Daily Medieval

In Parts One and Two we get the feeling that forgeries were quite common, and used to "alter history" to the benefit of an insti...

Yesterday's post mentioned that the first queen of Jerusalem, Melisende, was besieged in the Tower of David by her son, Baldwin III, wh...

Edgar Ætheling had been through many ups and downs . For the trouble he had caused for William II of Normandy as an "alternate choice...

Besides sharing the story of Peter Bartholomew and his finding of the Holy Lance and his subsequent Trial by Ordeal, Raymond of Aguilers ...

So Peter Bartholomew was about to undergo Trial by Ordeal to verify whether he was being honest about his visions and   discovering the Ho...

After the "finding" of the Holy Lance , the Crusaders in Antioch felt emboldened to break the siege around the city by Kerbogha, t...

One of the "side-effects" of the Crusades was allowing Western Europeans to look for artifacts connected to the Bible and the life...

Recent posts have mentioned three of William of Normandy's sons who had claims (some of them realized) to the throne of England. The Con...

When the First Crusade was on their way to free the Holy land from the "infidel," they passed through Constantinople and asked for...

In June of 1097, the First Crusade captured Nicaea, at that time under the control of the Seljuk Turks. An attempt at defense by Kilij Arsl...

Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger (1062 - 1137) was a Byzantine noble. As a general, he defended Constantinople when the army of Godfrey of B...

Alexios I Comnenos (1057 - 1118) was the Byzantine emperor during the start of the Crusades. Since the Byzantines were a part of the old Rom...

Kilij Arslan I (1079 - 1107) was the Sultan of Rum; it was he who had to deal with the Europeans of the First Crusade when they attempted t...

When the First Crusade approached the Holy Land, they were met by the Seljuk Sultan of Rum, Kilij Arslan I. His first encounter with the Eu...

Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (Latin: "Deeds of the Franks and the other pilgrims to Jerusalem"), also known simp...

Guibert of Nogent, a Benedictine  was not remarkable in his time, but his extensive writings and autobiography have more recently provided i...

How do we know what happened hundreds of years ago? Sometimes we have an archaeological finds that are subject to interpretation. Sometimes ...

Godfrey (c.1060 - 18 July, 1100) was the second son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and therefore was not in line for much inheritance. Hi...

It can be argued that the First Crusade, announced in 1095, could not or would not feasibly have been undertaken much earlier than the end o...

Christianity in the Middle Ages did not approve of Islam and its swift growth. It was not many years after the death of Muhammad in 632 CE t...