ABSTRACT
The First Crusade was preached by legates of Urban II in Genoa, and probably in Pisa and Venice. The evidence suggests that the logistics involved in these expeditions were formidable. To some degree at least armies could live off the land in hostile territory, but naval forces had to provide for water and provisions in advance or ensure that they could obtain them en route. Little is known of western galleys at the time of the crusade. They may still have been monoremes, as tenth-century Byzantine yaA.Eat had been, or they may already have been biremes, as they were by the later twelfth century. Bernardo Maragone reported that the Pisan fleet was a massive 120 ships. 16 Even if this was an exaggeration, it was obviously large. But it did set out until the year before the Feast of the Annunciation 1099, some time between 25 March 1098 and 24 March 1099.
