The sword and shield of medieval Europe weren’t just tools of war—they were catalysts of chaos, reshaping societies and escalating crime rates. From Christendom to the Crusader States, weapons played a dual role: defence and destruction. Their prevalence not only shaped the violence of the battlefield but also fuelled conflicts in everyday life, leaving a lasting legacy of turmoil.
Crime in medieval Europe was exacerbated by the widespread availability of medieval weapons, which played a key role in escalating violence. The problem was not entirely unique and still echoes today. There were regular attempts across the whole of Christendom to ban the carrying of arms. Access to medieval weapons like swords and knives played a major role in escalating violent crime. The crusaders and their contemporaries did not have guns but, then as now, proximity to arms and familiarity with how to use them meant they were more likely to feature in instances of ‘civilian’ violence.
Weapons encouraged quarrels and an increase in other criminal activities. More importantly, they generated much higher fatality rates—greater access to medieval weapons, particularly amongst men, led to more serious and often fatal outcomes.
There is a debate amongst medieval criminologists as to how much of the population actually carried weapons. Women generally did not, and even amongst men, not all violent crimes involved bladed weapons. In thirteenth-century England, for instance, only a third of murders involved knives.
But there is also the obvious argument that the widespread, albeit not ubiquitous, nature of weapon-carrying contributed to the seriousness of fights—and particularly to the wounds inflicted during them. Medieval weapons clearly allowed fighting to escalate quickly and ensured that the severity of injuries inflicted escalated too.
Weapons and Consequences
The Latin East was, yet again, different—and much worse. Attempts might be made to reduce weapon-carrying in the West, but no one even tried to do so in the Crusader States.
Medieval cities, particularly in the Crusader States, were full of mercenaries and other soldiers, many of whom carried swords, knives, and other medieval weapons. Towns had large-scale militias for self-defence, and villages were full of armed peasantry who knew they might need to pick up their weapons to defend their communities. Perhaps unsurprisingly, metal knives have been found in many Frankish sites—not just at castles like Belvoir and Chastellet but also in rural locations such as the village at al-Kurum and a farmhouse at Har Hozevim.
The example of the crusader settlement at Magna Mahomeria is a telling one. The settlement itself was relatively small, certainly by modern standards. It was established as a Frankish colony at some point before 1124, by which time it was described as a small village (or ‘viculus’).
It is only because of their tragic destruction that we know the settlement contributed militarily at all. At the end of 1170, Saladin, the newly installed ruler of Egypt, led his armies across the southern frontiers and invaded the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. He besieged the crusader castle of Darum and quickly pinned down the Frankish army through sheer weight of numbers.
The Doomed Band of Youths
With no crusader field army to challenge him, Saladin abruptly turned his attention to the Templar castle at Gaza. His troops quickly broke through the walled town, surprising and killing many defenders. Amongst these men were “a company of sixty-five light-armed youths, valiant fighters, natives of a town called [Mahomeria], near Jerusalem. They had arrived that very night at Gaza on their way to join the army and . . . had been assigned to the gate of the outer city.”
These young men had joined the army too late for the initial muster, presumably because they were militia infantry and hence travelling on foot. The better-armed and more seasoned fighting men of Magna Mahomeria had apparently gone on before them and were with the king and the rest of the army. Shockingly, almost all males in the village, from teenagers to elderly men, were armed with medieval weapons and ready to defend their community at a moment’s notice.
Armed and Religious
Manpower in the Christian East was so limited that even clergy often took up medieval weapons to defend their communities. This was extremely unusual. Priests in Europe were strictly forbidden from carrying weapons or committing violence of any kind. In the Latin East, however, such restrictions were quickly identified as luxuries the heavily outnumbered settlers could not afford.
Priests were often the default leaders of the small and isolated Frankish rural communities scattered throughout the Holy Land. Inevitably, leading their flocks often involved practical intervention in the more violent aspects of the secular world. The laws drawn up at the Council of Nablus in 1120 specifically stated, in a matter-of-fact way which speaks volumes for practice on the ground, that if “a cleric bears arms in the cause of defence, he is not to be held culpable.” The clergy were involved in leading their parishioners into battle or, more likely, defending their settlements against criminals, bandits, or nomadic raiders.
Some senior religious leaders relished such martial opportunities. Frederick, Bishop of Acre and later Archbishop of Tyre, was disapprovingly described as someone who “possessed little education but was inordinately devoted to the art of war.” Similarly, Ralph, Bishop of Bethlehem, was an English cleric fully immersed in worldly matters. He carried the True Cross into action and was wounded in the course of campaigning in Egypt in the 1160s. One friend wrote of him, in an otherwise fulsome description, that the genial old bishop was perhaps in this regard “too worldly” (“nimis secularem”).
The Universality of Crusader Weapons
Amongst Frankish men, the ownership of medieval weapons was almost universal—and with good reason. However, it also had a profoundly negative impact on the prevalence and seriousness of crime in the Crusader states. Life might have been hard in medieval Europe—but it was even harder on the fractured and fluid frontiers of the Crusader colonies. This was a time of unremitting danger, hard decisions, and difficult compromises.
Above all, the most significant difference in criminality in the Latin East, certainly when compared to modern Western states, was not the existence of violence but rather its scale. Levels of violence tend to increase the further one goes back in time, but the Crusades represented a significant upsurge, sadly remarkable even by medieval standards.
Expectations and Disappointment
The prevalence of crime in an age of poverty was perhaps unsurprising. But perhaps we should leave the last word on the subject to King Louis IX, the French king who dominated much of the crusading movement in the thirteenth century.
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 told him just how disillusioned he had become with his subjects’ behaviour.
Joinville recorded the king’s sad thoughts, 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 opportunity to seize others’ property, either justly or unjustly.’”
Whether you were a commoner or a disillusioned king, you could only avoid disappointment by setting your expectations for criminal behaviour at the very lowest possible level.
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.
By Steve Tibble
The sword and shield of medieval Europe weren’t just tools of war—they were catalysts of chaos, reshaping societies and escalating crime rates. From Christendom to the Crusader States, weapons played a dual role: defence and destruction. Their prevalence not only shaped the violence of the battlefield but also fuelled conflicts in everyday life, leaving a lasting legacy of turmoil.
Crime in medieval Europe was exacerbated by the widespread availability of medieval weapons, which played a key role in escalating violence. The problem was not entirely unique and still echoes today. There were regular attempts across the whole of Christendom to ban the carrying of arms. Access to medieval weapons like swords and knives played a major role in escalating violent crime. The crusaders and their contemporaries did not have guns but, then as now, proximity to arms and familiarity with how to use them meant they were more likely to feature in instances of ‘civilian’ violence.
Weapons encouraged quarrels and an increase in other criminal activities. More importantly, they generated much higher fatality rates—greater access to medieval weapons, particularly amongst men, led to more serious and often fatal outcomes.
There is a debate amongst medieval criminologists as to how much of the population actually carried weapons. Women generally did not, and even amongst men, not all violent crimes involved bladed weapons. In thirteenth-century England, for instance, only a third of murders involved knives.
But there is also the obvious argument that the widespread, albeit not ubiquitous, nature of weapon-carrying contributed to the seriousness of fights—and particularly to the wounds inflicted during them. Medieval weapons clearly allowed fighting to escalate quickly and ensured that the severity of injuries inflicted escalated too.
Weapons and Consequences
The Latin East was, yet again, different—and much worse. Attempts might be made to reduce weapon-carrying in the West, but no one even tried to do so in the Crusader States.
Medieval cities, particularly in the Crusader States, were full of mercenaries and other soldiers, many of whom carried swords, knives, and other medieval weapons. Towns had large-scale militias for self-defence, and villages were full of armed peasantry who knew they might need to pick up their weapons to defend their communities. Perhaps unsurprisingly, metal knives have been found in many Frankish sites—not just at castles like Belvoir and Chastellet but also in rural locations such as the village at al-Kurum and a farmhouse at Har Hozevim.
The example of the crusader settlement at Magna Mahomeria is a telling one. The settlement itself was relatively small, certainly by modern standards. It was established as a Frankish colony at some point before 1124, by which time it was described as a small village (or ‘viculus’).
It is only because of their tragic destruction that we know the settlement contributed militarily at all. At the end of 1170, Saladin, the newly installed ruler of Egypt, led his armies across the southern frontiers and invaded the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. He besieged the crusader castle of Darum and quickly pinned down the Frankish army through sheer weight of numbers.
The Doomed Band of Youths
With no crusader field army to challenge him, Saladin abruptly turned his attention to the Templar castle at Gaza. His troops quickly broke through the walled town, surprising and killing many defenders. Amongst these men were “a company of sixty-five light-armed youths, valiant fighters, natives of a town called [Mahomeria], near Jerusalem. They had arrived that very night at Gaza on their way to join the army and . . . had been assigned to the gate of the outer city.”
These young men had joined the army too late for the initial muster, presumably because they were militia infantry and hence travelling on foot. The better-armed and more seasoned fighting men of Magna Mahomeria had apparently gone on before them and were with the king and the rest of the army. Shockingly, almost all males in the village, from teenagers to elderly men, were armed with medieval weapons and ready to defend their community at a moment’s notice.
Armed and Religious
Manpower in the Christian East was so limited that even clergy often took up medieval weapons to defend their communities. This was extremely unusual. Priests in Europe were strictly forbidden from carrying weapons or committing violence of any kind. In the Latin East, however, such restrictions were quickly identified as luxuries the heavily outnumbered settlers could not afford.
Priests were often the default leaders of the small and isolated Frankish rural communities scattered throughout the Holy Land. Inevitably, leading their flocks often involved practical intervention in the more violent aspects of the secular world. The laws drawn up at the Council of Nablus in 1120 specifically stated, in a matter-of-fact way which speaks volumes for practice on the ground, that if “a cleric bears arms in the cause of defence, he is not to be held culpable.” The clergy were involved in leading their parishioners into battle or, more likely, defending their settlements against criminals, bandits, or nomadic raiders.
Some senior religious leaders relished such martial opportunities. Frederick, Bishop of Acre and later Archbishop of Tyre, was disapprovingly described as someone who “possessed little education but was inordinately devoted to the art of war.” Similarly, Ralph, Bishop of Bethlehem, was an English cleric fully immersed in worldly matters. He carried the True Cross into action and was wounded in the course of campaigning in Egypt in the 1160s. One friend wrote of him, in an otherwise fulsome description, that the genial old bishop was perhaps in this regard “too worldly” (“nimis secularem”).
The Universality of Crusader Weapons
Amongst Frankish men, the ownership of medieval weapons was almost universal—and with good reason. However, it also had a profoundly negative impact on the prevalence and seriousness of crime in the Crusader states. Life might have been hard in medieval Europe—but it was even harder on the fractured and fluid frontiers of the Crusader colonies. This was a time of unremitting danger, hard decisions, and difficult compromises.
Above all, the most significant difference in criminality in the Latin East, certainly when compared to modern Western states, was not the existence of violence but rather its scale. Levels of violence tend to increase the further one goes back in time, but the Crusades represented a significant upsurge, sadly remarkable even by medieval standards.
Expectations and Disappointment
The prevalence of crime in an age of poverty was perhaps unsurprising. But perhaps we should leave the last word on the subject to King Louis IX, the French king who dominated much of the crusading movement in the thirteenth century.
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 told him just how disillusioned he had become with his subjects’ behaviour.
Joinville recorded the king’s sad thoughts, 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 opportunity to seize others’ property, either justly or unjustly.’”
Whether you were a commoner or a disillusioned king, you could only avoid disappointment by setting your expectations for criminal behaviour at the very lowest possible level.
Please visit the publisher’s website or buy this book
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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
Top Image: Wound Man from Wellcome Library Pseudo-Galen, Claudius, 131-201 (MS.290)
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