The Time-Honored Tradition of Ransom

Following the battle of Hattin, the knights and noblemen who had surrendered to Saladin’s forces were held for ransom and would later be released.  The idea is quite alien to many modern readers, so I thought I’d step back and examine it briefly.

The concept of ransom dates back to classical times, but during the Early Middle Ages it fell into disuse and we hear little about ransoms. By the mid-11^th century, however, they were back in fashion, and from the mid-12^th century to the end of the 15^th they were a dominant feature of warfare.  Although they have since disappeared from Western warfare, the criminal custom of capturing people for ransom still persists in some parts of the world such as Latin America and Nigeria. In Western Europe, the age of ransoms was the High Middle Ages, when ransoms constituted a fundamental component of warfare. Without them, the very course of European history would have been different — not just because kings like Richard I of England and John “the Good” of France might have been killed rather than held for ransom, but because the custom of allowing a captive to buy his freedom altered many aspects of warfare itself.

It worth noting, however, that the tradition of ransom was strongest in France. It spread with French influence to England and the Holy Land, but was not so well established in the Holy Roman Empire or Iberia. Interestingly, the Saracens either had an independent tradition of ransom (and if someone knows about this please leave a comment!) or rapidly adopted the “Frankish” custom because it was so highly lucrative. The Arabs were, after all, very good businessmen and traders, and ransoms were first and foremost a financial transaction.

In the French/English tradition, ransoms were a means of enriching oneself, and the rules of tournaments reflected this by dictating that a captured knight had to surrender his horse and armor to his captor. It was the lure of loot as much as the hope for fame and honor that produced the “tournament circuits” of the 12^th to 14^th centuries, where knights traveled from tournament to tournament like modern-day professional athletes. But the fortunes made on the tournament fields were a pale imitation of what “real” ransoms could bring.

A man taken in battle by his enemy was completely at the mercy of the victor, and the stakes were impossibly high; the victor was within his right to slaughter or (if non-Christian) enslave his opponent. The custom of ransom dramatically decreased casualties, because the prospect of financial gain greatly increased the proclivity of victorious fighting men to show mercy toward those who surrendered to them. This had the unfortunate side-effect, of course, of making the lives of wealthy men more valuable than the lives of the poor. As a result, throughout the High Middle Ages there was a tendency for those of a class deemed good for ransom to escape death, while their less fortunate followers paid the price of defeat with their lives.

But ransoms were not fixed and so not immutably tied to rank and title. They were always negotiable, and a rich merchant’s son — assuming he had enough time to describe the size of his father’s purse to his erstwhile murderer — stood as good if not a better chance of being granted the privilege of ransom than a poor knight. Ransoms were always based on what a man (or his family) could pay quite simply because there was no point in setting a price that one could not hope to collect — unless the real intent was to ensure the captive could never again raise arms against you.  

Every castle had its gloomy, windowless places...

Had Philip II of France, for example, held Richard the Lionheart captive instead of the Holy Roman Emperor, it is probable that he would have set demands intended to keep Richard in a dungeon for the rest of his life.  Likewise, the ransom set for John “the Good” of France after he was captured at the Battle of Poitiers was dictated far more by the political advantage of denying the French a rival king to Edward III than by thoughts of monetary gain. Except where kings and important nobles were at stake, however, ransoms were generally dictated by a captive’s ability to pay.

By which, of course, I do not mean the captive himself, for he was just that — held captive. Ransoms were usually raised by a captive’s relatives — parents, wives, siblings, children. If they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) scrape together the funds needed, then the appeal would go to cousins and in-laws, anyone who might have money and care enough for the captive to contribute to the cause. Lucky men, who enjoyed the respect of those more powerful and wealthy than themselves, might also be ransomed by their feudal overlord. Examples of this were the payment of Aimery de Lusignan’s ransom by King Amalric, or William Marshal’s ransom by Queen Eleanor. In the case of captive kings and barons, of course, they did not have to rely on the generosity of those that loved or respected them. They could demand contributions from their subjects, vassals and tenants.

Usually a man was held in captivity until the ransom was paid, and conditions varied. Some men enjoyed comfortable “house arrest,” able to interact with the household and even family of the man to whom they had surrendered. Others were kept locked in a single room, even a dungeon. In the worse cases, prisoners were kept chained the walls of their prison until the ransom was paid.  On rare occasions, a man (of high rank generally) might be freed on parole in order to enable him to better collect the sum owed. Famous cases of this were Baldwin of Ramla, who was released by Saladin after payment of only a small portion of the enormous ransom set, and Bertrand du Guesclin, who the Black Prince paroled so he could raise his ransom. The former talked the Byzantine Emperor into paying the outstanding portion of his ransom, and the latter raised his ransom from the King of France, Louis d’Anjou and Henry of Trastamare.   

While the payment of a ransom could financially ruin a man and his family, ransoms could make the fortune of those fortunate enough to take a valuable prize.  At the Battle of Poitiers, English and Gascons almost tore the French king apart in their eagerness to lay claim to his ransom. Desmond Seward describes the situation like this in his history of the Hundred Years War ( The Hundred Years War: The English in France, 1337-1445, Macmillan, New York, 1978): 

[King John] was recognized and surrounded by a great crowd of soldiers anxious to take so fabulous a ransom. Although he surrendered to a knight of Artois, he was still in peril, for the brawling mob of Gascons and English began to fight for him. Finally he was rescued by the Earl of Warwick and Lord Cobham, who took him to the Prince [of Wales].

 Few men had a share of a king’s ransom, but as long as a man was on the winning side, it was possible to accumulate a small fortune from the ransoms of lesser men. Ransoms more than plunder was what made the Hundred Years War so lucrative for England — and impoverished France. The latter was in part due to the fact that because a ransom was a reflection of a man’s ability to pay, it was also indirectly a reflection of his “worth.” The English soon learned that it was to their advantage to let French captives name their own ransoms because pride often induced the prisoners to name ransoms suited more to their self-image than the size of their pocketbook.  Even the Black Prince used this tactic when setting the ransom for Guesclin; the latter named the huge sum of 100,000 francs, something he could not possibly have raised from his own resources, hence the resort to the King of France et. al. 

Yet common as ransoms were throughout the High Middle Ages, they remained a privilege not a right. The Knights Templar, for example, explicitly prohibited their members from paying ransoms. A Knight Templar was expected to die for Christ and find salvation for his soul in that act of martyrdom. This may have contributed to the Saracen tendency to slaughter captured Templars and Hospitallers; they had no monetary value and so eliminating them sooner rather than latter made sense.

Normally, however, it was the circumstances in which the victor found himself, not the ideology of the captive, that determined whether a ransom would be accepted or not. In the heat of battle, many soldiers were overcome by “blood lust” that utterly obliterated their greed for gold. Or, when the battle was not one between mercenaries but between true adversaries, fighting men might simply hate their opponents too much to be willing to grant mercy. There were also times when commanders made a strategic decision to kill prisoners. A famous case in point here was Henry V’s order to kill the French prisoners taken at Agincourt. Underestimating the demoralizing effect of his initial successes, Henry V felt he needed every Englishman on the frontline, ready to repel the next attack by the still numerically superior French, and was unwilling to spare men to guard the prisoners.

Even more significant, however, is that by the Wars of the Roses commanders were beginning to prefer annihilation of the enemy’s ability to fight over the profit gained from ransoms. It is a clear indicator of the increasing hatred between the rival factions for the English throne that Edward IV allegedly told his soldiers to “kill the lords and spare the commons.” Edward IV recognized that the commons might not pay monetary ransoms, but they were his subjects and he gained nothing by killing them. The rebellious lords, on the other hand, were the threat to his throne.

In the subsequent century, as warfare became increasingly tied to religion and kings became increasingly despotic, the notion that an opponent might be allowed to live in exchange for a payment of money became discredited. Ransoms became anachronistic and eventually disappeared from the customs of Western warfare altogether.   

 Buy now!                                       Buy now!                                        Buy now 

Richard the Lionheart by Jean Flori — A Review

Flori is a French historian, who first published this biography of Richard the Lionheart in Paris in 1999.  It was this fact that attracted me to the book, as I felt a French historian would bring a different perspective (as well as a consummate grasp of French sources) to the work.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is a description of Richard’s life in chronological order, in short, a traditional biography. The second part examines the degree to which Richard reflected and/or shaped contemporary ideals of chivalry, a concept, as Flori stresses, that was still inchoate during Richard’s lifetime. The book also provides maps of the Plantagenet territories in the West and of the Holy Land, as well as two genealogy tables that are very useful.

On the whole, the first part is concise, straight-forward and balanced. As expected, Flori is more critical of Richard than John Gillingham in his biography, but does not paint Richard in a uniformly negative light.  As hoped, Flori is intimately familiar with the chronicles of the age, and subsequent historiography about Richard of England and his arch-rival, Philip II of France. Indeed, Flori errs on the side of citing too many sources to make the same point, highlighting nuanced differences in contemporary perspectives in a manner more suited to demonstrating academic credentials than helping the reader understand Richard.  Moreover, Flori too often lets the sources speak for him, rather than drawing his own conclusions confidently. Since most Medieval chroniclers were clerics, it is not surprising that the result is a rather bland picture overlaid by moralizing and preaching. As a result, Richard himself never seems to come entirely to life. I felt I learned a great deal about what churchman (both English and French) thought of Richard, but gained no insight into Richard Plantagenet himself.

This part of the book is further marred by an obvious unfamiliarity with history beyond Flori’s central area of expertise, i.e. the Plantagenet-Capet conflict and France in the late 12^th century. Flori makes silly errors with respect to the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem such as claiming Isabella of Jerusalem married Humphrey de Toron “for love” (a princess at the age of 8?) or confusing Bohemond (son of the Prince of Antioch) with Raymond of Tripoli. Flori is also evidently woefully ignorant about the unconstitutional nature of Guy de Lusignan’s coronation, among other things.

The second half of the book in contrast is a useful, if somewhat academic, analysis of what chivalry was in Richard’s era. Flori explores 12^th century perceptions of social order, the division of the world into those who pray, those who fight and those who work, and describes Richard’s relations with these three “orders.” Flori next looks at what and why prowess, largess and courtesy were the defining characteristics of chivalry, and analyzes the degree to which Richard fulfilled chivalric ideals. I found this part of the book intellectually entertaining and useful as a novelist writing about this period.  It remains flawed, however, by the dependence on essentially clerical sources. Knights and lords — much less ladies — do not have much of a voice here. In consequence I was left feeling I had only half the story.

Richard the Lionheart, and Balian fought together against Saladin in the Third Crusade. Their -- initially hostile -- relationship and joint efforts are described in the third book of my Balian series, Envoy of Jerusalem, which is scheduled for release later this year. The first and second books in the series are already available for purchase.

A landless knight, 

a leper king,

and the struggle for Jerusalem.

 A divided kingdom,

a united enemy,

and the struggle for Jerusalem

Buy now in Paperback or Kindle format!                                                 Buy now!

 

Crusaders and Chivalry

The crusaders have often been accused of barbarism — starting with the Byzantine princess Anna Comnena and more recently by 19^th and 20^th century historians, not to mention President Obama. Yet the crusaders viewed themselves as both civilized and virtuous. They, like the crusades themselves, were a product of one of the great civilizing movements of the medieval period: chivalry. To understand the crusaders, it is essential to understand that their religious faith was Roman Catholicism, but their secular faith was chivalry.  So just what was “chivalry”?

The biographer of William Marshal, one of the most famous knights of the late 12^th and early 13^th century — often held up as the personification of chivalry — answered the question as follows:

So strong a thing,

and of such hardihood,

and so costly in learning,

that a wicked man or low

dare not undertake it.

That certainly conjures up images of the knights in search of the Holy Grail 

— but does little to explain the crusades or the crusaders. Based on the historical sources, including medieval handbooks on chivalry, literature and biographies, what follows is a more prosaic explanation:

Chivalry evolved out of the military and literary traditions of antiquity, and emerged at the beginning of the High Middle Ages as a concept that rapidly came to dominate the ethos and identity of the nobility. Chivalry is inextricably tied to knighthood, a phenomenon distinct to Europe in the Middle Ages. There have been cavalrymen in many different ages and societies, both before and after the High Middle Ages, but the cult of knighthood, including a special dubbing ceremony and a code of ethics, exists only in the Age of Chivalry.

Chivalry was always an ideal. It defined the way a knight was supposed to behave. No one in the Middle Ages seriously expected every knight to live up that ideal all of the time. Even the heroes of chivalric romances usually fell short of the ideal at least some of the time – and many only achieved their goal and glory when they overcame the baser instincts or their natural shortcomings to live, however briefly, like “perfect, gentle knights.”

Chivalry was a code of behavior that young men were supposed to aspire to – not already have. The code was articulated and passed on to youths in the form of romances and poems lionizing the chivalrous deeds of fictional heroes. It was also recorded in the biographies of historical personages viewed as examples of chivalry, from William Marshal to Geoffrey de Charney and Edward, the Black Prince. Finally, there were a number of textbooks or handbooks that attempted to codify the essence of chivalry.

So what defined chivalry?

First and foremost, a knight was supposed to uphold justice by protecting the weak, particularly widows, orphans, and the Church. This is why it was so intimately intertwined with the Crusades. No knight could show his devotion to the Church more completely than by abandoning his secular interests to fight for the Holy Land. This is why protection of pilgrims was the primary mission of the Knights Templar, when they were founded. It is why protecting and providing care for the sick and infirm was the core function of the Knights Hospitaller. Chivalry gave knights — noble fighting men — a role that was profoundly Christian in nature and it was this Christian element that made chivalry utterly different from earlier warrior cults that stressed courage, strength and prowess at arms for their own sake. Achilles, remember, didn’t fight for any cause but his own fame, and the same was true of Norse and Germanic heroes before the advent of chivalry.

Second, while the monk-knights of the militant orders devoted their entire lives to the defense of the Church and others in a spirit of humility, secular knights were supposed to pursue a permanent quest for honor and glory, sometimes translated as “nobility.” 

It was in this secular context that the troubadours introduced for the first time the notion that “a man could become more noble through love.” Thus love for a lady became a central – if not the central – concept of chivalry, particularly in literature.

Notably, the chivalric notion of love was that it must be mutual, voluntary, and exclusive – on both sides. It could occur between husband and wife – and many of the romances such as Erec et Enide by Chrétien de Troyes or Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival revolve in part or in whole around the love of a married couple. But the tradition of the troubadours put love for another man’s wife on an equal footing with love for one’s own – provided the lady returned the sentiment. The most famous of all adulterous lovers in the age of chivalry were, of course, Lancelot and Guinevere, closely followed by Tristan and Iseult.

Likewise noteworthy in a feudal world was the fact that the lover and the beloved were supposed to be valued not for their social status or their wealth, but for their personal virtues, albeit only within the band of society that was “noble.” By definition, the heroes of chivalry are knights, and their ladies are just that: ladies. Stories about peasants, priests, and merchants are simply not part of the genre, any more than lusting after a serving “wench” qualifies as “love” in the chivalric tradition. But within the chivalric class, a lady was to be loved and respected for her beauty, her graces, and her wisdom regardless of her status, and a knight was to be loved for his chivalric virtues, not his lands or titles.

So just what were those “chivalric virtues”? One of the handbooks on chivalry written by the Spanish nobleman Ramon Lull lists the virtues of a knight as: nobility, loyalty, honor, righteousness, prowess (courage), love, courtesy, diligence, cleanliness, generosity, sobriety, and perseverance. Wolfram von Eschenbach in Parzifal, on the other hand, stresses a strong sense of right and wrong, compassion for the unfortunate, generosity, kindness, humility, mercy, courtesy (particularly to ladies), and cleanliness.

I hope readers will agree these are the (ambitious!) virtues of civilized men, not barbarians.

Readers interested in learning more about this fascinating concept can turn to:

 Buy now!                                       Buy now!                                   Buy now (paperback)
                                                                                                                or Kindle!

or

Learn more about crusader society at: Balian d'Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.