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Europe: The First Crusade - III: A Good Crusade? - Extra History (Patreon)

Published:
2015-08-21 10:38:13
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Excommunication, antipopes, bitter wars... why let little details get in the way of a good Crusade?

Files

Previews only

Europe: The First Crusade - III: A Good Crusade? - Extra History

Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon Watch the First Crusade series! http://bit.ly/1DxBoWh Subscribe for new episodes every Saturday! http://bit.ly/SubToEC Follow us on Facebook! http://bit.ly/ECFBPage Follow us on Twitter! http://bit.ly/ECTweet Follow us on Twitch! http://bit.y/ECTwitch ____________ Although it finds Peter the Hermit's group from the People's Crusade in shambles, the summer of 1096 finally sees the "official" forces of the First Crusade set out for Jerusalem. This was not one army, however, but five separate armies led by men with very different motivations and sympathies - many of them surprisingly hostile towards the Pope or the Byzantine Empire. Hugh of Vermandois, brother of the King of France, led one army despite his brother having been excommunicated by Pope Urban II. Godfrey de Bouillon from the German territory had actually helped kick the Pope out of Rome and install the anti-Pope. Bohemond of Taranto brought an army whose experience primarily came from fighting the Romans twelve years prior. Raymond of Toulouse led the largest army and believed himself the main leader of the Crusade, despite the fact that he traveled with the Pope's appointed leader, Bishop Adhemar. Only Robert of Flanders could be said to be on good terms with both the Pope and the Eastern Roman Empire. When the five armies arrived in Constantinople, Emperor Alexius Comnenus approached them all privately with bribes and threats to get them to swear an oath that any land they conquered on Crusade would be returned to him. They all took it (except Bohemond's nephew, Tancred) and so the emperor sent them across the Bosphorus to attack the Turks at last. ____________ Get the intro music here! http://bit.ly/1EQA5N7 *Music by Demetori: http://bit.ly/1AaJG4H Get the outro music here! http://bit.ly/1NbpIcd __________ Extra History - Battle of Okehazama Sengoku Jidai: Warring States Japan: http://bit.ly/1xgZxfi Extra Credits - Four New Approaches to War Games Returning to WWII: http://bit.ly/1NukEiR

Comments

ExtraCredits

Can't wait to see what you all think of this one! It's been my favorite episode of Extra History so far. -Soraya

RMS Oceanic

Everyone needs a good broath once in a while

Christian Jensen

While it was a little hard to keep track of the different leaders, it was very well-told and funny episode.

Nessf

I love how four out of the five armies that showed up are super problematic for the people they're supposed to be helping, and all the hoops the emperor is having to jump through to get them to at least sort of do what he wants. ...time to see how it all goes wrong!

Wesley Wu

If this series has taught me anything so far, it's that supply lines are the single greatest invention in military history.

Connor Raikes

Great episode! I'm curious if you should clarify the claim that Godfrey of the Bouillon "represented the German contingent". Godfrey was certainly a duke of the Holy Roman Empire, but his duchy was Lower Lorraine, and as far as I can tell Godfrey was a Lothringian Frank. It's likely that he had a good mix of Germans and Franks and maybe some Lombards among his own ranks, because the Holy Roman Empire was nothing if not a hot mess and (as this show pointed out before, gladly) a well-defined German nation-state didn't really exist until the 19th Century.

Martin Ockovsky

Amazing work! Both the story telling and the drawings :D You guys are the best!

The Cayute

Damn, I always knew the Crusades had been a bit problematic...I didn't think they'd been THIS bloody-mindedly self-stabby

Nosgoroth

Wow. This is too comedic to be true.

Scott Bruce

Fantastic Work. Sidenote: that EC mad lib could make a good cards against humanity question. Pick 2.

Stormy Weather

I love how much of a complete mess the crusades are!^u^

Teollinc

I love that the leaders are color coded helps to remember the crazier guys from the rest.

Hung Nguyen

"We cool?" "We cool" Funniest EH episode so far, keep up the good work, fellas!

Alex Wiens
>>732255

Have you read "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" - Marc Levinson. If you want a modern take of how it changed Vietnam and on, it's fantastic.

paul staber

Remember wars are not won by the most competent army they are won by the least incompetent army.

Bjørnar Røsnes Ersdal

So nobody trusts nobody, people are sorta half-swearing oaths all over the place, wildcards are presenting themselves and a conflict for leadership is already in the works. Awesome. What could possibly go wrong?

Warrior of Virtue

And yet, incredibly, this was the crusade that was largely successful. That's the part I can't wrap my mind around.

Kathyrne

OMG! Dat was SO FUNNY!!!! Loved this episode! Would give this episode four thumbs up.... but... kitties don't have thumbs. o.o

ExtraCredits
>>731992

We'll try to keep it as clear as we can! But they do get up to some pretty wild hijinks.

ExtraCredits
>>732255

Thumbs up to Alex for having a book recommendation on supply/shipping ready to hand!

ExtraCredits
>>732437

Yeah, it's an interesting line to tread, but we do often lean on the side of using modern (but anachronistic) terms to describe places in order to make them more recognizable (and sometimes, therefore, more interesting) to viewers who may be learning about this part of history for the first time. James may talk about it again in Lies, but I couldn't say for sure.

ExtraCredits
>>732780

We actually did think about making them CAH cards! Among other things, we - or at least I (Soraya) - mainly felt that the art on CAH doesn't give us much to play on (black and white), and that Heather's adorable scribbles made more sense on a Mad Libs notebook than they would on a card. I could not part with the scribbles.

ExtraCredits
>>732723

A lot of history that we tend to think of as fairly dull (or at least generically noble) is so, so much more mixed when you take a close look at it. In fact, the more famous stories probably more so than the rest, because they had so many more people recording all the details!

SovietWomble

I really love your work. All of you. Please keep going with these history episodes. They're wonderful.

KvaGram

This series is the funniest Extra history by far. Keep it up.

Stuart Gorman
>>732437

The French/German distinction in the Middle Ages tends to mean something very different from how we use it in modern history. Without modern nation states, and with generally less care for ethnic difference, labeling medieval peoples is a difficult thing for scholars. No label will truly capture the diversity of medieval Europe but they are a necessary simplification for us to reasonably carry on a conversation about historical events. This period in particular is kind of a pain because the borders are even more of a mess, as are the names. Technically the Holy Roman Empire is a term that dates to Frederick I, an emperor in the twelfth century, and so shouldn't be used here. Some historians do it anyway since as a political entity Frederick is the had of the same institution but others prefer Western Empire, or just The Empire, since using HRE is an anachronism. What is apparent is that the three big Kingdoms (France, England and The Empire) are very distinct political entities and governed not just by different laws but often by different types of law. As a brief example, the Empire had a class of people called Ministeriales who were knights, but were also not free, like serfs. This class existed in an interesting, and complex, place in society. Nowhere else in Europe had a similar class of people, their laws and customs did not permit for their existence. What matters in this context, then, is that while Godfery would ethnically be closer to being what we might think of as French he was politically from the Empire and so his contingent would have operated under Imperial law and custom. This would present a clear difference to his neighbors who would have sworn allegiance to the French king. Godfrey was also the most prominent German noble to go on Crusade which meant that any individual German who left from a different part of the Empire generally attached themselves to his contingent, making him the de facto leader of the German community on Crusade. Entire books have been written about the complexities of ethnicity, nationality, and political identity in the Middle Ages so this is essentially a gross oversimplification but is a necessary one to make the subject reasonably possible to follow. What we do see, especially later in the Crusade, is that there are clear regional differences that form within the armies between Godfrey's Germans, the Normans, and the Southern French so at least some concept of these identities existed at the time, even if they were likely more fluid than they would be now. There's a great quote from Fulcher of Chartres (a chronicler who went on the First Crusade) that shows the diversity of the Crusading movement as well as giving some insight into people at the time saw regional differences. It goes: "Who ever heard of such a mixture of languages in one army? There were Franks, Flemings, Frisians, Gauls, Allobroges, Lotharingians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Normans, English, Scots, Aquitanians, Italians, Dacians, Apulians, Iberians, Bretons, Greeks, and Armenians. If any Breton or Teuton wished to question me, I could neither reply nor understand."

Scott Bruce
>>732780

The scribbles are awesome and the presentation is perfect! I was kinda just thinking/typing out loud - I'm probably going to grab one of my custom question cards and make it :)

ExtraCredits
>>734306

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't help but laugh at the tragicomic ridiculousness that the First Crusade has been!

Rafael C. Teske

Wow, this iteration is being the best for me too. Much funnier and easier to grasp. The costumes, accessories (beards, hats, eye patches), letters on characters chests (more than one sometimes) and the eventual banners with names fixed what was for me the biggest problem with the series: remembering the names of the central characters. Keep the awesome work, I think this iteration will make me increase my patronage ;)