Fortune's Wheel: A Podcast History of Our Medieval Story
Jul 4, 2026 · 44 min · 13 segments
**SEASON 8**: The First Crusade **EPISODE 212:** Ascalon: The Final Battle Jerusalem was firmly in crusader hands, but the Fatimids weren’t yet finished. On this episode, we see the final chapter in…
It's mid-July 1099, and Jerusalem is now teeming with the largest influx of Westerners than it ever had in its history.
Fatimids were either filing out of the city in shame or rotting in the streets.
Even in the days that followed July 15th, dead were everywhere.
Chronicler Peter Tudibold says, "...actually all of Jerusalem was clogged with cadavers.
The Saracen survivors pulled out the corpses of their fellows to the gate exits, corded them up in mounds like houses, and put them to the torch." Has anyone ever seen or heard of such a holocaust of infidels? God alone knows the number, for no one else does.
End quote.
The homes, the markets and shops, the palaces, they were all plundered, and Western warriors of all ranks were evicting families so they could have the first safe, comfortable lodgings they'd experienced daily for more than three years.
Folker of Chartres writes, This was no simple liberation of a city.
Numbers varied wildly in the records.
Raymond of Aguilera said there were 10,000 dead at the Temple of Solomon event alone.
Considering Jerusalem had around 25,000 people at the start of it all, no one really had a firm handle, or today still has a firm handle, on how many actually perished, how many were exiled or escaped, and how many were left.
But again, the one thing all the records indicate is that Jerusalem was, as I said, a ghost town by the end of the month.
As shops opened up, a fraction of the regulars stopped by to purchase goods and services.
As churches reopened their doors, there were more Western knights in attendance than residents.
Once the bodies were carried away, the streets seemed empty in comparison to before the battle.
But, I mean, what have these Christians actually won? This was the question the Crusader princes faced as July chugged along.
They had reclaimed the city for God.
But who was to actually rule it? Better yet, who wanted to rule it? The population was decimated and the largest group in the city were Westerners eager to return home.
It's not like these men just moved in and replaced the population.
It's mid-July 1099, and Jerusalem is now teeming with the largest influx of Westerners than it ever had in its history.
Fatimids were either filing out of the city in shame or rotting in the streets.
Even in the days that followed July 15th, dead were everywhere.
Chronicler Peter Tudibold says, "...actually all of Jerusalem was clogged with cadavers.
The Saracen survivors pulled out the corpses of their fellows to the gate exits, corded them up in mounds like houses, and put them to the torch." Has anyone ever seen or heard of such a holocaust of infidels? God alone knows the number, for no one else does.
End quote.
The homes, the markets and shops, the palaces, they were all plundered, and Western warriors of all ranks were evicting families so they could have the first safe, comfortable lodgings they'd experienced daily for more than three years.
Folker of Chartres writes, This was no simple liberation of a city.
Numbers varied wildly in the records.
Raymond of Aguilera said there were 10,000 dead at the Temple of Solomon event alone.
Considering Jerusalem had around 25,000 people at the start of it all, no one really had a firm handle, or today still has a firm handle, on how many actually perished, how many were exiled or escaped, and how many were left.
But again, the one thing all the records indicate is that Jerusalem was, as I said, a ghost town by the end of the month.
As shops opened up, a fraction of the regulars stopped by to purchase goods and services.
As churches reopened their doors, there were more Western knights in attendance than residents.
Once the bodies were carried away, the streets seemed empty in comparison to before the battle.
But, I mean, what have these Christians actually won? This was the question the Crusader princes faced as July chugged along.
They had reclaimed the city for God.
But who was to actually rule it? Better yet, who wanted to rule it? The population was decimated and the largest group in the city were Westerners eager to return home.
It's not like these men just moved in and replaced the population.
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