Dr Nicholas Morton delves into the sights, smells and sounds of the crusader states in the 12th century\u2026 <\/p>
The conclusion of the First Crusade at the end of the 11th<\/sup> century saw the solidification of Western Christian conquests in the Near East and the subsequent formation of four main crusader states \u2013 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<\/em> podcast, Dr Nicholas Morton introduces the people you might have met in the crusader states\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s 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\u2019s lots of buildings and very narrow alleyways. The sea was slick with grime because there\u2019s no sewerage or refuse removal.<\/p>\n Against this backdrop, you\u2019ve got all these ships arriving from Western Christendom, bringing merchants, pilgrims and crusaders \u2013 people who have little idea about what they\u2019ll find when they arrive or what they\u2019re going to encounter. From the other direction, you\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n If you went down these streets and alleyways, you\u2019d hear all sorts of languages being spoken, different ideas and stories being exchanged, and different rivalries coming to the fore. It\u2019s just an incredible mix of people, and there\u2019s so much going on. It\u2019s wonderful, exciting, dynamic, terrible and brutal \u2013 and it\u2019s all happening in a very narrow area.<\/p>\n The same is also true for other cities. Let\u2019s take Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It\u2019s not so commercial but, again, you\u2019ve got pilgrims arriving from across the world. You\u2019ve got Russian, Byzantine, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian, and Western European pilgrims \u2013 and that\u2019s just the Christian pilgrims. You\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s religions or cultures \u2013 what they say to each other, what stories they share, what they make of one another. For me at least, that\u2019s what makes this whole era so fascinating.<\/p>\n