Gesta Francorum

And although there are a few Byzantines fighting along with us, we're the ones who suffer blood and losses in return.

So Berman starts to mount a very specific... dark arts campaign of propaganda, particularly with a text called the Gesta Francorum, which is a sort of widely circulated because a bestseller in Europe in the early 1100s that casts Berman.

It becomes, it casts Berman as the great hero, always a step ahead of everybody else.

And Alexius as a man who is always going to be double crossing everybody he meets.

Several Christian chronicles written in the aftermath of the First Crusade acknowledge that some crusaders consumed human bodies there, making the broad event unusually difficult to dismiss as Muslim propaganda against Christian invaders.

The anonymous Gesta Francorum, written by someone associated with the crusading expedition, gives the episode its most straightforward explanation.

Hunger.

According to the account, extreme deprivation led some men to cut flesh from dead bodies, cook it, and eat it.

Primary Sources The primary sources for these events are found in individual chronicles and collections.

For the First Crusade, this includes the original Latin accounts, such as the Gesta Francorum, as well as works by Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres.

Byzantine perspectives are provided by the princess Anna Komneni, while the Muslim historian Ali ibn al-Athir offers a comprehensive view of the Islamic response.

The Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa also recorded events from a regional standpoint.