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- [00:02]
Matt Lewis
From long lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Elena Jarninger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life. Only on History Hit with your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:42]
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- [01:12]
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- [01:37]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Jennica, and welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades, we delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here. The year is 1229. An illustrious column of knights, nobles and bishops snakes across the rugged plains of Jordan toward the city of Jerusalem. Hailing from the kingdoms of the German lands, Italy, and the island stronghold of Sicily, they are far from home and awash with apprehension. Yet they escort a prize of untold significance. In their midst rides a king, emperor and polymath who so remarkable that he is hailed as Immutator Mundi, the Transformer of the World. His name is Holy Roman Emperor Frederick ii And he descends on the Holy City. Having achieved a victory that has eluded every other crusader for the past 50 years, Jerusalem is once again in Christian hands, retaken not through bloodshed, but by treaty. At the city gates, Frederick is met by an emissary of the Ayyubid Sultan Al Kmil, and handed the keys to Jerusalem. The streets are empty. All but the holiest shrines stand deserted. Wind whips around the corners of crumbling buildings as the procession moves onward towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built, it is said, on the site of Christ's crucifixion. Inside, Frederick steps forward to the altar where the royal crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem lies waiting in an act of audacious theater in the holiest place in all of Christendom. The Emperor lifts the crown and places it upon his own head. This is his city now, his realm, and it will bow to his will. But this is no ordinary coronation. There is no swelling acclamation, no resplendent ceremony. No one save the Emperor's own soldiers bear witness to this triumphant occasion. For Frederick is at war not with the Islamic powers of the near east, but with the Christian Church itself. He is an excommunicate, a ruler cast out from the flock, a man who has roused the Pope's fury and worn it as though it meant nothing at all. And yet it is this outcast emperor who has fulfilled the Pope's greatest crusading
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ambition, an irony that exposes the deep
- [05:33]
fractures overwhelming a once united movement. Crusading has become a profoundly unstable venture, an arena for clashing egos and competing authority. In the 13th century, the Crusaders are no longer fighting the enemies they set out to face, and the crusading ideal is eating itself alive. Welcome to gone medieval. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yaniga. Over the next two weeks, we're heading east across the length and breadth of medieval Christendom to tell the tumultuous story of the Crusades. For nearly 200 years, these so called holy wars pitted Christian armies against the Muslim lords of Egypt and Syria for possession of the arid deserts and sacred shrines of the Holy Land. Sanctioned by the papacy and fought by Western knights in perilously hostile and unfamiliar conditions, the Crusades changed the very fabric of the Middle Ages. A medieval epic written in blood. Last week, across our first two episodes, we delved into the turbulent forces and pressures that brought the Crusades into being and chronicled the epic age of Crusading in the 12th century. If you haven't listened yet, do go back and dive in later this week, to conclude our breathtaking series, Matt will bring you to the end game. The final collapse of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem in the wake of a Mongol and Mamluk storm. Today, though, we pick up the story at the start of the 13th century, with a new era of crusading dawning in the wake of the failure of the Third Crusade. Led by King Philip Augustus of France and Richard the Lionheart. The ambitions of the papacy are growing at speed, but control is beginning to slip away. This is an era of crusades that go badly wrong, of armies diverted by ravenous greed, of Christian cities sacked by Christian soldiers, and of bubbling tension between Christendom's most powerful figures will follow the disastrous course of the Fourth Crusade in the sack of Constantinople, the failure of the Fifth Crusade in Egypt, and the extraordinary career of the rebel emperor Frederick ii, an excommunicate who succeeds where others have failed and in doing so, uncovers just how splintered the crusading movement has become. To help us navigate this chaotic and deeply contested period, I'm joined once again by author and crusading historian Dr. Tom Smith, who you'll remember from our first episode. Tom's incredible new book, the Fifth A History of the Epic Campaign to Conquer Egypt, plots a course through the muddy waters of 13th century crusading and will be published this July.
- [08:57]
Tom, welcome back to Gone Medieval.
- [08:59]
Dr. Tom Smith
Thanks for having me back, Eleanor.
- [09:01]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Oh, mate, I wish that I could have you here all the time. But listen, I think that you and I can both agree that the Crusades just keep on happening, right? So at this point in time, with our excursion into them, we have come to the 13th century. So what would you say is the state of play in Europe and the Levant at this point in time?
- [09:28]
Dr. Tom Smith
So I think the stage we're at after 1187 is a completely different and new phase and era for the crusading movement. So after Jerusalem is lost to Saladin in 1187, this completely shifts the footing of the whole crusading movement in the West. So from 1099 to 1187, really, the way that the Latin Christian world had engaged with the crusading movement was one of celebration and support. And they had been thrilled to recover Jerusalem. And this had inflected the theological liturgical understanding of what was going on, and people were praying to God and celebrating the success of the First Crusade. That's all great up until 1187, when Saladin takes the Crusaders out at the Battle of Hattin and and recovers most of the Holy Land, including the city of Jerusalem. This really kickstarts a new phase of the Crusades, where the mode is shifting to one of supplication with God to allow the Crusaders to recover Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land. So we've gone from a 12th century, which has mostly been about supporting the Crusader states, to the 13th century, where it's about trying to regain what they've lost in 1187, including, crucially, the city of Jerusalem. The west at this stage is a bit divided really in terms of how it approaches the crusading movement. What we see during the 13th century is actually phases of crusading activity from different kingdoms, where we tend to see it oscillating between France, Germany and also England as well. And also what we're seeing in the Holy Land is really the aftermath of Saladin's death in 1193. And then the successors of Saladin trying to consolidate his gains in the building the Ayyubid Empire, which now expands from Syria in the north and Palestine down to Egypt in the south. And so what we've got is really the west facing off against the Ayyubid Empire now in the Holy Land. So the stakes have changed completely. They've upped a lot in terms of the Crusaders wanting to try and recover Jerusalem, and. And they're now going to take on the descendants of Saladin and the Ayyubid Empire in trying to achieve that goal.
- [11:37]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Now, for my money, granted, this is a real sort of nerds, nerd thing to say, but for me, this is kind of the most interesting period of crusading because we have a lot of different personalities at play. We are also, I think, learning a lot about what happens when people get quite desperate.
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Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah.
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Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
And I always say that. I think that desperation is a really great way of understanding what makes a society tick. Right. So for me, kind of coming at it from a social standpoint, I think we can really sort of get down into the nitty gritty with people who are crusading right now. Like, what would you say to people who are a little bit less interested in this period? Because, you know, I'm here to tell you that this, this is the good stuff.
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Matt Lewis
Right.
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Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
But will you agree with me on that?
- [12:30]
Dr. Tom Smith
I agree entirely. I think the early 13th century is a fascinating period of crusading activity. It is the most intense period of crusading activity in the history of the whole movement. So after 1187, we've got the third crusade, the German crusade of 1197, the fourth crusade, we've got crusading going on in the Baltic, in the south of France, the Children's Crusade, the Fifth Crusade, the Sixth Crusade. The Teutonic Knights become really big during this period. This is actually about the 50 years. The first half of the 13th century is the most intense period of crusading activity in the whole history of the movement. And we see some of the most dramatic events. We see the siege and capture of Constantinople of a Christian city, the capital of Byzantium. We see the first Crusade to invade Egypt successfully, and the capture of the first major Muslim city, really, since Jerusalem in 1099. And we start to see the consolidation of some of those efforts and a new strategy of crusading. Really, the focus shifts in this period from crusading in Palestine much more towards the Egyptian strategy. And this has been a theory which has been tested in discussion at the courts of Europe for decades. But this is the first time that a general Crusade from the west has invaded Egypt. So it's a really exciting period of history and a really exciting, crucial turning point, really, in the history of the Crusades that has the potential to change the future of the Crusade movement and Christian control of the Holy Land.
- [13:54]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
I mean, I think also we've got
- [13:56]
some big names at this point in time, and in particular, you know, we've got two big names from the era we're going to discuss today. We've got Pope Innocent III and one of my favorite weird little guys ever to live in the medieval period, Emperor Frederick ii. And we'll get to my boy later, but let's start with Pope Innocent. Can you tell us a little bit about who he was and why he's so important?
- [14:22]
Dr. Tom Smith
So Innocent III is born in about 1160 or 11, and when he comes to the Papal throne in 1198, he's very young. So he's seen as being a very vigorous new pope who they have hopes that he's going to have a long pontificate and that actually during his reign, you're going to be able to get some serious stuff done. So he comes to the throne, Papal throne, in 1198. That's 11 years after the fall of the Crusader states. And really, that's one of the key items on his agenda. He is really interested in the crusading movement, and he spends a lot of his political efforts, he devotes them to supporting the Crusade movement. He launches a lot of those Crusades that we just mentioned. And really, he is the one that really pushes this Egyptian strategy for the Fourth Crusade and really changes the nature of the crusading movement.
- [15:15]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
So how did he really expand the idea of crusading? So obviously there is the Egyptian strategy, which you've mentioned, but he also comes up with some other ideas about what a Crusade could be.
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Dr. Tom Smith
No, I think what's really interesting about Innocent III's approach to the Crusade is that he expands the means of participation in the Crusade. So from his pontificate and he's building on the legacies of previous popes, really, you can participate in a Crusade in many different ways, apart from just going to the east and fighting. So in this period, what we're seeing is really the codification of long standing decades of thought, really, about what the crusading movement means. But really this is becoming crystallized under Innocent ii. Now you're seeing a lot more legislation about people donating money towards Crusades. And actually if you pay towards someone else crusading in your stead, a proxy crusader, that you will achieve the indulgence of remission of sins and the proxy crusader as well. There are taxes instituted for the first time very successfully. So we have the tax of a 40th for the Fourth Crusade, so that's 2 1/2% on church income. You then have for the Fifth Crusade the tax of a 20th or 5% on church income. So some of the key institutional aspects of crusading become codified under him. And he's drawing upon previous precedent. He's not the inventor of all of this new legislation, but I think what we see is he brings it all together and really encodes it in the legislation of the church hierarchy. And so really, crusading is now expanding. And it's not just military participation in Crusades, but also then we're seeing more participation opportunities for women and for laymen who stay at home as well.
- [17:03]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
I think that's such an important point because really, I suppose the thing that you can say about Innocent III is he's one of our most lawyerly popes. Right? He is really, really interested in expanding canon law, in establishing what rules are what, and really being more involved, I would say, with every level of the ch. And I just think that his work with the Crusades really typifies that mode of thought, I suppose.
- [17:36]
Dr. Tom Smith
I think it's that, yeah, he's in some ways, I think he's really well placed to launch these Crusades and minister them because he's got that back end knowledge of the legislation. He's been trained in canon law, he spent a lot of time at university, he went to Paris, he's been trained in Bologna. As well. So he's got a really good background in education and training before he becomes Pope. But he's also obviously clearly very charismatic. And I think a lot of the commentators note that he's young and vigorous, and he's described as having this quite stern expression. So his resting face is kind of serious, and I think that's. That's a nicer way of putting it, perhaps. And I think he has both. So he's able to inspire people and is vigorous and is able to get stuff done, but also he has the training as well to back it up. He's not just talking bluster, he also really knows what he's doing.
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Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
And one of the things that he's doing is calling the Fourth Crusade. Right, listen, at this point, we've got over a hundred years of Crusades. At this point. What makes Latin Christians still willing to commit to crusading, would you think?
- [18:43]
Dr. Tom Smith
Well, I think why they still want to get involved is because of several reasons. Firstly, it's because of this shock, the aftermath of the loss of Jerusalem. So the shockwaves from that emanate from 1187 right down through the rest of the 13th century. So I think people still want to respond to that and try and get Jerusalem back. Basically, you've also got these long established traditions of crusading. So what's really interesting is there are a lot of family links. By now, the crusading movement has been going on for over 100 years, and so you've got families that may have two or three generations of previous Crusaders in their families. And I think these families are very proud of those traditions, and they want to continue the Crusaders. The ultimate stage to win renown and prestige in the medieval west is a key component of being a leader, really. You see, even later on in the later Middle Ages, we see rulers, kings, who have to go on crusade really to gain this prestige and to have that element of their background. So they've gone on crusade, and so we see that a lot, these really strong family traditions. And you can trace this most clearly, I think, actually, across these Crusades that we're going to talk about today. So from the Fourth Crusade to the Sixth Crusade, you've got these really strong family ties. And some of these people are also descendants of people who've died on previous crusades. And I think there is a strong urge to go out, to walk in their footsteps as well, and maybe to avenge their deaths and certainly to contribute to this ongoing crusading movement. The other reason is that the offer is still as attractive as ever. So the Papacy is still offering this indulgence of remission of sins. That means that your sins are wiped out and you're getting to heaven. And the Papacy is refining the phrasing of this and trying to make it even more attractive. So the offer is still incredibly appealing. And by now you've also got this long established legacy of crusading and history of it to which new participants can contribute.
- [20:39]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
So what's the original target of the Fourth Crusade and what happened here? How did this all go so incredibly wrong?
- [20:50]
Dr. Tom Smith
I think the best way to think about the Fourth Crusade is it's like the world's worst stag do, where everything goes completely wrong. That's basically. That's to understand the Fourth Crusade. We don't need to talk about it anymore. It's just the world's worst ever stag do.
- [21:04]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
The end.
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Moving on.
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Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah, that's right, the end. Basically the question here is, who's going to pay for the activities and the transport and where are we going to go to? Those are the big questions, the big questions that underpin any stag do. And this one goes spectacularly wrong because they get all of these things wrong and no one's happy with it. And that leads to the capture and sack of the greatest Christian city in the world, Constantinople. The original target is Alexandria, which is the most important port city on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt. And it's very important because it's very wealthy and it's also very weakly defended. It's been targeted before in raids and Sicilian fleets have managed to get into their harbor and attack it, but never been able to take it. But they've just raided it and they found out that actually this is quite a weakly defended city. And so they want to attack Alexandria. That's the big aim. And if we zoom out, the reason why they're attacking Egypt is because it's about the long term longevity of the kingdom of Jerusalem and the rest of the Crusader states. Outremer Egypt is seen as the breadbasket of the Middle East. It's incredibly wealthy. The Nile Delta makes this land very fertile and makes it very wealthy. As a result, it produces a huge amount of grain and it means that it's able to support the biggest military machine in the Near East. So the Egyptian army and navy are the best funded in the region. They may not be the best performing, but they are certainly the best funded, the largest. And that's because of the wealth of the country. And so the Crusaders realized that actually if we want to hold on to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Then what we need to do is we need to knock out Egypt first. We need to cut the head off the snake so that actually we don't have that threat on our southern borders. And if we then control Egypt, then that's going to be a complete game changer. Because the big problem that the Crusaders have always faced is one of manpower. They are simply unsustainable polities in this near eastern region. They are alien implants and they rely on these sea lanes from the west. And the problem is that over the 12th century, especially towards the latter half of the 12th century, that age was not always forthcoming. So it meant that they really struggled to field armies large enough to face up to the new threat of jihad under Zengi Nuradin and then Saladin during the latter half of the 12th century. So the idea is take Egypt, get the wealth, get a big army, and actually we'll be able to fight off the Ayyubids, then take Jerusalem and hold it long term. The other thing is about the wider strategic situation. So now the Ayyubid empire runs from Syria in the north through Palestine, down to Egypt in the south. It's incredibly strong, and Egypt is the source of that wealth and strength. So if they take out Egypt, then they can also nullify, neutralize and perhaps topple the Ivan Empire and just take it out completely.
- [23:58]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
So how does this go so wrong? I suppose if we go back to the stag do analogy, would it be fair to say that the Venetians are like the best man who has paid out for everything to happen, and that he is then expecting some kind of payment in return? Can we call the Venetians the best man?
- [24:23]
Dr. Tom Smith
That's my question, basically. I think, yeah, they're the angry best man, where everyone's turned off and is not willing to pay, so they make a deal. Basically, this is based on a treaty that the French make with the venetians in spring 1201. So the main recruitment for the Fourth Crusade happens at a tournament at Ecri in France. And the main leader who takes the cross there is Thibaut iii, the Count of Champagne, and also Baldwin, the Count of Flanders, with other great magnates. They take the cross and they're very enthusiastic, and they immediately send envoys down to Venice to negotiate shipping across. So this is the transport for the stag do, so to speak. How are they going to get to where they're going? One of the envoys is also one of the key chroniclers of the Crusade, Geoffrey of Villardouin. So we have a really interesting, we've got a number of interesting sources for the Fourth Crusade. And this one's particularly interesting because it's written by someone who's in a high rank of the leadership council and actually transacts this deal and seals the deal. That is going to be so problematic. So the French decide that they're going to sail to Egypt. Of course, you can't really march to Egypt, so they're going to go by ship. And what they need is a lot of ships because they're expecting a really big army. So they send these envoys to Venice and they cut a deal for transport for four and a half thousand knights plus horses, plus 9,000 squires, 20,000 infantry, and that's going to take them to Egypt in April 1202. So about a year later, and they agree to pay 85,000 silver marks for this. Now this is an incredible amount of money. It's a fair amount of money for what actually they're asking for, which is basically for Venice to pretty much cease trading for an entire year, pour all of their resources into building this fleet and get ready. And they're also building specialist ships. So they're aiming to invade Egypt, invade the Nile Delta, take out Alexandria. You need specialist ships. So they're building these siege ships, which are really ingenious. So you've got these landing craft, flat bottomed landing craft that are basically like the ones that are used on d Day in 1944 with the invasion of Europe during World War II. So if you imagine saving Private Ryan and these flat bottoms landing craft where the ramp drops down at the front, they have those, and they've built those designed to take fully armored mounted knights on their horses, transport them to a landing zone and then they row them in basically to the shore, drop the ramps, the knights splash out into the surf and then they can attack this incredibly well designed piece of equipment. They've also got siege ships which you can fasten together basically into rows like a battery. And then on them they've got loads of catapults, so petroes and mangonels that they can use the artillery basically of amphibious siege warfare. And so they could array them along sea walls of a city and then they can fire stones and other ammunition into the city. So they've built this very specialist set of equipment that you can only use for attacking a coastal city. And this has cost them a huge amount of time, effort and resources. And they've pretty much pause trading for this. So they cut this deal and this is really the source of all of the problems later on and explaining what happens later, because by the time the Crusaders actually go and assemble in Venice, firstly, they're late, so that's a problem. But secondly, not enough people turn up and that's a big problem. They've massively overestimated the size of the army. They've been expecting well over 30,000 soldiers in total. That is an enormous army size for this period. We're probably looking at a normal army size of crusading forces of somewhere around 15,000, so they're expecting double that. This has been an incredibly ambitious goal for them. And it soon becomes clear, as they start to assemble in Venice later on in 1202, that actually they haven't got enough people. And this is a serious problem, because they've predicated this deal, being able to pay the 85,000 silver marks, which is a king's ransom, on the fact that there are going to be over 30,000 soldiers there and they'll all be able to contribute. And that's the problem. It's like on any stag dude, who's going to pay for these activities and the transport, it always ends up being one or two people who pay for the taxis and everyone else just looks around and looks out the window and doesn't contribute to anything. And that's the situation they're in. Sorry, am I drawing this out too long, this analogy? But I really think it explains the entire Fourth Crusade.
- [28:53]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
I refuse to drop this analogy. Right, good.
- [28:57]
Dr. Tom Smith
Thank you.
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Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Okay, so then how does this end up becoming a problem for Constantinople?
- [29:05]
Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah, so basically the problem is this money, because of the shortfall, so they have a whip around, as you do, and they actually find out they're still over 30,000 marks short. So there's a big shortfall there. So nearly half the funds are missing. And this is the problem. The Venetians want recompense for what they've done, and that's fair enough, to be honest. They've invested all this time and money, they should recoup those losses. So the doge of Venice is a guy called Enrico Dandolo, and he's a really interesting character. He's a very sage leader. He's got lots of experience because he's in his 90s and he's partially blind. And he realizes that what we want to do is actually maybe we can cut a deal which benefits us, and then we can go on to the cruise here. Once you've paid your debt will sort out something for us, and then we can all go on The Crusade. And so he makes the case to the Crusaders, you can't pay. We need this money. So before we go to Egypt, what we'll do is we're going to take out this city of Zara, which used to belong to us, but has been taken by the Hungarians. And so if we go and we recapture the city, then that'll pay off the debt and then we can go on to. Not to Constantine. Well, that is not. Well, some people would say that was his plan already. Then we can go on to Egypt. It depends whether you believe in the conspiracy theories or not. So the Crusaders are really quite uncertain about this because they've been forbidden from attacking Christian cities. I mean, that's pretty much understood. Yeah. And also, actually, it's complicated by the fact that the King of Hungary, Emmerich, is actually also a crusader. So he's signed with the cross and he actually has the protection of the papacy. So they definitely, definitely should not target his city. But they agree with heavy hearts and say, well, we can't see any other way out of this. We're kind of trapped here and we want the Crusade to happen. A lot of effort's gone into this. So we'll attack Sara. The plunder from that will pay off our debt, and then we can all sail on to Egypt and the Crusade can still happen. Guys, it's okay. The main activity is still going to happen. So that's what they agree to. And they besiege Zara. It falls very quickly in November 1202. They sack it, but actually it starts to split the army now as well. And some people are unhappy with this. So Simon de Montfort is one of the Crusaders very famous Crusade leader, and he's really unhappy. And he withdraws from the Crusade at this time and realizes that this isn't going the way that they wanted it to. They're not going to the Holy Land, they're not even going to Egypt. And so he sails on basically to the Holy Land. It's when they're at Zara that actually really the course for the rest of the Crusaders set. So they're still expecting to go to Egypt at this stage, but actually the plunder they've taken at Zara isn't enough to cover their expenses. And it's at this moment when an exiled Byzantine prince called Alexios Angelos turns up and he's been touting himself around the courts of Europe. And he arrives and says, I want to be put on the throne of Constantinople. My father has been illegally deposed. So his father is called Isaac and he says if you can put us back on the throne, restore us to the throne, then I will give you incredible riches. And the offer that he's making is really quite incredible. So he offers them 200,000 silver marks, which is a quite unbelievable sum of money. Nothing like this has ever been offered to anyone probably in the whole history of the world. This is incredible. He's going to offer them a standing army of 500 knights in Palestine, he's going to send 10,000 Greek reinforcements on the crusade in Egypt and he's going to submit the Greek Church to the papacy. So this is quite unbelievable offer, but this also has the potential to completely rescue the Crusades and also really help the Holy Land as well. And they're going to be able to pay off these huge debts to the Venetians and this at the moment as well. I think it's worth remembering he's not suggesting that they besiege Constantinople and attack this Christian city. At the moment this is looking like regime change change. This is taking an exiled prince and his father who's currently in prison, restoring them to power, the rightful rulers of Byzantium, as the proponents of this plan would say, and then they can get loads of money and then they can go on to Egypt. So this seems to be a win, win, win for everybody and solves the big problem that they have.
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Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Well, I mean it would do, wouldn't it? And granted, I think that also from the point of view of Latin Christendom, you're also kind of winning over some other Christians to the cause. But then, dun, dun, dun, I mean like spoiler alert, that's not really what goes down, is it?
- [33:47]
Dr. Tom Smith
So they get to Constantinople and they try and restore Alexios Angelos and his father to power. And they are successful in doing that. They begin an assault on Constantinople in July 1203. They're some skirmish blemishing. The usurper Alexios III, if you see him as a usurper, he flees in the night of 17th of July. And then Alexios Angelos's father, Isaac Angelos, who's been blinded after he was deposed, they're restored to power. So they become co emperors and they're crowned on the 1st of August 1203. So this looks really good. So far they've actually managed to affect regime change very easily, very quickly and with very little loss of life. So this is, at the moment, this is not an attack on Constantinople really. This is just putting someone back on the throne who should have been there in the first place. But You've got some problems emerging now. So lots of the French Crusaders have been really unhappy with the way the Crusade has been going. They're worried that the Venetians have really hijacked the direction of the Crusade and this is not what they signed up for at all. They did not sign up to attack a Christian city in Zara, they did not sign up to effect regime change in the Latin East. This appears to be a very political, money grabbing Crusade, which is not what they signed up for. So a lot of them have gone. We've probably only got about 500 to 700 French knights still with the army, plus double as many squires and a lot more infantry. So we're looking about at about a third of the force originally assembled at Venice. From the French side at least, they have gone. So it's dominated at this stage by the Venetians. Innocent III is really unhappy at what they're doing and reproves them and says they should go on to Egypt right now. But the problem is that the Crusaders are stuck. So they're wintering at Constantinople, they can't travel during the winter, but also they haven't got enough food and provisions. They're also awaiting their payments from Alexios Angelos. So he has to make good on his promises. He's promised them the earth and now he has to pay pay. And he does duly start paying over these funds and this is all good at the start, but eventually these start to dry up and then they stop entirely. And there's a number of reasons for this. One is that firstly, 200,000 silver marks is an unbelievable sum that actually Byzantium, there's no way they can pay for this. They've got enough problems as it is. Actually, Byzantium is quite dysfunctional in this period, which is really one of the main reasons why it falls prey to the Crusaders and they're able to take it and attack it. But Alexios stops paying also because of riots and factionalism within the city. People are really unhappy about what's going on. They're really not thrilled that he's taken the throne again. And there's a lot of anti Western feeling as well. So these payments just stop completely. So the Crusaders are really stuck and they're in a position they can't really get out of. They can't proceed to Egypt, they haven't got enough food or money to do that and they can't retreat either. So they're put in this impossible position. They issue an ultimatum to the Byzantines in November 1203 and they say, either you pay up or we're going to attack you. In January 1204, there is a coup against Alexios. So another coup. This is a very turbulent political world that the Byzantines live in. And Alexios and his father Isaac are deposed by another Alexios, Alexios void called Metropholus. Yeah, there's a lot of Alexioses in this.
- [37:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Too many Alexioses.
- [37:18]
Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah, I know, that's right. You really got to pay attention to how many Alexioses there are here. But actually one of them dies now, so that's one fewer. So Alexios IV is executed and his father dies in prison, probably of natural causes. So we're just dealing with Alexios V and he has come to power on this anti Western platform. That's the whole reason people have put him in power, is because he's going to be stand up to these horrible Westerners who are anchored outside of the walls of Jerusalem. Now there's really nothing that Crusaders can do. They can't go anywhere. And the regime changed their effect. They don't have a friendly regime anymore to deal with. They've only got enemies. So they've been forced into a corner. There is nothing they can do but attack Constantinople. That is the only option they have available to them. But still they feel uncertain about this. Some of the soldiers. So on the eve of the assault, the Latin clergy develop some elaborate justifications and preach to the Crusaders about why actually this is a legitimate task to attack Constantinople and they're fighting on behalf of the deposed rightful ruler of Byzantium, which is kind of a twisted logic, but it sort of makes sense and it papers over the cracks here. The leaders also seal a pact about what they're going to do with the city should they take it. So Enrico Dandolo, Boniface of Montferrat and Baldwin of Flanders, the main leaders at this stage, they decide that the Venetians will get three quarters of the plunder up to the amount that they were due from the French. And then after that they're going to divide it equally. Venice is going to retain all its trading privileges and they're also laying the foundation stones for putting in a Latin Emperor of Constantinople. So they decide they're going to have 12 electors, six from the French side and six from the Venetian side, and they will pick the next emperor of Constantinople. They've got a pretty strong force at this stage, the Crusaders, mostly because of the Venetians, So they're about 30,000 strong. And this is mostly made up of the Venetian forces which really make up the bulk of this, probably up to about 27,000, a lot of marines, sailors and Venetian soldiers with them. On the 9th of April, 1204, they begin to assault the city of Constantinople. This is the greatest city in the world at this stage. The Theodosian walls are enormous that encircle the city. It has been besieged 26 times in the Middle Ages alone, and up until this point, it has never been captured by an army, at least during the Middle Ages. So the endeavor they have before them is of the greatest magnitude. Now, this is a force that's equipped to conduct amphibious siege warfare. And so they start with the harbor wall. This makes a lot of sense because actually this is the weak point of the defenses of Constantinople. The land walls are so huge, there's no way they're going to break in there. And actually they're perfectly equipped for this task. So on the 9th of April, they begin the assault and for several days they attack the city and they break through incredibly quickly. On 12 April, just three days later, the first soldiers make it over the walls of Constantinople. This is quite unbelievable. It's incredible that in three days they managed to get soldiers inside the greatest city in the world. When they get inside, they slay the defenders on the walls. They managed to get themselves a toehold in the city and they set fire to the houses in the city to create a fire break and also to redefend themselves from the Byzantines. They sleep with their weapons overnight and then when they wake up in the morning, and we've got to imagine that this great city in flames here, smoke clogging the lungs of the Crusaders. And the inhabitants of the city, they find out that Alexios v Mercephalus has fled during the night. And so the defense of Constantinople crumbles. The Crusaders got basically a free hand now to do whatever they want. And of course they begin to sack the city. This is the richest city in the Christian world. It is full of gold and silver and jewels, but it's also full of relics. This is absolutely packed full of the greatest Christian relics that they can imagine. So they begin slaughtering the population, they burn more houses and they loot the city en masse for three days. So this is a really terrible outcome for the Byzantines and for the Crusaders. They can't quite believe deadlock.
- [41:58]
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- [42:28]
Dr. Kate Lister
As the saying goes, if these walls could talk. And on the Betwixt the Sheets podcast, we make it our best business to discover what happened behind closed doors and even more importantly, in the bedrooms of people all throughout history. Kings, queens, mistresses, servants, and everyone in between. We also get up close and personal with medieval aphrodisiacs, lethal Victorian makeup routines, and look at the scandalous lives of beloved children's authors. Nothing is off limits. In other words, it's the best bits of history. With me, Dr. Kate Lister, listen to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society twice a week, every week, wherever it is that you get your podcasts brought to you by the award winning network History hit.
- [43:31]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Well, how does the rest of Europe feel about this?
- [43:35]
Because I think that it's fair to argue we are severely off piste at this juncture.
- [43:44]
Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah, this doesn't really play well with European audiences. I think they're, they're probably a bit surprised. We thought you were in Egypt. What are you doing here? The Pope's really not terribly happy with this, but I think everyone's been forced into a corner and actually they do see some advantages here as well. So I think there is shock and it does serve to undermine the Crusade movement, I think in the sense that actually the ideology of the Crusades is not that you attack Christian neighbors, but on the other hand, Byzantium has been a thorn in the side of the Crusader states for a century. Actually. It's always been seen as duplicitous and deceitful and apart from during the First Crusade, has not really assisted the Crusader states very much. Sometimes it has, but their relationship's been quite rocky. And so I think actually purely in pragmatic terms, they see this as an opportunity to install a very, very friendly regime, a Latin regime in Constantinople to try and take over the wealth of Byzantium, this huge empire, and then use that to bolster the Crusader states and then to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land. So actually, purely pragmatically, this is looking like a complete game changer, actually. This is this new era of crusading where they're targeting Egypt, where they've just captured Constantinople and they're going to try and take over the entire empire. Actually, this looks like they're going to bring about all of their goals. And actually the main goal in the background is apocalypse and apocalyptic expectations. And they believe in these prophecies that by retaking Jerusalem, actually they're going to be able to bring about the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. So this all seems to be building towards that.
- [45:25]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Well, I'll tell you what, it's the end of a perfectly good crusade. That's certainly true. Right, you know, we wrap up and look, we've got Venetians in Constantinople. There you go. That's your fourth Crusade. Congratulations, everybody. And then this leads us into the Fifth Crusade. Why does this one get called so?
- [45:48]
Dr. Tom Smith
This one is one of my favorite ones. It's the first Crusade that actually invades Egypt. And it's really born out of the ashes of the fourth, because the strategy was never tested. They never actually made it to Egypt. So they still hold to this idea that if we can take out Egypt, we can take out the Holy Land. And now they've got this huge Latin empire of Constantinople as well behind them. So things are starting to look really good. The, the, the board is really changing right now. So they want to attack Egypt and that's what they do. Innocent the third launches another crusade. He has a crusade call in 1213. Recruitment is very strong for this, and they decide to set out for the holy land in 1217. And then they move on to Egypt. So this is another successful crusade that has got boots on the ground in the Holy Land. The first phases of it take place in around Palestine. So they start raiding first and gathering supplies. And then they decide to turn to Egypt to the invasion of a different Egyptian city. This time the great port city of Damietta. And what's really interesting about this is that Damietta has previously not been recognized as being of great importance, at least to modern onlookers. But in the Middle Ages, Damietta was one of the greatest trading cities in the Mediterranean basin at this time. So it's really up there with Alexandria. And I think modern observers and historians haven't really realized how important it was because the city now is not. Basically, the medieval city doesn't exist anymore, and the modern city is not because of the way the Niles shifted and the silting of the Delta is not as important as it once was. So they invade Egypt properly for the first time, and they're incredibly successful. They get ships off the coast of Egypt in May 1218. And you've got this incredible beach landing scene, like D Day with those landing craft that we talked about, the flat bottomed landing craft. They storm the beach, they drop the ramps, the knights march out onto the beach and they start setting up opposite the city of Damietta. And Damietta is really the key to the rest of Egypt. So their ultimate goal is to conquer Cairo, to knock out the Ayyubid headquarters there, and then take control of all of Egypt. But first they need a port city. This is what they've done before, during the 12th century, when they captured the Crusader states, the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the 12th century, what they did is they had the coastal strategy, so they turned to taking out these port cities because they need these lifelines back to the west for reinforcements, for money, material, all those kind of things. So it makes a lot of sense. You can't just march to Cairo. There's no point having Cairo if you can't supply. You need a base on the coast. They need Damietta. They can't afford to bypass this. And that's why they besieged Damietta. Damietta is an incredibly big city and is very important. It's got a triple ring of walls, almost like a wedding cake. If you think of a three tiered wedding cake, where the next tier is higher than the last, that's what those walls are like. They've also got a chain tower across the River Nile. So they've got a stone tower in the middle of the River Nile. The waters are rushing by it, full of crocodiles and things like that. And they've got a big chain that runs across the Nile and they use this to control access to the river. So if they want to stop ships passing, they pull up the chain tight and you can't get a ship through. This is a huge chain that no ship can get through this. So the Crusaders want to take out Damietta first, but first they have to take out this chain tower. And when they're besieging this chain tower, they come up with some really interesting characters that come out here. So one of my favorites is a guy called Oliver of Cologne. So he's a schoolmaster from a cathedral school in Cologne and he, I don't know why he decides to get rid of all of his books and leave his students behind and go on the Crusade. I don't know why he does that. And he goes on the Crusade and he actually invents this incredible floating siege weapon that they use to try and Take the chain tower. So the first time they try and take the chain tower, what they do is they hit it with trebuchets and. But this is of incredibly stout construction and really is very difficult to take. You've got 300 hardened Egyptian warriors manning this. They've got a lot of food in there, and they can be resupplied across a pontoon bridge across the Nile. So they're not going anywhere. And these trebuchets really don't do anything. So Oliver is thinking, what can we do? And he invents this siege engine, which is made of two ships lashed together. And then they build a fort on top, like a fortress, with a rotating turret and then a big ladder on the front that they can drop down. It's a very strange contraption. And basically they use this to try and take out the chain tower. And it works. They manage to get it up to the chain tower. And this is the raging waters of the Nile flooding around it. The sailors and the marines on board are wrenching these ropes and rudders and trying to get it into place. The timbers are creaking. And the soldiers on top are trying to get this ladder to drop it onto the top of the chain tower. The Egyptians are defending really vigorously. They're dropping stones on crusaders. They're shooting arrows and javelins. They're making a lot of use of Greek fire. So this is like medieval napalm, which they're delivering in ceramic hand grenades, or they're even depictions from this period and earlier of essentially kind of ancient flamethrowers that they can use to pump the stuff out. And they're using this to attack the crusaders. So the crusaders, to counter this, they carry. You need, like, really acidic liquids to put this out. So when this medieval napalm hits your ship and starts burning through it, there's not really anything you can do unless you've got something very acidic. And the only two things that are acidic enough are vinegar and urine. So they've got these two great vat. Well, they've got great vats of vinegar and urine on board that are slopping around on deck and must absolutely stink. And every time it catches fire, some poor soul has to go and, like, pour this stuff on it to put the flames out. And then on the. On the siege, there's a lot going on. Like, it's quite the romance of crusading,
- [51:48]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
you know, what can I say?
- [51:50]
Dr. Tom Smith
That's right. Exactly. You've got a. I think one of my favorite people from the Crusade, there's a guy on there called Heyo of Vivelgo. And he's a Frisian and he is carrying a really interesting weapon, which is basically a medieval nunchuck. So he's armed with an agricultural flag flail, which is two sticks together, if you imagine like a Bruce Lee film, with a nunchuck. That's basically what he's wielding. But he's modified it to make it even more deadly. So he's woven iron chains through it as well to make it even more deadly. And he's one of these first soldiers on this ladder trying to make it onto the chain tower. And we have an eyewitness depiction of what happens. And he manages to make it over. He's the second one over the tower and he swings his nunchuck and takes out the Sultan, standard bearer. And with this, using this non truck, basically, with this flail, and they managed to capture the tower. And so they moved a step closer to taking Damietta. The big thing then they need to do is get across the Nile. So they are stuck on the wrong side of the Nile. Sultan Al Kamil turns up to oppose them. And he's an incredibly effective commander. He's very wily and he's really a match for the Crusaders. And so he turns up with his horse to defend the city. The Crusaders managed to make it across the river and they managed to get in place in front of the city of Damietta. And then they start the very slow process of actually reducing the city itself. And this is a very complex task. They use their trebuchets to smash its towers, but they've got so many gates and towers. There are 26 fortified gates around the city. Leopold of Austria's trebuchet does a good job of like smashing them onto pieces, basically, but they just can't get in. They really struggle because they're fighting Al Kamil's army the whole time. And there's really bloody warfare that is going on outside the walls of Damietta as Al Kamil tries to dislodge them. And they're in a really dangerous position. But eventually they crack the city, not through any glamorous means, but through the slow weapon of starvation. This is one of the longest sieges in the history of the Crusades, which I think a lot of people don't realize. The siege goes on for 18 months. Months, which really puts it up there. It's in the top five of longest Crusade sieges of all time. And what they realize on the night of the 5th of November 1219 is that the City is ripe for the taking. So the Papal Legate called Pelagius, he sends a crack troop of soldiers. It's almost like a special forces unit. And during the night he sends them with some ladders and weapons and they make their way sneakily over the defenses around the city. They managed to get over one of the walls and they look inside and they realize that actually inside the city is nothing but death. The Crusaders have slowly starved this into submission. There are bodies lying in the street. It's pretty much almost apocalyptic what they see really when they enter the city, they burn down the gates and they realize they have actually managed to capture Damietta so that it doesn't fall by the sword, but instead through an effective blockade. And the capture of Damietta is something which is of crucial importance in the whole history of the crusading movement. This opens up an entire new front, an entire new Crusader state basically is what they're trying to build in Egypt. And this makes it actually very viable then to march south and start to threaten Cairo itself.
- [55:26]
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- [55:56]
Dr. Kate Lister
As the saying goes, if these walls could talk. And on the Betwixt the Sheets podcast, we make it our business to discover what happened behind closed doors and even more importantly, in the bedrooms of people all throughout history. Kings, queens, mistresses, servants, and everyone in between. We also get up close and personal with medieval aphrodisiacs, lethal Victorian makeup routines, and look at the scandalous lives of beloved children's authors. Nothing is off limits. In other words, it's the best bits of history with me, Dr. King Lister. Listen to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society. Twice a week, every week, wherever it is that you get your podcasts brought to you by the award winning network history hit.
- [57:02]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Well, yeah, because that's like step two, right? Step one, take Damayetta. Step two, take Cairo. I, I hasten to add, not Jerusalem, you know, Cairo. We're, we're, we're going for, we're going for the whole enchilada. We're taking Egypt.
- [57:16]
Dr. Tom Smith
Right.
- [57:17]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
But that's not exactly what happens, is it? Because instead we get the Battle of Mansoura in 1221. Can you tell us a little about that?
- [57:28]
Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah. So, basically, there's a period of inactivity where they're waiting for Frederick II to arrive. So Frederick II took the cross in 1215, like a long time ago. Maybe he's forgotten. No one really knows what he's doing in the West. He's waiting, basically, to be crowned emperor by Pope Honorius III, who has succeeded Innocent III, who died in 1216. So they're waiting for Frederick and they can't actually really decide what to do. This papal legate Pelagius, is pushing for action and he wants them to march south up the River Nile, down south towards Cairo to threaten them, because actually, he wants to keep the army together. And he's also working to this apocalyptic timetable. And we cannot understand the outcome of the Fifth Crusade if we do not understand they are working to an apocalyptic timetable. They think that Christian emperor is coming from the east, and this is someone they've mixed up with the Mongols and Genghis Khan and Prester John. And then they think a Western emperor is coming from Europe who is obviously Frederick II. And it's foretold that they're going to meet in 1222 in Jerusalem. So they have to take Cairo now to be able to retake Jerusalem so that the prophecies can come to bear. And that explains why they march out when they do, because they march out at the worst time possible. The Nile is just about to flood, and the Nile has played a key role in the whole history of this Crusade, and it's about to determine its outcome in a really shocking way. So they march down south towards Cairo. They're actually making really quite good progress. They're using a technique that Richard the Lionheart had used during the Third Crusade, where they have ships on the river, then they have their cavalry and infantry on the. On the banks, and they're protected, protecting each other, and they're marching slowly south, supplied by the ships and defended by the ships. And this is working really well. They. They're actually looking like they're going to beat Al Kamila. He's never bested them on the battlefield. They've always actually come out on top and they've taken Damietta, so it's looking like they're going to take Cairo as well. And it's quite a long way to Cairo, but they managed to make it a long way down towards the city and also on the news that they're marching on it actually panic breaks out and people start evacuating the city. So it really is theirs for the taking. And I think previous scholars have underestimated here the potential of the Fifth Crusade, and that actually it ends up being a failure. Spoiler alert. But actually it comes very close to completely reshaping the crusading movement for the rest of the 13th century. And I think if the Crusaders had managed to take Egypt, actually the whole history of the Crusades could have looked very different. So they make it down, they're making it towards Cairo. They make a fatal error. There is a small stream that runs across their path and they cross this onto what's effectively a huge island of land. And it's surrounded by, on all sides by water. So down one side you've got the Damietta branch of the River Nile, on the other side you've got the Tinis branch of the River Nile, and at the back you've got this smaller stream that they've neglected to see the strategic importance of. So essentially we imagine them on a downward facing triangle, basically surrounded by water on all sides. They get to the tip of this triangle emansura, and they are then pounded by the trebuchets of Al Kamil from the other side. And he makes it very difficult for them. They say that no Crusader and no animal can actually leave their camp to go out for water because they get crushed by these trebuchet stones. And so they're a bit stuck there, basically, and they're trying to work out what to do. The big problem is Al Kamil manages to outflank them. So he sends forces down that stream they crossed behind them. They end up being surrounded. So he sinks ships in the Damietta branch of the Nile. They can't make it back to Damietta. They're surrounded on all sides and they discuss what to do. Basically, they're in this impossible position. Are they going to try and fight their way out? Are they going to try and surrender? Are they going to wait there? Simply, some of them think that Frederick II is about to arrive at any moment, and they say we should just wait for him to turn up. We've got some food, supplies, we'll be okay. In the end, they decide their position is impossible and they decide to try and fight their way out and retreat to Damietta to break through this blockade. And this is where alcohol comes into play. So the real failure of the Crusade is determined by the waters of the Nile and also French wine, basically. So what happens is, I don't know if it's from France. Basically, it probably is. You know, I'm sure they only have the best stuff there. Basically what happens is they decide to withdraw. And the day before, the Crusaders realize they can't take all the wine stores with them, and they've got a huge amount of wine. And they say, this is almost like another. It's like the second stag do, isn't it? It's like the Fourth Crusade. This is the. This is the new one. And they say, come on, lads, it'd be a shame to waste all this wine. Let's drink it up during the day so we don't leave it to the Sultan's army. So they spend most of the day, a lot of the army, just drinking themselves silly, waiting for their covert operation during the night. What could go wrong? So a lot of the Crusaders are completely plastered by this stage. And then they decide to do their covert night retreat. And some of the Crusaders, and it's probably the ones who, having having too many wines during the day, he decided to set fire to their tents because they didn't want to leave them behind for the Sultan. And of course, the Sultan's watching to see what happens. And when they see flames coming up from the tents, they know that they're withdrawing and they're trying to get out. And so the Sultan falls on them and they send their troops in to take them out. And half of the Crusade army is completely k lied, like most of them are there. The eyewitness chronicles say there are people past passed out in the street. There are people lying in ditches. There are some people in their tents that are completely out of it and can't be stirred, so they just leave them behind. And so those ones are just killed, obviously fall easy prey to the Sultan's troops. The rest, they try and get on the ships and make it back to Damietta. It's absolute chaos. And during this time, Al Khamel as well, plays this masterstroke of tactics. And he opens the sluice gates which irrigate these fields around the Nile, so the Nile is already flooding anyway. And then he opens these sluice gates and completely floods the Crusaders out. So they're in really high water and they're trying to escape. It is absolute chaos. You've got burning tents. It's during the night, people are being washed away into the river and drowning. All the drunkards are left behind to meet their fate. You've got people. It says that people go out just Sort of wander out into the fields and get lost and never return. And they get forced basically into negotiating the surrender of the Crusade. And this is the point which is really controversial. So they could here have sacrificed themselves and kept Damietta. They could have taken their punishment like good crusaders and gone down with their ships, so to speak. But actually what they do is they negotiate for their lives and they negotiate to return the city of Damietta. And during the whole period they've held it, they've actually refortified it and made it virtually impenetrable. So they do give back Damietta, but the people in Damietta are very angry about this. And they try and look and see can we actually defend the city? And they realise they can't. But when the Muslims enter Damietta, some of the chroniclers look around and they say, we're so thankful that we took this city by treaty because the Crusaders had fortified it so much. There's no way we could have taken this during a siege. And that's the end of the Fifth Crusade. So it had such potential. They've opened up this new Crusade in front. They've begun to, begun to found this new Crusader state. They've taken the first major Muslim city since the First Crusade. This was on the verge of being the most successful crusade since the First Crusade. And then they squander it all at the end. And it's because of poor decision making, but also because of this apocalyptic timetable.
- [65:01]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Well, listen, or is being French a two edged sword? You know, on the one hand you're really good at fortifying cities, but then on the other you just hate to see wine go to waste.
- [65:12]
Dr. Tom Smith
You know, they're connoisseurs, basically.
- [65:15]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Yeah, what can he, what can I
- [65:17]
Dr. Tom Smith
say, you know, I can't blame them.
- [65:20]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Okay, so that brings us to then, the Sixth Crusade. And here comes one of my best friends and yours. It's our boy, it's the Emperor Frederick ii. Can you tell us a little bit about why every medieval historian is obsessed with this man?
- [65:37]
Dr. Tom Smith
So he's called the Stupor Mundi, or the Wonder of the world by contemporary chroniclers. He's, he's just got it going on. He's incredible. He sort of dabbles in everything's amazing. And he's renowned for sort of hunting with hawks. He's brought up in this very multicultural society, Sicily's incredibly amazing cultural melting pot. He's exposed to all these different cultures and languages. He's got a stride which spans continents. He's spanning the Mediterranean he's got a grasp that is really reaching out. He's thinking about dominating the political sphere, not just in Europe, but also in the near east as well. And he's completely ruthless as well. Like, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. So he's a quite incredible figure. He's the most powerful secular leader in the west, but he's even bigger than that. Like, this is on a sort of international stage. He is a major player.
- [66:27]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
I love him and I like not only his interests, but his taste. You know, this is a man who simply likes to hang out having elaborate baths in Sicily, and he's controlling one of the largest Holy Roman empires that we will see until the Habsburgs come about in the early modern period. So, I mean, you got to wonder why our homeboy is going on Crusade. Right. And, you know, this is one of those things, because he's not really the type, is he? You know, a very interesting guy. A really clever guy, particularly personally religious. I would say no. I would argue no. So my opinion on this is that he takes the cross because he's trying to get crowned Holy Roman Emperor, right? Because we've got this big lag where he is the King of the Romans. That's step one. Right. And the coronation as Holy Roman Emperor just doesn't seem forthcoming. So to me, it seems like this is a bargaining chip. Would you agree with that?
- [67:37]
Dr. Tom Smith
Oh, totally. I mean, he's not going to go on Crusade until he gets what he wants and he makes all the right noises and he sends reinforcements. But until he gets the imperial crown in November 1220, he's not going to budge at all.
- [67:51]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
And I mean, like, why would he? He's got Hawking to do.
- [67:54]
Dr. Tom Smith
Yes, quite.
- [67:54]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
He's got baths to take. You know, presumably he's just eating a lot of pistachios and he's incredibly busy. Right. You know, so these sorts of things. But of course, the papacy seem incredibly unimpressed by this, I think is one way of putting it now.
- [68:11]
Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah. So it's really interesting. His relations with Pope Honorius III are actually pretty positive. I mean, I think he's very frustrating to work with, and the Pope's always trying to get him to go on Crusade and he sets these new deadlines and Frederick says, I'm definitely going to go on Crusade this time, I promise. And then it rolls around and he's not going to do it. He says, well, I'm definitely going next time. And he basically forces Honorius III into the corner. And he is very clear that he has to get the Imperial crown or else he's not going to do anything. I think in an alternate timeline, I'd love to see what happens. If the Crusade hadn't failed and Damietta had been. If they'd held on to Damietta, would he eventually have actually joined the Crusade if the Fifth Crusade has still been ongoing? That's the question I would like to know the answer to. Because he does eventually go on the Crusade on his sixth Crusade, but the way he gets there is quite tortuous and not unproblematic.
- [69:01]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Yeah. I mean, I think that I could see him getting in a ship if it looked like Egypt was definitely going to fall, because I think Egypt is something that he would be interested in. His first pledge to take the cross is in 12:15. And then there's all sorts of reasons
- [69:16]
why that doesn't happen.
- [69:19]
So then his vow gets renewed in 1223, which I think is important.
- [69:23]
Dr. Tom Smith
Right.
- [69:24]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Because this is a year after the ideal of when the emperors were supposed to meet in the theoretical apocalyptic vision. Right.
- [69:36]
Dr. Tom Smith
Yeah. So basically, after the Fifth Crusade, there's a lot of mud slinging going on in the west and blaming people for why the Crusade fell. And people are really angry about this. And I think this goes back to. To. Because Innocent III had made participation in the Crusade actually much wider. And so a lot of people had funded this and supported this. They prayed on behalf of this men and women across the west, and they had this glittering prize of Damietta in their hand. And then it just slipped out of their grasp because the leaders wanted to save their own skins. So there's a lot of anger about this, and a number of people are blamed. So Frederick is blamed, the papal legate Pelagius is blamed, Pope Honorius III is blamed, and John of Brienne, the King of Jerusalem, is blamed as well. And so these characters all have a lot to play for, and they've got to redeem themselves, basically. And also the Pope and Frederick, they've put a lot of effort into getting ready for this Crusade. So Frederick has been having these special horse transport ships and landing craft built for years in his land. So he's actually been preparing pretty well for this. So they meet at a conference in Ferrentino in 1223, where they decide, what are we going to do about the Crusades? And they come to some decisions. So he renews his Crusade vow in front of King John of Jerusalem, the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the masters of the military orders. He promises to depart on crusade by 24 June 1225. So in two years time. And he's also betrothed to John of Brienne's daughter, the Princess of Jerusalem, Isabella. So from this point onwards, and this is the key turning point, I think of what happens next, is that he now has dynastic interest in the kingdom of Jerusalem, which he didn't have before. And I think this fits into what you were saying about he's out for what he can get. And also he has this, this stride and this grasp which spans the Mediterranean. The Pope sends out a papal letter called justus dominus in 1223, calling upon people to take the cross. And I think previously the Sixth Crusade has always been misinterpreted as is just Frederick and his kind of personal power project. But actually. And in some ways it devolves into that. But actually it's conceived of as a big general crusade. It really is supposed to be the people of the west involved in this. And Pope Honorius III sends out this papal Crusade call in 1223 and he appeals to Andrew II of Hungary, who had already been one of the leaders on the Fifth Crusade. He's a veteran. He sends a letter to Henry III of England and there's a really interesting copy of this where he puts in special mention of Henry's crusading ancestors like Richard the Lionheart and tries to insult, spy him through that. So they're putting a lot of effort into this and they're not just trying to get Frederick's vassals. This is very much supposed to be a crusade which is recruited from across Europe, but it doesn't happen. We get to 1225 and surprise, surprise, Frederick is not ready to leave on his crusade. And this is becoming a bit of. It's becoming ridiculous by this stage actually. But he comes up and says, I really have been getting ready, I'm nearly ready to go. And so they have this final conference somewhere called San Germano on 25-7-1225. And this sets this. Basically the papacy is pretty much fed up with Frederick at this stage and it sets these really punishing conditions on him. But I also think that he probably agrees to these himself. I don't think it's just the papacy enforcing them upon them. I think he's basically saying, no, I'm definitely going to do it this time, and I promise to you. So I think it's. He's promising this stuff as well. So it's a bit of give and take. So he agrees to leave by 15 August 1227. He agrees he's going to maintain 1,000 knights in the Holy Land for two years, and he's also going to send 100,000 ounces of gold in five installments to the east for the Crusaders to use, and if not, he's going to be excommunicated. So he's going to be thrown out of the Church. And that's like the worst ecclesiastical penalty you can be faced with. In November 1225, he marries Isabella, the daughter of the King of Jerusalem. And this is when things start to get really interesting. So he's now got this dynastic interest in Jerusalem, and actually it's probably at this point that he switches the target of his crusade from Egypt, which had been planned, to Jerusalem. He wants to go and exercise his rights there, but first he has to get rid of his father in law. And so he pushes his father in law out of the way very quickly. So John of Brienne, the King of Jerusalem, is ousted by Frederick and Isabella, and actually they do that quite effectively and very quickly. And so he now becomes King of Jerusalem and he takes that title and he now wants to go to Jerusalem. So things are looking in. In purely pragmatic terms, things are looking quite good in terms of the Crusade at this stage, because he's now King of Jerusalem and he's got a reason to go there and take part in the campaign. In mid summer 1227, he's getting ready to crusade by the deadline of August, and things are looking really good. The Crusaders are assembling at the port of Brindisi, and it's at this point that a plague breaks out and ravages the Crusader host, including Frederick. He falls ill at this stage. He's actually on a ship. He's kind of on his way to the Holy Land at this stage, and he has to go back to the port of Atranto to recover. He's actually really quite ill at this stage. When the new Pope, Gregory ix, hears this, he is apoplectic with rage. He goes ballistic and he excommunicates Frederick. So he throws him out of the Church and of Christian society. So now Frederick II is a spiritual pariah. There is no way he should be going on a Crusade. Crusading is for the pure of heart and those who are in good relations with the Church, not the ones who've been excommunicated and thrown out. So that's really interesting. And he goes on Crusade anyway. I think that's the fascinating thing about him, and it shows us something about his character. That he can't be stopped. He won't be stopped by the papacy and by being an excommunicate. I think this lesser rulers would have gone to the Pope and maybe tried to negotiate. That would have been the sensible thing to do. But Frederick just says, I'm going to do it anyway. And so he sails over and in 9-12-28, he lands at Acre. And his army's really too small to fight at this stage. So there had been forces which had preceded him and they had gone out and they'd occupied themselves, marching up and down a bit and fortifying some defenses. But they've gone home by the time that he arrives because of this delay, because of the illness. So he can't actually really fight against Soldan Al Kamil. He's also got a reason why he doesn't want to fight against Sultan Al Kamil. This is because he's actually been in contact with him secretly since 1226. They've been exchanging envoys and negotiating about how they're going to split up the Holy Land, basically. And Al Kamil wants Frederick to enter in an alliance with him against his own brother Al Muazam in Damascus. But by 1228, Al Muazam is dead already. But Al Kamil doesn't realize, I think probably how weak Frederick's forces are at this stage. And also I think that it suits him, to be honest, to get rid of Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem, the Crusaders trying to recover the city, has been a massive pain in his side for quite a long time now and has actually made it quite difficult to rule. And he's facing this turbulence in the Muslim political world anyway. So if he can actually have a friendly ally who's holding Jerusalem, a really neutered version of the Crusader states, this suits him really quite well. So they begin to negotiate immediately. And in February 1229, they seal the Treaty of Jaffa. And this is really interesting. So Frederick Gaines a number of things. He gains Bethlehem, he gains Nazareth, he gains a 10 year truce. He gains a strip of land connecting Jerusalem to the coast, which is crucial because you can't go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem if there's no strip of land connecting it. If it's like an island, if it's like Berlin during the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain, that's basically what this is. You need a strip of land to get there. So they get that and he gets back the city of Jerusalem. So for the first time since 1187, the city of Jerusalem is back in Christian Crusader hands, apart from the Temple Mount. But otherwise it's in crusader hands. But Frederick has to do something for this. It's not, you know, there's a quid pro quo here. So Frederick has to defend the Sultan against all enemies, including Christians. He's not allowed to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. So this is crucial. So you've basically got this beautiful city that's incredibly important, but you can't defend it. That's really problematic. He's not allowed to aid the other Crusader states like Antioch and Tripoli. So he can't send anything to them or can't defend them. And of course alchemy wants to take these. Alchemy also wants to take some of the biggest crusader castles that have been a complete nuisance for him for a long time. So Frederick's also not allowed to help and aid crack Dus, Chevalier, Markab or Sophita. So that's the deal. But so there are big strings attached to this. This is not entirely unproblematic, but Frederick II has just recovered Jerusalem and you're in this perverse situation where this excommunicate, who is not part of a Christian society basically and is an enemy, is like state enemy, public enemy number one, basically, according to the papacy. And he's managed to retake Jerusalem by negotiating with a Muslim sultan. So this is, I think a lot of people are quite unsettled by this. But Frederick sees this, I think, as the culmination of those prophecies. When he goes into the city, he enters the city on the 17th of March, 1229. The next day, the very next day, on the 18th of March, he has a crown wearing ceremony in Jerusalem where the crown is placed, his imperial crown is placed on his head. And I think in his mind this is him fulfilling those prophecies. He is writing these new pages of biblical history. He has done something no one has, well, you know, has ever done before. You've never had an emperor crowned in the city of Jerusalem who is fulfilling this prophecy. He is about, he's on the verge of bringing about the Antichrist, the second coming of Christ and the end of the world, the final judgment. So this is quite incredible. I think it's an exciting moment. But this is kind of undercut by the fact that he doesn't stay in Jerusalem for very long at all. So you think then, oh, right, well, this means that he's going to be staying here for a while and bringing about these prophecies. But actually the very next day on the 19th of March, he decides to leave. And this is where we see some of the opposition to him. So the Patriarch of Jerusalem has actually placed Jerusalem under interdict. So this means it's kind of like a forbidden zone, basically, to try and stop Frederick when he gets back to Acre, to try and get to the port, he's making his way through the streets, he meets a lot of resistance from the faction that are opposed to him, that are on the papacy side. So the Patriarch of Jerusalem, a lot of the nobles of Jerusalem, of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and also the Knights Templar. And the final insult really to Frederick is as he's making his way to the port, he has to travel through a meat market. And as he's doing that, the citizens express their displeasure with him by showering him with tripe and offal. So they throw these sort of meat entrails at him. And so he's being splattered by these as he makes his way to the port. So on the one hand he's done something quite incredible, and on the other hand, he is not really very well liked and it's sort of taken the shine off. And also while he's been away, John of Brienne, his father in law, has been invading his lands on behalf of the papacy. And so he's got to face then a threat there and a war against the papacy. So it's a really interesting moment in the history of the crusading movement. And I think in terms of thinking about what the future of the crusading movement looks like now, it's all to play for. But equally, it's of kind, really kind of problematic and not what anyone had expected. And it starts to fragment, I think, a bit from this, this point onwards. We see then later on in the 13th century, Louis IX adopts the Egyptian strategy again. So he launches the Crusade, the seventh Crusade, to Egypt, and succeeds in taking Damietta again, but then again fails during his march down the Nile. But I think what we can see is that the Fifth Crusade has actually really shifted the axes of crusading warfare in the near east at this time. So it's really shown that really the soft spot to hit is Egypt, that this is the way to really affect big geopolitical change and really to threaten the Ibids. I think the Ibiz have never had to face a threat on two fronts before. They're very used to fighting in Syria and Palestine. They've never had to face a major invasion in Egypt. And I think the fact that the Fifth Crusade comes to so close to toppling the Ayyubid dynasty, I think the next hundred years of the Crusader states that history could have looked very different. And so I think what this does is it proves that the Egyptian strategy works and things are changing quite quickly. And there are reasons to be quite positive, I think, from the Crusader side. So I think this period is really interesting. It's exciting, and there's a lot of change going on here, and I think it's opening up lots of different possibilities for what might happen in the future.
- [82:35]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Well, Tom, you're a delight.
- [82:38]
You're right about everything, obviously, but I'm
- [82:43]
afraid that that is as good a place as we can possibly find to leave three of the most interesting crusades that there were. Thank you so, so much for coming along with us.
- [82:51]
Dr. Tom Smith
Oh, thank you so much for having me on again. It's been such a pleasure, Eleanor.
- [82:55]
Dr. Eleanor Yaniga
Oh man.
- [82:56]
Okay, so with crusading diverted, divided and
- [83:01]
dangerously unstable at the start of the 13th century, I think it's safe to say that the movement unleashed in 1095 no longer belonged solely to popes and penitential warriors, but it had become entangled in rivalries between emperors, kings and city states. The sack of Constantinople exposed deep fractions structures within Christendom itself, and even apparent triumphs like Frederick II's bloodless capture of Jerusalem revealed just how fractured and precarious the crusading ideal had become.
- [83:39]
What a ride. If you want to find out how
- [83:42]
it all finally came undone, then join Matt Lewis on Friday for the final episode in our series on the history of the Crusades. He'll be traveling into the age of Mongols and Mamluks, tracing how new powers reshaped the eastern Mediterranean and brought the Crusader states to their dramatic and definitive end. I'll also pop into the episode to help wrap up the series as Matt and I reflect on the legacy of the Crusades and how this 200 year experiment of papal sanctioned warfare and the rapacious Crusade ambition reshaped the medieval world. My thanks again to Dr. Tom Smith for joining me on Gone Medieval. And thanks to you for listening. If you loved what Tom had to say, then you might want to go back and listen to his previous appearance on Gone Medieval about rewriting the history of the first Crusade. And you can now pre order a copy of his book, the Fifth A History of the Epic Campaign to Conquer Egypt.
- [84:44]
I've already read it.
- [84:46]
It's brilliant. Remember, you can also enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film the Trial of Joan of Arc by signing up@historyhit.com subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.
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