Bard II Torbjornsson Crovan
King of Norway and of Serbia
The Middle Years, 1403-1408
I was busily assigning fiefs to my five year old son Erik, when I noticed there was another child in the Royal Nursery. This came as a surprise to me, but it would seem it is one of mine. I guess I lost count, but this means nine offspring! I’m getting closer Skule, you bastard.
Little Hakon gets the wild and woolly Border Province of Lower Dnieper. That should toughen him up some. And also insult the local nobility. A win-win, if you ask me.
And here is the reason I have suddenly been forced to take interest in my other offspring. Skule the Simple, the same 13 year old who just gave the entire City of Rome, its surrounding villages, farms, fisheries, and nunneries to the Pope for free has managed to get himself excommunicated.
Did I mention that the current Pope is both my personal confessor and dear friend?
He won’t say what Skule did to piss him off, just that he “deserves all the miseries Hell can inflict upon him.”
The Crovan Blood must run a little too strong in him.
Of course, having the Pope as a personal best friend has many uses. For example: did you know that the Duke of the Aegean Islands was a Godless Heretic whose total destruction has been sanctioned by the Church?
Neither did he.
And I need just one more county to form the Duchy of Bosnia. Uh oh…guess who’s just been outed as a closet Albigensian?
Well, we took the Bard II the Bosnians fast enough.
Somehow, the Countess of the Canary Islands has survived as a free and independent nation, even though vile Saracens have completely surrounded her. Fear not, gentle Countess, King Bard will protect you from any thrusts from the vile hordes. The arms of Crovan Norway will wrap about your sweet and nubile lands, rising – no – pusling forth from the arms of the warm, moist seas which surrounds…your…
Quick! To the Royal Bedchamber!
And summon the missus.
I think I feel child number 10 burning my loins.
My personal and best friend the Pope has been sitting back on his laurels for some time. If I am to out-Crusade King Ossor, I need to do more than just beat up on local Christian Lords with Church sanctioning. I also need to beat up on local Muslim Lords with Church sanctioning.
With that in mind, I have asked my good friend to call a Crusade against the Saracen Hordes in Jerusalem.
To help finance the Crusade, the Pope even made me an Authorized Indulgence Dealer.
Indulgences are kind of hard to explain, but think of them as a Lottery, in that the poor people all give me their cash in hopes of a better future, except that I don’t have to give any of it away.
And perfect timing! I was concerned the Aegean Crusade wasn’t going to end before I could launch the Jerusalem Expedition.
That would have messed everything up because the Crusades can’t overlap in any way, shape or form otherwise we can't just conveniently number them. And how will future historians be able to reduce each to a small story, isolated from context, and make sweeping generalizations about the Crusading movement as a whole if two Crusades went on at the same time, or small groups of Crusaders trickled into and out off the Holy Lands throughout the period? No, it is better this way. Each Crusade must have a beginning, middle and end.
Well, well, so Bard II has actually allied with the Pope. Another Crovan first. Not that it has helped Skule any. Will King Ossor’s record fall? Will child number 10 arrive? What about Goal #1? Hasn’t that been completed already? Find out on the next exciting episode of