Following Orders

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Today in Medieval History:

August 31 – Sancho III of Castile (1134 – 31 August 1158) was King of Castile and Toledo for one year, from 1157 to 1158. During the Reconquista, in which he took an active part, he founded the Order of Calatrava.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Calatrava

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Today in Medieval History:

September 2, 1192 - Sultan Saladin & King Richard the Lionheart sign cease fire

See more:   

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1192peace.html

[SleepyArcher]

Sir Matthew in his new garb for this weekend.

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Huzzah Sir Matthew! Well done indeed, his very image strikes fear into the hearts of Saracens and Pagans alike!   

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

This date in Medieval History:

3 September-

In 1189 –Richard "the Lionheart" is crowned at Westminster.



Learn more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England


In 1260 – The Mamluks defeat the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine, marking their first decisive defeat and the point of maximum expansion of the Mongol Empire.



Learn more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut

[Lord Magnus]

Formal request for help. I have searched over 10 different articles, conversations, and thesis papers on Turcopoles. While I have found a lot of important info. ( ie what they were and werent subject to with the Order) I cant find out if what they wore. I know they used local armor to their area. I know they did carry a round crusader shield ( usually with the red cross on it). I found one article that a Turcopolier or Sgt. over the Turcopoles MAY have been allowed to wear the black robes with red cross, but beyond that Ive struck out. Ive even found info about clerics in the order wearing Green robes with black crosses..  But nothing else... HELP>>

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

See PM in FACEBOOK on this.  


Pg 178 of the Rule of the Templars- in the section titled: LA REGLE DU TEMPLE as a Military manual makes a statement regarding Sergeants of the Order being required to have mail hose without feet, so that they could fight on foot as Infantry, and mentions that the Turcopoles would have been recruited locally.

This would mean you'd have to seek the local fashions of the times, but they would center on Infantry and light cavalry, and not be confused with Saracen Faris. Turcopoles would probably not have worn any standard surcoat, but would have rallied around a banner on the field, with the Turcopolier being the representative of the Order within its formation.

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

For readers unfamiliar with this particpant of the Crusades, and a key member to the primary Military Orders' force structure, we invite you to meet the Turcopole:



The Marshal of the Order was the Templar in charge of war and anything that was related to it. In this sense the Marshal could be viewed as the second most important member of the Order after the Grand Master. His personal retinue was comprised of two squires, one turcoman, one turcopole and one sergeant. He also had four horses at his command. Turcoman one can guess (linguist/translator), but, who was the turcopole?


During the Crusades, turcopoles', turcoples, or turcopoliers (Greek: "sons of Turks") were mounted archers and occasionally infantry.

The crusaders first came across Turcopoles in the Byzantine army during the First Crusade. They were children of mixed Greek and Turkish parentage, and were at least nominally Christian although they may have been practicing Muslims. Some Turcopole units accompanied the First Crusade and then seem to have formed the first Turcopole units in the crusader states.

In the crusader states they were not necessarily Turks or mixed-race soldiers, but many probably were recruited from Christianized Seljuqs, or perhaps from the Eastern Orthodox Christians under crusader rule. In the Holy Land, Turcopoles were more lightly-armored than knights and were armed with lances and bows to help combat the more mobile Muslim forces. They served as light cavalry: skirmishers, scouts, and mounted archers, and sometimes rode as a second line in a charge, to back up the knights and sergeants. They had lighter, faster horses than the knights or sergeants, and they wore much lighter armor, usually only a quilted aketon and a conical steel helmet. There were Turcopoles in the secular armies but they were also often found in the ranks of the military orders, where they were more likely to be mounted Frankish sergeants. In the military orders, however, they were of a lower status than the sergeants, and were subject to various restrictions, including eating at a separate table from the mounted soldiers.

Some sources found the Turcopoles could have made up as much as 50% of the mounted forces in the Frankish army.  Turcopoles were an important aspect of the Frankish army.

The Mamluks considered Turcopoles to be traitors and apostates: their policy was to kill all those whom they captured. The Turcopoles who survived the Fall of Acre followed the military orders out of the Holy Land and were established on Cyprus with the Knights Templar and Rhodes and Malta with the Knights Hospitaller. The Teutonic Order also called its own native light cavalry the "Turcopolen".

Source: BYU history project

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

This date in Medieval Crusading History:

4-5 September-

In 1187 –Ascalon surrenders to Saladin after stiff resistance.

By mid-September, Saladin had taken Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. The survivors of the battle and other refugees fled to Tyre, the only city able to hold out against Saladin, due to the fortuitous arrival of Conrad of Montferrat.

More on the city:

During the period of the Crusades, Ashkelon (which was known to the Crusaders as Ascalon) was an important city due to its location near the coast and between the Crusader States and Egypt. In 1099, shortly after the Siege of Jerusalem (1099), an Egyptian Fatimid army which had been sent to relieve Jerusalem was defeated by a Crusader force at the Battle of Ascalon. The city itself was not captured by the Crusaders because of internal disputes amongst their leaders. This battle is widely considered to have signified the end of the First Crusade. Until 1153, the Fatimids were able to launch raids into the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Ashkelon which meant that the southern border of the Crusader States was constantly unstable. In response to these incursions into Outremer, King Fulk of Jerusalem constructed a number of Christian settlements around the city during the 1130s, in order to neutralise the threat of the Muslim garrison. In 1148, during the Second Crusade, the city was unsuccessfully besieged for eight days by a small Crusader army which was not fully supported by the Crusader States. In 1150, the Fatimids fortified the city with fifty-three towers, as it was their most important frontier fortress. Three years later, after a five-month siege, the city was captured by a Crusader army led by King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. It was then added to the County of Jaffa to form the County of Jaffa and Ascalon which became one of the four major seigneuries of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

In 1187 Saladin took Ashkelon as part of his conquest of the Crusader States following the Battle of Hattin. In 1191, during the Third Crusade, Saladin demolished the city because of its potential strategic importance to the Christians, but the leader of the Crusade, King Richard I of England, constructed a citadel upon the ruins. Ashkelon subsequently remained part of the diminished territories of Outremer throughout most of the 13th century and Richard, Earl of Cornwall reconstructed and refortified the citadel during 1240–41, as part of the Crusader policy of improving the defences of coastal sites. The Egyptians regained Ashkelon in 1247 during As-Salih Ayyub's conflict with the Crusader States and the city was returned to Muslim rule. The Mamluk dynasty came into power in Egypt in 1250 and the ancient and medieval history of Ashkelon was brought to an end in 1270, when the Mamluk sultan Baybars ordered the citadel and harbour at the site to be destroyed. As a result of this destruction, the site was abandoned by its inhabitants and fell into disuse.

According to Shiite tradition, the head of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Mohammad, was buried in Ashkelon. In the late 11th century it was moved to a new shrine named Mashad Nabi Hussein (or Sabni Hussein) built for the purpose. In 1153, at the time of the Crusaders' conquest of Ashkelon, the head was moved to Fustat (Egypt). The shrine remained and was described as the most magnificent building in Ashkelon. In July 1950, it was totally destroyed at the instructions of Moshe Dayan.

[SleepyArcher]

[Sir William Marcus]

AWESOME!!

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Oh Knight of Jerusalem....defender of the Holy Sepuchre......were you the only one in said glorious attire? Was fellow Confrere Dead Bishop there as well?

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

This date in Medieval Crusading History:

7  September-

In 1191 –The Battle of Arsuf, a battle of the Third Crusade in which Richard I of England defeated Saladin.



See more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arsuf

[SleepyArcher]

Oh Knight of Jerusalem....defender of the Holy Sepuchre......were you the only one in said glorious attire? Was fellow Confrere Dead Bishop there as well?

He was but not in attire...as he had to work.

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

He was but not in attire...as he had to work.

If he was scared, he should have said he was scared......lol! (jk DB)