George Spengler was the Cupbearer to the Prince-Bishop of the ecclesiastical principality ofWurzburg, Godfrey of Piesenburg, who was also Chancellor to the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. This Bishop and his Cupbearer accompanied the Emperor on his crusade to the Holy Land. The Emperor was drowned 1190 in the Syrian river, Calycadnus while trying to urge his horse across the stream. His camp was then immediately removed to Antioch, where he was provisionally buried. The Bishop and his Cupbearer died soon afterwards. They were carried off by that dreadful scourage, the plague, which afflicted the crusaders, and were buried in the Church of St. Peter at Antioch. Of those whom the Emperor had brought across the Bosphorus, not a tenth, it is said, reached Antioch.
George was born at
Wurzberg, Germany, circa 1150. George died in 1190. His body was interred in 1190 at
Antioch, Turkey, at Church of St. Peter.