Beardless crusaders.


In the 11th century, when the first crusaders arrived in the middle east, some muslims thought they were being attacked by women.
The reason for this is that the crusaders did not wear beards.
At that time, in the middle east, it was unthinkable for a man not to have a beard. While in western Europe, where the crusaders came from, all men had their hair long and their face shaven. No moustaches and no beards. When the muslims found out that their enemies were men, men without beards, they wondered if those men were from a different planet.

But even in the middle ages, fashion changes all the time, and soon beards came back into style in western Europe. And long hair for men went out of style. And came back into style again.

The crusaders thought the muslims were weird too. When the muslims battled, they fought as a team. They coordinates their moves to work together. Western european warriors at that time fought as individuals. The crusaders thought that the eastern way of fighting looked more like dancing than fighting. And dancing, at that time, was considered a female activity. No real man would ever dance. So those muslim fighters were dancing sissies.
Soon however, the crusaders found that the eastern fighting style did pay off. Working as a team makes you stronger, and coordinating your moves helps with that.
The word about this new figting style spread, and soon young warriors in western Europe had dancing lessons as part of their training. They had to wear bells on their clothes and on their weapons. The bells would make sure the young warriors could hear their own moves, and their mates' moves. If all bells sounded at the same time, it meant the group moved as a team. If the bells sounded at different times, movements were uncoordinated. Of course those bells were only worn during dance class, not during battle.

The picture shown on this page was made in the 13th century. That's 200 years after the beginning of the crusades. If you want to see an 11th century picture of beardless crusaders, you'll have a hard time finding it. Very few pictures of that area have survived.


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These articles are all written by me. These articles are brought to you as useless information, and they pretend to be nothing more than that.
Not everything I state in these articles is nessecarily true. But it is not all untrue either.

Coen de Moor