Dr Nicholas Morton delves into the sights, smells and sounds of the crusader states in the 12th century…
The conclusion of the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century saw the solidification of Western Christian conquests in the Near East and the subsequent formation of four main crusader states – the county of Edessa, the county of Tripoli, the principality of Antioch and the kingdom of Jerusalem. While this may have initiated Western rule in the region for the next 200 years, it was a far more complex scene than we might initially imagine, with many diverse cultures living cheek by jowl. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Dr Nicholas Morton introduces the people you might have met in the crusader states…
Let’s say you were to go back in time to the port city of Acre, which was the biggest commercial city in the Crusader states. You would find it a very densely packed place, with a high population living in small area. There’s lots of buildings and very narrow alleyways. The sea was slick with grime because there’s no sewerage or refuse removal.
Against this backdrop, you’ve got all these ships arriving from Western Christendom, bringing merchants, pilgrims and crusaders – people who have little idea about what they’ll find when they arrive or what they’re going to encounter. From the other direction, you’ve got merchants and travellers from Central Asia, China and, in some cases, even from places as far afield as India or Southeast Asia. Obviously, there are also those from the Muslim world and from Byzantium as well. They are all passing through these cities, whether they are travellers, merchants or diplomats.
If you went down these streets and alleyways, you’d hear all sorts of languages being spoken, different ideas and stories being exchanged, and different rivalries coming to the fore. It’s just an incredible mix of people, and there’s so much going on. It’s wonderful, exciting, dynamic, terrible and brutal – and it’s all happening in a very narrow area.
The same is also true for other cities. Let’s take Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It’s not so commercial but, again, you’ve got pilgrims arriving from across the world. You’ve got Russian, Byzantine, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian, and Western European pilgrims – and that’s just the Christian pilgrims. You’ve also got Muslim and Jewish pilgrims as well because, of course, Jerusalem is very important as a religious site to Muslims, as indeed it is for Judaism as well.
I think if I could go back in time, and if I had the language skills, I would just love just to listen to the conversations that they are having as people who have no prior familiarity with each other’s religions or cultures – what they say to each other, what stories they share, what they make of one another. For me at least, that’s what makes this whole era so fascinating.
Dr Nicholas Morton is an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University. He was speaking with Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast, answering your top search queries on the crusader states