of when when Saladin was trying to unite Islam, he it's hard to be the un the uniter of Islam if you're also killing a bunch of Muslims. I think he kind of had the same mentality of like, I'm trying to be this pious crusader to liberate Christians. It's hard to justify that if I'm killing Christians on the way because they're being a bunch of butt faces.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

So you know, Frederick knew, I think, because imagine you know, if this is the first time in our conversations, and we've been in the Crusades now for a while. I actually I don't know how long, and we've always talked about the siege of Constantinople of like it's like the West's greatest sin. Yeah. And now we're kind of having like there's some more nuance brought to it. And we're like, maybe I get it a little bit. But uh imagine if Frederick had just plowed his way through. Yeah. Yeah. That story would have painted there's no there's no nuance. I mean, there is nuance, but no one hears that and wants to be like, well, let me hear both sides.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

And it's it's so interesting because like I this I mean, this literally this could be like an HBO show. It's so interesting to me. Cause like you think that the real rivals in this, in this like play, in this drama are the Muslims and the Christians, but it's like in the middle of that is a much deeper, much more historic, like literally roots down to like the beginning of the church, like this rivalry of like the Western Christians not vibing with the Eastern Christians. So like the way that this is building up to erupt is like so fascinating. And yeah, I think the Byzantines are being punks. I also think the crusaders have been punks, like no one's no one's really getting away scot-free here. Yeah, yeah. But very interesting stuff. Um, so eventually, uh apparently I I read that even when they were granted safe passage by the emperor, the Greek like uh civilians were still just jerks, and they would like not open up their markets and not offer housing and just just petty stuff just to to affect this army, which again is 150 to 250,000 people. Like, you kind of need food, you need a place to sleep, you need, you know, you need uh you need some cooperation from the people that live there. So it's just it's just adding to the to the irritation. Eventually, they're gonna make it to Asia Minor. Uh, this is the territory of the Sultanate of Rum, uh, R-U-M, which is going to be led by Kilj Arslan II. Now, interesting, Kilidge had actually had a like um an alliance with Frederick that it actually kind of stretched back a few years. So this is a really interesting look at you know, Islam that's supposedly united more than ever, because Kildish is going to hear this message from Frederick where he's like, Hey, look, I know you guys are supposed to be on the same page, and I'm sure you like Soladin quite a bit, but I'd really love safe passage through here. And Kilge is basically like, Yeah, man, go for it. Uh, and I think it's a good indicator that like this idea that Soladin had united Islam is not a hundred percent rock solved, which again we saw last week because you've got all these deserters, all these dudes who are like, Alright, this has been fun, Saladin, but I really want to go back home.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

So, yeah, how fascinating that you have the Christians giving them a hard time passing through. And then a Muslim Empire is like, Yep, sure.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Go right ahead. Take care. It's kind of the the enemy of my enemy is my friend, in a sense. And uh and Saladin had, you know, definitely imposed quite a bit on this uh Sultanate. Also, just one random interesting quote I wanted to read. Uh, it said, according to Otto, who is a contemporary historian, uh, Killedge had previously offered to convert to Christianity along with his subjects, uh, because he so Killedge was, I think, trying to just leverage politics, and he was like, Hey, what if I married uh like the youngest daughter of uh Frederick of Barbarossa, and then our whole empire can convert to Christianity. Um, and it wasn't for religious reasons, it was basically because we want to be we want to be united with the West so that when we fight the Byzantines we have more gunpowder. Uh, and then I think the young lady actually died before it could take place and it never happened, but they always kind of stayed chummy, yeah, yeah. Which I mean, that's a crazy thing to think. That's a crazy kind of history-altering course of events, right? That's kind of wild. Um the the the issue that comes is that Kilidge is very old at this time, and he's kind of warring with his two younger sons who are fighting about who will take their who will take the place of their father once he dies, and they don't really like their dad, and they're kind of doing their own thing. So even though the Sultan agrees to give them safe passage, you've got these younger dudes who were like, heck no. And so the the the Germans are still gonna have a lot of fights to get through as they're traversing through Asia Minor. Um it's gonna lead to two battles. I won't get into them because they honestly weren't super significant. Uh the battle of uh Philippine. Meleon and the Battle of Iconium. Iconium is significant because that was, I believe, the capital of the Seljuk, like uh Sultanate at the time. But, you know, the Germans are gonna take a lot of casualties, it's gonna be pretty rough, but they come out on top for both. And so uh I love this quote that I uh found from Christopher Tyron. I thought it was really good because it says so the Germans are gonna finally make it through Asia Minor, they make it to uh Cilicia, which is an independent Christian territory of like Armenian Christians, so they're kind of in the middle, unaffiliated. And it says, uh Frederick Barbarossa had achieved what the crusaders of the first and second crusade could not. In two months since pre since crossing to Asia, he had brought his vast army, depleted but intact, in the face of sustained Turkish hostility, difficult terrain, heavy casualties, and shortages of supplies to welcoming Christian territory. So this was a huge accomplishment. Like you said, the first and second crusaders were not able to do this, and with a giant army and all the obstacles he faced, the fact that he was able to press through was massive. So Frederick made it to the Latin lands. Um he made it so he made it to so Cilicia's not quite Latin, and I think there's still a little bit of like space between there and Palestine. Uh, but he made it farther going directly from Europe than I think any of the other Crusader kings have made it at this point.

unknown 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Well, I'm just wondering. I'm trying not to spoil anything. I'm just trying to I thought I did not know he got that far.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

So he did. He did. It was a great triumph. Uh however, this triumph is soon to turn to tragedy. Uh so there are a number of different stories about what had happened. There are there's one story that Frederick was just going out to to bathe uh for a bath in Sal in Salef River. Uh one is that he was marching with his men and he was impatient and he crossed farther ahead than he should have. Uh one is that he was uh wading through the river and he was going against the current, like kind of going upstream. But all of the stories end the same way. He slips off of his horse, he falls into the water, uh either wearing armor, which would have been, of course, very heavy, not being an experienced swimmer, and he drowns to death, which is like the killing blow to the German crusade, like definitively. It it's awful after that. And I mean, again, as we've said, like there is always this interesting tension as far as the crusaders go of how pious were they really, and then like what did their piety mean in terms of their military success. Well, I think he was probably the most outspoken and the most strict about his soldiers acting as Christians, basically, and then he just has this awful tragic death. Not e to not even die in battle is such a rough, rough way to go.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

And uh I mean I think there's so many different accounts because some of them are more humiliating than the others, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

Like, oh, he couldn't even take a bath or that those were all Islamic accounts. Oh, he was impatient and you know, got grumpy. Or it's just like, oh, old man fell off his horse.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Right. Yeah, I think I think the quote from what was it, Ibn Ibn al-Athir, who is uh one of the Muslim historians, said, uh the king went down to the river to wash himself and was drowned at a place where the water was not even up to his waist. Thus God liberated us from the evil of such a man. So it's yeah, it's humiliating the way they're they're portraying it.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Um but but so and remember he's doing this while the siege of Acre is taking place. And so he is uh that formidable of a force is keeping resources locked in that area. Uh keeping less troops are coming, all of that. So that's why uh last week I said I said the Germans played a role for sure in kind of the taking of Acre.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Definitely, yeah. They um certainly not the kind of uh heroic experience that I think a lot of the German crusaders were hoping for. Definitely not what Frederick was hoping for, but more of an indirect benefit there. What do they turn around after Frederick dies? It's kind of a disaster. Um basically um him die, he he really was the glue that kept not just like the morale, but also, like we've said multiple times, the discipline of the army. So basically, like like there's this quote it says, uh, freed from the imminent threat of attack from whole hostile locals, the great army that had held together for over a year in the face of vicissitudes began to disintegrate. Elements peeled off to return home from the ports of Cilicia or later Syria. Others left the main force to sail from Tarsus for Tyre. Um basically, uh Frederick's son, whose also name is Frederick, is going to take a fraction of them to Antioch and then from there will sail to Acre to join the siege. I read sources that were like when they showed up at Antioch, they looked like walking skeletons. Um there was like notably no morale increase when the German armies showed up because I think they were just that weak, that depleted, that like discouraged. And I read several times just this notion that like when they showed up at Acre, they didn't make much of an impact. There were like 5,000 left at this point. Um like when when Frederick of Swabia um came with his army to the siege, there were 5,000 left. And to think that they started with 30 to 50 times that. And I they did face a lot of heavy casualties, but like I said, a lot of them just went home. They just didn't keep going, they just left.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

I mean, I what would you have done? I feel like I'd have a if Frederick was the guy I was following and I respected how he did things, and you had a group of guys that are like, hey, we we're all gonna go home. And so you could kind of like travel back safely together. I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard. Like they they also experienced so much hardship they didn't anticipate. And yeah, I mean, I I I could understand if if I didn't trust that the leader who was taking me forward, because another thing that sucks is that the dudes that keep sailing into Palestine, they all get like malaria. So there's like literal outbreaks of malaria and other illnesses that strike. I think that his son, Frederick, is gonna die even even before uh the siege ends at Acre. So it's like there are so many disease, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

I'll get to that next week. I didn't get to that last week with the disease, but yeah, it's it's rough. It's it's not fun walking across the globe, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a brand new territory.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

I mean, dude, I can't drive to Mexico and drink the water without, you know, getting getting uh getting the bubble guts. Like imagine walking by foot hundreds and hundreds of miles away and experiencing all these viruses your immune system has no exposure to. Like Yeah, so essentially that that is the end of the German crusade. A few of them will contribute to uh the Siege of Acre. I think all of them after that will go home, uh, probably not long after the French. Um, but yeah, the the the death blow for it was 100% the tragic death of of Emperor uh Frederick, which is just yeah, kind of a kind of a I don't know, kind of a blow. Because there was so much triumph and success going into it, and like I said, Frederick seemed like a guy who really cared about um being pious and right, doing things the right way. Yeah, doing doing things the Christian way, like he really saw himself as, you know, the sword of the Lord, and yeah, just completely just a freak accident just ended the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 53:53

So I wonder we I haven't figured out how much these guys were paid. But I I wonder this is just like so specific. But I wonder if the Germans were able to sail home that stayed that went to Acre. I wonder if after I wonder if after they take Acre if they're if they had enough money from what they were paid for, you know, other because they they sieged some stuff in the uh on their way over. They would have had some spoils.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Yeah, when they took Iconium, they definitely were able to re rebolster their supplies. Right. Um, so yeah, I and I think I think again, not to get ahead, I think Richard also paid off a lot of the Crusaders pretty well after Acre fell. So I think there's a good chance they could have sailed home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

Yeah, that's a whole nother thing. I'm not sure about like how the payments work, and I I know this is so off topic, but we're landing the plane. I know I know that like in uh pirate cities prices were inflated because it you know, if you're in the Caribbean and Nassau just is exclusively essentially a pirate stock, uh prices for goods there are super inflated because that's all they're spending money on, and that's all they care to spend money on, is like girls in booze and you know, some nice clothes and stuff. So I wonder if I I mean, imagine that force, how big that force that sieges acre, and the city falls, all the loot gets distributed, everybody gets paid. It's kind of like there's more money than there is uh stuff. There's more money than there is. There is there's more money than there is spots on a ship for people that want to get out.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

And then it's like, you know, thinking of what that's gonna do to the economy once you just flood it with all this cash, like even that could be crazy. So I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

If you're if you're uh uh medieval uh economist, uh help us out.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Yeah, the la the last thing I'll say, which I just thought was interesting, was I was reading through my little uh my little book of uh Islamic historians, and one of them from again a contemporary of this time believed that Kilish Arslan II was actually lying when he said that he was going to give free passage to Frederick and his people, and that he was basically like, Oh yeah, you can pass through and then kind of uh ambushed them a little bit. I don't think that's general consensus, and I think he may be saying that because maybe he has more incentive for Islam to look more united than it was. Yeah, but it doesn't I haven't heard anyone else say that, but I thought that was really interesting that he was like, Oh yeah, he fooled him and then uh gotcha, but gotcha. Yeah, but anyways, this was an interesting one to to research, but such a such an abrupt, an abrupt end to full steam ahead and then nothing, and then just drowned.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

Yeah. Wow. Well, great job. Good job. I was I was curious about that when I'd only done some light reading, so that was good. I'm uh I'm curious uh as to you know a siege of acre ends, and then we'll see where we go. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, uh, I think Third Crusade is probably wrapping up soon for us.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Uh yeah, I think I think the climax is definitely Acre, but there's gonna be some more pushes, and of course, you know, Jerusalem is not yet taken. I mean, to be honest, Acre is not yet taken. So they were uh Should we try to do the Fourth Crusade without should we try to do like a spoiler-free because we always kind of like let the cat out of the bag too early?

SPEAKER_02 57:57

Any I I feel like a lot of our listeners are already kind of fans of history, so they already have rough ideas. That's fair. That's fair. Like most people know about the Siege of Constantinople. Yeah. Well, and if they if they didn't, they heard us talking about it for the last five months.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

So it's not gonna be a surprise, unfortunately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

You know what's funny? You know what's funny is uh I told my pastor uh he called me about the World Cup party or whatever. I said, Yeah, we're getting ready to record. And uh he I guess he didn't know he knew about the podcast, but he didn't know like uh kind of what it was. He said, What are you guys talking about tonight? I said the crusades, and he's like, What? Why? And I just tried to tell him, I was like, all of it is church history, absolutely, all of it plays into each other, and then he didn't realize, so he's a Dead Sea Scrolls expert, like expert always has PhD in it and everything. And I said, We I said, I said, you could totally come on one day and do an episode on like the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I said, uh and he because he he and he's like that's not church history, and I'm like, what are you talking, dude? The discovery church history is like everything. I love my pastor, I submit to my pastor, but he's so like biblical studies. He's so like gosh, I know, and then you got us trying to figure out how the saints uh in the past did things.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

So dude, every everything is church history. Like, I I want to get to American, like like the Great Depression was church, the world world war one was church history, bro. Like, come on, we can talk about all kinds of stuff, but anyway Christians through the ages. That's right. Right. It's good. All right, friends. Well, thank you guys so much for listening. Uh kind of a bummer, but let us know what you guys think. Also, as we said, uh August 29th, 5 p.m. Pacific time. 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Pacific Pacific Standard Time. PST? PST. Okay, I got I got nervous. I thought you were putting two time zones together. Whatever. Uh, we're gonna live stream um Kingdom of Heaven, and we're gonna do some giveaways, and we're gonna talk to you guys, it's gonna be a lot of fun. Make sure you join us for that. And let us know if you want to Discord. If you do, that might make it a little lot easier to do this one for the first time. All right, cheers guys. See you Friday.