Talk:Battle of Cresson

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The main article contained a rather curious set of numbers, 140 for the Crusaders, and 700 for the Saracen forces. These are not the numbers given by contemporary sources, which indicate that the Crusaders had 10 Hospitallers, 90 Templars, and 40 Knights from the garrison at Nazareth, while the Arab forces numbered 7000. It is unclear if the author has reduced the 7000 to 700 on purpose or simply by accident. Either way, such a reduction is entirely arbitrary and somewhat misleading to the reader. The author is also unfamiliar with Christian sources as they repeat the 140 as the total force under Gerard's command. In fact this is the number of knights under his command. Medieval chroniclers were in a bad habit of giving the number of Knights on their side, but the total strength of an enemy force. In fact Knights were only a fraction of the total forces. In addition any force would have mounted sergeants (hard to judge but at least as many again as the Knights) who were armed in a very similar manner but lacked the social status of the Knights, as well as foot troops which would include both bows/crossbows and sergeants fighting on foot, and Turcopoles who fought in the same manner as the Arab troops. If we trust the original sources, 140 Knights would have been in the region of 500 mounted troops (assuming as the sources suggest that the infantry were left behind). Which would still have been hopelessly outnumbered against 7000.

However, there are in-numerable problems with numbers of Medieval sources, which are too difficult to tackle in detail (in this particular case 90 Templars seems far to high, and 7000 is as a number of historians have pointed out implausibly high for a raid). So until someone is willing to link in a lengthier discussion of the problems with sources and estimating numbers I have corrected the main article to read the numbers the sources actually give us (ie about 500 against 7000).

700 was probably a typo. I got 140 by adding up 10+90+40, without attempting to speculate on the other numbers. It's not really necessary to go into a lengthy discussion about the problems of numbers in medieval sources; this is a pretty obscure battle and presumably anyone who bothers to read about it will be familiar with medieval armies anyway. The point, obviously, is that there were a lot more Muslims. Adam Bishop 19:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

You wrote the initial article and knew little enough about medieval sources to make the error. If you look through the historiography of Cresson you will see that a great many military historians have known little enough to make the same error. So it seems absurd to suggest that a general reader would have been able to correct for your mistake. Cresson is a good example of bad history, the first accounts by narrative historians were little more than a precis of the account in Libellus, and historians since then have played an extended game of chinese whispers with this battle. I will add some of the primary source accounts as I get the opportunity (I have added two which I have to hand which are not the most important but do show how a different light on the event), before looking again at the main summary. Just because it is a minor battle does not justify doing a poor job on it.

Alright, well thanks for your additions. I've attempted to salvage what was relevant and incorporate it more smoothly into the text. Adam Bishop 03:08, 26 November 2005 (UTC)