Forgotten Heroes of the Middle Ages

When I bestride him, I soar,

I am a hawk;

he trots the air; 

the earth sings when he touches it...

He is pure air and fire

 (Henry V, Act III, Scene 7)

If any one image is associated in the popular mind with the Middle Ages then it is the knight in shining armor on a (usually) white horse. 

 

Nor is the image entirely misleading.  Throughout the age of chivalry, the mounted knight dominated both the battlefield and popular culture. Yet, as Dr. Schrader will explain, it was not the warhorse (destrier) alone that made the horse the true hero of the Middle Ages.

A 13th-century encyclopedia of animals written by the Dominican scholar and bishop Albertus Magnus lists four kinds of horses: warhorses (destriers), riding horses (palfreys), racehorses, and workhorses. Of these, riding horses and racehorses can be said to vary little from the horses of today, at least in terms of function, with the caveat that "riding horses" of the Middle Ages had to travel long distances in often difficult terrain and all weathers. Their role in medieval society and economy were not exceptional, however, being the same as it had been for thousands of years before and hundreds yet to come. Warhorses and draft horses, on the other hand, were fundamental in shaping medieval society in unique ways.

Starting with the more obvious, a knight could not fulfill his military function without a warhorse.  From Hastings to Bannockburn, the charge of heavy cavalry (knights) was the dominant offensive tactic of the age. Although a cavalry charge could rarely lift a siege and never secure a castle, when enemies confronted one another across a battlefield, knights clashed on horseback. Furthermore, a  well-timed, well-led charge was almost invincible.

In order to be able to deliver such a knock-out blow, however, knights trained for years to master horsemanship, mounted combat, and fighting in teams/units. So did their horses.

Not every horse could cope with the noise, the sudden movements, the flash of sunlight on metal, the blows, the crush of horses, and the smell of blood. Not every horse had the strength or stamina to carry an armored knight for hours, or the agility to respond to sudden changes of direction, the need to spin about or sidestep. This meant that warhorses had to be carefully selected -- and trained. Ultimately, man and horse had to respond as one being if they were to be an effective fighting machine with a chance of survival. 

It was to train for mounted combat -- particularly in small units as teams -- that tournaments developed. Historian Andrea Hopkins in her excellent work Knights [London: Collins & Brown, 1990] notes: “it is hardly possible to overestimate the importance of the tournament to the culture of medieval knights.” She notes that in addition to being “a crucial training ground in which young knights could practice the handling of their horses and weapons, tactics of attack and defence, and of co-ordinating their actions with a team of companions," the tournament also: 

  ...provided an arena for the display of all important knightly virtues: prouesse in combat, courtoisie to the watching and judging ladies, largesse to crowds of minstrels, heralds, armourers, sqires and other assorted hangers on, and qualities such as the franchise and debonairete withwhich a knight should conduct himself in triumph and disaster (the qualities which later developed into the European gentleman's sense of fair play), and the pite which he should exercise to his defeated opponents. (p. 108) 

Indeed, over the centuries, tournaments were transformed from training events very similar to genuine combat into sporting and social events quite divorced from the reality of war. By the 16th and 17th century they were little more than pageants  -- but that was after the end of the Middle Ages. In the High Middle Ages, they retained their value as training while also providing entertainment.

In the world of the tournament, a knight's destrier was not only a tool of war in training with him but a part of his persona. Like his armor, his coat of arms, and his crest, his horse formed a component part of his image and identity. A beautiful horse made a good impression on the ladies, but an exceptionally responsive, fast or determined horse might make the difference between victory and defeat. The death or injury to a good mount, on the other hand, could destroy a knight's prospects -- and his financial position as well because warhorses were extremely expensive. 

It was a measure of just how important good warhorses were that a knight forfeit his destrier along with his armor in a tournament defeat. Successful tournament champions could opt to retain a captured mount -- or sell it back to the owner at a handsome fee. (Or, if inclined, show pity and largess by restoring it without charge or for only a nominal fee.) Likewise, inadequate reserves of good warhorses could have an impact on the outcome of battles. One can only imagine what might have happened at Jaffa, for example, if Richard the Lionheart had disembarked with his warhorses!

While the warhorse was not a specific breed as we know today, it was the product of centuries of horse breeding in the Early Middle Ages that had systematically produced larger horses than those of previous centuries and other regions, i.e. the horses of the Greeks and Romans or contemporary Mongols and the Arabs. Significantly, medieval horses were strong enough to carry a fully armored knight, but that does not mean that they were similar to draft horses in other ways. 

Furthermore, what defined them was not size and strength alone, but rather temperament and character. For a start,  in order to keep them aggressive and spirited, they were not castrated. Albertus Magnus further claims: "It is a trait of these [war]horses to delight in musical sounds, to be excited by the sounds of arms, and to gather together with other chargers. They also leap and burst into battle lines by biting and striking with their hooves." (On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica, translated by Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. and Irven Michael Resnick [Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1999]) Shakespeare captured this aspect of warhorse character in the opening of Henry V, Act IV, when he writes: "Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs."

It is hardly surprising given how much time a knight spent training with his destrier -- and how dependent he was on the horse for his success and survival -- that strong bonds often developed between a knight and his charger. There is one recorded incident of a horse defending his unseated knight during judicial combat, preventing the opposing knight from delivering the coup de grace by imposing his equine body repeatedly. Albertus Magnus also writes:  "They sometimes care so much about their masters and grooms that, if [the latter] are killed, they grow sad and pine away, event to the point of death." The grief of knights for a good horse was also recorded in various texts. The images below of knights sleeping beside their grazing horses seem a lovely tribute to this close and trustful relationship.

 

Yet it was arguably the medieval workhorse that made the greater contribution to medieval society. The evolution of larger, stronger horses was critical to the agricultural revolution that greatly increased production and improved the nutritional intake of the common people dramatically. The stronger horses and tack designed to harness them to advanced plows enabled medieval peasants to not only scratch the soil but to turn it over, turning up more nutrients. The horses were faster too, plowing roughly twice as much in a day as the alternative draft animal, oxen -- much less human drawn plows. 

With more land under cultivation and greater productivity per acre, peasants could afford to leave one-third of their land fallow -- rotating crops and leaving land fallow to regenerate every third year. This further increased productivity and so diet as well. It has been argued that this agricultural revolution enabled human beings to reach their full genetic potential for size and strength for the first time in human history. Certainly, it resulted in human beings who were on average taller and stronger than people in other parts of the world in the same period.

Nor was it the plowhorse alone who made such a dramatic contribution to the medieval economy. More powerful draft horses could also be employed in transport. The ability to transport heavy materials such as timber and stone was crucial to construction and ship-building. The more powerful draft horses could also be used to transport other commodities and finished products in larger quantities, thereby contributing to commerce and overall economic growth particularly inland, away from the waterways that had been the lifelines in the past. Unfortunately, the mundane, if essential work, of transport horses rarely captured the imagination or attention of medieval artists. The best I can do is a medieval "carriage."

Last but not least, draft horses also played a role in war, transporting heavy siege equipment, baggage and the wounded.  The ability to transport heavy equipment was cited by crusade historian John France as one of the West's significant advantages vis-a-vis their Saracen opponents.

 Horses play a role -- with names and personalities -- in all my crusades era novels:

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is an award-winning novelist and author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction. Her three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin won a total of 14 literary accolades. Her current series describes the civil war in Outremer between Emperor Frederick and the barons led by John d'Ibelin the Lord of Beirut. Dr. Schrader is also working on a non-fiction book describing the crusader kingdoms. You can find out more at: http://crusaderkingdoms.com

The Knights and Nobles of Outremer

Whereas most kingdoms of the West emerged organically from the remnants of the Roman empire, the crusader states were abrupt creations -- and so were their feudal elites. Today Dr. Schrader discusses the origins and -- until recently misunderstood --characteristics of the knights and nobles in these states.

The leaders of the First Crusade naturally brought their notions of society and government with them.  Although, they made a virtue out of necessity and co-opted institutions and traditions with Arab, Turkish and even Greek roots. (See: Administrative Backbone.) They nevertheless succeeded at imposing a feudal over-structure onto their newly acquired territories.  John de La Monte in his classic study, Feudal Monarchy in Jerusalem 1100-1291, writes:

… in the feudal system of Jerusalem we find an almost ideal system of feudalism….The colonist carried with him from his native land his native ideal of the state and put it into effect as far as he was able in the land of his adoption.

Yet there was a problem: feudalism depends on nobility and a knightly class --  both of which were lacking in the newly conquered territories. To be sure, the leaders of the First Crusade had been French noblemen, and a handful of these leaders remained behind, forming the very summit of the feudal pyramid as kings, counts and princes. But feudalism, in contrast to the absolutism of the renaissance, depended on a much broader base; it depended on a class of barons (tenants-in-chief), and lesser vassals (the tenants of the barons) and “simple” knights as well. 

In Western Europe, barons and knights held land, and drew from the land the income to support their military apparatus. For a knight that had to be enough income to support himself, his squire, four horses and armor and weapons for all. For a baron, it might be enough land to support scores of knights. But in the early years of the crusader kingdoms, there was no land to share out and Joshua Prawer points out:  “...the mass of milites [knights] was no more than a salaried army, composed of knights receiving salaries or assigned fixed revenues.” (p. 129)

In the decades that followed, however, the crusader states expanded from the cities to take control of a broad band of territory along the Eastern Mediterranean occupying roughly what is now Lebanon, Israel and the western half of Jordan. The Kingdom of Jerusalem at its greatest extent touched the tip of the Red Sea at Eilat in the south and reached to Antioch in modern Turkey in the North, as well as stretching across the Jordan River to the East. With this expansion came the establishment of lordships, roughly two-dozen in all. 

So lordships had been created, but who were these lords ― the Prince of Galilee, the Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, the Lords of Beirut, Hebron, Sidon, Oultrejourdain, Ibelin, Ramla, Arsur, Nablus, Caesarea, Haifa, Sabaste, Bethsan, Toron and more?

One thing is clear: they were not counts and lords from Western Europe. They were men who had made their fortune in the Holy Land. The chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, who summarized the opportunities in the Holy Land ― and the social mobility we seldom associate with the Middle Ages. In A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem 1095-1127, written in the early 12^th century, he claims: 

“Every day relatives and friends…come to join us. They do not hesitate to leave everything they have behind them. Indeed…he who was poor attains riches here. He who had no more than a few pennies finds himself in possession of a fortune.”

Attempts to trace the origins of even some of the most prominent noble families, such as the Ibelins, are rarely fruitful. In charters and deeds, donors, recipients and witnesses are often listed by first names and descriptors (such as “the old”) only. If they are referred to by first name and a place, it is as common for this to be the place of current residence rather than the place of origin. To make things even more difficult, many place names are very vague indeed ― such as “l’Aleman” to mean simply “the German.” 

This is partly due to the period, family names were only just emerging and coming into use in the 12^th century. But the situation was compounded in the Holy Land by the fact that so many of the early settlers came from non-noble background and were at best knights. Yet when these men won the favor of the king they were named to important offices (e.g. like constable and marshal) ― or given fiefs. Men of sufficient worth, gained important and wealthy fiefs, which they held directly from the crown. They were now barons.

Barons, however, were only the second strata in feudal society. They derived their power from the ability to field large numbers of fighting men, both knights and sergeants and/or Turcopoles. The larger the barony, the more knights fees it supported, i.e. the larger number of knights it could support. Knights were essential to the defense of the crusader states because they formed the core or elite military force of the kingdom’s army.

For much of the last century, the image of the knights of Outremer was shaped by Joshua Prawer, who argued:

As a rule, the Frankish landowner did not retain demesne lands of any importance, and his income came almost wholly from the tenurae held from him by his peasants. There was, then, little interest in the direct management of rural estates and no incentive to live in a manor house in the village or in the fief. (p. 130)

From this premise, Prawer evolves the theory that the knights of Outremer were urban rather than rural ― and hardly distinguishable from the Frankish bourgeoisie. He also claims that they often intermarried with the Italian and even native merchant-class, and were highly dependent on royal or baronial patronage.  He concludes that in the “second” Kingdom of Jerusalem (after the loss of the interior of the Kingdom to Saladin in 1187-1188), “simple knights, already very much dependent on their lords in the twelfth century, [were] little more than salaried knights, not to say simple mercenaries.” (p. 140) 

More recent research, notably that of Ronnie Ellenblum, has since proved that Prawer's assumptions were utterly incorrect. Archaeological evidence turned up by surveys conducted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Franks had extensive rural settlements, constructed manor houses, villages, mills, irrigation systems and roads -- and these rural land holdings "owed" knights to the feudal lord.  In short, this was a feudal society based on rural land-holdings just as in Western Europe. 

And where did these knights come from? We don't know very much beyond the fact that the names associated with the rural holdings reflect immigration from Western Europe especially France and Italy. Likewise, charters indicate that families that in one generation were designated as "sergeants" often produce knights in the next generation.  Intriguingly, we also know of isolated instances of native Christians rising to the knightly class through service to the Frankish elite. In short, upward mobility was very much possible in the crusade states.  Last but not least, it was also a common practice to give land to younger brothers, for them to hold from their elder brother, thus providing "cadet lines" of the leading barons with landed property that kept them rooted in society and financially secure, rather than creating a class of "landless younger sons." 

Admittedly, not all knights in the crusader states had rural estates. Some did have "money fiefs" based on urban incomes, but to suggest that the majority of knights in the crusader states were "urban knights" is wrong. A thirteen century catalog of feudal service by lordship -- including money fiefs -- lists  only 131 of 677 ― less than 20% ― urban knights.  The rest came from the barons with extensive land holdings. 

Even the loss of the interior of the Kingdom of Jerusalem did not, as Prawer and others argue, lead to the urbanization of the entire knightly class. This is because almost immediately after the loss of the interior came the acquisition of the even larger and richer Kingdom of Cyprus.  We know that nearly all the barons of Jerusalem also held fiefs in Cyprus. They did so because Guy and Aimery de Lusignan, who were both kings of both Cyprus and Jerusalem, rewarded their supporters with fiefs on Cyprus.  George Hill in his A History of Cyprus Volume 2: The Frankish Period 1192-1432, for example, stresses that the Lusignan “let it be known in Palestine, in Syria and in Armenia that he would grant fiefs and lands to all those who were willing to come and settle the island.” (p. 39).

This is certainly an exaggeration in that Cyprus was not an “empty” island in need of settlement. Peter Edbury, the leading historian of medieval Cyprus today, estimates the population was around 100,000. Nevertheless, it is still indicative of the opportunities available on Cyprus for men of Frankish origin.  It is also undoubtedly true that some of those who went to Cyprus had lost everything to Saladin and only held land on Cyprus. Nevertheless, we know of many noble families, starting with the Ibelins, Montbéliards, and the Princes of Antioch and Tiberias, held fiefs in both kingdoms.

The exact location and extent of these holdings, however, is nearly impossible to quantify, because the Syrian barons continued to use their Syrian titles. They did so even if the lands from which they derived their titles had been lost irretrievably (e.g. Ibelin and Tiberias), as well as when the territory from which the title derived remained in Frankish hands but had been supplemented by new fiefs on Cyprus such as Caesarea, Beirut and Jaffa.

Especially in cases where lords held a city on the mainland and a rural fief on Cyprus, the rural estates would have been farmed out to vassals so ensure the good governance and economic productivity of the land, while freeing the baron to remain in his principle residence at Beirut, Caesarea, Arsuf etc. This explains how the Syrian lords could still field substantial armies to fight in the Holy Land, despite having very limited land in Syria itself. It is underlined by the fact that the Lord of Beirut could move troops from Cyprus to relieve the Imperial siege of Beirut and take troops back again to expel Imperial troops from Cyprus.

In short, the crusader states did have a higher percentage of “money fiefs” and urban knights than was common in Western Europe in the 12^th and 13^th century. However, such knights made up only roughly one fifth of the feudal host in the “first” kingdom, and possibly ― but not necessarily ― a larger percentage in the “second” kingdom, without ever representing the majority.

Because of a continuous flow of pilgrims from the West, including a significant number that settled and intermarried with the existing Frankish elites, the knights and nobles of Outremer remained in close contact with the traditions, fashions, thinking, and attitudes of the West. Despite the obscurity of their origins, they shared the same fundamental Weltanschauung or world-view as their contemporaries in France, Flanders and England.  Feudalism, Christianity and Chivalry shaped and guided the lives of nobles and knights in the Holy Land no less than in the West.

Discover the crusader states and the knights and nobles that inhabited them in Dr. Schrader's award-winning series: 

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Sources:

Ellenblum, Ronnie, Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Hill, George. A History of Cyprus Volume 2: The Frankish Period 1192-1432. Cambridge University Press, 1948.

Jotischky, Andrew. Crusading and the Crusader States. Pearson Longman, 2004.)

La Monte, John. Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1100 to 1291. Medieval Academy of America, 1932.

Prawer, Joshua. “Social Classes in the Latin Kingdom: the Franks,” Zacour, Norman P. and Harry W. Hazard. A History of the Crusades Volume Five: The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East. University of Wisconsin Press, 1985

What Inspired a Knight to Go on Crusade?

Take a look at some interesting quotes from well-known historical figures from the Crusades. What motivated a knight to set out on Crusade? Featuring the song "Siege" from J Stephen Roberts.

J Stephen Roberts' CD Scatheless