Linus, unfortunately the chronicles of the Crusaders mostly talk about the knights but if Baldwin had a few thousand men with him and only about 200-400 were knights, the rest must have been just common folk. Someone among the chroniclers mentions that the Arabs took prisoners now and then men who were trying to join the king at Ascalon after he had called the men of his kingdom to arms. They were not knights, at least it is not said that they were knights. EDIT: I just fund a rare case where the infantry is mentioned:
In April 1291, the Saracen army under the leadership of Sultan Khalid laid siege to Acre. The five military religious Orders joined forces under the control of William de Beaujeu, Master of the Temple. The Christian garrison was made up of about 14000 infantry and 800 knights, of whom more than a half belonged to the Orders. The majority of the knights belonged to the Order of the Temple (about 240 Templars) and the Order of St John (about 140 Hospitallers). The other three military Orders could provide only about 50 knights (25 Knights of St Lazarus, 15 Teutonic Knights, and 9 Knights of St Thomas). Other troops included a Cypriot contingent, the Pisan and Venetian garrisons, the French regiment led by Jean de Grailly, a few Englishmen commanded by Otto de Grandson, the armed citizens of Arce, and the Italian rabble.
From The Order of St Lazarus in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, C. Sabona-Ventura
Marius, there were 1500 armed men just at Jacob's Ford which was not even a complete castle. How many would there be in the main castles and the city garrisons?
By the way, I placed a map of the battlefield at the bottom of my Battle of Montgisard post, here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post10237040
I hope it is clearer what was happening and what was meant by Arab histories when they said that some of the men on the left crossed to the centre and those on the right decided to move to the left when the Crusaders appeared. It should be obvious what the problem was and that these moves were no orderly manoeuvre or orderly deployment. The mired baggage train had the siege engines, the money and food and much of the soldiers' armament and it is obvious how the soldiers would react.
I am not sure there is anywhere mention of Italians at Hattin, or any allies though there may have been the odd outsider. There were some mercenaries hired by the Templars, maybe Turcopoles or whatever. However, many of Guy's men would have been ordinary folk with a spear-point at the end of a stick, a makeshift shield and maybe an old rusty helmet they had used as a flower pot at home.
Originally Posted by
+Marius+
In the Third Crusade, the King of France sails with less than 2000 men, to assume that a country as small as KoJ would have issue with raising armies above a few thousand is not exactly dubious.
Kings took with them their retinue, that is their best knights and best men, obviously, whereas at the KoJ everyone who could had to fight when their livelihood was at stake and their king had called them to arms. Sadly not everyone was a knight, but what can you do? Maybe you come from a country where there is no national service and fighting for your country seems to you as someone else's business, better left to professionals, but it was not always that way.
Originally Posted by
+Marius+
and Baha stated the "hill of Ramla", thus perhaps the hill of that city, I doubt he would name just one random hill in a province.
Except that there is no hill in Ramla the town. Baha ad-Din did not know the name of the hill. Imad ad-Din says it was called al-Safiya (a hill with such a name is known), that it was near Ramla (al-Safiya is 17.5 miles away), there was a river and a road next to it going to Jerusalem, which al-Safiya also had, and ibn al-Athir mentions a fortress about to be besieged and there was one on top of al-Safiya, so it looks like we've got that hill. Malcolm Barber, who is an authority on the Crusades, has pointed all this out. So I hope we will not spend more time on this.
Originally Posted by
+Marius+
I can find no mention of Baldwin giving those troops to that campaign.
It must be from one of the William of Tyre/Eracles editions or some other western chronicle, seeing that it is mentioned in a website about the Templars. The link I gave is where I read it in the first place. I do not have access presently to a university library.
EDIT: Actually here is another account from a book about Saladin by Andrew S Ehrenkreutz mentioning both the campaign in Syria (Hamah and Harim), p. 158, and the battle by al-Safiya (battle of Montgisard) with the usual story including the element of surprise. Here at page 270 is another account of the campaign in Syria from Malcolm Barber's The Crusader States.