Daily Medieval

In 1173 King of Jerusalem Amalric I tried to make an alliance with the Order of Assassins . They were a sect of Shi'ite Islam whose goa...

On the morning of 29 June 1170, the inhabitants of what are now western Syria, central southern Turkey, and Lebanon were rocked by one of th...

January 1169 saw the death of Bertrand of Blancfort, the master of the Templars . Bertrand was not as keen on invading Egypt as was Amalric...

Yesterday's post introduced the phrase more muris in pera , "like a mouse in a wallet." It was said by William of Tyre about ...

In 1163, the young Fatimid caliph of Egypt was al-Adid, who was only 12 and a puppet of several strong nobles and viziers. His current vizie...

Born into the Zengid Dynasty, Al-Malik al-Adil Abu al-Qasim Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd bin Imad al-Dīn Zengī, known as Nur ad-Din, became Emir of Ale...

Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem, contracted dysentery in 1162 after taking some pills from a Syriac physician. He was only 33 years old, and ...

Formed about 1120 by Hugues de Payens and eight others—including André de Montbard, the uncle of St. Bernard of Clairvaux —the Poor Fellow-S...