Barbarossa launches the German crusade

May 11, 1189

At sixty-six, Frederick Barbarossa set out from Regensburg at the head of the largest crusader army ever assembled - perhaps fifteen thousand men. He signed treaties with the Hungarians and Byzantines and began the long overland march through the Balkans toward Anatolia. The old emperor's decision to take the cross electrified Europe; his army was so large that Byzantine envoys feared it was an invasion force rather than a pilgrimage.