Western Civ

In this episode we cover the Norman conquests of Southern Italy and Sicily between roughly 1025 and 1100. A series of brothers from the house Hauteville in Normandy personally begin the expansion as the demand for mercenaries spikes in Apulia. The conquest proceeds apace until finally Sicily and Southern Italy are united under Roger II.

In this episode we follow the reigns of King Richard I and King John as they battle to maintain their Plantagenent Empire against King Philip of France. We will see King Richard die after foolishly failing to wear armor one April evening. We will see King John battle the French King and his own nobles before eventually signing the Magna Carta. And we will see the final collapse of the Plantagenet Empire as England and France begin to form into nation states.

This episode covers the disaster that was the Fourth Crusade. Pope Innocent III will try and reinvigorate crusading and wind up sacking one of the most Christian cities in the world. Then we will take a quick look at life in the Near East between the Third and Fifth Crusades.

In this episode we take a look at the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries from the Byzantine perspective. We will go from the death of Basil II through the beginning of the Fourth Crusade. These centuries give us our last look at Byzantium as an "Empire". We will also cover some of the major political and economic changes that will dictate Byzantine history in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.

In this episode we wrap-up the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionheart will battle Saladin to very end for Jerusalem. We will see how Richard's misunderstandings about how a crusade could be run ultimately undermine the Third Crusade.

Richard the Lionheart, King of England and the Angevin Empire, arrived in the Holy Land in June, 1191. When he arrived he found the crusaders already battering the walls of Acre surrounded on the other side by Saladin's army. The fight for Acre would prove to be Richard's first real test in the Holy Land. But it would not prove to be his last. Yet, with Richard's arrival the Third Crusade could truly and fully begin.

In this episode we set the stage for the Third Crusade. Frederick Barbarossa will make an overland march to Asia Minor while Richard I and Philip Augustus use naval transportation for the first time en masse to start a crusade. Meanwhile, back in the Near East Saladin pressed to capture Tyre and destroy the remaining crusader outposts.

In this episode we follow the career and reign of the ruler widely considered to be Germany's greatest medieval Monarch: Frederick Barbarossa. In total Frederick will conduct six Italian campaigns, battle a Pope, and rework Germany's economy. And all this before he leaves for the Third Crusade with the likes of Richard the Lionheart and Philip of France to take on Saladin.

In this episode Saladin cements his hold over the Near East by subduing Damascus, Aleppo, and Mosul. Then he turns his attention to the Crusader State: the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the death of King Amalric in his early thirties results a child succeeding to the throne in Jerusalem. The young Baldwin IV would live a tragic life and suffer from leprosy throughout his short reign. His death would then lead directly to the devastating crusader defeat at the Horns of Hattin and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin would emerge from these decades as the undisputed ruler of the Near East.

In this episode we turn back to the Near East as the fortunes of the Crusader States continue to fall. Nur al-Din presses his empire further and further into the declining Latin Kingdoms while both Nur al-Din and the Kingdom of Jerusalem fight over the future of Fatimid Egypt. Finally, at the end of the episode a new man rises to power: Saladin.