Knights and squires

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

When reading William of Tyre and others of that time, they mention numbers of knights and hardly anything else for the KoJ side. Very bizarely, they refer to enemy heavy horsemen also as knights, but there they give the numbers of everyobody who may have a horse. You get the impression that for every KoJ knight the Egyptians had dozens of "knights" of their own.

What is your interpretation of all this at least for the KoJ side?

My interpretation is that "knights" was not just the nobility (how could one speak of thousands of Egyptian "knights"?) but would include heavily armoured mounted sergeants. The main disctinction from proper knights was that the sergeants were not of noble birth but apparently until the 1100s a knight was just a heavy horseman regardless of noble birth. I feel you just cannot possibly have hundreds of counts and dukes fighting in a battle, so many of the so-called knights would have been mounted heavily armed sergeants. In the case of the Templars, knights of noble birth wore white and sergeants of less noble origin wore brown or black.

Finally for every knight of the noble variety there was at least one sergeant for the Templars and up to 5 for other knights. There were also a small number of squires (knights in training) who may have fought as foot or on horse, if close to the end of their training.

Presumably, in the knights mentioned by William of Tyre and others are not included light mounted sergeants. These would be additional cavalry. So when he says 80 knights, I would expect a small number of light mounted sergeants as extras.

In addition to the mounted Kingdom of Jerusalem men I imagine about as many or more dismounted sergeants and heavy crossbowmen and the rest (never possible to even estimate the numbers of that "rest") would have been the various archers, Frankish axemen and swordsmen, mercenaries, sailors, pilgrims and religious fanatics, a very motley crew but not as bad as peasants.

What's your view and what sort of proportions would you expect in armies such as thoses that fought in Montgisard or in Hattin?

For example, would "100 Templar knights" be represented by

1. 100 white heavy horsemen (knight defined as a noble knight, sergeants just stayed home)?
2. 50 white heavy horsemen and 50 Crusader knights (knight defined as either a noble one or a non noble heavy horseman)?
3. 100 white heavy horsemen for the noble knights and heavy sergeants and some additional light horsemen for the light sergeants (knight defined as a heavy horsemen, but some sergeants were lightly armed and were not mentioned, maybe fought as extras)?
4. Or even 100 white Templar knights and 100 others on horse or foot to represent their sergeants? In that case for every 100 Templar knights could be potentially as many as 100 other lighter horsemen (crusader knights or mounted sergeants).

[PrestigeX]

I think that the feudal system of the middle-ages, would mean that definantly some knights would have men-at-arms to bring along. IN terms of actual individual distinguished knights , there were probably fewer of them than we'd think, and a lot of squires, and servants / people from the Noble's household/retinue etc - they'd be well equipped by their lord, wear his livery colors , but without the pinash lets say of proper Nobles..

Seeing a Military formation, it often probably looked like 500 knights, maybe half or a quarter - or any 'portion' would be people who were not of a knightly or noble class, or were not themselves distinguished (ie. 4th brother, minor noble family - squire errant ) or were day to day 'employees' of the noble at his castle / lands. It's in the social cast system that these people will, return to their 'rank' after battles but during or b4 warfare it evens it out a little...

[Posantio of Umbria]

To my knowledge, each knight was part of a small, heterogeneous squad called a "Lance", about 3-6 combatants in total, being the Knight or man-at-arms, 1-2 squires and 1-3 archers (and 1-3 non-combatant servants and grooms). The make-up of these units varied over time and between kingdoms (A german lance was just a Knight/man at arms and a Squire, an English lance a knight/MAA, squire and archer). The modern Anglo-saxon rank "Lance Corporal" originates from this medieval unit. A noble or prince would have a number of knights as vassals, each of them liable for military service with one or more lances. Lances would be part of a banner under command of a senior "Knight Banneret", usually the liege lord of the "Lance corporals". Depending on the situation the members of a lance fought as a single unit (small skirmishes, raids, patrols) or in separate divisions (Field battles, siege assaults). The squire often accompanied the knight as additional (heavy) cavalryman rather than as a foot-soldier in a separate division.

I expect a similar organization would be in place in the temple orders.
And indeed, not all heavy cavalry were aristocratic knights but it included the richer serjeantry, yeomen and ministerials (german sub-class between serfs and knights). In general all "knighthood-worthy" (combination of wealth, influence and reputation) persons would serve in the capacity of a knight if they had the means to do so and the distinction between a rich commoner and a knight was actually quite small on the battlefield (probably only cosmetic at best: heraldry).

When chroniclers mention a number of knights or lances, you can guess that there are at least as many squires and archers present as men-at-arms/knights, and probably as many non-combatant hangers-on. So when Froissart (for example) mentions the earl of Salisbury setting out with 300 lances, he means the earl leads a division of 900 combatants: 300 men-at-arms/knights, 300 squires and 300 archers.

[TWWolfe]

To go further on the Lance, By the 1300's the term "lance" was standardized to mean a mounted knight and two squires/aides, who were equipped about he same as he was, but may or may not have been mounted. So, when it says the lord of Coucy marched into Italy with 1500 lances, he was marching with 4500 men.

Also, the forces of the kingdom of Jerusalem, in terms of knights were never large to begin with. A rather typical example would be when one noble rode out with 300 knights to confront several thousand Turkish troops. True, At Hattin they managed to put together a force of about 20,000 men. However, only about 1,200 of those were knights, and that was almost every single knight in the kingdom. the Rest were infantry of varying quality.

[AJStoner]

Also remember that the term "knight" may simply be used loosely here. The European feudal system was not the same as the arrangement in the Middle East which, at this period, was more fluid and allowed for greater social mobility then their western counterparts. Middle Eastern troops, being desert dwellers, also relied less on heavy armoring then Europeans did and so the upper and lower tear cavalry might not be so obviously distinct in such armies.

[.L.]

I'm not so sure about the armour, most contemporary sources and paintings show that they wore similar armour.

[TWWolfe]

Paintings are not exactly a reliable source, since they also painted ancient Romans and Greeks wearing medieval-style armor. Most paintings were also painted by people who had only second and third hand accounts. this isn't so bad when they're painting things that occur in Europe, but when they paint things in other parts of the world, accuracy goes down the drain

[.L.]

Well yes but writings also mention them wearing heavy mail, also the persians definately used heavy mail to considering that they even created there own style.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

There was something like a lance system for the KoJ knights: apparently about 4-5 sergeants in addition to the noble lord. These others could fight as cavalry or infantry. For the Templars, there was only one sergeant per noble knight and he was well trained as he trained new knights, so he can be considered equivalent to a knight. That would mean that 100 Templars could be 100 heavy horsemen and that was it.

It does not seem like a lot when Gaza was once meant to be defended by 85 Templars all of whom left to fight at Montgisard. The chroniclers obviously leave an annoying void in their information with the numbers, not just in understanding what do we mean by the number of knights in a battle but also when it comes to understanding how many non-knights were there and whether mounted or not. So if there were according to the historians 20,000 foot at Hattin (a nice round number), and every knight had maximum 5 sergeants, with some of the sergeants fighting on horse as knights, that would mean that about 17,000-18,000 of the foot were poor quality Frankish chaps and sodeer archers and such. Also presumably there were no light cavalry of any kind, according to the historians, if there were 1200 knights and 20,000 infantry (light cavalry obviously being neither). I find that hard to believe. Maybe that is why the Egyptians would make minced meat of the Crusaders every time?

[TWWolfe]

Well, whether the Egyptian/turkish forces won or lost could be determined on whether or not the Franks could engage them in close combat, where thier superior armor often gave them a huge edge.

there are stories of knights looking like porcupines because once the arrows hit them, they only had enough force to stick in the armor, and not to penetrate enough to cause serious wounds.

and the Franks did have some light cavalry at Hattin, a force of around 500 turkopoles.

[.L.]

The knights DID NOT HAVE BETTER ARMOR there armour was more or less equal. Hell one of the best and most difficult chainmail weaves comes from persia!

[Aeratus]

The knights DID NOT HAVE BETTER ARMOR there armour was more or less equal. Hell one of the best and most difficult chainmail weaves comes from persia!

I think this is correct, for most of the crusading era. The Muslims were very adept in armor making, in fact. The game developer's move in making the Khassaki more powerful than Christian cavalry (except for the unique Knight units) in the Crusades campaign, and giving eastern generals an armored horse is in fact quite accurate to history. Heavy cavalry warfare was very well developed in Western Asia and Central Asia (from which the Seljuks arrived), and the Muslims at the time had some of the most elaborate horse and personnel armor. Their personnel armor was at least equal to those of the Crusaders, and their horse barding superior.

In practice, Christian knights generally outmatched their rivals. However, this was not due to technology, but because of skill, individual equipment and other factors. The Fatimid Egyptians did not have a well organized army at the time, and their heavy cavalry were mostly drawn from foreign Turks. The Turks themselves were a fragmented faction during the first crusade and were not the primary opponents of the first crusade. On the other hand, the Christians were very well trained professional warriors, and were well organized under the first crusade.

In weapon making technology, the Europeans made some really good swords because iron was found in high quality in Europe.

[.L.]

I think this is correct, for most of the crusading era. The Muslims were very adept in armor making, in fact. The game developer's move in making the Khassaki more powerful than Christian cavalry (except for the unique Knight units) in the Crusades campaign, and giving eastern generals an armored horse is in fact quite accurate to history. Heavy cavalry warfare was very well developed in Western Asia and Central Asia (from which the Seljuks arrived), and the Muslims at the time had some of the most elaborate horse and personnel armor. Their personnel armor was at least equal to those of the Crusaders, and their horse barding superior.

In practice, Christian knights generally outmatched their rivals. However, this was not due to technology, but because of skill, individual equipment and other factors. The Fatimid Egyptians did not have a well organized army at the time, and their heavy cavalry were mostly drawn from foreign Turks. The Turks themselves were a fragmented faction during the first crusade and were not the primary opponents of the first crusade. On the other hand, the Christians were very well trained professional warriors, and were well organized under the first crusade.

In weapon making technology, the Europeans made some really good swords because iron was found in high quality in Europe.

One of the reasons for the crusaders superior skill is probably the amount of training.

[TWWolfe]

But how many of the troops the franks went up against were actually wearing that armor?

The Average Frankish knight was much better equipped armor wise than the average Egyptian/Turkish soldier.

[.L.]

I guess you are right but if you compared the best armour of the saracens to the best armour of the crusaders, the saracen armour would win, ever heard of Damascus steel btw? But an average soldier would have at least worn some sort of light mail.

[TWWolfe]

Touche. We can agree that the saracen equipment was been better in some cases, their drawback was that it was much less common in their armies. Particularly Damascus steel, since the atabeg of Damascus tended to be an ally of the Crusader states about half of the time.

[AJStoner]

Steel would actually have been very uncommon since it could only be produced in small quantities until the early 20th century, and very unreliably with regards to its quality. Only the Japanese were known to produce steel weapons with any regularity during the middle ages. They would have been few and far between in the Middle East, extremely rare in Europe, and full suits of armor made from steel would be nearly unheard of in either culture.

[.L.]

Actually it was pretty common in swords and spears, but spears would use a VERY small amount for the tip and make the rest out of cast-iron.

[Aeratus]

The European knight was of a superior warrior culture that did not exist in the Middle East at the time on a well organized scale. The true warrior class in Egypt were the Mamluks, who were foreign slaves (especially of Turkic origin) and were generally not a well organized military force under the Fatimids and Ayyubids.