2. Stephen, Count of Blois (aka Stephen the Blah)

This is a classic case of emotionalism turning into stupidity, which spits out returns of
blah, blah, blah.

Let me explain… 

There was this Count, you see; his name was Stephen. Stephen ruled over a part of France called Blois. This Blois is pronounced, according to Professor Thomas F. Madden (in his excellent "History of the Crusades" course on Great Courses) as "Blah". Blah, as in, "Blah, blah, blah". My fifth grade-level boy mind finds this hilarious. And the hilarity is made ironic by the subsequent yarn that is the life of Stephen of Blah.

Note: heretofore I'll just call him 'Stephen the Blah' to avoid confusion of pronunciation (Darn French!).

So, I take it that Stephen the Blah saw his life as shaping up as anything but blahblah-boring. You see, he inherited a rich estate of prime Frankish land. He got to marry the daughter of William the Conqueror (and anyone who gets "The Conqueror" placed after their first name has got to be rad, right?). And now, here in 1098, the Pope was calling for an armed pilgrimage, the first of its kind. How fun! Now, with any luck, our friend Stephen the Blah could rightly turn that name into something more admirable like Stephen the Conquering Blah! That sounds more like it!

Off Stephen the Blahblah went to go conqueror Jerusalem and kill a bunch of heathens. I reckon he figured he'd grab some booty and bear the bounty back to Blah bin bo bime. I mean, in no time. Sorry about that… I'm getting carried baway...

Stephen the Blahblahblah's wife, Adela of Normandy, by all accounts was a bossy pants, so spending a sweet two-year siesta away from the nagger probably didn't seem like such a bad idea. Additionally, to wrap it all up in a tight little bow, one of the foremost leaders of this, the 1st Crusade, was a man named Peter the Hermit. Hermy was more or less a rockstar built in a John the Baptist frame. He was going to be a blast to pal around the Middle East with! Score.

Here's Peter the Hermit leading the way!

History tells us that at the getgo, Ste-blah was all about this Crusade. He trolled every medieval conversation from France to Constantinople with talk of the Crusade's up-and-rising epicness. That is, he was gung-ho until things started getting a little bit sharky. A sharky they got!

First, he and his army had to march through Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium. The dude in charge at Constantinople (not yet Istanbul) made him pledge that he couldn't take any land for his own won in battle. That pretty much eradicated any hope of Steve Blah getting a nifty "The Conqueror" appendicized to his name. Shucks. But there was an insurance policy put into place. The Byzantines vowed to put together an army of their own to combine forces with the Western Roman Empire to form a mega-super-duper Crusader army! Hooray!

Stephen Blah-hard never got to Jesuralem.

The next bump in the road, however, would show Steve's true blah colors. On their way to the Holy Land, the Crusaders needed to besiege the big town of Antioch. The only problem was, no one wanted to let them in. They huffed and they puffed, but they just couldn't blow down those walls. The Crusaders, with nowhere to go, started to starve outside the gates of Antioch. Months wore down the morale of the men. But they weren't worried… right… the Byzantine army was bound to be a-fixin toward Antioch to help the Crusaders siege the day at any moment, right? (Hehe… get it? I wrote "Siege the day" instead of "Seize the day"!)

But Stephen da Blahblah had no time to sit around waiting for some Greek speaking slowpoke. He had no time for fun and starvation games. He decided to just march right on home.

That walk home must have been sad… knowing he was coming home to ball-and-nagger Adela. It must have mad him grumpy. So grumpy, in fact, that when he happened upon the Byzantine army on their way to help out his Crusading buddies in Antioch, Stephen Blahpants told them that the army was defeated, so the Byzantines were better off just heading home. So they did.

When Stephen got back to Blahville, he told Nagger Adela that the Crusade was a failure and everyone died. Surely that was the truth. With the Byzantine army gone home, the Crusaders didn't have a prayer… except they did. Little did he know that our old friend Peter the Hermit had miraculously led the army to victory in both Antioch and Jerusalem, Huzzah! When word came 'round that the Crusaders had indeed won the Holy Land back, you betcha the Nagger was full of piss and beans for our precious Stephen Blahman. She tattled up-and-down France about Steve's wussiness until all the empire knew of his manless-ness.

Adela even made sure the papers covered the story.

I'm sure S-blah begged Adela to let sleeping dogs lie, that there would inevitably be another major Crusade soon enough that he could jump aboard (there indeed would be many, many more opportunities), but Adela would have none of that. He needed to go back NOW!

Thusly, having been beaten up by his wife, Stephen, Count of Blois led a minor crusade the next year. That crusade has come down in history to be known as the "Crusade of the Faint-Hearted" because Stephen was joined by many-another wife-insulted, poo-pooed 1st Crusade abandoners. Stephen, with much speed and agility found himself killed on the battle field in Egypt. The faint-hearted crusade lived up to its name… just like Stephen.

Stephen Blahblahblacksheep did leave us with one bit of success. His son, also named Stephen, reigned as King of England for thirteen years. That's saying something, right?

Here's Stephen Blah-er's son Stephen of England being all awesome-y on his throne!

The question that remains is whether we remember Stephen blahhumbug for what he did, or for his son's legacy? I'll leave that to you.

Here's to hoping you don't have a Stephen the Blah sort of day!