True Size of the First Crusade 1095 3D DOCUMENTARY

What did a crusading army look like? The First Crusade was a titanic affair, which called upon the assembled might of Europe to march upon the East. Certainly, Hollywood has had its say when it comes to bringing such a force to the big screen. But just how large was this great host of the West when we actually consult our historical sources? Fulker of Chartres, an eyewitness to the event, reports, Those skilled at reckoning estimated it to number 600,000 men accustomed to war. Of these, 100,000 were protected by coats of mail and helmets. In addition, there were those not bearing arms, the clerics, monks, women and children. If all who departed from their homes to undertake the holy journey had been present, there doubtless would have been 6 million fighting men. As it passed, such a force would have shaken the earth and drank the rivers dry. Truly, this was a force manifesting the full, vengeful might of Christendom United. Yet naturally, the question arises, how much can we trust such claims? Answering this question is difficult given the spotty nature of our sources. Yet with careful analysis, it is possible to reconstruct the army of the First Crusade. From the logistical preparations, to the equipment of the individual soldiers, their organizational banners, their task forces, and their peak concentrated power upon deployment at Nicaea, on the cusp of entering the Holy Land. So today, let's explore the true size of the First Crusade. Now if you really want to launch your own crusade, look no further than today's sponsor, Warhammer 40,000 Tacticus. Tacticus is a mobile game where you build squads to fight turn-based battles where abilities, positioning, line of sight, and elevation all matter. There are more than 100 characters split across 20 factions, each with their own specific upgradable abilities, mechanics, and so on. 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In 1095 AD, Pope Urban II called for the nobles of Europe to stop their petty squabbling, combine their might, and head east to the Holy Land to fight back against the Seljuk Turks. Although some contemporary accounts make it seem as if Urban's call was unexpected, with a spontaneous outpouring of support and religious fervor, it had been planned for many months. The papal legate Adhemar of Lepuy, who was to lead the expedition on the Pope's behalf, had been in talks with Count Raymond of Saint-Gilles, who controlled most of southern France, to form the professional corps of a large Christian army. In the weeks and months after the Council of Clermont, many more lords would agree to take their armies east, while tens of thousands planned their own journeys as individuals, as family or friend groups, or in small contingents of soldiers. With calls to arms circulating throughout Europe, willing lords had to assemble their armies. Many lords understood that this campaign would impose a logistical burden unlike anything they had experienced. Most medieval soldiers were expected to serve between 30 and 100 days, and it was rare for a campaign to last longer than a few months. But the journey to Jerusalem would take far longer. Lords were expected to provide for their followers, meaning that soldiers would need to be paid throughout the campaign, so they could afford necessities from local markets. To meet these demands, many lords mortgaged their lands and property to finance the crusade, selling someone else the rights to collect taxes and revenues while they were away. This included many lower-level nobles, such as Akkad of Montmerle, who mortgaged his lands to the Monastery of Cluny in exchange for 2,000 leon solidi and four mules for the journey. It also included some of the crusade's most powerful leaders. Duke Robert Curtos of Normandy mortgaged the entire duchy to his brother King William II of England to pay for his army. And Duke Godfrey de Bouillon sold his rights in his own duchy, along with many other castles and properties, to the local bishop for a pile of silver and gold. With this context in mind, let us now begin to build the army of the First Crusade, starting with the individual soldiers. With funding secured, participants had to equip themselves. The typical gear of a medieval knight at this time included the following. Padded clothes, especially a gambeson, to protect the upper body. A coif and helmet, to protect against attacks to the head. And mail, which could cover the whole body against cutting and slashing. Shields were also in common usage. As to the weapons, knights of the late 11th century trained to use short lances and an assortment of secondary weapons ranging from short swords, long swords, axes and daggers, according to personal preference. Although almost all knights were proficient in the use of bows for hunting, they were usually seen as the weapon of commoners and rarely used by knights in battle. Infantry of the First Crusade, being drawn from across Western Europe, varied in equipment. However, broadly speaking, we know that spearmen protected by a kite shield were a prominent component of the army. So were archers, equipped with bows, but crossbows were starting to be adopted in small numbers in the 11th century. Some footmen, especially irregular troops, would have been responsible for equipping themselves according to their means, while soldiers in the banners of noblemen could theoretically rely on their lords to equip them for the long journey. Consequently, some infantry would have been equipped with only a spear, shield and basic textile armour, while soldiers in the retinues of wealthy lords were more likely to have mail armour, helmets and secondary weapons such as a short sword. Now we can see how such troops were assembled into units. Under normal circumstances, a medieval army would be raised by the commander calling in their vassals, each of whom would either bring soldiers or provide money in place of soldiers, and who would call up their own vassals to do the same. The principal building block of the medieval army is often referred to as a banner, though many names are used. It numbered anywhere from around 5 to 50 men who answered directly to a single officer. The size and composition of any given unit depended on the wealth and status of its leader. This officer, usually a noble but sometimes a professional commoner, would be responsible for raising, equipping and organising their soldiers as they saw fit, and would usually command them in person, though this task could be delegated if necessary. From here, multiple banners could be grouped together based on the socio-political nature of the vassal-based force being assembled. For instance, a minor lord may take to the field with a handful of knights leading a few banners of archers and spearmen. A major lord, meanwhile, might have a personal retinue of over 50 knights with dozens of banners and thousands of men beneath them. But, whatever the size of this polyglot assortment of banners, it would all stand under the singular banner of its commanding officer. Beyond this, the organisation of larger formations would be up to the discretion of the army's most senior commanders. With this typical framework in mind, we can now see how it worked in the case of the First Crusade. Let us begin with the force's high-level organisation. Here, contemporary sources tend to split the army into four tiers. Terminology varies but typically aligns with the following. The princes, the middling princes, the knights, and the paupers. We can take each in turn. At the very top were the eight so-called princes, a label that is applied to them across a broad range of sources. They included the following. Adhemar of Lepuy, the Papal Legate. Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse. And the Margrave of Provence, the oldest and most experienced of the princes who had been involved with the early planning of the Crusade and whose forces would remain largely interlinked with those of the Papal Legate. Count Hugh of Vermandois, brother of King Philip I of France. Duke Godfrey of Bouillon of Lower Lorraine. Duke Robert Curtos of Normandy, eldest son of William the Conqueror. Count Stephen of Blois, brother-in-law to Robert Curtos and one of the wealthiest lords in France. Count Robert II of Flanders, whose father had been to Jerusalem in the 1080s and supplied 500 cavalry to the Byzantine army. And Beaumont I, a northern of southern Italy who had prior experience fighting in the east and rallied an army to join the Crusade as it passed through his lands. Together, these princes led the bulk of the overall army with thousands of men under their vassalage. However, we should note that about a third of the fighting force actually fell outside their banners as irregulars who receive little coverage by our sources. Moving on to the next tier of the army, we have the middling princes, numbering around 150 to 200. These were nobles with substantial domains of two to four towns or castles who mustered hundreds of troops. They were the main building blocks of the prince's armies and formed the highest ranks of officers. Such lords would be responsible not just for their own men, but also men assigned under their command by their prince. Many of them appear in the innermost entourage of the princes, such as Raymond Pierre and William VI of Montpellier, both powerful lords who advised Count Raymond and led combat missions at their count's discretion. Although most were vassals of the princes, some had only recently come to agreements to fight under particular lords. While others were leaders of the irregular forces not under any direct princely command. Beneath these middling princes were knights able to equip themselves and maybe a few others, but no more than that. They traveled with a few men and perhaps with a servant. Yet, lacking the wealth of castles and towns, they could not afford to bring a significant personal retinue, while some could bring no soldiers at all. These knights would have made up the vast majority of the crusade's cavalry and junior officers. And, while most would have ultimately been under the command of a prince, they also formed a large part of the cavalry and officer corps of the irregulars. At the bottom were the paupers, the general mass of commoners who lacked the wealth to support themselves and were dependent on the patronage and charity of the far wealthier nobles. These were essentially everyone else, the infantry and non-combatants. These paupers were the majority of the crusade, arranged under the banners of the officers or working as craftsmen in the camp. Their equipment could vary widely, as could their experience. What unified them as a social group on the crusade was their financial insecurity and common status. Now that we have this overall organizational framework in place, we can start filling it with troops to actually build the army of the first crusade. The problem we encounter with this exercise is the unreliability of our sources when it comes to overall troop counts, let alone specific unit sizes. To illustrate the point, here is a chart summarizing a few of the numbers quoted to us by contemporaries. As you can see, they range wildly in size. Historians tend to reject these logistically untenable numbers as being meant to symbolically convey a feeling of scale rather than a true headcount. This idea is backed up by the fact that troop numbers seem to magically shrink when dealing with accounts of specific battles during the campaign. But even if we attempt to turn to modern historians for answers, we are met with a lower yet similarly widespread of estimates. For the purposes of this video, we shall build our own model based on the methodology put forth in Jonathan Riley Smith's academic article Casualties and the Number of Knights on the First Crusade. The basic idea is that the author was able to calculate the approximate casualty rates of knights over the course of the campaign and from there work out a rough number for how many were present at Nicaea, when the force was at its peak. This method gives us about 5,000 knights in June of 1097. From here we add on some 45,000 infantry based on contemporary sources which suggest a rough ratio of 8 footmen per rider. To this we can then add 2,000 Byzantine soldiers who were supplied to the crusade under the command of a Turkish general and military attaché named Taticios. Their composition was an all-infantry force of so-called peltasts, which presumably acted as medium shock infantry. And finally we can add around 3,000 survivors of the so-called People's Crusade under firebrand preacher Peter the Hermit, which had been crushed before the princes arrived in Anatolia. Once more their composition is left vague but given their prior defeats and ragged state, we have assumed the majority of this group are on foot. This all gets us a total combat strength of 55,000 soldiers, of which 5,200 are mounted and 49,800 are on foot. But such a force would not have marched alone. Alongside it came a vast host of support staff, camp followers, animals and wagons. Unfortunately, we are never given any hard numbers for these elements. In this model, we shall assume that each knight brings with them an average of one squire and two servants. This gets us a support staff of 15,600. To this we will then add some 10,000 additional non-combatants which made up the camp followers. They included a great many folk such as family members, clergy, merchants, entertainers, pilgrims and craftsmen. As Albert of Aachen put it, You may be sure that with so many first-rate leaders there were not a few followers and lesser ranks, servants, maidservants, married and unmarried, men and women of every class. In charge of all these were bishops, abbots, canons, monks and priests to teach them and keep up their courage. These were numerous enough to be a serious burden on the crusade in its early stages, as the army had to slow its march for the sake of elderly and would later exile the women. Though this presumably did not include the wives of nobles. All told, this now gets us to a total headcount of 80,600 humans. While this could be tens of thousands too many or tens of thousands too few, it seems to us a reasonable and defensible estimate based on contemporary sources and supply limitations. We could also add the thousands of sailors who supplied the first crusade, mainly as part of the Byzantine logistics fleet, but for the sake of simplicity, let's put them aside and stick with the 80,000 troops on the ground in the summer of 1097. But now we must add the animals. Here we assume that each knight had an average of two war horses and two pack horses. We also assume that among the crusade at large, there was roughly one pack animal for every 10 people and one wagon for every 20 people. This all adds on an additional 29,000 animal mouths to feed and 4,000 wagons to pull. However, it's important to note that this is just a rough estimate. The crusaders were always in need of animals and spent much of their time rustling or purchasing horses and livestock whilst on campaign. Viewed altogether, it is a mighty force whose numbers would have been impressive to all observers who witnessed its passing. Yet, such a concentration of force would have been too impractical to wield. Thus, it would have broken out into smaller units and task forces to perform the actions required of it on campaign. To get a better sense of what this would have looked like, let us now model the army in greater detail. The first way we can break out our force will be to separate out the banners of the princes and the irregulars. Here, we shall assume a ratio of roughly 2 to 1. This is based on two things. First, Raymond of Aguilera reports that when fighting at the crusade's midpoint, the princes formed into eight lines while the total crusader force was 13. And second, during the Battle of Ascalon at the end of the crusade, around a third of the army was under the command of Viscount Gaston IV of Bern, who was a prominent figure among the irregulars and likely put in charge of them for the battle. A proportion of around one third for the irregulars therefore seems highly plausible. Thus, using our troop and support counts from earlier, we have around 50,000 men with the princes and 25,000 men with the irregulars. Among the former group, we can then further break out the troops between the eight princes based on hints from the historical record. Here, the largest princely host is that of Count Raymond of Saint-Gilles and Adhemar of Lepuy, who operated together. We have estimated a strength of 11,000 men, which includes knights, infantry, and support, in keeping with the extent of their lord's wealthy lands across southern France, and the fact that this force was planned from the start to act as the core of the crusader army. Next comes the host of Duke Robert Curtos of Normandy, which we have estimated at 7,000 men based on other major conflicts involving the Duchy of Normandy in this period. In a similar manner, we have estimated that Beaumont I of Taranto fields 7,000 men based on figures from earlier campaigns of the Italo-Normans. Next, we have assumed that the remaining troops are split relatively evenly among the last four princes for a banner strength of 5,000 men each, a plausible figure for the expeditionary force of a medieval county or duchy at war. Yet even when broken out in this way, the units before us are still far too large to be of much tactical use. Thus, we can now finally turn our attention to the actual ways in which the crusading army was commonly deployed. Here, we must again remember that there was no such thing as a typical medieval army or unit. The host was an amalgamation of banners of various size and composition, which would have been grouped together in an ad hoc manner according to ever-evolving mission profiles. To get a sense of things, we can review some examples to illustrate this point. As the crusade began to gather outside the walls of Constantinople and was shipped over to Anatolia to besiege the enemy city of Nicaea in 1097, detachments needed to be formed and a command structure needed to be established. Among the princes, spiritual leadership was held by Adhemar as the papal legate, while military leadership and strategy were supposed to be decided by council. The princes recognized that while each prince was responsible for their own armies, they needed to appoint an overall commander for particular battles and form units for a wide range of combat roles. The smallest of these were scouting parties, designed to move with speed and agility to survey terrain and discover enemy activity, and were typically very small, comprising only one banner of cavalry, which might number some 25 to 50 riders. A larger unit tasked with raiding enemy territory could comprise dozens of banners numbering in the low hundreds of men. These would be mixed forces of infantry and cavalry that could engage in small battles for positions such as roads or bridges, or which could spread out to gather food. The largest singular task forces, often in the range of 500 to 1500 men, were sent to secure cities near, but not on the path of the First Crusade. If these needed to move at speed and take a place by surprise, then they could be entirely made up of cavalry. Examples include a 500-knight company sent to Antioch by Count Raymond, under the command of Peter of Castillon, which found that rumours the city had been abandoned were false. A more successful example was a 1,000-knight detachment sent to secure the castle town of Arta in 1098, though sources disagree on who led it. Meanwhile, a more mixed force of infantry and cavalry, probably numbering between 1,500 and 2,000 in total, were sent under Baldwin and Tancred to secure the towns and cities of Cilicia. Even when assembled in one place to take a city, the First Crusade would have been split up into various task forces. At Nicaea, for instance, the disposition of crusading forces is believed by historians to have been as follows. Covering the north of the city was Bohemond's 7,000-strong contingent, with a portion of it delegated to his nephew and protégé, Tancred. Moving clockwise around the city, next to him seems to have been Taticius and his 2,000 Byzantine troops, followed by the 5,000 men under Count Robert II of Flanders and the 7,000 men under Robert Kurtos of Normandy. Godfrey's position, which focused on the main eastern gate and integrated some of the freelance lords, was split into divisions under at least 14 senior nobles, including his two brothers, Count Eustace III of Bologna and Count Baldwin of Verdun. Covering the south and southeast of the city were Adhemar of Lepuy, Count Hugh of Vermandois, and Count Stephen of Blois. Finally, Count Raymond of Saint-Gilles, who had been delayed in arguments with Emperor Alexios in Constantinople, finally joined them on the south side, completing the assemblage of the First Crusade's regular army. Around them would have been a more scattered mass of camp followers and irregulars, including thousands of pilgrims, women, survivors of the People's Crusade, clergy, and craftsmen. As you can see from these examples, the First Crusade had no standard unit organization. Instead, it tailored units to mission profile, placing trust in senior officers to independently lead detachments from the main army and work toward the operational goals of the crusade with a high degree of personal autonomy. Admittedly, all of our discussion comes with the caveat that thus far we have largely been dealing with the idealized organization of the crusade at the start of its campaign. But we must wonder, what did it look like when dragged through the mud of an actual war? In our next episode of this series, we shall seek to answer this question by exploring the formations of the crusaders as they encountered the Seljuq foes in battle. We will then catch up with the crusade at its halfway point outside the walls of Antioch when it faced the threat of annihilation from a destructive mix of disease, desertion, and months of warfare. We will then discuss the reorganization of the First Crusade as it lost faith in its leaders, some of whom deserted their men and spread tales of the crusade's certain doom. And finally end on a comparison between the army you've seen today outside Nicaea. And the army that actually marched on Jerusalem. If you enjoyed what you've seen so far, consider supporting us on Patreon to participate in polls, catch script previews, and get HD downloads of all our art. We owe a huge debt to our current patrons for funding the channel and to our researchers, writers, and artists for making this episode possible. We certainly couldn't have done it without this team and this community. So be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these other related episodes. See you in the next one.