Kingdom of Heaven & the Crusades

[pairofdivers]

I bought the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" on DVD the other day, and that movie is AWESOME

My question is, how accurate was the movie to the time of the crusades, some 1,000 years AFTER (credit Pal, for catching my sleepy error) the Death and Resurrection?

Also, I kinda picked up on a split taking place shortly prior to the battle with the Moslems (I hope I understood that correctly, anyway), but were the characters based on actual historical figures?

Thanks!

 

[PaladinValer]

Actually, the Crusades were a little over 1,000 years after Jesus

Saladin is indeed a true, historical person.

 

[davidoffinland]

From Finland.

I just rented the DVD couple of days ago. While watching it I thought to myself I would really hate to be fighting like this...for what? Remember what Saladin said at the end?

Shalom, David.

 

[HiredGoon]

The main characters, Balian, Queen Sybella, Raynald, Guy de Lusignan, King Baldwin and Saladin, were all loosely based on historical figures. The battle of Hattin was a real event where the Crusaders were defeated by Saladin. Balian played by Orlando Bloom is largely fictional though based on a actual figure. Apparently there was a real knight named Balian who gained permission to enter Jerusalem to save his wife and children. Once inside the civilians begged him to stay and help them defend the city, and he agreed. After a prolonged seige Balian told Saladin that the defenders would completely destroy the city and kill each other if Saladin continued the seige. Rather than let the defenders go free as depicted in the movie, Saladin demanded a ransom for every person. If a man could not pay the price, he could give 2 women or 10 children to take his place. Many who could not afford the ransom were forced into slavery including many women and children.

 

[pairofdivers]

The main characters, Balian, Queen Sybella, Raynald, Guy de Lusignan, King Baldwin and Saladin, were all loosely based on historical figures. The battle of Hattin was a real event where the Crusaders were defeated by Saladin. Balian played by Orlando Bloom is largely fictional though based on a actual figure. Apparently there was a real knight named Balian who gained permission to enter Jerusalem to save his wife and children. Once inside the civilians begged him to stay and help them defend the city, and he agreed. After a prolonged seige Balian told Saladin that the defenders would completely destroy the city and kill each other if Saladin continued the seige. Rather than let the defenders go free as depicted in the movie, Saladin demanded a ransom for every person. If a man could not pay the price, he could give 2 women or 10 children to take his place. Many who could not afford the ransom were forced into slavery including many women and children.

That's incredible! I'll do some research on this, now, because I find it so interesting. Thanks for the replies!

 

[Windlord]

I bought the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" on DVD the other day, and that movie is AWESOME

My question is, how accurate was the movie to the time of the crusades, some 1,000 years AFTER (credit Pal, for catching my sleepy error) the Death and Resurrection?

Also, I kinda picked up on a split taking place shortly prior to the battle with the Moslems (I hope I understood that correctly, anyway), but were the characters based on actual historical figures?

Thanks!

The movie is good, although parts of it make me want to cringe a little bit. The parts I noticed most as being annoying to a historian was that most of the characters, weren't medievel people. What I mean by this is that all of the characters acted and thought like people from our time would act, not like people from that time would act. Considering the death rate of children during that time because of poor sanitation and medical skill, I find it highly unlikely that a woman would commit suicide because of it. And the amount of religious pluralism was way overdone, since pluralism didn't exist at the time. Those were just a few of my pet peeves about the movie.