Category Archives: Muslim Empire (old series)

Life of Tancred, 1097-1112

Tancred was a young man of about 20 when Pope Urban preached the Crusade. His grandfather had conquered Sicily, so he was looking for a new frontier. The Crusade was perfect for him, since he already spoke some Arabic. He … Continue reading

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Hostages and ransoms, 1103-1108

Keeping up with the Roupenians: “Baby Blues” [Morphia’s baby is due, but her husband is in Mosul. Her father just got killed, and now Arda has a divorce shocker! How will the family cope?] By 1103, Count Baldwin II of … Continue reading

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Mt. Pilgrim and the Legacy of Raymond, 1101-5

Raymond of Toulouse had taken a vow not to return home. He had missed out on the prizes of Antioch and Jerusalem, but his army had taken some towns and forts in the vicinity of Tripoli. Among these early captures … Continue reading

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The Crusade of the Faint-Hearted, 1101-1102

The entry before this one is dated May, 20, 2014, titled “Good cops and bad ones: Caesarea in 1101.” link In 1101, the new Pope Paschal called for another wave of pilgrim fighters to go east. Some of them were … Continue reading

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War gear of the First Crusade

When the organized Princes’ Crusade armies set out, they had the best standard weaponry of the time. So what did the average soldier carry? The most important weapon of the era was the spear, whether it was a throwing lance … Continue reading

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1095: Meanwhile in Egypt…

The year before Pope Urban II called for the first Crusade in Clermont, Egypt experienced two important deaths that led to another split in the Shi’ite world. Caliph al-Mustansir ruled for sixty years in Cairo, starting when he was only … Continue reading

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The Druze

In the later years of Caliph al-Hakim (see original entry here), two separate forces fused to create the Druze, the secretive cult/tribe based in Lebanon. This is another of those stories that’s hard to make out clearly because there are … Continue reading

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The Battle of Karbala, 680

Karbala, an event not often included in European/American histories, is one of the defining moments for Islamic history.    The year was 680. The newly-conquered Muslim lands had gone through four Caliphs in rapid succession, following Mohammed’s death in 632. … Continue reading

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Greek medicine’s pathway into Europe

The Big Story of Europe’s medieval period is something like, “How the rude northern tribes took over for Rome and then gradually learned to adapt to and surpass Rome’s standards of civilization.” You see this same shape in every topic: … Continue reading

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Good cops and bad ones: Caesarea in 1101

The Crusaders did not yet have a good port, since Antioch was actually inland a bit on the Orontes River. The ports in this area had all been fortified by Greek or Roman founders, so they had serious walls and … Continue reading

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