When one reflects that temperatures in the hundreds (F) are common in the East in the summer months, one can only marvel at the physical resilience that enabled men to campaign under these conditions. As Charles Ffoulkes commented: ‘It is one of the mysteries in the history of armour how the crusaders can have fought under the scorching sun of the East in thick quilted garments covered with excessively heavy chain mail, for this equipment was so cumbersome to take on and off that it must have been worn frequently night and day…’

It had other disadvantages. Because of the weight of the fabric padding, coupled with the even greater weight of the mail, it was hardly possible to take more than a wide swinging cut with the sword arm. Furthermore, as the arm rose so the mail collected in folds at the elbow. At the same time, the action of raising the arm inevitably dragged upward the section of mail between the armpit and the waist. What with its weight, its heat, and its restrictions on fighting movements, chain mail can only be said to have justified its use in a purely defensive capacity. But this was its whole purpose, and when a body of armoured men were defending a tower or castle against far greater numbers of assailants it proved itself by cutting down the number of wounded. It was, as it were, the very inner ring of the human castle within the stone castle walls. Where it failed was under conditions like those that preceded the disaster at the Horns of Hattin. The loosely dressed Saracen horsemen with their mobility and their mounted bowmen had a marked advantage over the steel ring of Christians.

The principal weapon was still the sword although the spear, lance, axe and mace were all used in hand-to-hand combat. The typical Frankish sword as borne by the knights was a descendant of the Viking sword which had conquered England, and large areas of Europe as far south as Southern Italy and Sicily. It had a larger crossguard than its ancestors, but in other respects it differed very little. About three feet long, it was primarily designed for slashing and cutting and, although pointed, was of little use for the thrust For this reason it was a relatively inefficient weapon for a mounted man and the knights fought best with it when they had dismounted and formed a protective circle, or engaged in a general mêlée. Under its own impetus, coupled with the weight of the man behind it, its cutting power was such that it could cleave clean through helmet and skull right down to the shoulders. Exhumed graves have revealed men who had been sliced open from shoulder to thigh bone, or who had lost whole arms, or even in one case both legs from a scything blow aimed at the knees. Despite its weakness as a horseman’s weapon, the long cutting sword continued in use until at a later date the advent of plate armour rendered it ineffective. Once an opponent was almost totally protected by angled, rounded, or fluted metal surfaces the only sword that could be of any real use was one designed for the thrust—to slide up and over a metalled expanse and find the weak point between one metalled area and another. These swords are hardly found until the fifteenth century—long after the drama of the Latin, Kingdom of the East had come to an end.

Other weapons used by both knights and foot soldiers during these decades included those usually known as pole-arms or staff weapons. Some of these were descended from agricultural implements such as the billhook or scythe, and others from the spear used since the dawn of history for both warfare and hunting. Among them are to be found long spiked clubs, the pole-axe, the halberd (a long-handled axe with two spikes, one at the top and one at the rear), and the ‘bill’ with a cutting edge that ended in a hook. The mace, sometimes called the ‘morning star’ after the German word for it, had a heavy round head studded with spikes and was more of a knight’s weapon than a soldier’s. Another principal weapon was of course the bow, long used in the East and partly contributory to Saladin’s successes against the Latins. The knights themselves employed native and European bowmen, but it was not until the fifteenth century that the English long-bowman would finally proclaim the end of the armoured mounted man.

The Latin kingdom suffered a year of disaster in 1187. After his great victory at Hattin Saladin swept on to capture all the important ports south of Tripoli with the sole exception of Tyre. By October Jerusalem itself was in his hands. The Third Crusade which followed, and in which Richard Cœur de Lion played so prominent a part, failed in its main objective, the recapture of the Holy City. It did, however, serve to prevent the complete expulsion of the Latins, which was always Saladin’s objective; and the coast from Jaffa to Tyre was secured. Similarly, the city of Antioch and its surrounding country along with Tripoli remained in their hands, as well as the great Hospitaller fortresses of Margat and Krak des Chevaliers. The death of Saladin in 1193 saved the fortunes of the Latins. Once his commanding personality and dedicated belief in Islam were removed from the scene the Moslems fell into the same disunity that had prevailed among them in previous decades.

What finally emerges from this turbulent period in the history of Outremer is the power and prosperity of the two great crusading Orders, the Templars and the Hospitallers.