The Ultimate The First Crusade Quiz | Specialized History

Answer: The Battle of Manzikert

The Battle of Manzikert was a turning-point between the Turks and the Byzantines for the control of central Anatolia (present-day central Turkey). The battle had been a total disaster for the Byzantines, and so Emperor Alexius had written to the Pope for aid.

The Cathar Heresy prompted the only crusade against Christians. The Cathars, also known as Albigensians, believed, amongst other things, that Christ was an angel with a phantom body, so therefore he did not suffer on the cross or rise again on the third day. Pope Innocent III ordered a crusade against the Cathars, most of whom lived in the south of France, in 1208.

Answer: All of these

Although there are at least three eyewitness accounts of what Pope Urban II actually said at Clermont, none of the accounts agree completely. The answers given are broad conclusions based on the eyewitness accounts that remain.

Answer: True

It is a common myth that most crusaders, particularly those of the first crusade, were landless young men of the upper class, seeking to make a name and a fortune for themselves. In reality, crusading was an enormously expensive venture; one that a knight could only undertake if he was a wealthy man or in the employ of a wealthy man.

Answer: Walter the Penniless

Many scholars who believe that medieval violence against the Jews was born during the First Crusade, point to the terrible massacres of Jews in Metz, Trier, Cologne, Mainz and Speyer as evidence. None of the major crusade leaders took part in the massacres, although certain low-level unscrupulous knights, including Walter the Penniless, did join in to lend the whole sordid affair a veneer of legitimacy.

Answer: Bohemond of Taranto

Bohemond of Taranto (in southern Italy) was both a figure of fear and fascination to the Byzantines. He was an enormously charismatic and typically ruthless crusader. Anna Komnena's descriptions of him in 'The Alexiad' are some of the best primary source writing of the First Crusade.

By the time of the First Crusade, Bohemond was extremely well-known to the Byzantine leaders because he and his father had waged a series of wars over Byzantine territory in southern Italy and the eastern Mediterranean.

Answer: Peter the Hermit

Bernard of Clairvaux was one of the most influential religious forces in Europe, and the founder of the Knights Templar.
Peter Bartholemew was a priest who accompanied the First Crusade and whose claim to fame was the controversial discovery of the Holy Lance.
Raymond of Aguiliers was in the retinue of Raymond of Toulouse and is one of the eyewitness chroniclers of the First Crusade.
Peter the Hermit, by all accounts a very odd little man, whom contemporaries said closely resembled his donkey, was the strangely charismatic wandering preacher who persuaded 60,000 ordinary people from all walks of life to follow Pope Urban II's call to crusade. Unfortunately, those who did not die of disease or starvation on the road east were swiftly captured or killed by the Turks. A notable exception to this was Peter himself, who returned, rather shamefacedly, to Byzantium.

Answer: Nicaea

Despite their later claims, the First Crusaders relied heavily upon assistance from the Byzantines. In exchange, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius had demanded an oath from all the leaders of the Crusades, a key component of which was that they would return to the Byzantines any cities which they captured that had originally belonged to Byzantium. When the Crusaders were on the brink of capturing Nicaea, Alexius saw no reason to give the Crusaders a chance to betray him, and independently negotiated the surrender of the city directly into his hands.

This was probably a very smart thing to do, given the Crusaders' subsequent track record.

Answer: the 'discovery' of the Holy Lance

The siege of Antioch (21 October 1097 - 3 June 1098), which in many ways was the climactic military campaign of the First Crusade, had cost the Crusaders enormously in both manpower and supplies. Even once the city had fallen, the citadel still held out against them, and the Turkish leader Kerbogha's massive army was only three days' march away.
It was in this atmosphere that the priest Peter Bartholemew claimed to have been led by a holy vision to the secret resting place of the Holy Lance which had pierced the side of Christ. The effect upon Crusader morale was immediate and massive. However, after their victory over Kerbogha's army, many of the Crusade leaders began to question the truth of Peter Bartholemew's claim.
Peter Bartholemew died of his injuries three days after his attempt to prove that the Holy Lance was real by walking through a blazing inferno while clutching the lancehead in his hands.

Answer: Defender of the Holy Sepulchre

Godfrey felt that no mere mortal could claim to be king of a city where Christ himself had been greeted as a king. Subsequent leaders had no such qualms. Godfrey's own brother, Baldwin of Boullion, became the first King of Jerusalem on Christmas Day in the year 1100.

Answer: France

Although crusading was an international venture, it was the French who consistently took the lead in crusading activities. To the Muslims, all Crusaders were known as the 'Franj'.

Sources:
J.N.D. Kelly, ed., 'The Oxford Dictionary of Popes'.
E.A. Livingstone, ed., 'The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church'.
Betty Radice, ed. 'The Alexiad of Anna Comnena'.
Jonathan Riley-Smith, 'The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading'.
Steven Runciman, 'A History of The Crusades; Volume I: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem'.