Peter the Hermit with Welcome To The Crusades

Summary

This Guy Sucked – Peter the Hermit with Welcome To The Crusades

Host: Dr. Claire Aubin
Guests: Danny, Derek, Eleanor & Luke (from "American Prestige" / "Welcome to the Crusades")
Date: February 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the notorious legacy of Peter the Hermit, the enigmatic firebrand preacher who ignited the disastrous "People’s (Peasants/Paupers) Crusade"—the chaotic precursor to the more infamous First Crusade. Host Dr. Claire Aubin and a full house of historical scholars from "American Prestige" and "Welcome to the Crusades" pull apart Peter’s actual influence, his bizarre afterlife in historiography, and all the inhumanity, opportunism, and failure entangled in his story.

The conversation ranges from context on late 11th-century Europe and the Middle East, to Peter’s unlikely rise and disastrous campaign, to the persistent myth of crusading glory, ultimately reminding listeners no one in this time "comes out clean."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Modern Parallels & Mood Check (00:39–06:37)

• The episode opens with a lighthearted “Power Rangers Megazord” joke, and a check-in about current political and societal anxieties. The hosts and guests joke about recent American turmoil, political flight, and personal escape plans, setting a critical and irreverent tone.
  • Notable Quote:
    “Your girl's trying to run the underground... I'm really pro flight as a move. Fight or flight? Flight.” – Eleanor (01:59)
  • The team briefly discusses global uncertainty, fear, and the urge to flee oppressive situations, drawing knowing parallels between today's instability and the medieval world.

2. Who Was Peter the Hermit? (06:42–15:14)

• Peter is introduced as the primary instigator and symbolic leader of the People’s Crusade—a preacher who riled up masses across France and Germany but wasn’t really a hermit, nor an actual military leader.
  • “He is an 11th-century preacher... instrumental in instigating what we refer to as the People’s Crusade, sometimes the Peasants Crusade, sometimes the Paupers Crusade, depending on how derogatory you want to be...” – Eleanor (06:48)
• Historians stress the chaos of the movement—multiple poorly organized mobs, not a single unified army.
• Peter’s origins are deeply obscure: he’s “wizard-coded” (10:54), with no known true age, birthplace, or date of death—ranging from 1131 to a suspiciously specific July 1150 (11:11).
  • “It's like—are we talking about Gandalf here? Like, what?” – Luke (10:53)
• A running theme: Peter erupted into history, led this huge, messy human movement, then faded into almost complete obscurity and historiographical myth.

3. Historical Context: Why Was Europe Ripe for a Crusade? (16:15–23:16)

• Europe:
  • The High Medieval period sees resurgence in urban life, church authority, and rising papal ambition; the pope needs a big project to assert his importance—hence, the Crusades.
  • Europe is crawling with unemployed Norman knights ("never let Vikings learn to ride horses"), and the church tries to direct their violence eastward (24:57).
• Middle East:
  • Derek and Eleanor outline the fracturing Muslim world: the old Abbasid Caliphate has broken down, local petty kingdoms are everywhere, and the Seljuks have just taken Anatolia (post-Manzikert, 1071).
  • Safe pilgrimage is hard; Christian churches (notably the Holy Sepulchre) had just been destroyed by Al Hakim, triggering horror in Europe (21:31).

4. Peter’s Strategy: Accident or Ambition? (24:21–30:25)

• The pope’s preaching was meant to attract knights ("horse guys"), but Peter and others end up drawing multitudes of peasants, motivated by hunger, religious zeal, and social desperation.
  • “I don't know that he was… really the target for the preaching, but he’s sort of like, hmm, maybe there’s an opportunity here for me.” – Derek (24:21)
• For peasants, religious preaching was a rare form of mass entertainment and psychological release: “A thing about medieval Europeans is they love preachers.” – Eleanor (28:54)

5. The People’s Crusade: Atrocities, Logistics, and Total Failure (30:26–50:48)

• Anti-Semitic Violence:
  • As the mobs cross the Rhineland, anti-Semitic massacres occur in cities like Speyer, Worms, Mainz—at least 2,000 Jews are butchered. (“This is on you, man. I don't care if you personally found it distasteful...”—Luke, 32:32)
• Rampage Across Europe:
  • The masses are logistically impossible to supply; wherever they pass—Hungary, the Balkans—they leave devastation, burning, and theft. Even Byzantium’s great city, Constantinople, is overwhelmed.
    • “Even the biggest and wealthiest city in Europe at the time could not have done this.” – Luke (37:28)
• Byzantine Reaction:
  • Alexios Komnenos, Byzantine emperor, is horrified by the rabble that shows up instead of disciplined soldiers. He pays them to leave, warning Peter not to attack the Turks. They ignore him.
    • “He did tell Peter, ‘You should probably not get into a fight with these guys...’” – Derek (39:14)
• Total Annihilation:
  • The “army” crosses into Anatolia, immediately seeks battle, and is annihilated by the Seljuks in 45 minutes. (Only 2,500 out of 20,000+ survive.)
    • “That is so embarrassing. I’m sorry. 45 minutes is so embarrassing.” – Claire (41:05)
  • Peter is conveniently absent—off in Constantinople meeting the emperor, not on the battlefield.
    • “Peter the Hermit survives because he’s not there. He lures thousands...and then he just dips.” – Eleanor (45:08)
    • “A classic father scenario. Exiting for cigarettes and never returning.” – Claire (45:21)

6. Later Appearances & Historical Memory (51:53–59:57)

• Peter reemerges at the Siege of Antioch and preaches before the final assault on Jerusalem; otherwise, he fades into historical irrelevance.
  • Rumors he tried (and failed) to escape from Antioch are probably slander, but he played little real role after the People’s Crusade.
  • At Jerusalem, he delivers a sermon before the decisive (and infamous) assault.
• The First Crusade is described as “proto-colonialism, proto-imperialism, the original sin of Europe... but it’s so fascinating. It is nuts.” – Luke (55:17)
• On the Legacy: Even contemporaries ultimately forgot Peter; the myth of his pivotal genius lingers only because of a quirk in the historiography, persisting until the 19th century.
  • “Like, the point is, it’s embarrassing enough that even at the point in time when people are kind of, like, enamored of him, they lose track of him.” – Eleanor (59:57)

7. Big Picture: Myths, Messiness, and Enduring Cringe (58:01–61:45)

• The hosts reflect on how the myth of crusading glory persists despite the squalor, violence, and incompetence; nostalgia for the Crusades is detached from reality.
  • “It's so cringe and embarrassing.” – Claire (58:27)
• Peter the Hermit is emblematic of the entire mess: an unqualified, deluded mass-mobilizer whose incompetence got thousands butchered.
  • “You can pick anyone. It really doesn’t matter. There are no good guys. There's nothing that is glorious or beautiful about it.” – Eleanor (58:58)
• Final lesson: History is full of “messy bitches”—there never was a pure or romantic past, just people screwing up, then and now (61:45).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He sucks uniquely.” – Derek (14:25)
• “The Holy Spirit is going to protect you. There’s no way that Muslims and their superior horse archer tactics are going to mow you down...”—Eleanor (44:32)
• “He lures thousands of people over there, and then he just dips.” – Eleanor (45:08)
• “A classic father scenario. Exiting for cigarettes and never returning.” – Claire (45:21)
• “All wars are water wars at the end of the day...” – Claire (50:48)
• “Like, the point is, it's embarrassing enough that even at the point in time when people are kind of, like, enamored of him, they lose track of him.” – Eleanor (59:57)
• “People are messy bitches and they've been messy bitches forever for all of history.” – Claire (60:22)
• “There are no good guys. There’s nothing that is glorious or beautiful about it.” – Eleanor (58:58)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:39 – Introductions, present-day check-in, “Megazord” jokiness, tone setting
• 06:42 – Who was Peter the Hermit? How is he remembered? “Wizard-coded” tropes
• 16:15 – Medieval Europe and the Middle East on eve of the Crusade
• 24:21 – Why/How Peter mobilized the wrong people (peasants, not knights)
• 30:26 – Atrocities in the Rhineland, anti-Semitic massacres, and the People’s Crusade’s logistical disaster
• 37:28 – The logistical impossibilities of feeding/supporting thousands
• 39:14 – Alexios’s dismay, and the disastrous march into Anatolia
• 41:05 – Total destruction at the hands of the Seljuks, Peter’s convenient absence
• 44:32 – Peter’s preaching: “The Holy Spirit will protect you!”
• 51:53 – Peter at Antioch and Jerusalem; fades again into irrelevance
• 55:17 – Reflection on the First Crusade as Europe’s original sin
• 58:01 – Why do people still mythologize the Crusades?
• 60:22 – “People are messy bitches ... forever for all of history.”

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Tone & Style

The entire episode maintains an irreverent, incisive, and darkly humorous tone (“certified hater”; “classic father scenario”; “Megazord”), never shying away from remixing the past with modern commentary, pop-culture references, and a critical lens. The scholars are as quick to crack jokes as they are to dissect serious tragedy and abject failure.

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Further Resources

• Welcome to the Crusades: welcometothecrusades.com (11-part series)
• American Prestige: americanprestigepod.com
• Support the Podcast: patreon.com/thisguysucked

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"There are no good guys. There's nothing that is glorious or beautiful about it."
– Eleanor, [58:58]

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking an engaging, honest, and scholarly take on the messy legacy of Peter the Hermit and the People's Crusade—highlights, insights, and all the weirdness intact.

Transcript

[A]

A list of sensitive themes and topics included in this episode can be found in the episode description. Welcome to this Guy Sucked, the show where we prove that it's never too late to have haters, and you can't libel the dead. I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and, most importantly, for the purposes of this show, certified hater. On this show, we talk about people from throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar, or in this case, scholars every week to tell us why. Today we have a full house. It's officially the most guests we've ever had on the show. Everybody at home, please say out loud they will hear you in their hearts, hello to the many hosts of American prestige. And we're not so different in their. What's it called in Power Rangers Megazord. In their Megazord form. Welcome to the Crusades. We have Danny, Derek, Eleanor, and Luke here with us.

[B]

What's up?

[C]

Hey, thanks for having us.

[B]

We're the arms.

[D]

Thanks for having us.

[A]

Yeah. Which Megazord body parts are each of you?

[B]

Yeah, I want to be an.

[A]

Is that what it's called?

[B]

Yeah, I think it is.

[A]

Crazy poll. If I did actually remember.

[E]

We all know what parts we want to be, but none of us are saying them. That's what's happening right now.

[C]

I want to be the head.

[A]

I have a question that I normally would ask people, like, what's your favorite archive? Or, like, some stupid history question. But we're recording this on January 9, 2026. It won't come out for a little while after this. But how are we all doing, slash, coping with the horrors that are persisting around us at the moment?

[B]

Well, I gotta say, as the one non American resident, right now, a big thing I'm doing is emailing slash texting my friends and loved ones in the States to be like, hey, hey, do we have escape plans? Is the thing I'm doing. You know, like, your girl's trying to run the underground. She's trying to, like, you know, the reason why I am alive, right, is that I've got a lot of, you know, grandfathers and grandmothers who, like, fled World War II. And I just am really pro flight as a move. So. Yeah, Yeah, I run, girl. Like, fight or flight. Flight.

[E]

Eleanor, are you Jewish?

[B]

No, I'm just Czech, you know.

[E]

Okay, okay. I was like, that would Be a shock.

[A]

There are many people who fled World War II.

[C]

That would have been incredibly shocking. After we had an episode about Peter the Hermit where we talked about these pogroms and, and, and we noted you were the only j the show. And Eleanor is just like I'm good. No, I'm fine. Don't worry about it.

[D]

Yeah. Like we had Eleanor on to talk about Christmas on our show.

[B]

Like listen, you know what it is? I have the secret great grandmother who was ct. That's cin.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

But then you move to America and you just go check question mark question mark. You guys are like don't. I wouldn't worry about it. You people don't even know how to be racist towards the ct. Like you know, it's great.

[A]

So how's everyone else coping with this? Bad. Good podcasting about this?

[E]

No, I mean we're talking really in the middle of this development and, and I mean this second Trump administration has been so up and so down. The Charlie Kirk thing, then the immediate reaction to it, then the immediate reaction to that and now this ice violence and there's going to be reaction to that and then we have all these Supreme Court rulings out. So it's just a very sort of up and down thing with ebbs and flows and you know, just, just paying attention.

[D]

I am, I'm applying for jobs in the new Venezuelan government.

[E]

So yeah there was going to settler colonize Caracas.

[D]

I, you know, it's time for a change. I'm going to get into the oil business. Seems like a good move.

[A]

I mean there are jobs going. I'm hearing from many sources.

[C]

Look, they haven't decided on a formal viceroy for it yet. You.

[D]

I mean it's going to be big balls and I'm hoping to work as his intern.

[A]

May be. How is he doing?

[B]

I, I, you know it's always, it's always like where is big balls? Never. How is big balls?

[D]

You know exactly.

[A]

How does one even find that out? Like you can't. I'm sorry to my father who's almost certainly listening to this. I can't just. He just Google big balls to find out how big balls is to it.

[D]

You could try. I mean you could have to wade through some things. Probably you'd have to sift through. But, but you know, I'm sure it's in there.

[C]

Big balls. The government guy. Not testicles, please.

[A]

But not. But not.

[E]

Not the man with big balls.

[A]

I want the big balls not.

[C]

Your search has 30 plus is in it. Boolean logic breaks down entirely. Yeah. I'm coping by thinking about other states I could move to because I live in Florida. That is what we are doing.

[A]

But they can get you anywhere.

[C]

I would love to leave America. I have no idea where I would go or who would accept me more importantly. But, yeah, I don't know.

[A]

I should introduce you to my friend Eleanor. I know you two don't know each other, but I've heard that she's running this incredible scheme for helping people.

[D]

That's right.

[B]

That's right. I'm the underground, baby. So.

[A]

So we actually aren't here to talk about what's happening in the world right now. We're here to do some time traveling to a time that was, would you say, worse or better?

[B]

I'd say, yep, you know, better.

[C]

We have air conditioning. It's better. End of list. I'm not gonna say it's like we've perfected anything. I'm just saying at least technology has improved enough to where we can be somewhat comfortable.

[B]

Yeah, I'm a huge fan.

[D]

Penicillin's a big deal. I mean, I like that. Yeah, you gotta.

[A]

Some of us have penicillin allergies, Derek. Well, so it's actually worse.

[C]

You and my mom. My mom went deaf in one ear from a penicillin allergy.

[A]

That's crazy.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

I. And not.

[D]

But this took a turn. I'm sorry I brought it up.

[B]

Listen, we do not want RFK to hear any of this, okay?

[C]

I was just like, oh. I've never actually met anyone else who's like that. But, yeah, it is an allergy that some people have.

[A]

Both me and my best friend have still an allergies, so. I'm just saying, when the water wars come, we're probably going to die immediately because we won't be able to use the antibiotics that we homebrew.

[B]

Unfortunately, not the homebrewed antibiotics.

[A]

Okay, who are we talking about today? Actually, that's an important thing.

[B]

We are talking about your friend and mine. And by that, I mean no one's friend. Peter the Hermit.

[A]

Someone said ma'. Am.

[B]

I know, right? Listen, do not impugn me, but Peter the Hermit, his claim to fame is that he is an 11th century preacher who is incredibly instrumental in instigating what we, as historians, refer to as the People's Crusade, sometimes the Peasants Crusade, and sometimes the Paupers Crusade, depending on how derogatory you want to be towards these individuals. To be clear, ordinarily, I don't like peasant shaming, and, like, I'm team Peasant, but in the case of These guys go for it. Like, I. I don't care. Say anything you want about them, bro. They're. This is not a good bunch of people.

[A]

I just tried to workshop a funny joke about Pauper's Crusade and all I came up with was good gay bar name. Yeah, that's all I got. That's right.

[B]

No, this is good.

[A]

This is.

[B]

This is. That's my current wish to bring Poppers back to corner stores in the uk. You used to just be able to buy them wherever boss man used to hook you up. They used to call it record cleaner or air freshener. And, you know, we must return with a V anyway.

[A]

Return. But for Poppers is also. Not. Again, this is taking a turn. So the People's Crusade, he's the person who starts, runs, leads it. Question mark.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, he sparks it and then leads it, although he's conveniently not leading it at the end.

[C]

I would say that he is the spark for the People's Crusade part, which is the first part of the First Crusade. I think he is the spark for it. He does a lot of that preaching. He riles up a lot of peasants in France and especially pulled a good number of them from Western Germany, the German lands. And he was like a guiding force for one part of the People's Crusade Army. And they had other leaders. Like there were some knights, a guy named Emicho Walter, Saints of War, people like that, who. Who led other parts of it. But the camp followers, like the men and women and the peasants who were there but weren't fighting, and the children, they were behind, for the most part, behind Peter himself. And he did lead them, at least to Constantinople. And then we could talk about. It kind of breaks down after that. But like, I'll say he didn't lead them in military matters because a lot of people think about the Crusades solely as military efforts. And the First Crusade especially had this, like, mass of camp followers and people behind it. So he led some of those people, but he did not lead the armies. And they only took. They took his advice when they wanted to. The knights who were leading the peasant armies.

[D]

And I think it's probably, maybe also worth pointing out that there are multiple peasant armies. Like, as you might expect from something called the Peasants Crusade, it's not terribly well organized. So there's one army that does get all the way across, and we'll talk about that. But there are a number of other. I hesitate to even call them armies. They're mobs, really, who go to various other places, like the Jewish neighborhood down the street or, you know, the Jewish town three towns over, and commit various atrocities. And he's responsible for those, I think, which we can talk about.

[E]

Doesn't sound like much of a hermit to me.

[D]

Would have been better off. Yeah.

[C]

Nobody knows anything about him. Nobody knows how old he was. Like, he's described variously as like, just like an old cleric.

[E]

What does that mean in the context of the time? Is that like 35 or is that like 60?

[B]

No, brother, like, listen, listen.

[D]

Like 40s, I think. 40s. 50s.

[C]

Yeah, 50s. Something like that.

[E]

Old piece of shit.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. But he's also kind of by the. The ones who are more sympathetic to him. He's described as like a wizened, like, you know, almost older patriarch or even, you know, grandfatherly figure or something like that. Like white beard. So, you know, it's almost like. Are we talking about Gandalf here? Like, what?

[B]

Like what, he's.

[E]

He's wizard coded?

[C]

Yes, yes, he is. Not only do we not know where he's from, you think it's some part of Picardy, which is in modern day France. But we don't know when he was born and we don't even know when he died. There are conflicting stories about him dying, and they're from 15 years apart.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So it's not like, oh, it was this year or the next year. It was like, well, he either died this year or a decade and a half later.

[A]

What's interesting, I saw in this, the research, the minimal research I did for this, because I was like, there are four people here to tell me about this stuff, was that it says either a very hyper specific date, like July 8th of 1150 or anytime in 1131. So I do think it's funny that there's like, we either have truly the exact day and time or anytime in the next 15 years, which you don't get a lot of, I will say, which is.

[D]

Which is punting. I mean, it's like, you know, he would have been, you know, in his 80s at that point. Like, he died. We know he died.

[B]

Like, to be fair, this isn't particularly odd for medieval people.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Unless you're incredibly notable and it isn't that this guy isn't considered notable, isn't kind of a household name at that point in time, but once you are no longer useful to historical chroniclers, they will dump you.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Eleanor.

[E]

I just. I imagine it relates mostly to succession. Right. Those would be the dates that would be recorded, like extremely accurately would be my guess.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

Papal succession. King succession.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Like, we don't know people's birthdays. There's all sorts of stuff that we don't know. You know, we're guessing on when Eleanor of Aquitaine was born, for God's sake. So, you know, when we think about people who were actually cool and did useful things, if we don't know about them, then, you know, why would we know about Peter the Hermit?

[C]

Boo.

[D]

Boo.

[A]

Insert boo sound.

[B]

Julia.

[C]

Peter the Hermit is like, you know, in like, if you read about big moments in history, there'll sometimes be like these people who just rise to the surface and you don't know why. There's no explanation for why. This guy who was maybe like a poor clergyman before this, this guy rises up and he becomes like, for a little bit, like the leader of the largest movement of people west of India since the intact Roman Empire was around. And he's like, he's the leader of this thing and he just bounces into history. Just huge explosion of like, influence and popularity. And then, like, as we'll talk about, he kind of renders it all moot by kind of betrays a lot of stuff and everything. But he's going to be at the end of the Crusade. He is at Jerusalem when they take it. He's going to make an appearance like a glup shadow in Star wars or whatever. He's coming back. The writers didn't have any more ideas, so they're like, fuck it, bring Peter the Hermit back. He's going to preach and they're going to take Jerusalem the day he preaches, and then he's going to disappear from history, essentially. And then for 700 years. Because of the way one of the influential chronicles is written, historians will call him the brains behind the Crusade and the one who did it, which was the case from about 1100 until 1840 or so. And then people were like, yeah, no, he was important, but like, he. He wasn't like scheming vizier level important here. You know, he was a. He was a firebrand preacher, got a lot of people behind him, but he didn't to want plan this.

[D]

I think what sticks out to me and the reason why, like, you could take the first Crusade and like, there are a lot of guys who sucked in the first Crusade that we could pick out. Like, that guy sucked. That guy sucked. Like, all these guys sucked. Why do you pick this guy? And for me, it's because not only can we say that Peter sucked by the standards of, like, modern people looking back on this event, but in the course of the Crusade, on its own terms, on the expedition's own terms, he sucked repeatedly. Like, every decision he made basically sucked. And so he stands out as not only sucking to our sensibilities, but really sucking for all time in the moment when he's living and, you know, sort of the things that he's supposed to be doing also. He just sucked. Like, he sucked uniquely.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I do think there is, like, truly a cast of characters among not just this Crusades, but all of the Crusades, where you can be like.

[B]

Take your pick, babe.

[A]

Just pick one. There's. It's a deck of cards, and you can just. It doesn't really matter. But this guy, he's an interesting figure. Not just because of who he is and what he does, but also how he's remembered and how there's all this, like, controversy around his legacy and what his role is and all of that. And I think that's interesting, too. Like, and the Crusades in general, like. Like, there's a lot to work with here, I think. So I was glad when you. When you chose him, because I was like, first of all, who the fuck is this guy? And then I Googled him and was like, all right, let's rock. Basically, Like, I was like, okay, we can. This is. We've got plenty of material to work with here. Can you guys tell me a little bit about, like, the historical context, what life is like in. What is this? What century is this? We're in the 11th century, 11th century, the 2nd century. What is wrong with me? The 11th century, and then 12th century, at the end of his life, to.

[B]

Be fair, the 11th century. So we're now firmly in what nerds like me refer to as the high Medieval period. Right? We've got three tranches. We've got the early Medieval period, We've got the High Medieval period, which kind of starts off around the year 1000, give or take. And then we've got the late Medieval period, which is kind of the 14th century onward. And the high Medieval period, We're kind of like, we're back, baby. We are so back. Is kind of what's going on in Europe. We've got cities again. Commerce is really kicking off. But also one of the things that I would argue is incredibly instrumental to the Crusades kicking off is that the papacy, after centuries upon centuries of arguing to everyone, like, guys, I don't know if you know this, but the Pope is the representative of God on Earth, which is news, of course, to the patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Patriarch of Alexandria. You know, all these other places where they're like, baby, you need to calm down, like, of Rome. Who's she? Right. You know, and for the earlier medieval period, really the center of Christian power is in Constantinople and further east. But the papacy, the entire time has been working away arguing for its own importance. So they've been writing down in lots of books that they're very important and that everyone definitely agrees. And by the 11th century, they've kind of done it. They've cracked this, at least in Western Europe, you know, this argument that they are a legal machine with a head who is embodied by the Pope. And what do you do in the High Middle Ages? If you are going to argue that you are a political force that needs to be reckoned with, you start a war.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Also, this coincides with a number of troubles for Christians, as they see it, back East. And really, Derek is best placed to explain what's going on over eastward of Rome.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a mess. There's a breakdown of central authority, which is one of the things we came back to again and again in the series. Abbasid Caliphate, which had ruled this entire region since 750, has started to break apart. It's given way to a number of competing principalities. It's lost control completely of Egypt and North Africa to another rival caliphate, a Shia caliphate called the Fatimids. And in the Abbasid heartland, which, you know, still covers Syria and the Levant, although this is now kind of a frontier area, which makes it more unstable, they have really lost control of everything. First to an Iranian group called the Buyids, who moved into Baghdad in 945 and said, we're going to take over. We're going to protect you guys from now on, you poor fragile caliphs. We're going to protect you and nurture you and cultivate, you know, save you from the evils of the world. So they really lost their independent power at that point. And they'd been losing chunks of the caliphate effectively for a while. And then the Seljuk Turks move in in 1055 and kick out the Buyids, who were actually Shia. They didn't really make a big deal out of it, but they were. And the Seljuks make a big deal out of, you know, we're getting these Shia interlopers out of the capital and we're going to take over as the protectors. So it's now a seljuk domain from 1055 on, but the Seljuqs start to break up really, really quickly as well. So by the time the Crusaders show up, what you have is a Seljuk principality in Anatolia that's still sort of, you know, kind of emerging. And then you've got a lot of little petty rulers in the places that the Crusaders encounter outside of Anatolia, who are always squabbling with each other, don't get along. And the end result for Christians is. Is there's a lot more depredation. If you're trying to do a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, it becomes a lot more treacherous because you're not going through a single political entity that has some degree of control over the countryside. You are instead traipsing through a lot of petty kingdoms who don't have a lot of control outside the major cities. So you're getting robbed, you're getting mistreated. I think Peter at one point tries to make a pilgrimage and is supposedly mistreated, which may be sort of psychologically part of where he's coming from, but. Yeah. So there's reports coming back to Europe about the treatment that pilgrims are receiving. The Europeans are still sort of reeling to some extent about the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which had taken place decades earlier. It had been. I think. I don't know if it had been rebuilt by this point, Eleanor. I can't remember the dates on that.

[B]

It hasn't entirely been rebuilt yet. No. And in theory, at least, what we know from the court in Constantinople is they claim that one of the things that Peter the Hermit sees when he goes on pilgrimage is that it's being used as a stable and that the priests there can't take care of it. Now, I am inclined to not believe that Peter's Hermit went on, but, you know, like. But listen, on the other hand, who am I to argue with Anaka Minina, you know, actually the perfect person to argue with her.

[A]

But.

[D]

Well, and I mean, just the destruction was such a shock because it was unlike, like, Christian churches had generally been been safe in Muslim lands, and the destruction by a fatimid caliph named Al Hakim, who was not all there in the head, was a shocking thing for European sensibilities, because not only is it a church being destroyed, it's the church, it's the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, like, it's the mother lode. So that was a big deal. And then the final thing, of course, is the Battle of Manzikert, which I don't know if we want to deal with that under this heading or talk.

[A]

About separately, I've never heard of her before in my life, so I can't answer that question for you.

[D]

Yeah. So there you go. In 1071, the Seljuks mosey on over the mountains into Anatolia and smash the Byzantine army at Manzikert. The Byzantines, immediately, because the Byzantine Empire is also falling apart at this point, fall to squabbling amongst each other. There's sort of a succession crisis that immediately follows this battle, and they come apart at the seams. And the Seljuks are able to take advantage of this and, you know, kind of plant themselves on the Anatolian plateau, which had never been the case before. I mean, since the seventh century, when Muslim armies, you know, swept away most of the Roman Byzantine Empire, Anatolia had been the fortress that they hid behind. And so this was existential as far as the Byzantines were concerned. To be losing Anatolia and being squeezed into the kind of west coast of Anatolia and the Balkans, that was a threat of the sort that they hadn't faced in centuries. And that's what prompted the initial kind of appeal to the west for support.

[A]

Hi, it's Claire. I'm here to quickly say that this episode is free for everybody, but the next one won't be. That's because we switch off between free weeks and Patreon weeks. So if you're a fan of public history made by actual experts, consider supporting our Patreon. It's only one tier, which means everyone who subscribes gets access to the same perks across the board. Because we're not trying to get rich. We're just trying to make good history that is engaging and accessible at the same time. For the price of a fancy muffin, you'll get access to a new episode every week instead of just the bi weekly free ones. And they'll all be ad free for you. You'll also get access to the full episode archive, bonus content, early access to merch, and lots of other fun Patreon exclusives. To sweeten the deal, just head over to patreon.com this guysucked and join the honorary haters club. It seems to me like there's a moment where there's this sort of immense and intense political and religious anxiety that's happening around him and what he's like, let's raise an army of children and poor to go take the east.

[D]

Well, I mean, this raises a question, Eleanor, you may be best positioned to answer this, like, is this always what he has in mind, or is it Only once he starts to go out and preach the Crusade, and people respond, like ordinary people who are not really the target for the preaching, start to respond that he's sort of like, hmm, maybe there's an opportunity here for me.

[B]

Yeah, I think that this is kind of correct. I mean, really, the initial preaching of the Crusade comes in theory from the Pope himself. And who the Pope is attempting to appeal to is, of course, guys with horses, you know, like the Pope. The Pope doesn't want the farmers.

[E]

You've heard of horse girls.

[B]

These are horse guys. And we've also got a problem in Europe at the time with rather a lot of Normans who don't have land. And it's not a great idea to let Vikings learn how to ride horses. But they've done it. And, you know, they've taken over England, they've taken over Malta, they've taken over Sicily. And the way that their system works, not everybody's, but theirs works, is that if you take over a land, you get some. So we've got too many Norman knights. Yeah. And the Pope's like, it would be really great if these guys were not in our backyard. So he's attempting to appeal to this particular section of society. Who are those who fight? Right. You know, the guys who got horses and things. But Peter the Hermit is a priest, and so all these priests are kind of going out and preaching. And I would argue, and I think Luke would argue that basically he's like, oh, yeah, well, this is my job. I'm preaching. And then poor folks start responding, and he's like, bwaha. You know, and so, like. And he just doesn't know. And indeed, I think the fact that, you know, we don't know anything about his family. This isn't the sort of guy who's a higher up. He's not a bishop, he's not a cleric that is attached to any cathedrals. He's no one of any name or import. So he, I think, is not receiving the message that, like, actually we were talking about rich guys, but. Right.

[A]

Yeah. He's like, you want everyone, right? You want anybody, please.

[C]

I would say there are two things to it. First of all, when Pope Urban II preached the Crusade at the Council of Claremont, there's no wide agreement on exactly what was said. There is agreement on, like, three or four bullet points. And then there's all of the different accounts have other different things that are said. But the thing about it is, is that Peter did this, but I don't know that he was first of all we do know for a fact he was not the only one who misinterpreted or hit on the idea of like, I can get the poor people on my side because things have been really bad for the past couple years. There have been a lot of local and even regional famines and, and we could get a lot of poor people on our side and, and drum up bigger armies that way. He's not the only one that does that. However, in addition to the fact that, that he does this, when the Prince's Crusade, the like wealthy crusade with all the knights and the like fighting peasants, who basically the Pope and Alexios the Emperor in Constantinople both wanted knights on horses and fighting peasants, like that's what they wanted. And instead they got this just massive humanity. So it wasn't limited to Peter. And once that idea got out, it presaged the preachers showing up in a region. So like, if you're somewhere in like a border town of like the Hre.

[B]

And France, Holy Roman Empire, just to be clear, we're not so different shorthand, we're like, you know the Hre?

[C]

Yeah, everybody knows the Hre. The Holy Roman Empire. Exactly, thank you. They would hear that and they would like wait for these preachers to come. Not just Peter the Hermit, but other guys too. And so a few people had hit on this and this is the only time it's going to happen. It doesn't happen in any other crusade like this. It just, it's not going to. But at this point, at this time, things are bad enough at home and there's enough like, we gotta take back Jerusalem, you know, like Christian fundamentalist zeal as I guess we would call it, that it turns into this kind of insane social movement.

[A]

And they're still saying that to this day.

[C]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean the thing about it is we've never got another Peasants Crusade because it turns out this is a bad idea. Nobody likes it.

[A]

I do also like the idea of a sort of Beatlemania thing happening every time some wizard coded old man with like a long beard riding a donkey comes into town and everyone's like, let's break down the barricades for him.

[B]

A thing about medieval Europeans is they love preachers.

[D]

It's like, what are you gonna do? Like what else are you gonna do with yourself during this?

[A]

Seriously, seriously.

[B]

For them it's entertainment. They're like, oh hell yeah. Like the wizards and town like whose up listening to their sermons, right? Like this is for them a hot form of entertainment. And it continues across the medieval period. But, you know, it's also one of these things where the Church doesn't really want to crack down on this because a. I mean, yeah, technically, I guess maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea. Like, they don't know that it's necessarily going to be a failure. But also, you know, this is a very effective way of spreading propaganda. And indeed, in the medieval period, we tend to refer to preaching as a form of mass communication. You know, it's not particularly effective on the Church's part in this case, because no one exactly knows, like, what the Pope asked for, when the Pope asked for it. Right. But we do know that they were saying, can people please go to Jerusalem, we're doing something here. And they managed to mobilize thousands and thousands of people very quickly. A little too quickly, I think that they would argue. But this is the way that you get a message across. In a world where most people are.

[A]

Not literate, that makes sense. I think we should bring back the megachurch as a pure form of entertainment also, like, in that sense, like, I do like the sort of idea of the spectacle and people being like, well, it's mostly because I want to hear a message rather than because I believe what you're selling as much. But they do also believe what he's selling.

[D]

So.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I don't know. Can you tell me about how the Crusade goes? Because you've alluded to it and I think this is where we already shifted to. We've already shifted into the. He sucks gear.

[C]

Everybody knows, basically they rile up peasants in France and central, you know, getting into Central Europe and stuff like that. They get a bunch of them in Germany and they get to a lovely place in the German countryside known as the Rhineland. And this is about to get real grim. And I'm real sorry about that.

[A]

But that's literally this whole show. I just want to be clear. Every. Every episode of the show is that.

[C]

Oh, okay, yeah, well, basically in Germany, the peasants are grazing off the land, as armies and masses of humanity of this kind did at the time and had done for thousands of years before. And they don't have enough to eat because the countryside is not prepared to feed a roving band of 15 to 20 to 30,000 when another army of 8,000 had marched through a day and a half earlier or whatever. And so they, because of anti Semitic ideas in the medieval Christian European mind, they go in, they ransack everything, they commit sexual violence and kill people. There are forced conversions. This happens in many places. But at least Speyer, Worms, Mainz, Cologne, Metz, and Trier, which are all towns in modern day Germany. And yeah, it's brutal. At least 2, 000 Jews are killed. All those things combined. And it is, as I said earlier, Peter the Hermit did not, like, lead any of these bands himself. There's no one, either Christian or Jewish chroniclers who say that, but he certainly didn't stop them. And this is under his auspice, you know, so, like, this is like, you did this, man. This is on you. Like, I. I don't care if you personally found it distasteful or whatever. You know, like, it's like how a.

[B]

CEO in theory, should be responsible for their company if there's a bunch of deaths because of their product. Right? Fundamentally, if you are at the helm of it, you are responsible for what happens. So that's kind of like the first horror that is perpetrated. But also, as they get further east, they also begin getting more and more confused about where they are. So, for example, they wreak a lot of havoc in Hungary, where they're sort of like, what's a Magyar? Some kind, you know, some kind of Turk, no doubt, you know, and there are rather a lot of skirmishes in Hungary. When they get to the Balkans, they set fire to a number of cities. And this begins to wear real thin. By the time you're burning down Belgrade and places like that, people take a very dim view. And, you know, again, these are people who are. These are Christians that they're attacking, right?

[D]

And so, Eleanor, I mean, it's. They're Eastern Christians, right? So there's a certain amount of, like, I don't know who you are. I don't know what you are. You're all Muslims to me, basically, like, you're Other. I don't care. I'm gonna kill you.

[B]

They're like, what's paprika? I hate this. So, yeah, you know, Hungarians are Catholics, but certainly in Belgrade, they're. They're Orthodox. And this is kind of compounding and compounding and compounding. So they're attacking other Christians, they're attacking Jewish people. And to be clear, the church and royalty do not want you to attack Jewish people, because they're like, those are our money lenders, right? Where are we going to borrow money from? You know, like, these are really terrible things. And so this is a bunch of people who are really out of control. And then imagine if you are the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire and you've called for aid from the west, and who shows up outside the Theodosian walls of Constantinople.

[D]

But these guys, you're like, I could use some knights. I could use some men at arms. And here is a group of. Is a mob. Oh, okay.

[A]

Bring me the horse, guys.

[D]

Thanks.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[D]

Even like, to leave aside the direct violence and death that these people caused as they were cutting their swath across Europe. You're talking about, like, thousands of people collected together with no supplies, like, no planning went into this. They just all kind of lumped together and started marching across Europe. They are eating their way across Europe. So even that for a lord, for, you know, if you're in Hungary, if you're the lord of a city or a king, and these people are, like, you know, devouring all your food as they cross your territory, you're kind of put out by that. So, yeah, I mean, there's just a lot of things that go wrong here.

[A]

You're telling me that this wizard preacher was not trained in warfare and logistics? I'm shocked. I'm shocked.

[C]

But another thing is that, like, countrysides, cities, anything they encountered was not prepared for this mass of humanity. The peasants crusade in total was probably about 15 to 20,000 fighters, and then anywhere from an additional 20 to 40,000 camp followers behind them. Medieval armies at this time, especially at this time, but for almost the entire Middle Ages, are very small, much smaller than anything like this. We're talking battles between, like, you know, a few thousand on each side, and a big battle would be like 20 or 25,000 men total for the most part. There are exceptions, clearly, but especially in Europe. So you've got these people coming through Constantinople. Despite the fact that the empire is falling apart and everything, Constantinople is still the city of Europe. It is the wealthiest one. It is the biggest one. It still at this point has the most people, about 400,000. These people show up anywhere from 40 to 60,000 people outside. Like Alexios, for his part, really does try to give alms to all of these poor people, tries to give them money and. And help them and give them food as much as he can. We today would have trouble, like a city would have trouble if 40,000 people showed up for whatever reason. You know, there's a wildfire or something like that, and all these people are just driven out. It would break down our logistics systems. In the Middle Ages, they had no chance of doing this. So when they got there, Alexios is trying to stop them. He's trying to restrain his men from attacking these people. And these people, like, are, like, either, like, hungry or ravaged or have already been Doing massacres or whatever, and they're just like, fine, go, get out. Here's your money, here's some grain. Leave, get out of here and go to the northwestern edge of Asia and, you know, just a few miles north of the city called Nicaea, and there's nothing they could do. Even the biggest and wealthiest city in Europe at the time could not have done this. Even other huge cities in the world, like Baghdad and Beijing, which. Which had a different name at the time, they couldn't have handled that. You can't deal with that at the time. Technology, logistics, manpower, food ways don't work like that. So, yeah, it's just. They're unprepared for it in all ways.

[A]

Just for clarification, for people. Alexios. You're talking about Alexios Komnenos, who's the Byzantine emperor at this point in time. Because we've talked about an emperor.

[C]

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Alexios I, Komnenos is the emperor of the Byzantine Empire at the time. He is the one who converses through letters and correspondence with Pope Urban ii. They agree that this is going to happen. And both Urban and Alexios seem to have thought, we're going to get the wealthy horse guys and then the muscular, burly, fighting peasants.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And then they got. They got Europe. Not that they got the massive humanity that is Europe and all of the good and bad that comes along with that. And it's. It's fucking wild.

[A]

How does he react when he realizes that he's utterly fucked up? Like, this has gone very poorly.

[B]

Oh, with horror is the answer. So basically he's like, wow, cute to see you guys. Why don't you get on going?

[D]

Yeah, head on over. It's good, it's nice. The water's nice.

[A]

We've had so much fun. I do have work pretty early in the morning, so I was just. I don't think you can stay over. I'm so sorry, but I actually have brunch tomorrow, so. Yeah, these may or may not be real excuses.

[D]

We do know, I should say, I mean, in Alexius's defense, like, I think he did tell Peter, like, you should probably not get into a fight with these guys against the Turks. You should probably wait for the actual men with the horses and the burly people to get here, because he knew they were coming. And, you know, he was pretty sure that if this group of people got into a battle, it would be slaughtered. And it turns out, yes, that's true. So, I mean, in his defense, he did try to Warn them away from, like, doing anything crazy. But then they went ahead and did the crazy thing.

[A]

Yeah, Peter's like, it's fine.

[C]

And when they got across to this place that is now called Civitot, when we say that, it wasn't like the Byzantines just pushed the boat out into the water and then said, see? Yet there was a castle across there. It had been kind of abandoned, but they could. And a few of them did actually end up holing up and it after the battle. And they were the only soldiers who survived from the peasants Crusade. But like, they could have just sat there in that castle and waited and been completely resupplied by the Byzantine navy because it still had a stranglehold on the Dardanelles Straits and all that. They could have been fine, but they were fueled by, you know, God has said we are going to win this. God has said we are ordained by heaven and so we're going to do it. And they rode out about 15,000 to 20,000 strong. And it took the Seljuk Turks with their steppe archer military strategies less than 45 minutes to destroy the army so thoroughly that only 2,500 or so were able to retreat to that castle I was talking about. And they holed up there until the Byzantine navy saved them.

[A]

That is so embarrassing. I'm sorry. 45 minutes is so embarrassing.

[D]

It's not your best performance.

[C]

45 minutes for a medieval army is life. Like, they might as well have been going the speed of light because, like, everything is slower then, like, you can't just shoot a bunch of people, like from a ways away.

[A]

You don't have laser knife drones or whatever.

[C]

You don't have a gun.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

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[B]

Luke's kind of hit on one point here, which is really important. That is One of the rhetorical gambits that Peter the Hermit is using the entire time is that you don't need to worry about the whole fighting thing. Like, I know that you're just a peasant, you're not a knight, but that's okay.

[D]

You're under the protection of the gods.

[B]

Yeah, so very specifically he says, the Holy Spirit is going to protect you. There's no way that Muslims and their superior horse archer tactics are going to mow you down in your thousands because the Holy Spirit is protecting you. And more to the point, when Peter the Hermit is over there before the battle breaks Out. He's like, seems like there's a lot of Seljuks on horses with. I'm just gonna nip over to Constantinople really quickly. I'm gonna be right back.

[D]

I'll be right back.

[B]

So Peter the Hermit survives because he's not there. Like, he lures thousands of people over there, and then he just dips.

[D]

When things get out, he pieces out. I mean, like, I'm gonna hang out back here. You guys got this. You got this.

[A]

A classic father scenario. Exiting for cigarettes and never returning.

[C]

Yeah, he left for 15 minutes to get cigarettes back for the Battle of Antioch. Yep.

[A]

We have all been there.

[D]

There is also some loss of control that happens here, I think. I mean, Peter has these guys hyped up. You're invincible. Nothing can stop you. But of course, he hasn't really molded this mob into anything approaching a real army or a real fighting force. And so what you get when they get across and the Seljuks, it takes them a little while to actually figure out what's going on here and respond. And they had bigger fish to fry in trying to deal with other Turkic principalities in Anatolia. That was their main focus at this point. So it takes them a little while to figure out what's going on. And in the interim, the mob is able to pick off some villages and towns and they sort of start egging each other on. Like, there's a French element to this that, you know, takes a town and then the German element has to, you know, go out and, like, fuck you. We're going to one up you. And they just kind of hype each other up to the point where they wind up kind of stumbling into the actual Seljuk army after they have realized what's happening and responded and that's. They get wiped out.

[A]

Not to bring up the Megazord once again, but I'm just saying, if God is actually on your side, that's what he's giving you. Instead of, again, 10,000 starving children.

[C]

I would say two things. First of all, by this point, like, as soon as they got across, the army sent every person who couldn't fight the infirm women, children, whoever. They sent him back to Constantinople, and Constantinople accepted them. Like, they didn't try to keep them out or anything like that. So, you know, so Peter would have gone back with them like that. And the thing about it is, is now we see it like this. But, like, at the time, this was not, like, seen as, like, an ultimate betrayal. They were like, well, of course, why we wouldn't need Peter, you know, he just went back there to whatever. But, like, now we're like, yeah, he left because he was terrified. Like, of course he did. But when we say that, like, he told them they could win the day and they were going to destroy everyone and. And everything like that, he 100% believed that in his heart to be true. We are not talking about people yet who are cynical enough to, like, be like, yeah, I don't care about Jesus or God. He. He believed very firmly, just as most of, if not all the Crusaders did, that they were going to win because God was on their side. And, you know, in the Bible, like, a small force conquers over a bigger force all the time, blah, blah. So, like, they believe these things. It's not a very smart thing to believe with the benefit of hindsight and everything we know. But they did firmly believe them. But, I mean, he's still a coward who left because there were some clergy who stayed behind with the army to lead it, just like the clergy who fought in the main Crusade efforts later, you know, Antioch and Jerusalem and everything.

[A]

So why isn't he there?

[C]

He was meeting with Alexios because he had become something of a minor, we would call a minor celebrity. But, like, he. He had become like, a fascination. And so Alexios wanted a meeting with him. And so, like, he was, like, whining and dining with the emperor while the rest of the army was not faring so hot.

[A]

So part of him is like, you guys are gonna be all good. You're sorted. Have fun over there. I trust in you. God's got your back. Catch you later. I gotta go eat whatever it is medieval people eat with the emperor over dinner. Have a nice time.

[B]

So many spices is the answer. It's just. It's just spice. They're just eating entire bowls of spices.

[A]

And you know what? I. And. And that's why I like them. And I would, too.

[C]

Not spices that any of us would like. You know, they're like, you know what this bland dish needs? They're like cinnamon, cardamom and almonds. Yeah, and almonds and full peppercorns. And you're like, like, delicious. Thank God. Yeah.

[A]

No, but he's like, okay, I'm going to go over, do this thing. You guys are going to be fine. And then they get their shit absolutely rocked.

[B]

Yep, completely rocked. Completely rocked. I mean, to the point where there's sort of a skeleton staff of peasants who are left alive, who do retreat to Constantinople and do fold in when the real warriors show up later, you know, because the real warriors were doing things like making sure that everyone had enough arms, thinking about logistics, ensuring that there was enough food. I mean, and still, at least until.

[C]

They got to Constantinople.

[B]

I was gonna say, like, listen, those white boys, like, completely let it slip from there on out, but. But they knew that getting through Europe was going to require logistics. And then they were like. And then manna from heaven, question mark.

[C]

One thing white people have never learned, ever, ever, ever learned about going into the Levant and the Middle east is that you do not leave the water source. You don't do it. And all the Crusaders did it. They did it all the time. The Crusader states did it. We did it when we illegally invaded there, you know, 20 years ago or whatever. It's like, white people have never learned, and I'm not kidding about that. That, like, one of the reasons Jerusalem gets taken back by Saladin's army in 1187 is because the morons just left their, like, well wells to go and fight one of Saladin's armies. And he tricked them, and they were like, oh, whoops, I guess we're all gonna die of thirst now. Good job.

[A]

It's always a water war. All wars are water wars at the end of the day. And I'm telling you, I've been saying this every episode forever. Another one's coming. We had to prepare.

[B]

That's such a Pacific Northwestern opinion. We're like, listen, guys, just look, I'm from Portland.

[A]

I'm. I'll be fine.

[B]

Yeah, you know what? I've strayed too far from my homeland of Tacoma, but I moved to a similarly gray and rainy place because I'm like. I get frightened anytime there's too much sun, you know?

[A]

Yeah, you got to be near a coastline. You got to be near fresh water source. The thing about being from Oregon is that I will tell anyone who will listen. Like, you could just cut Oregon off from the rest of the world, and we'd be fine. We have everything we could ever need. We have every kind of climate. We're good. We're chilling. Most people don't have this experience.

[B]

Listen, after the Civil War, Cascadia will rise. Okay, I'm saying. Listen. Listen.

[C]

Until the earthquake, you know what?

[B]

A small price to pay. A small price to pay.

[C]

Hey, I'm not hating. Hey, it's better than Florida. I'm not hating. I'm just saying we've all got our crosses to bear here.

[A]

Much like Peter the Hermit as a perfect.

[B]

He's not done bad segue.

[C]

No, that was a great segue. Because he's literally not done easy. He folds back into the army. We don't hear anything about him for a little while. Then he shows up at the Battle of Antioch after the Crusaders have won the initial eighth month siege. And then they enter the city and they can't take the citadel of the city, so they only partially take it. And then another Muslim army shows up outside the gates. And then it is said by various chroniclers that Peter the Hermit was one of the rope danglers who used ropes to escape from the city of Antioch at night, though he was brought back. However, historians lately have been like, if he was one of the early ones, he would have gotten away or died. And he was definitely there at Jerusalem. So it's probably more like that somebody's trying to slander him. At that point, it's me.

[B]

I was trying to slander him. I'll be in there being like, this guy ain't.

[D]

It was a good try, your efforts.

[C]

But yeah, you tried, Eleanor. All you use that time machine to go back in the past and slander Peter the Hermit. How dare you. I also. Historians doubt that he actually tried to escape because he was later sent out to parlay and do diplomatic relations with Kurboga's forces. So he goes out there and his diplomatic efforts come to not.

[B]

But he's out there like, you wouldn't hit a little white guy, would you?

[D]

And they said, yes, in fact, we would.

[C]

But if my army shatters behind me because of contradictions within our forces, well, then we might be boned.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, that's where the disunity comes from. I mean, they win that battle because Kerbuga recruits two other local potentates to join his army. And they both hate Kerbuga more than they hate the Crusaders, who just showed up one day and like, who are these guys? I don't care. But Kerbuga was a threat to them. And so when the Crusaders marched out with for what I think many of them probably thought was their final stand, the army just broke up. And, you know, they're like, I'm not dying for this guy, let's get out of here.

[B]

Fair.

[C]

Yeah. They skedaddled. And then, yeah, Peter the Hermit, he shows up again at the Battle of Jerusalem because the army of Crusaders was exhausted and strung out and tired, and their logistics had completely broken down and the people within the city were starving and they were like, oh, we've had a vision. We need to recreate the march around the walls of Jericho from the Old Testament. They were like, yeah, that's a great idea. And so they do that and they march around it three times barefoot. And then they walk up to a hill just outside the city where Peter the Hermit gives a sermon and tells them, you know, via con Dios, go with God, etc. Etc. And they went and took Jerusalem.

[A]

And those are his exact words.

[C]

Yes, he. He invented Spanish.

[D]

It really is kind of wild.

[B]

It's pretty incredible because, like, the whole thing is like, we gotta put on the best concert this town's ever seen.

[A]

That's basically like, we're saving Christmas.

[C]

We're saving Christmas and the community center. The Scooby and the gang are here to help. We're not gonna let that. That land developer take it and make it a basketball ballerina. Yeah.

[B]

Like, it's cringe at the very best.

[C]

You know, the First Crusade is. Is awful. And it's terrible. It's an act of proto colonialism, proto imperialism. Like the original sin of Europe, I've called it, and others as well. It's. But it's so fascinating. It really is. And I'm. There's no honor to be had in this. I do not want anybody to take that away from it. But it is fascinating. Like, it is nuts. Oh, I. Hell, I forgot to mention that during the siege of Antioch, there was a literal comet sighting across the sky, like a shooting star. A comet hit the earth somewhere, like to the east of Kerbogha's camp. And all involved on both sides agreed that this was a bad omen for Kerbogha, that like heaven had thrown the thing down and it's like the hammer was going to smite them. Like we're talking about real Game of Thrones. Assuming Peter Bartholomew, who's the one that discovered what most people believe is the phony Spear of Longinus that pierced the side of Christ. He was challenged about it during the thing, a trial by fire where he was burned. And if he survived, that would have been the true Spear of Longinus. But if he died, it wasn't. And he died 12 days later of sepsis. This is Game of Thrones ass fucking stuff in like a. Since it's four years.

[D]

But it was the crush of the crowd. Luke, it wasn't the fire. Come on.

[C]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[D]

It was the crowd. Yes. Killed him. Please.

[B]

There is absolutely no reason why the Crusaders should have won this shit. Except that basically everyone in the Middle east, like, hated Kerbogha and each other.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And they were like this bunch of quirked up white boys, basically. The Crusaders, like a trip over their own dicks and, like, somehow take over Jerusalem.

[D]

I mean, it's really the perfect moment to invade this region and be this completely alien outside force, fighting in a way that people aren't really familiar with that is not necessarily conducive to mounted horse archers because of the quality of the armor and the weapons that you're using. It's a style of fighting they don't really know how to deal with. And again, just like a total group of outsiders that have no political purchase, where everybody's got their little petty feud with the town next to them. That is the biggest thing on their plate. So there's no way to mobilize Islamic society or political entity to deal with these guys on that time frame. And by the time anybody figures it out they're in Jerusalem, things will change very quickly, moving forward to the detriment of the Crusaders. But at this point, it really is like they just picked the perfect time to do it by sheer dumb luck.

[A]

It is kind of wild that people look at the Crusades and are like, we want that again. We want that experience again. Actually, that was glorious and righteous and beautiful and whatever. And again, like, even just in this one singular series of events, right? It's like this one Crusade, his deal, it's like embarrassment after embarrassment. Like, it's so cringe and embarrassing.

[D]

Yes. I mean, there's the cannibalism. There's the, you know, like, this. The mass slaughter, people.

[C]

It's. None of these battles are glorious. None of them are spectacular. They are weird sieges.

[B]

But this is the thing about literally any crusade, but certainly the first Crusade, we picked Peter the Hermit today to get mad at, but you could pick anyone. It really doesn't matter. There are no good guys. There's. There's no one who's clever. There's nothing that is glorious or beautiful about it.

[A]

It.

[B]

And still somehow there is this willful desire to pretend that something happened here that we, A, can recreate, or B, that we should wish to recreate. And that in and of itself is something that really bears examination. And it's why we have to remember to just, you know, take a moment to talk a little bit of trash now and then about people like Peter the Hermit.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I do like the idea of being like, I'm gonna pick this esoteric, like, weird, mega church leader guy who led thousands of people into immediate death in 45 minutes, trailed thousands again of, like, women, children, old people around Europe and Central Asia, and then what? At the end of his life, he Basically just retreats back into nothingness enough that we don't even know when he dies. Ye, he's not important anymore. Yeah.

[B]

Like, the point is, it's embarrassing enough that even at the point in time when people are kind of like enamored of him, they lose track of him. So, you know, maybe he founded a monastery in Flanders. It could be, you know, that that is kind of the legend about him, but we don't actually know.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's the thing is you can try as hard as you want. But even they were like, I don't know, man. I don't feel like we need to, to keep track of him.

[A]

Well, it very much goes to what Shailey Patel said on our episode about Paul and we've talked about this previous, like on other episodes as well, where she was basically like, people are messy bitches and they've been messy bitches forever for all of history. And the idea that there is like some glorious, pure version of people in history is just not real because people are messy bitches and have been forever. And just like the messiness and the cringiness and the embarrassment, the humiliation and all of these things that we experienced experience in our lives right now, people are doing there too. But like, they don't again have penicillin in this scenario to solve any problems for them. It's so funny to me to imagine this version of the past where people are like having this glorious crusade against Islam and whatever when, like even now, like even in the last 20 years and even with our relationship in America with the Middle east, like, like, that's also not why we're doing it now. It's not why they were doing it then. These things aren't real. They're just like retconning they all. It's always that. And every single episode of the show I come to that conclusion. Like, truly every single time I'm like, yeah, okay, so we're the same as we've basically as we've always been. And you know, some would consider making for example, a podcast called something like we're not so Different. But, you know, that's a free idea out there for.

[B]

Wow, what a great one. Thanks, Claire.

[A]

Thank you all so much for coming on. This has been very enlightening for me in many ways and for many reasons. I learned lots of things I could not possibly have expected to learn along the way. Where can people find welcome to the.

[B]

[e-mail] it is a multiple part series that we put out In September, there are 11 episodes. It is 10 of your American dollars to get access to them. And we are in the process of working on our second season of welcome to the Crusades, which will cover the Second Crusade. This time it's personal 2 crusade 2 furious.

[A]

Yeah, that's right.

[B]

I bet. You know, this time there's Eleanor of Aquitaine, so at least it's interesting. But that will be out probably in June, so you want to make sure you get through the first one first. But it's. If you want to really get into the nitty gritty of how this works, it's a really nice exploration of that and I think it's something we're all really proud of.

[A]

Incredible. And Derek, where can they find American prestige?

[D]

American prestigepod dot com. We're, we're, we're cornering the market on.

[A]

Awkward URLs, so ours is literally just this guy suck dot com, so.

[B]

I can't believe that wasn't taken. I can't believe that was.

[D]

Yeah, that really. I mean, that really feels like an okay oversight from somebody.

[A]

It is shocking. Also, when I send emails sometimes, like we normally use the POD email, but we also have like a separate one that's from the Gmail that's just has our POD name. It always feels like someone's going to be like, what is this? Why would you email me from this?

[B]

When it comes to me, I'm like, oh, yeah, I. That's. They're speaking my language.

[A]

Sorry. Thanks for tuning into this episode of this Guy Sucked. A member of the Multitude Podcast podcast collective, this episode was Hosted by me, Dr. Claire Aubin, featuring special guests Danny, Derek, Luke and Eleanor from American Prestige. And welcome to the Crusades. This episode was edited by the cheesemonger in chief, Julia Sheffini. All of our theme music was written and produced by cool, fun friend Marshall Dean Williams. If you'd like to support the show and get access to all episodes, including two extra episodes per month and access to our full archive of episodes. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or to our [e-mail] thisguysucked See you next week.