Second Crusade

umerous leprosaria, or leper hospitals, sprang up in the Middle Ages; Matthew Paris, a Benedictine Monk, estimated that in the early thirteenth century there were 19,000 across Europe.[84] The first recorded Leper colony was in Harbledown. These institutions were run along monastic lines and, while lepers were encouraged to live in these monastic-type establishments, this was for their own health as well as quarantine. Indeed, some medieval sources indicate belief that those suffering from leprosy were considered to be going through Purgatory on Earth, and for this reason their suffering was considered holier than the ordinary person's. More frequently, lepers were seen to exist in a place between life and death: they were still alive, yet many chose or were forced to ritually separate themselves from mundane existence.[85] The Order of Saint Lazarus was a hospitaller and military order of monks that began as a leper hospital outside Jerusalem in the twelfth century and remained associated with leprosy throughout its history. The first monks in this order were leper knights and they originally had leper grand masters, although these aspects of the order changed over the centuries. Radegund was noted for washing the feet of lepers. Orderic Vitalis writes of a monk, Ralf, who was so overcome by the plight of lepers that he prayed to catch leprosy himself (which he eventually did). The leper would carry a clapper and bell to warn of his approach, and this was as much to attract attention for charity as to warn people that a diseased person was near.

A French village blacksmith goes to aid the city of Jerusalem in its defense against the Muslim and Kurdish leader Saladin, who is battling to reclaim the city from the Christians. The film script is a heavily fictionalized portrayal of

In a remote village in France, Balian (Orlando Bloom), a blacksmith, is haunted by his wife's (Nathalie Cox) recent suicide,