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Sculptur e of the second half of the 13U1 century sho wing a knight clad from head to foot in mail, wrapped in a cloak, and armed with a mace.

linę. During the next sixty years or so, until the Almohades came to power in 1145-7, the army also contained a great number of mercenaries, mostly Moslems but including some Spaniards who lived in Arab occupied territory. There were also many alliances between the various Mosiem and Christian princes during this period, which meant that frequently Mosiem armies took the field with Christian allies against other Moslems, and vice versa.

The army of the Almohades dynasty (1146—1275) consisted mainly ofinfantry, because these Berbers originated from a mountainous region. This infantry was formed in a great phalanx, the front ranks armed with crossbows, those behind with long spears. The phalanx was supported by horsemen (probably mercenaries) on each flank.

THE SELJUK ARMIES

The Turks who served in the Abbasid armies were soldiers of fortunę who penetrated the whole of the Mosiem world in much the same way that Norman adventurers penetrated western Europę at this time. By about 1050 Turkish regiments were maintained by most of the newly independent provinces of the caliphate. The most notable of these warriors were the Seljuk Turks, who by 1055 had seized power in Persia and Baghdad and subseąuently took Syria and Mesopotamia from the Fatimid caliphate of Egypl.

The Seljuks did not change the basie military organization of the Arabs, but they did improve on the system whereby each province had to finance its own contingent of the army from its revenue, by introducing a morę feudal system under which the government and revenue of a province or district were placed in the hands of an amir, who was reąuired in exchange to pay a yearly tribute to the sułtan and in time of war to bring to the sultan’s army a fixed number of troops. Some amirs sub-let portions of their districts or individual towns to lesser amirs, who in turn had to furnish troops to their overlord. However, these sub-tenants owed no allegiance direct to the sułtan, and were bound only to their local amir.

Seljuk armies, therefore, consisted of a large regular force in the form of the sultan’s bodyguard and household troops, together with the feudal contingents of the amirs, each of whom also had a smaller regular force as his own bodyguard. These bodyguards, or regular forces, were known as askars, the men being askaris. The sultan’s bodyguard was mainly Turkish, divided into regiments, and all mounted, as indeed were all the askars. In time of war all askars were usually strengthened by mercenaries, mostly Turcoman mounted archers and regiments of Daylamites, natives of the mountainous regions south-west of the Caspian Sea.

The numerical strength of an askar varied according to the stature of the amir and lit tle is known ofactual numbers. However, during the ist Crusade we know the askars of Aleppo and Damascus were each about 2000 men, and they were the leading amirates of Syria. The great city of Mosul, in northern Mesopotamia, could field an army of 15,000 men at the beginning of the i2th century, and in mid-i3th century the caliph of

An illustration from the early i3th-century Maciejowski Bibie, showing a variety of weapons in use: broadsword, mace, axe and bow. At this datę the bow was about five feet long with a puli of between 30 5olbs; the string was drawn back only as far as the chest. Arrows were about 28in long. (The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York)