Something a bit different.

Early crusaders were volunteers, who took vows to go on a crusade, rather than members of a professional army. As a result, they had to fund themselves for the duration of a crusade, which could often involve traveling across continents over a period of years and often experiencing extraordinary hardships and danger.

Naturally, this was massively expensive and may reflect why only 1% or 2% of Europe’s more religious knights were willing to commit to the First Crusade, as crusading not only promised a high probability of death or injury but was also massively expensive and could be crippling financially. Charters show that those who participated in the crusades were often concerned about the costs more than anything, as many had to mortgage or sell properties to be able to afford to take part.

While there are many Latin Christian sources confirming this, there is one well known source by the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir, who confirms it as well. In his account of the siege of Tyre, he notes:

“A Frankish [crusader] prisoner told me that he was his mother’s only son, and their house was their sole possession, and she had sold it and used the money obtained from it to equip him to go and free Jerusalem.”

Source: Gabrieli’s Arab Historians of the Crusades, 1969.

I assume this came up in a discussion about the possibility of ransom. The crusader’s captors probably asked if someone would pay for his release and he told them he had no money, hence the story about his mother mortgaging her home to fund his crusading efforts. Since he could not pay his ransom, he was likely either enslaved or killed if others were not able to pay it for him.

I recall reading this as an undergraduate and wondering what ever became of the poor mother, only briefly mentioned, who had obviously sacrificed so much send her son on a crusade. Moreover, did she ever learn the ultimate fate of her son?

This anecdote is an interesting one for highlighting the onerous costs (financial, and not just physical) of medieval crusading imposed on both those who participated in them and their loved ones, and, thus, how, in their thinking, crusading could be understood as a type of redemptive act (requiring physical, financial, mental, and emotional sacrifice) meriting the crusading indulgence. From their perspective, such personal sacrifice is a reason for why the indulgence likely made sense, even if it does not to most modern readers.