145. The Third Crusade: The Final Days of Acre

The Siege of Acre has been a punishing ordeal for both Muslim and Christian armies. Each time the Crusaders believe they're inching towards victory, Saladin pulls yet another trick out of his seemingly endless hat. 

But today we will see the riveting conclusion of the grandest siege of the Crusade era, and perhaps of all medieval history. 

Also, did someone say Discord? Yeah we have a Discord. Check it out riiiiiiiight HERE.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Hey everybody. Welcome to Church History for Jumps. My name is John Simon. I'm here with Taylor Treadway. Taylor Treadway. How you doing, man?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Oh man, I'm good. I uh I got a lot of homework looming over me. You remember that feeling? Nope. So long ago you don't remember it, or you just never cared.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Do you still have school dreams where you like wake up or you like have a dream that you forgot about a whole class and it's the end of the semester and you never never did anything, and you have like a final and I don't I don't really dream.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I I do, but then I forget them immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Like, so wait, so like when's the last time you remember recalling a dream?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

You have asked a very funny question that you don't. It was many years ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Is this like a psychological thing for you? Are you just uh you do you have like a like a disability, like where you can't dream?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I mean, that wasn't meant to be like an ableist comment.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

An able don't now you're just annoying me on several fronts. Look, the last dream I vividly remember, this was many, many years ago. Okay. For some reason, I lived in like a single wide on a beach. Like a dream. Yeah, just hold on. Oh, I'm all right. And I knew I was near a navy base, and I was woken up, I was sleeping in in my dream, sun was out, and uh, I was woken up to the sounds of the alarms going off on the Navy base. And I wake up in my little single wide trailer, like I said, it's on the beach, and I look out to the ocean, and the US Navy is just engaged in combat. You're at Pearl Harbor? No, with these giant like mecca spiders. That's awesome. Just like like, and it's just like ruining them. And uh, that was the last dream I've remembered.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Did you like sling a rifle over your chest and like hit?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

No, I actually I remember feeling like a sense of helplessness.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Ah, tough. Okay. You know, because they say that it's not the details of the dream that really matter, it's it's the it's the feeling which is.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Oh yeah, yeah. I don't know if I had just watched like uh Pacific Rim or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

And then you were just like, all right, that's it for dreams. I don't remember dreams anymore.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

I don't I don't do dreams no more.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

You know what? I respect it. You know, you set you set you set a boundary for yourself. I did. And you and you stood by it. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

That's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I that's so funny. I'm surprised you asked that question. But yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah, I'm trying to get better at like uh not just like how to keep the flow of conversation because you know, I'm in hospice chaplaincy, uh you gotta kind of continue to dig and ask questions and stuff. So I I've got like a a repertoire I'm building of like, you know, what's the last dream you remember having? Or one of my favorites that I'm yet to bust out is uh, do you believe in ghosts? I think that'd be a fun one to have with like a 85-year-old gal with uh chronic heart disease. I think that'd be fun. I don't know. I'll report back. I I think the olds have an interesting feeling about about ghosts that we we may not. Maybe they're just like, I don't talk about ghosts, young man, but I I think they've got some interesting stories.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

How funny me if you just get hit with no, it's all demons. Oof. That's that's possible.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I don't know. I don't know. There's some interesting anyways.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I wanted to say we're not haunted cosmos. Emphatically not.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I want to say, uh the listeners who have decided to to catch wind of the of the video podcast are in for a real treat, because you've got a great shirt on today, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Dude, do you want to know the story of this shirt?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

I was I was so I thought you'd never ask.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

There was a little baby. This was a couple weeks ago. Little baby. And we we boost our attendance with the babies.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

And I I'm holding a little baby. I won't dox his name, but he's just like a little chunker monkers. And uh I look, I take notice, and he's wearing a white Hawaiian shirt with dinosaurs on it. I love it. And I just look over at Brandy and I said, Brandy? Why don't I have a white Hawaiian shirt with dinosaurs on it? And 15 minutes later I get an email. I'm like reading through Isaiah, you know, leading our discussion. I get a little email that pops up from Amazon that says your order has been placed.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

And here we go. I love Brandy, dude. She, yeah. I I kind of wish that the story ended with you asking the baby, like, hey, baby, where did you get this shirt from?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, no, no, no, no. Brandy Embrace is like, you know how your tagline is like, where's the whimsy at?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Your wife is a very whimsical lady. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

She's all about the whimsy, which I think is great.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Do you see the do you see the TikTok I sent you? You never responded to it.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I'm pretty sure you sent me that exact same TikTok like a month ago.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

No, it was a different one.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Are you sure?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Oh, it's it's the same guy. It might be. Basically, dear listeners, whenever I am doom scrolling and I find something that mentions whimsy, I send it to John Simon, and he never responds. He doesn't react. He doesn't This one was like a Vato hanging out at his house saying, Wait, why why can't we all be whimsical?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Well, because you send me TikToks, and I don't even have a TikTok, and TikTok wants me to install it to watch the videos. And I just that's a big that's a lot of I'm a reels guy, man. Like I'm a shorts guy. I'm not a TikTok guy. I try to keep that little a little buffer of distance. I think that's important.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Well, I mean, I'd rather have the Chinese indoctrinate me than the libs, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

It's all the same. It's all the same. The Chinese are using the libs, the libs are using the Chinese, they're they're in bed together.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

I was thinking about I was like, if John and I ever move on to become something, all they have to do, all our enemies would ever have to do is just like listen back and just pull quotes.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

It'd take about 10 minutes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

We'd be we'd be like, Taylor, is it true? Can you explain this quote? I'd rather have the Chinese indoctrinate me than the libs. Mr.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Simon, thank you for coming in today. Uh I'd like could you once said that the libs and Chinese are in bed together. Could you uh could you collaborate for me? Yeah, could you collaborate? I'm not getting this pastor job, am I? Uh yeah. Anyways, anyways, hey, I we got a we got a lot to go through today. This is we're kind of we're doing the one-two punch of this week and next week, we're closing out the third crusade, which I'm a little psyched for because I always love our breaks. Well, I love kind of getting into some other stuff. I mean we've already got some topics we're throwing around. We're very excited about that. But um, yeah, right now we're kind of getting back to the end of the Siege of Acre because oh my gosh, we have no idea that I I think at this point, maybe one of the most interesting stories of the Crusades so far.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Well, it's the most back and forth we have, and we're gonna continue to see back and forth. Yeah. Uh so I it just makes a good it's a good story.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Definitely. Yes. So I'm excited to get back into that. Um, let's see, a couple housekeeping things. Uh listener, make sure you're following our stuff. Make sure you are uh subscribe on YouTube, even if you don't like YouTube, just go subscribe there. That makes us feel really good. Uh that we go through the effort of uploading it on YouTube for the people that do watch it. We get a couple watch- I I I know I've mentioned this before, but it really tickles me. When we get comments on Spotify, it's always like, hey Taylor, hey John, love the show, or it'll be someone referencing kind of an inside joke because they're like a longtime listener. YouTube, it's people who were like like on our on our episode that the title was Why Do Christians Believe So Many Conspiracy Theories? It was just a single-line response, and it was because Christians believe in truth. And I'm like, you know what, man? There's a lot of animosity I'm getting from and I know he downvoted our video too. I'm sure he did.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

YouTube is uh the the wild west.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Oh man, I I miss Spotify, bro. I do, I do.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

You know, but we we love all our listeners and all the platforms.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Of course we do.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Shout out, my dad, listening to us on the Google Play Store or whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

That's right. Keeping keeping the Google Play analytics alive. We love to see that. That's right. Yeah. Um, so yeah, shoot. Well, part two, Siege of Akray. Taylor, are you ready? Acre Acre Akray, Akray.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

I uh last little random thing. Um I know you don't sing, but you can probably appreciate maybe before you preached. What do you mean I don't sing? Okay, you don't sing well, so oh gosh, that was even worse. So anyway, at church today, band practice went super well. I was like, the band does this thing, and I try to coach them through it. They play really confident during practice, and then when service starts, they are suddenly like timid to make too much noise or whatever. Anyway, anyway, uh we sounded amazing in practice, and I was like, ah, sweet, easy Sunday. And uh dude, my vocals like I don't know what happened. I had multiple times where I had to like peel away from the mic and just like cough. So I might be doing some of that tonight. Okay, all right. I don't know, I don't know what's happening. A little mucus buildup or something. Getting a little getting a little sick of the getting there, big guy. I had an ear, I had an ear infection all week.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

I think it's oh gosh, what's wrong with you, man? It's always something. What's going on? I isn't this just normal? No, dude. The whole I don't think I've gotten sick since the last time you got sick. No infections, no gout flare-ups, no apnea. We need some Pentecostals who are listening to to just lay hands over your over your computer screen and say it praying for my friend.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

If you're a saint venerator, ask uh ask your homeboys up there to pray for me too. Oh gosh. All right, this again. All right, Taylor. See you on the back. I'm asking them to join us. It's a little snark in that. No, I no, I no, no snark. No snark for my saint venerators. All right. Call 'em Catholics. Okay, anyways, carry on. Sir, the sappers are almost through. The cursed tower is weakened. The vanguard will move in shortly. The messenger left without waiting for a response. Aubrey of Clements stood up. His squires, having just finished putting on his armor, admired the strength of their French marshal. Aubrey looked at the men in his tent, knowing this may be the last time they readied him for battle. It'd been a long journey across the sea. He exited the tent. The men he would command today were all waiting for the call to enter the city just as he was. He met the gaze of the vanguard with tenacity, and at last he broke the silence. Either I will die today, or God willing, I will enter Acre. And with this, he walked toward the walls of Acre with his men in tow.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Ooh man.

unknown 13:07

Ah gosh.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

I knew something something's gonna happen. Something's gonna happen. I don't know what.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Dude, I could have wrote a whole I could have wrote a whole like page, but I was like, I can't make you know it seven minutes. I can't make my cold open like six minutes or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Is that a shot? Is that a dig at me?

SPEAKER_01 13:27

No, no, no, there's no dig. No dig. I uh well I'll tell that that we will get to how that story ends. Okay. How Sir Aubrey of Clements. Yeah. The fate. What happens to him. So just hold on to that. Okay. Because we have a lot of other stuff to get through. All right, let's do that. So a little bit of recap, and welcome to everyone who skipped the banter. You should hit him with hit him with right with the sir. They don't know what's gonna hit him. Because you skip and you don't know what happens. Anyway. A little bit of recap. There's this big city on the coast for the Levant called Acre. It's a massive port city. The Crusaders had it for a little while after the first crusade. The Muslims took it back. Then the Muslims sieged Jerusalem to depose King Guy, who's the king of the did they never call did they count call it the county of Jerusalem? No, they called it the kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

So the crusaders have taken a beating. The Latins have lost a lot. But all of a sudden there's this call for the third crusade, and forces just like we've never seen before. Nobody's ever seen troops like this are just flooding into the Middle East. And you have this tenacity in them and this resolve. And our guy, our guy guy, goes to the gates of Tyre, which is north by a handful of miles of acre. And he says, you know, let me in the city. And they're like, no, he's probably just gonna try to like depose us or something.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

That's where Conrad's at. And Conrad and Guy aren't aren't aren't pals.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Conrad Conrad says, no, get lost, loser. And he says, Fine, I will take Acre. And somehow convinces people to follow him. And he shows up, and the people inside Acre are like, this guy's a loser. When they see him, like, this guy's a loser. What's gonna happen? Under cover of night, he sets up siege on a hill, sets up camp on a hill, and before the Muslims can even react, reinforcements just start pouring in. Conrad even comes down from Tyre and they make amends. Him and Guy make amends. And essentially, that begins one of the most important sieges and battles in the Crusades, but also in medieval warfare in general. We have advances in siege technology that we're gonna get to. It's a very complicated battle. I'll explain our setup just a little bit before I jump back into the story. So on the coast, you have the outer harbor. I'm just gonna move inward from the sea. You have the outer harbor of Acre. Where we are at in our story, where we ended two episodes ago, the outer harbor was just taken by the Latins. So now no no ships can get in to Acre. You have the inner harbor. That is fortified well enough that the Latins cannot take it. They do try, but they can't do it. Then you have the walls of Acre. Outside the walls of Acre, you have the Crusaders line. And throughout the battle, sometimes that line holds, sometimes it doesn't. When the line gets broken and Saladin is able to get supplies into the city, the city's doing okay. Especially since they have C as well. When outside or not when outside of that, you then have Saladin's army. Saladine's army is not big enough. His camp is not big enough to completely surround the Latins. So you have this sort of like between a hammer and an anvil for the Latins, except they keep just it It's like if the piece of steel between the hammer and the anvil just kept having mass added to it and added to it all the time. And the last thing I'll say is their numbers were growing at such a rate that Saladin supposedly started a rumor in his camp where don't worry, guys, they're not actually arriving. This many of them are not arriving, they're leaving at night under cover of darkness and then just coming back in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Because they just couldn't fathom that there were so many reinforcements coming through. It's like it's like that was the respawn point. It's like every crusader who dies just shows right back up on the beach.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah. I'm sure, I'm sure uh what's his name? The guy we we read. Um we actually have some no Baha Al-Deen. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. So Baha Al Din is like the Muslim chronicler for this, or one of the Muslim chroniclers. And like good good friend of Saladin, too, right? Good friend, big fan of him, too. Big fan, big fan. It's uh we're gonna read some of him tonight. So I said, I told myself we gotta have some primary source stories. We gotta have it. Love it. Okay. Are we all caught up? Did I miss anything important? I think we're good. So we're about a year into the siege, which is crazy. But yeah, we're not we're halfway done.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

For comparison, with the siege of Antioch in the first crusade was like a huge deal, too. And what was that, like eight, eight months, ten months, something like that? And that was incredibly long. So this is already past a year.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

If we're talking big picture of what makes this siege unique, it's the fact one, you had essentially one half of the world pouring resources. Saladin's entire empire was pouring resources into this, getting troops constantly brought in, and you had all of Europe pouring resources into it. So Acre was just kind of this point in the middle where everything was being funneled.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Both sides are going all out.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yes, and both sides had access to the sea, both sides had access to uh massive amounts of wealth, all of that. Right. And should be noted, the Byzantines are nowhere to be found.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

So they want nothing to do with this. They're kind of watching, hoping that both sides just destroy each other.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Yes. Call it a war crime, betrayals, whatever, committed by the Latins against the Byzantines. But I I John and I really we want we want to just frame it as fairly as possible. So just think through. This is they know the Byzantines are not there helping them. They know it. Okay. So where we left off, they lost the sea. Uh the the Muslims lost the sea, the ability to uh bring in resources, and so you now have acre being uh famished. They they are now starving, their supplies are so limited. And you have Saladin having to come up with little tricks and different ways to get into the city. They've this the cr the Latins have now taken back the line that was breached to for land to get into the city. So Saladin now he's limited on on what he can send into the city and how he can do it. So they they use carrier pigeons for you know tiny little messages, but what happens if you need you gotta get supplies in? So what do you do? Well, Saladin actually hires swimmers. Oh yeah. I don't know if you came across that in your research. I I did not. That's that's news to me. Yeah, it's very interesting. So yeah, I mean, you know, you can't control the whole sea, so under cover of night, some guy strapped with uh a sack of gold, sometimes he would bring they would bring Greek fire with them, things like that. Things that they could just kind of attach to themselves and then swim. No, swimmers didn't always make it. And uh this actually gives us let me open up I how I opened up the same little document twice. Here we go. This is the tale of the swimmer Issa. Okay, all right. And this was uh chronicled in the rare and excellent history of Saladin. From Baha Al Din, which we just mentioned. So here we go. Baha Al Din. One of the most un uh one of the most unusual and admirable things about this whole siege is that there was a Muslim swimmer called Isa who used to get into the city at night without the knowledge of the enemy with letters and cash tied around his waist. He used to dive and emerge on the far side of the enemy ships. One night he tied three purses around his waist containing a thousand dinars and letters for the army. He swam out to sea, but something fatal happened to him. Oh no. We did not immediately hear any news. Normally, when he got into the city, a pigeon would be released to report his arrival. Pigeon was delayed, however. People feared that he had been killed. Several days later, some people by the shore in the city suddenly caught sight of a drowned man that the sea had cast up. They investigated and found that it was Isa the swimmer. Around his waist they found the gold and the wax seals of the letters. The gold was paid for the soldiers. This man is the only one seen to have fulfilled his duty during life and also to have performed it after his death.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Well written, Baha Dean. That's also he he did his job. That's what are they say? Yeah, that's that's from beyond the grave for the uh for the Halo fans from back in the day. Yeah. He did it. Still got the job done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yes. Another interesting little story was Saladin actually. They were so desperate to get supplies into Acre that Saladin takes a ship, has all his sailors shave their beard, puts pigs on the dock, uh-huh, puts French flags and crusader flags on the ship. Yeah. And manages actually to go right past.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Dude, I I love that they added the touch of like, what could we? Pigs. Pigs. Because it's like what's the most haram thing you can think of? Right. That no Muslim would ever have. Pigs.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Dude, it's it's like it's like so on the nose.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

It'd be like a enemy pirate ship was like, all right, we gotta get past this American fleet. Uh all right, boys. I want everybody on the deck in tank tops grilling and drinking this beverage called Bud Light.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Put your hats on backwards. Hats on backwards.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

That's amazing. And they're just blaring Kenny Chesney from the speakers. Right, yeah. Just uh I love that. Yeah. Well, it worked that time. Okay. So Saladine was figuring out ways to get into the city. These guys were really creative. We got I I want to just emphasize again that the people of the past were not stupid.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

It wasn't it wasn't like they were inferior pre-enlightenment in problem solving.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Did we find out how Issa Div just drowned?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Or was he like drowned? I mean, it was a long swim in the ocean. So he just drowned, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Just the seas were not favorable that day. Seas were not favorable, no. Tough. Tough.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Yeah. So we I don't want to harp too much on, we've already talked a little bit about what the Germans have done. But I will revisit again. Imagine your Saladin. This could have also been a cold open. You know, Sir. The Germans have. I don't know why I'm doing it. Why are they German? I am German and I am here for you. No, it's Habibi. The Germans are coming and they have 250,000 men. And uh they they're they're on their way here. Well, as we said last episode talking about the Germans, they didn't make it. They they arrived with 5,000, and I think the news that they would have had 250,000, the 5,000 was nothing, which shows how many men were and there was families in this crusader camp. I mean, it was massive, right? So it just goes to show how many people were coming in that when the Germans finally get there, nobody cares. And in fact, it might have actually hurt morale for the Latins and boosted morale for the Muslims.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Absolutely. Because like some of the accounts from the Muslims were basically like, this is a blessing from God. Because it's as we said last week, it was a freak accident. Dude, dude's like horse slipped when he was riding through a river and he fell. Uh Frederick the the emperor of of Germany uh fell and drowned. Um, and then there were, yeah, mass desertions, people dying of famine and plague on the way to um Palestine. So yeah, uh very disappointing outcome for the Germans. But this is what the Germans did do.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

And I hope that they learned that they're they contributed to the victory. Saladin, technically on paper, had enough manpower to just roll over that Latin encampment. But he stayed his hand to save resources to keep the Germans from just like taking complete control of the northern chunk of his empire. And then you also have so you have manpower being directed up north, and you have materials from up north not being directed down south. Right. So I didn't know this. While the Germans were crusading through the north, the Saladin ordered some cities to just destroy their walls. Oh, interesting. But because he knew he was like, you're not gonna keep that, and I don't want to give them a fort. And uh I didn't I didn't have time to chase that rabbit trail, but what I read was it seemed like it was multiple cities.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Oh, dude, that is I'm not gonna spoil it because we have the next episode to get into that. That's gonna be a big foreshadowing for how Saladin's gonna handle things when he gets a little flustered. Is he is uh he is no stranger to to do an as such, but like I said, we'll get into that later.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah. So so basically, Saladin cannot ignore the Germans' presence. So he has to respond, and by doing that, he cannot take over. He can't he can't definitively win at Acre. Sure. Sure. And Asrich says it like this in this way, even before they set foot in the Levant, the Germans made a significant contribution to the Third Crusade. So well done, Germans. They did something, yeah, yeah.

unknown 29:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Okay, so we talked about the carrier pigeons. Uh this is kind of interesting, and I don't think I am a better historian than Ashbridge, but I think he I'm like, he kind of like I don't know why he missed this. He says this carrier pigeons were one of the main stages of the communication intelligence system that spanned the far-flung Iubid Empire. But at Acre, they seem to have played a limited role, perhaps being too easy a target for enemy archers. Or, dear Thomas Atchbridge, maybe they can't carry anything heavy, and so all they're good for is sending a quick little tweet back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

That's that's fair. Yeah, they're not really gonna be carrying sacks of supplies.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Yeah, I mean, you're not I I don't know. I mean, I I don't think the archers are that good that they're especially at night.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, I also read that, and I was like, I are these archers that good? Like, I don't think just shooting a fish is gonna be out there.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Like somebody You read the same thing and thought the same thing I did.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Like, I don't want to underestimate the skill of these archers, but I don't he it's it's like, oh, they're like shooting fish in a barrel. I'm like, that's that's kind of hard, actually.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah, yeah. I I wouldn't and then at the worst case scenario, you just send like two of them with the same message. I don't know. Yeah, there's ways to work around that. Yeah, yeah. So I don't think it was that. I uh I think it was the fact that they can't carry anything. They didn't have uh carrier storks or something.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

I know we're reading a lot of the same sources, but did you get and I don't want to cut you off if you're gonna get to this. Did you read about the the Greek fire improvements? Stop spoiling things. I just okay, I I was gonna mention now I have nothing to say. The stage is yours, Taylor. Yeah, that's right. Well, we're not getting to that yet.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Okay, all right. Okay. Uh they okay, so Acre had a moat. Everyone knows what a moat is. I think we have this um idea that a moat is a, you know, I think of Princess Peach's castle and Mario with like, you know, the beautiful little stones and the drawbridge. The drawbridge. Acre's moat was like a ditch. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

But why does the moat exist, John Simon? To to make rushing the walls more difficult?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah, you can't bring your giant siege towers through a ditch. That makes sense, yeah. So one of the things the Latins do is they start to filling the ditch.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yes. So they even had women helping with this. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Might have been some of those women of the night who came by a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

It might have been. It might have been. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

But one of the women put them to work.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

This is how, like, I said tenacious. We're gonna see the Latin's tenacity here. There's this is a lady whose one of her jobs was bringing stones to fill the moat. And she got mortally wounded by something. She keeps she keeps carrying stones. Yeah. And then she tells them, When I die, throw my body in. Into the ditch? Yes. Use me to fill the moat.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Wow. Okay. The story of Mary Stonebringer.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yes. And so in May 1190. Remember, so this starts in 1189. We're a year, almost a full year into the siege here. In 1190, a path to the walls is opened. Because of the efforts of Mary Stonebringer. Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

So that's big. So now they're getting siege engines close to the walls, right? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

So there's this back and forth where they build different siege weapons and they are pelting the walls, by the way. They are pelting the walls of Acre constantly. So if you throw rocks at a giant rock or a collection of rocks and wood, the first volley bounces off completely on the wall's fine. If you do this for a year straight, the wall starts to take damage.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Yeah, the 10,000th rock will do more damage.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Yes, than the first. So that's kind of what's been happening. So the walls are getting weak. The walls are getting weak. They are pelting it constantly. But there's this back and forth. So so you have uh siege on the other side where they're they're throwing Greek fire at these uh siege engines from the the Latin camp, and the Latin camp siege engines are burning up. Long story short, back and forth with siege, but they finally get the ability to now get siege towers across. And the siege tower is that three layer, it could be even higher, but it's basically a fortified ladder. Okay. So you just you just roll your fortified ladder up to a wall and then your guys just file in and start lighting fires and such. Right. So this is uh this is Asbridge talking about this this terrifying siege tower that was built. Built with wood, specifically brought from Europe, to a height of some 65 feet. These wheeled three-story behemoths were covered in vinegar soaked hide to dampen the effect of fire. See, these guys are smart. Yeah, that makes sense. And hung with rope netting to weaken the impact of catapult attack. One Muslim eyewitness wrote that towering above the battlements of Acre, they seemed like mountains. So they are pushing them forward. The Acre, the guys in Acres send a swimmer like immediately. You gotta get out to Saladin and tell him to attack now. A counter-attack. Because, you know, Saladin's camp, if he attacks from the other side, they have to pull resources off because they're thinking, like, this could be it. This could be it. Now we get into what you were referencing earlier. So Saladin launches his counterattack, the swimmer gets to him, Saladin launches his counterattack, but that doesn't stop these behemoths from approaching. But there's this young, unnamed guy from Damascus who is like, I get this picture that he's just kind of a nerd. Dude, yeah. He's like a nerd and kind of a pyromaniac, and he's obsessed with Greek fire. Yes. And so he's played with the recipe of Greek fire.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

I just imagine um, who is it? Uh Donald Glover from that scene in The Martian where he's like got the cardigan on, and everyone else in the room looks very like official, and they're wearing like, you know, suit and jacket, suit and tie, and he's just like, I, you know, I've been doing some tinkering on the side, uh, but I've got some interesting calculations I think you guys would be interested in.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Correct. So his improved Greek fire hits this siege tower and lights it up immediately. And it was it lights up so fast that the guys in the top, the two top rows die.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Man.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Yeah. And so the tower just collapses. Wow. So that is the Muslims are very much like hooray. Allah's on our side.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

That's a big counterattack, yeah. Because they that they, you know, no pun intended, they could have been cooked pretty soon, you know. Turns out they were doing the cooking, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:53

They were doing the cooking. So the Muslims hold off. And this is just one small example of the constant back and forths. Right. Right. The constant back and forths that they have. You know, they they built this brand new impressive thing. They they filled this ditch, and it's like months of effort are up in flames, literally.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

And it's like morale is still high on both sides. Like the Muslims weren't like, oh, whoa was us, like uh, you know, acre is fallen, let's let's get out of here. They were like, no, we might be a day away from losing, but we're still gonna, we're, we're still, we're still fighting to keep it.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Well, and they see everything, they see every victory as God defending them. Both sides do. They they interpret they're interpreting everything as God has given us favor in in our holy war. And they're both effectively jihadists. So yeah, I finally got you on that one. I finally, yeah, but you admitted a few episodes back. Uh I won. Yes. Uh, here's another one. So 15,000 gold dinars, or 1500, sorry. 15,000 is insane. 1500 is still expensive. Uh Henry of Champong, he he orders this to be built, and it's a stone thrower. Um they wheel it up to get in position, and some Muslim archer with the new Greek fire hits it and it's done. Just incinerated. Yes. Uh dispatched in a matter of minutes. Gosh, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's done. So uh uh Asbridge notes, surprisingly, the Crusader or not surprisingly, the Crusaders developed an intense hatred of Greek fire. Yes. Okay, so I don't want to get caught too much in the details. How are we doing on time? Good night. I joked with John Simon, dear listeners. I was not actually intending to do this, but I could have made this a three-part episode. I will say this, I think it's worth noting. Um in 1190 in June is when so we're coming up to the year anniversary of the uh the siege, that's when um uh Frederick dies.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

And that yeah, you know that news affects morale, as we already said. So uh as the fighting season though of 1190, so we've had two fighting seasons now, as that closes, Saladin kind of does have something to be proud of in the sense that he has managed to hold off. Okay. But overall, he's failed because they keep getting stronger. Right. So in a normal siege, the longer you hold out, the better. You're you know, every your your enemies get sicker, more weakened, and also disease is in and out of this camp all the time. Every time there's a battle, and there's battles all the time, you know, moving in and trying to attack the camp from Saladin's end. They're trying to do some new clever assault on the walls. There's lots of dead bodies. Saladin now takes these bodies and sends them downriver.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Oh, I did hear about that. Yeah, yeah, which is gruesome, right? Because I'm assuming that's probably some kind of water supply for the crusaders, too.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

So sick sickness is just rampant in and out. People are getting sick all the time. Uh I didn't how we didn't have time to read this from uh what's the what's our Muslim guy's name? Baha Baha. Yeah, Baha. Baha blast. Baha. Baha Aldeen. Uh he noted, and this just shows that there is a lot of you have to be wary of bias when you're reading. He said that the crusaders would take people on the brink of death that were already gonna die and launch them over the walls. Like their own people? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Okay, just to do a little bit more damage.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

I think he's trying to make them look more barbaric. Yeah, a little savage. Yeah, yeah, he's trying to make them look savage, more savage than they were. But the point stands, they I he also notes that they would chop up dead horses and throw them over. And I I bet you they'd throw bodies over too. Sure. The the idea is now then they're trying to spread disease inside the city. Right. So both sides are doing it to each other. But long story short, Saladin has in one hand held out and should be proud of that. In the other hand, the Germans that year took a ton of his resources away and kind of made it to where he couldn't win that during during that fighting season. So you enter this period of time, the winter of 1190, and uh you just have lots of disease. Uh, I think this is when Acre almost starves. Uh all all of this. All of this. Uh there's this funny little story where uh the crusaders are also low on food during this time. Um wait, this is uh this story is during Lent the some of the crusaders uh had to break their fast because they were just starving and they uh they ate meat. Okay, but they had to be punished. And so uh Sir Hubert Walter, he's the bishop of Salisbury, he this is he's like, Well, I have to punish them. And so this is this is the quote. He says, uh not you he says, but not heavy blows, chastised as as a father. So he lines all them up and says, You have to get hit with a stick three times. Everybody that hates. I just imagine them just like taking a yardstick and just like uh haphazardly, just like. Like whack, whack, whack.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Okay. You've been spanked. You paid your penance, now get back to work.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Yes. And then you get to um February or early March of 1191, and you have now the first supplies for Christians arriving. Okay. So they they survived it. And now you have the arrival of the kings.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Oh, that's because Richard still hasn't gotten there yet.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Richard's not here.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

That's crazy. Dude, this this would be the moment. If if I'm on the Muslim side, which, you know, uh, if I'm on the Muslim side, this is you know, I'm not. This this is uh because that's crazy. Yeah, because like Richard and Philip II are both show that that has got to be devastating. I mean, maybe maybe they don't know the full scale.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

You want to know more devastating news? Saladin had seven ship transport ships just loaded to the brim with supplies for acres that were uh trying to get in, and the seas, because remember, the seas are rough during the winter. Right. And they all seven of them got sunk.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Oh dashed upon the rocks. Dude, not not good, not good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

So here we're gonna return to Baja Blast. Alright, Baja California. Remember, Philip arrives first.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Correct, yes.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Because Richard was busy just conquering Cyprus. Cyprus. He stopped for gas and was just like, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 46:29

I want this place. This place seems nice. Also, uh Byzantine territory. So once again, uh the crusaders are not above uh flipping the bird to the to the Greeks when they had the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

And he when he he took that city so fast and he made bank off of it. Yeah. He made a ton of money. And it's kind of it takes it takes money to make money, right? Gotta break a few eggs to make it. He spent a lot of money. Richard spent a lot of money and sold a lot of land, uh, but uh his investments are starting to pay off.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Well, he's he's gonna use he's gonna use Cyprus for uh for some bargaining chips later on, too. We'll talk about that next week.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Yes. Well, here we have Baha Al-Deen talking about King of France arriving. The enemy's troops, on the other hand, were threatening the advance guard and any c any Muslim troop that came near them with the imminent arrival of the King of France, who to them was a great man and respected leader. One of their great kings to whom all present in the army would all present in the army would be obedient. When he arrived, he would have authority over everyone. They kept on threatening us with his coming until he eventually did arrive, God curse him, in six buses, bringing him and supplies the horses that he required, and his personal retinue. He arrived Saturday 23, Rabbi, which is April 20th in our calendar. Yeah. I do think it's funny if you read Baha Al-Din, he does when he talks about certain leaders of the Latins. He there's this like parentheses, God curse him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

There's no subtlety as to how they feel about these about these guys. It's really funny.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

It's really interesting how Baal De Baha Al Din talks about the Siege of Acre. If you're reading it, you wouldn't think that they were about to get destroyed. Right. Like he's so he's so um as he's telling this story, he's just so like, you know. And God gave us great victory that day. Like he he's very uh enthusiastic is probably the word. Yes. I love how uh uh uh Asbridge puts this. Richard thus began his crusading campaign with a major victory, albeit one scored against a fellow Christian territory.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Little jab, little jab there, Tom. We got you.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

We we see you. Uh so you have, yes. Philip arrives, big deal. Even though Philip only showed up with, as he notes, five buses, which is transport ships.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Okay, okay, a goodly number. Do we know what that what that looks like? Like how many how many that was?

SPEAKER_01 49:39

I you know, I wish I would have highlighted that exact number. You know what?

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Don't don't you worry, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Uh I'm at the par. I'm looking at it. It doesn't say. He doesn't say. Maybe you can pull up from one of your sources. Okay. If you think Richard's arrival was already um gonna be this like heroic entrance, on his way in, uh, there was a transport ship disguised as French that Richard recognizes as being disguised, and his navy rams this ship and just sinks it. Yeah. You want to know what was on the ship? What's that? Seven emirs, seven hundred elite troops, oh no food, weapons, and many files of Greek fire, as well as two hundred, quote, very deadly snakes, which the Muslims intended to lose amongst the Christians.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

See, that's the story I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear them, you know, hurling hurling barrels full of snakes at the Crusaders.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

I mean, can you just the luck? The luck. This thing sails right. I made you yawn. I'm so sorry. You did, bro. Come on. If you're yawning, dear listener, I apologize to you. Yeah. Come on, man. But can you can you imagine the luck? Richard sails fast past the ship and goes, Yeah, something doesn't look right over there. And then they're like, oh, that's Muslim ship. Oh, that's a Muslim ship with a ton of stuff and very important things. And it's at the bottom of the sea. Gosh dang. So Richard gets there, sets up his camp to the north of City. Philip takes his camp um in the east, and they immediately are like, all right, how do we win this? Well, Saladin being the guy that he is, they they have their hospit the Muslims have their hospitality. And uh Richard, I don't know how or why, but apparently he pushed the limits of hospitality. He was basically like, I want frozen fruit, and you know he gave it to him. But uh they they kind of knew you know, like like Richard's walking around the markets of Acre, being shown around by Saladin himself. Uh Saladin's quoted as saying, kings do not meet unless an agreement has been reached. It is not good for them to fight after meeting and eating together. So Saladin's trying to see, okay, what can we settle a deal? I'm sure can I can I butter this guy up a little bit? I'm sure Richard wants a deal as well. Sure. It costs a lot of money and troops to take a city, and they know that. And it costs a lot of money and troops to defend a city. So uh Asbridge notes, Richard seems to have delighted in asking for such delicacies, possibly as part of a mischievous diplomatic game, perhaps to gauge how far he could push the boundaries of hospitality, but also because he simply seems to have developed a taste for the finer things of the Orient.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

A Frenchman through and through. Oh he's a man of fine taste.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Well, that was Richard. That was Richard. Oh the cooking. This isn't adding up.

unknown 53:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

This isn't adding up, you know, with the British cooking.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Oh, interesting. Well, you know, he was like, I've not nothing but boiled mates where I come from.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Mosh titles and sausages. Yeah. Right, right. Ultimately, these little cute little, you know, ambassador meetings were probably just spying missions. Sure, sure, sure. So as we get to the close, the amount of troops that they brought and the resources they brought was just so much. So the Sappers start making progress. I have to correct something I said in a previous episode. I said that the tower, uh, the cursed tower was entire. It's in Acre.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

The Cursed Tower is in Acre. Uh, and the Cursed Tower is supposedly where the silver that Judas was paid was minted. Okay. Yeah. Uh the walls at this point, as I said, have been just battered for a year and a half now. Just on end. Maybe they let it, they maybe they relented, not in the fighting season, but uh not much. So the walls are starting to crumble. Saladin's sending counterattacks, but it doesn't matter because they just keep getting stronger and stronger. And it it just it looks like the end is near. Right. Okay, right. I will say this there's a funny little story where they do one of their counterattacks into the camps and they took the fr they got far enough in that they took the French as cooking cook pots. I don't know. Maybe they thought, uh, this is useful to them, but uh I I don't know, John. If you're invading your enemy, is your first thing, is your first thought to take the cookware? Maybe they just had really nice cookware.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Stainless steel.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

The French. They're probably like, mom! This is pampered, this is pampered French chef. Wow. Well, this is them, yeah. This is the uh the Arabs invading the the French camps. Okay. So now we get to we return to the cold open. Full circle. You like that? Mm-hmm. So the tower, the cursed tower had been just bombarded, and uh the sappers have finally dug and gotten through, and they blow a hole uh uh through it. Now you have to like climb up to it, and so they send this guy, Aubrey, he leads the vanguard through. Well, I was trying to visualize what was being described, and it was kind of hard, but essentially he he climbs up, he's leading he is in the front of the vanguard, this very famous, well-known knight. He's leading the vanguard, and something collapses under the weight of all the crusader troops coming in, and he falls into the city and gets cut off. Oh no. And so his men are above him and watch him basically fight to the death. Yeah, that's tough. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then you have this is what I would have written. I would have written out this whole battle and him getting cut down. But then I want you to imagine explosions or whatever. Not explosions, but uh whatever.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Let's just say it's explosions for the boulders hitting walls and stuff like that. Yeah, there's still something explosive happening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

On the north of the city, this is where Richard was sieging. Mm-hmm. Oh, and I forgot to mention, so he has that great little victory on the seas. He gets there feeling really good, and then he gets super sick. And some people think it was type of scurvy. Richard does? Yeah. Okay. It's kind of embarrassing. And you know, if they interpret everything as favors or omens from God, then they're like, oh no, you know, what's this mean? Anyway, Richard's on the battlefield. I cannot make this up. He is on the battlefield on a stretcher on the front line being carried by people. He is shooting his crossbow from a stretcher. Uh-huh. And apparently he's a good shot. Yeah. So they note there somebody had taken Aubrey's armor, the guy they just killed, took off his armor, put it on, wore it to the other side of the city, and apparently Richard shot that guy with his crossbow. Gosh dang, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. I know. And the fact that he's like, they said he was on a he was in a great silken quilt.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

This guy's guy's. People do love a good story of Richard being Richard being a baller, though.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

He's in his jammies. Right. Being carted around these four guys just carrying the king on his stretcher, and he's just shooting his crossbow and apparently hitting stuff. Yeah. Uh pretty impressive. Yes. So uh essentially though, the the wall uh they've got a hole in the wall there. They have a hole in the wall elsewhere. They don't push in and take the city at that exact moment, but the writing's on the wall. Right. So negotiations start. Real negotiations. Uh and Saladin, I'm trying to figure out how to land the plane quickly. Uh, this is um a crusader is uh is an eyewitness from one of the crusaders. He says they were afraid of the miracle that they now beheld, how the whole world was coming to annihilate them. They saw their walls broken down, pierced, and destroyed, they saw their people injured, killed, and cut into pieces. They remained within the city six thousand, but they were not sufficient. Hmm. And Saladin notices the same thing. Okay. So he sits down to talk. Unlike the Siege of Jerusalem. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Which was a bad time in all ways imaginable. Yes. Yeah, how bad was it? How bad was it when they finally got into the city?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

Not bad at all. Remarkably peaceful. So on July 12th, 1191, the siege is concluded. Essentially, the Latins get all the money and take everybody hostage, but they're not going to kill anybody. Okay. Okay. And it's a lot of money. 200,000 gold dinars, return of the relic of the true claw cross, a release of uh 1,500 Frankish prisoners of common, unremarkable background, and uh one to two hundred named captives of rank. Well, would you say the true cross?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

Mm-hmm. I don't think the true cross was that was there. I think it's in Jerusalem. I'm well, it's more Saladin has to get it and return it to the Oh, so those were the terms, but they they it wasn't there was no transaction. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:11

He just didn't have 200,000 gold dinars on him. Okay, so this basically there's this the contract. And this leads to the thing, my last thing. So they get into the city, real quick before I get to the last thing. They get into the city, and the crusaders are told, don't do anything that's gonna cause a problem, don't cause fights, don't don't chide whatever, just let this be peaceful. And they do, they do for the most part. So Saladin still has his little camp outside, and they're making arrangements to get the payment. Well, remember, this is July, early July. Come August, Richard has not been paid. And he's not happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Right. He feels like Saladin's kind of kind of uh toying with the timeline a little bit. He he's not really uh responding to their negotiations well.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

And I don't know if this is a cultural thing. This is when I read this, I didn't know if this was just a cultural, like, this is how Muslims do negotiations.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:23

Cause Saladin went and like tried to change the terms. Like, hey, what if we don't pay the whole thing? What are we doing? Yeah, trying to barter a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all cooled off a little bit. You got your city. Uncle, uncle Sal. Richard is not a fan of this. He's not chummy. He's not feeling chummy. No, and this this costs Richard, and you're gonna talk about this more in your episode. Richard marks, they open the gates of Acre. Remember, Saladin's camp is still out there. And they march out, they set up a line of defense, and they march out uh 2,700 men. Basically the majority of their hostages and kills them all in front of Saladin. Yeah. Yeah. It's not not great. Yeah. Then as then as one man the Franks charged them and with stabbings and blows with the sword, they slew them in cold blood while the v Muslim advance guard watched, not knowing what to do. It's too late. It's too late to do anything. Yeah. They launched a counterattack, but it didn't matter. They just held him off and got back into the city. And I mean, I want you to think there's like 27,000 bodies. 2700. Yeah, sorry, 2,700. 2700. Yeah. So he he, as we finish, as the plane lands, Richard sent a very, very clear message that day. Uh this is how I play. And you better play the game with me. Uh Saladin didn't have nearly as many prisoners. Saladin just every crusader he managed to take prisoner, they they did just murder in front of Richard as they could, but this was a really bad loss. So you lost Acre, albeit peacefully, and then he just takes. I mean, you gotta remember, news of that magnitude is just gonna go throughout the whole empire. Right. So Sal Saladine is crumbling right now, which I think is a great place to end.

unknown 1:04:47

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

They can talk more about this in the next episode. But yeah, that that's a great, well, not great, it's not fun, but it is a a good nightcap to the siege of Acre because fortunately, as we've seen in the past, often we see this kind of like there's so much tension around the siege that once the once the warriors kind of break in through the walls, they just kind of, you know, they just let loose, and there's just these massive, you know, looting, murder, attack on women, stuff like that. Yeah, it's good that that didn't happen. But unfortunately, as we can see, Richard was still holding a lot of that uh kind of righteous, uh actually I can't call it righteous, but a very religiously informed uh wrath that he was feeling, and he did not feel like playing ball with Saladin and his negotiation tactics.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

Yeah. And I mean, you're gonna talk about it. This cost him though, as it should have. It's like, dude, you had all the cards. Yeah. Saladin was just doing his thing, trying to make this suck a little less.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Right. Well, that'll uh that'll leave us on Ice Silk Cliff because next week we're actually gonna be going to the close of the Third Crusade. So um, as we've discussed, Acre, very important port city to take. It's going to give the Crusaders a very strategic vantage point as they strategize how to make their journey east to take back the Holy City, and we're gonna talk more about that next week. We sure are, dear John Boy. That's right. All right, Taylor. Good stuff, my friend. A lot of stuff, a lot of stuff, but good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

I know, dude. There it just got to a point during episode prep when I was like, I have to skip this.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

And there's so many, there's so much interesting stuff. You got you got Isa the swimmer, you got uh, you know, Mary, Mary the Stonebringer. Like, you there's too too many, too many little characters. You've got uh, you know, Tony the Tinkerer with uh Greek fire. Like it's just yeah, it's too much, too much to miss. I get it. I get it. All right. Well, listeners, guys, thank you guys so much for listening. We are gonna be back next week to wrap up the third crusade. Very excited. Uh, very interesting finale, I would say, and I think you're definitely gonna enjoy it. So see you next week. Catch you next time.