Turcopole

A leader of these auxiliaries was designated as Turcopolier, a title subsequently given to a senior officer in the Knights Templars and the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, in charge of the coastal defences of Rhodes and Malta.

It has been argued that, while Turcopoles certainly included light cavalry and mounted archers, the term was a general one also applicable to indigenous Syrian footmen serving as feudal levies in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

[8] Evidence that Syrian levies, whether designated as turcoples or not, provided the bulk of the Frankish (Western European) led infantry of Outremer is not available but there are specific references to their participation in the Siege of Tripoli by Raymond de Saint-Gilles.

[11] In addition to indigenous Christians and converted Turks, the Turcopoles of Outremer may at various dates have included contingents from the west trained to serve as mounted archers.

The Turcopoles served as light cavalry providing skirmishers, scouts, and mounted archers, and sometimes rode as a second line in a charge, to back up the Frankish knights and sergeants.

The cost of paying the mercenary element amongst the Turcopoles was one of the specific reasons for repeated cash donations being sent to the crusader states from Europe.

However the historian Steven Runciman considers this number exaggerated, and notes that the Muslim light cavalry present were probably better armed than the Turcopoles.

The senior office-holders of the Knights Templar included a Turcopolier who commanded both the mercenary cavalry recruited by the Order in the east and the sergeant-brothers.

The Hospitallers included in their rank-structure a Turcopolier, who originally was probably a sergeant-brother but who in 1303 was accorded the senior status of conventual bailli (official in the Central Convent).