One Knight's Return

Chapter 2

Duke Godfroi de Bouillon was one of the nobles who answered Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade at the end of the eleventh century. Godfroi left his estates in what is now Belgium to fight in the Holy Land. Later he was elected ruler of the conquered city of Jerusalem and chose the title Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.

Godfroi died of a fever a year later, but there is an old story that on his deathbed, he gave a box to one of his knights. He bade the knight take the box home for him and open it there. The knight did so, only to find that the box was full of seeds, which were blown into the courtyard of Château Bouillon.

Every spring, wild pinks still bloom there and the story maintains that these are the descendants of the seeds Godfroi sent home from Jerusalem a thousand years ago.