Crusader Appearances

The Crusaders:

I attempted to gain a better understanding of medieval armour by looking at historical illustrations depicting the Crusades and various battles. One such image comes from looking into the Battle of Nicopolis, while it isn't the Third Crusade I am sure the armour will at least be somewhat similar. Additionally, I have noted that these images are not likely going to be accurate due to the art style at the time often being out of proportion or not based within reality.

Some of the patterns in coifs and the size of certain objects in regards to the people depicted raise some questions. Additionally, the likelihood of these images truly encapsulating what the battles looked like is not high; most of these artworks were produced years after the events and not necessarily by people who were there.

With this in mind, I have noticed a trend in that many use nasal helms and a variety of coifs - mail armour being the most common. Tunics are typically worn over the crusaders as to distinguish them however there does appear to be some use of plate armour; it is unlikely all would have used plate armour but certainly gambesons and mail would have been more common. Now these facts mainly apply to the Christians and so I looked to the Muslim side.

The Muslims:

Muslims at the time typically wore (according to a website I found)

Head

Turbans are often wound around presumably conical helmets. Other headgear worn included fluted helmets, low or tall conical helmets without turbans, mail coifs, and brimmed hats or war hats (Nicolle, 327 and 806).

Torso

Muslims also used mail hauberks as their primary defense in hand to hand combat, and for their heavy cavalry. It seems, however, that the bulk of the Muslim army consisted of light cavalry which may have worn only a padded overcoat instead of the mail hauberk (Nicolle xix, Hurley 141).

Arms and Legs

Large riding boots or overshoes were worn by the Islamic cavalry. These were loose enough to fit a small weapon inside. They were often worn in conjunction with the Saq, the Islamic version of the chausses. Cavalry wore additional leggings above the boot known as Ran, a piece of armour comparable to the European cuisses. These were tied to the waist-belt and could be made of iron as well as other materials (Nicolle, 618-619).

Shields

Shields were predominantly round in shape with a boss in the middle.