Frankish Military Innovations: The Fighting Box

The crusader states established in the Levant in the wake of the First Crusade were surrounded by hostile states, whose leaders increasingly called for jihad to push the “interlopers” back into the sea. Given the vast numerical superiority of their enemies, it is remarkable that these enclaves of Christian control were able to survive for nearly 200 years. Indeed, from 1100 to 1180 and again from 1197–1244, the armies of the Franks were predominantly on the offensive. This was largely due to two military innovations adopted by the Franks very soon after their arrival in the Holy Land: the "fighting box" and mounted archers. Today Dr. Schrader discusses the "fighting box" and it's importance.

To appreciate the magnitude of the innovations made by the Franks, one must first call to mind that the era of the crusades (the 12th and 13th centuries) was characterized in Western Europe by feudal armies composed of large numbers of poorly equipped amateur infantry (feudal levees), small numbers of mercenaries armed predominantly with cross-bows, pikes, and swords, and even smaller numbers of professional cavalry: knights. Although the later had excellent weapons, armor, and training, they were very expensive to train and equip. These armies were extremely expensive to maintain and were therefore used only rarely and sporadically, while the bulk of fighting consisted of raids designed to destroy the economic base of the enemy by burning crops and orchards and destroying economic assets such as mills, bridges, etc. 

Furthermore, because of the topography and fragmented nature of feudal holdings, confrontations tended to be very localized. Likewise, feudalism fostered affinities that were local, based on personal fealty to one’s overlord rather than national armies. While the amateur infantry received little to no training and was prone to panic and flight, the professional knights “made a cult of bravery…[that] promoted a highly individualistic ethos of war….(1) The result as a style of warfare dominated by sieges of key castles supported by attacks on the surrounding economic base. Any direct combat tended to be small-scale, hand-to-hand clashes between contingents of knights in which individual valor, and personal rivalries or animosities played an important role.

When the First Crusade crossed into Asia, however, the Europeans were suddenly confronted with a completely new form of warfare. The Turks, who had established their dominance across the Middle East, were a nomadic people who had triumphed in an open and arid landscape by deploying large hordes of light cavalry armed with bows. The preferred tactic of the Turks was to surround their enemies and then kill them slowly and surely from a distance, without engaging in close combat. Their small, agile horses were fleet and if they were attacked, they fled, waited for their pursuers to tire, and then attacked again. 

The heavily armored knights of Europe astonished the Turks by their ability to withstand volley after volley of arrows unharmed, yet the European knights could not win a battle unless they could force the Turks to engage in hand-to-hand combat, where the heavier weapons and greater strength of the Frankish knights and horses could prove decisive. A massed charge of Frankish knights proved decisive in battle after battle — but a poorly-timed or poorly-executed charge almost always resulted in disaster for the Franks. Furthermore, the Turks soon recognized that while the fully armored knights were almost invulnerable, their unarmored horses were their Achilles heel. A knight without a horse was not only worthless, he was cold meat. So the Turks rapidly learned to concentrate their arrows on the horses and to try to provoke the knights into charging after them individually or in small, harmless groups that could be lured away from their comrades and ambushed as soon as their horses tired. 

To counter these tactics, the Franks adopted two innovations: the fighting box and the mounted archers. Today I look at the "fighting box" and next week at mounted archers.

The fighting box was a formation in which the most vulnerable components of an army (baggage train, sick and wounded) were placed in the center, surrounded by mounted knights, who were in turn surrounded by infantry with shields. The infantry protected the horses of the knights — until the commander decided it was time to risk a charge. Then the infantry would open and the heavy cavalry would charge the enemy. These fighting boxes could defend stationary positions — or move as a square across long distances. In a retreat the Franks would take the dead along, giving the enemy the impression that there were no casualties at all. When holding firm positions, fighting strength could be maintained by rotating the front-line units. 

The most important feature of this tactic is that it required first and foremost discipline — from all participants. Marching and fighting simultaneously are not easy. To be effective, the fighting box had to work as a single unit. It was necessary to prevent gaps from opening up between the ranks yet to keep moving without tiring the infantry. It was important for the infantry to keep their shields locked together — more like a Spartan phalanx than anything vaguely familiar from medieval Europe. 

The most famous campaign in which this formation was used to excellent effect was the march from Acre to Jaffa during the Third Crusade. Yet while Richard the Lionheart proved a master in deploying this formation and added support from his fleet, he was not the inventor of this tactic. The Franks of Outremer had used it for nearly 100 years before the Third Crusade. Indeed, the armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem had used it, again and again, something that testifies to the remarkable discipline of these armies — and, incidentally, contributed to greater respect for infantry and the burghers that comprised it. When that discipline broke down due to poor leadership, however, the result was utter obliteration — as at the Battle of Hattin. 

(1)  France, John, “Warfare in the Mediterranean Region in the Age of the Crusades, 1095–1291: A Clash of Contrasts,” The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural Histories, ed. Conor Kostick (London: Routledge, 2011, 9–26) 11.

The use of a fighting box is described in detail in Envoy of Jerusalem, that covers the Battle of Arsuf.

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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 andthe 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

 

Technology Transfer in the Crusader States

It has long been claimed that the greatest benefit (to the extent there was any benefit) to the Crusades was that they exposed backward and barbarous Western Europeans to the "more advanced" civilizations of the Muslim world. Yet the evidence demonstrates that the situation was considerably more nuanced and development was a two-way street. Furthermore, the society most ready to adapt is not always the weakest or most backward.

Starting with the situation at the baseline, Islamic culture undoubtedly experienced a significant flourishing in the centuries immediately preceding the Crusades. However, far from being trapped in a "dark age," Europe was likewise going through a period of significant development and technological advancement. Contrary to popular notions, throughout the so-called “Dark Ages” the learning of the ancient Greeks was preserved — and translated into Latin, while at the same time major technological innovations were making Europe more prosperous and its people healthier. Professor Rodney Stark argues that “medieval Europeans may have been the first human group whose genetic potential was not badly stunted by poor diet, with the result that they were, on average, bigger, healthier and more energetic than ordinary people elsewhere.”[1]

As a result, the exchange of knowledge and technology that followed the First Crusade was by no means a one-way street. While the Franks soon learned to employ light cavalry in the form of native Christian horse-archers (misleadingly called Turcopoles despite being neither Turkish and nor apostate Muslims), the Saracens started to develop heavy cavalry capable of close combat. While the Franks learned about paper manufacturing and improved glass-making techniques from the Syrians, the Arabs learned from the Franks  industrial methods for sugar manufacturing, a highly lucrative trade. While the custom of public baths moved from east to west, the concept of chimneys moved in the opposite direction.

 

Nor should we automatically assume that the culture more open to adaptation was the weaker culture. For example, there is no question that European naval architecture was vastly superior to contemporary Arab shipping, yet the Arabs were unable to adopt Western shipping technology largely due to the poor quality of their shipwrights and sailors. The chimneys built in Holy Land by the Franks fell into disrepair and then disappeared from local architecture altogether after the departure of the Franks not because chimneys are useless or backward, but due to the sheer inertia of “tradition.”

Nor should we forget that many of the “inventions” we associate with the “East” were not Saracen in origin, but Greek. One classic example of this is the concept of hospitals as places where professional medical practitioners provide medical treatment to cure the sick. Such institutions were unknown in Western Europe before the First Crusade. By the time the Crusaders arrived in the Holy Land, the Arabs indeed had sophisticated hospitals, yet the origins of these institutions lay in Byzantium. The first hospitals in the Eastern Roman Empire are recorded in the fourth century AD; the earliest hospitals in the Muslim Middle East did not appear until the late eighth or ninth century.[4] Under the aegis of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, (known simply as “the Hospitallers”) hospitals were adopted into the Western European culture. 

The Hospital in Acre - photo by the author

An important factor impacting the direction of technology transfer was the environment. The Franks -- but not their Arab and Turkish opponents -- were living in a new environment. This meant the Franks needed to adapt to that environment -- one with extremes of heat unknown in their homeland, an environment that was more arid, less forested, and more densely populated. It would have been absurd -- and stupid -- to cling to traditions and technologies unsuited to the Mediterranean no matter how well-suited those technologies might have been for, say, living in Scotland or fighting in Prussia. 

The adoption of surcoats is an excellent example of this. In the intense heat of the Syrian summer, wearing a loose cloth garment over one's armor made sense. That the Franks rapidly did so, and -- even more surprising -- that it became a fashion across Western Europe is not a mark of the inferiority of previous forms of dress. The surcoat had a function that was directly related to the physical environment in the Near East. It's later evolution into a means of showing off one's arms and affinity had nothing to do with Arab/Turkish superiority but rather with Western customs of chivalry.

The prevalence of stone structures in the crusader states was likewise a function of the scarcity of wood rather than superior skills on the part of Arab masons. On the contrary, to this day archaeologists can date crusades-era buildings based on the exceptionally high standards of Frankish masonry. 

Frankish masonry at St. Annes' in Jerusalem - photo by the author

The Frankish adoption of covered markets reflected the need to keep perishable goods out of the intense summer sun, the flies and the dust -- not an inherent superiority of covered versus open markets. 

Covered Market in Acre - photo by the author

Adaptation from West to East, on the other hand, was inhibited by both the fact that the environment remained the same for the Muslims and by Muslim presumptions of superiority. The Muslims viewed Franks as fundamentally backward because they were “blasphemers worshipping God incorrectly…or as idolaters worshipping cross-shaped idols.”[2] In the extreme, they shared the attitude expressed by Bahr al-Fava’id who wrote: “Anyone who believes that his God came out of a woman’s privates is quite mad; he should not be spoken to, and he has neither intelligence nor faith.”[3] 

It is to the Crusaders’ credit that regardless of what they thought of the theology of  Islam, they did not dismiss its adherents as inherently madmen and idiots. It was because of this willingness to separate religion from science and art, that the Franks proved remarkably adept at adapting to their new environment and developing a unique hybrid culture.

That culture is incorporated in all Dr. Schrader's novels set in the crusader states:

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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 andthe 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

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[1] Stark, Rodney. God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, (New York: HarperOne, 2009) 70.

[2] Christie, Niall, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, From the Islamic Sources (London: Routledge, 2014) 78.

[3] Christie, 77-78.

[4] Mitchell, Piers D., Medicine in the Crusades: Warfare, Wounds and the Medieval Surgeon (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004) 49-50.

[5] Edgington, Susan B., “Oriental and Occidental Medicine in the Crusader States,” in The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural Histories, ed. Conor Kostick (London: Routledge, 2011) 208.

Sieges of St. Hilaria and Kantara

On July 14, 1229, an army led by the Lord of Beirut routed the mercenaries and feudal levees of the five Imperial Baillies of Cyprus. The battle brought to a dramatic end the misrule of Emperor Frederick II's minions. Yet all five Baillies not only survived the battle but fled to safety in three of Cyprus' great castles.  Most significantly, three of the Baillies took refuge in the impregnable fortress St. Hilarion -- and they had the young King of Cyprus, Henry, with them. While the Imperial Baillies held out in the hope of Imperial relief, the Lord of Beirut was forced to lay siege to a castle containing his king -- prima facie an act of treason. Today Dr. Schrader looks at the course and consequences of that fateful siege.

The Castle of Kantara seen from below. Photo by the author.

Following the Battle of Nicosia, one of the Emperor's Baillies, William de Rivet, sought refuge in the port castle at Kyrenia but surrendered the castle and left Cyprus when no Imperial aid arrived within a specified date. Another of the Baillies, Sir Gauvain de Cheneche, managed to reach the castle of Kantara at the southern tip of the mountain range that parallels the north coast of Cyprus. Here he put up a spirited defense. 

The castle was besieged by Sir Anseau de Brie, an ardent supporter of the Ibelins. The latter built a trebuchet that, allegedly "battered down nearly all the walls," without inducing surrender because the bedrock on and into which the castle was built defied destruction. Meanwhile, multiple attempts to assault the castle were successfully repulsed and sorties from the castle defeated. However, Brie was joined by the Lord of Caesarea, whose father had been killed at the Battle of Nicosia, allegedly by Sir Gauvain de Cheneche. Caeasrea brought a "sharp-shooter," a cross-bowman, who he charged with killing Cheneche.  One presumes the archer received a handsome reward because he was successful. Although Cheneche's stepbrother assumed command of the defense of Kantara, morale was shaken and supplies soon ran low. After ten months, the new commander Sir Philip de Chenard surrendered Kantara to Brie and Caesarea. 

The siege of Kantara is notable too for the recorded deployment of "psychological warfare." One of the adherents of Ibelin, the later-famous historian, philosopher, and legal scholar Philip de Novare, wrote satirical verses deriding the defenders of Kantara and sang them outside the castle walls. As one historian noted, this was "a tactic not to be underestimated since...success of a siege depended on the morale...." (Hans-Ulrich Wiblinger, The Mountain Castles of Cyprus, [Nicosia: Pilot Publications, 1993] 25).

 

Yet despite the success at Kyrenia and the drama at Kantara, the most important siege was that at St. Hilarion. It was here that three of the Imperial Baillies (Amaury Barlais, Amaury de Bethsan, and Hugh de Gibelet) had taken refuge. Not only was Barlais viewed as the most dangerous of the Imperial Baillies, but he also controlled the person of the young, underaged king, who he had with him in St. Hilarion.

The castle of St. Hilarion seen from a distance. (Photo by HPSchrader)

The castle of St. Hilarion had been built by the Byzantines late in the 10th century after the island had been freed from the Arabs. It stands 700 meters (2275 feet) above sea level on the narrow ridge of a mountain range just slightly southwest of the port of Kyrenia. At the time Barlais retreated there, it had never been taken by assault -- and it never would be. The Lord of Beirut, facing such a formidable castle and wishing to avoid a direct assault that would endanger his young king, had no choice but to besiege the castle.

Sieges are notoriously tedious. Leaving his three eldest sons (youths aged at most 21, 22 and 23, if not younger) in command of the siege of St. Hilarion, the Lord of Beirut concentrated on securing the surrender of Kyrenia and overseeing the siege and assaults on Kantara. Unfortunately, as the siege dragged on, the young sons of Beirut, Sirs Balian, Baldwin, and Hugh, got bored and absented themselves from the siege. At once the Imperial Ballies sallied forth out of St. Hilarion, over-ran the siege camp, and captured provisions. These they carried back inside the castle to supplement their own diminishing reserves. 

The Lord of Beirut had five sons, who were referred to as the "Wolflings" by Novare in one of his poems.

Hearing of the sortie in Nicosia, Sir Balian rushed back with only a handful of knights. He rapidly recovered the siege camp, and "spurring up to the gate of the wall, broke his lance on the iron of the wall gate; he had so few strong men that this battle was amazing...." -- according to the contemporary eye-witness Sir Philip de Novare. (The Wars of Frederick II against the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus, translated by John de La Monte [New York: Columbia University Press, 1936] 106.) More important, of course, his father realized that a rotation needed to be established so that there was always a commander -- and only one commander -- at all times.

So the siege continued, and Sir Philip attempted his psychological warfare here as well -- with the effect that he became a target for the besieged. According to his own account, he was hit by a thrown lance that penetrated his arm and pinned it to his rib-cage. In this state, unable to defend himself, men from the castle took hold of the bridle of his horse and tried to take him hostage, while from the walls the defenders taunted: "Your singer is dead, he has been killed!" (Novare, 106)  Novare was rescued by Sir Balian and bragged that he wrote a new song that same evening which he soon sang loudly before the castle walls to prove he was not yet dead. 

A troubadour entertains -- here in more civilized circumstances than Novare describes!

By Easter 1230, those in the castle were suffering from a severe shortage of supplies. They had already slaughtered and eaten their horses and were reduced to killing a captured donkey for their Easter "feast." It was also clear that the Holy Roman Emperor was not going to send an army to rescue them. The Baillies were now in a difficult position. They had made themselves unpopular by their taxation, extortion and general high-handedness. They had lost a decisive battle and no longer had the resources to continue the war. But they held an all-important trump: they had the king.

Henry de Lusignan had been 12 years old when the siege of St. Hilarion started, and he saw his 13th birthday from inside St. Hilarion while food and -- one presumes -- morale dwindled. The men who held him had been appointed his guardians by the Holy Roman Emperor, but he had little reason to love or trust either the Emperor or the Emperor's Baillies. The Emperor had swept down on his kingdom and immediately sparked a rebellion (See: https://realcrusadeshistory.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-emperors-banquet.html) He had then dragged the 12-year-old to Syria, a virtual prisoner to strangers, married him to a woman Henry had never met, and sold Henry's guardianship to the five Ballies. Regardless of how honorable these men and regardless of how legitimate their grievances against the Ibelins, Henry could only have felt like a puppet in their hands. Certainly, he was afraid of them. (See: https://realcrusadeshistory.blogspot.com/2019/05/henry-i-of-cyprus-part-ii-pawn.html)

Outside the castle, on the other hand, was the man elected by his barons as his guardian, and more important the brother of the man who had been his guardian and regent for the better part of his life (from his 2nd to his 11th year). Henry had every reason to want to escape from St. Hilarion and the three men holding him there. But Henry had nothing to say in the matter. 

According to Novare, the Lord of Beirut was also anxious to end the siege. Sieges were notoriously expensive and Beirut's resources were not unlimited. He had already spent a fortune raising the army to invade Cyprus in the first place, and he'd had to support sieges at Kyrenia and Kantara as well. Most important, however, his siege of St. Hilarion put him in the awkward position of besieging his king, his liege. On the surface, this was treason. Beirut could only justify his actions by claiming -- rightly -- that Henry was a prisoner of the Emperor's Baillies and that his siege was in support, rather than targeted at, the king. Yet, no matter how right Beirut might be in fact, the optics of his siege were negative and so damaging of his reputation. 

Notably, Novare also reports that Beirut "feared that [King Henry] would be taken out of the castle by night to some place and sent to Apulia." (Novare, 110) In short, Beirut believed that the Baillies were capable of spiriting the King of Cyprus away from his kingdom and placing him in the control of the Holy Roman Emperor. Once in Apulia, it is doubtful if Henry would ever have set eyes on his kingdom again. It is far more probable he would have remained a "guest" of his "overlord" Frederick II, while the latter claimed the right to appoint regents and retain the revenues of the kingdom. 

Beirut chose the lesser evil. Through the mediation of a knight of the Hospital, William de Teneres, he negotiated the surrender of St. Hilarion. The terms were complete amnesty and, so the retention of all estates and honors, for the Emperor's Baillies. The only thing the Emperor's Baillies lost was the right to call themselves Baillies -- and their control of the king. They became again mere barons of Cyprus, welcomed at court, and treated as if nothing had happened. 

The problem with that was that it solved nothing. The tensions and rivalries that had festered before the Emperor's arrival and had been exacerbated by his policies during and after the 6th crusade continued to divide the Emperor's men from the Ibelins and their supporters. It would take a second round and another defeat before the Emperor's men were finally expelled from Cyprus and King Henry was able to rule in his own right.

The siege of St. Hilarion is described in:

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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 most recent release is a novel about the founding of the crusader Kingdom of Cyprus. You can find out more at: http://crusaderkingdoms.com