It is a truth widely acknowledged that medieval rulers tended to avoid fighting big battles. Forget the classic Hollywood depictions of massed clashes between mighty armies; they hardly ever happened. Or at least, that is what we are told.
Rulers—even very aggressive commanders—had powerful reasons to avoid the battlefield, with many choosing instead to conduct warfare by other means, such as raiding and sieges. Substantial losses in a major battle could involve the death or captivity of many key nobles and knights, which could deprive a kingdom of its leading administrators and prompt a cascade of aristocratic dynastic crises. It also took a long time to raise and train a knight, so if large numbers fell in battle, the ruler might have to wait for the next generation before finding replacements. Meanwhile, the loss of huge quantities of expensive armour and equipment could also pose difficulties. A major defeat could lead to substantial territorial losses—a risk few rulers were willing to take. There are historians who seek to nuance this view, yet in many contexts, we are told that Western Christian rulers tended to avoid encounters of this sort wherever possible. The question we are asking here, however, is—was this also the case in the Crusader States?
In some respects, the Crusader States provide the clearest example imaginable of the disastrous consequences of a major battlefield defeat. The Kingdom of Jerusalem’s catastrophic encounter with Saladin at the Battle of Hattin in July 1187 caused the kingdom to collapse almost entirely, leaving the northern Crusader States of Tripoli and Antioch vulnerable to major incursions shortly afterward. It took a massive crusade (the Third Crusade) to provide some stability to the crumbling Frankish (Western European) position in the Eastern Mediterranean, and even then, this campaign recaptured only a fraction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s former territory. What better example could highlight the severity of encountering a major defeat?
So it’s strange, then, that the rulers of the Crusader States fought so many battles—far more than their counterparts in Western Christendom. According to my calculations, the Crusader States fought thirty-nine pitched battles between the conquest of Jerusalem (1099) and the Battle of Hattin (1187), a period of 88 years. The definition I use to distinguish a battle from other military operations is as follows: an encounter resulting in the defeat or retreat of at least 3,000 soldiers (or 350 Frankish knights), where the parties are not separated by a permanent fortification (i.e., a siege) and the event is recorded in sources from at least two cultural traditions. The reason for adding in the clause about 350 Frankish knights reflects the fact that some of the Crusader States’ armies are described in the sources by knights alone when they nearly always included a large additional contingent of infantry and light cavalry.
At first glance, the high number of battles fought by the Crusader States seems counterintuitive. As the Battle of Hattin shows, the consequences of defeat for the Crusader States were often higher than for their contemporaries in Western Christendom. There are several further disincentives for fighting battles to be added to this equation. Perhaps most importantly, if Frankish commanders encountered a major reverse, they had nowhere to go; the Crusader States were too small for them to retreat and regroup easily. They could raise large armies on a slender population, but it also made replenishing substantial casualties difficult. Moreover, their opponents were generally fast-moving Turkish light cavalry archers, superbly equipped to exploit any major victory by hunting down Frankish survivors—often fleeing on foot—and then fanning out to loot, raid, or conquer extensively thereafter.
A compounding factor for the Franks of the Crusader States was the knowledge that victory offered them very little. If they defeated their Turkish opponents in battle, they could expect to achieve very limited gains. Turkish light cavalry could simply scatter if the conflict turned against them, regrouping soon afterward and forming a second line of defence. Victorious Frankish commanders might hope to take a village or two, or perhaps a castle or small town, but little more.
So there is a seeming contradiction here. The Franks had plenty of reasons to avoid fighting battles, but they did so all the time; how are we supposed to explain this?
Defensive Operations and Frankish Constraints
Battle of the Field of Blood depicted in a 14th-century manuscript – Roman de Godefroy de Bouillon – BNF Fr22495
A key factor here is that most of these battles took place on Frankish territory. Very occasionally, the Franks fought battles during offensive operations, but these were rare. On many occasions, Frankish armies besieging opposing towns and cities chose to withdraw rather than meet a relief army in battle; they understood how severe the consequences could be if they suffered a defeat far from their own strongholds. For example, precisely this scenario occurred in the early months of 1125 when a large allied force comprising Frankish, Turkish, and Arab contingents lifted their siege on the Syrian city of Aleppo rather than risk a battle against the inbound ruler of Mosul.
In most cases (including Hattin), the Franks fought their battles on the defensive. Examples here are numerous, but to take a few: in 1115, Bursuq of Hamadhan crossed into the Principality of Antioch where he besieged several fortresses and then suffered a defeat from a sudden Antiochene cavalry attack. In 1119, the Turkish ruler Ilghazi invaded the Principality of Antioch where he first attacked a couple of strongholds before winning a major battle, commonly referred to as the “Field of Blood.” In 1163, Nur al-Din, ruler of Aleppo and Damascus, invaded the County of Tripoli and suffered a defeat near the Frankish fortress of Krak des Chevaliers. In 1164, Nur al-Din attacked Antioch, besieged the stronghold of Harim, and then defeated the Frankish field army by means of a feigned retreat. In 1177, Saladin attacked the southern marches of the Kingdom of Jerusalem but met with defeat at the Battle of Montgisard. Many more examples could be provided and, roughly speaking, the Franks tended to win about as many battles as they lost, at least when fighting against Turkish opponents along their Syrian frontiers.
As these examples indicate, in many cases, the Franks fought battles whether they wanted to or not. If any one of the Crusader States suffered invasion, it could not simply avoid battle or wait for its opponent to withdraw; it lacked the territorial depth to do this. On some occasions, Frankish armies attempted to employ shadowing tactics, which involved mirroring an opposing army’s movements along the border while seeking to avoid battle, but this approach was difficult to implement. In many cases, if an invading army wished to fight a battle and could not be either blocked or discouraged by a Frankish army operating in close proximity to its own fortresses, then the Franks had little alternative but to line themselves up for a major clash.
Opponents’ Enthusiasm for Battle
Map by Amitchell125 / Wikimedia Commons
This consideration shifts the onus of the question away from the Franks and toward their opponents. Why were they so keen to fight major battles? The Crusader States faced two main groups of opponents during the years 1099–1187: the Fatimid Empire in Egypt and the various ruling Turkish and Kurdish dynasties in Anatolia and Northern Syria, both of whom manifested a much stronger enthusiasm for fighting battles, albeit for different reasons.
So far, we have discussed the Franks’ wars against various Turkish (or in the case of Saladin, Kurdish) rulers, but the Fatimid Empire posed a major threat to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, especially in its early years. Between 1099 and 1123, the Fatimids sent army after army against the Kingdom of Jerusalem, challenging the Franks to battle but suffering defeat on almost every occasion. On this front, at least, the Franks were almost entirely successful. Several factors explain the Fatimids’ appetite for battle, and in the years immediately following the First Crusade, their aggressive posture can likely be explained by the initial small size and weakness of the early Crusader States. After the First Crusade, the majority of the crusaders returned home, leaving very few troops to defend their conquests. In these years, it must have seemed very easy to swat the Crusader States aside. That the Kingdom of Jerusalem defeated these invasions was not foreseeable, and their victories were very much against the odds.
Another factor favouring the Fatimids in Egypt was the knowledge that they could attack the Kingdom of Jerusalem with relative impunity because the Franks lacked the numbers or the strength to stage a counterattack into Egypt; in short, even if the Fatimids were defeated in battle, they had little reason to fear substantial repercussions from the Franks.
For the Turkish dynasties of Syria and Anatolia, the situation was rather different, and their appetite for battle can be explained with reference to other factors. As mentioned above, the consequences of defeat for their mounted armies were far more moderate than for their Frankish opponents, while victory offered the prospect of substantial gains.
Another factor, however, might have played its part. This is the nature of Turkish inheritance customs. When a Turkish ruler died, there was no ingrained tradition for a single heir to take power in his place. Frequently, the death of a ruler presaged a period of intensive infighting between leading family members and lieutenants, each trying to advance their claim or carve out their own principality. These claimants needed to act quickly and aggressively to secure power, often necessitating battles to gain control over an emirate or empire. Even if they managed to take power, they often had to fight off other challengers and, again, they needed to do this quickly to prevent any potential usurper gaining momentum. This was also true of Saladin’s Ayyubid dynasty (named after his father Ayyub), which faced prolonged infighting after Saladin’s death in 1193.
Given this milieu, I suspect that there was a far stronger culture for fighting big decisive battles among these leading Turkish dynasties, which would then have dovetailed well with the other factors mentioned above, all encouraging them to seek major encounters with their Frankish neighbours.
So for all these reasons, the Franks fought many battles in the Middle East, even if it wasn’t in their interests to do so. This, in turn, underlines the plain fact that the region’s military milieu was very different from Western Europe, being shaped by a very specific mix of pressures and forces. A key consideration shaping the Turkish approach to warfare was their nomadic background. This is why they primarily fought on horseback and prioritised archery as their main weapon; these were traditional skills traced back to their ancestors on the Central Asian steppe.
By Nicholas Morton
It is a truth widely acknowledged that medieval rulers tended to avoid fighting big battles. Forget the classic Hollywood depictions of massed clashes between mighty armies; they hardly ever happened. Or at least, that is what we are told.
Rulers—even very aggressive commanders—had powerful reasons to avoid the battlefield, with many choosing instead to conduct warfare by other means, such as raiding and sieges. Substantial losses in a major battle could involve the death or captivity of many key nobles and knights, which could deprive a kingdom of its leading administrators and prompt a cascade of aristocratic dynastic crises. It also took a long time to raise and train a knight, so if large numbers fell in battle, the ruler might have to wait for the next generation before finding replacements. Meanwhile, the loss of huge quantities of expensive armour and equipment could also pose difficulties. A major defeat could lead to substantial territorial losses—a risk few rulers were willing to take. There are historians who seek to nuance this view, yet in many contexts, we are told that Western Christian rulers tended to avoid encounters of this sort wherever possible. The question we are asking here, however, is—was this also the case in the Crusader States?
In some respects, the Crusader States provide the clearest example imaginable of the disastrous consequences of a major battlefield defeat. The Kingdom of Jerusalem’s catastrophic encounter with Saladin at the Battle of Hattin in July 1187 caused the kingdom to collapse almost entirely, leaving the northern Crusader States of Tripoli and Antioch vulnerable to major incursions shortly afterward. It took a massive crusade (the Third Crusade) to provide some stability to the crumbling Frankish (Western European) position in the Eastern Mediterranean, and even then, this campaign recaptured only a fraction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s former territory. What better example could highlight the severity of encountering a major defeat?
So it’s strange, then, that the rulers of the Crusader States fought so many battles—far more than their counterparts in Western Christendom. According to my calculations, the Crusader States fought thirty-nine pitched battles between the conquest of Jerusalem (1099) and the Battle of Hattin (1187), a period of 88 years. The definition I use to distinguish a battle from other military operations is as follows: an encounter resulting in the defeat or retreat of at least 3,000 soldiers (or 350 Frankish knights), where the parties are not separated by a permanent fortification (i.e., a siege) and the event is recorded in sources from at least two cultural traditions. The reason for adding in the clause about 350 Frankish knights reflects the fact that some of the Crusader States’ armies are described in the sources by knights alone when they nearly always included a large additional contingent of infantry and light cavalry.
At first glance, the high number of battles fought by the Crusader States seems counterintuitive. As the Battle of Hattin shows, the consequences of defeat for the Crusader States were often higher than for their contemporaries in Western Christendom. There are several further disincentives for fighting battles to be added to this equation. Perhaps most importantly, if Frankish commanders encountered a major reverse, they had nowhere to go; the Crusader States were too small for them to retreat and regroup easily. They could raise large armies on a slender population, but it also made replenishing substantial casualties difficult. Moreover, their opponents were generally fast-moving Turkish light cavalry archers, superbly equipped to exploit any major victory by hunting down Frankish survivors—often fleeing on foot—and then fanning out to loot, raid, or conquer extensively thereafter.
A compounding factor for the Franks of the Crusader States was the knowledge that victory offered them very little. If they defeated their Turkish opponents in battle, they could expect to achieve very limited gains. Turkish light cavalry could simply scatter if the conflict turned against them, regrouping soon afterward and forming a second line of defence. Victorious Frankish commanders might hope to take a village or two, or perhaps a castle or small town, but little more.
So there is a seeming contradiction here. The Franks had plenty of reasons to avoid fighting battles, but they did so all the time; how are we supposed to explain this?
Defensive Operations and Frankish Constraints
A key factor here is that most of these battles took place on Frankish territory. Very occasionally, the Franks fought battles during offensive operations, but these were rare. On many occasions, Frankish armies besieging opposing towns and cities chose to withdraw rather than meet a relief army in battle; they understood how severe the consequences could be if they suffered a defeat far from their own strongholds. For example, precisely this scenario occurred in the early months of 1125 when a large allied force comprising Frankish, Turkish, and Arab contingents lifted their siege on the Syrian city of Aleppo rather than risk a battle against the inbound ruler of Mosul.
In most cases (including Hattin), the Franks fought their battles on the defensive. Examples here are numerous, but to take a few: in 1115, Bursuq of Hamadhan crossed into the Principality of Antioch where he besieged several fortresses and then suffered a defeat from a sudden Antiochene cavalry attack. In 1119, the Turkish ruler Ilghazi invaded the Principality of Antioch where he first attacked a couple of strongholds before winning a major battle, commonly referred to as the “Field of Blood.” In 1163, Nur al-Din, ruler of Aleppo and Damascus, invaded the County of Tripoli and suffered a defeat near the Frankish fortress of Krak des Chevaliers. In 1164, Nur al-Din attacked Antioch, besieged the stronghold of Harim, and then defeated the Frankish field army by means of a feigned retreat. In 1177, Saladin attacked the southern marches of the Kingdom of Jerusalem but met with defeat at the Battle of Montgisard. Many more examples could be provided and, roughly speaking, the Franks tended to win about as many battles as they lost, at least when fighting against Turkish opponents along their Syrian frontiers.
As these examples indicate, in many cases, the Franks fought battles whether they wanted to or not. If any one of the Crusader States suffered invasion, it could not simply avoid battle or wait for its opponent to withdraw; it lacked the territorial depth to do this. On some occasions, Frankish armies attempted to employ shadowing tactics, which involved mirroring an opposing army’s movements along the border while seeking to avoid battle, but this approach was difficult to implement. In many cases, if an invading army wished to fight a battle and could not be either blocked or discouraged by a Frankish army operating in close proximity to its own fortresses, then the Franks had little alternative but to line themselves up for a major clash.
Opponents’ Enthusiasm for Battle
This consideration shifts the onus of the question away from the Franks and toward their opponents. Why were they so keen to fight major battles? The Crusader States faced two main groups of opponents during the years 1099–1187: the Fatimid Empire in Egypt and the various ruling Turkish and Kurdish dynasties in Anatolia and Northern Syria, both of whom manifested a much stronger enthusiasm for fighting battles, albeit for different reasons.
So far, we have discussed the Franks’ wars against various Turkish (or in the case of Saladin, Kurdish) rulers, but the Fatimid Empire posed a major threat to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, especially in its early years. Between 1099 and 1123, the Fatimids sent army after army against the Kingdom of Jerusalem, challenging the Franks to battle but suffering defeat on almost every occasion. On this front, at least, the Franks were almost entirely successful. Several factors explain the Fatimids’ appetite for battle, and in the years immediately following the First Crusade, their aggressive posture can likely be explained by the initial small size and weakness of the early Crusader States. After the First Crusade, the majority of the crusaders returned home, leaving very few troops to defend their conquests. In these years, it must have seemed very easy to swat the Crusader States aside. That the Kingdom of Jerusalem defeated these invasions was not foreseeable, and their victories were very much against the odds.
Another factor favouring the Fatimids in Egypt was the knowledge that they could attack the Kingdom of Jerusalem with relative impunity because the Franks lacked the numbers or the strength to stage a counterattack into Egypt; in short, even if the Fatimids were defeated in battle, they had little reason to fear substantial repercussions from the Franks.
For the Turkish dynasties of Syria and Anatolia, the situation was rather different, and their appetite for battle can be explained with reference to other factors. As mentioned above, the consequences of defeat for their mounted armies were far more moderate than for their Frankish opponents, while victory offered the prospect of substantial gains.
Another factor, however, might have played its part. This is the nature of Turkish inheritance customs. When a Turkish ruler died, there was no ingrained tradition for a single heir to take power in his place. Frequently, the death of a ruler presaged a period of intensive infighting between leading family members and lieutenants, each trying to advance their claim or carve out their own principality. These claimants needed to act quickly and aggressively to secure power, often necessitating battles to gain control over an emirate or empire. Even if they managed to take power, they often had to fight off other challengers and, again, they needed to do this quickly to prevent any potential usurper gaining momentum. This was also true of Saladin’s Ayyubid dynasty (named after his father Ayyub), which faced prolonged infighting after Saladin’s death in 1193.
Given this milieu, I suspect that there was a far stronger culture for fighting big decisive battles among these leading Turkish dynasties, which would then have dovetailed well with the other factors mentioned above, all encouraging them to seek major encounters with their Frankish neighbours.
So for all these reasons, the Franks fought many battles in the Middle East, even if it wasn’t in their interests to do so. This, in turn, underlines the plain fact that the region’s military milieu was very different from Western Europe, being shaped by a very specific mix of pressures and forces. A key consideration shaping the Turkish approach to warfare was their nomadic background. This is why they primarily fought on horseback and prioritised archery as their main weapon; these were traditional skills traced back to their ancestors on the Central Asian steppe.
Nicholas Morton is an Associate Professor of History at Nottingham Trent University. He is the author or editor of several books covering different aspects of Medieval Near Eastern history, including The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East.
Click here to read more from Nicholas Morton
Nicholas’ online course, The Crusades 1095-1187: A multi-perspective history, begins January 23, 2025. Click here to sign up
Top Image: British Library MS Add 15269 fol. 124v
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