On a cold January afternoon in 1649, Charles I, King of England, Ireland and Scotland

was executed by his own subjects. His crime? High treason. This unprecedented act rocked

the three kingdoms and the fledgling British Empire and followed ten years of rebellion,

revolution and civil war. Pax Britannica, a history podcast on the British Empire, covers

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Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium. Episode 231, the second crusade,

part one. Who goes along with King Louis will never be afraid of hell. His soul will go

to paradise where angels of the Lord do dwell. Odessa is taken, as you know, and Christians

troubled saw and long. The churches there are empty now and masses are no longer sung.

Oh, Knights, you should consider this, you who in arms are so renowned and then present

your bodies to one who for you with thorns was crowned.

The sack of Odessa in 1144 caused great distress back in Western Europe. Pilgrims had

been heading to Jerusalem for four decades now, safe in the knowledge that their own countrymen

would be standing at the gates to greet them. The astonishing success of the first crusade

had seemed to confirm that God wanted a Christian kingdom in charge of the Holy Land, and the

fall of Odessa was a challenge to his will. A challenge that good Christians must meet

head-on, giving their lives if necessary to restore the situation. The organization of a second

mass armed pilgrimage essentially confirmed crusading as an ongoing concern, with rules and

regulations and the promise of more in the future. Influential Churchmen began to establish

an ideology of crusading and with it popular devotional activities like the song I read

out at the start of the episode. It was called Knights Much's Promise and began to circulate

...