The day that changed history

May 18th was a day of historical happenings. The Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer Omar Khayyam, was born on May 18th, 1048. He is best known in the West for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated in the 19th century by Edward Fitz Gerald. Even those who’d not recognize his name would recognize this verse:
The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

On May 18, 1096, there was a bloody massacre of the Jews of Worms, Germany; whenever crusades were launched in the MA, men afire with crusading fervor turned their zealotry and wrath upon the “infidels” closer to home than the Saracens. The Bishop of Worms had tried to shelter the city’s Jews from the mob, but they broke into his palace and murdered at least 800 of the Jews they found there when they refused to accept baptism. Sadly, this would happen again after the Second and the Third Crusades were preached, and while I am not one of St Bernard of Clairvaux’s greatest fans, I do admire his response to these pogroms in 1146. When the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz appealed for his aid in ending the violence against the Jews in their cities, he set out at once for Germany, and stopped the attacks that had been led by a fanatical French monk named Radulphe.

Still on the subject of crusades, Richard Coeur de Lion had failed to recapture Jerusalem, which caused many—including Richard himself—to view the Third Crusade as a failure. But he had been able to give Acre one hundred more years of life as a Christian bastion. That came to an end, though, on May 18, 1291, when the city fell to the Sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-Ashraf Khalil. Michael Jecks has a new novel coming out next month about the fall of Acre, a prequel to his Templar mystery series called Templar’s Acre, which offers a dramatic and compelling account of this siege.

But for me, May 18th will always be most significant for the wedding that took place in the cathedral of St Pierre in the city of Poitiers in 1152, a marriage that truly changed history, when the young Duke of Normandy, Henry Fitz Empress, took Eleanor, the former Queen of France and Duchess of Aquitaine, as his wife. Here is a brief scene from their wedding night in Saints, page 646, as they enjoy a late-night supper in bed and Eleanor regales Henry with tales of her infamous grandfather, the duke known as the first troubadour.
* * *
Henry brushed back her hair. “Tell me more,” he urged, and she shivered with pleasure as he kissed the hollow of her throat.
“Well…Grandpapa Will painted an image of Dangereuse on his shield, saying he wanted to bear her in battle, just as she’d so often borne him in bed. He liked to joke that one day he’d establish his own nunnery—and fill it with ladies of easy virtue. And when he was rebuked for not praying as often as he ought, he composed a poem, ‘O Lord, let me live long enough to get my hands under her cloak.’”
Henry gave a sputter of laughter. “Between the two of us, we’ve got a family tree rooted in Hell! Once Abbot Bernard learns of our marriage, he’ll have nary a doubt that our children will have horns and cloven hooves.”
“The first one with a tail, we’ll name after the good abbot.” Eleanor reached for a dish of strawberries in sugared syrup, popping one neatly into his mouth. He fed her the next one, and when she licked the sugar from his fingers, as daintily as a cat, his body was suddenly suffused in heat. Dipping his finger in the syrup, he coated one of her nipples. She looked startled but intrigued, and when he lowered his mouth to her breast, she exhaled her breath in a drawn-out sigh. “Abbot Bernard preaches that sin is all around us,” she said throatily, “but I doubt that even he ever thought to warn against strawberries.”
“He’d likely have an apoplectic seizure if he only knew what can be done with honey,” Henry predicted and Eleanor began to laugh.
“I think,” she said, “that you and I are going to have a very interesting marriage.”
Henry thought so, too. “I want you, Eleanor.”
Her eyes reflected the candle flame, but brighter and hotter, making promises that would have provided Abbot Bernard with a full year of new sermons. “My lord duke,” she said, “tonight all of Aquitaine is yours for the taking.”
* * *