Muslims and Crusaders by Christie Niall;

Author:Christie, Niall;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

The Frankish influence?

To what degree were Muslim military tactics and technology influenced by the presence of the Franks? We have already touched on debates among scholars about the extent to which crusader military technology outstripped that of the Muslims, thus enabling the success of the First Crusade and the survival of the Frankish states for almost two centuries. Lynn White in particular described the crusades as ‘implemented by the world’s best military technology’, and scholars seeking to understand the eventual demise of the Frankish states generally explained it as having been a result of the Muslims outnumbering the Franks rather than superior Muslim strategy or other causes (White, 1975: 97–112, esp. 111; France, 1997: 163; Hillenbrand, 1999a: 578–79). However, more recently, a number of scholars have argued for other factors playing a prominent part, in particular a lack of desire and capacity on the part of the Muslims to resist or extirpate the Franks; Carole Hillenbrand has noted that the Mamluks, who eventually swept the Franks from the coast (see Chapter 9), were distinctive in having ‘the expertise, resources and will to conduct […] a series of sieges and to uproot the Franks definitively’ (Hillenbrand, 1999a: 580). In the meantime, other scholars, including John France and David Nicolle, have shown that the Muslim forces were not actually inferior in terms of their technology and structure, as has previously been assumed. As Nicolle has noted, the small but significant contingents of heavy cavalry that were used in Muslim armies during the period were actually, at least until the end of the 12th century, more heavily armoured than the western knights, wearing both lamellar and mail armour and also using horse-armour; the latter in particular was only adopted by European cavalry in the 13th century. Likewise, the flow of influence with regard to gunpowder and incendiary weapons at the time was probably from east to west, with Muslim ideas influencing Frankish and European ones. Meanwhile, as we have seen, there was probably also a mutual exchange of ideas in military engineering as better ways of resisting and prosecuting sieges developed (France, 1997: 163–76; Nicolle, 2007: Vol. 2: 293; Nicolle, 1994: 31–32, 45). However, as Fulton has noted, this exchange was not simply two sided, but rather consisted of influences adopted by each architect from multiple building traditions (Franks, various Muslim states, Armenians, Byzantines, and others), even as any given construction project would also be conditioned by the immediate environment and available materials and expertise, the political situation in the region, and local cultures and societies (Fulton, forthcoming).

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