MWVOL VII, ISSUE 4

THEME - DID THE CRUSADERS GET TATTOOS? // SIEGE OF KERAK // MEDIEVAL GEOPOLITICS FEATURES - BATTLE OF SANDWICH, 1217 // TEUTONIC KNIGHTS AND PTSD // DAMASCUS STEEL

THE BATTLE OF

HATTINFighting for the Holy Land

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IN THIS ISSUE: Saladin’s victories and defeats in the Near East (1137-1193)

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Publisher: Rolof van Hövell tot WesterflierManaging director: Jasper OorthuysEditor: Peter KoniecznyProofreader: Naomi MuntsDesign & Media: Christy BeallDesign © 2016 Karwansaray Publishers

Contributors: Erich B. Anderson, Ruth Brown, Murray Dahm, Patrick Eickman, John France, Mi-chael S. Fulton, Robert C.L. Holmes, John Hosler, Steven Isaac, Andrew Latham, William J. Purkis, Kay Smith, Rosie Weetch, WIlliam E. Welsh

Illustrators: Nikos Chantzis, Rocío Espin, Car-los Garcia, Zvonimir Grbasic, Julia Lillo, Angel García Pinto, Marek Szyszko

Print: Grafi Advies

Editorial o�cePO Box 4082, 7200 BB Zutphen, The NetherlandsPhone: +31-575-776076 (NL), +44-20-8816281 (Europe), +1-740-994-0091 (US)E-mail: editor@medieval-warfare.comCustomer service: service@karwansaraypublishers.comWebsite: www.medieval-warfare.com

Contributions in the form of articles, letters, re-views, news and queries are welcomed. Please send to the above address or use the contact form on www.medieval-warfare.com.

SubscriptionsSubscriptions can be purchased at www.kp-shop.com, via phone or by email. For the address, see above.

DistributionMedieval Warfare is sold through retailers, the inter-net and by subscription.

The exclusive distributor for the UK and the Repub-lic of Ireland is Comag Specialist Magazines, Unit 3, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, UB7 7QE, United King-dom. Phone: +44 01895 433600.

Copyright Karwansaray B.V. All rights reserved. Noth-ing in this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent of the publishers. Any individual providing material for publication must en-sure that the correct permissions have been obtained before submission to us. Every e§ort has been made to trace copyright holders, but in few cases this proves impossible. The editor and publishers apologize for any unwitting cases of copyright transgressions and would like to hear from any copyright holders not acknowledged. Articles and the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the editor and/or publishers. Advertising in Medieval War-fare does not necessarily imply endorsement.

Medieval Warfare is published every two months by Karwansaray B.V., Rotterdam, The Netherlands. PO Box 1110, 3000 BC Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

ISSN: 2211-5129

Printed in the European Union.

Did crusaders get tattoos?The sign of the cross on his forehead

Saladin's apprenticeshipThe rise of the Ayyubids

Was it just crusade and jihad?The geopolitics of the medieval Middle East

The Siege of Kerak Victory before the fall

Family, finance and faithAyyubid military organization under Saladin

The Battle of Hattin"GIve the lie to the devil"

Saladin's post-Hattin malaiseThe consequences of poor strategy

Of swords, steel, and Saladin"Millions of meandering lines"

The crusader castle of MontrealThe wedge between Egypt and Syria

Bearers of The CrossThe museum of the Order of St John

The Battle of Sandwich A pirate-monk in the English Channel

Teutonic Knights and PTSDMiracles, visions, and St Barbara's head

MarginaliaOpinions and medieval news

The Battle of Hattin on filmAn invisible clash

On the cover Raynald's execution

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THEME: THE BATTLE OF HATTINFought on July 4, 1187, Saladin’s victory over King Guy of Lusignan paved the way for the reconquest of Jerusalem.Fought on July 4, 1187, Saladin’s victory over King Guy of Lusignan Fought on July 4, 1187, Saladin’s victory over King Guy of Lusignan paved the way for the reconquest of Jerusalem.

TATTOOS?William Purkis uncovers the tradition of body-marking during the Crusades.

SANDWICH, 1217We look back on the 800th anniversary of a naval battle on the English Channel.

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Dotted across the landscape of Britain and Ireland, hillforts have been part of our story for millennia, and for the first time a new online atlas captures all of their locations and key details in one place. A research team based at the uni-versities of Oxford, Edinburgh, and Uni-versity College Cork has been helped by citizen scientists from across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Ireland. After five years of recording in-formation they have discovered there are 4,147 hillforts in total, and have col-lated details for every one on a website that will be accessible to the public – and completely free. The survey covers England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and the Isle of Man, with Scot-land claiming 1694 hillforts – nearly half of all the hillforts identified. A staggering 408 hillforts are located in the Scottish Borders alone. England follows shortly behind Scot-land with 1224 hillforts, of which 271 are in Northumberland alone. Professor Ian Ralston from the Uni-versity of Edinburgh, who co-led the project, said: “Standing on a windswept

We are very happy to be bringing you an issue that many of our readers have been longing for, examining one of the most important battles of the crusader era. The Battle of Hattin, which took place on July 4, 1187, is seen as one of the epic clashes in the Holy Land, and the beginning of the end for Western Europe’s attempt to take control of Jerusalem and the Near East. To tell the story of Saladin, Guy of Lusignan, and Raynald of Châtillon, we have brought together a pretty good cast of writers to educate us about the people, places, and politics. Covering the battle itself is John France, who is very widely

respected for his research on military history, in particular with the crusades. I’ve heard John give talks at conferences on several occasions, and I can hear his voice and tone in the article he wrote for this issue – clear, insightful, and with the cadence of a great storyteller. I should also note that John sent me this article just one day after we con-firmed what the topic would be – this must be an editor’s dream!

Peter KoniecznyEditor, Medieval Warfare

hillfort with dramatic views across the countryside, you really feel like you’re fully immersed in history. This research project is all about sharing the stories of the thousands of hillforts across Britain and Ireland in one place that is acces-sible to the public and researchers.” This unique resource will provide free access to information about world-famous sites as well as many previously little-known hillforts, helping ramblers, cyclists, naturalists, and history enthusi-asts discover them and their landscapes in all their variety. Professor Gary Lock from the Univer-sity of Oxford, co-principal investigator for the project, added, “We hope it will en-courage people to visit some incredible hillforts that they may never have known were right under their feet.” Mostly built during the Iron Age, the oldest hillforts date to around 1,000 BC and the most recent to around 700 AD. Hillforts were central to more than 1,500 years of ancient living: with numer-ous functions – some of which are yet to be fully uncovered – hillforts served as communal gathering spaces. The re-

MARGINALIAEditorial

4,147 hillforts in Britain and Ireland

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search also shows that, fascinatingly, not all hillforts are on hills; nor are they all forts. Excavated evidence shows that many hillforts were first and foremost used as regional gathering points for trading and festivals, and some hillforts are located on low-lying land. The online resource can be updated by the public via a wiki-style database. Through the citizen science initiative, around 100 members of the public collected data about the hillforts they visited, which was later an-alysed by the research team.

The new data will be made avail-able to the national monuments records of Britain and Ireland and will also help heritage managers, naturalists, archae-ologists, and policy-makers to consider how they look after the hillforts. The online atlas database – which you can find at https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk - will also be accessible on smartphones and tablets and can be used while visiting a hillfort. A physical atlas will be available for purchase from the summer of 2018.

In 2014, archaeologists from the Muse-um of South East Denmark and Aarhus University discovered the previously unknown Viking fortress at Borgring, south of Copenhagen. Since then the search has been on to uncover the life, function, destruction and, not least, the precise dating of the Viking for-tress. Now a new find has produced a breakthrough in the investigation. Prior to this summer’s excavations it was only known that the massive, 150m-wide fortress dated to the tenth century. Experts suspected that it was built in the reign of Viking king Harald Bluetooth (c.958-c.987), but the asso-ciation could not be proven. An archaeological team opened new trenches in the meadow next to the fortress to search for evidence of the landscape surrounding the for-tress. Around 2.5 metres below the current surface of the valley was found a circa 1m-long piece of carved oak wood with drilled holes and several wooden pegs in situ. The wood car-ries clear traces of wear, but it is not currently possible to say what function the wood piece had. Leading specialist in dendrochrono-logical dating, Associate Professor Aoife Daly from the University of Copenhagen and the owner of dendro.dk, has just

completed his study of the piece of wood and commented, “The plank is oak and the conserved part of the tree trunk has grown in the years 829-950 in the Danish area. A comparison with the material from the Trelleborg fortress in Sjælland shows a high statistical correlation that confirms the dating. Since no splints have been pre-served, it means that the tree has fallen at some point after year 966.” Research leader Jens Ulriksen says, “The wood piece was found on top of a peat layer, and is fully preserved as it is completely water-logged. We now have a date of wood in the valley of Borgring, which corresponds to the dating from the other ring fortresses from Harold Blue-tooth’s reign. With the dendrochronologi-cal dating, in conjunction with the traces of wear the piece has, it is likely that the piece ended as waste in the late 900s, pos-sibly in the early 1000s.” Søren M. Sindbæk, professor of ar-chaeology at Aarhus University and part of the excavation team, added, “This find is the major breakthrough which we have been searching for. We finally have the dating evidence at hand to prove that this is a late tenth-century fortress. We lack the exact year, but since the find also shows us where the river flowed in the Viking Age, we also know where to look for more timbers from the fortress.”

The carved oak timber object recently found in peat layers just outside the south gateway of the fortress. The piece has been cut and sampled for dendrochrono-logical sampling. The function of the piece is unknown, but it may be a part of a door or building.© The Museum of South East Denmark / Nanna Holm

NEW DETAILS ON VIKING FORTRESS

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