Poles in the Crusades to the Holy Land

Not a good idea, think of the newspapers of the time if they existed
"HEADLINE: POLISH KNIGHTS SLAUGHTER CHRISTIANS AS THEY LOOK FOR VODKA CELLARS"
Wouldn't be a good idea at all... ;p


Ahhh all this talk makes me want to play taleworlds.com.
Mount&Blade :)
Feels like an medieval Lord there hehe

True, weren't the pushes east also considered crusades? the Northern crusades were after the main part of the Holy Land crusades (the Teutons had realised it was all going to go belly up and had looked for new pastures)

That is a very interesting way to look at it.

The failure of the crusades in Palestine did in fact lead to the redirection of Christian military zeal against the heathens in the Baltic lands, which in turn led to the militarization of Lithuania and its subsequent expansion all the way to the Black Sea. When the Lithuanians did finally convert late in the 14th century they did so in a political union with Poland rather than in submission to the hated Knights of the Cross. Thus the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth is arguably a far flung result of the crusades, and perhaps the Commonwealth's relative religious tolerance was reaction to the fanaticism of the crusader enemy.

Against Byzantium.There was the money as crusaders found out.

and the Cathars in France (not as far to travel and most English knights already spoke French)

This describes why a Polish is usually an aggressive, untrustworthy, crook - they have some outlaw genes in them from these 'Jesus Knight's'

The concept of tolerance was enacted because of all the hostilities towards Protestants in France. As many Polish noblemen were protestants at that time they feared that the sociaty will go after them. Later on most of them converted to Catholiscism or their sons/daugthers thanks to Jesuits which were teaching in Universities.

Now Poland takes part in other crusades, in Iraq and Afghanistan, for different reasons.

Many interesting comments. It's disturbing that some are so unstudied in this matter. "Official" histories often omit these facts. I have lost the files I had in Russian language about a group of a few dozen Polish (Ukrainian also if you count Galicia) knights who joined on the first crusade. It was not hearsay, it referred to old Russian-language documents. My ancestor William de Roffe MAY have been the de Rossal, the ninth knight, and MAY have quarreled with Godfrey de Bouillon, on the first crusade. All I know is that within a century, his clan leadership of Ross in Scotland had been destroyed, and his lodge razed (now it is Boleskin House on the shores of Loch Ness), and Godfrey de Roffe was beheaded in 1212 after a long fast in prison after he tried to lead the Ross and Moray rebellions against the Stewarts. William Ross/Roffe/Ros then moved to Lublin Poland and started the Scots Brotherhood of Lublin. MAYBE it was because of the First Crusades experience of his grandfather? All of this can be verified in old books, but I do not still have all of them. I can find everything about all of this on the internet EXCEPT the list of Polish/Galician knights. Maybe Putin's goons stopped the Russian-language website that my friends in Ukraine told me about? Randall Roffe

When Leszko Biały was asked by the bishop why he did not want to go to the Holy Land to join the crusades, he replied it was because he heard that they do not serve beer there and that the people there have no knowledge of the beverage.

Bolesław the Tall had gone to the Holy Land with the Holy Roman Emperor Konrad III and later to Italy with Frederick Barbarossa. In Italy he was distinguished for his valor at the siege of Mediolan where he defeated an Italian Knight in single combat.

I had a distant direct ancestor Leon de Kedros (Kiedrowski) (1170 to 2012) that was knighted at the siege of Acre during the 3rd Crusade to the Levant. A noble was resting under a cedar tree or kedros, and a lion was stalking him. When the lion charged, Leon grabbed a nearby lance and killed the lion. He was knighted for this and also gained 10,000 acres including Kiedrowice back in Pomerania from King Sambor.

There were Poles on the 3rd Crusade, but they were probably Germanic knights as the family provided many knights for the Teutonic Order, including some knights that were commanders of garrisons. I believe that only Germans could be members of the Teutonic knights, but I will look into that.

Its all very sad to me. Why did our people had to bleed for foreigners who deeply hated them.

The historical anecdote says that when in 13thy century Pope Innocent III requested Polish King, Leszek Biały, to take part in a crusade, he answered that "neither he nor any self-respecting Polish knight could be induced to go to the Holy Land, where, they had been informed, there was no wine, mead, or even beer to be had".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszek_the_White

Oh, blessed be wise Polish Pan Kralj.