The Medieval Order of Assassins with Steve Tibble

In the last twenty years, the shadowy Assassins of the medieval Middle East have seen a serious resurgence in popularity. And yet, like so many medieval people and groups, it’s still hard to tell the legend from the reality - and that’s just the way the Assassins wanted it. This week, Danièle speaks with Steve Tibble about who the Assassins were, what tactics they used in the Middle Ages, and what this legendary order stood for.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred and eighteen
of the Medieval Podcast. I'm your host Danielle Sebalski. Since
a certain blockbuster video game came on the scene almost

(00:23):
twenty years ago, the shadowy Assassins of the medieval Middle
East have seen a serious resurgence in popularity, and yet,
like so many medieval people and groups, it's still hard
to tell the legend from the reality. And that's just
the way the Assassins wanted it. This week I spoke
with doctor Steve Tibble about the medieval order of the Assassins.

(00:46):
Steve is an honorary research associate at Royal Holloway University
of London, who you may remember from his previous visits
to the podcast when he spoke about his books Templars
and Crusader Criminals. His latest book is Assassins and Templars,
A Battle in Myth and Blood. Our conversation on who
the Assassins were, what tactics they used in the Middle Ages,

(01:10):
and what they stood for is coming up right after this. Well,
welcome back, Steve. We've already been talking for like half
an hour. It's time to get to work and talk
about the Middle Ages. Welcome back to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, thank you, Daniel. It's always always a treat talking
to you. It's a very lovely treat.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, you're back to talk about assassins and Templars, and
you've talked about the Templars on this podcast before, so
I think today we're probably mostly going to focus on
the assassins. But I need to ask why did you
decide to tell their stories together?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's an interesting one, and I
think it's partly because they've become so interweaved in popular culture.
I mean, if you you know, I love gaming, toy
soldiers videos, all all the usual sort of silly stuff,
but I do love it, and Assassin's Creed, for instance,
you know, just brings them together, and it's there is
this kind of weird melding of the two. It's kind

(02:06):
of like Aliens versus Predator and you know, the popular mind.
And weirdly, because I wrote that book on the Templars
that you talked about there, the Templars, the knights who
made Britain. I was coming across a lot of stories
of the Templars in Lebanon and bumping into the assassins
and then and then after that, I wrote a book

(02:27):
called Crusader Criminals, which had a huge chapter on murder,
and you can't go from on two minutes on medieval
murder without bumping into the assassins, you know, thankfully not literally.
So you had this thing where, you know, you can
see the two guys, the two sets of groups operating together,
bouncing off each other, hating each other, killing each other,

(02:48):
but sometimes working together. And then I realized that the
Assassin's Creed stick, you know, is there's actually more than
a grain of truth to it. Bizarrely, you know, the
guys that don't pretend that there game is anything other
than a fantasy game, so you know, actually science fiction really,
I guess. But the world they create in the original one,

(03:08):
the two thousand and seven classic Assassin's Creed, has great
atmosphere and it's got more than a germ of truth
in it. So really, what I ended up writing was
the backstory of Assassin's Creed because I just thought it
was hilarious. And these guys, say so larger than life
in real life. They are legends in their own lifetime

(03:28):
and they have fabulous stories. So bringing the two of
them together, it looks artificial in some ways, but it's
not at all because they were in the same place,
the same time, often the same relationship, same strategies, same enemies,
you know, the same mutual enemies. We can talk about
it later that they both hated Saladin and they knew
he was a harbinger of doom really, so they both

(03:51):
really wanted to get rid of him. So they've got
a huge amount in common. But it's just one of
those weird relationships that until you're under the skin, you
don't realize it's even.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Happeningsolutely Okay, So who are the assassins? From the beginning,
who are these guys? They just sort of appear in history.
I don't think many of us know that backstory that
you're talking about. So where do they come from? Who
are these guys?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
No, you're absolutely right, they are. They do appear, and
they appear at the same time as the templars, I
mean in the same way as sort of appear in
the dictionary as well. They're one of the few medieval
sects that live in everyday parlance because they came to
mean death and murder so literally that it actually is
in the you know, Oxford English Dictionary or the webster

(04:33):
or they stand for a huge amount. Their beginnings are
much more prosaic, I guess, but equally weird. So basically
they are an extreme religious sect. They're a sect of Islam,
so they are technically known as the Nizari Ishmaelers, so
they're a branch of Ishmaelism, which still exists today. The

(04:57):
Aga Khan is their leader at the moment, but obviously
it's very very different in the same way as you know,
the Catholic Church is very different from the templars launching charges.
So the Aga Khan is very different from the kind
of assassins we're talking about today. They were an offshoot
of Ishmaelism, which was in Egypt. So I don't know
if you're aware, but there was an Egyptian empire at

(05:19):
the beginning of the Crusades called the Fatimid Empire. The
Fatimids were in control in Egypt, and they in turn
were an offshoot from Siism, and Sheism is an offshoot
from mainstream Islam or the center of Islam. The Fatimids,
the Ishmaelis in Egypt had a bit of a breakdown
in ten ninety four, actually mainly political and military rather

(05:39):
than anything else. It was a power grab by the Visia,
you know, the traditional power grab. And the guys who
lost that battle they supported a guy called Nizzar who
was one of the contenders. He was killed in the
fighting and they fled to Persia or Iran as it
is now, and the Ishmaeli is over in Iran decided

(06:01):
to side with them rather than side with the Fatimids,
and from that point on you find the Assassins or
Thezarish Mailers have had their kind of headquarters in Persia
and in a place called Alamot, and that where they
conduct this kind of low level war against the foreign
Sunni guys, the Turks who have overrun Persia, and you

(06:23):
find that so from Alamot they're famous castle, famous headquarters.
They have a war that's it's a bit like Vietnam,
you know, it's a war that's partly nationalism, but it's
also partly ideological. If you can get those two things together,
it's a very powerful blend. And the Assassins fought a
very strong kind of provincial nationalist war against the Tyks
in Persia before they gradually spread out into the Crusader

(06:47):
lands and the Holy Land, which I'm sure, we'll talk
about and that's where they met our friends, the Templars.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
So when we're talking about this war that they're conducting
against the Sunnis, what is it that they want? And
I think this is a question that people are asking,
you know, when they start to see the assassins conducting
their ugly business sometimes what is it that they want
from from the world, from the region, because they are

(07:13):
they are moving, as you say, closer to the sea.
What is it that they want from life, from the world.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Well, they don't want a quiet life, he probably guess
they don't dream of beach holidays like you know, you
and I might do. I think there's two parts of
that question. I mean that's a very good question. I
mean one is, you know, one of the objectives. But
the other thing is, you know, you mentioned an ugly business,
So I think maybe it's worth thinking a little bit
about how ugly it was and how different it actually was.

(07:42):
But so firstly, in terms of the objectives, when the
old man of the mountain wakes up on Monday morning,
what does he you know, what's top of his agenda?
What's he thinking about? Has he got hrs is to
worry about? Or it isn't like that. It's easier to
understand them if you think of them as religious fanatics,
and that sounds pejorative way of looking at it, but
from our perspective, almost everybody in the Middle Ages is

(08:05):
a religious extremist. I mean we you know, even if
you're devout, you get a mass every week, you're never
going to be as religious as you know your ancestors
in the twelfth century. But even in an age of
extreme religiosity, the Assassins and the Templars actually really stood
out as people who are on an extreme They were very,

(08:26):
very devoted to their sect and to their religious beliefs.
So the primary thing thereafter is the kind of day
minimous subjective is survival. So they are a religious group
that are hated by almost everybody, particularly the sooner is
so that they've got a lot of enemies, people who
think they're heretics. Ironically, the Christians, who you, I think,

(08:49):
because we're all a bit inward looking and a bit Eurocentric,
and we kind of assume that it's all the assassin
the fighting the crusaders, and actually that couldn't be further
from the truth. The Assassins didn't have really much of
a beef with the Christians, you know, and they were.
Funnily enough, the Assassins were quite open minded. I think
that's one reason why they were unpopular. They were very
open minded about philosophy and happy to talk to people

(09:12):
of other faiths. But the trouble was that the Sooners
would see them as heretics. So they were on the
edge of a one particular branch of Islam, and that
made them very unattractive to the Sooners. So I think
survival day Minimus. But equally, they were very charismatic guys,
as you can imagine. You know, these we're still talking
about them now, but they were legends in their own lifetime.

(09:34):
Their leaders were incredibly charismatic people.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
You know.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Even their job title, you know, Old Man of the Mountain.
I mean it's absolutely redolent. Yeah, it's it's the stuff
of movies, isn't that. The other thing they would like
to do is grow So they always had missionaries going out.
They were kind of ultra violent version of the Book
of Mormon. I guess, you know, they're sending their young

(09:58):
lads out doing good work, you know, and you know,
the guys the Mormons come around with a clean shirt
and the good book, and yeah, the Assassins came with
a sharp dagger and what have you. But if you
think of them as a cult, and I'm saying that
not in a pejorative way, but if you think of
them as a kind of religious act, that you're not
going to go far wrong. That is their main motivation.
But particularly in Persia, they've got this added kicker that

(10:21):
makes them even more attractive, which is that there's a
nationalist element to it. So a lot of the people
in Persia are Sheites like the Assassins, and they tend
not to be Turkic. You know, the Turks have invaded,
so they're kind of sunny and their foreign overlords. So
the Assassins in Persia managed to combine this helpful from
their perspective, combination of spiritual ideas and nationalist emotion and

(10:48):
of course the types a lot of problems in Persia.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Well, I need to add this question because the Assassins,
what they're known for is their sort of well literally
cloak and dagger tack when it comes to making a
political point. But the reason that I wanted to dig
into this is because often there's a backlash, like it
seems like a bad way to conduct business, because when

(11:12):
they conduct an assassination, there's often a huge backlash, including
everybody who might be sort of on the edges of
the religion of whatever community this assassination has happened, and
like there's there's a program, so like I'm wondering, like,
this doesn't seem like a good way to do business.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
No, you're absolutely right. I guess the key thing is
if you're if you're genuinely very fanatical, you're genuinely devoted
to your religious sect, you know, you actually don't care
that is collateral damage you're prepared to sustain. And I
think just coming back to you, medt a very good
point about ugly business, and I think we all feel that,
you know, you read about this essence and you realize
that the way they project power effectually, their foreign policy

(11:53):
is to go around murdering people, which doesn't if you
say it like that doesn't sound very attractive. You know,
it's pretty grim stuff. But in fairness to them, you know,
and I'm not saying I want to go on holiday
with them, but they look at things in a very
precise way. You know, they don't have big armies, so

(12:14):
what they do to project power is discover that a
single man with a dagger can exert as much leverage
as a ten thousand man cavalry army if he's in
the right place at the right time. So they would argue,
and I think that there is some case behind this
that the big armies of their neighbors and enemies caused

(12:35):
far more damage than their hit squads. Did you know
when Saladin invades the region, or any of the Turkic
leaders or Kurdish leaders in his case, thousands of people died,
Villages were burnt, mass rape, mass slavery, you know. I mean,
it's hell on earth when big armies moved around that region,
whereas what they were doing was killing, and it's horrible obviously,

(12:58):
but they were killing an indo. It was very precise.
They would argue that they were the kind of the
telescopic sites and the rifle approach, which was ironically less
blood thirsty than the kind of shotgun approach that everybody
else had. And they were forced into doing that because
they didn't have any choice because there weren't many of them.
But they were also a kind of oppressed minority, so

(13:21):
I'm sure they would argue that that, in fact, there's
a quote from Sinan, who's probably the most famous old
man in the mountain. He and Saladin had this incredibly
vitriolic correspondence because they were both trying to kill each other,
you know, so it really got personal, and you know,
they killed some of a lot of Saladin's people. Where
Sinan said, he started the letter saying, we are the

(13:42):
oppressed and not the oppressors. And when I first read it,
I thought it was a bit of a joke, you know,
because it sounds counterintuitive, but he meant it literally, and
on one level, it's one hundred percent tury. These were
an oppressed minority and they were fighting in the only
way they could.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
And I mean again, like this is not to condone
their tactics, but there is a reason that assassination has
always been with us, because people find it an effective
way to make a point. So I think that it's
a good way that you're approaching us where you're taking
it from a sort of a fanatical perspective, because I
think what is really shocking about the tactics of the

(14:20):
assassins is they go against cultural norms. Right. These are
people who find themselves they integrate and ingratiate themselves into
communities where they're supposed to be trusted and they're supposed
to follow the societal norms, and they don't do that.
And I think that the only way to really understand
is to understand that the objective is much more important
than breaking rules like hospitality. Am I on the right track?

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah? Definitely, right, definitely right. I mean I think they are.
And this is this is another area where then the
Templars have so much in common, is the extraordinary level
of commitment. You know, they basically have small teams of
young men in their hip squads, in the same way
as there are a small team of Templar brothers in squadrons.
You know, they both have their own squads of young
guys who are prepared to die, and they are absolutely

(15:07):
committed to doing anything for the cause. They're not suicide squads,
neither of them. Actually, they don't want to die, and
they usually have an accept strategy, but they're fully prepared
to die. But I think it was quite easy to
characterize the assassins as terrorists. And when you describe their
modus operandi, it's like you think, wow, okay, this is
classic terrorism. So probably they invented terrorism. And I think

(15:30):
there's two aspects of that. One is that they didn't
invent it. I think, you know, since ever since two
monkeys found stakes, you know, there have been political murders,
and they certainly didn't invent it. But what they did
was they didn't have any choice. So in many societies,
you know, you have an army, you have a navy,
you have an air force. Maybe you have a few
assassins and you know in the CIA or you know,

(15:51):
I five or whatever, so you have different grades of capability.
The thing about the assassins was they have they only
had one you know, they only had one weapon, and
that was the Dais, who were the young men in
the hit squads. The commitment those guys had, I think
you're absolutely right shows through in the way that they were.
That's one reason why there were legends in their own lifetime.

(16:13):
They were the James Bond of the Middle Ages. You know,
they were people really were scared of them, way out
of all proportioned to their numbers or their capabilities. And
it was partly because they were able to infiltrate, you know,
and they were so implacable, and it is partly a
branding thing. And there's one thing I'll try and explore

(16:33):
it in the book is you know, we're all used
to brands intuitively. You know, you go to McDonald's, you
know what McDonald stands for for good or bad. You're
going to get this since it's pretty much going to
be that in Bangkok, same as in Montreal or wherever.
And I think the Assassins intuitively grasped that, and they
realized that their foreign policy would only work if people

(16:55):
really were scared to the core, and that people really
understood what the Assassin brand stood for. So they made
the Assassin's brand stand for death. It's the promise of death.
And that's where the implacability comes in. So you can
insert these guys into society. They're efventively sleepers. They can
become Catholics, you know, and they can. Edward Longshanks was

(17:18):
actually godfather to one of them. They were so trusted
that he you know, so the Assassin was called Edward
after his godfather, Edward before he tried to kill him.
And you could work your way into Sunni society pretending
to be a Turk or being this or being that,
and they were just superb getting away with that. They
had language skills, they had empathy skills, they had weapons training.

(17:39):
There is a kind of James Bond mystique to this.
But the other aspect of it is that the other
part of the brand was we are never going to
give up. So if you get on the wrong side
of the assassins, even if they don't get you on
the first hit or the second hit or the third hit,
you know, they're in the back of your mind. You're
just knowing they're not going to stop. They're never going
to stop. And there was one incident where a Bedwind

(18:01):
leader and his tribe got the better of a group
of assassins. And the Bedwin are just as clannish as
the assassins. You know, they're incredibly difficult to infiltrate. And
the assassins literally waited over twenty years before the guy
who'd led the attack on them came out into the open,

(18:21):
you know, went down to the supermarket to buy something
or whatever it is. So they managed to catch the
guy in the open and they killed them. They had
men tracking him for over twenty years, and he must
have thought that he was all clear, you know, he
maybe had even forgotten all about it. But the assassins
never forget all about it, you know. And it's the
fact that they will follow you forever with a dagger

(18:42):
that really creates political power for them, and for a
tiny group of oppressed heretics in a verted commas, that's
the only thing keeping them from death themselves.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Reading your book really brought me back to my childhood
during the Cold War, which is really aging right now.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
I wondered where that sentence was going. I said, Wow,
you had a very different childhood, didn't you.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
No, But I mean there was that sort of legendary,
mystical aspect of it where you could trust no one
because you know, at some point someone who's going to
come out of the shadows with a dag or a
gun or something that sort of moment. I don't think
we were living in that moment anymore, but we certainly
were when I was a child, And so this brought
it back to me, this idea that you really have

(19:28):
to be careful because it could be anybody at any time,
and this is really frightening.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
And that's what they wanted you to think. I mean, yeah,
there was that brilliant TV called The Americans. I think,
wasn't it. What it was just basically about two sleepers operating,
and that had similar elements, you know, people who were
super committed to an ideology, an ideology that you know technically,
so for instance, you know, like the socialist states in
eastern Europe were economically way lower than the West, but

(19:55):
they managed to project power partly by those kind of things,
you know, building a lot of tanks, but also having
very committed spies and agents who would do their bidding.
And I'm sure we did the same, you know.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, one of the things that is sort
of the crux of the Assassin's success in this branding
and fear that they're creating that you mentioned is that
they have a sort of a corporate identity, and so
did the Templars, instead of a family business identity. I
think this is really important, So tell us what you
mean by this.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah. Absolutely, It is a funny thing and it did
only occur to me about halfway into writing the book.
Is that what they again, what they did intuitively realize,
is that they had a different organizational structure that gave
them unique power. So if you think of the twelfth century,
in the thirteenth century, I mean, you work a lot
in well the fourteenth century, so you know you're basically

(20:46):
when you're looking at power in the Middle Ages, nine
times out of ten, it's about families. You know, it's
about as to the throne. It's about people in power
and their wives, husbands, children, nephews and so on, which
is all great up to a point. And if you've
got that kind of connection, it can bring stability and

(21:08):
so on, but it also brings huge vulnerability. If you
kill the right person at the right time, you can
destabilize a huge country in a second. You know, one
knife blade in the right place at the right time
can totally change history. And that's what the Assassins and
the Templars realized. A they could exploit, but b that

(21:31):
they were impervious to because both the Templars and the
Assassins were corporations. You know, if you killed the old
Man of the Mountain sounds like a person, but it's
actually a job title. You know, if you if you
kill the old Man of the Mountain by the following Tuesday,
you've got another Old Man of the Mountain, and all
you've got. If you thought the assassins were angry before
you know, you've you've discovered a whole new level of

(21:55):
anger with the next time. The same with the Templars.
You know, you could, you could kill the Master of
the Templars, but again, you know, Monday afternoon there's another one.
And yet they're just even more pissed off with you.
So they realized they could exert power. So you know,
the assassins would deliberately go to literally the jugular of
the political system where it met families, so effectively, I mean,

(22:18):
Saladin was on the receiving end of up to five
assassination attempts by the assassins, definitely a couple, but probably
a couple of others as well, and they didn't actually
kill him, but just the fact that the implacable nature
of it, plus the fact that he was so vulnerable,
meant that he actually was forced to come to an
arrangement with them. They detested each other, and we've still

(22:40):
got private correspondence from Saladin after he'd made peace with them,
showing that he absolutely hated their guts, but he knew
it was the only way he could literally get them
off his back, because you know, he loved his nephew,
he loved his family, and he knew that none of
his family were going to be safe while you've got

(23:00):
these super crazily motivated guys prepared to track you forever.
So for a small group of people who are under threat,
they discovered a wonderful way of how to, you know, survive.
It's the opposite of making friends and influencing people. It's
sort of making enemies and totally guiding them by fear.

(23:22):
But for them that was the only altentive they had.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Really, Yes, well, I mean you have to picture it
like Saladin's on the move a lot. He's intents a
lot that is not a place where you can feel
very safe. And there's a pervid story that that got
passed down where they're like, Saladin is in a tent
with just a few people, tell us his story, Steve,
because it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Well, the Assassin's got to him an a tent several times. Yeah,
I mean the first time they went in mob handed,
he was besieging Alepo, and that the reason the assassins
hated Saladin so much was because they knew he was
their death. Now, you know, if they hadn't done something,
he was a usurper. So to justify his own position.

(24:04):
He needed to say that he was going to damp
out heretics and infidels. You know, the infidels are the
Crusaders and people like the Templars and the heretics of
the Assassins.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
And he was super.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Rich and he was basically taking over the whole region.
So they knew that if soon the Islam kind of
united under Saladin in a focused way, everybody was dead,
you know, all the Crusader states were dead, and the
Assassins were dead too. So the Assassins pulled out all
the stops. The first hit or the first conspiracy, there
was a murder conspiracy, but they actually joined joined forces

(24:38):
with the Crusaders, and they worked together in the winter
of eleven seventy three seventy four to have a conspiracy
against him in Egypt, presumably to kill him. It didn't
come off. Everybody was crucified who was involved when they
got found out by Saladin's secret service. But then within
a few months they were back and they you know,
when Saladin's proceeded Aleppo, they send and you're absolutely right,

(25:03):
he's in a tent. It's all kind of fluid, you know,
They wait till till meal time in the siege siege
camp saladins, surrounded by people carrying plates in and out,
you know, lots of servants, lots of slaves, people moving
here and there, and thirteen assassins appear, and they it
was so close they nearly got him. They were just

(25:24):
walking very nonchalantly, as you do, towards the great Man's tent,
and suddenly somebody shouted out, you know, don't I know you?
What are you doing here? That kind of thing. And
if you and I were in that situation, we'd think, oh,
maybe it's one of our friends. But they don't have
any friends, so they know that now about half a
second from destruction. So they've got the assassins. We've got

(25:45):
half a second to decide whether to move forwards or
to run away, and of course, being assassins, they just
go pell mell for it. They stopped to kill the
guy who shouted at them, and then they all run
into Salden's tents and there's blood and blades flashing and
blood everywhere. They nearly get him, but they get all
cut down by his guards before they get to the
great Man. But then the following year they do exactly

(26:08):
the same thing, except even cleverer. So Saladin has got
his guard up. By now he's besieging another Muslim castle
called Azaz, and three assassins managed to get to him,
get to the tent, and they actually stab him. They
draw blood, but underneath and you've seen all those portraits
of Saladin, which was wearing these gorgeous clothed, fabulous silks,
and what the pictures don't show you is that underneath

(26:31):
that there's three or four layers of male leather plate.
You know, he's absolutely guarded up to the nines. So
even though the assassins tried to get him in the
in the neck and in the head, he was still
wearing a steel cap and they drew blood. They managed
to stab him, but they didn't get a fatal wound.
And again they were wiped out. And then they just

(26:53):
go into this horrible relationship where Saladin invades the assassin's territory,
burns as many villagers as he can. They enter into
this vitriolic correspondence and it seems like there was at
least another one assassination attempt on him. And this is
quite a funny one because the guy is so incompetent.
You know, we're used. We're talking about these kind of

(27:14):
superhuman James Bond figures here. But one of the guys
hid in a walnut tree. Supposedly Saladin rode underneath the
tree and the guy jumped off, but instead of instead
of tying it right and hitting the great Man, he
hits the horse's bum. So he bounces off, the horse's bum,
falls on the ground, and then he's cut to pieces.
But interestingly, I mean, you could say, well, the assassins

(27:37):
have failed. You know, that's possibly the fourth attempt, and
maybe there was another one afterwards, so each time they
failed to kill him. But the interesting thing is that
that Saladin makes peace with them at this point. He
knows this can go on forever. He's heard all the
horrible stories about, you know, the way that the old
man of the Mountain can just tell his guys to
jump off a cliff and they will. And you know,

(27:58):
there are stories about Sinnan, the old man in the Mountain,
getting his guys to do that in front of Saladin
or in front of his ambassadors, and stories about him
infiltrating guys into Saladin's bodyguard, which I don't quite believe,
but I believe the germ of it, you know what
I mean, And I think Saladin did as well. I mean,

(28:19):
I think the core of the story, the message of
the story is true. I think, you know, the actuality
of it is legendary. But there is that core which
at this point Saladin realized that there were an unending
number of assassination attempts coming, so he had to do
something about it. He couldn't destroy them totally, but they

(28:41):
hadn't got to him yet, so he had to patch
up a piece and he did, and he sort of
included them in peace streets and kind of looked out
for them. You know. It went totally against the grain
because he hated THEA and they killed a lot of
his friends in these assassination attempts, and they threatened the
lives of his family, and particularly his nephew, who was
very fond of was under threat.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Button.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
But despite all that, the assassins won because they forced
him to come to the negotiating table and treat them
as you know, as equals, which they weren't. I mean,
it was amazing diplomatic coup. And if there was ever
a way of explaining why they did what they did,
it was because it worked.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, That's the thing that is exactly right is that
it worked, and so they just kept on with it.
And the more they kept on with it, the more
the legend grew, the more it worked. And for as
you say, like a small group, it's a plan that
that works, whether we are on board with it or not.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, but you have to say, I mean, like
Saladin's response, his repast was, to my part, villages full
of you know, women and children, and the Crusaders would
have done the same. You know, the warfare in that
period or any period, really is brutal and grim and
wide reaching. At least what the assassins did was highly focused.

(29:57):
They would argue that what they were doing was more honest,
but more focused than what their enemies were doing.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yes, well, you have mentioned four seas in the book
that the using I love this, so castle's conversion, carnage,
and chaos. We've covered most of those. But what is
it What is the role of castles in their strategy overall?
Because they are very focused on castles. I mean, I
think it's kind of intuitive why do you need a castle?

(30:25):
But why don't we spell it out? What was their
thinking of castles?

Speaker 2 (30:29):
No, you're absolutely right, and again yes again, this is
something that in the Templars have in common. You know,
if you're a small group that's under threat, you need,
I think what the military nowadays called a force multiplier.
You know, fifty assassins on an empty plane are just
dead meat, you know, because the Sooners can feel the
ten thousand man coverry army. They won't even notice when

(30:51):
they ride over them. And the same with the Templars.
But if you put those fifty guys, super fanatic in
a castle on the top of a mountain incredibly hard
to get to, and from that kind of mountain fastness,
they can come out at the time that they're choosing
and do all the crazy things that they want to
do at a time when fifty men really can make

(31:12):
themselves felt. So the assassins used the castles, and they
actually had a very big network of castles in Iran
and in Syria on the borders of Lebanon, where they
took over whole kind of mountain ranges and they used
them as places to retreat from so they could actually
keep themselves to themselves as a religious community and then

(31:33):
come out when they needed to launch you know, diplomatic
activity in the shape of a knife raid or something.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yes, well, one of the things that we keep coming
back to is that they don't have a lot of manpower.
So how do they acquire these castles? They're not building
them themselves, how do they acquire them?

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, well tis a bit of a mystery. But I
think I've discovered the answer to the mystery because, as
I say, very similar to the Templars. The Templars they
needed castles that weren't very many of them either. There
are only a few hundred Templar brothers at any time.
So they both build a lot of castles. And we
know that castle building is hideously expensive. It's like it's

(32:10):
like a navy building an aircraft carrier. You know, these
are a massive investment. We haven't quite got builders receipts,
but we've got a lot of evidence about Templar castles,
like like Safet or Safad it's called where we've we've
got a lot of the you know, an itemized bill
of what it costs, what the running costs were, and
so on, and it's horrendous. And the assassins had up

(32:32):
to some people estimate seventy castles. Seven zero castles now
part of The problem with running a castle network in
the mountains is it's it's a bit like you know
Tolkien and and how the woodland creatures survive. You know,
how what are the elves, what's what's the Eldvish economy?
Like you because you're in the middle of nowhere, you know,

(32:53):
you've got very few visible means of support. So these guys,
so you look at you look at the mountain network
in Lebanon with the castle and you think, wow, that's
really impressive. You know, with the templars. We know where
the money's coming from because it's coming from Europe. You know,
they're investment bankers. They're getting they've got bigger states in Europe.
Bring the cash in, cash transferred out, pays for mercenaries,

(33:13):
pays for castles. You know, job done. With the assassins,
there's no obvious you know, money trail. You know that
the old thing, follow the money. It's very difficult to
do that with the assassins. But I think the fact
that they're kind of cash strapped most of the time
explains one of the other mysteries, which is very often
they were killing people not on their own account but

(33:35):
for somebody else, and that somebody else was often one
of their sunny enemies, so you think it's a bit weird.
You know, You've got this sect that are fanatically religious.
They're in the mountains, so they keep themselves to themselves.
You know, the logic would be they just honker down.
They don't interact too much with the world of Sunni Islam.
But in fact they venture out and they sometimes quite

(33:56):
frequently do killings on behalf of you need warlords, So
you think, wow, what's that about? And actually I think
the two mysteries explain each other. You know, the mystery
of where's the money for the castles coming from? And
the mystery of, you know, why do they take on
contracts with their enemies explain themselves. They are so short
of money that they need to operate with people that

(34:19):
they would much rather not deal with than vice versa,
to trade in death. So their brand of death is
so powerful that even the people who really hate them
are prepared to use them, because you know, if you're
a tokic warlord, you've got a lot of enemies. I
mean mainly amongst your own side, really, I mean, the

(34:40):
Crusaders you can see them coming, but the Wallers were
always incredibly nervous of each other, very competitive market. So
having the assassins in your pocket meant that your next
door neighbor could have a tragic accident when he was
leaving the masque and you could say, oh, it wasn't me,
you know, it's those Persians, those assassins. They're dreadful people,
aren't they. And it was a way of outsourcing. So

(35:02):
they provided an outsourced murder program, which is like, sounds
pretty awful, but from their perspective, again, it was the
only way that they had to get financing, an influence
in a world that hated them.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yes, well, I mean there's a reason why when people
talk about assassins there there usually is a money element involved,
Like it's usually a contract killing when we use this word,
because there has to be sort of a grain of
truth somewhere. And we will get to this in a second.
That sort of the end of the assassins heyday comes

(35:36):
down to contract killing near the end. But I do
want to come back around to castle before we get there,
because I've already aged myself by talking about the Gold War.
So of course, one of my favorite stories in your
book is about the time the assassins tried to take
over a castle and they failed because of some very
angry middle aged women.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
It Oh, I love this, Yeah, it was because, well,
it's partly because obviously I'll need a very simple life
and I don't get out much, so I'd only recently
come across the expression man'splaining, and you don't see it
much in the medieval chronicles. And also the other thing
is that the assassins are a bit kind of pantomime

(36:19):
villains stroke James Bond characters, so it's hard to relate
to them other than in the abstract, you know. But
there was an incident in eleven fourteen. It was the
largest as far as I can make out, it's the
largest assassination attack where it basically was about one hundred
of the assassins got together and surprised a castle held

(36:40):
by one of their Sunni enemies, and the garrison of
the castle were off patrolling. I think they were actually
partying for the day, but they were reading between the lines.
But anyway, they were off at Christian villages celebrating Easter,
so I can't imagine what, you know, what were they
doing when they were out there, probably having a drink
but anyway, so that so Ches is the name of
the castle, and it's emptied because the garrison's off having

(37:03):
a nice time and the assassins were waiting for this.
So they had one hundred guys ready to go, and
they swept through the castle and it's a bit like Showgun,
one of my favorite books. Loved it when I was
a kid, and there's a wonderful scene in there, which
I've probably read a hundred times of a ninja attack
where the ninja just swarm over a building and kill

(37:25):
everybody in it, and that's pretty much what happened. So
these hundred assassins broke through the city, infiltrated their way in,
killed everybody they needed to in the town, and then
rushed up to the citadel, which was almost empty because
the garrison had gone. A few older guys hanging around,
but none of the care garrison, the people they call
the Askar, And they pushed their way into the citadel,

(37:47):
started killing people, captured half of it, and then and
then and then they just really lost it. And this
is where man's blaining comes into it. So just you know,
the key thing in these situations is moment you know
you're on a winning streak. You just keep pushing forward.
The enemy's disoriented and so on. And the leader of
the assassin stopped because he saw that the only people

(38:09):
left in the citadel were women, and particularly being led
by a middle aged woman who was the mother of
Usama Ibn Munkid, who's quite a famous memoirrist. He was
out at the easter parties as well, but his mum
was there, and she was a hell of a figure.
She was a very haughty and snobbish lady, but she had,

(38:31):
you know, a real backbone, and she managed to get
all her people behind her. And so she started talking
to the head of the assassins in the attack, and
he was so patronizing. So he goes into man's plaining
mode and he goes it's effectively, oh, come on, love,
you know you know how this works. We're already here,
We're going to take over now. We'll kill you if

(38:51):
you don't move quickly. You know you're out now. So
just you know, behave yourself loved. So get they come
into this kind of crap man's plaining thing, and she refuses,
She absolutely refuses. She arms all her servants, even you know, women,
old women who had you know, domestics, cleaners, cleaning ladies
are dressed up and they put chain mail on, and

(39:12):
there's a wonderful thing where she's simultaneously kind of domestic
goddess at the same time as she's running with this battle.
She distributes swords from the family cabinet to everybody, but
she refuses to give them the scabbards because they're too
richly decorated and she doesn't trust the staff to not
walk off with her highly decorated scabbards. She also gets

(39:33):
her daughter, who Zusama's sister, who's a young, young young
at the time, and she places her on a balcony
overlooking the Orontes River, which is where she is based on,
and she's poised, gets her daughter poised on the balcony
so that she can throw herself off or be thrown
off if the assassin's break through. And the first time

(39:54):
I read it, I thought, wow, that's that's really good.
She's trying to, you know, save her daughter. This is
real fanaticism, but really shows backbone. And then I carried
on reading and then she's because she's so haughty. She says, no,
I was always going to I was going to kill
her I was going to kill my daughter if they
break through, And then you're kind of expecting her to

(40:16):
say because their assassins and their heretics, and she didn't.
She said, I'm not going to have her touch by peasants.
So it was they were down market. It wasn't that
they were the enemy or that they were heretics. It
was the fact that they were too down market to
touch her daughter. So this matron and her cleaners basically
held off the assassins. They didn't need to hold on
for long because the garrison got word of the assault.

(40:40):
They started coming back, and eventually they broke in through
the town again and wiped all the assassins out. But
it is just this lovely story really, where the most
scary people on the planet got too cocky, believed their
own propaganda, started to behave in a very patronizing way
to a few women, and really the penalty, every single

(41:01):
one of them died because of that man's plaining. So
I think there's a lesson for all of us there.
You know, let it be known, you should.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
You should never underestimate a middle each woman who is
just enough.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Exactly exactly they're not going to take it anymore. And
that's that's what the assassins found.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
All right, Well you can tell where I needed I
think the listeners can tell where I needed this story
to be told. All right.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
It's a good story and it's true.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Yeah, So the Templars and the Assassins are at their
height around the same time, the time we were talking
about when there's a really famous old man of the mountain.
But they do, they do come down. They do sort
of end up receding from from the spotlight at the
same time as the Templars kind of have an end
the way the Templars have an end, but differently. So

(41:51):
tell us how this came about. I mean, we don't
have a lot of time to talk about it, but
in a nutshell, how did they end up losing their
alleged becoming lesser at the end?

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yes, no, you're absolutely right. I mean that they are
still legendary. That's the weird thing. I mean, the legends
have actually grown over time. But you're one hundred percent right.
They both petered out politically at the same time. And
then again, you know, as with the Templars, you know,
same time, same place. So by the end of the
thirteenth century, and the Holy Land. In the thirteenth century,
things were really turning. As we've been talking about Man

(42:23):
explaining it's you know, that is the danger of believing
your own propaganda. And by the middle of the thirteenth
century there were a really, really tough group entering into
the region called the Mongols that we all heard of.
I mean, these are really really scary guys. I mean,
for a lot of the Muslim chroniclers that they write
about them like it was a zombie apocalypse. They really

(42:45):
have you know, mythic proportions of beer. And the assassins.
You know, the Mongols went through and destroyed an awful
lot of Islam in a place like Baghdad, killing everything,
and the Assassins at the time thought this was quite
a good you know, they thought anybody who's killing this
many Sunni Muslims can't be all bad. So they cozed
it up to the Mongols, and we're even encouraging them.

(43:07):
They were trying to help spot targets for them, you know,
all there's you know, rich pickings if you go and
destroy that town and so on. But because they believed
their own propaganda, they basically overstepped the mark and they
got pissed off with one Mongol general. They responded instead
of instead of behaving diplomatically, they said, oh, I know what, well,

(43:28):
he'll enjoy a visit from the Fideis. So they sent
a hits god In killed them and expected that that
would be a way of, you know, starting negotiations and
exerting power, but in fact, Mongols being Mongols, that was
just the end. The Mongols just went ballistic, and if
the Assassins thought they were implacable, you know, the Mongols
were totally remorseless. So they absolutely wiped out the assassins

(43:51):
in Persia, which was you know, been taken over by
the Mongols. And I think a lot of people use
the word genocide in a very loose and unrealistic way now,
but you could pretty much apply it to what the
Mongols did there. They really did wipe out domestic animals,
women and children, men, you know, everything they could of
the assassins in Persia. Interestingly, the assassins in Syria, which

(44:15):
is where you know sin And is based, It's where
Assassin's creed is sort of based as well, they survived
longer because there was another large Muslim group, another large
Sunni group called the Mamlukes who took over, and actually
they beat the Mongols in twelve sixty at the Battle
of Anzuloute, and again you can just see the Assassins
breathing asidh of relief. They're thinking, Oh, okay, yeah, it's

(44:37):
like we can go everything and go back to normal down,
you know, we can do our usual tricks. But again
they were disappointed because the guys who took over were
so tough and so powerful. I mean, the clue is
that if you're powerful enough to destroy the Mongols, you
know you're not going to be a pleasant guy to
go on holiday with. So they basically are particularly sort

(44:58):
tankled Bybars absolutely loathed the Assassins. So he took over
their castles, he took their lands, but he interestingly was
he was ruthless, but in a kind of clinical way,
so he didn't destroy them. What he did was what
all good warlords wanted, which was to have hit squad
in his back pocket. So he basically allowed them to

(45:20):
survive as long as they became his creatures. And in
a sense, he, more than anybody, helped create the fact
that we've got the word assassin in the dictionary as
well as in the history book, because he really did
kind of pervert them into just becoming hard killers. So
they community was saved, but only on the basis that

(45:40):
they would do whatever by Bars told them to do,
and he would he would even write about them in
peace streeters, you know, with say, with the Franks and Crusaders.
He would say, yeah, there's a truce and it'll run
for ten years and ten months and ten days, and
my soldiers won't go there, but I reserved the right
to send in a hit squad to kill you. It's
really really crazy stuff in black and white threatening people,

(46:03):
but with the Assassins, you knew you could do that.
So he basically bought them and then twisted the brand
for his own personal use. So they kind of the
one Sincerea didn't die out, which is why we've got
you know, the lovely ish mails now and the Alga
can and everything. But they were very much not the
same group they were. They were new toed and they

(46:24):
enter into a different kind of legend from that point.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Well, I think that this moment really sort of sells
your argument for telling stories about Assassins and Templars together,
because they are both sort of destroyed in their original form,
but people can't leave it at that because they're two legendaries,
so you have to you have to do something with them.
In fact, you have a chapter that's like, we can't
leave it here because.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, no, I know, I know it was that was
originally called don't leave Me this way, but I'm told
I had to change the chapter heading. It's like, yeah,
could both of them I think deserve to be remembered better.
You know, the Templars did great sensible things, you know,
as well as crazy charges. The Assassins put a lot
of effort into saving their community. You know, it was

(47:08):
the commitment of their hit squads that saved their people.
And both of them survived in a position of power
for two hundred years. And you know, most countries, if
you look at the UN, most of the countries in
the UN are less than two hundred years old. So
although they failed, you know that, let's not get carried away,
they performed very well, particularly given how small they were.
You look at the lack of resources, particularly for the assassins,

(47:32):
and you think, wow, these guys achieved a lot for
their people using dubius methods obviously, but you know, I
would have to say I think almost everything about the
medieval world is dubious, really, I mean, particularly warfare. So
I don't know why the Assassins get singled out for
blame on that front, because I think they were they
did an extraordinary job in trying to save their people.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yes, well, I'm sure there are reasons, reasons, they're pretty obvious.
But we're not going to get to do right now
why the Assassins have a worse reputation than the Templars too.
We're not going to get into that now. But indeed,
so many people who listen to you visiting this podcast
or read your books really love the way that you
talk about your subjects, and you have now created a

(48:17):
new way that people can listen to you talk about
the Templars. So this is a moment to give us
your pitch. You are now doing a new project called
Talking Templars. Tell us about this.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, well, yeah, thank you, Daniel. It's basically a fun
video podcast on YouTube and all the usual channels that
I'm doing with Tony McMahon, who's is a well known
TV personality, and Tony is looking at the legends and
the conspiracy theories, and I'm looking at the history. So

(48:47):
the stick is that we kind of bounce off each
other on the voice of reason, and Tony's the crazy one.
He obviously disagrees with that, but it's it's just a
very fun way of kicking the tires on the templars
in the past and the truth and looking at what
they've become in the present and identifying where the elements
of truth are and where it's just complete madness. But

(49:10):
you know, to a large extent, it's just me and
Tony having fun, and hopefully that fun is a little
bit infectious.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Wow. I always enjoy having fun with you, Steve, So
thank you so much for coming back again and telling
us all about the assassins today. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, thank you, Danielle. It's always a treat.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
To find out more about Steve's work, you can visit
his website at Steve Tabble dot com. His new book
is Assassins and Templars, a Battle in Myth and Blood.
Before we go, here's Peter from Medievalisttnet to tell us
all the things that are going on. Welcome back Peter
from Greece.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
Indeed, indeed, I was at the Orthodox Academy of Crete
for a conference on Christianity, and man, that was a
really good conference. Close about thirty of us were there.
Talks range from like tang China to Lithuania to Armenian manuscripts,
a lot of fun stuff, and I also.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Spoke to So it was a great conference beyond just
the weather.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Oh that weather was nice, I have to say. And
so I want to thank that Academy, not the Academy,
but the Orthodox Academy from having us there. And man,
if you want to have a conference, that is a
good place to do it because you wake up to
a beautiful view every day.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
That's amazing. That's amazing. I'm going to try not to
be too jealous of you. But after the conference, you
went exploring, right indeed?

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Indeed, yeah, I know it took a few days to
go to Athens, why not, right, And had a wonderful
time there, explored a few medieval monasteries and churches. One
thing I really want to give a shout out to
is the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens. I know,
like there's the other kind more famous museums there, but
if you're a medievalist, you really have to go. I

(50:54):
was just floored, not just by the artwork. But like
how the museum is very modern. It laid it out
very nice, so it was wonderful just to walk through.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
So everyone needs to put it on their list, their
bucket list. Everyone wants to go to Greece and now
they can go to this museum.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Indeed, indeed it's called the Byzantine and Christian Museum. And
the artworks to kind of painted icons, that room was
just amazing, So yeah, go there, and as well as
the medieval monasters. I was like the first one I
went to. I was like the first one there. No
one came for like another hour, so.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
That sounds amazing. That sounds perfect.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Indeed, I quite liked it. It was just me in cats
and cats. Yeah, there are a lot of cats just
wandering around in Greece. Every monastery that Monsor had like
four cats.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
That sounds like the ideal place for you.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
It is. It is so if your Athens forget all
the ancient stuff that's too old at the medieval stuff.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
I don't know if I can agree with you on that,
because I love ancient Greek stuff as well. I think
that I need to spend many days in Athens before
I was tired out so.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Anyways, that's what I did. But now back and the
site is moving along and we actually were able to
do a few posts thanks to you.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Yes, that's right, I pinch hit for Medievalist dot net.
I got into the back end of the program and
started putting out some articles while Peter was away. I
didn't write them, but I did make sure that Peter's
site kept going, because that's what friends do while other
friends are having amazing freak vacations. Right, why not, I

(52:27):
shouldn't call it a vacation. You did do work there
kind of.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Yeah, it's a working vacation.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
So if you want to read about timekeeping begins or Busaco,
those are new pieces on the website and we've got
a bunch more coming along as well as the Black
Friday sale continues on our think ific courses.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Right, and it's Medieval Studies dot thinkific dot com. And
what's the code again? Is just black Friday?

Speaker 3 (52:51):
It just Black Friday. All one word saves you twenty
five percent off.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
Amazing. Well, welcome back, Peter. Those people who are shopping
for a Black Friday idea are so happy that you're back,
and so are we all. I think welcome.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
Back, Oh, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
As you heard last week, in twenty twenty six, I'll
be taking over the patreon dot com slash medievalists account
and turning it into a medieval podcast community. My plan
is to create a fun and welcoming space to discuss
all things medieval, and I'd like to know what you
think should be featured there. To find out, I've set
up a survey open to all patrons so that you

(53:27):
can have your say. If you're not currently a patron
but you'd like to fill out the survey, go ahead
and join the freezier at patreon dot com slash Medievalists
so you can let me know what you think. Thank
you to everyone who's already filled out the survey and
sent me such kind messages and suggestions. I'm so glad
to hear this podcast has been a positive part of
your lives, and I'm looking forward to exploring more ways

(53:50):
to share the love. One of those ways has been
to create a medieval podcast website where you can find
what you're looking for when you need it. At the moment,
it's still under construction, but as you heard last week,
I've put together a holiday booklist with somewhere around seventy
five of the books featured on the podcast, going back
to episode two hundred and fifty and including Peters and

(54:12):
My Top Books of twenty twenty five and Steve Tibble's
Assassins and Templars. I'm hoping it'll make holiday shopping for
your loved ones or for yourself easy. If you choose
to shop at Amazon this season, clicking through the affiliate
links will help fund this podcast, so you have my
extra things, but the list is there for you to
shop wherever you like, or just to take a stroll

(54:34):
down memory lane. You can find it all at medieval
podcast dot com slash Holiday Booklist. Thank you for all
the ways you've been supporting the podcast, whether it's through
Patreon or affiliate links, or letting the ads play, or
just sending me your kind words. I'm grateful to you
for being here for everything from Assassins to how they

(54:56):
put stained glass in Sorry, that was a really tough one.
Follow Medievalist dot net, on Instagram at medievalist net, or
blue Sky at Medievalists. You can find me Danielle Sabalski
across social media at five min Medievalist or five minute medievalist,
and you can find my books at all your favorite bookstores.

(55:20):
Our music is by Christian Overton. Thanks for listening, and
have yourself a wonderful day.