00:01:44.160It's called—it's being hosted by Coptic Solidarity, an international human rights organization that primarily focuses on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East in general, in Egypt in particular, the Copts, because that's the largest concentration of Christian minorities in the Middle East.
00:04:07.040It is in all sorts of ways burned and rebuilt.
00:04:10.360And this goes for all monasteries and churches, of course.
00:04:14.200But finally, after, you know, the vicissitudes of centuries of attacks
00:04:17.500from different invading Islamic occupiers,
00:04:20.300Arabs and Turks and Fatimids and Seljuks etc etc now it's finally you know in one piece and it's
00:04:28.520a UNESCO heritage site and out of the blue the Egyptian state because a regular Muslim man and
00:04:35.780Islamists according to the reports support him actually brought a territorial claim saying that
00:04:41.540no no the land that the monastery is built on belongs to me and long story short a few months
00:04:46.580ago the an egyptian court ruled that yes all the land around that monastery belongs to the state
00:04:52.060and it's going to appropriate it and that of course created a lot of um a lash back especially
00:04:59.100from the greek orthodox church who because it's an orthodox site it's essentially a greek orthodox
00:05:04.280site and um you know eventually just to cover face the egyptian government said no no it's just a
00:05:10.640technicality nothing's going to change it's still it's still a heritage site etc etc but you know
00:05:15.720most observers myself included argue otherwise that it's essentially being appropriated and what
00:05:21.640really gives credence to that is something very similar has happened since then and lesser known
00:05:25.880which is in egypt there's what's known as the holy family trail which is at the time when joseph and
00:05:31.720mary and baby jesus when they fled to egypt the for centuries it's been known where they went and
00:05:36.800the coptic church has actually maintained it for spiritual and heritage reasons but now the egyptian
00:05:42.740state is, again, appropriating everything, taking control of it. And keep in mind, you know, so the
00:05:48.040Coptic church, the Christians, again, that whole, all those heritage sites were under attack by0.99
00:05:53.640Muslims. Now, however, because it can be used and exploited as a tourism site, basically the0.99
00:05:59.460Egyptian government's taking it, appropriating it, and of course, taking all the revenues that come
00:06:03.480from it. And, you know, to fully understand this, if you want to really understand how bad it is,
00:06:08.840because it's usually everything coming out from that region is bad anyway.
00:06:12.820But to understand it by analogy, imagine or think about what the U.S. government is doing towards Native Americans.
00:06:18.640The complete autonomy they have, the lands that they can keep, their sacred sites,
00:06:23.620they keep all the revenue coming out of casinos and all that sort of thing.
00:06:28.000Well, this is identical because the Copts are the indigenous inhabitants, as I mentioned, Sinai, Catherine.
00:06:33.540And that was there centuries before Arabs and Muslims, before Muslims even existed, before Muhammad was born.0.61
00:06:39.180OK, and you can see the difference between how the U.S. government is, you know, at least allows the natives access and to profit from their own regions.
00:06:48.560Whereas in Egypt and in the broader Middle East, Christians are completely being denied and their actual structures.
00:06:55.300The Native Americans don't even have buildings that they built before the Europeans came.
00:06:59.900Whereas in this case, you have actual monasteries and ancient sites, actual tangible assets, and lo and behold, here's the Egyptian government essentially taking over.
00:11:34.000I tell people that St. Augustine, I think arguably the greatest of all the thinkers in the early church of the church fathers, was a Berber, right?
00:11:47.200And all the great church fathers in North Africa were North African, right?0.99
00:11:53.620Well, the chief articular of the Nicene Creed, the chief articular of the Nicene Creed, which all Christian denominations still now profess, was an Egyptian, Athanasius.
00:12:03.440Yes. No, but we've got to know that history, and we've got to defend that heritage. Where do people just go for this?
00:12:10.980Yeah, I think this organization, Coptic Solidarity, if you go to their website, they have a lot of resources, a lot of actual special reports, some of which I write myself, exclusive reports that deal with all of these topics, including the St. Catherine Monastery and the Holy Family Trail.
00:12:28.480And there's petitions people can sign and ways to actually get involved in this, in helping set this wrong to right.
00:12:35.800so let's pivot to uh the uh our subject for today is the first crusade we we we got the the call of
00:12:44.120the crusade last time now the crusade is that it's been kicked around did the families it was
00:12:50.120really a norman correct me if i'm wrong it's really a norman adventure they were the tip of
00:12:54.380the spear with the norman families is this that they get motivated to do this that they have an
00:13:00.240economic reason to do it i mean people don't realize the normans had already conquered i think
00:13:04.200sicily uh malta uh i mean they're they're they're just not up it's just not vikings meeting french
00:13:11.320girls in northwest uh northwest france these guys really spread out uh why did they why did
00:13:18.900they go get the message to them first and did they embrace it they most certainly embraced it
00:13:25.620and um i think because it was widely understood that the normans were essentially the ultimate
00:13:30.340warrior aristocracy of Europe at the time, for the reasons that you mentioned. They were highly
00:13:34.820active. They still maintained that sort of adventurous Viking spirit that saw the Vikings
00:13:39.340go all over the place, but now through a sort of Christian paradigm and a Christian mentality. So
00:13:44.540they were still fierce warriors, but they did it in the name of, on behalf of, and in defense of
00:13:50.800Christendom. So I think that's why they were frequently targeted, and, you know, these messages
00:13:57.100also very much resonated with them. And this was also a little bit after the popes had decreed,
00:14:03.300you know, the peace, these peace treaties amongst Christians where, you know, in certain days you
00:14:11.200can't fight. And so all this martial energy that had hitherto been, you know, exhausted on each
00:14:17.900other because they were violent people was now kind of marshaled and directed towards a just
00:14:23.340cause as it was seen, the First Crusade, which is helping these Christians who are being persecuted,
00:14:28.780as we discussed in the previous episode, which was beyond horrific. You know, just earlier today,
00:14:33.420I was looking over some notes, and I know I've many times regaled you with all the atrocities
00:14:38.720that were being committed right before the First Crusade. And looking again at my notes and my
00:14:43.640books, they're so much worse. You know, just the sheer amount, the horror, the actual widespread
00:14:49.240amounts of savagery is mind-boggling. And so this is why it made sense that both the Normans and
00:14:57.280among them, the Franks, of course, and the Franks is more of a generic term. And sometimes people
00:15:01.840conflate the Normans with them, even though they are, of course, a separate group. But the Franks
00:15:06.200is generally, you know, Francia, the French, but also all these other nations near them, Belgium
00:15:11.320was conflated with them. Sometimes the Germans were seen as Franks as well. So that's why the
00:15:16.780sources, both Muslim and frequently, even the Latin sources just talk about the Frankish people,
00:15:22.740but definitely the spearhead was very oftentimes the Normans, and that comes out very clearly,
00:15:27.980especially in the First Crusade. In the First Crusade, how do we get from motivated in the
00:15:33.940speech in the field, you're up near where World War II invasion took place, you're in Normandy,
00:15:39.040and how do you go from there? Constantinople, which made the call for help, is a long ways away,
00:15:45.440And Jerusalem, if you're taking a land route around and not going by sea, is even further.
00:15:54.540And were they going to go by sea and do a direct assault upon the Holy Land?
00:15:59.040Or were they going to take the long way away and stop in Constantinople and actually really meet our allies for the first time?
00:16:09.260Yeah, well, if you talk about the Crusades in general, it was often both.
00:16:12.360And frequently later crusades were mostly seaborne adventures from Europe, possibly because they learned from the first crusade, which was all by land.
00:16:21.440And it was just very exhausting and tiring.
00:16:24.360You can imagine these are pilgrims, most of them unhorsed, walking thousands of miles from the middle of Europe, let's say, all the way to Constantinople.
00:16:34.000And, yeah, the overwhelming majority of the first crusaders, I think all of them actually was by land.
00:16:39.080and they went there and just you know by the time they got to constantinople it was already they've
00:16:44.280been through all sorts of you know violence sometimes they provoked it because they didn't
00:16:49.600have enough food and not enough resources and their logistics had failed um you know the the
00:16:55.460people's crusades which is often you know highly condemned which preceded the it's part of the first
00:17:00.780crusade but it happens very soon after the call at clermont by urban the second which we were
00:17:05.480referencing. And, you know, they're the ones who we often hear went and started causing, you know,
00:17:10.820chaos in the Rhine, attacking Jews, plundering, even fighting with fellow Christians.0.95
00:17:16.280Tell about that. That was the people's crusade. It was a Peter, Peter the Hermit, I think was the
00:17:21.820Charles Crusade. This crusade was not organized along military lines with either the Franks or
00:17:28.740the great Norman families. This is just people that got so motivated by the call that they,
00:17:34.400and they started out they started out first correct and they're going to hoof it yes yeah
00:17:39.760these were just very enthusiasts and you know it was often before we called it the people's crusade
00:17:44.640was known as the peasants crusade so these were essentially peasants not part of the military class
00:17:49.520uh who just got so inflamed with ardor hearing what's going on and uh taking it as a pilgrimage
00:17:56.080they just they were the very first to take off and many people warned them not to and to wait for the
00:18:01.680Because the professional armies needed time, of course, to get themselves together and raise resources and properly prepare because they know what war is.
00:18:10.220Whereas the Peasants Crusades, it was just, you know, it was an act of extreme enthusiasm.
00:18:16.400And they took off unprepared and very often, yeah, with Peter the Hermit, often he was their leader.
00:18:21.740But there was also another one, I think Walter something.
00:18:24.860And apparently he's one of the ones who, along the Rhine, when they were starving and there was no—because they didn't plan correctly and they left early.
00:18:33.960They started basically saying, you know, why are we traveling all this distance to fight the Christ-haters, the infidels over there when they're right here, was his argument, basically, in reference to the Jews.
00:18:46.240And so they attacked them, killed them, plundered them.
00:18:49.940But it's notable, we should keep in mind, because many people always—this is the one instance that almost everyone knows about when we talk about the crusade and is always thrown out to basically discredit it.
00:18:59.720But you have to keep in mind that the pope himself and the clergymen actually called it out, banned it, punished, and even anathematized many of the people who were involved in this, and when they could, would offer protection to the Jews.
00:19:13.360So we can't say that that was part—it was definitely part of it.
00:19:17.060It was a human aspect that went awry, but it was never sanctioned.
00:19:27.500But again, it's a reflection of how unprepared and just this is not a warrior class.
00:19:32.620It's just zealot people who are traveling and who have no money, who have no food and are getting desperate and figured, well, we're going to attack these rich Christ killers as it comes out in the sources.
00:19:44.680the um whether it's the peasants crusade first or the or the real bulk of the army the the first
00:19:55.320crusade if you don't go by sea you've got to go down through the balkans the the little towns
00:20:01.660and villages and hungary and these other places are not uh you know what is yugoslavia i guess0.74
00:20:06.700they're not prepared for this there was a lot of consternation and and some of these crusaders
00:20:14.060I mean, these were rough folks, right? I mean, these were warrior class. And they had, at first,
00:20:20.060I think some of the times they were greeted favorably by towns. They were looking forward
00:20:24.940to it. They were very enthusiastic about this. But after the word got that these guys would,
00:20:30.000hey, kind of like take what they needed and, you know, we'll give you a Confederate dollar to pay
00:20:34.960for it. They're not exactly giving you gold or silver. People started saying, hey, we got to
00:20:40.820hide from these guys when they come and that word got to constantinople right that uh what they had
00:20:46.060called for showed up which was a bunch of tough hombres but tough hombres being what they were
00:20:52.500in those days they brought a little deal baggage with them right right well when the people's
00:20:59.580crusade the peasant crusade they were the first to reach constantinople and alexius the emperor
00:21:03.700he just ferried them over and he basically he warned them actually he told them no wait but
00:21:09.100you know you can't wait here and they were again very enthusiastic and said no we want to go there
00:21:13.660so he was like okay it's your head i warned you and he ferried them over and lo and behold they
00:21:17.780got butchered to a man and uh in fact from the first when the when we say first crusaders we
00:21:23.520usually do mean the warrior class the real crusade which sets which doesn't even start
00:21:27.520setting out till 1090s late 1096 early 1097 uh whereas these guys were already right after the
00:21:34.340call of clormont in 1095 by 1096 i think they were already at constantinople he ferried them over
00:21:40.740that they just with peter the hermit and some others they were completely butchered to a man
00:21:45.620and what and the women were enslaved and we have actually descriptions about what happened
00:21:49.460and uh the first crusaders when they came to nico media which is one of the very first areas that
00:21:53.860was once you cross from constantinople they actually encountered a massive pyramid of heads
00:21:59.460and it was the it was the peasant crusaders who had been completely butchered and they made and0.58
00:22:03.860And the Turks made a pyramid of their head.
00:22:07.060But when the first crusaders came, finally, they were definitely the tough hombres that Alexius was taken aback by.0.77
00:22:14.960And, you know, he kept parlaying with them, making, you know, trying to convince the leaders, the heads of the crusades, such as Godfrey and Raymond of Toulouse and all these other men to swear a sort of fealty to him.
00:22:29.780And also to agree that whatever lands they conquer, they give it back to him.
00:22:34.120And in return, he would give them support.
00:22:36.260Because remember, the lands that they were entering into Anatolia, Asia Minor, were part of his entire empire.
00:22:42.100But this is what I want to get the audience to understand.
00:22:45.560After doing this march across Europe, down through, and you don't have super highways.
00:22:52.180so you're take you're marching basically an army through unknown territory for them all the way
00:22:58.540down through the balkans which is you know no easy task fighting a lot where you're going because
00:23:04.540some of the locals are saying hey look you can't have my stuff they get to constantinople they're
00:23:10.240not welcome with open arms it's not like hey come in we want to show you the city why don't you
00:23:14.300we'll pass and review in front of the king they're kept really on the european side correct i mean
00:23:19.820there's a whole debate about you know what we got to make it these the the head of the byzantines
00:23:26.900has said um oh my god the the reputation of these guys we can't let him in so there's a whole
00:23:32.540series of negotiations where they're not embraced correct yes this is true it took a long time uh
00:23:40.120lots of back and forth lots of parlaying with him until he got some assurances and they got
00:23:44.820some assurances and i think it's pretty notable that they even agreed to give uh the conquered
00:23:50.420lands and they did as we will see until according to them and it depends on who you're going to
00:23:55.200believe but according to the crusaders eventually alexius reneged during i think the siege of
00:24:00.060antioch which was a little bit later um and so then at that point whatever they conquered they
00:24:05.480just kept uh but you know honestly from alexius so the story goes is he did call for help uh from
00:24:12.860the from the franks from the normans from pope urban and but he only expected a sort of highly
00:24:18.340specialized elite warrior class he did not expect a mass movement this in fact the first crusade is
00:24:25.360really seen as those kind of puzzling questions about how it became what it became just based on
00:24:31.420preaching uh from pope urban people like peter the hermit everyone expected at best you know like
00:24:36.840okay we'll raise an army and that would be the end of it but it became a mass human movement
00:24:41.940if you look at the sources it literally talks about about a hundred thousand people women and
00:24:46.360children old people it was it was because it was a pilgrimage it was an armed pilgrimage
00:24:51.140and so apparently Alexius was not uh expecting that because it was such an overwhelming force
00:24:57.880they had already created some damage as discussed on their way down to his region to Constantinople
00:25:04.240and uh but in the end yes he agreed to it they made deals he ferried them over he did bring
00:25:10.220supplies. And actually, the very first siege, which was Nicaea. So after the first crusaders
00:25:17.000entered, and they saw the Pyramid of Skulls and Nicopolis, a little bit after they reached Nicaea,
00:25:22.660where the aforementioned Nicene Creed that I talked about in the year 325 was articulated
00:25:27.900under Constantine's first ecumenical council. And so Nicaea at this time is now controlled by the
00:25:33.880Turks. And only recently, it was only recently probably conquered something like 10 years earlier,
00:25:38.280maybe even less during the Turkish advance.
00:39:10.380Tasso, the great poet of, I think Italian poet of the Middle Ages, wrote this magnificent epic poem like the Iliad called Jerusalem Delivered.
00:39:20.080Talk to me about when they finally, after Antioch and all these sieges, these horrible conditions of the heat, they got all their armor.
00:39:27.980they're not meant they're meant to fight up in northwest france not in the deserts of uh of uh
00:39:34.780of the holy land when they get to jerusalem talk to us about because the first crusade
00:39:39.100is the one that delivered the goods they did take back the holy city of jerusalem
00:39:45.580well if i have a few minutes there's a lot more important stuff actually uh jerusalem is certainly
00:39:49.900the climax but uh after this battle dory lamb and the sufferings that they go through
00:39:54.780Two notable things happened. One, the first actual conquest is the county of Edessa, which Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey, actually conquers.
00:40:03.520And how he does it is very interesting because the Christians, the indigenous Christians, primarily Armenians, Syrians as well, who were living there, were so oppressed by the Muslims that when these newcomers from the West came and everyone was just startled by their very appearance, these giants in metal and iron walking around, but they noticed that they had crosses everywhere.0.60
00:40:24.640cross banners. And so these indigenous Christians, recognizing that mutual symbol, the cross,
00:40:33.320would go up to them and throw themselves at their feet, kiss their feet, and just see them as their
00:40:38.100deliverers. So they often help them, including in the conquest of Edessa. And so that's really
00:40:43.660important to keep in mind, because oftentimes, you know, I've read a lot of historians who make
00:40:48.760it sound like, oh, everything was fine in the Holy Land. Christians weren't suffering at all.
00:40:52.040In fact, it permeates the sources about how all these Christians, wherever they were, Maronites in the mountains, when they'd find these men from the West come, always went to them and swore fealty and helped them, gave them food, gave them logistical help and advice and whatnot.
00:41:09.560And then the second thing is the siege of Antioch, which was in 1098, and that one was in many ways seen as more dramatic even than Jerusalem because that one was so long, so prolonged, and again, famine.
00:41:21.700The crusaders were reduced to eating their own leather shoes, drinking their horses' blood, really desperate stuff.
00:41:29.360And the walls of Antioch, Antioch was one of the—Antioch is where the word Christian was coined according to the book of Acts.
00:41:35.980So it really was an important place for Christians to reconquer.
00:41:40.700And long story short, they did manage to get it after, I think, eight grueling months where so many more Christians died.
00:41:46.340Again, it's a testimony to their fortitude.
00:41:49.200And again, the Christians who were living in Antioch helped them.
00:41:52.620In fact, apparently the man that helped threw a rope and had them climb in at night through a tower is believed to have been an Armenian who had been forcibly converted to Islam.
00:42:03.320and his wife had been seduced and taken by the ruler, the Muslim ruler,
00:44:38.540It's amazing by today's standards when we think about warfare and what drives men to war and what they fight for.
00:44:44.920And just what these guys fought for was something so transcendent, it's hard to actually comprehend with our modern minds to see how it drove them to these amazing feats.
00:44:54.240what was the the motivational force were they doing spiritual exercises were they
00:45:01.500constantly having mass said were they uh having confessions and and or yeah the holy eucharist
00:45:08.080what because when you read this it's all it's so unbelievable given the conditions given the
00:45:13.340hostility given how far from home you are given how you're losing um uh you know compadres every
00:45:22.160day, or some are just quitting and getting a boat, and they're not going to march back there
00:45:27.160and take a boat and get to Italy. The ones that were there at the end are such heroes of such
00:45:33.380scale. How did they do it? What was the motivating force that drove these against all odds to deliver
00:45:40.100Jerusalem? I would argue it was love, believe it or not, because that's what they said. That's what
00:45:46.720the sources show, that they actually were trying to follow Christ's commandment, which is love God
00:45:51.580with all your mind and your heart and love your fellow man. And both were under extreme assault.
00:45:56.780The Holy Land, the Holy Sepulchre had been destroyed even earlier, was again under attack.
00:46:01.920And, you know, sacred sites is something very important to Christians back then,
00:46:05.520just like it is today to Jews and Muslims, not Christians anymore, apparently. So it was very
00:46:10.660important to go and recover the Holy Sepulchre because it was being desecrated and all the other
00:46:14.960churches. So that was their expression of love for God, but also love for their fellow man,
00:46:20.180the other Christians who were under assault, who were being killed. This is why these Christians,
00:46:24.280as I said, when the crusaders did appear, went and threw themselves at their feet and thanked them.
00:46:29.120Okay, so believe it or not, it was a very muscular kind of love, not the sort of love that, you know,
00:46:33.760some sentimental, cloying kind of love that we talk about now. And that, I believe, is what
00:46:38.040actuated them and, you know, kept them going as long as they could to engage and perform these
00:46:45.280is essentially supernatural acts when you read them and you see what they were able to accomplish
00:46:50.420with nothing literally no food even um and their fight and they're something you know they're
00:46:55.440carrying from the sea carrying on their back for miles lumber so they can build uh catapults and
00:47:02.000without food and with pestilence it's just really amazing you know what the human spirit can do when
00:47:06.940it actually has something meaningful to fight for um i want to hold i want to hold and give the
00:47:14.640details of actually the siege of Jerusalem. We'll come back to that, do a whole hour on that because
00:47:18.480it's so unbelievable. Before I let you go, given the conference you're at today, given your
00:47:23.940writings, all that, what are the lessons of the first crusade for young men you think in Christendom
00:47:31.200today? Well, the lessons are, you know, times were really bad. Christians were under assault.
00:47:39.200You know, there was all kinds of attacks, explicit, implicit attacks, inside, subversive
00:48:03.440And, you know, the concept of love that they had is not what we have.
00:48:06.920Like I said, we have this weird sentimental, it's like a feeling.
00:48:10.140To them, love is what love really means, which is willing the good for the other.
00:48:14.340And so I'm going to sacrifice myself for the love of the other so I can relieve the other from what he's suffering.
00:48:20.720And I think that sort of thing was so motivating.
00:48:23.580I think it would be motivating today to people if that's actually what they were fighting for.
00:48:28.300Of course, our wars today have nothing to do with that.
00:48:30.960And so I think the lesson is that when you actually have a true motivation, a true goal, something that's pious, something that's good, something that really jibes with the human spirit, you can do all sorts of things as long as it's there.
00:48:44.940And, you know, nowadays, I don't think we have those kinds of motivations as much anyway.
00:48:51.280Where do they get your three books?0.78
00:48:52.840Sword and Scimitar gives us the whole conflict between Islam since its rise and Christendom.0.97
00:48:59.060You've got Defenders of the West, which talks about these amazing figures, Richard the Lionheart, all the different, Godfrey of all the Crusades.0.97
00:51:16.540Also, America's health share. If you're concerned that you can't continue to keep the health care you've got, and with Obamacare makes it very tough, freedomfromhealth.org. That's Freedom for Health. Freedomforhealth.org slash Bannon. You get your first month free, but here's what it is. Immerse yourself. This is a big alternative away from the insurance companies.
00:51:41.160It takes you a while to understand it.
00:51:43.140That's why we are working with the company to make sure you immerse yourself in all this information.