A Series of Coincidences: 1.0

I found this pretty amusing…I download all of my cd’s to My Music folder, and the internet automatically updates the CD information via the Windows Media Player Media Updater. My question is: “Why is there a picture of a rock for ‘Gregorian Chant for Meditation?’” *laughs* I know meditation is very good, but not Buddhist meditation on…a rock…lol

P.S. I’m linking to my Picasa Web Album, tell me if the link for the image is dead or anything. Thanks!

The Chronicles of the Crusades-Geoffrey de Villehardouin

I’ve recently read ‘The Chronicles of the Crusades’ for my literature class in schooling. The book is divided into two parts. I’m currently reading the second, which is about the life of St. Louis IX, but here is a concise summary of the first:

The Chronicles of the Crusades:

The first book, by Geoffrey de Villehardouin, gives a rather interesting account of the Fourth Crusade, on it’s call, the funding and preparations. The Crusaders made a contract with the Venetians which agreed to transport 33,500 Crusaders for 85,000 silver marks. The Venetians set a year aside to prepare the ships and sailors for transporting the Crusading army, but during the wait for the Venetians, some of the Crusaders, who had their own ambitions and were against taking a long course, decided to leave the Crusading army to take their own path to the Holy Land via Genoa or different routes. The Crusaders were to pay their own way for transport, thus the leaders taking for granted that they would be able to pay the 85,000 marks, but with a portion of the army leaving, the Crusaders lost part of the income which was to be used to pay for their journey. So when the time came to pay the Venetians, the Crusaders were only able to come up with some 51,000 marks. The Venetians, understanding that the Crusaders were not able to keep their part of the bargain with good reason, decided that they would accept a lower the amount of the remaining money to be paid, provided the Crusaders reclaimed the city of Zara which had broken away from Venetian rule some years before.