Citation Needed - Peter Bartholomew, and the Magic Spear of the First Crusade

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

Peter Bartholomew (died 20 April 1099) was a soldier and mystic from France who was part of the First Crusade as part of the army of Raymond of Saint-Gilles. Peter was initially a servant to William, Lord of Cunhlat.

There's plenty they could do with the second season. Yeah, they could let Alan Moore run it. That's what they could do. But it could be good. Giant squid. Giant squid, yeah. Come on, you gotta let me try it. Me first though, me first.

I called it. Guys, guys, you'll both get a turn when you're ready. Hey, fellas. What are you doing? I'm ready before. It's Eli. He found a magical mic. God, damn it. Did you kidnap a chip in Dale again? Why do they keep letting him in there? Oh, no. Okay. First of all, me and the bouncer have an understanding. Second of all, no, this is a

magic microphone. A magic microphone? Oh, yeah, no, it makes you famous. That's stupid. Listen to this, Eli used his mic to start a podcast called WTF, and look, he's right at the top of the iTunes chart, right at the top. Guys, WTF, really? Oh yeah, not just that. He also made a history show.

Is it called hardcore history? See, I told you guys, even Noah has heard of it. It's amazing. Pressive. Guys, Eli does not have a magic microphone. Those are other people's podcasts. Wait, seriously? Aww. Yeah.

Seriously, you guys ready to do our show? Yes. Yeah. All right. I wondered why his Joe Rogan character was so much smarter than he is in person. This makes sense. I will fucking kill you Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject for a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. And it's 2020.

To how it works now too. I'm Heath, and I'll be guiding us through the origin story of the TSA, known as the first Crusade. And also the story of one of its most absurd personalities. And joining me, we have three guys who look like the Crusader version of the different size characters from ice hockey for 8-bit Nintendo. Oh, Cecil and Noah. Okay, I would so play a game of space Crusaders right now.

Which you really got a horse for that. Which one's the fat one, Heath? Which one's the fat one? You guys all know which size is yours, don't you? Which one's the fat one, Heath? No, I want you to say out loud right now. I think you guys know. Which one the fat one is?

No, I know. to say out loud right now. I think you guys know which one the fan know. Eli's the foul. Oh, God. And also joining me. We have a guy who doesn't really fit into that sports thing. Eli, I like to think of myself as the equipment manager of the podcast. Nobody would let you touch the equipment. You do look like like the equipment manager of the crusades.

You do. Thank you. Yeah, it works. No, he doesn't. No. I leave all the pikes on the subway and then I didn't say which team meet a prostitute. It's all thanks.

All right. The hat. Let's get right into it. Tell us, Cecil, we already kind of hinted at it, but there's a little more details to it. What person-placed thing concept phenomenon or event are we going to be talking about today? Well, today we're going to be focusing on the Crusades, but also talking about Peter Bartholomew. Excellent. And Noah, you've chosen a Confederate victory battle

as a topic in the past. And now you're going with the story of a Christian Linchmob MVP. I don't have a question. I just wanted to lay out that pattern for everybody. Yeah. No, it's much appreciated. Mr. Eugenics essay followed by penis size. I mean, whatever if you want to make your pattern.

Go with yours. Okay. Well, who was the Christian Linch mob MVP heater? Arthur Alamue. Well, that was my, he was the Christian Linch mob. You stole my fucking thing. Now, okay, he was, he was the only soldier in the first crusade who had a magical spear. Or at least the only one that history knows about.

We're just picturing Eli in the middle of a battle, pulling a spear out of a lemon or something. And you're stabbing me. I was so much less impressive than that. You all certainly were on it and waited. But okay, so- So stabbed. All right, so getting started here,

obviously there's no one reason for the first crusade. And I'm not gonna be able to do all the various causes or proposed causes justice in the course of an episode, but basically it comes from a power vacuum. Got it, say no more, Noah, say no more. I wanna, I have a whole I have no several more paragraphs you like it's late 11th century oh no no that's just the impact of a Republican administration I can understand the story

yeah it's the late 11th century the Byzantine Empire has been in decline since it began to exist and we'll get to the point where it's just barely holding on to most powerful European empire status. It's been getting its ass handed to it by one Muslim group after another for centuries. And at this point, the Seljuk Turks are basically knocking on Constantinople's gates. And of late 11th century is also right after the great schism that split Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. that happened in 1054. So up to this point being the Pope was, you know, as it was a big deal, but it didn't have that like leader of Christianity thing that it has go into that.

You know, he was one of the main guys. Some might even say the main guy, but nowhere near as much as compared to the like unquestioned authority that the Pope has within Catholicism now. But Pope Urban the sequel was looking to change that. Urban. Hoping for change? Q's gonna be in the Antichrist. He could be defrock Obama. With the name Urban, like I looked up some Keith Urban songs. I was gonna make like one of those like clever puns of the song. And then I saw that he has a song, no shit called John Cougar, John Deere, and John 316. Oh, and so I decided to take a whole bottle.

Oh, yeah, that's for real. Yeah. Yeah. And then I read that. I took a whole bottle of Tylenol just to put my fucking inevitable liver failure on Facebook live. That's a crap for a bunch. So the Pope gets an envoy from Alexios Cominos, the Byzantine emperor, asking if maybe the

Pope could help Russell him up some guys. After all, he's been man in the front line in the great battle between Christianity and Islam. Seems like a Pope kind of thing to help out with, but it's not like the Pope was the only person he was looking to for help. He basically sent out envoy to anybody you could think of, but it turns out that this is exactly what the Pope needed to consolidate his power. Pope Urban Part II turns to France to see what kind of army he could muster, because obviously, you know, the religious leader with the big

army is the wooden charge. So this leads to the Council of Claremont, where on Tuesday, November 27th, 1095, he gives this historic speech to a huge audience of French nobles and clergy. He talks about the random violence Christians are subjected to in Muslim lands. Wait, what was the objection that he wanted the violence to be there, but just like less randomized? Yeah.

So, right, no, honestly, given what Catholicism was doing at the time, yes, yes. He did it. But he talks on and on about the ways that Muslims are ravaging Christian women and killing Christian men and a viscerating elderly Christians to make sure they're not hiding any gold in their stomachs. Okay. Quick point.

That is really embarrassing when you turn out to be wrong on that one though. Like, it's on your face. Right. Then I think I, fucking male detector went off. What do you want me to do? Okay, I had to get in there. Told you it was about the TSA.

All right, so all of these terrible injustices that he recounted were it's worth pointing out. Either shit he just made up or shit somebody else made up and told him in truth, the Christians that lived under these Muslim controlled places were being treated just fine until Christian armies started showing up. But there is no indication that any of the shit Pope Urban II was saying was true. Okay. So basically, Jesse Smollett, but with less integrity.

That's a... Not a good love. Jesus Christ. he justy small it but with less integrity. That's a... That's a... Not a good love. Jesus Christ. During this famous sermon, that he also introduces this whole new kind of war that God was telling him about. See, it turns out that the God of peace and forgiveness occasionally needs to kick a little ass, and in those rare instances, he needs his followers to go on an armed pill

grimmit. It's like an invasion, but it's different because God, and in exchange, God was willing to offer up rewards and have it in remission of sins for anybody that died along the way. And thus the whole concept of crusading was born. Yeah, you get extra awards in heaven, haven't even rolled out the new slogan. The most perfect place got a lot more perfect. Yeah, what do you get? You get to cut in line at all the right. It's fucking bliss. What the fuck? Yeah, it's a weird sales pitch. Just like see how angry moms are just kind of meh, like going through the motions. Yes.

I had to see some carrots to that. All right, so you might be wondering why an omnipotent God would need the help of his followers to win back to Ruslan. Well, that's a good question. And apparently it's one that they thought of even way back when. It turns out that God was actually just Baking meeting their help. Mm-hmm. So that they'd have a chance to prove to him that they were willing to help him. Yeah Which was good enough logic to kick off a meaningless series of wars that would ultimately lead to the death of 1.7 million people

I mean God test ran this with Abraham and Isaac and love the results so much. He did a whole while. Yeah, it's the same thing. Honestly, season in Alan Dershowitz defended it. Honestly, Cecil, the Middle East being God's test market for like religious bacon flavored sprite and the double down makes a ton of sense. flavored sprite and the double down makes a ton of sense. I mean, think about it. It's like the peoria, that's marketing the part. Yeah. All right, so to be clear, I should point out that we don't actually have a contemporary

record of this sermon. What we have are several recollections of it written down after the first crusade ended. So we don't know for sure if he specifically named Jerusalem as the ultimate target. Some records say he did. Some don't mention it, but it's pretty clear from his subsequent letters that he did in 10 from the very beginning that this would culminate in Christians taking back Jerusalem. Some, I think four centuries after they lost it. Okay. Aw, awkward.

Not really clear why we did any of that, but I know probably something to do with real estate. Let's just say Jerusalem. What do you guys got? Yeah. We need a three state solution. That's why there's so much arguing. You know, there's no questions around and we really need to add to that. That would help.

All right. So I should point out, like, that's not what Alexios Caminos had in mind, right? He sent his envoys to the Pope asking for help defending his territory, maybe win back the city of Nicaea, which was just recently taken over, but not invade Jerusalem and create a whole new Christian empire. So he's expecting at most a token force of knights. What he got was something else altogether. The first thing he gets is a few thousand

peasants with no military training or weapons or anything show it up going. It was a crusade. This is the infamous people's crusade led by Peter the Hermit. Okay, this seems like an outgoing thing for Peter the Hermit to be. Yeah, he was bad at hermiting. Clearly, well, to be right bad at hermit clearly. Well, he was also bad at leading military crusade so you know, might as well. Apparently there were a lot of folks in Europe that needed some serious remission to send because thousands upon thousands of people headed out to the, you know, Pope's call of arm. In fact, people were so enthusiastic that they didn't wait for the real soldiers to leave.

They just walked to Constantinople, trusting in God to take care of them along the way. What? Oh, geez. Yeah, the same thing, fucking God, is global warming. Glad to see we didn't fucking lighten men our way past that shit, right?

Yeah. That's fucking awesome. Yeah, but at least we've got air conditioning out of the global warming in the global world. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Right. Honestly, I could do an entire essay, though, on the people's crusade and how much trouble they had even getting there.

And they, they so almost died so many times, but I can think, this essay was, it was beg information creep all over the place. Let me give back to it. So imagine the emperor surprised, right? He gets this rag tag ass bunch of peasants showing up, asking for swords and something to eat and say on the Pope's sent them, right? He's like, what the fuck are you guys talking about?

And he sends them on their way, right? So they're like, all right, time for us to invade Turkish territory and start running around, getting their asses kicked in one city after another. It was basically the volunteer immigration force of Southern Arizona, but for 11th century right? Right. And way more inept.

Yeah. I'm just picturing like that Muslim lookout guy just holding back tears of laughter. Hey, no, fellas, check this out. I'm pretty sure there's a band of fucking white larpers coming to a tap. That's going to be great. But our hero, Peter Bartholomew, wasn't with that group. So we have to move on. He came in the second wave, the one that had actual soldiers and military leadership. Now, we don't

know for sure how many soldiers there were, but the range cited in the Wikipedia article is 30 to 35,000 men. So this contingent left in August of 1096, unless you count massacring practice Jews. No, we don't count them. Yeah, okay. Good. In which case, they would have started earlier if you did equipment with a thing called thank you. First haul cost by a lot of people, I just, I don't want to brush by that too quick, but okay, so by the time they show up, Alexios is kind of sick of European soldiers showing up, wanting to take over Jerusalem, right? He hadn't even gotten all those peasants

from the people's crusade killed off yet. And here's another under-supplied army showing up to invade Jerusalem, which again, is not what he was after. Plus, Christenddom wasn't exactly united at this point. One of the dudes leading one of the four armies here was actually a guy who had invaded Byzantine territory several times before. And now that guy wants to march an army around Alexios' empire and wants him to feed his fucking army while he does it. This is like every fucking habitat for humanity build ever. Just like a lot of

enthusiasm. No fucking useful skills. One form and just like, no, okay, look, I appreciate you fucking Steve, but stop waving the spear around. You know what? Forget it. I'm going home. I don't need this. I need this. Yes. All right. So basically these four armies worth of dudes show up, expecting the Byzantine Empire to like take over as their leader and march them onto Jerusalem. But instead, he's just in a hurry to get him the fuck out of there. He sends a couple of his generals with them to keep an eye on everything, but he doesn't commit any sizeable portion of his army to their crusade. But undeterred, the leaders of the crusade armies promise not to break anything, say they'll

pay for it if they do. And then they get what supplies they can bring out of stingy electials, head out to Turkish territory to reclaim some cities for Christendom. And the first target on the list was Nicaea. Nicaea, that's smart. Head back to where you found everything. Do some trust falls. Get everyone back on the same page. All right. So Nicaea is under the rule of a dude named Arslan. So he hears that there's a European army on its way to take a city, but he's been dealing with the people of Scrucade for months now. He's like, oh, I think we'll be fine.

So he goes out on campaign against some real army and he doesn't worry about the fact that he's left his treasury and his family and everything in Nicaea and taken most of the army with him. So the real Crusader army puts the city under siege and when he realizes that this is a legit threat, he marches his army back, but they get their asses kicked because let's face it, nobody in the Muslim world

was prepared for an army that size to just materialize out of fucking Europe. Right, so they run off his army, they take his city, hand it back to Byzantium, and then they march towards their next target Antioch. Do you even know what octet in the first place? What? Antioch. I'll see myself. Oh wow.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right, so up to this point, it's still really easy to sell this army the whole gods on our side story They keep having victory after victory, but they won't get far into the siege of Antioch before that whole premise starts to unwind. Okay, but we were promised a goddamn magical spear and it's all I can think about right now. I'm picturing like a Thor's hammer scenario, but when the spear finally flies it to Peter Bartholomew's hand, it's just a spear and he gets killed by everything that's next. But if I know Christianity, it's even dumber than that.

You know Christiana, we'll find out. First, a quick break for some opera pove, nothing. Okay, but what if we jerk off on the way to the crusade? Are we cool then? Feel good, I'm telling you, dude. Yeah, it goes what? That's awesome. Okay, cool. Hey, guys.

Hey, Lexiose. Alexiose. No, sexy. My man. That's a good one. That's good. Anyways, I was just telling my boy Steve here, how sweet heaven is gonna be if we die. You look for seeds.

We're gonna make that noise all the time. A lot. You do make that noise a lot. Yeah, that's the noise. That is the noise. Yeah, that one right there. That's the noise. Yeah, no, that's it. Look fellas. I was just wondering if you had

kind of and I tinnitus put together yet, you know, of when you'll be, you know, leaving the city. Oh, um, do you like Oh, um, do you like not want us here? That's what I feel like. What? No, love you guys. Love you. Just want to get the Holy Land all claimed for, you know, claimed Jesus. Yeah, yeah, Jesus.

Love that, dude, man. What a God. What a God. He's the son of God. Yeah, son of God. Yes, love it. Oh, oh, oh, oh, did I do it right? No, oh, forget it. Try it again. No, I Son of God. Yes. Love it. Did I do right? No. Oh, forget it. No, I'm not going to do it anymore.

It's like a like the second one. I don't know. I feel like I can't. I can't do it. I can't do it. No, I can't do it. Like that's I'm trying. I just can't. It's like, like I just can't. I'm like, imagine, no, no, he is to game for a known. Anyway, did you guys have that itinerary no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, cool. Hey, Alexi. Yeah. Yeah. Can we get some more food for our armies? Oh Yeah, we are starving out here Yeah, yep. Yeah coming right up. You bet great Okay another question. So what if you're jerking off while you get killed good, dude. I am telling you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Ooh.

["Money Python"] And we're back. When we left off, a bunch of moneyty Python villagers were trying to steal Turkey. What's next? It's to the two of you. All right, so Antioch, unlike Nicaea, knew what was coming. They realized a legitimate army was coming for their town, and after getting routed by the crusaders a couple of times, Arslan adopts the scorch earth tactic. He burns all the farms, poisons all the wells that he

comes across between the Europeans and their goals. So by the time they reach Antioch, they're already suffering from supply shortages. And when you're trying to put a city under siege, that's a bad thing. Right. Like I mean, basically a siege is a who has the most supplies contest. Yeah, and now we do that with public schools. So, it's the rich schools. The rich schools. And some good ones. So the crusaders arrived outside the city

on the 21st of October 1097. And most of them are still expecting to eventually get reinforced by a Byzantine army. Now that they've shown they can like take back a few cities, kick a little ass. But Alexios Camino looks at this situation situation figures his best bet is to sit back until the crusaders get themselves killed off. And then like you know send his armies out to claim everything like up to a mile shy of where they died. And of course because anti-ox forces had taken

all the grain inside and burned everything they could carry, the crusaders have to go far afield to scout for food and shit which leaves them open to attack. So they can't do it often or easily and it's not like there's nobody to attack them. So they have to fight off relief armies in late December and another one in early February and by then it's estimated that about one out of every seven crusaders is dying from starvation. Again, very reminiscent of the poor public school system. Other side of the coin, the whole point of poor public school system. Oh, okay. I'm scared.

On the other side of the coin, the whole point of this thing, if you remember, was to die and go to heaven. So if you think about it, they were crushing it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And like a mids that whole group, there's that one fucker whose mom had packed them a sack lunch

for the crusades and he's just like, crinkle. That's not my fucking mom doesn't love you, whatever. I'm not gonna trade you on fuck off. The equipment manager. Doesn't matter if it comes to the package of two, you don't get what do I fucking twinkies. Of course, this whole enterprise is premised on the idea that God is on their side

and he's looking out for them. He's not looking out for one seventh of them, but still to be able to see a whole. Yeah, it's a happily ideal. Right, look, these guys are not in it for for them. Was that looking out for one seventh of them, but still to go ahead. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, look, these guys are not in it for the money. Like the Knights were basically to a man losing money to do this shit. They were there because they had it on good authority that God was totally going to hook

them up if they did. But once you get around to seeing like one out of seven people dying from starvation, even though you already know your God has infinite mana powers and you're right about that is book you have to start questioning the foundation. So people start to desert and morale starts to say, but I love that a bunch of them were like, man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a fuck, a guy, a guy, this is about to work. Just give me like a few more. You guys, you guys, you guys, you know, all right. So give me like a few more. You guys may wear it. You know, you know.

All right, so what's more, the various warring Muslim factions in the area, they're starting to realize that they've got a real problem on their hands. These Christians are not leaving and they're not losing at least not fast enough. Okay, could you guys stop all the slow starving to death? It's called fasting.

Okay, it's supposed to be fast to fuck. All right, so now of course this is all happening because no one person in the area controls an army big enough to take them on. It would take several rivals working together to match their forces. And by now some of these rivals are starting to realize this and they're amassing their forces under the leadership of Kerbaga, I think is the pronunciation Kerbaga of almost spelled like me trying to write the words kangaroo morsel. So your guess is as good as mine.

That's exactly, I don't know. All right, so the crusaders hear about this army, they realize it's way bigger than anything they've faced up to this point. They realize that they need to take Antioch before Kerbaga can get there. Kerbaga, that's such a weird name. I don't know.

So they recruited Turncoat inside the city that helps them sneak in and open a gate, which Seems like something you would have just done earlier if that was an option, but they did okay guys I know 14.2857% of us are dying, but let's save the turn code for a real emergency, okay? She's to give that guy a code name with all the waiting. I'm going to go with velvet Pope. I think that's it. All right. So they get into the main gate, but they don't exactly take the city. The remaining forces in Antioch retreat to the Citadel, but it did put a big ass wall between the Crusaders

and Kurbika's army, but their situation is still shit, right? They just took over a city that's been under siege for more than seven months. So it's not like they just got a bunch of new supplies. They're under supplied to begin with. So there in no position to hold out for a long time against the siege of these combined forces. The ring shape of this is weird to me, like the Russian nesting siege. That's exactly everyone's just like, all right, hold on, you're seizing us because like that's our whole thing. Like we're all right. We were to your bodies. We are going this way. Okay, just time out. Everyone draw a chart that shows what direction

your siege is going. I was making this harder than it has to be. All right, so it, but if religious fervor got them into this mess, perhaps it would take a little religious fervor to get them back. It's always worked before. Why would it? Yeah, exactly. No. Well, one way or the other, that's what they got in the form of one Peter Bartholomew.

Yes, I did to remember what this essay was about. Bartholomew is just some lowly infantryman. But he comes forward at some point while they're under siege inside the city. And he says that he's had this vision of St. Andrew telling them that somewhere in that city, he would find the holy lance that pierced Christ's side. And because Christianity has such a weird fetish about the shit that killed their god that weapon Could defeat the Muslim So wait, so like the thing that killed you is suddenly your greatest weapon Okay, everyone thanks for coming to my ironic siege weapon theme party what did everyone bring?

Chief running bear. I brought a smallpox blanket. Oh, oh, oh, nicely done. What about you, Jenny McCarthy? The Wakefield study at autism. Amazing, Eli Bosnick. Uh, a showerhead filled with Zeichlund B. So... Perfect.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, no, it's good to make the one the essay about the crusades seem less offensive like a remind people we could be doing the Holocaust We can always Alright, so now of course all these guys are starving people are seeing saints and holy lands and shit all over the fucking place So when Bartholomew says all this everything's like yeah, yeah, whatever, but later St Andrew comes back again And he tells him he'll find the lands if he dug up the floor of the cathedral of Saint Peter so he tells a

bunch of people this and they're like sure why not what the fuck else do we have to do so they dig up the cathedral and they don't find anything but then Peter Bartholomew hops down into the pit and comes back with a spear point. What? Spir-point. Spear-point. Guys, guys I found it. Even has JC etched onto it. Oh, wow, but hold on, wouldn't when the letters B in Aramaic,

because Jesus. Oh, yes, they would. Allen, what, what, sorry? Grab the wrong one, give me another second down here There it is the spear point with Aramaic JC on it Yeah, well actually, you know what? Yeah, um, it was a Roman soldier's spear wouldn't it just be like some other guys initials and and in Roman not

I don't know you know you didn't let me finish that was. Oh, okay. A different spear point that I had just now. Here it is, a blank spear point, just a normal spear point. A black one, cool. With Jesus, though, I felt like I heard you scratching just now. No, no. Okay, cool.

Can we just see the first two for comparison though? So, I'm fucking Muslim. Muslim guy, everybody. Can I miss him? Oh, alright, so yeah, like, wait, like, we can look at this and see that very obviously this dude is full of shit and had a spear point.

It's a war, you know, they're easy to find. And to their credit, the people running the show could almost certainly see that too. In fact, they'd anticipated it when you're on a mission from God. You know, anybody can come forward and say, oh, you know what, God told me we should turn left at that cactus and fuck up your whole thing. So to make sure that no visionary hijacks

the military operation, there's an official papal legate whose job it is to determine if the visions from God are genuine or tricks from the devil. Now, this is a dude named Adam Erupli-Lapui. This fit testing. Yeah. There's a magic guy to like check on how genuine the other bullshit magic guys think is.

Yep, yeah, yeah, exactly. He's the preemptive bullshit guy. Like the crusade guy. So, and this is Adam Erupli and his verdict is that Bartholomew was a fucking Charlotte. All right, but not all of the leaders of the crusade were as quick to dismiss Bartholomew's holy lands. The people who were buying into it seemed to believe it meant that they could face the Muslim army and win, and the military guys could see a lot of utility and endorsing said

belief. So in this instance, they basically overruled the theological guy and said yep That's a sign from God folks proof that we will win this battle now. Let's throw open the gates you first Yeah, I'm gonna need something to keep up everyone's morale, you know, right? Yeah food Maybe I'm thinking food. Yeah, well, we'll just head over to the fucking stop and shop Allen Okay, no, but I'm just saying like that's stopping shop, Alan. Okay, no, that's not your fault. Not your fault, you get angry, you know I get hangry, it's been a lot of... Yeah, no, okay. Okay, so something else, not for the...

But else, yeah, like I would imagine a spear, a magic spear would be good. Yeah, right, magic spear. I just feel like a sandwich would be so much better though, like everybody will die otherwise. It would be so much better. I just really like a sandwich would be so much better though. Like everybody will die otherwise. It would be so much better. I just really want a sandwich. All right, so Bartholomew talks to St. Andrew one last time and learns that all the Christians need to do is fast for five days to guarantee their victory.

Oh yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Nothing guarantees victory in a physical confrontation like going five consecutive days without food. Right? Well, I mean, the good news is though that's easy because they're starving, right? And honestly, the five days might have mattered because all of these Turkish nobles are distrustful of one another. And there was like a hard time limit on how long Kierbukh could hold together this coalition. You got to have some pretty significant differences

to Sean Unity during a C-EG. Right? She's like, two houses of Congress watching a president become king or something. Like, no one would do that. That would never happen, right? Oh, no. All right, so on Monday, June 28th of 1098,

the crusaders throw open the city gate and charge against this vastly superior Turkish force with one of their generals bearing Bartholomew's spear point in the four. Now again, we don't know the actual numbers, but we do know that the crusaders were massively outnumbered. We also know that curbago radically underestimated their force, but so like the charge comes out, he's like, oh, that's all there, guys. No big deal. And then more guys keep pouring out. So he didn't

really react until it was too late. By the time he's deploying all his forces and bringing all the weight of his combined army to bear, the people in the front lines are starting to retreat. And once that happens, the various factions kind of took a like, you know what, fuck this guy attitude and deserted and mass. Ah, so it's like the army version of your buddy's second time getting back together with his ex. You're like, yeah, exactly. No more. All right, so this was a fucking disaster for the Turks

and it catapulted Peter Bartholomew to the height of fame among the Crusader army. And that's a fucking problem. Because as useful as he was when he was doling out morale boosters right before they needed outnumbered starving guys to charge a well fed army, having some random dude speaking for God can be a huge fucking problem, right? Especially when shortly after their victory in the Battle of Antioch, he starts telling everybody that Jesus one of the marches the rest of the way to Jerusalem barefoot. He's like, oh, I know that guys, look, look.

I was talking to God and he said, we have to do this on the hard mode. So no shoes. And this is a big one from now on. From this point on, it's three for flinching. Three. The desert is covered in slug bugs, sir, we'll never make it. Yeah.

Now he's testing you after that. Atom are the the papal legate dies. He is the main voice of opposition against Bartholomew's visions. And soon after that, Bartholomew is visited by Atomar's ghost, who tells him that he changed his mind and now he totally believes that the Holy Land thing was true. Super convenient timing. So yeah, right? So soon you've got this whole army divided

between people buying into Bartholomew's visions and people rejecting. Okay, I feel like Alan, who is clearly the Noah of this story, would have had very convenient follow-up visions right after Peter to contradict whatever the fuck he said. Yeah, no, sweet vision, Peter, that's a good one. follow up visions right after Peter to contradict whatever the fuck he said. Yeah, no, sweet vision, Peter, that's a good one.

Wait, hold on, uh, St Andrew, he's popping back real quick right now. You hear that, right Peter? You hear? Uh, no, no, I think you're hearing something else. Well, no, he said, he said you can hear him too. He just said you heard him say that he, he, he knows that you can hear him, right? Uh, right. Yep, that's him. I did, you know what? I can hear him too. He just said, you heard him say that he knows that you can hear him, right? Uh, right. Yep, that's him. I did, you know what? I did hear him.

Yeah, you heard it. Obviously, because he said, he's saying, um, cool. So, um, and he, oh, right now he's saying it's cool if only Peter does the barefoot thing. So we're all good. We're all good. All right. So eventually, Bartholomew's vision start consisting of things like long prescription lists of sinners among the Crusader army that Jesus think should be hanged.

And that's enough to rock even his most ardent supporters. So basically everybody concludes that he's just a nutter who had a spear point. And then he gets so incensed by that charge that he offers to prove himself with an ordeal by fire. Yeah. And Alan's like, yeah, great idea Pete. That's fantastic. St Andrew, you know what? He said he'd say nothing if he agrees with that.

No, totally on board. Yep. Absolutely. He's just like, I had the weirdest dream last night. I was crusading, you know, like we do. And then I looked down and my spear was like really small and I was naked and late. And where are you guys all going?

I just, that's so, all right, now for those of you who have never been accused of heresy in the Middle Ages, I should explain what all of this means. An ordeal by fire is when you have somebody do something that would normally burn them, but if God favors them, he can make it not burn.

Right, so like you reach in so awesome. So excited. So he clearly wanted something tiny here, and that is not, but they're gonna go. That's normally what it is, right? Cause this is a thing they do, they're like walking over a coal type shit. You reach into a boiling pot of water

and your hand comes away on burn because that doesn't take very long And that's God's way of telling everybody that you're on the up and up. Lord Jesus be with me This great. I did it everybody. All right cool. I will see you guys later with a much older hand So loving Jesus I hope he just has like a single candle like Lixas fingers snuffs it out and fucking billionaire struts away like it at the sunset. Oh, no, right? That would be the novice version of an ordeal by fire.

Peter Botholomew would be doing the advanced version. So some of his fellow soldiers build a great big bonfire, which he then walks through. Now, the stories diverge a bit at this point, but the consensus among historians is that he comes out the other side of this bonfire very obviously burned to death and goes see I'm fine guy. Then he collapses and dies a couple days later. He's like, so now they've proved myself. I believe we were discussing my list of sinners, please. Dude, you're still on fire.

You're still on fire. So, way this ends. Dude, you're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire.

You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire.

You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. You're still on fire. die in the doom deferred to get it back because religion is stupid and makes alive people turn dead. So besides that very last thing you just said, if you had to summarize what you've learned, what would it be? Yeah, no, it was that last thing I will improvise. Okay, it's easier to write

essays when you pick a subject whose Wikipedia article is more than 481 words long. That's right. And are you ready for the quiz from the panel of experts? I am ready to roll. All right, Noah. What was the nickname for Peter's magic spear? Was it A, oh, shallow halberd. B, magic pike. C, all that javelin, or D.

Like, the hoki, yep, thank you. Or D, the hoki pokey. Oh, the pokey is. D, I admittedly brilliant Eli will done. But I see that you're doing that to trick me. I did the reading. He both is right. D I is admittedly brilliant Eli well done. But I see that you're doing that to trick me. I did the reading. I know the actual answer is secret answer E. Lance Lance Revolutions.

That is correct. All right, Noah, a divine adventurer into the heart of the Muslim world to claim land seems like. Bad idea back then. When would this also be a bad idea? A, 1948, B, 1990, C, 2003, or D, probably again, next Thursday. We're last Thursday because we recorded we record these events, right? This is a tough one because the, the answer you would think it's secret answer, e, all

of the above, but it's actually a secret answer, F, everything that could possibly be above. Yeah. That's correct. I know a trial by fire was just one way they had to decide if you were a heretic. What was another way to plead your case? A, you had to put your hand in a bag of scorpions, they call this a stung jury. Be it land about a nails, it was an epidermis trial. C, throw you off a platform into water to see if you drown. It was a jury of your peers.

Or D, peers has spelled differently there guys. For you, yeah, I always felt like a dog. And that's why it's funny or D they would kill you. And if you came back from the dead, you were innocent. They called this stabious corpus. Cause nobody was in. All right. Ah, I got I got to be honest, I don't know. But I'm gonna go secret answer E.

It's like see they throw you into a big vat of saliva to see if you drown a known as the spit-a-look with it. I'm nice. That's right, you're right in the jury pool. I get it. All right. Yeah. But you're wrong though, it's Stabius Corpus.

I'm sorry, it's the Stabius Corpus. Well done. You're close though. Cecil you stumped him. Oh man. Well then Tom should do something, huh? Well, who said my name? All right. Well for Tom Noah Cecil and Eli. I'm Heath. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then Tom that was why somebody said your name. What? Yep. Was that you're going to be an expert on something else next week? You ready? Doesn't seem likely.

No. Air in likely. One way or the other, between now and then, you can hear Tom and Cecil on Cognitive Disments, and you can hear Eli Knowing Myself on God-Offal Movies, Escaping Atheists and The Skeptocrat. And if you'd like to give us money for the free thing that we give you, you can make a per episode of Nation at patreon.com slash citation pod. And if you'd like to get in touch with us,

listen to past episodes. Connect with us on social media or take a look at the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO you