I've recently noted a pattern in visitors to this blog. An awful lot of people come here to copy or see images. What's odd about this is that all my images come from other sites, where they are still available. I guess Google, which owns Blogger, gives preference to Blogger sites when answering search requests.Anyway, some images are very popular: Machiavelli on a book cover, the US Constitution, pictures of howling wolves. But the one most sought for recently has been my picture -- somebody's picture -- of Saladin.
Today, when reading Riley-Smith on the Crusades, I ran across the fact that Pope Innocent III, a champion promoter of holy wars, took against a German named Markward of Anweiler who was creating obstacles to the pope's policies in Italy. Innocent eventually declared a crusade against Markward, calling him "another Saladin" and "an infidel worse than the infidels." So I thought I should post a picture of Markward here and see if large numbers of his fans would show up and copy it for their own uses.
I was joking with myself; I knew there would be no such picture available.
But I was wrong! He's at the top of this post, thanks to Wikipedia. Markward fans, he's all yours. If you stop by, leave a comment.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI am a fan of Markward who found your site and copied the image for use in my classroom. I always found him a rather sympathetic figure, striving to uphold the cause of his emperor even after Henry's death. He was always a bit outshone by his dashing partner Diepold and eventually by the stupor mundi himself, Frederick. Thanks for posting the picture.
I found this quite amusing studying for a Crusades final. :)
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