Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane mcgran pay. Candice, So you don't, Daren Watson. Um. You know, it's funny. There's a lot of words in our language that pack a whole lot of meaning, and sometimes you can say one of these words and start a riot without even meaning to. One of the ones I'm thinking of, is crusade. Sure that that's a hot button word for sure. If you look at like even President Bush, he mentions it, then a lot of uproar begins because he gets attacked for thinking that that this war on terrorism is suddenly a holy war about religion, right, And that's the trouble with using crusade even casually, Like if if you're on a crusade for restocking the office fridge with diet coke, you don't want to say that necessarily because the word invokes a lot of bloodshed and political strife too, and a lot of corruption. Really, if you look up at the crusades was all about, and it's hard to pinpoint what exactly that was because there were many, many Crusades, not just one. It was a whole series that spanned a couple of generations, began around and they started definitely centered around religion, but even in their earliest stages there were some political wheeling and dealing going on, that's true, And if you look at how the pope got mixed in with it, it was actually the empire, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire that went to the Pope and asked, hey, can you help us out because these these Muslims, these Celdru Muslims in particular, sorry to take over my um empire and my lands, and so can you come over here and help us? And the Pope saw this as both like political and religious because he was hoping to unite the East and West churches, which had separated actually a few decades before then, right in the Great Schism of and fifty four. And you know, it's funny because the emperor knew that if he allied with the Pope, he could get the manpower he needed to get his empire back, because he didn't have the forces to accomplish that goal. But back in Europe, there were nights from the funeral system who were just very listless, they were getting bored, they were causing trouble at home, and the Pope thought, while we've been trying to restore peace on the home front from these you know, boyish and and tumbling around nights, So if we can give them something constructive to do, like reclaim the Holy Land, while the win win for everyone. That's true, that's true, And they got more than they bargained for. Actually, um, the the speech at the Pope gave to instigate knights to to take up arms in March to the Holy and actually ended up spurring on even peasants who were very ill equipped to go and fight the sophisticated um Muslim warriors, you know. And that's something really important to mention. Two. Europe at this time was actually somewhat backward compared to the force is in the countries that they were about to go up again. They were sophisticated, they were more intelligent, they had better warfare, and Europe was you know, it was real, even in a dark time, and it actually cost a lot of money to go off and be a crusader. I think that knights had to mortgage their homes and liquefy their assets and then walk like three thousand miles to get over to, you know, where all the fighting was occurring. That's sure. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision for them. It wasn't. And so when these peasants got inspired, especially into the charismatic guidance of Peter the Hermit, a disaster and so what I mean they were up against an enemy that had methods of warfare that no one was prepared for, you know, let alone the peasants, but even the nights then in training to be soldiers. And when they arrived at least where the Businestine numberor was, he he knew that the peasants weren't weren't equipped, and he kept on saying, like, no hold up until we can bring like real reinforcements to and they just marched on. And the Turkish leaders loved it. They had to stock at this situation like, this is how easy the crusades are gonna be. We don't have anything to worry about. That that gave him a certain confidence of him, it did, and it would be shattered later. But just to reinforce the point, the reason that so many people were inspired to go is that the pope told them a couple of things about the Crusades, one being that going to the Holy Land and reclaiming Jerusalem for Christianity would substitute for a journey of penance. And the other thing was that if you went and you accomplished this goal, you'd be absolved of all your sin and you'd have guaranteed entry to have And so basically, if you went and died on the battlefield, you know, you wouldn't be so bad off if you ended up getting eternal life as a result. Exactly said, people thought, well what do I have to lars? And also if you look at what was instigating their motivations, at least the peasants who they were hearing stories about how the Muslims were performing atrocities on these pilgrims who just wanted to peacefully go to their to their holy lands. And it wasn't just um the control, the Muslim control of the Holy Lands that instigated this, because the Muslims had control over it for for decades before that. Um. What happened was that the cell Muslim Muslims actually came in and and the stories started coming out, whether true or not, that that they started abusing, violently, abusing the Pilgrims that came. Uh, this is what instigated at least peasants in Europe to say this is wrong and we need and that You can imagine how they can use that as a motivation to go to the Holy Land, right right. So they thought they were doing a very righteous deed when in fact the pope was scheming alongside his political ally and it didn't quite turn out like anyone thought it would because it wasn't a cut and dry deal. The Crusades stretched on for a really long time. And like we said, when the crusading forces most of them were French at least during the first Crusade. When they encounter the Muslims, they had all these tactics of warfare that no one was prepared for um one of which was called Greek fire. And essentially what this was is they went on load up pottery with fire and then catapulted at the crusaders. Brilliant, yeah, it really was, and it would shatter into pieces and fire would spread everywhere. Or else. They take rags soaked with um I think oil and studded with nails and set those ablaze and catapult those over. So the Crusaders had these moving wooden reinforcements like towers that they would you know, put up his bastion against the offensive forces. But then the nails from the fiery rags would just stick in burn everything down. And the Crusaders eventually got wise to this, and they would hang up animal skin soaked in vinegar to help propel the fire. And they also realized that there, uh, I guess, their movements on the field and their fancy lines and defense mechanisms weren't going to cut muster here. And so they got stronger armor, they invented the crossbow, and they had to get used to some of the unconventional warfare tactics like screaming and whistling and all these strange noises that the Muslim forces would make just to serve as a distraction. You know. It was it was a total just mess, I'm sure on the battlefield because it wasn't you know, gentlemen fighting. It was mayhem, really, that's true. And given how much they had to overcome, and surprising that the Crusades were able to eventually see Jerusalem and break in with their their their catapults and their ladders, and uh, they were able once they got in there, they ended up pillaging the city in ways that, um, according to our modern sensibilities, is pretty horrible, like they actually burned down a synagogue full of innocent Jews and uh. And you know, it certainly doesn't justify what they were doing, but it was seen as is sort of similar to what other other armies at the time we're doing, and that doesn't excuse it, but um, but people nowadays see it as such like one of the things that gets associated with the Crusades was how vicious they were, and so this is one of the reasons and the stiege of Jerusalem I think is one of the most salient events in all of the Crusades. And the sort of mantra that they had going in the first Crusade and all the other Crusades that followed it was that God wills it, and no matter what happened, you know, no matter how many people died or how bad things got, it was God's will that they were going and fighting. And even when the Crusaders were stricken with disease or were so hungry that they cut open their animal stomachs to drink the blood, I know, really gory. Again, God wills it and when they see to Jerusalem, they were sober raft I mean, they were on death store step. They didn't have anything going for them really, And then um, one of the crusaders had a vision that they were supposed to march barefoot around Jerusalem, surround the city, and then slowly work their way inward. And that's exactly what they did. Like it worked, it did, and like you were saying, I mean, all all heck brokely after that, it was quite a mess. But for all the successes, and again when he said term loosely, for all the successes at the crusade, there were some really awful tragedies to on the crusader's behalf. And yeah, that's true. And if you look at one of the crusades, at least it's loosely defined as a crusade, because the pope certainly didn't um back, it's called the children's Crusade. I was actually taught this in my you know, Catholic school upbringing, and uh, my teacher would tell us of the story where these thousands and thousands of kids were loaded on on ships to cross the Mediterranean and go towards the Holy Land, um to hopefully um through their childish innocence, you know, convert the hearts of the Muslims and and win over the land uh for Christian forces. When actually, um, the children were basically sent to short death and either either shipwreck or sold into slavery. It was just a total disaster and all the kids ended up either dying or you know. Um. So that's actually a legend. But what actually happened is a little bit more fuzzy. Historians are not sure it happened at all, but it dates back to these two different kids who actually didn't know each other. Uh, Stephen in France and Nicholas in Germany. Both of them claimed separately to get visions, divine visions of Christ telling them you need to get control of the Holy Land and uh, and you need to go to the Holy Land and get it for the Christian forces. And Nicholas actually went to the Mediterranean and he believed that it would dry up by the time he got there. Um. Stephen in France went to the King of France saying he had a letter for him, and the King of France was less than impressed. He he was like, oh, go home, like come back when you're older, if you still believe this or whatever um and what happened to these kids, and there were probably thousands of kids that that were gathered up as a as a following for these two different Stephen and Nicholas. What happened to them was probably a tragedy. But it's important to note that, you know, the Church wasn't behind these and so if you call them a crusade, you have to take that with a grain of salt. And also actually historians even questioned whether these were children at all because the word used in in the research was actually poo air, which is Latin word for boy, but if you um look at the use back then, it could have been just a word for like a lower standing man. So we're not even sure about anything that happened. And that's what's so difficult about interpreting the Crusades and recording at for posterity all the events that took place. A lot of the tales that we now were handed down through oral history or or they were accounts that were you know, bias depending on someone's religion or political affiliation. And as we mentioned before, as the Crusades went on, they got more and more political, and one of the major reasons for this was that the land that the crusaders want, they weren't quite sure what to do with that, and the answer seeing pretty obvious. You know, you get back to the Byzantine Empire, that's who the Pope was aligned within the first place, you would think, I guess people felt that they were entitled to it. I mean, they endured that much to win it, and so betrayals behind that as well, like the crusading forces thought that the empire, the Byzantine Empire had trade them in some senses, so that at that point they felt like they were entitled the land themselves, and so lots of mix ups happening. Yeah, so they became crusader states, but they didn't last very long because they didn't have any sort of strong centralized government. So they were eventually overtaken again by the Muslim forces. This happened over and over again, and eventually, like even even the Pope started saying like, if you go and fight the so called crusade, you're going to be excommunicated. And yet people still went on thinking God wills it, God wills it. It's crazy. And if you look at different artists renderings of the crusaders coming home. They're usually old men with long beards to look very bedraggled, their straddling horses that look like they're on their last leg literally, And to me, that's the perfect representation of the end of the Crusades. You know, we can come home and they're like, wait, what were we fighting for? I'm not quite sure what happened. And the fact that the beginning of the Crusades was based on a political decision and you know, somewhat a bit of lies and the first place, makes it really hard to figure out how it impacts history today. It even does, And that's actually the question I was thinking about for you was how does or held deeply the Crusades impact history. That's a tough question. And you know, I think some people might say that all the events of the Crusades have impacted relations between Europe and the Middle East and you know, power struggles between the Church and the state today and and a lot of historians say that that's fiction, that because the Crusades were so twisted politically, and because they took place during such a dark time in Europe that really there's sort of a blip on the radar. And I certainly didn't seem like that at the time. And maybe, you know, when we look back and we look today at people who are demanding, you know, reparations or at least an apology from the church, they seem like quite a big deal. But I think most historians agree that it's just a part of the past. It didn't really influence how things are today. It's crazy right now, it really is. But there's so much more, obviously, to learn about the Crusades. You can read about them on how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, isn't how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane mcgran pay. Candice, So you don't, Daren Watson. Um. You know, it's funny. There's a lot of words in our language that pack a whole lot of meaning, and sometimes you can say one of these words and start a riot without even meaning to. One of the ones I'm thinking of, is crusade. Sure that that's a hot button word for sure. If you look at like even President Bush, he mentions it, then a lot of uproar begins because he gets attacked for thinking that that this war on terrorism is suddenly a holy war about religion, right, And that's the trouble with using crusade even casually, Like if if you're on a crusade for restocking the office fridge with diet coke, you don't want to say that necessarily because the word invokes a lot of bloodshed and political strife too, and a lot of corruption. Really, if you look up at the crusades was all about, and it's hard to pinpoint what exactly that was because there were many, many Crusades, not just one. It was a whole series that spanned a couple of generations, began around and they started definitely centered around religion, but even in their earliest stages there were some political wheeling and dealing going on, that's true, And if you look at how the pope got mixed in with it, it was actually the empire, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire that went to the Pope and asked, hey, can you help us out because these these Muslims, these Celdru Muslims in particular, sorry to take over my um empire and my lands, and so can you come over here and help us? And the Pope saw this as both like political and religious because he was hoping to unite the East and West churches, which had separated actually a few decades before then, right in the Great Schism of and fifty four. And you know, it's funny because the emperor knew that if he allied with the Pope, he could get the manpower he needed to get his empire back, because he didn't have the forces to accomplish that goal. But back in Europe, there were nights from the funeral system who were just very listless, they were getting bored, they were causing trouble at home, and the Pope thought, while we've been trying to restore peace on the home front from these you know, boyish and and tumbling around nights, So if we can give them something constructive to do, like reclaim the Holy Land, while the win win for everyone. That's true, that's true, And they got more than they bargained for. Actually, um, the the speech at the Pope gave to instigate knights to to take up arms in March to the Holy and actually ended up spurring on even peasants who were very ill equipped to go and fight the sophisticated um Muslim warriors, you know. And that's something really important to mention. Two. Europe at this time was actually somewhat backward compared to the force is in the countries that they were about to go up again. They were sophisticated, they were more intelligent, they had better warfare, and Europe was you know, it was real, even in a dark time, and it actually cost a lot of money to go off and be a crusader. I think that knights had to mortgage their homes and liquefy their assets and then walk like three thousand miles to get over to, you know, where all the fighting was occurring. That's sure. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision for them. It wasn't. And so when these peasants got inspired, especially into the charismatic guidance of Peter the Hermit, a disaster and so what I mean they were up against an enemy that had methods of warfare that no one was prepared for, you know, let alone the peasants, but even the nights then in training to be soldiers. And when they arrived at least where the Businestine numberor was, he he knew that the peasants weren't weren't equipped, and he kept on saying, like, no hold up until we can bring like real reinforcements to and they just marched on. And the Turkish leaders loved it. They had to stock at this situation like, this is how easy the crusades are gonna be. We don't have anything to worry about. That that gave him a certain confidence of him, it did, and it would be shattered later. But just to reinforce the point, the reason that so many people were inspired to go is that the pope told them a couple of things about the Crusades, one being that going to the Holy Land and reclaiming Jerusalem for Christianity would substitute for a journey of penance. And the other thing was that if you went and you accomplished this goal, you'd be absolved of all your sin and you'd have guaranteed entry to have And so basically, if you went and died on the battlefield, you know, you wouldn't be so bad off if you ended up getting eternal life as a result. Exactly said, people thought, well what do I have to lars? And also if you look at what was instigating their motivations, at least the peasants who they were hearing stories about how the Muslims were performing atrocities on these pilgrims who just wanted to peacefully go to their to their holy lands. And it wasn't just um the control, the Muslim control of the Holy Lands that instigated this, because the Muslims had control over it for for decades before that. Um. What happened was that the cell Muslim Muslims actually came in and and the stories started coming out, whether true or not, that that they started abusing, violently, abusing the Pilgrims that came. Uh, this is what instigated at least peasants in Europe to say this is wrong and we need and that You can imagine how they can use that as a motivation to go to the Holy Land, right right. So they thought they were doing a very righteous deed when in fact the pope was scheming alongside his political ally and it didn't quite turn out like anyone thought it would because it wasn't a cut and dry deal. The Crusades stretched on for a really long time. And like we said, when the crusading forces most of them were French at least during the first Crusade. When they encounter the Muslims, they had all these tactics of warfare that no one was prepared for um one of which was called Greek fire. And essentially what this was is they went on load up pottery with fire and then catapulted at the crusaders. Brilliant, yeah, it really was, and it would shatter into pieces and fire would spread everywhere. Or else. They take rags soaked with um I think oil and studded with nails and set those ablaze and catapult those over. So the Crusaders had these moving wooden reinforcements like towers that they would you know, put up his bastion against the offensive forces. But then the nails from the fiery rags would just stick in burn everything down. And the Crusaders eventually got wise to this, and they would hang up animal skin soaked in vinegar to help propel the fire. And they also realized that there, uh, I guess, their movements on the field and their fancy lines and defense mechanisms weren't going to cut muster here. And so they got stronger armor, they invented the crossbow, and they had to get used to some of the unconventional warfare tactics like screaming and whistling and all these strange noises that the Muslim forces would make just to serve as a distraction. You know. It was it was a total just mess, I'm sure on the battlefield because it wasn't you know, gentlemen fighting. It was mayhem, really, that's true. And given how much they had to overcome, and surprising that the Crusades were able to eventually see Jerusalem and break in with their their their catapults and their ladders, and uh, they were able once they got in there, they ended up pillaging the city in ways that, um, according to our modern sensibilities, is pretty horrible, like they actually burned down a synagogue full of innocent Jews and uh. And you know, it certainly doesn't justify what they were doing, but it was seen as is sort of similar to what other other armies at the time we're doing, and that doesn't excuse it, but um, but people nowadays see it as such like one of the things that gets associated with the Crusades was how vicious they were, and so this is one of the reasons and the stiege of Jerusalem I think is one of the most salient events in all of the Crusades. And the sort of mantra that they had going in the first Crusade and all the other Crusades that followed it was that God wills it, and no matter what happened, you know, no matter how many people died or how bad things got, it was God's will that they were going and fighting. And even when the Crusaders were stricken with disease or were so hungry that they cut open their animal stomachs to drink the blood, I know, really gory. Again, God wills it and when they see to Jerusalem, they were sober raft I mean, they were on death store step. They didn't have anything going for them really, And then um, one of the crusaders had a vision that they were supposed to march barefoot around Jerusalem, surround the city, and then slowly work their way inward. And that's exactly what they did. Like it worked, it did, and like you were saying, I mean, all all heck brokely after that, it was quite a mess. But for all the successes, and again when he said term loosely, for all the successes at the crusade, there were some really awful tragedies to on the crusader's behalf. And yeah, that's true. And if you look at one of the crusades, at least it's loosely defined as a crusade, because the pope certainly didn't um back, it's called the children's Crusade. I was actually taught this in my you know, Catholic school upbringing, and uh, my teacher would tell us of the story where these thousands and thousands of kids were loaded on on ships to cross the Mediterranean and go towards the Holy Land, um to hopefully um through their childish innocence, you know, convert the hearts of the Muslims and and win over the land uh for Christian forces. When actually, um, the children were basically sent to short death and either either shipwreck or sold into slavery. It was just a total disaster and all the kids ended up either dying or you know. Um. So that's actually a legend. But what actually happened is a little bit more fuzzy. Historians are not sure it happened at all, but it dates back to these two different kids who actually didn't know each other. Uh, Stephen in France and Nicholas in Germany. Both of them claimed separately to get visions, divine visions of Christ telling them you need to get control of the Holy Land and uh, and you need to go to the Holy Land and get it for the Christian forces. And Nicholas actually went to the Mediterranean and he believed that it would dry up by the time he got there. Um. Stephen in France went to the King of France saying he had a letter for him, and the King of France was less than impressed. He he was like, oh, go home, like come back when you're older, if you still believe this or whatever um and what happened to these kids, and there were probably thousands of kids that that were gathered up as a as a following for these two different Stephen and Nicholas. What happened to them was probably a tragedy. But it's important to note that, you know, the Church wasn't behind these and so if you call them a crusade, you have to take that with a grain of salt. And also actually historians even questioned whether these were children at all because the word used in in the research was actually poo air, which is Latin word for boy, but if you um look at the use back then, it could have been just a word for like a lower standing man. So we're not even sure about anything that happened. And that's what's so difficult about interpreting the Crusades and recording at for posterity all the events that took place. A lot of the tales that we now were handed down through oral history or or they were accounts that were you know, bias depending on someone's religion or political affiliation. And as we mentioned before, as the Crusades went on, they got more and more political, and one of the major reasons for this was that the land that the crusaders want, they weren't quite sure what to do with that, and the answer seeing pretty obvious. You know, you get back to the Byzantine Empire, that's who the Pope was aligned within the first place, you would think, I guess people felt that they were entitled to it. I mean, they endured that much to win it, and so betrayals behind that as well, like the crusading forces thought that the empire, the Byzantine Empire had trade them in some senses, so that at that point they felt like they were entitled the land themselves, and so lots of mix ups happening. Yeah, so they became crusader states, but they didn't last very long because they didn't have any sort of strong centralized government. So they were eventually overtaken again by the Muslim forces. This happened over and over again, and eventually, like even even the Pope started saying like, if you go and fight the so called crusade, you're going to be excommunicated. And yet people still went on thinking God wills it, God wills it. It's crazy. And if you look at different artists renderings of the crusaders coming home. They're usually old men with long beards to look very bedraggled, their straddling horses that look like they're on their last leg literally, And to me, that's the perfect representation of the end of the Crusades. You know, we can come home and they're like, wait, what were we fighting for? I'm not quite sure what happened. And the fact that the beginning of the Crusades was based on a political decision and you know, somewhat a bit of lies and the first place, makes it really hard to figure out how it impacts history today. It even does, And that's actually the question I was thinking about for you was how does or held deeply the Crusades impact history. That's a tough question. And you know, I think some people might say that all the events of the Crusades have impacted relations between Europe and the Middle East and you know, power struggles between the Church and the state today and and a lot of historians say that that's fiction, that because the Crusades were so twisted politically, and because they took place during such a dark time in Europe that really there's sort of a blip on the radar. And I certainly didn't seem like that at the time. And maybe, you know, when we look back and we look today at people who are demanding, you know, reparations or at least an apology from the church, they seem like quite a big deal. But I think most historians agree that it's just a part of the past. It didn't really influence how things are today. It's crazy right now, it really is. But there's so much more, obviously, to learn about the Crusades. You can read about them on how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, isn't how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.