The start and first crusade

For the Game we are making I needed to do research on the crusades. My knowledge was very limited to that of the rest of the team, so I took 2 weeks and dug into the history by reading books, watching documentaries and learning from my fellow teammates. Here are some of the results so far in a brief overview.

We are focusing on the Third crusade, also known as the Kings crusade. The player is depicted as a mercenary working for Richard the Lion heart.

The start of the crusades and the first crusade:

After the war with the Vikings allot of the soldiers were restless and so the church sought ways of giving them work. A holy war as vengeance for Jesus and to reclaim the Holy land. Pope Urban the Second started this war by the Deus Walt, God wills it. A call for help came from Constantinople in 1195  nC by Alexius the First. He wanted to see the lands and temples back in the hands of the Christians. To rally people Pope Urban the Second promised to any who would participate in the crusades a ticket to heaven.

Warlord and Duke Godfrey of Bouillon took 6000 men and started his three year long crusade. The main goal to cleans their own souls and purify the land. To the people living in the land all the associates to the crusades were called Franks. A important name in writing the history of the crusades was William of Tyre.

With Godfrey of Bouillon came count Baldwin of Boulogne, his younger brother, once a priest, but now a man enjoying live. One of the obstacles was that the crusades were like a walking city, full retinues of wealthy houses joined, and feeding them was difficult. The local merchants prices were very high and some food was stolen. On the way the army of Bohemond of Taranto joined their ranks.

Reaching Constantinople they encountered Alexius who won them over by offering them save passage and food and supplies and demanding all the wealth and properties won by the crusade would be returned to him.

The first hostile city was Nicea. And the Byzantines and Christians were fighting to get to the spoils first. The Christians got there first, but the Turkish Sultan Kilij Arslan was close behind.

The battle for Doloreum followed. It was 1097 and the crusader army had camped out in a valley. On the morning of July the Turks attacked. They were surprised by the speed and accuracy of the Turkish archers and it was a difficult struggle. On the arrival of Baldwin the army was crushed however and fled. A quote from the crusaders: "Such fine soldiers are the Turks, if they had been Christians they would have been our equals.". 

The travel continues and sadly Baldwin's wife died, Godhilda. She was the source of his wealth and without her he lost all his riches. With this he sought a new source of wealth. He took 100 of his finest men and set out to city of Edessa. The city was in the hands of the Christian Thoros, and so could not be attacked. Baldwin made a scheme to make sure he was adopted as the heir and son of Thoros, for he had no sons or heirs. On the completion Baldwin took Thoros live and so the city.

Meanwhile the rest of the army marched for Antioch, the gate to the holy land. The city was in hands of Shihan, but there were also Christians living in the city. Shihan wanted them out, so he made the moslims dig trenches outside the city, the next day he told the Christians to dig trenches, but didn't let them back in. The battle took 8 months and still nothing had changed, Shihan was a strategic genius and kept the Franks out. The army was halved by lack of food, diseases and drought.  Shihan was the first to use pidgeons to send messages to his fellow leaders, calling for help. But before help came a traitor from the city helped the Franks get in the city, and the city was easily taken.

Now the Christians were inside the city and the new army of the Muslims outside. Morale being low Peter Bathalome found a way of raising the spirits of the soldiers. He buried an old spear under a temple and claimed he had a vision that something of great value, namely the lance with which Christ was stabbed, could be found under the temple. And so the spear was found and treated as a holy relic. Morale up, the Christians stormed out and took on the Turks. Bohemond of Taranto Crowned himself king, and with this luxury the commanders became more interested in ruling instead of concurring and the army seemed to be falling.

In November 1098 however Bohemond marched with a small army on Maarat al Numan. Telling the rulers to hide their women and children in the palace they took the city by slaughter. After that a horror occurred. The knight and crusaders so filled with bloodlust did not find satisfaction in jsut killing. Instead they started cutting up bodies and roosting it, spitting children on spits and cooking them, and ate all. It struck great fear in the hearts of their enemies.

Now that the battle was back on, the crusaders focused on Jeruzalem, which was now under control of zarasenes of Egypt. The zarasenes heard of the coming of the army and raised all the trees and plants from the environment, because to enter the city the crusaders would need ladders and siege towers. But the crusaders found a mysterious hole in the ground filled with enough wood to build  two siege towers. 1099, the assault started. The first tower went up in flames, but Duke Godfrey found a weakness in the city, a place less guarded. And so the city was breached.

This was the end of the First crusade.