50 Fun Facts About First Crusade

Which pope launched the First Crusade with a sermon in France but died before news of Jerusalem's capture reached him?

Urban II died on 29 July 1099, fourteen days after Jerusalem fell and before word of it had reached Italy. Born Odo of Châtillon, he was a Frenchman preaching to his own countrymen.

What does "Deus vult", the Latin battle cry of the First Crusade, mean in English?

The cry God wills it is first recorded in a chronicle written about 1100 by an anonymous crusader. A later writer says soldiers first shouted it as a joke during combat drills.

Which donkey-riding preacher from Amiens led thousands of peasants east ahead of the First Crusade's princes?

Peter the Hermit's followers, the so-called People's Crusade, were cut to pieces by Turkish forces near Civetot in 1096 while he was away. He later preached to the army on the Mount of Olives.

The First Crusade's barefoot procession around Jerusalem's walls in July 1099 imitated the biblical fall of which city?

Jericho's walls fell in the Book of Joshua after the Israelites marched around them. A priest's vision told the crusaders to fast and copy the march, and Jerusalem fell a week later.

Which famous king's eldest son, Robert Curthose, mortgaged his duchy to pay for his journey on the First Crusade?

William the Conqueror's eldest son pawned Normandy to his brother William Rufus for 10,000 marks. Robert was still on his way home when another brother, Henry, seized the crown of England.

Which act, described by their own chroniclers, made hungry First Crusade soldiers infamous at Ma'arra in Syria?

Cannibalism at Ma'arra appears in several crusade chronicles, which blame severe hunger. The earliest says some cut flesh from dead bodies into strips and cooked it.

In which town was the first crusader king of Jerusalem crowned on Christmas Day 1100, rather than in the holy city?

Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity hosted the coronation of Baldwin of Boulogne. His predecessor, elected ruler a year earlier, had chosen not to be crowned king at all.

Which bird did one band of 1096 crusaders follow as a guide, believing it was filled with the Holy Spirit?

A goose and a she-goat were both treated as divinely inspired guides to Jerusalem by one crowd of marchers. The chronicler Albert of Aachen called it a detestable crime.

Across which narrow strait at Constantinople were the First Crusade's armies ferried from Europe into Asia Minor?

The Bosporus crossing was arranged by the Byzantine emperor, who had hurried an earlier, unruly wave across within a week after it began pillaging outside his capital.

At a church council in which town in central France did the pope first call for the First Crusade?

Clermont, in the Auvergne, hosted a synod that was mostly about church reform, with the call to arms coming in a speech on its final day. No exact transcript of that speech survives.

Which First Crusade leader was elected ruler of Jerusalem in 1099 but chose not to be crowned its king?

Godfrey of Bouillon ruled as Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre and died within a year. He was later named one of the Nine Worthies, a pantheon of warriors held up as models of chivalry.

Which relic did a First Crusade visionary claim to dig up beneath the cathedral floor in besieged Antioch in 1098?

The Holy Lance was pulled from a pit dug in the city's cathedral, two weeks before the crusaders broke the siege. Its finder later chose an ordeal by fire to silence doubters and died twelve days afterwards.

In which German region's cities, including Mainz and Worms, did First Crusade mobs massacre Jewish communities in 1096?

The Rhineland massacres of 1096 struck the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz. Bishops tried to shelter them and the German emperor ordered them protected, yet at least 1,100 died in Mainz alone.

Sailors from which Italian port city stripped timber from their own ships to build siege engines at Jerusalem?

Genoa's mariners under Guglielmo Embriaco reached Jaffa in June 1099 with skilled engineers as well as wood. Embriaco helped direct the building of two huge wheeled siege towers.

Which military order was founded about twenty years after the First Crusade to guard pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem?

The Knights Templar began in 1119, when the French knight Hugues de Payens proposed an order to protect pilgrims from bandits. Their base was a wing of the royal palace in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque.

By what name, originally that of one Germanic people, were all western Europeans on the First Crusade known?

Franks became the catch-all label for Latin Christians in the East, whatever their homeland. Words descended from it, such as farang, still mean any Westerner in several Asian languages.

The Turkish sultanate that the First Crusade fought its way across in Anatolia was called Rum after which people?

The Romans lived on in the name because Byzantium was still the Roman Empire to its neighbours, so land taken from it became Rum. Modern Turkish still uses the word that way.

Which Italian composer's 1843 opera follows a family from Milan to Antioch and Jerusalem during the First Crusade?

Giuseppe Verdi premiered I Lombardi alla prima crociata at La Scala, where Milan's archbishop objected to rumours of Catholic ritual on stage. He later reworked it for Paris as Jérusalem.

Which Turkish dynasty, victors at Manzikert in 1071, had overrun most of Byzantine Anatolia before the First Crusade?

The Seljuks captured the Byzantine emperor himself at Manzikert, the only time one became a Muslim commander's prisoner. By 1080 Turks had moved across central Anatolia.

Which Byzantine emperor's appeals for help against Turkish invaders became the spark that set off the First Crusade?

Alexios I sent envoys to a church council at Piacenza in 1095 to ask for western soldiers. When whole armies arrived, he pressed their leaders to swear to return any former imperial lands they recaptured.

Which landlocked city became the first crusader state in 1098 after its Armenian lord adopted Baldwin of Boulogne?

Edessa's lord Thoros made Baldwin his son and heir and was overthrown weeks later. The city's fall in 1144 was the first major setback for the crusader states and provoked the Second Crusade.

Which Norman leader from southern Italy, nicknamed after a legendary giant, made himself prince of Antioch in 1098?

Bohemond of Taranto was christened Marc. He secretly bargained with a tower commander to let his men over the wall by night, having first pressed the other leaders to promise him the city.

Which count, the oldest and richest First Crusade leader, set out for Jerusalem barefoot and dressed as a pilgrim?

Raymond of Toulouse left Ma'arra in January 1099 on bare feet, with other princes' armies following behind. He spent his last five years carving out the County of Tripoli.

Which lakeside capital of the Sultanate of Rum surrendered secretly to the Byzantines during the First Crusade?

Nicaea's Turkish garrison gave up after the emperor had ships hauled overland to seal off the lake. His general arranged the handover without the crusaders' knowledge.

Which count deserted the First Crusade at Antioch, then returned east in 1101 at the urging of his wife Adela?

Stephen of Blois left just before Antioch fell, sure the army was doomed, and told the Byzantine emperor the rest were as good as dead. His son and namesake later became king of England.

Which Italian poet's 1581 epic retold the First Crusade as a love story starring the knights Tancred and Rinaldo?

Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered tells a largely mythified version of the campaign, full of enchantments and invented love stories. Its Tancred falls for a woman warrior he later kills by mistake.

Which bishop, named papal legate and spiritual leader of the First Crusade, died of illness at Antioch in 1098?

Adhemar of Le Puy died on 1 August 1098, probably of typhus, weeks after the great victory outside the city. Soldiers kept reporting visions of him, one of which inspired the barefoot march around Jerusalem.

Which Byzantine princess described the First Crusade's arrival at Constantinople in a history of her own father's reign?

Anna Komnene wrote her fifteen-book history around 1148 in an artificial Attic Greek, the literary dialect of classical Greece. Two of its books cover the crusade.

Which atabeg of Mosul led the huge relief army that trapped the First Crusade inside newly captured Antioch?

Kerbogha arrived in June 1098, days after the city fell, and besieged the besiegers. His coalition came apart when the starving crusaders marched out to fight on 28 June.

Which sultan recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, ending the Christian rule that the First Crusade had begun 88 years earlier?

Saladin took the city after destroying the crusader field army at the Battle of Hattin. The Kingdom of Jerusalem itself persisted until the late 13th century.

The ancient city of Antioch, besieged by the First Crusade for over seven months, now lies in which modern country?

Turkey's southernmost province, Hatay, contains the city, now called Antakya. In antiquity it served as the capital of the province of Syria.

From which country did the Fatimid caliphs rule, having retaken Jerusalem only a year before the First Crusade arrived?

Egypt's Fatimids, Shia rivals of the Sunni Turks, won Jerusalem back from a Turkish clan in 1098. Their vizier fled home by ship after his relief army was surprised asleep in its camp.

In most accounts of the 1095 sermon that launched the First Crusade, which reward did the pope promise to volunteers?

Remission of sins made the expedition a new kind of war, an armed pilgrimage. Five versions of the sermon survive, and they differ widely from one another on the particulars.

Which wild animal reportedly mauled the future ruler of crusader Jerusalem as the First Crusade crossed Asia Minor?

A bear attacked the duke, some chronicles say, leaving a serious wound that put him out of action for a time. He recovered and was elected ruler of the captured city two years later.

The Byzantine general Tatikios, guide to the First Crusade across Anatolia, reportedly wore a false nose made of what?

Gold replaced his mutilated nose, the chronicler Guibert of Nogent wrote. Tatikios left midway through the siege of Antioch, forfeiting the belongings he had left in the crusader camp.

The pope who launched the First Crusade had earlier served as grand prior of which powerful Burgundian abbey?

Cluny led a monastic reform movement, and the council where the crusade was preached spent most of its time on Cluniac reforms. Its abbey church was long the largest in the world.

By what French-derived name were the states the First Crusade founded in the East known?

Outremer, from the French for overseas, meant the four Catholic states planted in the eastern Mediterranean and south-eastern Anatolia from 1098. The last of them survived until 1291.

Which Jerusalem citadel held out against the First Crusade in 1099 until its garrison was promised safe passage?

The Tower of David withstood the assault and gave up only when its defenders were guaranteed a way out of the city. Byzantine Christians had named it centuries earlier, believing it was the biblical king's palace.

Which kingdom's ruler, Coloman, annihilated unruly First Crusade bands that pillaged his countryside on their way east?

Hungary had long fed western pilgrims on the road east, but tens of thousands of marchers threatened its people's food supply. The main crusader army later passed through without incident.

At which 1097 battle in Anatolia did surrounded First Crusade knights dismount and hold a line until help arrived?

Dorylaeum began with a dawn attack by Turkish horse archers on the vanguard's camp. Women carried water to the fighters all day, and the rest of the army arrived just in time to reverse the battle.

Which sultan of Rum was away at war with a rival emir when the First Crusade besieged his capital?

Kilij Arslan had destroyed the peasant wave a year earlier and was off fighting the Danishmends. His wife and children were captured when the capital surrendered, and the emperor sent her back without ransom.

Near which coastal city did the First Crusade surprise a sleeping Fatimid army in August 1099, in its final battle?

Ascalon's garrison offered to surrender afterwards, but only to one particular count, and the victors fell out over it. The port stayed a thorn in the new kingdom's side until 1153.

Which port, the crusader capital after Jerusalem was lost, fell in 1291 and ended the states the First Crusade created?

Acre fell to the Mamluk Sultanate after a siege, costing the crusaders their last major stronghold. It had served as capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem once the holy city itself was gone.

Which priest served as chaplain to Baldwin of Boulogne and wrote a Latin eyewitness chronicle of the First Crusade?

Fulcher of Chartres stayed on as chaplain when his lord became king, serving until Baldwin died in 1118. Details in his account of the sermon that launched the crusade suggest he may have heard it in person.

Which German count led the First Crusade band blamed for the worst attacks on Jewish communities in 1096?

Emicho accepted an offering raised by the Jews of Mainz for their safety, yet did not stop his followers entering the city. His army broke up before leaving Europe, and he was among the few leaders who escaped.

Which pope, elected in August 1099, answered the First Crusade's success by preaching a follow-up expedition for 1101?

Paschal II was chosen two weeks after his predecessor died. His penitential Crusade of 1101 drew many who had turned back early the first time, and Turkish forces annihilated it in Anatolia.

The hill where First Crusade soldiers first glimpsed Jerusalem in 1099 was named by them the Mountain of what?

Joy gave the hill its crusader name, Mont Joie. It rises about four kilometres north of the city, at the traditional tomb of the prophet Samuel.

Medieval legend made the first crusader ruler of Jerusalem a descendant of the Swan Knight, hero of which Wagner opera?

Lohengrin made the Swan Knight famous, but French epic poems about the crusade had attached the story to the family of Jerusalem's first Latin ruler centuries before.

A quarrel over the price of which item sparked the 1096 riot in which People's Crusade marchers stormed Zemun?

A pair of shoes set off the market dispute at Zemun, where the marchers were already uneasy at the sight of sixteen suits of armour hung from the walls. The assault that followed killed 4,000 townspeople.

Which fisherman apostle reportedly told a First Crusade visionary where to dig for a relic in Antioch?

Andrew featured in most of the visions, the finder said, and afterwards told him to establish a feast day for the discovery. The papal legate believed the man was a charlatan.