Military history is full of the large-scale exploits of armies and the men who wreaked havoc across the battlefields of the world. Nowhere is that broad sweep of military history more apparent than in the age of the Crusades, where religions and cultures clashed almost unceasingly for 200 years.
But there is another story too. A story of the overwhelming criminality that ensued when such men were set loose – and how the havoc of war seeps seamlessly into the fabric of human life, even when the battlefield blood has finally stopped flowing.
Rounding up the ‘usual suspects’ – young, armed, and rootless or otherwise dislocated men – is the perennial trope of lazy policing, as much so in the 12th century as it is today. The big difference between the Holy Land at the time of the Crusades and most other periods of history is that the ‘usual suspects’ did not need to be rounded up.
![Legion versus Legion The Late Republican legionary [below] was a heavily armoured, highly drilled, citizen soldier equipped with shield (scutum), javelins (pila), and short stabbing sword (gladius). The soldiers depicted on the Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus [above] are the basis for Peter Connolly’s reconstruction. Those shown on the Mainz relief [right] are somewhat later Imperial legionaries, but they are depicted wielding scutum and gladius in close quarters action in a manner that would have been familiar to Caesar’s men.](https://i0.wp.com/the-past.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/post-1_image3-16.jpg?fit=768%2C286&ssl=1)
Excavating the CA archive