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Gabriel Sanchez




Location: San Anto, baby!!!
Joined: 24 Feb 2009

Posts: 5

PostPosted: Mon 18 Apr, 2011 8:31 am    Post subject: New Member with an Odd Question....         Reply with quote

Hello everyone... I've been lurking for a bit but have a question now for Middle Eastern/Crusades scholars.

The background to the question...

I play SCA (dons flameproof suit) and until recently, I played a Templar persona. Having taken a break, I am reinventing as a Third Crusades-era Mamluk (the other side) and am in the process of developing a fighting kit and researching appropriate behavior as the fun of this is to embody persona play to the hilt...

so - for the question.

Would a Mamluk of this period have taken the sword and daggers (pommels have a cross formee on them) from a defeated opponent and kept them as fighting weapons? I don't have the cash on hand to purchase new weaponry specific to this persona off the list-field, but I was hoping my Mamluk persona would be OK looting a fallen foe and keeping his weapons as trophy and weaponry.

I have tried to research this, but I haven't read or found conduct regarding defeated foes yet in any of the info I have found on furusiyya.

Could anyone point to a source to read up on conduct of defeated enemies?
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J.D. Crawford




Location: Toronto
Joined: 25 Dec 2006

Spotlight topics: 1
Posts: 1,903

PostPosted: Mon 18 Apr, 2011 3:28 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dear Gabriel,

I'm also interested in the crusades, although I'm not a scholar of this or any other age. However two things come to mind:

1) Mamluks were slave warriors. Although they were obviously allowed to use weapons as part of their trade, unlike other slaves, it seems unlikely to me that they would be allowed to keep trophies, especially extra weapons.

2) Eurpean swords were definitely deposited in the Egyptian 'Hall of Victories' (if I remember the name right) later on, for example during the 14th century.

Therefore, my guess is that any weapons captured by Mamluks during the 3rd crusade would similarly be turned over to central command for public storage or display as war trophies.

That's just a guess. Perhaps you can get a more definitive answer from a real scholar.

Good luck, JD
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Thu 21 Apr, 2011 9:42 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Mamluks were technically freed upon the conclusion of their training, you know. And while trophies eventually had to be collected, I doubt that the Mamluks in the field would have objected to the use of captured weapons as temporary replacements for broken or lost ones. The biggest issue would probably be about the cross--if a Mamluk really couldn't avoid grabbing a sword with one, he's probably going to try to cover the overtly Christian symbol one way or another.
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Michael Curl




Location: Northern California, US
Joined: 06 Jan 2008

Posts: 487

PostPosted: Thu 21 Apr, 2011 12:59 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

At this point in time weren't many middle easterners still using straight double-bladed swords? I don't see what the problem would be unless the cross was overly large.
E Pluribus Unum
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Tue 26 Apr, 2011 9:41 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

The form factor of the sword isn't a problem, but the cross is. Unless it's so tiny or out-of-the-way that the average person would fail to spot it, it'd be an incongruously conspicuous Christian symbol in a Muslim kit, and if the Mamluk couldn't pick another sword instead then he would at least have tried his best to get the cross filed off or covered up in some way.

Note that I'm not talking about the crossguard, but rather about the cross-shaped decorations on the pommels. Those are the things that would stick out like a sore thumb in this particular case of kit adaptation.
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Sander Alsters




Location: Netherlands
Joined: 03 Jun 2009

Posts: 54

PostPosted: Tue 26 Apr, 2011 11:38 pm    Post subject: Mamluk sword         Reply with quote

Hi, im also reanacting a Mamuk warrior. although I have to agree with earlier posts, it was forbidden to use symbols of people or animals, it seems logical that pagan symbols or symbols of the enemy were also forbidden. Mamluks were most of the time Turkish slaves, therefor there arms and armour were most of the time in Turkish style. After the encounter with the mongols they started to adopt theirs. Straight swords were still in use up until the 15th century or so. Although at that time the curved sword was more common. I read a article once that Fatimid soldiers took arms and armour from crusaders and reused them. Nothing on cross symbols though.

I would love to see your kit btw. Pease pm me or post some pics here. Im also still working on mine.

Regards
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Lafayette C Curtis




Location: Indonesia
Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Reading list: 7 books

Posts: 2,698

PostPosted: Wed 04 May, 2011 10:20 pm    Post subject: Re: Mamluk sword         Reply with quote

Sander Alsters wrote:
Mamluks were most of the time Turkish slaves, therefor there arms and armour were most of the time in Turkish style.


Mmm...not quite. The Turkish ghilman slave cavalry had some notable similarities and clearly inspired the Mamluks, but the two were not the same. The Mamluks also took influences from other sources (Persian, Arab, and Roman/Byzantine), and the style of their equipment was more "Arab" or "Syrian" rather than Turkish. It's worth noting that, by the Mamluks' heyday in the 12th and 13th centuries, Turks were mostly using curved swords while the Mamluks usually had the straight swords more typical of their Syrian-Egyptian employers.

It's a bit pedantic, I know. But it's important to know the difference between the "Saracens" to the south and the Turks to the north, since in some ways they differed more from each other than they did from the Crusaders.
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Kurt Scholz





Joined: 09 Dec 2008

Posts: 390

PostPosted: Thu 05 May, 2011 11:45 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Didn't the Mamluks also develop coats of arms like their noble Christian counterparts? You should try to find out the braod phenomena of cultural exchange between the opponents (not only weapons and armour), this will certainly help you to a realistic depiction. However, Templars and Mamluks were among the religious elites, so they may have stressed distinction. Muslims seem to have had (and still have) a split attitude towards alcohol, some drink, some don't, some start, some stop. Stopping to drink alcohol, like Saladin was an act of showing great devotion to God, so under such an employer who used radical clerics to whipe up sentiments among his soldiers, you were very likely to avoid Christian symbols and stress your Muslim identity (to get promoted and for any number of reasons men comply). On the other hand, you can compare it to American soldiers collecting SS daggers. It was deadly to be caught by the Germans with one, but it was cool to own the sacred enblem of the dreaded übermensch elite unit of the enemy as a war spoil. So actually having a sword of European fabrication where it was visible that there was a cross and now a half-moon or a more cultured calligraphy would be one way to triumph.
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