The medieval battlefield was not solely the domain of knights and soldiers, but also of opportunistic scavengers who exploited the turmoil for personal gain. This article delves into the activities of these often-overlooked figures, revealing how their actions intersected with the broader dynamics of chivalry, economics, and survival during the Crusades.
By Steve Tibble
In a time of perennial warfare and highly militarised societies, it is perhaps unsurprising that the boundaries between civilian criminality and criminality on the battlefield were highly permeable.
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Many, if not most, soldiers were poorly paid. Even the upmarket knights were often forced into penury when the logistics of crusading (as they so often did) went spectacularly wrong.
Some men, particularly on the Muslim side but occasionally amongst the Christians too, were not paid at all—they accompanied armies with the understanding that they would occasionally help fill the ranks in return for access to potential booty. These were men living in poverty and trading in violence—none of which was calculated to bring out the best in people.
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At the bottom end of the spectrum were those who specialised in the theft of children, exploiting the financial possibilities offered by the very active slave markets of the Muslim world. At the siege of Acre in 1191, for instance, with armies and their accompanying civilians in close proximity, these men came into their own. One of Saladin’s biographers was present when the kidnapping of a newborn baby was brought, very bravely and forcibly, to the sultan’s attention.
“One day I was on horseback in attendance on [Saladin], face-to-face with the Franks,” wrote the Ayyubid lawyer and propagandist Beha ad-Din, “when one of the forward pickets arrived with a woman in great distress, bitterly weeping and continually beating her breast.” The biographer remembered the incident well as it unfolded while Saladin “was riding on Tell al-Kharruba with me and a great crowd attending upon him.”
The mother, a Frankish woman, had been extraordinarily brave. It was largely her desperate dedication to her child that made the story so memorable to those who were there that day. “When the mother missed the child,” wrote Beha ad-Din, “she spent the whole duration of the night pleading for help with loud lamentations. Her case came to the notice of [the crusader] princes, who said to her, ‘[Saladin] has a merciful heart. We give you permission to go to him’…So she went out to ask the Muslim advance guard for assistance, telling them of her troubles through a dragoman who translated for her.”
This exceptional woman was presumably a camp follower or the wife of an ordinary soldier. She does not appear in any of the Frankish accounts. But she made a persuasive case to both her own princes and the Muslim pickets upon whose mercy she relied. “She said, ‘Muslim thieves entered my tent yesterday and stole my daughter. I spent all night until this morning pleading for help. I was told, ‘Their prince is a merciful man. We shall send you out to him to ask him for your daughter.’” The Sultan took pity on her. His tears flowed, and prompted by his chivalry, he ordered someone to go to the army market to ask who had bought the little girl, to repay what had been given for her, and bring her back.
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In a display designed to showcase the sultan’s magnanimity and power, “hardly an hour had passed before the horseman arrived with the little girl over his shoulder. The moment the woman’s eye lighted on her, she fell to the ground, besmirching her face with earth, while all around wept for what she had suffered. She was lifting her eyes to heaven, although we did not know what she was saying.”
The baby had already been sold into slavery. “People went and found that it had been sold in the market.” With an eye to the theatricality of the moment, Saladin “ordered the purchase price to be paid to the purchaser and the child taken from him. He himself stayed where he had halted until the infant was produced and then handed over to the woman who took it, wept mightily, and hugged it to her breast, while people watched her and wept also. I was standing there amongst the gathering,” wrote Beha ad-Din. “She suckled the child for a while and then, on the orders of the sultan, she was taken on horseback and restored to their camp with the infant.”
The incident made a powerful impact on Beha ad-Din—so much so that he told the story twice, in two slightly different versions, in different chapters of the biography of his employer, Saladin. It had everything: human interest, an excitable, desperate, foreign woman, and a wise, noble ruler to adjudicate with generosity and provide the sorry story with a happy ending.
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But, as so often with Saladin’s carefully honed (and extremely successful) PR campaign to polish his reputation for chivalry, all was not as it seemed. Beha ad-Din was so pleased with the story that he let slip certain details which show the narrative in a very different light.
A 15th-century depiction of Saladin – British Library MS Add. 30359
Elsewhere in his biography, Beha ad-Din explained that “the Muslims had thieves who would enter the enemy’s tents, steal from them, even taking individuals, and then make their way back. It came about that one night they took an unweaned infant three months old. They brought it to [Saladin’s] tent and offered it to him. Everything they took they used to offer to him and he would reward and recompense them.”
So it is clear, by the evidence of his own biographer, that Saladin had explicitly organised the capture of people by thieves and that these kidnappers were in his pay. And, by his own people’s admission, the sultan had almost certainly seen the baby earlier in the day and personally authorised her sale in the thriving Muslim slave markets.
Having organised the kidnapping and sale of a baby into slavery, the Sultan could now bask in a cosy glow of chivalrous magnanimity.
Advertisement
The High Stakes of Medieval Horse Theft
In the murky world of medieval soldiering, kidnapping and the search for booty could be extremely useful for a commander with stretched resources—thievery was a way to debilitate the enemy army, part of a broader war of attrition when more obvious means of attack were unavailable.
Stealing people was profitable, but taking horses was an even more attractive prospect. In a region dominated by cavalry armies, controlled by social elites who all fought as mounted warriors, good horseflesh was in high demand.
Nothing was sacred. You had to be careful about your possessions even when pausing for a moment to convene with nature. “It happened,” wrote one Christian chronicler during the same siege, “that one day a knight, his back to the ditch, was doing what everyone needs to do. While he was bent over to relieve himself at his need a Turk came at great speed from the vanguard while the knight was not paying much attention. It was a base and villainous deed to seek to harm a knight when he was about such business.”
The knight was full of righteous indignation at the unchivalrous interruption. He “got up with difficulty, but he did manage to get to his feet, his business finished, when his enemy came as fast as his horse could bring him, expecting to lay him out on the ground…[the knight, however] grabbed two stones in his hands [and]…the knight aimed and as he planned, as the other was coming towards him, threw one of the stones he was holding, striking the temple below the headgear; at once he fell dead. The knight took the horse, leading him away by the reins.” For both men, killing the opponent was the ostensible goal.
But taking his horse was the real prize.
The Temptations of Loot and the Rules of Division
This was a religious and superstitious age, but the practicalities of plunder and the potentially life-changing riches on offer at the end of a siege, often after enduring dreadful hardships, were powerful. Temporary and temporal temptations could easily outweigh the lure of longer-term spiritual benefits.
Where a lot of plunder was gathered by an entire army, strict rules applied to how that plunder would be divided among the men. After the capture of Constantinople in April 1204, for instance, the booty was gathered together and shared between the Venetians and the Franks—and within those ethnic divisions, the loot was further divided by social class.
Foot sergeants got one unit, mounted sergeants got two units, and knights got four units. The whole process rested on trust, however, and on the willingness of men to be truthful about what they had amassed—as one chronicle put it, “individuals began to come forward with their booty and it was gathered together. Some were honest in presenting their spoils, others deceitful.”
In this instance, it quickly became clear that many of the crusaders were withholding money and goods from the common funds, “despite the threat of excommunication by the pope.” This could not be allowed to stand. Any dishonesty in the process was corrosive and was stamped out very visibly when it was encountered.
Social rank was no protection from the punishments for fraud and theft—even knights could pay the price for what was, in effect, an early version of tax evasion. The Frankish chronicle of Villehardouin noted with dry satisfaction that “those found guilty of stealing met with severe justice—a good number were hanged. One of the count of Saint-Pol’s knights, who had kept booty for himself, was hung with his shield still at his neck.” It is interesting to see that his livery was very ostentatiously displayed on the hanging corpse—adding to the disgrace and thus emphasising that no one was above the law.
The Disillusionment of King Louis IX
The execution of a knight was shocking—and that was exactly the desired effect. In a society where the majority of the population were extremely poor, and where the existence of a monetary economy was still relatively patchy, fines were rarely a feasible punishment. There was little room for moderation in the crusader states—justice either had to be lenient or very severe indeed.
Expectations about criminal behaviour were extremely low—and, as in this case, the ferocity of justice sometimes had to be proportionately high. But perhaps we should leave the last word about low expectations to King Louis IX, the French king who dominated much of the crusading movement in the thirteenth century.
Maciejowski Bible – Morgan Library & Museum MS M.638, fol. 40r – Wikimedia Commons
The prevalence of theft in an age of poverty was perhaps not unsurprising. But Louis’s experiences on crusade left him consistently disappointed in human nature, even in the fulfilment of what he saw as a supremely noble and spiritual enterprise. When he returned home to France in 1254, he had time to reflect on such things. He poured his heart out to John of Joinville and let him know just how disillusioned he had become with his subjects’ behaviour.
Joinville wrote the king’s sad thoughts down, perhaps almost verbatim: “And I tell you these things,” said the king, “since this world is so grasping that there are few people who consider the salvation of their souls or the honour of their persons if they have the chance to seize other people’s property, either justly or unjustly.”
Whether you were a commoner or a disillusioned king, you could only avoid disappointment by setting your standards for criminal behaviour at the very lowest possible level.
Want to learn more about crime during the Crusades? Check out Steve Tibble’s new book Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land.
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Steve is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
The medieval battlefield was not solely the domain of knights and soldiers, but also of opportunistic scavengers who exploited the turmoil for personal gain. This article delves into the activities of these often-overlooked figures, revealing how their actions intersected with the broader dynamics of chivalry, economics, and survival during the Crusades.
By Steve Tibble
In a time of perennial warfare and highly militarised societies, it is perhaps unsurprising that the boundaries between civilian criminality and criminality on the battlefield were highly permeable.
Many, if not most, soldiers were poorly paid. Even the upmarket knights were often forced into penury when the logistics of crusading (as they so often did) went spectacularly wrong.
Some men, particularly on the Muslim side but occasionally amongst the Christians too, were not paid at all—they accompanied armies with the understanding that they would occasionally help fill the ranks in return for access to potential booty. These were men living in poverty and trading in violence—none of which was calculated to bring out the best in people.
At the bottom end of the spectrum were those who specialised in the theft of children, exploiting the financial possibilities offered by the very active slave markets of the Muslim world. At the siege of Acre in 1191, for instance, with armies and their accompanying civilians in close proximity, these men came into their own. One of Saladin’s biographers was present when the kidnapping of a newborn baby was brought, very bravely and forcibly, to the sultan’s attention.
“One day I was on horseback in attendance on [Saladin], face-to-face with the Franks,” wrote the Ayyubid lawyer and propagandist Beha ad-Din, “when one of the forward pickets arrived with a woman in great distress, bitterly weeping and continually beating her breast.” The biographer remembered the incident well as it unfolded while Saladin “was riding on Tell al-Kharruba with me and a great crowd attending upon him.”
The mother, a Frankish woman, had been extraordinarily brave. It was largely her desperate dedication to her child that made the story so memorable to those who were there that day. “When the mother missed the child,” wrote Beha ad-Din, “she spent the whole duration of the night pleading for help with loud lamentations. Her case came to the notice of [the crusader] princes, who said to her, ‘[Saladin] has a merciful heart. We give you permission to go to him’…So she went out to ask the Muslim advance guard for assistance, telling them of her troubles through a dragoman who translated for her.”
This exceptional woman was presumably a camp follower or the wife of an ordinary soldier. She does not appear in any of the Frankish accounts. But she made a persuasive case to both her own princes and the Muslim pickets upon whose mercy she relied. “She said, ‘Muslim thieves entered my tent yesterday and stole my daughter. I spent all night until this morning pleading for help. I was told, ‘Their prince is a merciful man. We shall send you out to him to ask him for your daughter.’” The Sultan took pity on her. His tears flowed, and prompted by his chivalry, he ordered someone to go to the army market to ask who had bought the little girl, to repay what had been given for her, and bring her back.
In a display designed to showcase the sultan’s magnanimity and power, “hardly an hour had passed before the horseman arrived with the little girl over his shoulder. The moment the woman’s eye lighted on her, she fell to the ground, besmirching her face with earth, while all around wept for what she had suffered. She was lifting her eyes to heaven, although we did not know what she was saying.”
The baby had already been sold into slavery. “People went and found that it had been sold in the market.” With an eye to the theatricality of the moment, Saladin “ordered the purchase price to be paid to the purchaser and the child taken from him. He himself stayed where he had halted until the infant was produced and then handed over to the woman who took it, wept mightily, and hugged it to her breast, while people watched her and wept also. I was standing there amongst the gathering,” wrote Beha ad-Din. “She suckled the child for a while and then, on the orders of the sultan, she was taken on horseback and restored to their camp with the infant.”
The incident made a powerful impact on Beha ad-Din—so much so that he told the story twice, in two slightly different versions, in different chapters of the biography of his employer, Saladin. It had everything: human interest, an excitable, desperate, foreign woman, and a wise, noble ruler to adjudicate with generosity and provide the sorry story with a happy ending.
But, as so often with Saladin’s carefully honed (and extremely successful) PR campaign to polish his reputation for chivalry, all was not as it seemed. Beha ad-Din was so pleased with the story that he let slip certain details which show the narrative in a very different light.
Elsewhere in his biography, Beha ad-Din explained that “the Muslims had thieves who would enter the enemy’s tents, steal from them, even taking individuals, and then make their way back. It came about that one night they took an unweaned infant three months old. They brought it to [Saladin’s] tent and offered it to him. Everything they took they used to offer to him and he would reward and recompense them.”
So it is clear, by the evidence of his own biographer, that Saladin had explicitly organised the capture of people by thieves and that these kidnappers were in his pay. And, by his own people’s admission, the sultan had almost certainly seen the baby earlier in the day and personally authorised her sale in the thriving Muslim slave markets.
Having organised the kidnapping and sale of a baby into slavery, the Sultan could now bask in a cosy glow of chivalrous magnanimity.
The High Stakes of Medieval Horse Theft
In the murky world of medieval soldiering, kidnapping and the search for booty could be extremely useful for a commander with stretched resources—thievery was a way to debilitate the enemy army, part of a broader war of attrition when more obvious means of attack were unavailable.
Stealing people was profitable, but taking horses was an even more attractive prospect. In a region dominated by cavalry armies, controlled by social elites who all fought as mounted warriors, good horseflesh was in high demand.
Nothing was sacred. You had to be careful about your possessions even when pausing for a moment to convene with nature. “It happened,” wrote one Christian chronicler during the same siege, “that one day a knight, his back to the ditch, was doing what everyone needs to do. While he was bent over to relieve himself at his need a Turk came at great speed from the vanguard while the knight was not paying much attention. It was a base and villainous deed to seek to harm a knight when he was about such business.”
The knight was full of righteous indignation at the unchivalrous interruption. He “got up with difficulty, but he did manage to get to his feet, his business finished, when his enemy came as fast as his horse could bring him, expecting to lay him out on the ground…[the knight, however] grabbed two stones in his hands [and]…the knight aimed and as he planned, as the other was coming towards him, threw one of the stones he was holding, striking the temple below the headgear; at once he fell dead. The knight took the horse, leading him away by the reins.” For both men, killing the opponent was the ostensible goal.
But taking his horse was the real prize.
The Temptations of Loot and the Rules of Division
This was a religious and superstitious age, but the practicalities of plunder and the potentially life-changing riches on offer at the end of a siege, often after enduring dreadful hardships, were powerful. Temporary and temporal temptations could easily outweigh the lure of longer-term spiritual benefits.
Where a lot of plunder was gathered by an entire army, strict rules applied to how that plunder would be divided among the men. After the capture of Constantinople in April 1204, for instance, the booty was gathered together and shared between the Venetians and the Franks—and within those ethnic divisions, the loot was further divided by social class.
Foot sergeants got one unit, mounted sergeants got two units, and knights got four units. The whole process rested on trust, however, and on the willingness of men to be truthful about what they had amassed—as one chronicle put it, “individuals began to come forward with their booty and it was gathered together. Some were honest in presenting their spoils, others deceitful.”
In this instance, it quickly became clear that many of the crusaders were withholding money and goods from the common funds, “despite the threat of excommunication by the pope.” This could not be allowed to stand. Any dishonesty in the process was corrosive and was stamped out very visibly when it was encountered.
Social rank was no protection from the punishments for fraud and theft—even knights could pay the price for what was, in effect, an early version of tax evasion. The Frankish chronicle of Villehardouin noted with dry satisfaction that “those found guilty of stealing met with severe justice—a good number were hanged. One of the count of Saint-Pol’s knights, who had kept booty for himself, was hung with his shield still at his neck.” It is interesting to see that his livery was very ostentatiously displayed on the hanging corpse—adding to the disgrace and thus emphasising that no one was above the law.
The Disillusionment of King Louis IX
The execution of a knight was shocking—and that was exactly the desired effect. In a society where the majority of the population were extremely poor, and where the existence of a monetary economy was still relatively patchy, fines were rarely a feasible punishment. There was little room for moderation in the crusader states—justice either had to be lenient or very severe indeed.
Expectations about criminal behaviour were extremely low—and, as in this case, the ferocity of justice sometimes had to be proportionately high. But perhaps we should leave the last word about low expectations to King Louis IX, the French king who dominated much of the crusading movement in the thirteenth century.
The prevalence of theft in an age of poverty was perhaps not unsurprising. But Louis’s experiences on crusade left him consistently disappointed in human nature, even in the fulfilment of what he saw as a supremely noble and spiritual enterprise. When he returned home to France in 1254, he had time to reflect on such things. He poured his heart out to John of Joinville and let him know just how disillusioned he had become with his subjects’ behaviour.
Joinville wrote the king’s sad thoughts down, perhaps almost verbatim: “And I tell you these things,” said the king, “since this world is so grasping that there are few people who consider the salvation of their souls or the honour of their persons if they have the chance to seize other people’s property, either justly or unjustly.”
Whether you were a commoner or a disillusioned king, you could only avoid disappointment by setting your standards for criminal behaviour at the very lowest possible level.
Want to learn more about crime during the Crusades? Check out Steve Tibble’s new book Crusader Criminals: The Knights Who Went Rogue in the Holy Land.
Please visit the publisher’s website or buy this book
on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Steve is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
You can check out Steve’s other books: Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain, The Crusader Armies and The Crusader Strategy
Further Readings:
Ambroise, The History of the Holy War, ed. and tr. M. Ailes and M. Barber, 2 vols, Woodbridge, 2003.
Baha’ al-Din Ibn Shaddad, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, tr. D.S. Richards, Crusade Texts in Translation 7, Aldershot, 2001.
Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades, tr. C. Smith, London, 2008.
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