Download PDF | Marshall, Christopher, Warfare in the Latin East, 1192-1291 (Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Download PDF | Marshall, Christopher, Warfare in the Latin East, 1192-1291 (Cambridge University Press, 1992).

310 Pages 

This book offers a detailed examination of warfare in the Latin East from the end of the Third Crusade to the demise of the Latin Kingdom in 1291. It considers not only the crusades, but also the long periods of truce during which warfare was restricted to raiding expeditions, and the many conflicts which took place among the Christians themselves. A study of the organisation of the Latin armies is followed by an examination of the structures and functions of the strongpoints. There follows a consideration of the different types of armed conflict: battles, raids and sieges. Marshall depicts raiding expeditions as a vital factor in the Muslims’ efforts to remove Latins from the East, and emphasises that in every aspect of military activity, the Latins’ shortage of manpower is shown to have had major consequences. The book ends with a brief study of the work of scouts, spies and traitors in the Muslim and Latin armies. Dr Marshall’s book provides a fitting companion to Crusading Warfare 1097—1193 by R. C. Smail. Like its distinguished predecessor, this new work will appeal to a wide range of medievalists and to all those interested in the conflict engendered by the crusades and in medieval warfare generally.

ACKNOVWLEDGEMENTS 

It is a great pleasure to be able to thank those whose advice, guidance and friendship have helped me to complete this project. They include Dr P. W. Edbury and Dr J. Gillingham (the examiners of the University of London Ph.D thesis which was the basis of this study), Dr Steve Tibble, Mr Bill and Mrs Sally Hearn, Miss Sandra Pragnell, Mrs Joan Smail, the late Professor J. Prawer, Professor J. H. Pryor, Dr Denys Pringle, Professor R. B. C. Huygens, Dr Sylvia Schein, the Reverend and Mrs Michael West, Mr N. K. Alston and Mr A. N. C. MacDonald. There are, of course, many others; I am sorry not to have mentioned them. Much of my research was carried out in the British Library, the Institute of Historical Research (University of London), the University of London Library and the London Library. 

The staff of these, and other institutions, were always helpful with queries or requests and I am grateful to them all. I must also mention the academic and administrative staff at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (University of London), where I undertook both my undergraduate and postgraduate work. I was made very welcome at the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem in the summer of 1984 and was particularly fortunate that my stay coincided with Dr Pringle's period as assistant director. Mr Edwin Tatum helped with the preparation of the maps and plans. The sections in the book which deal with the French regiment and with the use of the charge in battles in the Latin East appeared, in a different form, in the Journal of Medieval History and Historical Research. My greatest debts are, first, to the late Dr R. C. (‘Otto’) Smail. His book, Crusading Warfare (1097—1193) was the inspiration for much of my research ; and I was fortunate to be able to discuss some of his ideas with him during the last years of his life. My wife, Louise, had to put up with a great deal during the final stages  of my work. My mother and father typed the original thesis, and helped to proof-read both the thesis and the book more times than I care to remember. Their support has been unstinting and I dedicate the book to them, with my gratitude and love. Finally, I come to Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith. He introduced me to the crusades in 1978 and supervised both my MA and Ph.D. Without him, I would probably never have even thought about warfare in the Latin East, let alone written a book on the subject.

INTRODUCTION: THE STUDY OF WARFARE IN THE LATIN EAST

In May 1291 Muslim troops commanded by the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalil captured and destroyed the city of Acre. Although it was not the last Latin-held site to be surrendered, contemporaries regarded the fall of Acre as symbolic of the temporary end of Latin rule in the area.! Similarly, in July 1191, the capture of Acre by forces of the Third Crusade had been a decisive point in the campaign, even though the treaty of Jaffa, which acknowledged the re-establishment of the Latin Kingdom, was not signed until September 1192.” The Kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been virtually eliminated by Saladin after the battle of Hattin in 1187, was to survive, in a rather reduced form, for nearly a century. 

Until the defeat of St Louis’s first crusade in 1250, the kingdom was maintained largely as a result of Muslim divisions, rather than Latin strength. After this, the Mamluks’ usurpation of power in Egypt and their subsequent unification of the Muslim states in the area lead to the Christian losses of the 1260s. Only a few, mainly coastal, sites were able to hold out until 1291. It would be quite unreasonable, however, to regard the ‘Second Kingdom’ as a mere appendix of the First. Recent work on the constitutional and social history of the Latin Kingdom has shown that there was much positive achievement in the later period — even allowing for a fragmentation of authority, implications of innate strength are apparent in, for example, the baronial resistance to the demands of Frederick II and the constitutional debates and internecine conflicts which raged throughout much of the thirteenth century. 

MILITARY HISTORIANS AND THE MILITARY HISTORY OF THE LATIN EAST 

In 1956 R. C. Smail published his book on the military history of the Latin states from the period of their establishment to the end of the Third Crusade. By analysing a detailed body of evidence, Smail was able to place the military history of the period in its social and political context, and thus demonstrate the importance of warfare to the Latin East. He showed that this was in sharp contrast to the work of most military historians, who had been content to describe and sometimes analyse a quite arbitrary selection of battles, apparently chosen for their tactical significance.? Except for the study of castles, which will be considered later, the thirteenth century has had less attention from scholars concentrating on military affairs. John of Joinville’s narrative of the battle of Mansurah seems to be the only contemporary account which has received widespread consideration. Several scholars, however, have considered certain aspects of the subject. Delpech dealt with the battles at Agridi in 1232, near Gaza in 1239 and at Mansurah in 1250. But his work was coloured by a preconception that medieval armies not only knew precisely what they wanted to do (often based on the theories of classical authors such as Vegetius) but also had the ability to carry out complex manoeuvres in battle.* 

This, coupled with an uncritical use of source material, rendered questionable many of his conclusions regarding the tactics of the thirteenth century. In the case of Gaza in 1239, Delpech was exceptional amongst general historians of medieval military history in making use of a very detailed account of this conflict.* His analysis of this battle suggested that he wished it to conform to three predetermined ideas, none of which can really be justified from an objective reading of the sources. First, he noted the exploitation of the terrain by Rukn-ad-Din al-Hijawi, although it was clearly the crusaders’ own decision to camp in a valley surrounded by low hills: this position was in no way forced on them by the Muslim commander.’ Secondly, following the account of Albert of Trois Fontaines, he emphasised the imbalance amongst the crusader forces caused by a lack of footsoldiers; in this he appears to have overlooked the assertion (in the ‘Rothelin’ account) that the mounted troops were reluctant to abandon their footsoldiers, even though this would have allowed the former, at least, to escape from the Muslims. Thirdly, he criticised the crusader knights for charging the Muslims, and thus breaking formation. 

He ignored the statement that this charge was necessary because the crusaders’ crossbowmen had run out of arrows.° These examples illustrate Delpech’s tendency to manipulate the sources in order to justify certain preconceived ideas, thereby seriously diminishing the value of his study of battle tactics in the thirteenth century. Oman incorporated a long account of the crusades and the Latin states into his study of medieval warfare. However, he dismissed the Second Kingdom as ‘a mere survival without strength to recover itself’, and he had little to say about its military history. He preferred to concentrate on the crusaders’ invasions of Egypt which he regarded as ‘wholly independent of the defence of Palestine’, and his only use of material from the thirteenth century was that concerning the battle of Mansurah, for which he produced a composite account from some narrative sources. Oman also referred occasionally to evidence from the Latin East in his chapters on fortification and siegecraft.!? Lot dealt with the Latin East during the thirteenth century in a work which, like Smail's, attempted to place military history in its social and political context. The results, however, are of limited value: Lot relied largely on secondary materials (which was understandable, given that his intention was to write a general survey of medieval warfare for French-speaking students) and he produced little more than a short political history with military overtones. In more recent years two studies have added in different ways to the general understanding of medieval warfare. The first was  Verbruggen’s Art of Warfare in Western Europe.

 Apart from a section on strategy, the author was primarily concerned with the roles of knights, footsoldiers, archers and crossbowmen, and the tactics which were employed by combatants when they were in a battle situation.’ Verbruggen was prepared to use material from battles which took place in the east, but for the thirteenth century he limited himself to occasional references to the battle of Mansurah. In a section on discipline he made extensive use of the Templars’ Rule, which includes detailed regulations on how members of the Order should conduct themselves on campaign. Finally, in his chapter on strategy Verbruggen relied heavily on the plans to recover the Holy Land (the De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae texts) which were written in the west after the fall of Acre. Verbruggen’s book provides many important insights into medieval warfare. However, his conclusion — that ‘the weaker of the contestants took refuge behind the defence of his many fortresses ... [which] created a balance between the various countries which was not easily upset’’* — cannot be applied to the situation in the Latin states during the thirteenth century. The Latins were sometimes able to use their strongpoints as places of refuge. But the balance, if there ever had been one, between Muslims and Christians was upset by the marked superiority of the former in most types of military encounter, and by the inability of the latter to deal with Muslim methods which were geared towards the progressive reduction of Christian territory in the area, primarily by the use of the siege. Contemporaries attested to the growing sense of panic and bewilderment amongst Christians as a result of this Muslim strategy. Contamine, in War in the Middle Ages, illustrated how the schemes of the Franciscan Fidenzio of Padua, in his ‘Liber recuperationis Terre Sancte’, reflected the improved administrative techniques of the period as employed by Edward I of England, Philip IV of France and Charles I of Anjou. This is characteristic of Contamine’s wide vision of warfare. He concentrated on the period c. 1100-1400, dealing not only with battlefield tactics but also such diverse aspects of warfare as armaments, siege techniques, the social impact of military affairs and the motivation of troops. His work, therefore, treated tactics as one of many facets of warfare, whereas Verbruggen had considered tactics largely in isolation. Contamine’s study of the period 1150-1300 examined most of the military resources which were available to the state. Beginning with manpower, he dealt with knights, other mounted troops (including crossbowmen), archers and various types of infantry, besides briefly considering the Military Orders as a separate element. Then he examined the methods by which the state could bring into existence a fighting force appropriate to its requirements and limited resources. These varied from the arriere-ban and the servitium debitum to services for money and ultimately the employment of mercenaries; during this period a shift occurred to ‘an economy of paid feudal warfare’, in which the fief, however, remained a central feature. Fortified sites were another major military resource dealt with by Contamine. The main development was the use of stone rather than wood for fortifications, whilst in suggesting the possible nature of a garrison force he made use of the text describing the rebuilding of Saphet, a Templar castle in Palestine, in the 1240s. Contamine also examined the likely course of a siege campaign. He showed that the assault improved in technique during this period, rather than in terms of the materials that were available to the attackers. He was able to create a general impression of how military institutions and activity were a product of their social context and he therefore concluded that warfare’s increasing sophistication (at least on an organisational level) by the end of this period reflected developments within society as a whole. The military institutions of the Latin East were dealt with only briefly, however, and mostly from the researches of Smail. Contamine also had little to say about the thirteenth century in this respect, since his work was mainly concerned with north-western Europe."* The achievements of military historians are impressive — not least because most have dealt with an enormous range of subject matter. It is not surprising that their analysis of the military history of the Latin East in the thirteenth century has been limited in scope. They have adopted two perspectives. First, historians of tactics, such as Delpech, Oman and Verbruggen, have concerned themselves with what happened when two armies met on the battlefield. Even on this level there is much material available, but these writers were largely content to examine, at most, three battles which were removed from their appropriate context and used in quite arbitrary fashion, either as a reflection of the ‘crusaders’ warfare’ of the thirteenth century, or to illustrate points about western European warfare simply because (as in the case of Mansurah) the accounts contained what scholars saw as detailed, and therefore important, information about tactics and strategy. Most historians who have concentrated on battles have placed their accounts in an artificial setting which is unrelated to the actual historical context of the event. Secondly, scholars such as Lot and Contamine have made some attempt to examine the social and institutional aspects of war. They did not divorce warfare from other aspects of history, but their treatment of the Latin East was restricted, in the case of Lot by the nature of his method, which largely produced a political narrative, and in the case of Contamine by his acknowledged bias towards material from north-western Europe. Smail’s work on the twelfth century was unique in offering a study of warfare in the Latin East which combined the better features of these two perspectives: there was no lack of detail concerning the performance of armies in the area (and this was not restricted to the battle) and military history was shown to be an important aspect of the general history of the Latin states. Most military historians have concentrated on the fighting man as the principal military resource at the disposal of a commander and the battle is therefore the subject of greatest interest to them. At a time when the number of soldiers was often restricted, however, other assets, particularly strongpoints, could have a crucial role to play in the survival of territory against an aggressor. Smail pointed out that the capture and maintenance of such sites was perhaps the key to the entire military history of the Latin East in the twelfth century,’ and the same is true of the period to 1291. The study of the Latin East’s castles has been intensive over the last century, but two features limit the value of much of the work. First, the approach of most scholars has been primarily architectural. Like most military historians who have studied battles, such authors prefer to examine their subject in isolation from its context, considering its form rather than the role that it may have played in the military establishment of the Latin East. One exception to this was Smail, though his work was concerned with the twelfth century. The importance of architectural studies of this kind cannot be denied, but the value of such investigations is further restricted by a second feature: the visible materials available to facilitate such work are themselves far from adequate. There has not been enough archaeological investigation and an example of the difference that such an examination can make may be seen in the case of the castle of Belvoir, by comparing the very basic plan that Smail was able to produce with that of Prawer, when the site had been cleared and excavated. In the details of the inner defences, in particular, Prawer's plan is far more substantial." One of the first modern historians to examine the monuments of the Latin East was Rey.!* His study, although over a hundred years old, remains useful as many sites have disintegrated since he visited them. Some of his work was consequently incorporated into Deschamps's Les Cháteaux des croisés en Terre-Sainte.’® The studies of Rey and Deschamps are the standard works on castles in the Latin East, and the authors did try to place this aspect of warfare in an overall context, but they made little attempt to analyse the information at their disposal. For most castles a description of the remains was complemented by a history which was dependent on the survival of narrative accounts. Deschamps went beyond this to consider the location of the site and its theoretical ability to control an area. His views will be discussed below when the functions of castles in the thirteenth century are examined.?? Other studies, both of individual sites and of groups of them, will be noted later. But only detailed archaeological and architectural work and careful analysis of texts will produce advances in the present state of knowledge, after which more informed generalisations may be made. Dr Pringle has shown what can be achieved. In 1983 he directed a survey of the Frankish settlements (including a number of castles) in the Sharon Plain and an excavation of Tour Rouge. He has now published a study which analyses the archaeological, architectural, geographical and historical materials relating to the various sites. This has produced a detailed picture of the nature of Frankish settlement in the countryside ; it emphasises the importance of castles at a local level, both in a military and an administrative context.” The Military Orders are another element of the military establishment which has received attention. They became increasingly significant for the survival of the Latin states in the thirteenth century, but many studies of them are merely narrative accounts which fail to analyse the specific role which they played in the area’s military structure. An example of this is the work by Melville, still the best general account of the Templars in the Latin East. She described some of the institutions of the Order, from the Templars’ Rule, and considered the political history of the Latin Kingdom, but she was unable to bring the two elements together, except when the Templars played a clearly defined role, as in the final siege of Acre. Much of what she had to say about the thirteenth century is, therefore, just a political history with occasional references to the Templars.” Another detailed study of a Military Order, this time the Hospitallers, was undertaken by Professor Riley-Smith. Like Melville, he gave a separate narrative account of the Latin settlement in the thirteenth century, but he was then able to place the Hospitallers within this political framework. The Hospitallers’ role in the military history of the period received careful examination in his study, but his general analysis of warfare in the thirteenth century was somewhat tentative. An extensive account of the Hospitallers’ activities in the Latin East thus remained rather isolated. Riley-Smith noted their provision of soldiers for raids, advice on military affairs, acceptance of responsibility for the defence of various sites and the strategies which were adopted against their Muslim neighbours. By examining the extensive documentation of the Hospitallers, he established the overall structure of the Order. He then dealt specifically with the military side of the Order’s operations, drawing conclusions about the role of the soldier which, if used carefully, have implications for the study of military life within the Latin East as a whole. RileySmith’s work was not primarily concerned with the military history of the Latin East, but it revealed much about a significant aspect of that history. He tried to describe the Order as an element that should not be divorced from its surroundings. 

HISTORIANS OF THE LATIN EAST AND MILITARY HISTORY

 It has long been possible to write a reasonable narrative account of the Latin East’s history during this period and, in all such works, military activity inevitably assumes great significance. Runciman's account of the period c. 1260-77, for example, reads as little more than a narrative of military events.?^ By the use of materials such as the kingdom's law books and charters and the papal registers it is possible both to produce a more complete narrative history and at the same time to examine the constitutional and social history of the kingdom in far greater depth. This can also yield a detailed picture of aspects of the military history of the kingdom. In the early 1950s Prawer and Richard were able to redefine the constitution of the Latin Kingdom. The first narrative history to acknowledge this was Richard's Royaume Latin de Jérusalem, which appeared in 1953. The author used a wide range of sources besides the chronicles to produce a detailed impression. of the Latin Kingdom's society. This extended to the field of military history, where he showed, for example, how important was assistance from Europe (with both money and men) to the survival of the kingdom in the thirteenth century, and demonstrated the significance of the patriarch in military affairs.”°    

Prawer's Histoire du Royaume Latin de Jérusalem remains one of the best narrative accounts of the Latin Kingdom's history ever produced. His examination of military history was made outstanding by an intimate knowledge of the area's geography. He was thus able to discuss in theory and practice the significance of the treaties which were agreed between the Christians and Muslims in 1229 and 1240-1. The limited expeditions which took place when the troops of the Fifth Crusade gathered at Acre in the autumn of 1217 were similarly scrutinised, and information relating to a battle was shown to have additional interest if it could be placed in a geographical context. The value of the sources describing the battle near Gaza of 1239 has already been noted; Prawer was able, through his acquaintance with the region, to suggest the likely route taken by the crusaders from Jaffa, leading to their final defeat near the village of Beit-Hanun.? One of the most influential historians of the Latin Kingdom's constitution is Riley-Smith. His major study of the kingdom's political ideas in theory and practice demonstrated again the significance of military affairs to almost any assessment of its history. Directly, he dealt, though not in great detail, with military service as a central element of feudalism in Palestine. Indirectly, the military situation often provided the background against which political, constitutional and economic developments took place. For example, the increasing poverty of the lords in the thirteenth century was due largely to expenses incurred in the defence of their fiefs; many of them were therefore obliged to alienate their properties to the Military Orders. Riley-Smith was particularly concerned with constitutional developments. The attempts by Frederick II to assert his authority, on Cyprus and on the mainland, led to a wide range of military engagements: RileySmith examined these as part of the Ibelin faction's efforts to secure their own position by use of the Assise sur la ligece. Similarly, during the War of St Sabas John of Jaffa and John II of Beirut manipulated the complex regency laws in order to switch the feudatories’ support to the Venetians. Riley-Smith, however, did not always establish conclusively the link between military affairs and constitutional developments. He recognised the need, for example, for strong government in the 1260s, but his subsequent analysis of the period's regency debates paid little attention to the military context, about which contemporaries were clearly aware.

THE ATM AND SCOPE OF THIS STUDY In this book, I have created a general picture of military life in the Latin East from the end of the Third Crusade to the fall of Acre in 1291. Many of Smail’s conclusions for the twelfth century are equally true of the thirteenth, but it will become clear that not everything he wrote is valid for the later period, where the circumstances were radically changed by such factors as the increasing threat of the Muslims and a large-scale division of authority within the Latin states. The range of materials available can be used to consider most of the elements which make up the sum total of military events in the area: previously, these materials have only been used piecemeal or as a part of a narrative account with little attempt at analysis. The reports of sieges, raids and the functions of castles have scarcely been scrutinised, yet all are significant components of the whole military picture which will be examined here. The narrative accounts from the Latin Kingdom in this period do not compare with that of the twelfth-century chronicler William of Tyre, but the various Old French continuations of his work?* and the collection known as the Gestes des Chiprois?? provide useful details of military activity. The Arabic sources, too, are often full of information, one of the most important being the biographical account of the reign (1260-77) of an-Nasir Rukn-ad-Din Baybars by his secretary, Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir.*° This was incorporated en masse into later works by writers such as alMakrizi and Ibn al-Furat. These two main groups of narratives may be complemented by accounts from western sources. An event such as the fall of Acre in 1291 was written about by many contemporaries but, from a military standpoint, such accounts are often of limited value. Alternatively, some western narrative accounts may be wholly devoted to events in the east and most obviously to the process of a crusade. Oliver, the scholastic of Cologne and later bishop of Paderborn, not only preached the Fifth Crusade but also joined the army and wrote an account of his experiences.** John of Joinville also went on crusade — on the first of St Louis’s expeditions—and his case for the king's canonisation involved him reporting extensively on Louis’s crusading exploits." Both these authors therefore provided interesting material concerning military events in the east. Other worthwhile information can be gleaned from letters, some of which are contained in western chronicles. There are many, for example, in the work of Matthew Paris, the Benedictine monk of St Albans.?? Legal texts can provide information on the structure of military society. Two of the most important were written by men who themselves made important contributions to events in the Latin East. We have already seen that John of Jaffa influenced the course of the War of St Sabas; later we shall examine his efforts to maintain the castle of Jaffa during the middle years of the thirteenth century. He also produced a great lawbook, the ‘Livre des Assises de la Haute Cour '.?* Philip of Novara was a Lombard who had travelled to the east by 1218. He held a fief from the Ibelins on Cyprus and was a committed supporter of their cause until his death, possibly in the late 1260s. He was best known as a lawyer, and he produced a work, the ‘Livre de forme de plait’which influenced John of Jaffa. He also wrote a (biased and, in places, egotistical) account of the civil conflicts on Cyprus and the mainland during the 1220s and 30s; this was inserted into the Gestes des Chiprois.?? Evidence from charters, the papal registers and materials relating to the Military Orders is valuable, and sometimes the author of an itinerary, such as Burchard of Mt Sion, gave an impression of the military situation as he travelled through a region.*® Finally, there are many miscellaneous texts to be examined: some, such as the anonymous eye-witness account De constructione castri Saphet®’ and the Franciscan Fidenzio of Padua’s suggestions for the recovery of the Holy Land,?? are primarily concerned with military matters, and therefore of considerable value. Ideas about aspects of warfare can also be obtained from the arts of the period. There are many problems with the interpretation of contemporary illustrations, but some tentative suggestions are possible, particularly when they can be related to textual evidence. Examples of the artists’ interest in military life include illustrations from manuscripts, seals and coins, effigies and sculptures. These have not been studied in any depth here, but they occasionally prove to be valuable, particularly in the fields of arms and armour (where the survival of thirteenth-century equipment is very rare) and siege techniques. It is a matter of coping with an artist's imagination and artistic licence: where this can be done, such materials will be used as additional evidence for an otherwise documented event. An example is a miniature from an Old French translation of ‘De excidio urbis Acconis’, probably produced around 1300 in Paris. It is regarded as one of the first illustrations of the fall of Acre and, at the very least, constitutes a near-contemporary visual impression of the loss of the Holy Land.?? (See plate 1.) Finally, material for the military history of a fairly compact area may be gathered by undertaking fieldwork. It is often possible to relate written sources to the remains of castles, towns and battle sites, whilst also considering the problems of terrain and climate which may have proved particularly awkward for crusaders from western Europe. In common with evidence from art, that produced by fieldwork will be analysed largely in connection with written sources, which it either confirms or raises doubts about. This will give a fairly complete impression of military history in the period from c. 1192 to 1291. Consideration will be given to all the principal areas of Latin settlement in the thirteenth century: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli, the Kingdom of Armenia and the Kingdom of Cyprus. Evidence from the two crusades which invaded Egypt will be examined, since conflicts between Christians and Muslims were quite uniform whether in Egypt, Palestine or Syria. Encounters between Christian forces will also be analysed: they provide additional and contrasting evidence to augment that provided by the Muslim—Christian struggle in the region. We shall examine the Latin armies in the context of the military, political and economic circumstances of the Latin settlement. But analysis of the Muslim forces and military organisation will be restricted to areas where they came into direct contact with the Latins. In the second half of the thirteenth century, however, the Muslim threat became increasingly significant as the Latins’ presence in the region was first reduced and eventually ended, as a consequence of the loss of their strongpoints. The Latins’ problems were exacerbated by interChristian rivalry and conflict. The treatment of this history will be thematic, not chronological. By adopting this approach it is possible to make far more sense of materials which, if used on their own, can be both limited in value and ambiguous. In the case of battles, for example, any effort to make sense of a single conflict in isolation is fraught with difficulties. There are inevitably gaps in accounts of individual engagements, so that even such detail as Joinville provided in his description of the battle of Mansurah is best regarded as referring to a series of isolated incidents. The distortions of the source material combine with the rationalising tendencies of the historian to create a wholly artificial impression; to proceed from this to generalisations is unsatisfactory. Given the nature of the sources which will be looked at — diverse but often of restricted value — an attempt will be made to establish the tactics which appear to have been generally appropriate for use in the circumstances of the Latin East. It should then be possible to understand individual accounts more clearly. 

atin East during this period and its importance for the status of the Latin settlement, two principal elements of military history will be dealt with: the organisation of the resources which were available, and their application to a range of military activities. With regard to the former, the manpower (obtained from both inside and outside the Latin states) which produced the Latin armies will be discussed. There was a considerable diversity, both in terms of the source and the quality of troops, something to be examined further in an appraisal of the Latin army in action. The impact of the crusades on the ability of the Latin forces to deal adequately with the Muslim threat will also be considered. Besides their manpower, the principal assets of the Latins were their strongpoints. There were simple towers, examples of which dotted the coastal plain of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, great castles such as Crac des Chevaliers and Saphet and a number of fortified coastal towns and cities which were increasingly the main focal point of the Latin settlement in the area. The maintenance of such sites was fundamental to the survival of the Latin East; an examination will be made of their forms and functions. The performance of the Latin armies will then be considered. Three types of military operation will be studied: the raid, the battle and the siege. In each instance, a wide range of evidence from the period will be used to suggest the Latin armies’ abilities. As already noted, the discussion will not be confined to engagements with Muslim opponents. Much of the available evidence relates to conflicts with fellow-Christians in circumstances which had little to do with the external Muslim threat. It is not simply the survival of such material which makes it worth studying here. Many soldiers operating in the Latin East had to be able to deal with both Muslim and Christian enemies. 

   

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