Fortune's Wheel: A Podcast History of Our Medieval Story

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SEASON 9: ARCHITECTS OF STABILITY

EPISODE 213: A Very Curthose Thing to Do

The First Crusade is over, but its reverberations are only beginning to be felt. As the 11th century comes to a close, we follow Robert Curthose on his long journey home and discover how the road back from Jerusalem changed the future of England forever. This is the story of how one century ends, another begins, and how history can pivot on something as simple...and as tragic...as taking too long to come home.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 212: Ascalon: The Final Battle

Jerusalem was firmly in crusader hands, but the Fatimids weren’t yet finished. On this episode, we see the final chapter in the story of the First Crusade.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 211: Holy City, Unholy Slaughter

Standing at the walls, a behemoth task was about to unfold: After four long years and thousands of miles traveled in some of the most hostile territory in the medieval world for Christians, could Jerusalem finally be recaptured? FAIR WARNING: This episode gets a bit graphic. Listener discretion advised.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 210: “Many Wept For Joy”

The road from Arqa to Jerusalem was no stroll in the park, and soon the crusaders found themselves humbled at the sight of Jerusalem…at long last. The anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum wrote, “When they finally saw Jerusalem, many wept for joy.” Despite the great humility each pilgrim experienced upon seeing the city for the first time, they were still denied entry. These walls have never been easily breached, but Antioch had taught these pilgrims many valuable lessons. Each lesson would be put to the test against the holiest city of them all. 

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 209: Ground Zero: Jerusalem

This is the final offering from my archive—an episode I couldn’t leave behind. It became something more than a retelling; it became a reckoning with one of the most consequential places in human history.

Because everything — everything — seems to lead back to Jerusalem.

Long before crusaders fixed their eyes on its walls in 1099, this city had already stood at the center of the human story: a meeting point of heaven and earth, of covenant and conquest, of faith and blood. For Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, Jerusalem is not merely a city — it is memory, promise, and destiny intertwined. Empires rose and fell for it. Prophets wept over it. Kings fought to possess it. And still, it endured — scarred, sacred, and unyielding.

To understand the First Crusade, you must first understand this: Jerusalem is not the destination. It is the axis upon which the story turns.

So before the armies arrive… before the siege begins…let’s step back and see the city that made it all inevitable.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 208: A Crusade Divided

Antioch had fallen—and with it, unity. Bohemond of Taranto claimed the city as his prize, but the greater question lingered: who, if anyone, could command the Crusade itself? Raymond of Toulouse would test that claim, pressing southward with visions not merely of victory, but of purpose. Yet between Antioch and Jerusalem lay more than distance—it was a road darkened by hunger, ambition, and fracture.

At Ma'arrat al-Numan, desperation reached its most harrowing depths, as starvation drove crusaders to acts that would haunt the memory of Christendom. What began as a holy expedition now strained under the weight of human weakness, competing loyalties, and the terrible cost of survival.

The path to Jerusalem remained—but the Crusade itself stood divided.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 205: Antioch & the Gate to Heaven

As Antioch grinds its besiegers down to the bone, whispers of salvation begin to circulate—quiet plans, private bargains, and a single gate that might open from the inside. Bohemond and Tancred step out of the mud and into the realm of cunning, where redemption is no longer earned by endurance but by nerve, secrecy, and timing. This episode follows the moment when suffering gives way to revelation, and the road out of hell begins not with a miracle, but with a choice.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 206: Antioch & the Harrowing of Hope

The long siege of Antioch grinds on, and the crusaders are forced to endure more than a military struggle. Between disaster and miraculous deliverance, they fight not only for survival, but for meaning, as hope is beaten, tested, and harrowed by suffering.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 205: Antioch & the Winter in Hell

Winter descends on Antioch like a verdict. Starvation, disease, and desertion hollow out the Crusader camps while Ridwan of Aleppo and Duqaq of Damascus circle like patient predators, turning every foraging run into a blood tax. This episode lives in the season where faith freezes, hope thins, and survival becomes the only prayer still answerable.

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SEASON 8: The First Crusade

EPISODE 204: Antioch & the Edge of Damnation

The Crusaders reach Antioch in October of 1097 and begin the uneasy work of surrounding one of the greatest fortified cities in the eastern Mediterranean, probing its roads, rivers, and defenses to see where it might break. Over the ensuing weeks, camps harden into positions, violence escalates on both sides, and the siege takes on a darker, more personal character as Antioch and its attackers lock eyes and wait.

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