Norman Knight - 1099

When Pope Urban II called his fellow faithful Christians to take the road to an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the Council of Clermont, in 1095, he surely wasnt aware of the reach and historical consequences of his request. The First Crusade was, as its name indicates, the first of a series of conflicts that ravaged the Middle East for three centuries and shaped history in ways that we can even feel today.

Byzantine Emperor Alexis I Komnenos requested the help of the western Christian kingdoms for his fight against the Turkish Seljuks. When the Pope supported the request, it was met with popular enthusiasm and began the first part of the crusade, known as the Peoples Crusade. With scarce organization or planning, and led by a French priest, Peter the Hermit, they traveled to the East and were annihilated once they reached Anatolia in 1096.

In the meantime, a noblemen-led strong contingent of armies started to mobilize. Among their commanders, were men like Bohemund and Tancred of Tarento, and Robert II of Normandy, ambitious Norman leaders that saw the military expedition as a way to gain fame and fortune for themselves.

The campaign was a success that culminated in the conquest of the Holy City of Jerusalem, where Godfrey of Bouillion was established as a leader. Many of the soldiers that participated in the pilgrimage decided to stay in the newly conquered lands. The whole adventure in the lands of Outremer had just started.

Our miniature could have been one of those adventurers and soldiers that traveled East in one of the contingents of the Norman lords, maybe from the original lands in Northern France or from the Tarento kingdom in the South of Italy.