Notes
1. The capital of the Eastern Roman Empire was Constantinople. Since the original name of the city was ‘Byzantium’, modern historians refer to its empire as either the ‘Byzantine Empire’ or more simply ‘Byzantium’.
2. Muhammed claimed that Allah had revealed himself through numerous prophets – Moses and Christ being two of the more prominent ones – but their message had become garbled over time. His revelation was the final ‘pure’ version that would supplant the corrupted ones.
3. 'Islam' means 'submission' to the will of Allah.
4. A key to Muhammed's success was his pragmatism. While preaching strict obedience, he was willing to make accommodations for deeply entrenched customs such as slavery and polygamy.
5. There was no water supply between the Muslim relief force and the main army, so the creative Islamic commander watered his camels extensively before he left, and then had his men kill them en route to harvest the water.
6. The emperor's subjects agreed with this assessment. After his first wife died, Heraclius married his niece, and this incestuous union was popularly believed to have been responsible for most of the empire's troubles.
7. Matthew 24:15
8. ‘Asia Minor’ originally referred to the part of the Roman province of Asia that was evangelized by St. Paul. It consists of most of present-day Turkey, and is more or less interchangeable with the term ‘Anatolia’.
9. In 1054, emissaries of the pope excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, who turned around and excommunicated the pope right back. This event – known as the Eastern Schism – started a chain of events that permanently split the Christian world into Catholic (western) and Orthodox (eastern) halves.
10. Ironically, Gregory's original idea was to leave the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, in charge of the West while he was away fighting. Not long after considering this, however, the two men were violently at odds over the Lay Investiture Controversy – a fight over secular control of church appointments – and Gregory ended up excommunicating Henry.
11. Robert of Rheims may have been present at Clermont, but probably only wrote down his recollections of Urban's speech two decades later.
12. They had to be launched by a legitimate authority for a legitimate cause, could only be fought to correct an injustice, and had to be fought as a last resort.
13. Islam had the concept of Holy War – jihad – from its beginnings, but Christianity had, to varying degrees, always rejected it.
14. The Latin term for those who took the oath to go to Jerusalem was cruce signati – those signed by the cross – from which we get the terms 'crusade' and 'crusader'.
15. Medieval maps of Europe usually placed the east or ‘orient’ at the top and Jerusalem in the center. This is where we get the term ‘to orient’ oneself.
16. Virtually the only Christian spot that remained intact was the Cenacle or Upper Room, the house where the last supper had taken place and where the eleven surviving disciples had gathered after the Crucifixion. Ironically, emperor Hadrian's attempt to suppress Christianity by building temples – one to Venus over the crucifixion site and one to Jupiter over the tomb – is what ultimately preserved them.
17. At least two of these can still be seen. Constantine melted one down to make a bit for his horse and this was later taken to Milan where it can still be seen in the Cathedral. He gave another as a gift to some Lombard princes in Italy who beat it into a circular shape and created the famous Iron Crown of Lombardy, now in the Cathedral of Monza. This last one is slightly dubious since it was at least the fifth nail that Constantine made use of. During the Middle Ages more than thirty churches claimed to have pieces of the 'Holy Nails'.
18. This practice of pilgrimage was itself an ancient custom. Faithful pagans in the Roman world had travelled great distances for the spiritual benefits of visiting the great temple of Diana of Ephesus, or Hector's tomb in Troy.
19. The command to walk barefoot from Europe to Palestine could often prove fatal. To take just one example, in 1051, Swein Godwinsson, the misbehaving brother of the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, died of exposure crossing the mountains of Anatolia.
20. During one of the worst periods of repression – AD 1012 – all synagogues and churches were ordered to be destroyed by the half-insane caliph, al-Hakim. Furthermore, all non-Muslims had to pay a tax and wear distinctive clothes and degrading symbols – large wooden crosses for Christians and bells for Jews.
21. Charlemagne built a spacious hotel for pilgrim use and the eleventh century Byzantine emperor Constantine IX rebuilt the Holy Sepulcher and spent extravagantly for the privilege of maintaining Christian sites in Jerusalem.
22. One of the most infamous pilgrims was Robert the Devil – father of William the Conqueror – who abandoned his son in Normandy and died while on his way back from Jerusalem.
23. Al-Muqaddasi, Descriptions of Syria, trans. by Le Strange, p. 37
24. In addition to theological differences, the original dispute was over who should succeed Muhammed when he died. Shi'ites recognize Muhammed's cousin, Ali, while Sunnis recognize Muhammed's father-in-law, Abu Bakr as the rightful successor.
25. The name derives from its first ruler, Abbas, the uncle of Muhammed.
26. The Muslim invasion of Spain had occurred in the early eighth century, and the remaining Christians had been fighting the Reconquista ever since. It would not be finally completed until 1492.
27. Excommunication was one of the most dreaded punishments of the medieval church. An excommunicate was temporarily cut off from the church, unable to receive communion or any other sacrament until they repented. If they died under the sentence they would be damned.
28. Peter was widely believed to have in his possession a letter from heaven urging immediate action against the Turks.
29. Another group apparently followed a female goat. Neither animal survived long enough to leave German territory. Albert of Aix dryly noted that the goose would have been more service as meal than a leader.
30. The confusion stems from the fact that Walter was from the village of Boissy-sans-Avoir. In French, the words ‘sans avior mean ‘without having’.
31. Since the crusaders had actively attacked several Byzantine cities and harassed the countryside, Peter wasn't sure what kind of reception he would get. When the emperor announced that all was forgiven – since one look told him that the crusaders had been punished enough – Peter was overcome with gratitude and wept.
32. At the time of the First Crusade it was roughly twenty times the size of London or Paris.
33. The dome of the 6th century Hagia Sophia remained the largest in the world for nearly a thousand years. It was only surpassed during the Renaissance by the Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi.
34. This comes from the always entertaining Russian Primary Chronicle. The experience supposedly was so overwhelming that it convinced the Russian ruler Vladimir the Great to convert to Christianity. The relevant excerpt can be found here: http://www2.stetson.edu/~psteeves/classes/russianprimarychronicle.html
35. The ancient name of the village was Helenopolis, the birthplace of Constantine the Great's mother.
36. The Nicene Creed has been recited nearly every day by believers since it was composed in AD 325.
37. Anna Comnena, writing several decades after the event with more passion than accuracy, claims that they stooped to roasting infants on sticks.
38. Comnena Anna, trans. E.R.A. Sweter, The Alexiad, (London: Penguin, 1969), Book X
39. He seems to have toyed initially with the idea of leading it himself, but quickly discovered that he had too many responsibilities at home.
40. So at least Anna Comnena – the admittedly biased daughter of the Byzantine emperor – informs us. Since Hugh had no royal status, the claim is patently ridiculous. He probably demanded an appropriate welcome for one serving the King of Kings, and Anna – offended by the tone and enjoying the historian’s gift of hindsight – conveniently modified her account.
41. The city of Bari is famous for having the relics of Nicholas of Myra – better known as St. Nick.
42. According to a Frankish source, Alexius adopted Hugh – and the rest of the Crusading princes – as his son.
43. He kept his claim to Lower Lorraine, the most important of his holdings. He was clearly planning on returning and probably intended to use the land as a base to rebuild his vast holdings.
44. One crusading account makes the fantastic claim that Godfrey demanded and received hostages from the emperor to end his attacks on the capital.
45. His given name was actually Marc, but his father – seeing his huge size – had nicknamed him 'Bohemond' after the legendary medieval giant Buamundas Gigas. Thanks to Bohemond's exploits, the name became one of the most popular ones of the Middle Ages.
46. Robert Gusicard was the sixth of his father’s twelve sons and – since he didn’t have an inheritance to look forward to – had joined a stream of Norman mercenaries into Italy in 1047 in hopes of winning a fortune for himself. Within two decades he was the master of most of southern Italy and Sicily.
47. The Norman historian Geoffrey Malaterra bluntly records that he joined the crusade to plunder Byzantine territory.
48. The Byzantines referred to all westerners as 'Franks'. The one exception was the Normans who had made their existence – and distinction – very clear.
49. Alexander's version was even bigger – it featured ninety beds, one hundred couches, and a massive reception hall that supposedly could house up to nine thousand.
50. The Norman account claims that Alexius was moved by Tancred's noble spirit and said this out of fear. It also adds Tancred's less than inspiring comeback: 'I deem you worthy of an enemy but not a friend.'
51. Neither of them were particularly impressive characters. Robert had auctioned off the duchy to his younger brother William Rufus. Stephen didn't want to go on crusade at all, but he had married Adela, William the Conqueror's daughter, who had inherited her father's iron will. She ordered him to go and he went.
52. This includes the People's Crusade as well as all non-combatants.
53. James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 49-51
54. Alexius was playing his own game with the siege. He was perfectly well aware that the garrison was getting supplies from the lake, and could easily have arranged a naval blockade at the start of the siege. He was most likely waiting for the crusading leaders – whose oaths of loyalty had been only reluctantly given – to come to the realization that they needed him.
55. This included Godfrey of Bouillon who was injured by a bear that he was attempting to hunt.
56. August. C. Krey, The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Participants, (Princeton: 1921), 163-68
57. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/polybius/31*.html
58. This included Yaghi-Siyan. The unfortunate governor had managed to slip out of the city but had been thrown from his horse and deserted by his guards. He was killed by the local Armenians who found him, and his head was presented to Bohemond as a gift.
59. He seems to have established very warm relations. After his surrender, he converted to Christianity and – with several of his men – joined Bohemond's army.
60. While the episode discredited Peter Bartholomew in the eyes of most of the army, he did have some supporters left. They maintained that he had emerged from the flames unscathed, but had been pushed back into the fire by the excited crowd. Raymond continued to believe in the authenticity of the Lance, and built a special chapel for its veneration.
61. The Islamic Caliphate based in Egypt was called ‘Fatimid’ after its ruling dynasty which claimed descent from ‘Fatimah,’ the daughter of Muhammed. As Shi’ites they were rivals of the Sunni Abbasid Caliphate based around Damascus.
62. In the eleventh century the native Christian population still outnumbered the Muslim one.
63. Raymond carried the Holy Lance, now apparently again accepted – or at least hoped – as genuine by most of the army.
64. The Arab writer Ibn al-Arabi estimated the number of Muslim dead at around three thousand.
65. This oft-repeated story appears in virtually all modern histories of the crusades. A contemporary Jewish account does confirm that the building was destroyed, but makes no mention of any casualties.
66. It is difficult to comprehend how brutal the times were. One Jewish eyewitness complemented the Christians because they didn't rape before they killed like the Muslims did.
67. Urban hadn't expressed any interest in governing Jerusalem, just in being recognized as head of its church. He expected them to turn over political control to the Byzantines.
68. When Emperor Henry IV quarreled with the pope in the dispute known as the Lay Investiture Controversy, Godfrey assisted his monarch in evicting the pope from Rome. Within a century of his death, however, it was being reported that Godfrey's only fault was that he had been too pious.
69. Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, vol I, no. 4 (Philadelphia: The Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1902), pp. 8-12.
70. In AD 637 the Orthodox Patriarch Sophronius had turned over the city to the Caliph Umar, ending three centuries of Christian control.
71. Although the term Outremer originally applied to all the crusader states, over time it came to refer primarily to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
72. He was remarkably successful. With only twenty-five knights he somehow managed to secure Tiberias, Nazareth, and Mount Tabor, making him the virtual master of Galilee.
73. This was commanded by Taticius, the unappreciated Byzantine guide of the First Crusade to Antioch. His run of bad luck continued. Thanks to a sudden storm, Daimbert's fleet was able to escape Taticius and the hapless commander had to return to Constantinople empty-handed.
74. Godfrey's sword and spurs can still be seen mounted on a wall of the Holy Sepulcher.
75. His old enemy the Byzantine emperor Alexius offered to pay it – on the condition that Bohemond would be delivered to Constantinople. Bohemond sensibly declined.
76. Daimbert stubbornly refused to give up. He traveled to Rome and convinced the weak Pope Paschal II to reinstate him. Palestine was spared a second dose of Daimbert by his death on the return journey.
77. In Tripoli, the crusaders first tasted sugar cane, which was unknown in Europe at the time. They considered it a passing novelty.
78. The nearby Lake Bardawil still bears the Arabic form of his name.
79. This was the infamous site where Muslims under the protection of Tancred were slaughtered by overeager crusaders when they first entered the city.
80. The Lay Investiture Controversy – an argument over the habit of secular leaders appointing or ‘investing’ church officials – had devolved into a contest of wills between the papacy and the German empire. It was settled only in 1122 at the Concordat of Worms.
81. The Venetians had recently been of great use to the empire by helping them to defeat the Normans. During this war, they had conquered Corfu and dutifully turned it over to Constantinople. They expected to be compensated accordingly.
82. William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 79-82
83. Letter of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (A.D. 1146) preaching the Second Crusade. Trans. James Harvey Robinson, Readings in European History, vol. 1 (Boston, 1904), pp. 330-32.
84. Papal bulls are referred to by their opening words in Latin. Quantum praedecessores literally means 'How much our predecessors (have labored for the eastern church...)'
85. Queen Melisende of Jerusalem sent a bishop – Hugh of Jabala – to bring the news of Edessa's fall to the pope. Hugh leavened the disaster with the story of Prester John, the first recorded mention of one of the most enduring legends of the Middle Ages.
86. Abbot Suger is credited with originating the gothic style of architecture that became so prevalent during the Middle Ages. His major contribution, the Basilica Church of Saint-Dennis, was dedicated in 1144, the same year Edessa fell.
87. Their behavior was so bad that imperial towns took the precaution of locking the gates and dispensing food in baskets lowered over the walls.
88. The extent of the lands of her dowry rivaled that of the King of France.
89. The other rival for earliest Christian nation is Ethiopia which officially adopted the faith in AD 330. According to legend, King Abgar V of Edessa exchanged letters with Christ – copies of which were preserved by the fourth century historian Eusebius. Modern scholarship dates the conversion of Edessa to the reign of Abgar IX in the late second century.
90. Eleanor’s dowry was the province of Aquitaine, a huge swath of territory in southwestern France.
91. The marriage was eventually annulled in 1152. By that time Eleanor was already having an affair with Henry of Anjou, the future king Henry II of England.
92. Along with other distinguished candidates, Constance turned down the son-in-law of the Byzantine emperor for Reynald.
93. When Amalric's ambassador demanded that the Caliph shake his hand – an unheard of request – the spiritual successor of Muhammed had clasped the infidel's hand, defiling himself in front of his entire court.
94. Viewed from nearly a millennium later, the politics of medieval Italy are nearly impossible to untangle. Broadly speaking, the northern Italian cities were constantly trying to break free from German control, while the emperor was endlessly trying to cross the Alps and bring them back into line. The popes – also interested in their freedom of action – frequently stirred the pot, attempting a difficult balancing act between the various powers surrounding them. In the 12th century, emperor and pope were also clashing over the Lay Investiture Controversy – the right of secular leaders to appoint members of the clergy. In 1176, the German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, was besieging northern Italy – for the fifth time – in an attempt to forcibly resolve the issue and depose Pope Alexander III.
95. Not only were his hands bandaged, but he could no longer use his right arm, so he fought lefty.
96. Ironically it probably wasn't the leprosy that ultimately killed him. A few months before his death he contracted an infection from one of his many open sores and his weakened body wasn't able to fight it off.
97. The conversations are recollected by Bahā' al-Dín, Saladin’s personal biographer in his The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin.
98. Bahā' al-Dín
99. Saladin accused Reynald of breaking his oath to respect peace between Muslims and crusader territory. Reynald bitingly replied – with more bravery than sense – 'that such was the nature of kings'.
100. Bahā' al-Dín
101. By a quirk of fate, the Patriarch who surrendered Jerusalem in 1187 shared a name – Heraclius – with the Byzantine emperor who surrendered it in 637.
102. De Expugatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum, [The Capture of the Holy Land by Saladin], ed. Joseph Stevenson, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1875), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 159-63
103. The cause of Pope Urban III's death is usually attributed to shock, but at least one contemporary source claims that news of the defeat didn't reach Rome until after the election of Urban's successor.
104. To speed up one siege in northern Italy, he ordered his catapults to launch live prisoners over the rebellious city's walls until they submitted.
105. Confusingly, historians refer to Frederick’s empire by a variety of names. Technically it was the revived ‘Western Roman Empire’ that Pope Leo III had created for Charlemagne, and therefore simply the ‘Roman Empire’. However, since it was centered physically around present-day Germany, it is sometimes called the ‘German Empire’. By the end of the 13th century the official name had become “Sacrum Romanum Imperium Teutonicæ Nationis” – “The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”. It is therefore most commonly referred to as the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ to distinguish it from the Western Roman Empire that had dissolved in 476 and the ‘Byzantine’ Empire centered around Constantinople.
106. The Turks who had invaded Byzantine territory in the 11th century had founded a state called the Sultunate of Rûm.
107. Like King Arthur in Britain, a legend soon grew up that Barbarossa wasn't dead but merely asleep. He waits enthroned beneath the Kyffhäuser mountain in Bavaria, golden crown on his head and white beard reaching the floor. When ravens cease to fly around the mountain, he will rise to restore Germany to its ancient greatness.
108. The original plan was to lay Frederick Barbarossa to rest in Jerusalem, but the vinegar failed to adequately slow down decomposition. The heart and intestines were buried in St. Paul's native city of Tarsus, the rest of the body was interred in Antioch.
109. The term ‘Levant’ comes from a French word meaning ‘point of sunrise’. It broadly refers to the eastern part of the Mediterranean, and covers the modern countries of Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine.
110. Excerpta Cypria: Materials for a History of Cyprus, edited by Claude D. Cobham (Cambridge, 1908)
111. Richard's attempts to raise money for the crusade were endless. Before he left England he is said to have quipped, "I would have sold London if I could have found a buyer."
112. The Holy Roman Emperor had a claim to the Sicilian throne and was in the process of gathering an army to seize it.
113. The legendary sword of King Arthur.
114. He also attempted to lure Richard’s new fiancée to the island, but fortunately she refused to take the bait.
115. Saladin's failure to pay the ransom and Richard's subsequent slaughtering of his prisoners did nothing to dent this prestige.
116. Even while sick, Richard managed to upstage Philip. Early in the siege of Acre the English king had fallen ill, so he had himself carried on a stretcher to the front lines where he amused himself by picking off guards on the walls with a crossbow.
117. Bahā' al-Dín, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin
118. Three Old French Chronicles of the Crusades, ed. Edward N. Stone (Seattle, 1939)
119. The emperor somewhat insultingly fixed the ransom at one hundred thousand pounds of silver – an amount at least double the annual income of England and exactly what Richard had raised to finance his crusade.
120. John appears in this guise as the villain of Robin Hood, plundering the land while good king Richard is away.
121. One of the men chosen to go – Geoffrey of Villehardouin – wrote a first hand account of the crusade that is one of our best sources.
122. Although he was almost certainly born in 1107 (and therefore ninety-two when the crusaders arrived), his energy convinced several modern historians to argue that he must have been at least twenty years younger.
123. Isaac had overseen the horrifically bloody end of one of the more colorful Byzantine emperors, his appropriately named predecessor, Andronicus the Terrible.
124. Donald E. Queller and Thomas F. Madden, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 2nd ed.
125. The Golden Horn is the name of the inlet that forms the northern shore of Constantinople’s peninsula. The name is a reference either to the wealth that it brought or the warm glow that the setting sun casts over its shore.
126. Joinville & Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades.
127. The first of the invaders discouraged by the stoutness of Constantinople's defenses was the 'Scourge of God' himself, Attila the Hun.
128. The sight of the exquisitely preserved corpse of the great Justinian was enough – temporarily – to stop the vandals in their tracks. Ultimately, however, he ended up on the ground with Constantine the Great and the rest of the imperial bodies.
129. One of the legacies of this is the Byzantine Catholic Church, which follows an Orthodox liturgy but recognizes the supremacy of the pope.
130. Chronica Regiae Coloniensis Continuatio prima, as translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 213
131. This may have been the origin of the legend of the Pied Piper.
132. Although it provided an immediate and long-lasting financial windfall, this plenary indulgence would prove to be far more trouble than it was worth for the Catholic Church. Three centuries later it provided the spark for the Protestant Reformation.
133. On one campaign he pointed to a field of wheat and said 'There grows your God' – a derogatory reference to the communion wafer.
134. The Fifth Crusade was even denied the small consolation of the return of the True Cross. Pelagius had been right all along. Al-Kamil never had it.
135. G. G. Coulton, St. Francis to Dante, (London: David Nutt, 1906), pp. 242-43
136. He was told that 'they had nothing for him but a sword'.
137. The Chronography of Gregory Abu’l Faraj…Bar Hebraeus, trans. Ernest A. Wallis Budge (London, 1932).
138. The emperor was cheekily offering the same remission of sins usually given by a crusade to anyone who would join in his attack on the pope.
139. Selections from the Hengwrt Mss. Preserved in the Peniarth Library. Williams, Robert, ed. & trans. London: Thomas Richards, 1892.
140. The search for Prester John's kingdom was one of the inspirations of Marco Polo's journey.
141. The Caliphs were descended from an uncle of Muhammed named Abbas.
142. The actual numbers were bad enough. A conservative estimate is that the Mongols killed between eleven and fifteen million people during their campaigns, roughly 2.5% of the world's population.
143. An obvious advantage of trading with the immense Mongol empire was that goods from the Far East no longer had to pass through a dozen intermediary hands – with the resulting price markups – before reaching European markets. The southern routes which terminated in Outremer were simply too expensive to compete.
144. Saint Louis' Advice to His Son, in Medieval Civilization, trans. and eds. Dana Munro and George Clarke Sellery (New York: The Century Company, 1910), pp. 366 -75.
145. Edward I's efforts in Acre are sometimes referred to as the Ninth Crusade since he began after the Eighth Crusade had technically ended.
146. He had initially confessed under torture, but recanted his confession – loudly – as he was being led to the stake. He supposedly also leveled a curse at both the king of France and the pope, prophesying that they would have to answer for their crimes within a year and a day. Both men did indeed die before the year was out, occurrences that were widely seen as divine retribution for the suppression of the Templars.
147. Sayyid Ali al-Hariri's Splendid Accounts in the Crusading Wars was published in 1899.
148. This so-called 'Crusade of Varna', named for the Bulgarian city where the crusaders met their fate, has the distinction of being the last major engagement between Christians and Muslims that is designated a 'crusade'.
149. The French general who was assigned control over Syria in the wake of the Ottoman Empire's destruction following World War 1, declared “Behold Saladin, we have returned!”
150. In 1898 the visiting German emperor, Wilhelm II, was appalled to discover the forgotten remains of Saladin interred in a shabby wooden coffin. He paid for an immense new one in white marble, befitting a 'brother-emperor'.
151. The fact that he was simultaneously attempting to exterminate Saladin's ethic group – the Kurds – doesn't seem to have bothered him.
152. There was a reconciliation of sorts exactly eight hundred years later. In 2004 Pope John Paul II apologized, saying that even eight centuries couldn't diminish the 'pain and disgust' that he felt as a Catholic. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, accepted, reminding his listeners that "the spirit of reconciliation is stronger than hatred."
153. The Templars even called themselves the 'New Knighthood.'
154. The Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) was written sometime in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The legend of King Arthur was largely constructed by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who included him in his History of the Kings of Britain, written in the 1130's. The legend was further fleshed out by the English poet Wace, who gives us the first mention of the Round Table, in his Roman de Brut, composed in 1155.
155. Apricots, lemons, some perfumes, and the ancestor of the modern guitar were all popular exports of Outremer.