Adhemarde Monteil was one of the principal figures of the First Crusade and was bishop of Puy-en-Velay from before 1087. He was the chosen representative of Pope Urban II for the expedition to the Holy Land. Remembered for his martial prowess, he led knights and men into battle and fought beside them, particularly at the Battle of Dorylaeum and Siege of Antioch. Adhemar is said to have carried the Holy Lance in the Crusaders’ desperate breakout at Antioch on 28 June 1098, in which superior Islamic forces under the atabeg Kerbogha were routed, securing the city for the Crusaders. He died in 1098 due to illness.
Year 1147 (MCXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Year 1096 (MXCVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
Stephen Henry was the Count of Blois and Count of Chartres. He led an army during the First Crusade, was at the surrender of the city of Nicaea, and directed the siege of Antioch. Returning home without fulfilling his crusader vows, Stephen joined the crusade of 1101. Making his way to Jerusalem, he fought in the Second Battle of Ramla, where he was captured and later executed.
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Godfrey of Bouillon was a pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade, and the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100, although he avoided the title of king, preferring that of prince (princeps) and Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, or Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre. He was the second son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Lord of Bouillon, from his mother's inheritance, in 1076. In 1087 Emperor Henry IV confirmed him as Duke of Lower Lorraine, a reward for his support during the Great Saxon Revolt. Along with his brothers Eustace III and Baldwin of Boulogne, Godfrey joined the First Crusade in 1096. He took part in actions at Nicaea, Dorylaeum, and Antioch, before playing a key role during the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. When Raymond IV of Toulouse declined the offer to become ruler of the new kingdom, Godfrey accepted the role and secured his kingdom by defeating the Fatimids at Ascalon a month later, bringing the First Crusade to an end. He died in July 1100 and was succeeded by his brother Baldwin as King of Jerusalem.
Peter the Hermit, also known as Little Peter, Peter of Amiens or Peter of Achères, was a Roman Catholic priest of Amiens and a key figure during the military expedition from France to Jerusalem, known as the People's Crusade. He is by some called Blessed Peter the Hermit, although he has not been beatified in the Catholic Church.
Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, sometimes called Raymond of Saint-Gilles or Raymond I of Tripoli, was a powerful noble in southern France and one of the leaders of the First Crusade (1096–1099). He was the Count of Toulouse, Duke of Narbonne and Margrave of Provence from 1094, and he spent the last five years of his life establishing the County of Tripoli in the Near East.
Walter Sans Avoir was the lord of Boissy-sans-Avoir in the Île-de-France. He was mistakenly known as Walter the Penniless. While his name literally means "Walter without having", it actually derives from the name of his demesne and, ultimately, the motto of his family, Sans avoir Peur ("Fearless").
Kilij Arslan ibn Suleiman (1079–1107) was the Seljuq Sultan of Rum from 1092 until his death in 1107. He ruled the Sultanate during the time of the First Crusade and thus faced the attack. He also re-established the Sultanate of Rum after the death of Malik Shah I of the Seljuk Empire and defeated the Crusaders in three battles during the Crusade of 1101. Kilij Arslan was the first Muslim and Turkish commander to fight against the Crusaders, commanding his horse archers as a teenager.
Robert II, Count of Flanders was Count of Flanders from 1093 to 1111. He became known as Robert of Jerusalem or Robert the Crusader after his exploits in the First Crusade.
The Battle of Dorylaeum took place during the First Crusade on 1 July 1097 between the crusader forces and the Seljuk Turks, near the city of Dorylaeum in Anatolia. Though the Turkish forces of Kilij Arslan nearly destroyed the Crusader contingent of Bohemond, other Crusaders arrived just in time to reverse the course of the battle.
The siege of Nicaea was the first major battle of the First Crusade, taking place from 14 May to 19 June 1097. The city was under the control of the Seljuk Turks who opted to surrender to the Byzantines in fear of the crusaders breaking into the city. The siege was followed by the Battle of Dorylaeum and the Siege of Antioch, all taking place in modern Turkey.
The People's Crusade was the beginning phase of the First Crusade whose objective was to retake the Holy Land, and Jerusalem in particular, from Islamic rule. In 1095 the head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Urban II started to urge faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the People's Crusade was conducted for roughly six months from April to October 1096. It is also known as the Peasants' Crusade, Paupers' Crusade or the Popular Crusade as it was executed by a mainly untrained peasant army prior to the main church-organized crusade. It was led primarily by Peter the Hermit with forces of Walter Sans Avoir. The peasant army of this crusade was destroyed by the forces of the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan at the Battle of Civetot in northwestern Anatolia.
The Byzantine–Ottoman wars were a series of decisive conflicts between the Byzantine Greeks and Ottoman Turks and their allies that led to the final destruction of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The Byzantines, already having been in a weak state even before the partitioning of their Empire following the 4th Crusade, failed to recover fully under the rule of the Palaiologos dynasty. Thus, the Byzantines faced increasingly disastrous defeats at the hands of the Ottomans. Ultimately, they lost Constantinople in 1453, formally ending the conflicts.
The Byzantine–Seljuk wars were a series of conflicts in the Middle Ages between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire. They shifted the balance of power in Asia Minor and Syria from the Byzantines to the Seljuk dynasty. Riding from the steppes of Central Asia, the Seljuks replicated tactics practiced by the Huns hundreds of years earlier against a similar Roman opponent but now combining it with new-found Islamic zeal. In many ways, the Seljuk resumed the conquests of the Muslims in the Byzantine–Arab Wars initiated by the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates in the Levant, North Africa and Asia Minor.
Helenopolis or Drepana (Δρέπανα) or Drepanon (Δρέπανον) was an ancient Greco-Roman and Byzantine town in Bithynia, Asia Minor, on the southern side of the Gulf of Astacus. It has been identified with the modern village of Hersek, in the district of Altınova, Yalova Province. It is traditionally considered as the birthplace of Saint Helena.
The siege of Xerigordos in 1096, often Xerigordon in modern historical literature, pitted 6,000 Germans of the People's Crusade under Reinald of Broyes against the Turks commanded by Elchanes, general of Kilij Arslan, the Seljuk Sultan of Rûm. The crusader raiding party captured the Turkish fort of Xerigordos, about four days' march from Nicaea, in an attempt to set up a pillaging outpost. Elchanes arrived three days later and besieged the crusaders. The defenders had no water supply, and after eight days of siege, they surrendered on September 29. Some of the Crusaders converted to Islam, while others who refused were killed.
Manuel Boutoumites or Butumites was a leading Byzantine general and diplomat during the reign of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, and one of the emperor's most trusted aides. He was instrumental in the Byzantine recovery of Nicaea from the Seljuk Turks, in the reconquest of Cilicia, and acted as the emperor's envoy in several missions to Crusader princes.
Xerigordos, often incorrectly Xerigordon in modern historiography, was a castle in Anatolia that served as the setting of the Siege of Xerigordos as a part of the People's Crusade in 1096. The contemporary records assert that the fortress was located on a hill and its water supply came from both a water well and a spring just outside the walls. The exact location has not yet been identified. Albert of Aix wrote that it was about three miles away from Nicaea.
