The Renaissance Times

In Episode 219 of The Renaissance Times, Cameron and Ray are diving deep into the next leg of the First Crusade. They follow Raymond of Toulouse as he reluctantly resumes the crusade […]

The post Renaissance #219 – Jerusalem or Bust (The Crusades part 28) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

In this darkly hilarious and horrifying episode, Cam and Ray dive deep into the Crusades—specifically the winter of 1098–1099—where starvation and power games took centre stage. The guys discuss Bohemond’s Machiavellian brilliance in manipulating […]

The post Renaissance #218- Eat the Rich (aka the Turkish Prisoners) (The Crusades part 27) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

In this episode of _The Renaissance Times_, Cam and Ray dive into the chaos and absurdity that followed the siege of Antioch in 1098. With the Pope’s legate dead, the Crusader princes lose their […]

The post Renaissance #217- Christian Cannibals & Cowardly Crusaders (The Crusades part 26) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

By Christmas of 1097, the Crusaders continued to lay siege to Antioch but it has gone on so long they are running out of supplies. One out of every seven men was dying […]

The post Renaissance #210 – Jesus Starves (The Crusades part 19) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

Kerbogha, the governor of Mosul, with a massive coalition army he’d built, on his way to relieve Antioch, paused to eliminate Baldwin in Edessa. One of his new allies was Ridwan of […]

The post Renaissance #208 – Omar Comin’ (The Crusades part 17) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

This episode finds the Crusaders marching through the Anatolian desert, doing deals with French pirates, selling their armour and watching pack animals sliding down wet mountain paths, until finally reaching the city/fortress of Tarsus - where they immediately turn on and kill each other, before eventually moving on towards Antioch. This was less a unified Christian army and more a coalition of competing interests, with each leader vying for their own piece of Muslim territory.

The post Renaissance #204 – A Coalition of Competing Interests (The Crusades part 13) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

On his way to Constantinople, Bohemond attacked a village of Christian heretics, because having different opinions should not be tolerated. When he arrived at the Byzantine capital, he met with Alexios but didn’t trust […]

The post Renaissance #200 – Raw Meat (The Crusades part 9) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

The failure of the People’s Crusade didn’t stop the overall appetite in Europe for pillaging the Holy Land. They still had the Prince’s Crusade. A bunch of rich young men, their vassals […]

The post Renaissance #197 – The Prince’s Crusade (The Crusades part 6) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

At the end of April in 1096, a priest by the name of Volkmar, a monk called Gottschalk, and an army from the Rhineland led by a Count Emich set off on the First Crusade with tens of thousands of soldiers and enthusiastic pilgrims... following a goose that had been inspired by God... and a holy goat. Their first order of business was to kill as many Jews as possible. Why? Because something something Jesus.

The post Renaissance #195 – The Holy Goose and the Holy Goat (The Crusades part 4) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

Our guest today, Toby Lester, has worked as a refugee affairs officer for the United Nations, helped with programmes in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, undertaken Peace Corps work in Yemen. He has written also extensively for national publications, including the Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The American Scholar, The Wilson Quarterly, […]

The post #138 – Toby Lester, Da Vinci’s Ghost – Leonardo da Vinci Part 27 appeared first on The Renaissance Times.