British researchers have compiled a database listing the knights who took part in the Crusades

British researchers have compiled a database listing the knights who took part in the Crusades. Enthusiasts online then established their origins: it turned out that most of the first crusaders came from France.

Even many of those who set out from England or southern Italy were natives of the Norman lands. As for the Spanish and Portuguese warriors, on the Iberian Peninsula the Portuguese, Castilians and Aragonese already had plenty to do on their own soil, and they saw to it, not quickly, but thank God, in the end.

It was precisely because of the preponderance of warriors of French origin among the crusaders in the Levant that the term “Frank” stayed in use to denote the Christians of East and West. And it is known that the Arabs called the crusaders “al-Ifranj”.

As a result, thanks to the French, not only did the name “Franks” become fixed for Europeans, but the Frankish Kingdom of the Levant and Jerusalem appeared, French replaced Latin as the “lingua franca”, and world history gained the Capulets and Montagues of Verona, the lords Montfort in Austria and the dukes of Montfort in England.

Let us hope that the French will not let us down in the future either.

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British researchers have compiled a database listing the knights who took part in the Crusades

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

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