The History of the World Podcast, written and presented by Chris Hasler. Volume 4, The Medieval World.

Episode 36, Crusades in the Holy Land, Part 2. I'm going to go and In previous episodes we told the story of how the Crusades to the Holy

Land were instigated and we told the story of how the Crusaders conquered

Jerusalem.

When the Seljic Turks invaded Byzantine Anatolia

and gradually started closing in on the Byzantine capital of Constantinople,

the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Conmenos appealed for mercenaries from Christian Europe

to help to defend Constantinople and help to reclaim lost lands, including Christian churches lost to the Muslim culture.

The Pope Urban II saw an opportunity to use this invitation to instruct a Christian movement to not only support the Byzantine Empire,

but also to push deeper into Muslim territory and reclaim the lost holy city of Jerusalem that was becoming

increasingly harder for Christian pilgrims to visit. The initial wave of Crusaders

were a comparatively low-class bunch of knights and peasants with their families,

and on their arrival in Anatolia, they were soundly defeated by a Selchak Sultan called Killage Arselam.

So a greater force of Crusaders gathered that included higher-ranking Knights and Princes and Princes and Counts and and counts of Western Europe.

This time the Crusaders and their Byzantine allies were able to take the city of Nicia

before pushing across Anatolia to the highly important city of Antioch.

Baldwin of Bologna took control of the city of Odessa, while Boemon of Taranto was an integral part of the conquest

of Antioch becoming the ruler afterwards.

In the meantime the Seljic Turks were being attacked in the city of Jerusalem by the Fatimid Empire based in Egypt.

Eventually the Fatimids pushed the Seljks out of the city, but the Crusaders were not interested in specifically making war with the Seljuks, but they were interested in the conquest of Jerusalem, regardless of whether it was the Seljic Turks or the Fatimids of Africa.

So those who chose to continue from Antioch continued southwards to Jerusalem and they besieged the holy city.

The wealthiest of all the Crusaders was Riemann of Toulouse and he believed that he would take control of the city of Jerusalem

...