Kingdom of Heaven

Saw "Kingdom of Heaven" this weekend. I enjoyed it. Problem I have, as I have with many historical films, is I want to know just how accurate it is. I spent a few minutes searching the web this morning and this is what I found:

From imdb.com: All characters, except Godfrey, existed in real life. In reality, Baldwin, the leper king, died in 1185 at the age of 24, a year before the start of the story.

From the Christian Science Monitor: The two university scholars who read the script did not agree on its historical accuracy. Father George said that the 12th-century Crusader state was, as shown in the film, relatively tolerant, and that Saladin did in fact order his troops to give no quarter in the fighting in Jerusalem, an order he later rescinded. But Mr. Fadl said the Crusader state was by its nature discriminatory and oppressive of other religions. He said that the Muslim knights took the idea of granting quarter very seriously, and that the notion that Saladin would thank Balian for teaching him chivalry, as the script had it, was laughable. "Pick up any book on chivalry, it's exactly the opposite," he said. "The whole idea of knighthood and chivalry came from Muslims and was exported to Europe." He noted, as did Father George, that at the time of this Crusade, science and scholarship were far more advanced in the Islamic world than in Europe.