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Assassin's Creed Hexe

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Gameplay

Assassin's Creed: Hexe will be a more linear entry in the Assassin's Creed series, breaking away from the modern format. It is set in Central Europe, during the 16th century Holy Roman Empire. The protagonist is Elsa, a witch of sorts with alleged supernatural abilities, such as possessing animals and controlling them. The fear system from the Assassin's Creed: Syndicate downloadable expansion Jack the Ripper is rumored to make a comeback, with Elsa relying heavily on it to fight back against the Holy Roman Empire's soldiers.^[1]

Echoes of History transcripts

Assassins vs Templars

The Knights Templar

Woman's Voice: History Hit and Assassin's Creed presents Assassins vs. Templars. Real histories of the secret orders.
Matthew Lewis: Welcome to the inside of one of history's greatest stories. I'm Matt Lewis, and in this collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit, we're taking you back to the very beginning. The story of Assassin's Creed is one of deadly rivalry between conflicting ideologies that asks whether peace is found through freedom or control. It began with assassins and Templars racing to gather the Pieces of Eden in the fiery heat of the Near East amidst brutal religious upheaval. Now we're all Desmond Miles, and we've even found our Animus. A team of the greatest historians working in their field today will help us unlock the memories of the past, lead us through their secrets, and introduce us to some of the real people who inspired the game. It's time to break into the vaults of two of history's most infamous organizations as we pit the Assassin's Creed against the Templar Order. In this episode, I'm joined by Professor Helen Nicholson, who is a professor of medieval history and former head of history at Cardiff University. She's a world-leading expert on the military religious orders and the crusades, which makes her the perfect guide to lead us through the mysteries of the Knights Templar. Thank you very much for joining us, Helen. It's wonderful to have you here.
Helen Nicholson: Thank you for having me.
Matthew Lewis: Assassin's Creed pits the Assassins against the Templar Order. When does the Order of the Knights Templar emerge and become a military order?
Helen Nicholson: No one recorded exactly when they started, but it seems to be January 1120 at the Council of Nablus in the Holy Land, when the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the King of Jerusalem were both present. They approved this idea by Hudepin and his friends that they should form a military group for defending Christian pilgrims, also for defending Christian land.
Matthew Lewis: And there's a bit of a movement of military religious orders at this point. Where do the Templars sit in that? Are they the first?
Helen Nicholson: Templars were the first military religious order as such, although we could argue they were continuing the idea of the First Crusade, and some writers linked them back to the First Crusade and said that they were knights who'd been on the First Crusade and had decided to stay in the Holy Land, and that they saw the land needed protectors. Now, these are people writing slightly later, so it's not clear this is entirely accurate, but it gives us an idea of where the ideas came from. At the same time, you could see the idea of the Templars, a brotherhood in arms, serving God, could also come from the confraternities, the brotherhoods that have formed during the Crusade. And it wasn't a new idea for Christians to fight in defence of Christendom, but it's the Templars who became the first permanent and professional military religious force.
Matthew Lewis: And what do we know about Hugues de Payens, that man who is credited with starting the Templars? Why did he want to build this military order?
Helen Nicholson: There's a certain amount of information about Hugues de Payens' life in Champagne. Before he went out to the East, he'd been married, his wife's name was Elizabeth, and she died, they had a number of children, and he'd gone out to the East with Hugh, Count of Champagne, on at least one expedition to the East. Exactly when he'd arrived in the East before he founded the Templars is not clear. And then there were a number of other people who were with him at the beginning of the order, Godfrey of St. Omer, for example, and we don't know exactly when they got there. All we can say is that they all seemed to be together in about 1120.
Matthew Lewis: And in the game in Assassin's Creed, we see the Templars working in the Third Crusade in the 1190s. Why are military orders springing up in the build-up to that period in the 12th century? What are they a reaction to?
Helen Nicholson: There's two things going on which we ought to take into account. One is big upheaval in the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church in Europe, that is. Not just the noble people who could afford to become monks, but now people not from the noble classes were joining the Church and forming originally ad hoc groups of hermits living in caves in Italy or Spain. And these become acknowledged by the Church as a good idea and become formal orders. We can see the Templars as being an offshoot from this, lay people coming together and forming their own religious group. The Church had become more willing to acknowledge these individual small group ideas, a bit more bottom-up than top-down. The other aspect was the rise of ideas of knighthood, chivalry as it becomes known from the French chevalier, which just means knighthood. And the Templars fit into these ideas of knights can serve God simply by being knights. There is a standard of behavior that they should adhere to, protecting other people at the risk of their own lives, laying down their own lives in defense of others, particularly those that can't defend themselves. So women, the elderly, children, Church people, who are only supposed to fight in self-defense and are probably not trained to fight. So the Templars combine these ideas of new religious life and idealized knighthood. But they're not quite like most secular knights because they concentrate on the austerity which is characteristic of religious orders. And they're not operating as individuals. As anyone who's read the stories of King Arthur would know, they're very much focused on individual knights, but Templars operate as a group, they're a community. So they have this communal lifestyle, communal mindset.
Matthew Lewis: So it sounds like they were a reaction to quite a few things that were going on at the time. Is it fair to see them as a thoroughly modern movement at the time?
Helen Nicholson: Oh yes, cutting edge were the Templars when they were founded. The very latest thing in religious ideology and secular movement, which was one reason they were so popular among ordinary people, anyone who could afford to give them something indeed, down to when I die, they can have my horse.
Matthew Lewis: And you mentioned that the primary purpose of the Templars was to protect Christian pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. Were they successful in that?
Helen Nicholson: Yes, on the whole, they were. And the Hospitallers who became militarized a bit after the Templars, they started off as a hospital and then they take up military activities for the same reason as the Templars, pilgrims need protection. They commissioned ships and then they have their own ships to carry people from the West to the Holy Land. And the great advantage of traveling with the Templars or the Hospitallers was you could be pretty sure you'd get there and you wouldn't get sold as a slave on the way. And then they would escort you along the pilgrim routes. It looks a little bit like a package tour.
Matthew Lewis: I was going to say, it sounds a lot like buying a package tour with a tour rep coming with you. But I wondered whether I was being a bit naughty saying that.
Helen Nicholson: Some scholars have made this comparison with a perfectly straight face and others have said that it's being flippant. But I like it because although these people don't go around photographing everywhere, they go around kissing all the sites instead. So you arrive at your holy site, you go in, you pray, you kiss any relics, you kiss the holy site. And some people obviously make written records of this, which they take home with them or they write it down when they get home so other people can read about their journey and can imagine that they're making this journey too and they're visiting the various holy sites so they can stop and pray while they're reading the description of the pilgrimage. So just as people also have vicarious holidays where they're watching other people's photographs or watch something on the television, you can have your vicarious pilgrimage.
Matthew Lewis: And we associate the Templars today with a particular uniform with the white robes with the red cross on. They stand out in the Assassin's Creed game for wearing that. Where does that uniform originate from and how soon do they develop that?
Helen Nicholson: Originally, they didn't have any special clothing, but at the Council of Troyes, very near where Hugues de Payens came from, in Champagne in January 1129, the ecclesiastics who gathered there, the knights at any rate, should wear a white mantle as a sign of purity. They'd given away their old life and they're now taking on this new life. The red cross came later. Archbishop William II of Tyre, writing his history of the Crusader states from the mid 1160s to the mid 1180s, said that it was Pope Eugenius III who gave them the red cross. He was Pope during the Second Crusade, so we can assume it was about that time they were given the red cross. And the red cross represents the blood of Christ and the fact that Templars are supposed to shed their blood for other Christians on the battlefield.
Matthew Lewis: It's a very visible marker of that duality of what they do, the white rose of the priest, but the red cross to represent blood and the martial elements of what they do too.
Helen Nicholson: Absolutely. Visually, very striking. Non-knights didn't have the white mantle. They had to wear a dark colored mantle, so they wouldn't have been quite so obvious.
Matthew Lewis: And how did the Templars balance their religious duties with the military aspects of what they do? I mean, traditionally, the church frowned on people who spilled blood. How did they manage to balance those two things?
Helen Nicholson: The church had always said, yes, that clergy shouldn't shed blood, but there are certain people in society who should be able to shed blood, even though they might have to do penance for it afterwards, because they're defending other Christians. And some of Jesus' earliest followers were actually soldiers. Some of the early Christians mentioned in the Book of Acts in the New Testament are soldiers. So clearly, you can be a soldier and serve Christ, but you're not supposed to go around murdering people. You're supposed to be serving Christ by protecting other Christians. So when the Templars take this up, it's not an entirely new idea, but the idea of ordinary knights being allowed by the church to do this, to wipe out their sins, was something that canonist church lawyers were still working on. It was part of the idea behind the First Crusade, but of course, the First Crusade was only temporary. On the other hand, taking on this monastic lifestyle suited this very well, because monks already claimed to be fighting God's battle, but in prayer. So the Templars are a militia of God, but now they're fighting physically. So that can be easily adapted to suit knights in the Order of the Temple. They have very strict discipline, as monks do. Monks are all supposed to obey their abbot, and this idea of command and control that you have in a monastic order works very well for a military order as well. Everybody should obey the master. And then he has this hierarchy of officials under him, each one knowing what their particular duties are, which again works very well for an army. And they have a very strong mission statement. Every army needs its mission statement. Whereas monks serve God in prayer and contemplation, knights serve Christ as Christ's army and lay down their lives for Christians and in protection of Christian territory. So it's not actually that difficult to reconcile the two. There are a few practical difficulties, like what you do if it's time for matins and you're all out in the field. Well then, rather than having a formal service, you might have to just recite a certain number of the Lord's Prayer, the Pater Nostris, from the horseback. So certain things had to be adapted in the regulations of the Templars as they developed over the years, as they had to adapt to deal with current conditions. There's a comment that they might have to have their sins forward forgiven before they set off on a voyage, for example, because the chance of drowning at sea when you're on your way to Europe or coming back from Europe are quite high. So you have to take precautions. But on the whole, they managed to balance their rule of life, like monks would have with their military activities as an army would need to have. And as I say, the discipline aspect is there in both monks and in warriors. So the Templars were a very disciplined force and very much admired for their discipline.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess that mental gymnastics and that development of the rules is worth it for the Church to have such a potent force at its disposal.
Helen Nicholson: It really was necessary to have a permanent military force out of the Crusader states. It was clear that none of the secular nobles could provide something that was permanent and that could be relied on to turn up when needed. This was always a headache in the West. When the kings of Spain are organizing their campaigns against the Muslims in Spain, their nobles don't always turn up when summoned, but the Templars will always turn up.
Matthew Lewis: Always ready for a fight.
Helen Nicholson: It's one disadvantage, though, of the military orders being religious and only answerable in theory to the Pope, and they don't always answer to the Pope either. Because they know they're Christ's army, they often think they know best. So the King of Jerusalem might have one idea, the leader of the Crusade might have another idea, and the Templars have their own idea, and the Hospitallers have their own idea. And this will have been reinforced by prayer and discussion and their experiences in the Holy Land. And it's very difficult to talk them out of what they think. They're not actually answerable to secular authority, so they don't have to pay attention to secular authority.
Matthew Lewis: And that must have caused problems. If everyone agrees on the aim, but nobody agrees on the way to get there.
Helen Nicholson: Yes, it was definitely a problem during the Second Crusade. And subsequently, you needed somebody with a very strong leadership skills, charismatic character like Richard the Lionheart in the Third Crusade to keep the military orders on side.
Matthew Lewis: How good were the Knights Templar? Do they deserve their incredible military reputation? I mean, in the game, they're seen as the natural foils to the Assassins. We know that Altaïr in the game is forced to fight Robert de Sable, the Grand Master of the Templar Order. Are they worthy rivals?
Helen Nicholson: They were as good as their reputation. They were a team. They worked together, fought together. They knew each other's weaknesses and strengths, unlike other armies of the time. It was unusual in Europe at this time to have military forces that worked together long term, except perhaps some of the mercenary companies who would stay together for a long period. One of the reasons they get blamed for defeats is because they were seen as the elite military force in the battle. Therefore, if we lost, it must be their fault. Because we didn't expect much of the others, but the Templars we expected more of. The fact that people continue to give them donations and join the Templars right up to the end of 1307 is an indication of how successful they were seen and how highly they were regarded in the West.
Matthew Lewis: 'And the game in Assassin's Creed, it pits the Templars against the Assassins as the two pinnacles of different ideologies. Do you think it's fair to see the Templars as this real pinnacle of the Christian military presence in the Holy Land?
Helen Nicholson: Templars were certainly a pinnacle of one line of Christian ideology in the Holy Land. Of course, the various leaders of the Crusader states could never agree on what the best policy was. So, for example, the Templars and Hospitallers disagreed in the 13th century after the Third Crusade on whether they should be aligned with Egypt or Damascus. And either one could be argued, and scholars are still arguing over that one. And so, likewise, during the Third Crusade, in fact, the military orders did agree that they shouldn't go and capture Jerusalem because they didn't think they could hold it. They should go and capture Egypt first. And Richard the Lionheart decided he would do that because he respected their views. But others said, no, we should have gone to Jerusalem. And again, scholars are still arguing over that. So it's clearly not an easy decision to make.
Matthew Lewis: How did the influence of the Templars begin to spread beyond the Holy Land? Because they would reach all the way across Christian Europe over the decades and centuries that followed their establishment.
Helen Nicholson: The Templars had property right across Latin Christian Europe, except in Scandinavia. And they started to acquire that very, very quickly. In 1120, Count Fulk V of Anjou went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage and he joined the Templars for a short period. And then you were allowed to join as a temporary member. And then he went back to the West and continued to give them donations. And according to Orderic Vitalis, a monk from England, in fact, from the English-Welsh border, who was in the Norman monastery, he also encouraged other people to make donations to the Templars. So that's right from the very beginning of the Templars' existence. They had Fulk of Anjou agitating for them and encouraging other people to join. And Hugues de Paynes' lord, Count Hugh of Champagne, joined around 1125. Then in the Iberian Peninsula, the King of Aragon, Alfonso I, had already been trying to found his own military religious order from the early 1120s. And he clearly found it was difficult to do this, just one kingdom without the resources you need to keep it going on a long-term basis. So he ended up in 1131 when he made his will, donating his kingdom to the canons of the Holy Sepulchre. So it's the priests that run the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Hospitallers and the Templars. So that's hardly more than a decade after the Templars had been founded. They were being given a third of a kingdom, which they did not, in fact, get. And the Queen of Portugal was giving them a valuable castle by 1128. So the idea caught on very, very quickly in the West. People clearly thought, I can't go on pilgrimage myself, but I would like to help people in the Holy Land. I want to help protect the Crusader States. I'll make a donation to the Templars and they will pray for me because they're a religious order. And when they're out there fighting, I'll be praying for them. And it's almost the same as if I was there myself. Well, obviously not quite.
Matthew Lewis: Yeah, I was going to say, is it a way of people who couldn't or wouldn't or didn't want to go on Crusade, feeling like they were participating, they could support the Templars, which was supporting the effort in the Holy Land. And the effect of that is that they begin to acquire land all over the place in Europe.
Helen Nicholson: Absolutely. That's what people thought it would appear because when they gave their donations, they referred to Jerusalem and the Templars who protect the Holy Sepulchre there.
Matthew Lewis: I mean, in the game, the Templars essentially are fronted by a big multinational corporation based in Rome that is conducting all sorts of experiments to find these pieces of Eden. It sounds like that's a fairly reasonable way to view the Templars, even in the 12th century, that they were this big multinational corporation, kind of medieval Amazon. And did the Templars, as they grow and they change and they become more powerful, did they lose sight of what they were originally founded to do? They were there to help pilgrims get to Jerusalem, but as you mentioned, Jerusalem is eventually lost. The Templars don't cease to exist because of that. Did they change? Did they alter their approach?
Helen Nicholson: They had the problem that as people gave them donations in the West, they expected something back. So whereas the Templars' regulations indicate that they're supposed to be giving a third of the income, or at least the profit, from each of the properties they have in the West to headquarters, be it in Jerusalem or later in Acre. In fact, they had their patrons saying, well, we've given you all this land, but we want, for example, grandmother wants someone to look after her in her old age. She wants to come and live as a hermit in your estate. And so then the Templars would have to support her. She brings somebody with her, but it's a bit like going into a care home. After a certain point, your money's gone. And some people seem to have bought these care packages for their families. So clearly that is going to be a drain on resources. But the order itself, the brothers continue to talk about, we are defenders of the Holy Church, we are defenders of the Christians. They were still running boats out to the Holy Land so they could take pilgrims as far as Acre into the Christian territories there. They just couldn't necessarily get you to Jerusalem anymore. And of course, they were also fighting in the Iberian Peninsula in the frontier against the Muslims in Spain and Portugal. So they still had got a front in the West, as well as continuing to attempt to recover territory in the East. The problem from their point of view would be, is it, can we recover Jerusalem and keep it? They did try and get it back. They did get it back briefly in the 1240s, then it was captured off them again. Is it better just to try and maintain a foothold here and negotiate with the Muslims and negotiate terms so that pilgrims can visit Jerusalem? Be realistic about this. Perhaps we can see we aren't going to be able to hold Jerusalem permanently. So where do we go from here? Are we just trying to hold our line, maintain a presence, knowing we can't actually recover land and hold onto it? And they get criticised for that in the West, people who think they ought to be able to recover Jerusalem. These, of course, are the armchair critics that every general has always had to compete with.
Matthew Lewis: It seems to be, if that was their driving force, I mean, Richard I goes to the Holy Land and almost gets to Jerusalem and he seems determined not to make an attempt on Jerusalem. Do you think he's being pushed by people like the Templars who desperately do want to recover Jerusalem because that's so core to what they exist for?
Helen Nicholson: Yes, Richard the Lionheart had to balance the different advice he was getting. So the Templars and Hospitallers, in fact, advised him not to go and attack Jerusalem at this point because they wanted more support from the West before they made an attempt on Jerusalem. They were afraid that if Richard captured Jerusalem, everybody would then go home, as they had after the First Crusade, and they wouldn't have the manpower left to hold it. So they wanted to keep the Crusade going a bit longer while they made other key conquests around, such as Egypt and securing supply lines from Egypt, Beirut in the North, so they get that valuable port back, and then they make an attempt on Jerusalem because what they didn't know at that point was that they didn't actually have that much time because Richard was going to be recalled to the West. On the other hand, if they had hugged around a bit longer and Richard hadn't gone back, Saladin died in 1193 and they might then have been able to make an attempt on the city. So there was a lot of criticism for not making that attempt. There is one account which says, if only we'd known, in fact, we could have captured Jerusalem at that point because Saladin's troops were in confusion and Saladin wasn't able to hold on to his troops and they were all wanting to disperse their various homes and we could have captured Jerusalem and held it. But, you know, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Matthew Lewis: Yeah. And as the Crusader kind of grip on the Holy Land slips further and further away from Jerusalem, what does the Knight Templar order look like? I mean, imagine if they're acquiring all of this land and money in Europe, it becomes a big administrative machine to run that in Europe.
Helen Nicholson: In Europe, they are not only running their estates, they've also got houses in many towns and cities which they're letting out. So they have now become landlords, evil landlords charging rent to innocent young people as we have so many problems with that now. They move money across Europe because they wanted to get money to the Holy Land, of course. So they effectively set up a banking system. They're not quite like modern banks, the French historian Alain Demurger has argued, because they don't lend money out to other places and collect interest on that as modern banks do. Except that there are occasionally indications that they might've been doing that. So they're quite like a modern bank and they would do money transfers for you. But then that's another level of administration. They have to keep money records not only for their own money, but for everybody else's. And then because they were very trusted as knights and monks, regarded as people of great integrity, they get dragged into administration for lords and kings and the Pope as well. All these things, and yet they want to recapture Jerusalem. So they were still insisting that that was their purpose, that they wanted to do that. And that was why people were joining the Order. Although there do seem to be a few people that joined because they thought it could be a very good career in the royal service. And the best way of getting into royal service was to join the Templars. And then you could get into royal service by the back door, as it were.
Matthew Lewis: And just how, at their height, just how powerful were the Templars?
Helen Nicholson: Well, they had the Pope's ear, whether or not they listened to what the Pope told them. Because a Templar was the Pope's cubicularis. It's one of the officials of his bedchamber. And the Hospitallers has had one too. So they could always get the Pope's ear. Then they have roles for monarchs. So in England and in Aragon, they help to run the treasury. They have a backup deposit system where the king leaves some of his valuables. And in France, they actually ran the royal treasury for a long time. So yes, the king can't do without them. They also act as ambassadors, not just for kings, but also for lords because they're very trusted. And because they are also military people, they're regarded as being the sort of people that doesn't get attacked and thrown off their horses and have all their letters stolen from them. And because they're religious, they may be exempt from some of the problems that other secular ambassadors had. Their members are always traveling around Europe collecting money. So some people accuse them of carrying secret messages for monarchs. So in all these respects, they are extremely influential. They seem to be quite popular landlords, in fact, despite my comments of earlier, because they have so many exemptions, not only from the Pope, but also from bishops and kings and landlords. But they don't have to pay taxes on this and they don't have to do this due or that due because all the money is going to the Holy Land. If you're their tenant, you may also be able to claim these exemptions. Now, technically you shouldn't be able to, but the Templars sort of blurred this. Oh, they're our tenants, so they count as our brotherhood so they can have some of the benefits of the brotherhood. And likewise, the Templars were allowed to exonerate their own members from excommunication. And they again appear to have pushed this on a little bit further than it was supposed to go and started exonerating their servants and their tenants as well. So quite nice landlords.And their tenants used to put Templars crosses on their houses to show up. We're Templars. The bishop comes on his visitation and says, no you're not, and take that cross down. And they don't.
Matthew Lewis: But those are incredible powers to be acquiring. The ability to quash someone's excommunication was meant to rest kind of just really with the Pope.
Helen Nicholson: Yes, but they are Christ's army and they will tell you that although they answer to the Pope, but sometimes the Pope doesn't know his own mind. We know Christ's mind because we pray every day and we shed our blood on the battlefield. And you warriors all know that warriors are much closer to God than monks are because monks just sit in their monasteries and all they do is pray. They don't know what it's like out there on the battlefield.
Matthew Lewis: The Templars are the best of both worlds. To what extent do you think the Templars became victims of their own success, both in the sense that we know they will fall eventually, but also they don't ever recover Jerusalem, which is their stated aim. Is that because they get distracted and sidetracked and they become victims of their own success to the point where they're too busy to do what they were originally founded to do?
Helen Nicholson: They were victims of their own success and that people expect so much of them. They think they should just able to walk across the Mamluks, who are actually the greatest warriors on the planet at this point, and walk straight into Jerusalem. That is not going to happen. But it was not the Templars fault the Mamluks seized control in Egypt during the 1250s and finally by 1260. And this was a very well led professional military force, and the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the leaders of the Crusaders states don’t really have an answer to the Mamluks powerful military machine. So, in fact once the Mamluks had united most of what had been the Crusader states in the various desperate Muslims states in the Middle East under their banner it was not going to be easy for anyone to dislodge them. The Mongols tried, the Mongol Ilkhanates invaded the area and they did make conquests, but they don’t stay. So, at the time of the Crusader states, reduced to just Cyprus in 1291, they–the Christians in Cyrpus can make bridgeheads. The Templars held Arwad Island, it wasn’t just Ruad Island, off Tortosa, for a few years but they can’t hold it permanently. The Mamluks come up with their navy from Egypt, because the Mamluks haven’t been an effective navy since Saladin a century earlier, and they just wipe the Templars off Ruad and that’s that. In that respect, no matter how powerful the Templars had been, they couldn’t stand against the Mamluks. The whole of Christian Europe wasn’t in a position to be able to hold onto territory in the Holy Land, apart from the fact that the rulers of Christian Europe all had other things on their minds. So, although the people still wanted Jerusalem, etcetera, kings had other battles to fight.
Matthew Lewis: Can we think of the Templars then as being too inflexible? Did they just not find a way to adapt to the new challenges that the Crusades were bringing?
Helen Nicholson: We could argue they were too inflexible. They would tell us actually they were still trying to do what they could, that they were supporting the Pope’s attempts to ban trade with the Muslims for example, stop people selling the latest in great weaponry to the Muslims. They could trade in that in the Eastern Mediterranean. So, there was an expedition. The commander of the Auvergne, Humbert Blanc, had organized an expedition around the Eastern Mediterranean in the Summer of 1306 to try and stop these traders. And it would appear that he going to organize another one, which didn’t happen, all for reasons of the trial. They were still trying to organize a Crusade, but there weas different opinions over what the Crusade should be because they were up against the Mamluks as well as the people of the second House of Leon said the early 1270s. It’s like a little dog kept barking at a big one, we’re never going to get anywhere against the Mamluks and the Mongols. So the Templars were attempting to organize a big expedition but it wasn’t getting anywhere. What could they have done? They could have done like the Hospitallers and just paced themselves with one island, roads, and used that as a bridgehead. Not that the Hospitallers ever got back to the mainland. They could have gone fought somewhere else entirely, the Teutonic Order had gone to Northeastern Europe, the Baltics, and they were fighting the Lithuanians who were still pagans. So that perhaps they should have done that in the Iberian Peninsula. And there's a hint in a writer in Austria in about 1316 who suggests that they might have been going to do that. This is 30 years after they lost Acre, so he might be making it up either. What else could they have done? They could have done that. I think to myself that more likely is they would continue to try and regain territory in the Eastern Mediterranean, find that they weren't getting anywhere, and they might have ended up like some of the other orders and eventually just being amalgamated into government service and becoming a military branch of the King of England's government, King of France's government, the King of Aragon, Portugal, and Castile's government, rather than being an independent force.
Matthew Lewis: It's fascinating. I mean, it sounds to me a lot like the makers of Assassin's Creed picked a really good foil for the Assassins, an incredibly powerful movement. We can see talk of them being involved in secrets and secret activity, which is exactly what the game plays on. It sounds like the Templars were the perfect pick for Assassin's Creed.
Helen Nicholson: And one of the advantages of using the Templars is that they were abolished. Therefore, you're not treading on anybody's toes.
Matthew Lewis: Or at least, supposedly. Next time on Assassins vs Templars, it's the grandmaster of the evil Templars, Robert de Sable, as Dan Snow is joined by the expert on the man himself, Peter Edbury. Make sure you're following the Echoes of History podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts from so you don't miss a single episode and you can listen to the rest of the series there too. This series is a special collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit with post-production undertaken by Paradiso Media.

Robert de Sable

Woman's Voice: History Hit and Assassin's Creed presents Assassins vs. Templars. Real histories of the secret orders.
Dan Snow: Welcome to Episode 4 of Assassins vs Templars, I'm Dan Snow and this is a special collaboration between History Hit and Ubisoft with the masterminds behind the Assassin's Creed games. This series explores the real history behind the secret societies that inspired the Assassin's Creed franchise. The Assassins themselves and the Templars. So in every episode we're diving deep into the Crusades. We're talking about everything from the myths of the Grail to discovering the real people who inspired the key characters of the game. In this episode it's Robert de Sablé, one of the main antagonists from the original Assassin's Creed game. Who was he? What did he accomplish? Was he that athletic? And why do we remember him today? The man who's going to answer all those questions for us is Peter Edbury, he's an emeritus professor in the School of History at Cardiff University. Enjoy Peter, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
Peter Edbury: Thank you, thank you for having me.
Dan Snow: Listen, every great game needs a great evil genius. An antagonist. Assassin's Creed has got that, we've got Robert de Sablé. Tell us about this man.
Peter Edbury: Robert de Sablé was from Western France—Sablé itself is sort of more or less halfway between Le Mans and Angers, and it was an important lordship—And he was the hereditary lord of Sablé. Came to inherit the place around about 1160. Now the point is that it had been a very, very important place because it was right on the border. It was the Marcher lordship between Angers and Maine, and so his ancestors were border lords. And that meant they had to be pretty tough. By the time Robert came along, it wasn't a border lordship any longer because a whole lot had got subsumed into the so-called Angevin Empire—The lands in France ruled by the King of England, Henry II —So he wasn't a border lord, but he was one of the awkward squad. He was one of the people who made life difficult for Henry. His own son rebelled, Robert joined in.
Dan Snow: That's the problem with the Plantagenet family. The sons all went a bit rogue, didn't they?
Peter Edbury: Yes, it was a pretty volatile situation. What happened in Robert's case was that when Henry's elder son, the young Henry, died in 1183 left Robert a bit high and dry.
Dan Snow: He picked the wrong side.
Peter Edbury: Yeah, and he managed to re-ingratiate himself. Which means that by the time the Third Crusade was called he was back in the King's good books. The other thing that Robert has to do before he can set off on Crusade is to make his peace with various abbots and so on whose property the abbots claimed he'd been infringing. There's quite a lot of sorting out of lawsuits and so on going on, because Robert wants to be squeaky clean if we're going on Crusade.
Dan Snow: And is going on Crusade quite a good way of rehabilitating your reputation?
Peter Edbury: In his case, he obviously was already rehabilitated, because of the responsibilities he was given. Basically what happens is that the Crusade is called in 1187. Robert as lord, Henry II, is a bit sort of sound-offish about this. But then he dies and Henry's son, Richard the Lionheart, Richard I, takes the lead. And Richard entrusts Robert with a group of others as his naval commanders. His job is to bring the ships round from England, through the Straits of Gibraltar en route for the Holy Land, basically.
Dan Snow: And so Robert has the warlike instincts of his forebears. He's a warrior.
Peter Edbury: Yes, he's a warrior, and he joined the king in Sicily. He's known to have been personally involved in negotiations for the king of Sicily. They sailed on to Cyprus, which Richard conquered. We know Robert was with him at the time because he turns up in a document, and then they reach the Holy Land.
Dan Snow: So Robert de Sablé is the main antagonist in Assassin's Creed. Before he even goes on Crusade, is there any sense he's more or less villainous than anyone else in this period?
Peter Edbury: No, no, he's also quite a sort of typical type of these people.
Dan Snow: And is he involved with the Templars, the religious order?
Peter Edbury: Not specifically, but, and this is the interesting thing. His great-uncle had been the master of the Temple. There's a man called Robert of Craon, whose dates are something like 1136-49. Robert Craon, incidentally, is not very far from Sablé, on that sort of border between Anjou and Maine. And Robert had been the master of the Temple at a time when the Templars got an enormous amount of their endowments. Templars are very wealthy.
Dan Snow: So Robert de Sablé does have a lineage that involves the Templars. He's at King Richard's side, so he's a senior Crusader. So as far as the game's concerned, they have picked out a kind of a senior Crusader. But having landed in the Holy Land, what's he gone and doing? When does he fire up his association with the Templars?
Peter Edbury: Well, when they reach the Holy Land, there are two things going on. The chief thing is that they're actually setting about besieging the town of Acre, which is the modern-day Israeli Akko in northern Israel. It's far and away the best harbour and it's also already identified as the sort of chief commercial centre. The Christians are trying to win it back from the Muslims, they'd lost it in 1187. By 1191, when they arrive, the siege has been going on for almost two years. Richard and the King of France, who arrived a few months earlier, bring it to a very speedy conclusion. The other thing that's happened is that the previous master of the Temple was a man called Gerard of Ridefort, and he'd actually died in a skirmish during the siege of Acre back in 1189. So in other words, there has been no master of the Temple for about 18 months by the time these people get there. And what seems to have happened was that Robert joins the Order and he's immediately elected master. Now you say, that's a bit funny. Surely you would expect the master to be somebody coming up through the ranks, rather than somebody who's been parachuted in from above. But that's effectively what's happened, obviously Richard has engineered this, I don't think there's any doubt about that. So he's Richard's protégé, he's the master of the Temple. Interestingly, the other great military order, the Hospitallers, another of Richard's cronies is the master at the same time, So Richard's got a full house, basically.
Dan Snow: So Assassins Creed are right to say that Robert de Sablé was one of the most senior crusaders. He's obviously very close to Richard and he's now running this military order in the Holy Land.
Peter Edbury: Yes, he's in charge. Now what's happened is that the Templars have suffered very, very serious losses. All the Templars captured at Battle of Hattin back in 1187 have been slaughtered. Other losses are quite considerable. The probability is that there are not so many Templars around and more to the point, there are not very many experienced Templars. People who are experienced with the local warfare, experienced with the local conditions.
Dan Snow: But Robert isn't either, he's fought alone in France.
Peter Edbury: Exactly, yes, Robert's another one. Now presumably what happens is that those Templars who are survivors are very much sort of looking to give sort of day-to-day advice as to what you can do. I mean after all, what are you going to do if you're running an army? Well you've got to find food, you've got to arrange transport, you've got to have horses. I mean one of the big problems you see with going on crusade is that horses don't like going on boats, especially little boats. If you bring your horse with you from the west on crusade, I think it takes quite a number of days before it's in a fit state to bear the weight of your body on its back after it's been cooped up in the hold of some ship. So I mean there's all sorts of problems, and these are the sort of practical problems that you have to get. I noticed from Assassin's Creed that he was obviously an extraordinarily athletic man who sort of did all sorts of running across roofs of houses and so on. There's no portrait of Robert, we assume he was active as a warrior. But whether he was a man of great physical prowess or not, we've no idea.
Dan Snow: In the Assassin's Creed game he is portrayed as someone very very important. Can you see his impact on the course of the crusade?
Peter Edbury: Well he is important simply because he's the commander of this particular military unit. It has to be said though that as Master of Templars he doesn't leave very many traces. He's not Master for very long, say he's elected in the summer of 1191. Dies probably in September 1193, although we can't rule out the possibility he may actually have died in September 1192. So he's not around for very long, and there are very very little documentation. What we do know is that the Templars were very much involved in Richard's campaign. After they captured Acre, Richard set off into what is now moved south into southern Palestine. What he's obviously trying to do initially is advance on Jerusalem. And the way to do that is to secure the coastal centres of Jaffa (present day Tel Aviv), Ashkelon, which had been a major fortress. And that's Richard's priority. Now to get there the army obviously has to march down the coastal road, and on the way the army comes under very heavy harassment from Muslim mounted archers. And how do you organise an army that's being attacked in this way? You want to move forward, you're being harassed and you have to get a strict, vigorous, well disciplined formation and you need people who know what they're doing to guard the rest of the troops and it's the military orders who take the lead. And the Hospitallers and Templars between them act as the vanguard and the rearguard of the army. And their job is to try and keep the Muslim mounted archers at bay, keep them out of range if possible.
Dan Snow: It's a constant combat.
Peter Edbury: It is a constant combat. And obviously Robert is going to be a key person in this. So the army sets off down the coast from Akko–from Acre–towards Tel Aviv–towards Jaffa. And when they get to a place called Arsuf, which is not very far north of Jaffa, they actually engage the Muslims in battle. And this is really the one occasion when Richard is involved in what's anything resembling a pitched battle with the Muslims, and the Christians come off pretty well. There are losses, but on the whole they've carried the day. The problem is that the Muslim mounted archers are back harassing them only a few days later. so in that sense it wasn't the sort of big knockout blow that they may have hoped for. When they get there, there's quite a lot of work needing to be done to get the fortress back in a sort of viable position and so on. And then there's the question of advancing on Jerusalem. And the military orders, again, presumably those members of the military orders who have local knowledge or experience say, now look, it's not going to work. Jerusalem itself is not actually particularly strongly defended by the Muslims. But you take Jerusalem, you're going to have very, very long supply lines and it will be very easy for the Muslims to bring up a much larger force and kick you out and destroy you. So basically cut your losses and don't bother. That, of course, didn't go down terribly well with the rank and file. But Richard could see the point. Now, say the Templars, Hospitallers, they're the people who are giving this advice. It's the local knowledge.
Dan Snow: So you think Robert de Sablé, even though he was also from out of town, he was probably channeling that advice.
Peter Edbury: He'll be endorsing what his guys tell him, basically. He'll be happy with that. So that's the first thing that happens, so they help with this march, they give the advice and that's more or less it. Now, there are two other things that they do. One is, when at the end of the Crusade, in September 1192, Richard decides to go home. He decides he wants to take the shortcut.
Dan Snow: He would regret that.
Peter Edbury: Well, exactly. He decides he'll go through the territory of his great enemy, the Duke of Austria, through Germany, heading for Normandy. And the way he decides to do it is he'll go in the company of some Templars, himself disguised as a Templar and they get found out that he's betrayed or recognised. We're not quite sure, the sources will tell you different stories, different details.
Dan Snow: And he ends up in prison.
Peter Edbury: And he ends up in prison and he is held to ransom and everything is sort of delayed. And it's terribly scandalous that they should do this to a Crusader, or at least that's the view the English took.
Dan Snow: And Robert de Sablé was with him or he goes back a different way?
Peter Edbury: No, almost certainly not. I think Robert must have stayed in the East. But the other thing that Robert's involved with concerns Cyprus. Richard conquered Cyprus en route for the Holy Land. Cyprus was not held by the Muslims, it was held by the Christian Greeks, in the person of a man called Isaac Doukas Komnenos who was basically a member of the Byzantine imperial family who'd gone rogue and effectively usurped power in Cyprus. Styled himself Emperor, but I don't know whether you can really call yourself Emperor of Cyprus because it's not a very big place really. Richard conquered it. This is in the summer of 1192, just before he reaches the Holy Land. And Richard of course realises right from the start, if the Crusade is going to work he must have plenty of ready cash up front to pay his troops and to hire additional mercenaries. That's what he wants to do. And Cyprus, yes, there'll be money floating around. They grab as much loose cash as they can from Cyprus and then, after a short interval, we don't know quite how long, Richard says, look, I will sell it to the Templars and they can produce some more cash up front. So he sells the island of Cyprus for an absolute bargain price of 100,000 bezants. Now the bezants is the Arabic dinar. So they're gold coins. And the Templars, of course, under the exigencies of the Third Crusade and all the problems, can't actually put 100,000 pounds worth of gold into Richard's sticky fingers on the nail. So they say, look, you can have 40,000 and we'll get the rest from the luckless Cypriots who we will now ruthlessly exploit. So what they do is they send a fairly small force of Templars to take charge of the island. Now consider the implications, had this worked Cyprus would have become a Templar island. It would have been rather like a later history of Hospitalers in Rhodes And then much later on in Malta. It would have been their own sovereign state. It's what the Teutonic Knights had in Prussia, the Templars would have had in Cyprus. And it is actually quite, the might of being, is really quite stupendous really. Well now, you say, what happens? Well, what happens is fairly predictable. The Cypriots don't like the Templars very much, but they also realise there aren't very many of them and so they stage an attack. And the Templars get holed up in a fortress in Nicosia. Now the sources say it's not very well defended. Now that can mean one of two things. It may mean that physically the fortress wasn't up to march. in other words, the walls weren't very strong. Or it could mean that the fortress was actually quite strong, but there weren't enough food and drink in it to keep the garrison there for more than a few days. But either way, the Templars are shut up in there, they try and negotiate their way out but the local Cypriots aren't having none of it. And so the Templars decide that the only thing to do is literally to cut their way out and so they sally forth, killing anyone who gets in the way. And the slaughter sounds to have been pretty appalling.
Dan Snow: Do we think Robert was with them then?
Peter Edbury: No, in fact he wasn't. It was quite clear he wasn’t. It was a man called Armand Bouchart, and Armand Bouchart, those of you who are Assassin Creed aficionados is another character who turns up in that story. The sources, again, are a little bit ambivalent. There are various versions of the account. One version says they did awfully well. Another one sort of rather laments the fact that the slaughter was so extensive and so largely unnecessary. So they escape from their fortress and Robert has to go back to Richard and say, look, sorry, chum, it's not working we're going to just have to give you the island back. We don't have the resources to do this. We can't cope. So in other words, Robert has failed.
Dan Snow: Robert has failed. Richard has also failed to a certain extent. They've failed to capture Jerusalem and there's a peace treaty, isn't there? Well, there's an agreement between Saladin, the Muslim commander, and King Richard. In Assassin's Creed it's got Robert kind of negotiating this treaty himself, but that's not true, is it?
Peter Edbury: Not as far as I know. There's no doubt at all that he would have been in on Richard's counsels when he was doing it. But whether he was actually physically involved (18:18) With talking to the Muslims, I don't know.
Dan Snow: And as you point out, he dies in the Holy Land as well. So we don't think he dies in a dramatic duel, like he does in Assassin's Creed.
Peter Edbury: No, as far as we know, he died in his bed.
Dan Snow: But we should point out that lots of people…
Peter Edbury: Died of disease.
Dan Snow: It was hard campaigning as well.
Peter Edbury: Yeah, he's a man of mature years. By this time he's probably in his 50s. Not very many of these people live beyond 60.
Dan Snow: Just finishing up, I guess what Assassin's Creed portrays the Grand Master of the Templars as a sort of a hugely significant figure, as powerful as kings. Do you think that was realistic? Or does it depend on the health of the Templars at the time? Whoever was in the office?
Peter Edbury: Well, they were powerful. But what happens is that after the Third Crusade is over they get much more powerful. Basically what happens is that a lot of the territory that the Christians lose they never get back, or they never get back securely. On the other hand, the Templars have still got all their estates in the West and their recruiting grounds in the West. So they've still got their wealth, and essentially what happens is the Templars and the sister order the Hospitallers are more important in the years that follow the Third Crusade than they had been previously. Before 1187, you have this rather odd situation developed. The king relies on the military orders because he needs their manpower, he needs their wealth. But on the other hand he doesn't control them, he doesn't rule them. Military orders are only answerable to the Pope, and that means that although the military orders, both Templars and Hospitallers, are an enormous asset their troops are not under direct royal control. And the other thing that needs to be said is that in the 12th century, at least three of the Masters are men rather like Robert, Who'd been jobbed in, not by the king of England as a Crusader, but by the kings of Jerusalem. Men who had been royal officials, who'd been high in the king's service and then suddenly appear As the Master of the orders. So again it looks as if the sort of manoeuvre that Richard had tried, had previously been played successfully by the various kings of Jerusalem.
Dan Snow: Peter, thank you very much for coming on this podcast.
Peter Edbury: Well thank you very much.
Dan Snow: Thank you for listening. Next time on Assassins vs Templars, Matt Lewis is talking to Nicholas Morton About Richard I and Edward I. How one of them may have hired the Assassins, and how the other got on the wrong side of them. Make sure you're following the Echoes of History podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it and you can listen to the rest of the series. You've been listening to a special collaboration Between History Hit and Ubisoft with post production done by Paradiso Media.

The Assassins & The Crusaders

Woman’s Voice: History Hit and Assassin's Creed presents Assassins vs Templars Real Histories of the secret orders.
Matthew Lewis: Welcome to the inside of one of history's greatest stories. In this collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit, we're taking you back to the very beginning. The story of Assassin's Creed is one of deadly rivalry between conflicting ideologies that asks whether peace is found through freedom or control. It begins with Assassins and Templars racing to gather the Pieces of Eden in the fiery heat of the Near East amidst brutal religious upheavals. We're all Desmond Miles now, and we've found our Animus. We've found a team of the best historians working in their fields who will unlock the memories of the past for us. They'll lead us through the vaults of their secrets and introduce us to some of the people who inspired the game. It's time to break into the vaults of two of history's most infamous organizations as we pit the Assassin's Creed against the Templar Order. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Nicholas Morton, an Associate Professor at Nottingham Trent University and a specialist in the medieval Near East. Nick's written several books, most recently The Mongol Storm, which considers the arrival of the Mongol Empire amidst the Crusades. And he's joining me today to talk about the Assassins and their relationship with Richard I, Lord Edward, and the various Crusader states. Thank you very much for joining us, Nick.
Nicholas Morton: Great to be on the show.
Matthew Lewis: The Crusader states and the Assassin sect sort of overlap each other in history. They run parallel to each other, pretty much. What was the relationship like between them? Did they view themselves as enemies? Were they divided on Christian versus Muslim lines?
Nicholas Morton: One of the most interesting dimensions to the history of the relationship between the Crusader states and the Assassins and it goes back a little bit before the Crusaders arrived, because about 20, 30 years before the Crusaders, the entire Near East region is invaded by a group of people called the Seljuk Turks, and their invasions start in the year 1000, and they reach the northern Syrian region where the Crusaders themselves conduct their invasions about 20 or so years before the Crusaders. And the point is that the Seljuk Turks conquer the entire area, but that, of course, includes many different groups, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish, and it can't be guaranteed when the Crusaders arrive that these people will feel a sense of shared purpose and common feeling with the Seljuk Turks, who are themselves invaders. So you've got many groups, such as the Bedouin, and yes, the Assassins, who exist in a sort of amidst space. They don't necessarily feel aligned to the Seljuk Turks, but neither do they feel aligned to the Crusaders either, and that's what makes the relationship really so interesting in that they're trying to plot a route to their own survival amidst these two invaders coming in from different directions.
Matthew Lewis: So the Assassins don't necessarily feel any loyalty to fellow Muslims, they're looking for a way for the Assassins to survive.
Nicholas Morton: Well, in some cases they do, but the Seljuk Turks themselves are Sunni Muslims, or they become Sunni Muslims at least during the course of the 12th century. The Assassins, or Nizaris, they are Shia Muslims, and they're intensively persecuted by the Seljuk Turks, and so often they feel a greater sense of threat from the Seljuk Turks than they do from the Crusaders themselves.
Matthew Lewis: What was the geopolitical setup of the Holy Land throughout these Crusades? It changes, I guess, but essentially we know we have Crusader states and we know we have Muslims, but it seems like the Assassins are a third power at play there.
Nicholas Morton: Sure. Okay, so let's set the scene a little bit. Only a couple of decades before the arrival of the First Crusade, much of the Near East has been conquered by the Seljuk Turks, and they are a new influence in the region. They're not a long-standing or historic community in the area, and they have now come to rule a very broad population consisting of many Christian and Muslim groups, and many different ethnicities as well, whether that's Arabs or Kurds or other peoples across the entire area. And then, about 20 or so years after the Seljuk Turks reached the Near East, you have the advent of the First Crusade. As the First Crusaders set out from Western Christendom with the earliest waves in 1096, they became a major presence in Northern Syria in 1097 onwards, so only 20 or so years after the Seljuk Turks, and they conquered Antioch in Northern Syria. They were invited to defend the city of Edessa, and they then took power in Edessa soon afterwards, and then their armies advanced south, conducting a very brutal siege and overthrow of Jerusalem. Now, the conquests of these three cities, Edessa, Antioch, and Jerusalem, laid the foundation for what would become the Crusader States, essentially European countries in the Near East, in modern money, if you like. But this raises all sorts of questions for everyone else. The Seljuk Turks vigorously resisted the arrival of the First Crusaders, because, naturally, they threatened their control over the entire region. But at this point, at least, the Crusaders defeated field army after field army, sent against them from the various Seljuk Turkish governors from the area, cities like Aleppo, Damascus, and Mosul. And so, for a time, at least, it looks as if Seljuk authority is hovering in the balance. And that raises lots of questions for the various local communities who make up the bulk of the population. And the questions here would include things like, who's going to win? Irrespective of who you want to win, who is going to win? And then, of course, who do you prefer? Because it can't be taken for granted that the Crusaders would be viewed in a more hostile way than the Seljuk Turks. They're both invaders, and neither of them have been particularly gentle in taking control. And so some pick the era after the First Crusaders, their moment to rebel against the Seljuk Turks. Others align themselves more with the Seljuk Turks. But the Nizaris, or the Assassins, which is the nickname that people gave to many years later, they were one of these groups. Who should they support? Because they're intensively persecuted by the Seljuk Turks. In fact, when the Seljuk, a new sultan, came into power in 1105, he identified the Nizaris, or Assassins, as his number one opponent. Didn't even mention the Crusaders. In fact, it's something of a sort of Eurocentric conceit that the Crusaders are the biggest show in town. They're not. There's a lot of things going on in the Near East. At this point, at least, the Seljuks see the Nizaris, the Assassins, as being a very, very serious threat. So that raises a question for them, as it does for many, many other groups across the Near East. Who's going to win? Who should they support? Whose side are they on? And crucially, how do they survive against these two millstones of these two powers who are rivaling one another for control over many areas of the Near East?
Matthew Lewis: And I guess if the Seljuks are persecuting the Assassins in particular, there might be a degree to which the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and perhaps the Assassins start to view the Crusaders as potential allies.
Nicholas Morton: That's seen in many cases in the Near East. When we talk to people about the Crusades, they'll not nearly always sort of caption it as, oh, it's a Christian versus Muslim war. And there is an element of that. But there's lots of situations where you have Christians and Muslims on both sides. There's more reasons than just religion for conflict in the Near East. There's trade. There's population movements. There's the rivalries between families and ethnicities. It's a very complex map, which makes the whole thing incredibly intricate, but also very fascinating at the same time.
Matthew Lewis: The balance of power swings backwards and forwards throughout the Crusades. And we join in the game in the Third Crusade, when the First Crusade's successful for the Christians, the Second Crusade a failure for the Christians, success for the Muslims. The Third Crusade is underway. Do we see the relationship between the Crusader states and the Assassins changing as that balance shifts?
Nicholas Morton: Yes, absolutely. So the main thing is that perhaps the biggest presence of the assassins is in Aleppo, certainly in an urban area in northern Syria. Aleppo and northern Syria, where they have a large community. And the various Turkic rulers of Aleppo have to work out how they're going to orientate themselves vis-à-vis the Assassins. There's a strong pressure from other Seljuk Turkish rulers in the region to persecute them, but they've got to manage the fact there's a large population there too. And so eventually they're expelled. And so many Nizaris or assassins go down to Damascus, and there too, they are placed under a great deal of pressure. And so they begin to open talks with the Crusader states in the 1120s. The idea being that they will hand over the lands that they own in return for lands within the Crusader states. And then in the midst of a big crusade in 1129, because of fears that the Nizaris are collaborating or cooperating with the Crusaders, the authorities in Damascus conduct a massacre of Nizaris or Assassins in Damascus. And that then very much brings the assassins into the Crusader states, looking for sanctuary. And they eventually create a sort of small territory for themselves in northern Syria. And occasionally the Crusader states fight on the same side as the Assassins. Occasionally they fight against one another. It's not a particularly amicable relationship. Often the neighbouring landowners, who are often the Templars and Hospitallers, want tribute from the Assassins. But nonetheless, there are times where they work together. There are times when they fight together. But one of the most interesting details is that along the boundaries of Assassin territory, they've got boundary stones. And on the Crusader or Templar side of the border, those boundary stones are marked by a cross. And on the assassin's side, they're marked by a dagger, just to make the point that this is where the territory changes.
Matthew Lewis: And we can really see iconography there that we would associate with those groups today, probably.
Nicholas Morton: Sure. But like I said, it is a very uneven relationship. The Templars frequently want tribute from the Assassins. And one particularly well-known episode is where the assassins want to form a formal alliance with the largest of the Crusader states, called the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And the King of Jerusalem is very keen to have that alliance because he's looking for additional allies he can work with in the region. But the Templars don't want that alliance because they want to maintain their tribute payments from the Assassins. And so when the Assassins come down to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, they send their envoys down to finalise that treaty. It's actually the Templars who ambush the Assassins' deputation and assassinate them, if you like. So they then ruin that treaty. King Amalric of Jerusalem is furious. It ruins the relations at that moment. But relations go up and down for many decades, all the way through that period. Yes.
Matthew Lewis: That's an interesting moment though, because the central conceit of Assassin's Creed is the Assassins who represent the desire to find peace through free will versus the Templars who want peace through order. And it places them ideologically at odds. And it sounds like the Templars had a different relationship to the Assassins than the rest of the Crusader states perhaps did.
Nicholas Morton: Yeah, it's fairly simple. They want tribute from them. The Assassins, it's very difficult to gauge the assassins' motives and what they're after because we have so little written by them. Although judging by their actions, what they really want is to be left alone. They're aware that they're very small in number. And so they compensate for that by conducting these very high-profile assassinations, which means that people are often terrified of them. I mean, Saladin famously spent his nights on many campaigns sleeping in a wheeled wooden tower, which could be locked from the inside because he was so concerned that he might be assassinated. And the Assassins seem to have tried possibly around twice to assassinate Saladin, but they never got to him. But they could create huge amounts of fear. And that's how they protected their community because rulers didn't want to cause trouble with them because of that very danger.
Matthew Lewis: Did that give them a power that went beyond their size and their territorial sort of reach? Did that fear of them and their ability to get to people make them more powerful than they might have otherwise been?
Nicholas Morton: In most cases, yes. But so we're told by one Crusader called John de Joinville, not with the Templars. And the reason for that is the Templars, yeah, the Templars had a Templar Master, but the Templar Master ruled alongside a ruling council called the Central Chapter. And the assassins knew that if they were to kill a member of the Central Chapter or to kill the Templar Master, the remainder of the chapter would just continue to rule. So wherever you killed a sultan or a queen or a king, that would cause a crisis of state for most territories. It wouldn't actually affect the Templars because they're ruled by a group of 13. So unless you can kill all of them simultaneously, it's not going to work.
Matthew Lewis: The original Assassin's Creed game picks up in the 1190s during the Third Crusade when Richard I, Richard the Lionheart, is in the Holy Land and he's a character in the game. But Richard I eventually gets into trouble because of alleged connections to the Assassins. Do we know whether he was on good terms with the Assassins? I mean, he's accused of hiring them to kill somebody. Is that likely? Do we know how true that is?
Nicholas Morton: Oh, well, this is one of the great whodunits of the medieval period. The person who was killed was called Conrad of Montferrat. And Conrad was significant because he felt that he should be king of the remnants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And he wasn't the person Richard backed. Richard wanted another person to be king of Jerusalem. He wanted the existing king of Jerusalem, a man called Guy of Lusignan, to be king of Jerusalem. And so there had been an ongoing controversy over which of these people, Guy or Conrad, would become king. Now, that matter had just been settled before Conrad was assassinated with the decision going to Conrad. And so you could say, well, maybe it was Richard. Maybe he was angry at the fact that Conrad had become king of Jerusalem. But on the other hand, that's also not likely because Richard had been receiving reports of trouble in England while he's away. He knows he's got to get back. And whilst Conrad wouldn't have been his choice, Conrad's choice would have raised the prospect of stabilising things so that he could leave. So did Richard do it? It's difficult to say. Did he have a relationship with the Assassins? We don't have evidence of that, but it's not impossible either. It's very hard to say. The other possible culprits are Saladin or another member of the crusading elite who's out there, or perhaps the Assassins themselves. Famously, the Duke of Austria sent envoys to the Assassins basically to ask, why did you kill Conrad? And they came back saying, we killed Conrad for our own reasons. But actually, it's thought that that letter which reports that reply may have been forged. So again, another layer of complexity to the question of who did it.
Matthew Lewis: And interestingly, Conrad's father, William, is a character in the game as well. He's one of the targets of Altaïr for assassination. So we see a direct parallel there between the game and real life. In the game, you're trying to assassinate William. In real life, it's his son who is actually killed by the Assassins. How does this end up getting Richard I into trouble?
Nicholas Morton: It gets him into trouble because Richard has plenty of enemies, particularly within the crusader camp. The crusading army is a combination of factions from across Western Christendom who share very little except the fact that they are broadly seeking to try and conquer Jerusalem. Aside from that, they have longstanding political differences and disagreements, and many of them are not well disposed towards Richard. So when the prospect of blaming Richard for that assassination comes up, naturally, many will seize onto it, even if it's still not clear whether he did or he didn't or exactly what happened there.
Matthew Lewis: Most of the crusades feel a lot like everyone taking their personal problems from Europe on holiday to the Near East in the sun and fighting it out amongst themselves as much as fighting Muslims there.
Nicholas Morton: That's very true. And there's plenty of quarrels and arguments. And Richard, on his way home, was imprisoned by Leopold of Austria. And it seems very likely the reason for that was the on-crusade. When the city of Acre was conquered by the crusading forces, Leopold put his banner above the city walls, which is often taken as the symbol of the victor. And Richard said, well, no, you have all the victor by what about the fall of the city. He pulled down Leopold's banner and up goes his own. And Leopold was furious. So yes, there's that ongoing tension and controversy between crusading leaders could play out both in the crusader states and indeed in Western Christendom.
Matthew Lewis: But am I right that the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat was kind of the official reason that Richard was held on his way home?
Nicholas Morton: It's difficult to say what Leopold's actual motives were, that he probably had several things running through his mind. But certainly that accusation would have been a powerful one.
Matthew Lewis: And your most recent book deals with the arrival of the Mongols in the Near East in the midst of all of this crusade. How does their arrival on the scene change the dynamic? Does it have an effect on the Templars and the Assassins in particular?
Nicholas Morton: Yeah, so the Assassins had a very troubled relationship with the Mongols. Initially, when the Mongols started their invasions into the Near East, they began in the 1220s, that's when the Mongols had reached the region south of the Caspian. And at this point, it's not clear whether the Assassins saw the Mongols as a threat or even a potential ally. The Assassins tend to get persecuted quite a lot in this period. And so they may have seen the Mongols as a possible way of avoiding that. And there's even one report that says that they actually wrote to the Mongols inviting them in. Having said that, when the Mongols did finally arrive in force, in the Assassins' own territories in the 1250s, they besieged the Assassins' many strongholds. These are their strongholds in Persia. The Assassins have got two main clusters of territory, one in Syria, one in Persia. They besieged these citadels in Persia, or modern-day Iran, and then were very brutal in their overthrow of those strongholds. So the Mongols very much set themselves up as opponents to the Assassins. Again, this seems to have been a reaction, at least in part, to fears the Assassins would try and kill the great Khan or some leading members of the Mongol imperial family. So the Mongols overthrew the Assassins in the 1250s very brutally, although some of the sieges of the Assassins' castles lasted for well over a decade. And then the Mongols advanced across the Tigris, across the Euphrates, into northern Syria, into the region where you've got the Crusader States, as well as various other Muslim territories as well. And the main Mongol army besieged Aleppo in the north, which is only, I don't know, maybe 40 or 50 miles from the Assassins' own territory. And at this point, that raises the question of, well, what are the Mongols going to do next? Are they going to try and overrun the Assassins' territories in Syria, just as they had their territories in Persia? And certainly, when a flying column was sent out from the siege of Aleppo down towards Damascus by the Mongol leader, a man called Hulegu, he instructed his lieutenant leading that army, a man called Kitbuqa, to destroy the Assassins' lands on his journey south, or at least as part of that campaign. But he didn't do it. He went to Damascus, he secured Damascus' overthrow, and perhaps he was planning on doing it later. We'll never know, because at that point, the Mongol army was defeated by an Egyptian army led by the Mamluk dynasty, who was in charge of Egypt at this time. And so we don't know whether Kitbuqa would have sought to overthrow the Assassins immediately after that or not. What we can say with confidence is that the Assassins were acutely aware of the threat the Mongols posed from that point, if not before. And so they were very much looking for ways of supporting those who could resist the Mongols in later years.
Matthew Lewis: So the scenery is changing all of the time and I think we have this view of the Assassins being quite, I guess, mercenary is the word. They're up for hire for anybody. But it sounds like they also had their own political agenda and their own considerations of who their friends or enemies were at any given time as well.
Nicholas Morton: I haven't come across examples of the Assassins sort of murdering on order. If you pay a certain amount of money, you get a certain number of assassinations. But they do seem to have been open to political influence. So if there was a sort of a regional overlord who they felt that they ought to keep in favour with, then yes, they could well conduct assassinations on behalf of that regional overlord. And that does become clear in the 13th century, particularly after the Mongols become such an imminent threat. Because the only power in the region that shows any real ability to defeat the Mongols is the Mamluk Empire of Egypt and Syria. And so we have examples soon after the Mongols arrive in northern Syria in the early 1260s of the Assassins actually looking for Mamluk favour. Because they realise the Mamluks are their best chance of surviving. And so they begin to look to work with the Mamluks. And certainly in later years, a lot of the Mamluks' enemies, particularly Mongol opponents, do either suffer attempted assassinations or very real assassinations. There are a smaller number also of attempted assassinations against leaders in the Crusader States as well, which are sort of very, very thin territories by this stage, clinging onto the coast of the Levantine region.
Matthew Lewis: And a lot of the gameplay in Assassin's Creed revolves around being sneaky, assassinating people from the shadows, surprise attacks, all of that kind of thing. What do we actually know about Assassin tactics? Is that the way they operated?
Nicholas Morton: There's one tactic which seems to work particularly well and which we do tend to have fairly well recorded. And that tactic, in essence, is that the Assassins would disguise themselves as someone who might be of service to the leader they want to assassinate. And then to offer themselves for service, to get into that ruler's employ, and then just to wait until the order comes to strike. The idea being that that ruler will learn to trust them, will eventually lower their guard, and then they've got them where they want them. One very famous episode of this is where the Assassins sent an envoy to see Saladin. And the envoy said, look, I want to speak to you, Saladin, just you by yourself. And Saladin said, look, I'm not going to get rid of my entire entourage. I'll keep two bodyguards with me, but then we can talk in at least relative privacy. And so the Assassin's envoy said, okay, that's fine, we can do that. So they had their meeting. And the Assassin's envoy then went to that meeting and then addressed Saladin's two bodyguards and said, if I asked either of you to kill Saladin, would you do it? They both said yes, because they were both, if you like, sleeper agents for the Assassins. And this really worried Saladin. And the Assassins could do the same thing with leaders in the Crusader States. And so in, I think it's 1270, the Lord of Montfort, Lord of Tyre, a city on the coastline in the north of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he employed two warriors as light cavalry in his army of his lordship. And he learned to trust them. And consequently, they became quite close. And it was at that moment that they then chose to strike. So this is quite common. Get close to the ruler you're after, wait for them to drop their guard, and then you've got them.
Matthew Lewis: And did the Assassins tend to work in public or in private? Did they want people to know that they had killed someone? Or were they more keen that that person died in secret?
Nicholas Morton: I'm not aware of the Assassins seeking to perform what could be described as sort of show killings, killing someone as a public spectacle. There are a few times that people were murdered in public places. The ruler of Mosul was killed in Damascus in a very sort of public act. But I suspect that in many cases, the Assassins want at least some chance of getting away. And the chances of doing that in public are much less than if you can do it in private and get out before the alarm is raised. So often it's in private or semi-private. It's often in those sorts of… I suppose the modern equivalent would be not if you were going to drive to a public event. You wouldn't be killed at home. You wouldn't be killed in the car. Perhaps when you're getting out of the car and going into the venue. It's those sorts of crossover moments. That's when you're vulnerable. And often that's when the Assassins struck. But essentially they wanted to do it when their target guard was down.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess part of that bit about having sleeper agents there is that they can then pick those moments. They can find the moments to strike when the target is most vulnerable.
Nicholas Morton: Sure. The non-lethal alternative, which is just, as with the Saladin example I gave you, of just making it very clear just how vulnerable you are if they want to get you, which of course gives political leverage without even having to kill anyone.
Matthew Lewis: Yeah, which is in itself a very different form of power, I guess.
Nicholas Morton: Sure. But much of this, this is the basic power relationship here, is it's a small community which is often intensively persecuted trying to find ways of exerting political influence, defending itself whilst recognising its limitations in terms of total population numbers, I suppose.
Matthew Lewis: And there's another interesting incident that we can talk about. So in 1190s, Richard I gets kind of wrapped up with the idea that he may have engaged the Assassins to kill Conrad of Montferrat. And that causes trouble for him because of his proximity to the Assassins. 80 years later, we have Lord Edward, who would soon become King Edward I of England, also in the Holy Land on Crusade. And he becomes the target of an assassination attempt by the Assassins. What do we know about how that attempt played out?
Nicholas Morton: So very similar to many of the others, really. It seems as if this person, the Assassin, offered himself for service with Edward and his entourage. He grew close to Edward. And on this occasion, I think it was in Edward's bedchamber, he waited till he'd got Edward alone. And then tried to stab him when he was unawares. But he's Edward I, and I don't know, whatever you think of Edward I, no one disputes that he was an excellent warrior. And so not an easy person to catch as unaware. So it seems as if the Assassin did draw blood. But Edward got to him before he could strike a mortal wound. And of course, as soon as Edward had held this person, the alarm was raised. And then the room was flooded with soldiers and the Assassin was killed. So the assassination attempt was a failure. But it's a very similar approach to many of the others the Assassins tried. And there's various stories about this. It seems as if Edward's brother was pretty quickly on the scene. There is one story from a much, much later period that his wife, Eleanor of Castile, sucked poison from the wound. Because the idea being the blade may have been poisoned. In fact, that doesn't seem to have been the case. But it's one of the stories told about the incident.
Matthew Lewis: It's a great medieval romantic tale to add on to it. And so how do we know that the attack on Lord Edward was by the Assassins? Do they claim credit for it?
Nicholas Morton: That's a complicated question. We know that an assassination attempt occurred. But there is a temptation when studying Near Eastern history to assign every assassination to the Assassins because they're well known for that. People could murder one another for all sorts of reasons and different factions could do that. So we can never be quite sure. And certainly there are other groups who may have conducted the assassination. And it may not have been as simple as it's being the Mamluk Sultan commissioning it. May have been one of the regional governors instead. It's difficult to be sure. All we can say is that because the assassination attempt itself had many of the hallmarks of the typical approaches the Assassins used previously to assassinate. Disguising himself as one of Edward's followers, waiting for a moment of when Edward's guard was dropped and then conducting the act. That would be fairly standard for the Assassins. But that's no guarantee. And so it's always one of these sorts of grey area questions which of course would have strengthened the Assassins' hand at the time. People can never be quite sure who it was they were up against.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess to some extent if they develop a known tactic it becomes repeatable by someone else who could make it look like an attempt by the Assassins.
Nicholas Morton: Yep, absolutely. And so once again there are question marks over these sorts of things. But of course the Assassins, their whole purpose is to live in the shadows and to play with those grey areas. So that whole grey area would work in their favour.
Matthew Lewis: And does Edward make much of the assassination attempt himself? I guess surviving an assassination attempt would have been a mark of prestige for him. It shows how brave and how strong he was.
Nicholas Morton: Quite possibly. Certainly the incident became very well known in Western Christendom soon afterwards. And you have various sort of songs and elaborations and reinterpretations told of the story in later years. Yes, absolutely.
Matthew Lewis: And do we know why the Assassins may have gone after Edward I? Or does that remain a mystery?
Nicholas Morton: That's not clear. I mean Edward's crusade has occasionally been billed as this sort of epic contest, as it were. The crusaders coming in, the Muslim powers trying to defeat this crusade. In fact, it wasn't. Edward's army was not large. The papacy had hoped to raise a big army and hadn't. Edward arrived with a fairly small crusading force. He conducted a couple of very, very limited campaigns. And they were so limited that actually the Mamluk Sultan mocked them simply because they weren't making any difference to the status quo whatsoever. And so in a sense, I'm rather surprised that Edward was targeted, not because he was an enemy to the Mamluk Sultan, who could then, of course, leverage support from the Assassins, but because geopolitically, he was fairly insignificant by this stage. One suggestion that has been made is that the Mamluk Sultan wanted a treaty with the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which Edward opposed. So this may have been a way of making sure that treaty happened. But the thing that surprises me most about the assassination is that it happened at all, because quite honestly, by this stage, the Kingdom of Jerusalem is such a minor player in the affairs of the Near East. The big players are the Mongols and the Mamluks, and they're facing off along the line of the River Euphrates. Kingdom of Jerusalem's hardly got any military leverage at all by this stage.
Matthew Lewis: Could it have been an effort just to finish off the crusader kingdoms? (34:38) I mean, they don't last too much longer after this anyway.
Nicholas Morton: They don't, and that would make sense. Although to be honest, Edward wasn't billed to be going home fairly soon after this anyway. It may have been a show of strength, though, you're right.
Matthew Lewis: We know that in that moment, Edward's assassin was captured and was killed at the scene. But what would generally happen to an Assassin if their attempt failed?
Nicholas Morton: Well, if an assassination attempt failed, the Assassin would either get away or more likely they wouldn't, in which case the Assassin specifically would be killed. But it's actually quite rare to hear of repercussions against the Assassin's territorial holdings. Once they had the protection of the Mamluk Sultanate, essentially that gave them a fair degree of protection anyway. There was a case in 1213 when the assassins killed the son of one of the rulers of the Crusader states. And following that, there was a campaign directly against the Assassin's strongholds as a repercussion of that. But often because the Assassins conduct their assassinations for their patron, as it were, the person who has a fair degree of control over them, normally it's the patron who gets blamed rather than them themselves.
Matthew Lewis: It seems like the core message here is if you go to the Holy Lands on Crusade and someone offers to be of service and seems like a really useful, helpful chap, probably don't take him into your service.
Nicholas Morton: Well, unless you're very confident in your relationship with the Assassins, certainly.
Matthew Lewis: Thank you very much for joining us today, Nick, to run through all of that. And a big reminder to people to look out Nick's book, The Mongol Storm, which is available in all good bookstores everywhere. Thank you very much, Nick.
Nicholas Morton: Thank you so much.
Matthew Lewis: Join us again next time on Assassins vs Templars when I'm joined by Dr. Juliet Wood to talk about the Templars, the Grail and the mythology that surrounds them. Make sure you're following the Echoes of History podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode in this fascinating series. This series is a special collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit with post-production undertaken by Paradiso Media.

The Templars & The Holy Grail

Woman's Voice: History Hit and Assassin's Creed presents Assassins vs Templars Real Histories of the Secret Orders.
Matthew Lewis: Welcome to the inside of one of history's greatest stories, I'm Matt Lewis and in this collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit we're taking you back to the very beginning. The story of Assassin's Creed is one of deadly rivalry between conflicting ideologies that asks whether peace is found through freedom or control. It began with Assassins and Templars racing to gather the Pieces of Eden in the fiery heat of the Near East amidst brutal religious upheaval. We're all Desmond Miles now and we've found our Animus. A team of the best historians working in their fields will unlock the memories of the past for us, lead us through their secrets and introduce us to some of the real people who inspired the game. It's time to break into the vaults of two of history's most infamous organizations as we pit the Assassin's Creed against the Templar Order. In this episode, I'm joined by folklorist Juliette Wood to talk about the Templars and the Holy Grail to pick apart where this myth came from and how it might relate to Assassin's Creed. Thank you very much for joining us today, Juliette.
Juliette Wood: You are most welcome.
Matthew Lewis: It's very good to have you here. So I guess the first question around the Templars. In the game, they're kind of wrapped in this myth of the pieces of Eden which is not dissimilar to the idea of the Holy Grail which is something I think the Templars have become connected with over the centuries following their existence. But why do you think the Templars are so embedded in myth and mystery within the collective consciousness?
Juliette Wood: It's because they were repressed under very unusual circumstances and because of the repression, they seemed very glamorous, much more glamorous than they were when they were actually Templars, it has to be said. So you have a kind of perfect, not precisely vacuum, but a perfect sort of ambiguity to do all sorts of things with. And of course, that's exactly what's happened to the Templars.
Matthew Lewis: And what do you think? Is it about their story in particular that inspires myth that kind of attracted that thing? Is it just the way that they fell or is there something about their existence too?
Juliette Wood: I think it's something about their existence, warrior knights going and defending the Holy Land. However historically odd that may seem, certainly in terms of a narrative, is very, very dramatic because it fits very well into any number of folklore and mythology tropes. So here you have these men and they seem, because they're together, because they're fighting, and then because of the odd way in which they were suppressed, they seem somehow to attract our attention. We want to know more.
Matthew Lewis: We feel like there must be a story there that we're not seeing.
Juliette Wood: We are convinced there is a story there that we are not seeing. This is part of the problem, I think.
Matthew Lewis: But also part of the room that gives us all the space to do these kinds of things with them.
Juliette Wood: Oh, absolutely. They're a perfect trope for things like fantasy and fantasy games. I mean, you know, if they didn't exist, someone would have invented them. Fortunately, in this case, we actually have something that did exist that we can turn into all sorts of things.
Matthew Lewis: Fabulous. We always have to be careful, I think, of blurring the lines, though, between history and the fictional elements of them.
Juliette Wood: This is a problem. And as I say, for someone in my position, so I do a lot of popular culture, I do a lot of folklore, I'm constantly saying that there is a difference between a cognitive history, the events that actually happened, and how we would like them to have happened. And as I say, if you're in the realm of fantasy, that's wonderful. But if you're trying to straddle fantasy and history, you're probably going to fall down a hole.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess from a folklore point of view, it's interesting to think about how people like to remember these things, how we build stories around these things, even if we can be aware that it's not the truth. How we try to remember things as a collective is interesting, I think.
Juliette Wood: Well, it is, because, of course, the thing with narratives, which I think are very, very special, is that they follow rules, and they end. So you have this nice, neat, little, included world that you can play around in. When you become lost in it and decide that somehow the narrative is more real than the real, then there can be problems. But it's just such fun to play with. And, of course, we've been doing it, literally, in this case, since the dawn of time. I mean, narratives are something… We narrate our lives, we narrate our adventures, and then we have these sort of mythic folklore narratives as well.
Matthew Lewis: And if we move on to the idea of the Holy Grail, so in the game, as I mentioned, they have the Pieces of Eden, which is described as a relic of a long-forgotten civilization said to possess godlike powers, which isn't all that dissimilar to the Holy Grail. And I think about 21st-century depictions, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code kind of ties the Templars and the Grail together. But what was the Grail to medieval people, both physically and spiritually? What did they think it was?
Juliette Wood: They would have known that the Grail was the cup from the Last Supper. They would have known it as one of the relics of the Passion. It was probably less interesting to medieval people than it is to us, because the idea of going to Eucharist was something that really kind of develops in the middle of the Middle Ages, about the 12th, 13th century. It wasn't all that common. Much more popular would have been the relics of the Holy Cross, for example. But you do have this context. Now, if you want to think what possibly did medieval people think about it, I think the best way, actually, is to look at Malory, who includes in his version of the Arthurian legend, which is one of the last medieval versions, end of the 15th century, this notion of the Grail and the Eucharist and this mass that the knights attend and this whole business of sort of questing after some sort of Eucharistic object. If you actually look earlier in the Grail romances, the theological aspect of the Grail really isn't there, even in the ones that say this is the cup of the Last Supper. It's really something magical and mysterious. And you are gifted in being one of the guardians of the Grail. And curiously enough, it's that earlier non-theological thing that survives into the link between the Templar and the Grail, rather than Malory's sort of lay understanding of what the Grail meant.
Matthew Lewis: Fascinating. And were there many competing ideas around of what the Grail was and what it represented, or did people have a fairly defined view of it?
Juliette Wood: They had a fairly defined view of it as part of the Passion, as the cup that was used at the Last Supper when Christ instituted the Eucharist, the Mass, and what we think of as Communion, basically. So there wasn't a lot of problem with it then, partly because it wasn't as common taking Communion as it is now. So I think that wasn't the problem. Within the romances, the Grail had different meanings and different forms, but there are very specific, about half a dozen or so, sort of stories about the Grail.
Matthew Lewis: So in the game, we see Templars questing for the pieces of Eden. In Malory and writing like that, we see Arthur's Knights questing for the Holy Grail. Do we see people actively searching for the Holy Grail throughout history?
Juliette Wood: Not actively searching, but there is a 7th century reference to someone who went to the Holy Land and says he saw, he doesn't call it the Grail, saw the cup of the Last Supper, and he describes it as a silver object. There are a couple of references to it, but there's no sense that people went out looking for it. There are two objects which are brought back from the Crusades. Now I think one has to think of the context of the Crusades, which basically Europe, let's be blunt about it, lost. And therefore the idea that you could go and see the relics in the Holy Land, well, you couldn't. So suddenly an awful lot of these relics started appearing in Europe, and a lot of the legends come around it. And there's one about a Genoese, Guglielmo Embriaco, who brings back the Sacro Catino, which is not the Grail, but it's the dish that the apostles sort of had the paschal lamb in. And it's supposed to be made of emerald, and in fact it's glass, and it becomes part of the Genoese notion of what our history was.
Matthew Lewis: And how then do the stories of the Templars and the Holy Grail become entwined? Is there a definite origin to the connection, or is it just something we see emerging slowly?
Juliette Wood: There's a definite origin, not an absolutely clear origin, but you can see the period and the circumstances in which it's developing. And it's basically the very end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th as part of the reaction against the Enlightenment, the idea that really life is not all that rational. There are sort of spiritual wells of things. And in particular, there was a reaction, the sort of conservative forces, particularly in Catholic countries, really were a bit afraid of this new rationalism, which seems secular and atheist and all sorts of things. So what you found is people sort of looking at the past and creating what we would call medievalism, an interpretation of the past which basically said, no, sorry, rationalism would be dispersed if only we could find some sort of sacred object. And then not only if only we could find some sort of sacred object, but somebody is hiding this sacred object, trying to prevent us finding it. And, of course, the Templars come into this, not immediately directly, but through the Masons, because the Masons were a secular organization, and therefore there was certain antagonism. And so the Masons, with their passwords and their rituals, suddenly had a secret tradition, and suddenly they were in contact with the Templars, who are supposed to be agnostic. Again agnosticism, being this kind of mysterious, not so much separate religion, but a version of Christianity. So it's slightly complicated in that it's a reaction to rationalism. It kind of drags first the Masons and then the Templars and then the Gnostics. And kind of once you make that connection, you're away, basically, in conspiracy theories.
Matthew Lewis: Interesting, so you've got a whole lot of rabbit holes to start diving down as soon as you start making that connection.
Juliette Wood: You do, you do. It's not straightforward, but it's very clear with a period. And it's about the beginning of the 19th century. In fact, I can almost give you a date, about 1818, a man named Hammer-Purgstall, who was an Austrian Orientalist, published this book in which he showed, in the medieval world, all of these sort of images of Templar idols. It was completely subjective, and absolutely not the way any modern medievalist would look at it. But it really struck a chord, sort of saying, these people are hiding something. They're conspiring against us. They're conspiring against the government and the church.
Matthew Lewis: So this is very definitely not a connection that the Templars would have recognised in their day. This is something that's kind of pressed onto them much later.
Juliette Wood: The Templars were long gone by this time. They were a military order. They were not an intellectual order. There wouldn't be a lot of scholars who knew Latin or the sophisticated works of the day. They just weren't that. But of course, if you decide that history is just a kind of surface mirage, hiding the truth, then it doesn't actually matter that the Templars weren't intellectuals or they didn't have ships that could sail the Atlantic Ocean or various things. In fact, oddly enough, the fact that the facts don't match the fantasy is almost seen as proof of the fantasy, and it makes it very hard to engage in this.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess another critical part of the story within the game is that the Templars continue to exist as this kind of shady organisation. As you mentioned then, perhaps linked to the Masons, all of that kind of thing, they run big corporations. How do you feel about that? Is there any kind of element of truth to the idea that this secret organisation might still exist? I mean, it's a secret, so we don't know if it's a good secret organisation, I guess.
Juliette Wood: This is it. Basically, I'd say, well, there's no proof. But of course, if you're a conspiracy theorist, having an academic say there is no proof is basically a reaffirmation of what you thought all along, that everybody is lying to you, except those who share the secret. So it's one of these things where there's almost no way of crossing over unless you accept that this is a fantasy game that we're playing. And it's a wonderful fantasy. One of the things that I find very interesting and attractive is that the Templars are opposed by the Assassins. Well, the Assassins are the Hashashin, who were just as negatively regarded in the Middle Ages. So here you have two groups, both of which attract terrible reputations, completely undeserved, it has to be said. And here they are sort of working through this wonderful complex fantasy game.
Matthew Lewis: And they both, I think, have that element of mystery to them that nobody really knows what they were about, or people guess and try and push ideas on them that may or may not be true. So again, we're doing that essentially with Assassin's Creed, aren't we? We're building a narrative and a world around these groups because there's the mystery.
Juliette Wood: Absolutely. You kind of take this idea that there are two groups who are mysterious, one good, one bad, and you go from there. And there are all sorts of things you can follow. You can look for these objects. I have to say, the pieces of Eden remind me very much of the treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Celtic treasures, which include a bowl, a magic bowl, which some people say is the origin of the grail. So all of these kind of bits of culture, and interestingly, cross-culture as well, come together. And it says something about the way we structure stories. We like to structure stories with a purpose somehow, and a purpose that can be completed. I have to say, in the medieval text, the grail is found. Several knights find it, not just one. And then, of course, it then disappears at the end, whereas our modern notion is the grail is always something that we're searching for. It's always disappearing round the corner, up a staircase, into the shadows, whatever, depending on what bit of the fantasy you're in.
Matthew Lewis: Why do you think we do that with stories like the grail? We imagine that there is some secret organisation hiding information from us. Instead of thinking it was lost or it is somewhere, we just haven't found it, why do we want to construct this idea of a conspiracy around it?
Juliette Wood: We love secrets. We particularly like to think, right, I can find the secrets. I can solve the clues in a way that academics can't. I actually, I can sympathise with this, even though I don't buy into the conspiracies. I know reading things like Umberto Eco, one of the things that intrigues me is that as I read it, I think, ah, I know what literary work he got that through. So it's kind of reading something and finding clues and feeling very satisfied that you've done that is, I think, really universal. And I think this is what the conspiracy theory is. It's kind of we are not part of the establishment, but we can find out more than they can. And of course, that's very, I think, seductive is the word I would use for that, quite frankly.
Matthew Lewis: I think things like Dan Brown's writing, which his Da Vinci Code plays into a lot of these theories that we're talking about today. Part of his trick is that he makes you as a reader feel quite clever. You feel like you're getting under the skin of the conspiracy. He's so clever at leading you through that narrative, making you feel like you're the clever one who's solving things. Stuff like the Rosslyn Chapel, we don't know anything about that, but he can construct a story that makes it look like this is hiding great stories of the Grail.
Juliette Wood: Actually, we know a lot about the Rosslyn Chapel and the background to this. It's just that he sort of ignores that. And here is this very, very fascinating imagery, which plays into our ideas of what the medieval world was like. Although, in fact, it's not what the medieval world was like, essentially. And, of course, once you see sort of these mysterious things and, you know, the apprentice, the apprentice pillar, which is probably a pillar name for someone called Prentice, which is so much less interesting, isn't it? And as I say, it's wonderful. I find it very interesting as a medievalist who is old enough to have started studying the medieval period when this kind of fantasy was, well, we all enjoyed it, but nobody took it seriously. Whereas now, the medieval courses I teach, and I'm by no means the only one, always have an element of medievalism in it. And, of course, I think, well, this is really a way to hook students into this stuff. And then, you know, you can show them just how wonderful the medieval material is as compared to some of this modern stuff. So I can see a real change in how we kind of look at the medieval period.
Matthew Lewis: Is that helpful to you as a teacher, to lure people in in that kind of way?
Juliette Wood: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it may simply be that I just happen to like fantasies. And so I feel, look, I can share my enthusiasm for this stuff. And I've always liked fantasies. Whereas when I started doing medieval studies, and I wasn't the only one, you kept quiet about that. You kind of read it in your spare time. And my feeling is these fantasies are really, really interesting. And they really allow us to get into an unreal world and to say, what if? And you can, I know this is going to sound a bit pedantic, but you can learn about yourself doing this. I mean, this is what sort of epics were like. This is what quests were like. And as I say, you're also safe because you close the book, turn off the computer, shut your phone, whatever it is you do to finish this. So no, I think this is a really, really good way of sort of showing students that this stuff is not intimidating. It's not old-fashioned. It's not sort of passe. It really has, and again, this is a terrible cliche, it really, really can speak to us. And it can speak to anyone.
Matthew Lewis: I was just interested as well in the Celtic myths that you mentioned earlier.
Juliette Wood: It's the Tuatha Dé Danann.
Matthew Lewis: How do you think that plays into the idea of the Grail myth? Does it speak to the fact that we've always liked very much the same stories, we just translate them into new themes?
Juliette Wood: Yes, I think with the Celtic myths, with the stories of the Irish Tuatha Dé Danann, who are the fairy people, basically, they're supernatural beings. Of course, we've always been fascinated by the Celts. There's something about the way we think of ourselves. There's this fascination with the edges of our lives. So we're fascinated by the East and the Crusades, and we romanticize them. We're fascinated by the Celts. We create this notion of this kind of Celtic world. And, you know, we kind of sit in the middle of Europe, at least sort of aesthetically. And yes, we like to see the Celtic myths are like the Eastern myths. They had magic objects. The Templars are looking for magic objects in the East. So I think we try to bring these things together. And even where you can't say they're the same thing, this pattern of quest and secret and magic object, and particularly being worthy to find the magic object. And I think this is what Dan Brown plugs into by allowing his readers to think, oh, aren't I clever? I'm finding these things. You're giving them the same satisfaction or a similar satisfaction to someone who is on a quest. And I think this is the reason. And also this idea of the Templars as sort of secret and the idea of the Celts, and particularly the Druid Celts, as being a secret. You find these kind of secret organizations, none of which actually exist, nevertheless merge into one another.
Matthew Lewis: Roughed all these things on, yeah. But I guess that makes the game, you know, like a 21st century evolution of those same things. We've got a game here where we jump into the body of Altaïr, back in the Crusades, and we play out investigating and trying to find these secrets and gather these pieces together as if we're on a medieval quest. And that obviously still appeals to something in us today.
Juliette Wood: We are on a medieval quest. And as I say, this is one of the things I find fascinating about modern games, is that you can participate in an almost very realistic way. I know when I was a child, I thought of myself as going on a quest. I was quite happy to be a knight on horseback. Obviously, I would wear the beautiful medieval dresses. I combined the two. Whereas now, you can turn on the computer and create an avatar exactly the way you want it. So you can actually take it one step out of your imagination and sort of realize it on a screen. And I think that is something which is quite fascinating, even though I don't think I could manage the games particularly well.
Matthew Lewis: I reckon you could give it a go, Juliette. I can see you jumping through the streets of Jerusalem. You have.
Juliette Wood: I have. And I've kind of thought, as long as I've got someone with me to sort of say, push that button and do that way, it's okay. But I think I'd rather study the games and appreciate other people's skill than try to do it myself.
Matthew Lewis: Can you see the Assassin's Creed games as adding to that folklore tradition that we have? They're picking up similar themes and they're just building it in a slightly different way and immersing us in it in a slightly different way.
Juliette Wood: I quite frankly would regard it as a folklore phenomenon. Folklore is very dynamic. There's an old-fashioned way of thinking of it as something in the past, something ancient. But in fact, it's very dynamic. And if it isn't dynamic, it dies out. So in many ways, this is it. And a lot of the information now we get, a lot of the folklore information, comes to us through the internet, comes to us through social media. In a sense, this is our oral tradition now. So I certainly think the Assassin's Creed is kind of reformulating these things and clearly hasn't finished, unlike a lot of the fantasy books, when they come to the end, you know, the book closes. This has the ability to just keep going and going and going as long as there are people who are willing to play them and as long as there are, sort of, gamers and programmers willing to devise them.
Matthew Lewis: And as a medievalist, do you see this as a positive way for people to engage with that past tradition of folklore and storytelling and things like that? I'm kind of thinking, is it any different from when we moved from manuscripts to movable-type printed books that we're now moving to a more interactive presentation on a computer screen? Is it just the next evolution of how we tell stories?
Juliette Wood: Well, I certainly think it is. I have to say, I certainly think that having the manuscript tradition and knowing the manuscript tradition and the movable type, and in fact, knowing that this is part of an evolution rather than just the only phenomena, that, I think, is important as well. I think internet is one of several phenomena. Print and manuscript are two others. And I think sometimes it's a problem that people tend to sort of think the connections between the three of them are broken and they aren't.
Matthew Lewis: Yeah, I think it's a really interesting way to think about it because then you can stretch it back 2,000 years from the tradition of manuscripts in the mid-15th century. We get movable type and all of that suddenly changes. And that must have been fairly revolutionary to people then, and they may have sneered at that as we sometimes sneer at the internet and children playing games and things like that today. But it's actually part of the same thing.
Juliette Wood: Yes, I certainly think so. I think one has to be careful not to rate them as if they're sort of, you know, one is better than the other. They are sort of that kind of communication which was suitable for a particular period. And before manuscripts, you also, and you still continue, to have communication which is face-to-face, which is an oral exchange of information. And that, I think, is the one constant that in a sense feeds into all of these other phenomena.
Matthew Lewis: So if I was to put you on the spot, does the Holy Grail exist and will we ever find it?
Juliette Wood: No and no. I say that, I think, with a certain level of regret. But no, it doesn't exist. And no, we won't find it. But that's in a sense the least interesting thing about the story. I think if we get bogged down in, I must find an actual grail, and quite frankly in the course of my research I've come across at least eight objects that claim to be the Holy Grail. And I probably haven't looked all that closely. I could find more. But I think it's this notion, and I think, oddly enough, Wolfram von Eschenbach in writing Parzival, again in the 1300s, expresses it very well. Because he's not interested in the theological grail. He's interested in the notion of there is this magical object. And to be a guardian of this magical object is in a sense the highest calling. And that really is what happens in Parzival. Parzival finds not so much the grail, but he finds his family, who are the guardians of the grail. So it's a very personal story. And that's, oddly enough, I think picked up later on with the Templars. It's picked up by people like Rudolf Steiner, who sees the grail as an internal quest, as an initiation, as it were. And then it's picked up by the, let me be polite and say, more popular speculations on the hidden grail. So as I say, no, the grail doesn't exist. But the concept of the grail is what's important.
Matthew Lewis: And are we missing the important thing isn't finding a cup that Jesus may have once used. The important thing is the quest and what you can learn. And as you said before, more often than not discover about yourself that questing for it is the important thing rather than finding it or not finding it.
Juliette Wood: Yes. And you could see this in the medieval text as well. It's the knights have to find out certain things, answer certain questions, accomplish certain things. And then, of course, the grail in a sense presents itself. So it's achieving these sort of levels of understanding. And then the grail sort of says, well, you know, here I am basically trivializing it a bit. But I mean, that essentially is what's happening in the romances. And that essentially I think is what's happening in some of the modern grail things as well. Even if the language isn't quite as poetic or posh as the romances languages.
Matthew Lewis: And it's not a million miles away from Assassin's Creed. So Altaïr is done a quest. He's tasked with 10 assassinations. And they're trying to find these Pieces of Eden to bring them together to prevent, you know, the end of the world as they see it. So it really is just engaging with that same idea that to some extent the quest is important and what you learn on the quest.
Juliette Wood: And he's very much a grail hero in that he starts out not knowing who he is and not knowing what it is he has to do. And I mean, this is certainly the position that Percival finds himself. He doesn't realize that he's related to all of these grail people. He doesn't realize that he has a mission. He's a rather brash young man who goes crashing through the undergrowth and making all kinds of mistakes. So that kind of hero, what folklorists call the unpromising hero, which is rather a silly name for it because it's a hero with a great deal of promise. He just doesn't know it yet. It's very, very fundamental. And I have to say, I'm using the word hero and let me point out that it doesn't have to be a man.
Matthew Lewis: Absolutely.
Juliette Wood: It's just that there's this character who doesn't know quite how wonderful their potential is.
Matthew Lewis: No, you're absolutely right. I mean, we see Templar sisters and we see female Assassins in the game as well. So the game is with you on that, I think. And I guess to put you on the spot with the other side of what we're talking about, do the Templars still exist? Is there a secret organization out there pulling strings?
Juliette Wood: No, there isn't a secret organization pulling strings. They exist as a kind of society. I was introduced to a gentleman at one of these conferences who was the last Templar, but as a kind of society and priest rather than a sort of secret thing. Do the secret societies ever exist? Yeah, there were conspiracies and they didn't want to be found out, but that's not quite the same thing as secret society. But we certainly both fear the notion that there is a secret society pulling the strings. And we also want the notion that there's a secret society pulling the strings because it's not our fault.
Matthew Lewis: And just to end on, what do you think as a folklorist and a medievalist, what do you think that tells us about us today that we both fear and desperately want these things to be true?
Juliette Wood: Well, I think it simply says that we're human. This is part of the sort of human condition that certainly was expressed in the medieval period, but not just in the medieval period. You could go back farther and see the same sort of thing happening. I think what's special about the medieval period is we can still see it around us. So many of our buildings have medieval elements. Things like the Arthurian legend is very popular in children's books. So it kind of seems closer to us than, for example, the ancient past, the Greek or the Roman or the prehistoric past. And I think it's because certainly in the West, certainly in Europe, and in those countries that were sort of colonized by Europeans, you just see a lot of medieval bits and pieces because that's part of the way we kind of presented ourselves.
Matthew Lewis: Wonderful. I think it's been fascinating to position the Assassin's Creed game as almost a continuation of millennia of tradition of writing and telling stories and encasing them in these mysteries that we want to solve. It's been great to position Altaïr as a kind of grail hero who is on the same kind of quest as grail knights and things like that. It's been absolutely wonderful to pick these things apart with you. Thank you very much for joining us, Juliette, and sharing your expertise.
Juliette Wood: You are very welcome.
Matthew Lewis: Next time on Assassins vs Templars, it's Assassins’ deeds throughout history. We'll be picking apart some of the most famous and infamous assassinations and assassination attempts with John Withington. Make sure you're following the Echoes of History podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it. And there you can listen to the rest of the series too. This series is a special collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit with post-production undertaken by Paradiso Media.

Assassins' Deeds

Woman's Voice: History Hit and Assassin's Creed presents Assassins vs Templars Real Histories of the secret orders.
Matthew Lewis: Welcome to the inside of one of history's greatest stories. I'm Matt Lewis and in this collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit, we're taking you back to the very beginning. The story of Assassin's Creed is one of deadly rivalry between conflicting ideologies that asks whether peace is found through freedom or control. It began with Assassins and Templars racing to gather the pieces of Eden in the fiery heat of the Near East amidst brutal religious upheaval. We're all Desmond Miles now and we've found our Animus, a team of the best historians working in their fields. We'll unlock the memories of the past for us. They'll lead us through their secrets and introduce us to some of the real people who inspired the game. It's time to break into the vaults of two of history's most infamous organizations as we pit the Assassin's Creed against the Templar Order. In this episode, I'm joined by John Withington. John is an award-winning television broadcaster and journalist who is particularly interested in disasters, both natural and otherwise. His most recent book, Assassins’ Deeds, a history of assassination from ancient Egypt to the present day was released in 2020. Thank you very much for joining us today, John.
John Withington: Pleasure to be here.
Matthew Lewis: It's wonderful to have you. So I guess we're talking around Assassin's Creed here, Altaïr's campaign to assassinate the right people during the Third Crusade. And we think of the assassins, but they weren't the first and they certainly weren't the last either. Can you give us an idea of how early in history we can trace back the idea of assassination for political reasons?
John Withington: The first assassination I could track down was a pharaoh called Teti, an Egyptian pharaoh who died in 2333 BC. Now, we have circumstantial evidence and some written evidence. So a historian did write that he had been assassinated, but that historian was writing about 2000 years after the event. So about halfway between where we are now and when Teti died. It could be, of course, that he was drawing on sources that we've since lost. So we've got his account. There's also some circumstantial evidence, which is that a lot of senior officials from Teti's court had their memorials defaced. And this was a terrible punishment in ancient Egypt because it meant you would wander homeless through the afterlife. And if you look then in the Persian kings, between 550 and 330 BC, of 13 Persian kings, 11 were murdered. So I think it's reasonable to assume that as soon as there were people in power or authority, you had assassination. And the fact that we know about ancient Egypt and Persia is probably just to do with the fact that they had better records.
Matthew Lewis: It kind of begs the question whether there's ever not been assassinations.
John Withington: I think that my assumption would be that as soon as there was organised society with some people in power, there probably was. And I think that there was an American anthropologist who examined an Egyptian cemetery which dated back up to 14,000 years. And he found that 40% of those buried there had evidence of wounds from sharp stones. So sadly, I think the world's always been a violent place and assassinations probably always been part of that.
Matthew Lewis: Why has assassination always been a popular tactic throughout history? We see in the Crusades in particular, the Assassins, if we can still call them the Assassins, are famous for sneak attacks, for infiltrating. And if you play the game, it's all about sneaking around, diving from a high distance and assassinating someone by shock. But why has it always been popular? Does it contain this element of fear, confusion and everything else that we can add to the death of a political leader?
John Withington: Well if we go to about a thousand years before the Assassins, so around the time of Christ in the Holy Land, there were a group called the Sicarii. And they're pointed to by a lot of people as, if you want to use this terminology, the first modern terrorist group. And they were trying to resist Roman occupation. And their method was literally cloak and dagger. So they hid daggers beneath their cloaks and they liked to strike their victims at big public festivals for two reasons. One, that they felt this gave them a good chance of escaping by melting away into the crowd. But secondly, because they felt it enhanced the propaganda value of the killing. That it was more scary if the killing happened in full view of lots and lots of people.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess we see that a bit in the game as well. Some of the assassination attempts there are required to be at public events, which as you say, makes it more shocking, but also I guess increases your chances of escape, which must be in the assassin's mind. You don't necessarily want to die in the attempt if you can avoid it.
John Withington: No. You know, you obviously got in more recent times, you've got suicide bombers who plainly don't think they're going to escape. And I think if you look at the history of assassination, there's probably quite a lot of occasions, for example, the people who killed Tsar Alexander II in Russia in the 1880s, I think they probably pretty well knew there was a very slim chance that they would escape.
Matthew Lewis: To be an Assassin, you've got to be willing to accept a personal, a level of personal risk. So can we talk a little bit about what we would classify as an assassination? We have plenty of murders throughout history that we don't necessarily call an assassination. How, maybe when you were writing your book, how did you define an assassination as one that you would look at?
John Withington: Yes. So all assassinations are murders, but not all murders are assassinations. And the definition that I took was that assassination was the killing of somebody rich, powerful or famous because they were rich, powerful or famous. But I also excluded people who were already held captive by their opponents. So for example, Edward II, I wouldn't count him being assassinated, he was murdered, but he was already in the power of his opponents.
Matthew Lewis: Do you think there are categories of reasons that we might be able to divide assassinations into? So in the game, Altaïr is given 10 people he has to assassinate for specific reasons. But do they happen for, is it about revolution? Is it about specific policy? Is it about revenge, personal hatred, or a mixture of those things?
John Withington: Well, I analysed about 260 assassinations. And you're right that motives are complex. And of course, motives are often mixed. There might be a political ideology might be an element, but there might also be an element of revenge or fear in the same assassination. It's quite difficult to come to firm conclusions. But for what it's worth, of the 260 I looked at, about 127 were some sort of political ideology. In the early years in particular, dynastic ambition was very important. So rather than overthrowing a particular form of government, it was more, I'd like to run this form of government rather than the person who's running it. So there were 44 that were what I would call dynastic ambition. They, of course, were very often murders within the family because it was very often a brother, a father, a son who was doing the killing. Religion was important in 24, but anger and resentment was important in 29. There was a man called Edward the Martyr, King of England, who was killed in 978. Now, Edward the Martyr was now a saint. He was rather odd saintly material because he had a terrible temper, and he managed to annoy an awful lot of people. And he was murdered by relatives of his younger brother. And one of the motives may simply be that an awful lot of people hated him. But you talked about fear earlier, and interestingly enough, fear actually can be quite an important motive for assassination. So the Roman Emperor Volusianus was killed by his own troops in 253 AD. And that was simply because they didn't want to be led out to fight against a usurper who was trying to get his throne. They thought they'd probably lose, so they killed him instead.
Matthew Lewis: So they almost assassinated him to save their own lives. Yeah. You can almost encapsulate the entirety of human nature within that list of reasons to assassinate someone, can't you? Fear, ambition, greed, or a desire for change.
John Withington: Revenge.
Matthew Lewis: Revenge. Yeah, absolutely. So in the game, the chosen tactic is normally to assassinate by a hidden dagger. So a dagger that pops out the sleeve at the last minute by which you assassinate someone. Do we see different methods of assassination that are perhaps aimed at achieving different ends?
John Withington: Well, certainly we see that the methods of assassination change. You wouldn't be surprised about that. But one of the things that struck me was how long stabbing remained the preferred method. So for quite a long time after firearms appeared, stabbing still remained the chosen method. And it wasn't really until the 19th century that firearms took over. And even when firearms took over, it tended to be the handgun at close quarters rather than the sniper's rifle. So I suppose if we think of assassination in fiction, the book that often comes to mind is The Day of the Jackal. And of course, he is a very high quality sniper, isn't he? But actually, snipers were very, very rare. I looked, there were about 230 assassinations where I could work out, was it at close quarters? Was it at distance? And only 19 of those actually were done from distance. So yes, the firearm changed the method. But in terms of the modus operandi of the assassin, if you like, very often, it still required you to get up close and personal with the victim.
Matthew Lewis: Do you think that had much to do with the reliability of firearms? Because it took a long time for them to become anything like reliable, whereas a dagger in your hand, you know exactly what you're doing.
John Withington: I think that's almost certainly true. Yeah, I think that's almost true.
Matthew Lewis: If you're going to take the shot, you don't want to miss. If you've got a dagger, you're getting close enough to do the job properly.
John Withington: Correct.
Matthew Lewis: And can you give us a few examples of some of the assassinations that really stuck out in your mind from your research, from your books, some detail of how the assassinations took place and what they were assassinated for?
John Withington: Can I talk first about one that struck me as perhaps the weirdest of assassinations?
Matthew Lewis: Oh yes, please.
John Withington: Well, in 995, in Scotland, the succession was not arrived at by getting the eldest son of the king to take over. So what happened was that the person chosen was chosen from amongst all the male relatives, the adult male relatives from previous rulers of Scotland, from previous kings. Not having the eldest son succeed was supposed to have the advantage that you didn't get an infant taking over with all the potential disorder that could bring. The downside was you got a lot of rival claimants. And King Kenneth II of Scotland wanted to try to secure the throne for his son Malcolm to secure the succession. But there were plenty of other people who fancied becoming king, and one was a man called Constantine the Bald. And Kenneth II was out in Aberdeenshire one day, and he was accosted by a woman who goes by various names, but something like the Lady Fenella. And the Lady Fenella wouldn't be thought to be well disposed to King Kenneth because he'd had her son executed. Anyway, she went up to the king and said, look, you know, I know I was a bit cross with you about having my son executed, but fair dues. I recognize that, you know, he'd done wrong. And just to show that you don't bear any ill will to me anymore, would you come to my house? And the king was a bit iffy but she whispered in his ear, if you come to my house, I will give you the names of all the people who are plotting against you. So anyway, so the king is eventually convinced, and he rolls up to the lady's house. And on the table is this very nice statuette of a little boy. And the Lady Fenella says to the king, if you touch that statue, something really funny will happen. So the king again was a bit iffy, but he thought, well, what's the worst thing that could possibly happen? So he touched the statue and he was immediately hit by a volley of crossbow bolts, because it had been booby trapped and it had been connected to hidden crossbows all around the room. After a little while, the king's retinue a bit worried about why he hadn't come out and what was going on. So they broke in, found his body. The Lady Fenella probably sensibly made herself scarce. She ran off. They apparently cornered her at the top of a cliff above some water and she dived into the water and was killed rather than surrendering. Constantine the Bald did manage to get the throne, but then he was defeated by Malcolm, King Kenneth's son, who took over the throne and ruled for about 29 years, I think. This story may be true or maybe not, but it's a good story.
Matthew Lewis: It's a cracking story. I mean, there's an awful lot of thought gone into there, into building a statue that's rigged to connect to crossbows to try and assassinate the king.
John Withington: Yeah, I think the connecting up to the crossroads probably is quite an engineering feat, yeah. From that sort of era, well, let me try you out on something. Suppose I told you about a very senior churchman who fell out with his king and annoyed his king so greatly that while he was conducting a church service, he was murdered.
Matthew Lewis: I'm going to say Thomas Beckett.
John Withington: And that would be a very good guess. And the only thing that doesn't quite fit in the story is that Beckett was actually preparing a church service, I think, when he was killed. So actually, I'm talking about Bishop Stanislaus of Kraków, who was murdered by the Polish king, possibly even by the Polish king's own hand, certainly at his instigation. But you're absolutely right. It could, of course, be the story of Beckett. And I think that illustrates the fact that what you've got there is you've got these two very powerful institutions, the church and the state, probably the two most powerful institutions in England at that time. And every now and then, these tensions are going to boil over. And Beckett's murder, of course, he'd fallen out with the king. He'd been in exile in France for six years. Henry II managed to persuade him to come back. But when he came back, Beckett seemed completely unrepentant. He started sort of flinging around excommunications of all his enemies. He got a hero's welcome when he came back to England. And he milked that by taking the most roundabout route he could to Canterbury. So this was all irritating the king. And perhaps on Christmas Day itself, the king said words to the effect, you know, the usual formula is, isn't it? Who will rid me of this troublesome monk? Something of that kind. Was that just an understandable expression of exasperation by a man known to be hot-tempered? Or was it an instruction? Anyway, four of his knights took it to be an instruction and cornered, confronted Beckett in his cathedral and then killed him. And one of the things that Beckett's story illustrates is the law of unintended consequences. What was the effect of him being killed? Made him a martyr, made him one of the most celebrated saints in Christendom, meant that Henry couldn't push through the reforms he wanted, which was basically to make sure that clergy who had committed crimes would be tried in civil courts, not church courts, had to give that up and spent most of the rest of his life fighting civil wars with his sons.
Matthew Lewis: I have to say I'm convinced by the theory that Beckett kind of wanted to martyr himself, that he set everything up. It bears very strong resemblances to Christ taking in the Garden of Gethsemane, the way Beckett seems to stage manage that. It's like he almost stage managed his own assassination for his own reasons, which, as you say, were the unintended consequences of what Henry did. As we move on through time, do we find that there are assassinations with better records? Are there things that we have more details of that are perhaps more recent?
John Withington: Yeah, so when I was doing my statistical analysis, if you want to call it that, up to about the 19th century, I analysed virtually every assassination that I felt that I could find sufficient evidence about. By the time I got to the modern age, there were just so many that I just had to choose 100 to do. So yes, obviously, everything is much better documented, isn't it? And maybe that's allied to the thing that we were talking about with the Sicarii. Josephus, a historian writing at the time of Sicarii, said although their killings were damaging, it was the terror that those killings generated that was far more damaging. And so in the 19th century, you began to get this idea of the propaganda of the deed. So it's not that ideas create assassinations, but it's assassinations can create ideas. So this idea that the proletariat is kind of slumbering, not realising that it's oppressed. And so if we can do something like assassinate the Tsar, as happened in the 1880s, then maybe that awakens the consciousness and the proletariat will rise up.
Matthew Lewis: So rather than an assassination aimed at achieving a specific end, it's aimed at sparking something else.
John Withington: Yes, I think assassins have obviously often been disappointed. I mean, if you go right back to Julius Caesar, one of the most famous assassinations in history, I suppose, the conspirators, Brutus and Cassius, believed that if they killed Caesar, the sort of the Roman Republic was sort of somehow spontaneously kind of regenerate. And of course, that didn't happen. Instead, you got 14 years of civil war, which ended with the opposite, if you like, of the Republic with the Roman Empire being created.
Matthew Lewis: I only ask about record keeping, because in the game, one of Altair's targets, William of Montferrat, his son, Conrad of Montferrat, was actually assassinated while Richard I was in the Holy Land. And when Richard is captured on his way back to England, part of the reason for his capture is given as being behind the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat. And we get the Old Man of the Mountains, the head of the Assassins, kind of writes to the Holy Roman Emperor and says, no, Richard didn't engage me to do this. I did it off my own bat kind of thing. But we just don't have the records to understand how much of that is true, how much of it was propaganda by Richard's enemies, and how much of it might have been true. So it must be nice when you get into a time when there's a bit more record keeping, and you can see a bit more clearly what's happening.
John Withington: Yes, I think that's true. And I mean, just going back to the Assassins and their relationship with the Crusaders, you know, it's quite a striking coincidence, isn't it? That the Assassins appear about the end of the 11th century, about in the 1090s. And then 10 years later, the Crusades start. And the great historian of the Crusades, Steven Runciman, said that the presence of the assassins was enough to stop there being a coherent Muslim response to the Crusades. And of course, the majority of the people that the Assassins killed were fellow Muslims, but they were from different sects, different parts of the religion. The relationship with Crusaders is an odd one. I mean, they helped the Crusaders indirectly, because if they're killing prominent Muslims, that helps the Crusaders. But there also does appear to have been a business relationship at times, where they were prepared to take on murders on behalf of the Crusaders. And there's a famous story where they killed the King-elect of Jerusalem about the end of the 12th century. He was only about the second major Crusader figure that the assassins had killed. And so there was a big meeting, you know, to thrash it all out. What on earth's gone wrong here between the assassins and the Crusaders? And the assassins allegedly said, look, we're sorry, that was a mistake. But just to make it up to you, we will kill anybody you care to name free of charge. And of course, they were in real life very worried about the Knights Templar. You know, the Assassins saw the Knights Templar as among the most dangerous enemies they had. And there was one occasion where a delegation of envoys from the assassins had been meeting the Crusader King, and they were all butchered by the Knights Templar on their way home. And there was also the Knight Hospitaller who appeared as a similar military order. And I think the assassins ended up paying tribute to them, and also doing the odd murder on their behalf.
Matthew Lewis: It kind of plays into the reality that the game pits the assassins against the Templars. There was a real rivalry there in the Holy Land. And I think it is interesting that Nizari Assassin clan kind of mirrors the dates of the Crusader States almost exactly. It arrives just before, and it ends around about the same time. And as you say, some of the targets in the game are Muslims as well as Christians. And I think if you didn't know too much about it, that might surprise you that Muslims are actively attacking Muslims at a time when the Holy Land is under threat from Christianity. But again, that plays into the real history that quite often the Assassins were at odds with other Muslim sects rather than Christians.
John Withington: Well of course, you had a similar thing happen with Christianity, sort of 400 or 500 years later when you get the Wars of Religion and the Reformation 1517. And I think, as I mentioned, that religion became a very important factor, a very important motive for assassination. One of the impressions that did sort of come across to me is that those motivated to assassinate by religion tended to be more ruthless than those motivated by politics.
Matthew Lewis: I wonder if there's an element of believing you're securing a place in heaven.
John Withington: Quite possibly. And also maybe, particularly when, you know, heresy was such a thing and the feelings were so strong about that, maybe it's also easier to believe that your opponents are thoroughly evil and have no redeeming features.
Matthew Lewis: So I guess having terrified everybody about the fact that political assassinations of all kinds have happened for millennia, not even just centuries, are there any proven ways that someone might seek to protect themselves or foil assassination attempts? Do we see people surviving maybe more than one?
John Withington: The most consoling thing about assassinations is most attempts fail.
Matthew Lewis: That does make me feel better.
John Withington: In terms of how you protect yourself, one of the things that strikes you actually when you read back in history is how careless, by modern standards, some of the victims appear to have been. So Abraham Lincoln, the night he was assassinated, Good Friday 1865, his regular bodyguard was off on a mission somewhere else and he got a kind of stand-in bodyguard and Lincoln appears to have let the bodyguard go off for a drink and there was no bodyguard on duty when John Wilkes Booth went into his room to kill him. So bodyguards is one thing you can use. They're not foolproof. So Teti was said to have been killed by his bodyguard and he certainly reorganised security, palace security. There's no doubt that a lot of bodyguards do act with enormous courage and do help to keep safe the people they're protecting. So Benazir Bhutto, there was an assassination attempt on her in 2007. Fifty of her security guards were killed and of course she was then later assassinated herself. But bodyguards can be a danger as well, as we saw with Teti. And up to 15 Roman emperors were killed by bodyguards or by troops loyal to them. And if you come forward in time, of course, you've got Indira Gandhi who was killed in 1984 by her bodyguard. There are things, there's technology, things like armour-plated cars. Eduard Shevardnadze, when he was president of Georgia, survived an assassination attempt thanks to his armour-plated car. But they're not foolproof. There was a German industrialist called Herrhausen who was murdered by the Red Army faction, even though he's in his armour-plated car. I think Machiavelli said the best way of keeping yourself safe from assassination is to make sure all your people love you. But that may not be too easy to achieve.
Matthew Lewis: And yet we also know it's impossible to please all of the people all of the time. It's a difficult circle to square. And I guess in the game, you know, part of what players have to do is to infiltrate situations and get under the skin of people and situations. And there's a famously recorded case of Assassins going to visit Saladin. And you know, he sends away all of his bodyguards except the last two who he most trusts, at which point the Assassins say, what would you do if we asked you to kill Saladin? And they both say, we'd kill him because we're Assassins. So I guess there's an element there of always, even bodyguards, you have to be wary of who they are. And as you said, they're absolutely no guarantee and they could be your worst enemies.
John Withington: Yeah, well, there's a story that Saladin was saved from assassination because he wore a chainmail cap under his turban. And I think, as you know, the Assassins wanted to kill him and made a couple of attempts. And there was this famous episode where he was sleeping in his tent one night, awoke in the middle of the night, saw a figure creeping out of his tent, and there pinned to his pillow with a poisoned dagger was a note saying, you are in our power, and some cakes of a kind, apparently, that only the Assassins made. But I think one of the attempts on Saladin illustrates another feature of the way the Assassins operated. So when the attempt was made to stab him in the head, which was to stop his cap of chainmail, the Assassins who tried to do that had been fighting in his forces. They'd signed up for his forces and fought with great courage and considerable distinction. And he was at an event to reward them for their bravery. So this business of deep cover, because again, it was one of the assassinations they did of a crusader called Count Raymond of Tripoli. That's Tripoli in Lebanon, not in Libya. But I think the two Assassins had actually gone undercover for a long time, had even got baptized. So they were prepared to take what sounds like quite a modern tactic, doesn't it? Being, if you like, I guess, a sleeper, and of going into deep cover, being very patient, awaiting the right moment to strike.
Matthew Lewis: In Assassin's Creed, Altaïr is tasked with killing a sequence of 10 people. His aim is to get to Robert de Sablé, the leader of the Knights Templar. But he has to kind of perform these other nine to get him access to Robert de Sablé. So do we ever see a series of assassinations as a way to eliminate allies to get to the main target?
John Withington: Well, certainly you see quite a bit of what I suppose we might now call collateral damage. So the 266 assassinations I looked at, 38 involved significant collateral damage, significant other casualties. And the first crusader killed by the assassins, Raymond of Tripoli, the assassins had to kill two of his knights to get to him. Probably the biggest example of collateral damage, or one of the biggest anyway, was the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India in 1991 by a suicide bomber. She killed 25 other people. There's a very famous story from Japan about the 47 samurai. There was a senior shogun official who ill-treated a samurai to such a degree that he committed, Harakiri–killed himself. And then that samurai's followers decided they must take revenge on this shogun official. And to get to him, they had to kill 16 of his men. They did manage to kill him, but then all 47 of them were instructed to commit Harakiri, apart from one who was spared on account of his youth.
Matthew Lewis: It's currently a famous Keanu Reeves film, 47 Samurai[sic].
John Withington: It's been filmed a number of occasions, and there are books. Yeah, it's a very, very important part of Japanese history and folklore.
Matthew Lewis: And perhaps a parallel from which the game draws the idea of having to kill this sequence of people to get to the main target. That did happen in history, we can see clear parallels. You mentioned a little bit earlier, the kind of the law of unintended consequences when assassinations take place. Do we see frequent unintended consequences? What kind of thing might they be?
John Withington: If you take what are perhaps, well, certainly three of the most famous assassinations in history, Julius Caesar, Thomas Beckett, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, all of them had unintended consequences. Now, of course, there's an argument about whether the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand actually caused the First World War. And it was indeed 39 days after his assassination that the First World War broke out. But certainly, that's one of the assassins felt, because one of the assassins said, if I'd known what our deed was going to lead to, I would have sat down on my bomb and blown myself to bits. So, I think, it was Gandalf, I think, in The Lord of the Rings, who says, they're talking about should they murder Gollum? And I think Gandalf says something like, you need to be careful about this kind of thing, because not all ends are known, even to the wise. And societies are very, very complicated things, and predicting the consequences of killing somebody, very, very hard to do. So I think unintended consequences is very, very common.
Matthew Lewis: Do we ever see examples of that being taken into account? Are people ever aware? I mean, I guess the unintended part suggests that they're not. But are people ever aware that there might be bigger, wider, deeper consequences to what they're about to do? Or do they tend to be focused on their very particular reason for wanting to assassinate someone?
John Withington: I suppose that if you've gone ahead with the assassination, you've probably had to have convinced yourself that, on balance, it's worth it. One thing I tried to do, and this is obviously highly subjective, I tried to work out whether, as it were, assassination worked. So, if the people who did the assassination had known what was going to happen, would they have been happy with it? This is obviously an extremely subjective judgment. But for what it's worth, I felt that I'd got enough information in 215 cases, and I reckoned that in 132 of those, people would have been, on the whole, happy with the outcome. In 83, they would have been unhappy. Of course, all the assassinations worked in the sense that the victim was dead.
Matthew Lewis: But interesting that over half probably worked out the way the assassins hoped or would have been happy with.
John Withington: It wouldn't be true to say that in all of those cases, it worked out exactly as they would have expected. But I felt it was kind of near enough to the objective that they would have wanted to achieve. So, I suppose that's a slightly depressing figure to set against the one that most assassination attempts fail.
Matthew Lewis: We'll stick to the most fail as our consolation from this episode, I think. But thank you very much for joining us, John. It's been an absolutely fascinating tour of assassination as a weapon and as a tool of political terror. Thank you very much for joining us.
John Withington: Pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Matthew Lewis: In the next episode, I'm joined by Mike Carr of the University of Edinburgh to discuss the fall of the Templars. It's our last episode, and we've saved the most pivotal moment in the Templar story to the very end. Make sure you're following the Echoes of History podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it. And you can listen to the rest of the series there, too. This series is a special collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit, with post-production undertaken by Paradiso Media.

The Fall of the Templars

Woman’s Voice: History Hit and Assassin's Creed presents Assassins vs Templars Real Histories of the secret orders.
Matthew Lewis: Welcome to the inside of one of history's greatest stories. I'm Matt Lewis, and in this collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit, we're taking you back to the very beginning. The story of Assassin's Creed is one of deadly rivalry between conflicting ideologies that asks whether peace is found through freedom or control. It began with Assassins and Templars racing to gather the pieces of Eden in the fiery heat of the Near East, amidst brutal religious upheavals. We're all Desmond Miles now, and we've found our Animus. A team of the best historians working in their fields will unlock the memories of the past for us, lead us through their secrets, and introduce us to some of the real people who inspired the game. It's time to break into the vaults of two of history's most infamous organisations as we pit the Assassin's Creed against the Templar Order. In this episode, I'm joined by Mike Carr from the University of Edinburgh to talk all about the fall of the Templars. Thank you very much for joining us, Mike.
Mike Carr: Thank you very much for having me.
Matthew Lewis: It's great to have you on to talk about the climactic fall of the Templar Order. Can you paint a picture for us to start off with, of just how powerful and wealthy and influential the Templars were, kind of at the height of their power? When is this and just how powerful are they?
Mike Carr: Okay, I mean, there's two ways to think about this. The Templars, they're sort of an international order that have possessions all across Latin Europe but also in the Middle East as well. So in terms of their wealth and power, it's worth taking these two sort of regions together and comparing them and seeing how it all works out. So at the time of their arrest in 1307, they have very extensive possessions all across Latin Christendom, so predominantly in France, but also in Iberia, in Italy, England, places like that. And we're talking about almost a thousand different Templar estates. And these would have been sort of made up of mills and farms and things like that for sort of agricultural production, other kinds of production, which would have generated the wealth of the order. And then they also have their military side, which is sort of mostly to do with the defence of the Latin East. And probably the height of their sort of military power is a little bit earlier. So in the 12th and 13th centuries, and it's said that the Templars probably by the end of the 12th century, in terms of a sort of military context, have something like 600 knights in the Holy Land in the different Crusader states, with around 2000 other fighting men as part of the Order. So they're a considerable fighting force. I mean, it's difficult to sort of put it in context, but they form quite a considerable and important part of the armies of the Latin East and in the Crusader states. So you have this sort of two facets, you've got these extensive possessions in Western Europe, and the money that's generated by them is supporting the armies in the East and also garrisoning castles and other strongholds and things like that in the East. And in addition to that, the thing that links it together is the ships and the transport and the, I suppose, the logistical networks that stretch from Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean. So I think that hopefully paints a picture of the sort of scale and the international scope of the order, really at its height. So it's extensive territories in the West generating money for this military activity in the East. And in terms of their sort of their influence, I mean, it is partly financial because of the possessions they have in the West and the money that they're generating, and also military. So a lot of it's to do with crusading. So they're advising monarchs about crusading strategy, they're giving advice and taking part in the leadership of crusades in the East. But whether or not they have extensive influence in terms of domestic policies within Europe, I think that's more debatable. Maybe the sort of more common and sort of modern perception of the Templars are of groups that really are influential in European politics. And I think maybe that's an overstatement, but they are very important in terms of the crusades and the military activities in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess even if they're not directly involved in domestic policy, their focus on the crusades necessarily drives some domestic policies and financial policies and things like that.
Mike Carr: Exactly.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess in the game, you know, the Templars still exist and they're an organisation that are fronted by a huge multinational corporation. That seems like a fairly reasonable modern parallel for what the Templars were at their height.
Mike Carr: Yeah, exactly. And I think in some ways, there's not really many or any other medieval entity that sort of has this multinational status that the Templars do. I mean, the other military orders, I suppose, are comparable, like the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights, but the fact that they have territories that are sort of scattered throughout Europe, throughout the Mediterranean, throughout the East, and they're not sort of tied to any particular kingdom, they are sort of answerable to the papacy, they're a transnational corporation. So yeah, in many ways, that does sort of match up with our perception.
Matthew Lewis: And by the start of the 14th century, they've accumulated and acquired all of this land and property in Western Europe predominantly. How have they acquired that? Is that just people giving them land as a way of supporting the crusade without going on crusade?
Mike Carr: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that's a large part of it. People, yeah, making donations, obviously monetary donations, but also, yeah, donations of land they give to the Templars, yeah, in lieu of crusading or even people who have gone on crusade, but still want to leave land and territories and houses and things like that to the Templars after they die. So yeah, they receive a lot of donations from the sort of aristocratic class in Europe, which really helps them to extend and sort of establish these territories in the West.
Matthew Lewis: It's incredible just how much they acquired from people just giving them.
Mike Carr: Yeah, exactly. I mean, they do purchase land and things like that, but it's, yeah, the sort of driving force behind this, especially in the 12th century is the donations.
Matthew Lewis: And is there a moment when we see the tide begin to turn against the Templars? Can we see a pivot moment or is this a slowly changing attitude towards them?
Mike Carr: It's a bit of both. So on the one hand, the popularity and the reputation of the Templars, it's really tied in with the fate of the Holy Land. So in the, you know, sort of up to the mid 12th century, the Templars are, you know, obviously seen as being very effective militarily and the Holy Land is, you know, things are generally going quite well. But when Saladin retakes Jerusalem in 1187, and you have this sort of decline of the Crusader states, temporarily at least, the Templars get a lot of criticism for that because their sensible aim and objective to defend the Holy Land. So when you have things going badly in the Holy Land, the Templars are blamed for that.
Matthew Lewis: And I suppose you can get all these people at home saying, I gave you loads of stuff to help.
Mike Carr: Exactly. And that's the problem for them. It's sort of Catch-22 where they have all these donations and all this money that's generating in the West. And then, yeah, therefore people are, you know, blaming them for things that are going wrong in the East. So in that sense, it's a sort of more gradual decline, and obviously in the 13th century, when things are sort of starting to look even worse in the Crusader states, again, the Templars and the Teutonic Knights and the Hospitallers, Talia merchants also are criticised for this. But having said that, I think there's also particular moments and particular events which exacerbate the situation. And I suppose the main one would be the fall of Acre in 1291. So the fall of the Crusader states. And at that point, the Templars are obviously blamed partly for this, along with some of these other people that I mentioned. But also what they're unable to do really is to change their focus and, I suppose, maintain their relevance in the post-Crusader states world. Because obviously, yeah, their raison d'etre is gone. There's no Crusader states to defend anymore. They do try and recover the Holy Land and they take part in various ventures to do this. But these are generally failures. So I think 1291 is quite an important point at which I think, yeah, the Templars sort of failed to reimagine themselves. And that leaves them open to criticism in the West.
Matthew Lewis: I was trying to think of a modern parallel, and I guess the one in the game works, a pharmaceutical company that fronts the Templars, if they're suddenly not allowed to make drugs, you have to find something else to do. And the Templars are guilty of just having no other focus, but all of this wealth that attracts attention, I guess.
Mike Carr: Exactly, yeah. And as I said before, it's this Catch-22 when you've got all this money and yeah, this sort of seeming wealth in the West and all these possessions, and then you failed in your objective and you're not really seen to be, I mean, they're spending great amount of money trying to recover the Holy Land, but it's unsuccessful. So yeah, it just leads them open to this kind of criticism. And I think an interesting comparison there is to the other military orders. So the Teutonic Knights, they're able to go to Prussia and to Northern Europe and they carve out their own territories there, and they're fighting the pagans there. The Hospitallers in 1306 embark on the conquest of Rhodes, and they're seen as taking on the Turks and also the Byzantines on the sea. So these two military orders, the other two main ones, they're able to reinvent themselves and give themselves relevance in terms of defense of the faith, however that might be conceived. Whereas the Templars, the odd ones out, they're not able to do that, unfortunately for them. And I think that, yeah, it really leaves them open to criticism.
Matthew Lewis: It makes you wonder what might've happened if Richard I had left them Cyprus and he gives them Cyprus and then takes it back, which would have been the equivalent of Rhodes, I guess, for the Hospitallers. Exactly.
Mike Carr: I mean, Cyprus is a funny one because obviously the Templars and the Hospitallers relocate to Cyprus after the fall of Acre in 1291, but the Templars fall out with the Cypriot Kings there. But yeah, I think at that point, Cyprus is seen as this really important bastion of the Latin East. And actually, yeah, if they'd kept hold of it, then that may have been very beneficial to them.
Matthew Lewis: And do we see any kind of, as their reputation is waning, do we see a kind of a propaganda campaign against the Templars? And if so, does that influence their reputation today and perhaps the way that they're portrayed in the game as this sort of slightly shadowy organization?
Mike Carr: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in terms of the propaganda campaign against them, it's pretty much led by the French King and his advisors, Philip IV of France. So it's very much a French thing and the propaganda outside of the Kingdom of France and also the French propaganda and how it's perceived outside the Kingdom is not really as effective. And I think this sort of negative view of the Templars is predominantly a French thing. So yeah, in terms of the propaganda, the kinds of things that we see in it are these accusations of heresy, along with also the Templars having money and not really doing anything with it. And in terms of the heretical accusations, they're the things that start to come up in the trial a couple of years later, a lot to do with the reception ceremony, so secretive reception ceremonies where apparently they are denying Christ, spitting on the cross, engaging in sort of inappropriate kissing with the receiver sort of on the navel, on the base of the spine and things like that. And then when they're joining the order, they're engaging in sodomy and also idol worship and things like that. So it's these kinds of heretical accusations that are starting to emerge in the French propaganda in the years before the trial. As I said before, this is spread within France. It's also, there are attempts to spread this more widely in Europe, but I mean, it's difficult to gauge popular perceptions of propaganda and impact, but it seems that it's not really believed by people outside of France in any great way. But in terms of the reputation and yeah, how it's impacted on modern views of the Templars, then absolutely, I think a lot of this idea of them being secretive and potentially heretical or engaging in occult activities and that kind of stuff, that I think very much derives from this sort of propaganda campaign that the French royal agents are embarking on in a few years before the trial.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess it's not dissimilar to what we see around the Masons and things like that as well. You know, wherever there's the potential for secrecy, people will read into that whatever they want. And if you want to destroy someone, a secret place is a good place to go.
Mike Carr: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, 100% right. And what's interesting with the Masons is they, yeah, they sort of really buy into this idea of the Templars being sort of secretive and they invent all this sort of crazy stuff to do with the Templars. But actually, the sort of propaganda is almost flipped and the negative portrayals of the Templars are almost cast in a more positive light by the Masons. So they're sort of saying, yeah, okay, the Templars are secretive, but actually, they have the secret wisdom that they're trying to protect against the papacy and the king and these authorities that are trying to persecute them. So in a way, it's taking ideas of the French propaganda, but sort of flipping it and turning it into a positive. And for the Masons themselves, they track their lineage back to the Templars. So it's sort of, yeah, they're seeing this in a far more positive light than the French propagandists were. But it's the same kind of ideas surrounding secrecy and blasphemy and things like that.
Matthew Lewis: So it sounds like the efforts to bring the Templars down were really focused in France and led by Philip IV. Why was he particularly harsh on the Templars? Why did he target them?
Mike Carr: Yeah, that's a really important question. So with Philip himself, there's a few things going on, a sort of background to the arrest in 1307 that I think need to be understood to work out why he was doing this. I mean, the first thing that's worth mentioning is that Philip has form in terms of opposing the papacy and trying to sort of assert his authority over the church. So at the turn of the 14th century, there's this big conflict between Philip IV and the Pope at the time, Boniface VIII. And this is essentially over church financing, Philip's trying to get hold of taxation of the French church. And eventually this results in Philip accusing the Pope or Philip's advisers accusing the Pope of similar crimes to what the Templars accused of. So idol worship, consorting with demons, sodomy, blasphemy, all sorts of trumped up heretical accusations. And eventually this results in Philip sending one of his advisers, Guillaume de Nogaret, with a small army to Anagni, where the Pope is based at the time, to basically arrest him and bring him back to France to stand trial for these accusations. And actually what happens is that the French army sort of rough up the Pope. The Pope actually escapes, but he dies a few weeks later. So the French and Philip IV have confronted the papacy, accused the Pope of heretical accusations similar to the Templars and actually resulted in the Pope's death. And afterwards, the years after this, the accusations against Boniface are written up and expanded on by the French royal court. And they are put to successive new popes and the sort of pressure is put on the popes to allow the French to try their predecessor, Boniface VIII, for heresy. So there's this big cloud that's cast over the papacy during the trial of the French and Philip IV basically trying to exert his power over the Pope. So that's the first thing. And obviously the Templars, as a military religious order, they're answering to the papacy. They've lost their main protector and the papacy is unable to stand up against Philip. So that's the first thing that allows Philip to go after the Templars. And the second thing, probably more important, is finance. So when Philip becomes king, he inherits a lot of debt from his father. His father had died on a crusade against the Aragonese in 1285. And there's lots of debt from that. Philip's also engaged in wars against England and later on against Flanders as well, which are very expensive. And then to add to this, there's problems with the amount of silver circulating in Europe. And this is causing economic difficulties within the Kingdom of France. And Philip is essentially debasing the coinage in France. He debased it six times in the two years running up to the trial, just to give you an idea of the problems there. And actually there's riots in Paris about the economic problems in December of 1306, so a few months before the Templars are arrested. And what Philip actually does to try and alleviate this is he seizes the property of Lombard communities a couple of times in France and then also of the Jews in 1306. And he actually expels about 100,000 Jews from France in order to get their money and to get their silver, especially so he can sort out his own coinage. So there's a pattern here where this guy has massive debts, real problems with the coinage. He needs precious metals, he needs money in order to sort this out, to sort out the economy of his kingdom.
Matthew Lewis: I think what you can see there, though, is quite a populist, what we might call today a populist agenda, that he's targeting people who are easy to target, driving hatred towards them, pushing them away. But it's actually all about getting power and money out of them.
Mike Carr: Exactly. And in a way, what Philip's doing is comparable to what we see throughout history, really. And he's very good at doing this, how they prosecute this propaganda campaign. And also the seizure of the goods of these minority groups is very effectively sort of carried out. So with the Jews, he manages to sort of arrest and sort of seize the properties of the Jews in almost a day in 1306. And with the arrest of the Templars as well, this happens in a day. And it's sort of this incredibly sort of fast and efficient way of moving against the group without them really having any idea that this is going to happen. So, yeah, he's very effective and he combines this with the propaganda and things like that.
Matthew Lewis: Like he's got his top 10 heresies and a playbook that works and he just rolls it out against the Templars when the time's right.
Mike Carr: Exactly. And everything else fits in. The Templars, you know, with the fall of the Holy Land, they're an easier target than they would have been pre-1291. The papacy is not going to be able to help them because of what's happened with Boniface VIII. So really, when you look at it from a historical point of view and you see all these things happening, it almost looks inevitable that the Templars will be the next target. But it's all about Philip. If Philip wasn't king, the Templars wouldn't have been arrested. I mean, it's purely down to his need for the money, in my view anyway. However, I want to just sort of complicate that slightly. And I think, yes, he's financially motivated. But also, I don't think we should necessarily presume that he doesn't believe the accusations of heresy as well. And this idea, these sort of trumped up accusations that I mentioned before, they are sort of quite widespread within European thinking at that time. And I think from what we know of Philip's character, he is very religiously conservative and pious. So he might have actually had a sort of genuine belief in the accusations that his advisers and he was hearing about the Templars. And it was probably very convenient that this also was a means of him being able to get their money while supposedly suppressing this heresy.
Matthew Lewis: Yeah, we can be quite cynical about the medieval aspect or opinions on religion. You know, it was such an important part of what they do that it doesn't have to be religion was using an excuse to do something. It can be that I have a genuine religious belief that this is happening. It's also quite convenient for me.
Mike Carr: Exactly. Coincidentally. Yeah. And I think those two motivations can work hand in hand. And yeah, it's very tempting to separate them out and see that seeing them as being somehow opposed.
Matthew Lewis: One is a cynical excuse for the other when it's not necessarily the case.
Mike Carr: Exactly. Yeah.
Matthew Lewis: And so how does all of this come to a head? What happens to the Templar? You mentioned before that there was a trial.
Mike Carr: Yeah. So basically on the Friday the 13th of October 1307, the Templars are arrested in France. It's a pretty amazing and fast operation. Barely any of the Templars escape and then they are tried. So what happens is before the arrests are made, Philip's actually circulated letters to all his sort of royal advisors and the people are going to carry out these arrests in different regions of France. And this actually has a list of the accusations that are being made against them. So this is something that these agents know in advance. And they're told basically to arrest the Templars, to imprison them, to sort of separate them as well so they can't communicate with one another, to torture them or threaten them with torture and to basically treat them very harshly. And at the same time, try and get them to confess to these crimes which have been drawn up. And in addition to this, he also wants an inventory of their various estates so he knows how much money, how much good stuff that he can get off them. And unfortunately for the Templars, they are a lot of the Templars in France. They're not your fighting men. They are, you know, just a standard people who work on these estates. You know, they work on the mills and the farms or whatnot. And they're completely unprepared for this. It takes them by surprise. They're either tortured or threatened with torture and a lot of them confess to these crimes, as you probably would when you're set in with torture. And really, as soon as that happens, it's very difficult for the Templars to go back. And it's very difficult for anyone to defend them because they've confessed to these heresies, or a lot of them have. If you retract your confession, you can then be deemed a relapsed heretic and burnt. So it's very difficult to go back on the confession once you've made it in these kinds of situations. And also from the papacy's point of view, what Philip's done is completely against the right sort of order. I suppose it's illegal in many ways in that he's imprisoned a religious order that's answerable to the papacy and sort of tried them himself. And actually, this should have come under the jurisdiction of the church. But again, once Philip's able to say to the Pope, well, look, they've confessed to a lot of this stuff, it's very difficult for the Pope to actually really step in and help them. And he does try and step in and support the Templars. But because of the difficult position that the Pope's in at the time and the sort of influence that Philip's able to exert over him, there's not really much that can be done. And the other rulers of Europe, the King of England, King of Aragon, they're a lot more sympathetic towards the Templars, but they're not willing to sort of confront Philip over this. He's the most powerful monarch in Europe. So essentially, once he does what he does and he forces these confessions, the order is doomed, pretty much.
Matthew Lewis: And what do we know about, so Robert de Sablé is the Grandmaster of the Templars in the game, in the First Crusade. What do we know about the last Grandmaster? How much of a fight does he put up to protect the Templars?
Mike Carr: Yeah, well, he's an interesting character. So Jacques de Molay is the last Grandmaster. I mean, he's really received quite a lot of criticism in scholarship, more recently, some more supportive reassessments of him. But really, he's unable to effectively defend the Templars. He's quite an old man. By the time of the arrest, he is tortured. And he also confesses very early on in the trial. And he does sort of backtrack and he sort of flip flops a little bit over his confession and sort of retracting it. But ultimately, he's not able to really sort of mount any kind of defense. And one of the problems is that the Templars are kept in isolation from one another. So it's difficult to see what Molay really could have done in that situation anyway, because he couldn't necessarily communicate with his fellow members of the order. But I think one of the problems for the rank and file is that they hear that Molay has confessed and they know that the other sort of high ranking Templars have also confessed and are not able to mount this resistance. So it does make it difficult for the Templars to mount their own defense, although they do try and do this. And there are sort of groups who are able to sort of mount some semi effective defense. But ultimately, nothing comes of this. And actually, what's interesting is that from the French perspective, there's a point in the trial around sort of 1310 or so where things start to get delayed because the papacy is insisting that the interrogations come under papal jurisdiction and so forth. And actually, the French start to burn some of the Templars as relapsed heretics, and about 50 of them are burned in Paris in 1310. And this really scares a lot of the other members of the order who are thinking about defending themselves. And a lot of them just hold their hands up and say that they're guilty and will take the punishments that don't result in their execution.
Matthew Lewis: I was going to ask how so many of them got burned, because the first instance of heresy doesn't normally carry a death penalty. You have to commit heresy the second time to get burned. So is this a case of them relapsing and perhaps under more pressure and torture confessing again? So then they're relapsed heretics, that second defense is what gets them burned.
Mike Carr: Yeah, yeah. So it's often that they've yeah, they've confessed and then they retract their confession and then they are deemed to be relapsed heretics. So that's the risk. Whereas if you confess and you accept your confession, you can be maybe you get perpetual imprisonment. That would be a particular harsh penalty. But otherwise, you know, you get smaller terms of imprisonment. And a lot of the Templars actually sometimes give them pensions and they join other religious orders sometimes. And they, you know, a lot of them survive the trial. They're not executed and they're not necessarily imprisoned for any great deal of time. So, yeah, I think for the sort of rank and file, it takes a lot of a lot of strength and a lot of courage to really stand up against torture. And if you have already confessed under torture to then retract your confession, because it's a good chance you'll be burnt as a result.
Matthew Lewis: And how then if this is mainly focused in France, and as you mentioned, the King of England, the King of Aragon, the Pope, other rulers aren't as hostile to the Templars. How does the international element of it collapse if it's brought down in France, why doesn't the rest of it survive?
Mike Carr: Yeah, that's a good question. I think from the point of view of the Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Aragon, that's sort of the two sort of interesting case studies in the sense that these are two areas where you have, you know, large numbers of Templars, and they're in close communication with the French and with the papacy and that sort of neighbouring French territory. So they're very much integrated in what's going on, and they're very aware of what's going on in France. And both the Kings of Aragon and the Kings of England, they, yeah, they sort of oppose what Philip's doing, and they don't necessarily agree with it. And in England, for example, you also don't have torture being used as part of common law. So, and the Templars are treated a lot more leniently, they're not forced into confessions in the same way for, and there are sort of people who come forward and support them and defend them. But ultimately, with the trial going so badly in France, I think the other kings realise that ultimately, the order is probably going to be suppressed at some point, because the Pope is going to have to do that. It's very difficult to, you know, suppress an order in one region and not in its totality.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess also, when there's confessions that they're doing all of these things, that's exactly their fate.
Mike Carr: Yeah, exactly. And I think for, and again, I don't want to sort of sound overly cynical here, but for the kings of England and Aragon, there is the opportunity of making the best of a bad situation. The Templars have accused of this, they're probably done for anyway, might as well play along with this and try and get some of the territories and some of their possessions for yourself and their money as well. So I think there is a point where other monarchs are willing to support the Templars, but when they see that really the game's up and their days are numbered, they're happy to sort of go along with what the Pope suggests and what the King of France is essentially pushing for.
Matthew Lewis: I suppose there's a bit of frightening kind of Realpolitik in there that they're going to fall anyway. If I go along with what Philip's trying to do, I might be able to get all of those lands and properties that they have, maybe get Philip on side a little bit.
Mike Carr: Exactly. Yeah. And Philip's, he's the most powerful monarch in Europe. So he's sort of a person who probably wants to keep on side.
Matthew Lewis: And as you mentioned there, not all of the Templars were executed. I think sometimes we think that they were all killed, you know, on that Friday the 13th. In the game, we see the Templars living on as a secret organisation kind of fronted by this multinational company. Do you think the Templars continued in any kind of guise or did they just disappear completely?
Mike Carr: There's two ways to think about it. I mean, on the one hand, the members didn't disappear, as you said, they survived. So there is the continuity in that, yes, these people are still there, but the organisation is completely suppressed. So there is no pseudo-Templar continuation, but you do have things like in Iberia, there's a couple of orders that were established in the years after the trial, which have Templar estates and have ex-members of the Templars forming part of them. Likewise, some of the Templar estates are meant to be handed to the Hospitallers as it doesn't really happen in reality. So the Hospitallers do absorb some of the Templar estates as well. So there is a continuity in that sense, but in an organisational sense, the order is no more.
Matthew Lewis: I guess it's just that the game plays into that kind of idea that they weren't wiped out and something could have continued, you know, if they were reluctant to leave the Templar order, they could have kept going in secret. We can't disprove that, can we, I guess?
Mike Carr: No, no, I suppose not. And I think a lot of idea also comes from the 18th, 19th century, the Masonic reimagining of Templars and the idea that some of the Templars fled from France to England and Ireland and Scotland and established these secretive orders. And I think there's no historical evidence for any of this. So from a historical point of view, it's not true. But yeah, you can see why people believe that and why that's been constructed.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess just to end on, I wonder why you think we're so interested in the Templars. I think it's possible to position them as kind of, you know, they drove religious war and strife in the Near East, were powerful, wealthy landlords in Europe, and then they fell having confessed to this whole ream of crimes and heresies and were relatively short-lived in the grand scheme of history, yet they seem to have this hold over the collective imagination. Why are we so obsessed with the Templars?
Mike Carr: Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think a trial has so much to do with it, the fact, as you said yourself, the fact that you have this prestigious order that they're defending the Holy Land and all that, and then they are tried and suppressed as heretics, essentially, which is sort of anathema to what they were meant to be doing. And I think the secretive nature of the Templars, which we've alluded to a few times, is a big part of that. It just makes them so open to this kind of myth history, this sort of pseudo-history that's developed over the years afterwards, which I think has sort of fuelled this fascination with them. And even at the time, in the years just after the trial, you have the curse of Jacques de Molay, the idea, because Jacques de Molay is executed in 1314, and shortly after Clement V, the Pope, and Philip IV, the King, die as well in the same year. And there's this idea that Jacques de Molay, when he's been led to the stake, he sort of says, you're both going to die in the same year. And this is sort of propagated by chroniclers in the years after the trial. So this sort of Templar myth and the curse of Molay were sort of contemporary ideas as well. So I think it shocked Europe at the time, undoubtedly. And it led to these myths and these legends, which I think are perpetuated. And it's such a ripe area of history for this kind of myth history, if you like.
Matthew Lewis: It's almost a perfect story as well, isn't it? You know, we can see the birth, we can see the expansion, the growth to these great heights, and then we can see this huge fall, which kind of seems to close the book, but sort of leaves a bookmark in there that conspiracy theories can wheedle into.
Mike Carr: Exactly. And also, I think just looking at the sort of history of the Templars, from a historian's perspective, they sort of fit into most aspects of the medieval world, you know, they're involved in the Crusades, but they're big sort of landowners in the West. They're a monastic order, they're a military order, they're part of the church, but they cross into so much of the medieval world in some way that I think they are a very interesting topic to study as well. So I think I suppose that's another reason why people are sort of fascinated by it.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess also in a world that's almost always been obsessed with chivalry and knights and things like that, they're seen as the pinnacle, the ultimate fighting force of the medieval world as well.
Mike Carr: Exactly. Yeah, there's all the sort of chivalric side of things and the romantic side of things as well.
Matthew Lewis: Fascinating. It's been brilliant to dive into the, well, unfortunate for them that they fell, but brilliant for us to dive into it. And thank you so much for sharing all of that with us, Mike.
Mike Carr: No problem. It's my pleasure. Thanks so much.
Matthew Lewis: That's the end of our series on Assassins vs Templars. Thank you for listening to the fall of the Templars and make sure you haven't missed any of the rest of this special series. There's eight episodes of Assassins vs Templars for you to enjoy.

Make sure you're following the Echoes of History podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to listen to the rest of the series. There's episodes with world leading experts on the Crusades, the Knights Templar, and the rise of the Assassins. This series is a special collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit with post-production undertaken by Paradiso Media.

Baghdad Soundwalks

Hammam

Deana Hassanein: Baghdad Sound Walks Hello fellow travelers, I'm Deana–
Ali Olomi: –and I'm Ali. Where should we travel to today, Deana?
Deana Hassanein: To be honest Ali, I'm feeling like taking it easy, maybe something more relaxing after the marketplace and the mosque. I just want to chill.
Ali Olomi: I've got just the thing for you. Let's make our way to the hammam.
Deana Hassanein: When you say hammam, you mean the bathhouse, a public house, right?
Ali Olomi: Right. But Deana, the hammam is so much, much more than that.
Deana Hassanein: I know that they were very popular back in the day and still are in lots of places around the world.
Ali Olomi: They're called the Thermae, if I can remember my Latin. It's been a little bit, but they were really popular and they were a hangout spot for the Romans, particularly wealthy ones. In fact, some of the oldest hammams in the world are found in old Roman territories, like Syria and then eventually Baghdad and the rest of the Islamic world.
Deana Hassanein: Please tell me, what would I see?
Ali Olomi: Well, first the hammam would be located relatively close to the mosque or sometimes near the marketplace. You want it nearby because everyday activity would be around it. So it's easily accessible.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah. Especially for Muslims, you know, throughout the day they have to maintain a certain level of hygiene. It's very important Islamically and even before they pray, they have to perform wudu. So I get that. That makes sense.
Ali Olomi: Yeah. So hammam served in some ways, a religious function, like you're pointing out, but they also had access to baths and cleanliness more broadly. And they were also incredibly social.
Deana Hassanein: Surprise, surprise. Everything is social in Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: Extroverts through and through. They like to hang out and relax at the same time. Honestly, it may actually be better to see them as a sort of spa rather than like a bathhouse. So if we were making our way to the hammam, we would see a structure with some type of a dome and a courtyard on the outside leading to the doors.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. Tell me more.
Ali Olomi: But this is where we're going to have to part ways, Deana.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. That makes sense. We can't enter together.
Ali Olomi: Yeah. Like the harem, hammam was a pretty gendered space. In the marketplace and in public, you've got men and women that did intermingle with one another, but not the hammam, not the bath space.
Deana Hassanein: That's still quite similar to spa places nowadays as well. You have different spaces for different people.
Ali Olomi: Right, yeah.
Deana Hassanein: So did they have different spaces like spas do today?
Ali Olomi: Sometimes I think, but mostly in Abbasid Baghdad, what we're seeing is different times of the day for men and different times for women.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. So we'd walk in at separate times, but we'd both have access to the same hammam. Shall we take a peek?
Ali Olomi: All right. So up first, we're going to see the outer chamber. This is where we take off our clothes and wrap ourselves in small cloths.
Deana Hassanein: That's why there are different times for men and women.
Ali Olomi: Yeah. And in addition, there's going to be a sort of successive layout that's a Roman inspiration.
Deana Hassanein: What would that be like?
Ali Olomi: There would be rooms right after one another. So one room back to back.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. Let's keep exploring the space. I'm excited.
Ali Olomi: All right. Once we've started to undress ourselves or we've gone through the undressing room, the first room up is called the cold room, cleverly titled because this is the room that has no heat in it. It has the attendance with the fans to keep you cool in that Baghdad heat. It’s got benches and cushions so that you can sit and chill and relax. And of course, people congregate and chat and play. There were board games, sometimes music, food, and even...
Deana Hassanein: Oh, I know what you're going to say.
Ali Olomi: Shisha
Deana Hassanein: Shisha.
Ali Olomi: You know me too well, Deana. You know me too well.
Deana Hassanein: Just before you carry on, Ali, what do you mean there was food?
Ali Olomi: They would eat in these places.
Deana Hassanein: Like food, food, not snacks?
Ali Olomi: Mostly fruit.
Deana Hassanein: Okay.
Ali Olomi: So you'd have some grapes, you'd have some oranges, citruses, and chilled drinks called sherbets.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. What comes next?
Ali Olomi: After the cold room comes the warm room. So you can see there's a logic here. Things get even more comfortable. Here you've got fragrant incenses and steam that keeps the room warm as you lounge and just let the worries of the day melt away.
Deana Hassanein: My eyes are closed. I'm visualizing it.
Ali Olomi: Oh, there's more. There's more. This is the massage parlor.
Deana Hassanein: A massage parlor?
Ali Olomi: Yep.
Deana Hassanein: For free?
Ali Olomi: For free.
Deana Hassanein: No.
Ali Olomi: Yes. This was a public service.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my God. Okay. Everything's changed. I'm now a hundred times more excited. I thought this would be somewhere that people go to buy these services.
Ali Olomi: Nope. This is a public service because hygiene is a public service. You want a healthy population. So let them get into those baths.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. We're not calling it a bathhouse anymore. This is officially a spa. And you said that there are different rooms with different experiences. One's social and one's relaxing.
Ali Olomi: And the more you move through the hammam, the more relaxing it gets, the more intimate it gets.
Deana Hassanein: What do you mean intimate?
Ali Olomi: Well, if you're going from eating and chatting to massage, that's pretty intimate.
Deana Hassanein: I could really do with a massage. I haven't had one since like 2017.
Ali Olomi: Just keep in mind though, massages and hammams tend to be really vigorous with like lots of joint pulling and hard rubbing. The idea was to kind of get the blood flowing as much as it was to relax you. I mean, I've experienced a hammam in Istanbul. First of all, one of the most awkward experiences in my life. And two, he pulled my limbs in directions that my limbs don't go in.
Deana Hassanein: Sad story aside of your experience in Istanbul, I feel like what you're describing is, as you mentioned, a health center, because I'm not going there for a nice relaxing Thai massage. I'm going to fix my body.
Ali Olomi: That's actually a really great way to think about it, because in addition to the massage, you have three other big services. First, you go in there, you're going to get a nice trim. You're going to get your beard lined up, your hair done. This is where the barbers were hanging out and they made sure you look pretty. Then you had your physicians. So while the massage person is moving your limbs in directions that they don't go, the physician is telling you, all right, you need to watch your diet and eat this particular medicine and make sure you get lots of exercise. And then they have one of the coolest, cupping. Cupping is really, really popular. Have you ever heard of cupping before?
Deana Hassanein: I have. You'll probably be able to explain it better than me.
Ali Olomi: They're still in Cairo, right?
Deana Hassanein: Definitely. And there's a lot of people that do it in the UK as well. It has become quite popular, but it's this sucking method that kind of brings the blood to the surface, right?
Ali Olomi: I've seen it. I've never had it done. I don't think it looks too relaxing, but people swear by it. They say it's really good for your health.
Deana Hassanein: I'm just still not over the fact that I could go into a spa, get a massage, get some fruit, get my hair cut all for free. They really had it all.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, totally.
Deana Hassanein: You can see how the hammam wasn't just for religious cleansing, because this was actually more of a social function. And you even mentioned about the physician. So this is actually connected to health.
Ali Olomi: I love that you actually called it a health center. It's changed my whole world right now. I'm going to call it a health center going forward because it really was what it was. It was tied to health. We even have examples from medieval doctors that say and prescribe, you need to go and visit the hammam. It was the most common flu remedy. If you get feeling a little congested, go and hang out in the steam rooms. And it was also recommended after childbirth as a deep cleansing for the woman, but also to really restore her muscles and her joints after childbirth.
Deana Hassanein: You know, it's kind of sad to hear this because I don't feel like we take care of ourselves anymore hearing this.
Ali Olomi: They really had it good with this hammam.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my God. So after our massage, cupping and haircut, what comes next?
Ali Olomi: Logically after the warm room, the hot room.
Deana Hassanein: The shock. This is where we get to the bath portion. I'm already a little bit iffy on.
Ali Olomi: I'm iffy about this too. But after the scrubbing and the rubbing, there comes the washing down with hot water and steam.
Deana Hassanein: And is that communal, Ali, or are you still in separate rooms for this?
Ali Olomi: It's communal.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. The technology and architecture here is actually very interesting. To get different temperatures in each room to move around steam, to keep the water hot for the hot room, you'd really need a lot of precise designs.
Ali Olomi: This is the magic of engineering. It's something that even I try to wrap my head around sometimes, just how advanced it was. I mean, the use of furnaces and vents, it was really ingenious how they were able to create the different temperatures. I read that they even had special shafts in the dome of the hot room so that it would get natural light and allow some of the steamed escape so it wasn't too hot, but hot enough.
Deana Hassanein: I love that they think of everything.
Ali Olomi: Right?
Deana Hassanein: So it's a health center, a community center, a bathhouse. Who was paying for all of this?
Ali Olomi: Mostly the caliph. The Abbasid Empire saw it as a public good, and so it was accessible regardless of wealth or class, though obviously the wealthy had better services.
Deana Hassanein: What more could you have?
Ali Olomi: Probably better quality oils and incenses and better masseurs.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, that makes total sense. And now that we've dived into what the bathhouse is, or as you want to call it now, a health center, it does make a lot of sense because hygiene is always connected to both religion and health. So I'm guessing the caliph frequently visited the hammam.
Ali Olomi: We do see some change here. Originally, the caliphs did. Later on, we're going to see some private hammams for the caliph, but originally, the caliph and his family would use the exact same hammam as everyone else, just at different times of the day.
Deana Hassanein: I still find that so weird.
Ali Olomi: It's a little weird. In fact, I got a story for you. The hammam, because it was public, was one of the few places that the caliph could probably be attacked. And in fact, one of the caliphs were. Al-Ma'mun, supposedly there was a plot in order to kill him when he went to the hammam. But he was warned of the plot in advance by his advisors and the court astrologers. So he sent someone else in his place, his advisor, al-Fadl. And what happens to poor al-Fadl? They mistake him for the caliph and he ends up getting killed. Horrible, messed up story, huh?
Deana Hassanein: Yeah.
Ali Olomi: But it shows that these spaces were still very political spaces.
Deana Hassanein: I can always rely on you, Ali, to give me a random exciting story. I had fun in the hammam. We got a chance to relax, socialize, get a massage, wash away all our problems. And thankfully, I'm not on anyone's assassinations list. Next time, let's go somewhere even more exciting. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Baghdad Soundwalks. See you next time, fellow travelers.

The Caravanserai

Deana Hassanein: Baghdad Sound Walks Hello fellow travellers, I'm Deana–
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. How are you feeling today, Deana?
Deana Hassanein: I'm feeling very well, thank you, Ali. How are you feeling?
Ali Olomi: Pretty good, I'm happy to be here.
Deana Hassanein: Where are we off to today?
Ali Olomi: So, how about we take a jaunt to an ancient structure that was what made Baghdad what it was today. The Caravanserai or the funduq.
Deana Hassanein: Ancient? So you're saying this existed before Baghdad and the Islamic empires?
Ali Olomi: That's right. What do you know about the Silk Roads? Because this is something we're going to be talking about a little bit.
Deana Hassanein: This is my favourite thing to say whenever this comes up. Spoiler alert, it isn't an actual road. It's not one single road. It refers to a network of trading routes that links the Middle East, Asia and the Western world.
Ali Olomi: Oh, I love that.
Deana Hassanein: Thank you.
Ali Olomi: My historian heart got so happy. Yeah, the Silk Roads aren't really a road, it's a network. The trade is mostly local and it's really about the movement of various goods. How about another question for you? Because this is all about trade. Do you know that there are different types of camels?
Deana Hassanein: There's actually only two true types of camels, right?
Ali Olomi: That's right. Arabian camels or dromedaries, which have one hump and Sogdian camels from Persia, which have two. I'm very hesitant here because that's the extent of my camel knowledge.
Deana Hassanein: Today is your lucky day, Ali, because I'm going to add some facts for you so you can add it to your list. Camels are born without humps. They store water in their blood. They have three sets of eyelids and two rows of eyelashes to keep sand out of their eye. They can shut their nostrils completely and they can survive up to 15 days without water, which makes them the perfect animal to transport goods on the Silk Roads.
Ali Olomi: You're blowing my mind a little bit here. Do you know the camel experts? I love it. And you're right, they're absolutely excellent for carrying heavy burdens and they could go long distances without food.
Deana Hassanein: Exactly, but back to the Silk Roads, they existed well before the Islamic empires and I remember studying how the ancient Persians, Romans and Chinese were all part of it, right?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, there were a series of roads that existed, but they were really expanded under the Achaemenids, which were an ancient Persian empire and it was part of their royal road project.
Deana Hassanein: Exactly, and since Baghdad is the inheritor of those old Persian empires, it makes sense why it was smack bang in the middle of those roads. Shall we do a bit of sightseeing? What would we see?
Ali Olomi: You would see merchants and caravans of camel which would move goods from all over the region. We know, for example, that they brought paper and porcelain from China. In fact, we even have evidence in China itself of the Silk Roads connecting Baghdad. There's this famous burial of a Sogdian, which is a Persian person in China and the inscription says this person is from the Persian world. They were very good at bartering and trade and negotiating.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, what a nice little comment to leave about someone. What's so striking about history is how we have these like little traces of life stories carved on stones, paper, images of people traveling, doing business. They leave things behind, you know, vases, coins, jewelry.
Ali Olomi: It really makes you wonder what traces we'll leave behind. In a hundred years from now, what evidence of our life will there be?
Deana Hassanein: It doesn't sound exciting because obviously we live in this era, but I'm guessing cars, coffee receipts, sprawls, electronic devices.
Ali Olomi: Snapchat, Instagram selfies. Gotta think about those things as a historian.
Deana Hassanein: You're right. There's going to be a lot of online content for them to delve through and maybe future historians will hear these podcasts as well.
Ali Olomi: That is a comforting thought. Hello, future historians.
Deana Hassanein: You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm really stunned by the long distances these caravans covered. And just to be clear, I know obviously caravans now are vehicles, but back then it was a term used to basically describe groups of people traveling.
Ali Olomi: And this is actually where the funduq comes into play. They were probably originally built by those Persians, the Achaemenids, as roadside taverns or inns. They were dwellings that connected all these roads together. In fact, that's where the idea of hostels come from.
Deana Hassanein: Did they invent them?
Ali Olomi: Not really. They pre-existed.
Deana Hassanein: I would love to know what it looked like. Can you describe it to me?
Ali Olomi: They're pretty simple structures. They're kind of a rectangle with walls that has a space for your horses and camels, a place where you can eat and a place where you can sleep. Not really how we would imagine a nice hotel today.
Deana Hassanein: What was it built from?
Ali Olomi: Generally wood, sometimes clay, sometimes mud. They're very simple. When you look at them, they're minimalist design. Just a square wall that you can hide away from thieves, brigands, and the weather.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah. It's not giving Four Seasons. It's giving a hut.
Ali Olomi: No pool, no gym, no continental breakfast.
Deana Hassanein: Well, I mean, it makes sense. Travelers do need a place to stay.
Ali Olomi: There's the first rule of history. You need to eat. And then the second rule of history, you got to build places to eat and sleep.
Deana Hassanein: Pretty straightforward. And these rules also apply to me.
Ali Olomi: Me too. And that's where these funduqs came into play. They were organizing these roads, but it was also about providing food and shelter. It's what made trade along distances possible. If you're traveling along miles and miles of roads, you need to stop somewhere to eat and somewhere to sleep.
Deana Hassanein: So when the Abbasids built Baghdad, they incorporated these caravanserais.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, the early Islamic dynasties made use of them even before the Abbasids. In fact, given how important trade was to the beginning of Islam, I mean, Muhammad was a merchant after all, before he became a prophet. All of these funduq were instrumental to actually the rise of Islam. Before Muslim armies and empires ever showed up onto the scene, Muslim merchants were there first.
Deana Hassanein: And then with Baghdad, it would be right in the center of those roads and the different roadside inns.
Ali Olomi: That's a good point. By the time of the Abbasids, they had incorporated these funduq into their trade system. But also they built many of their own, generally around Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: Why around the city? Was it because of the way the trade flows?
Ali Olomi: Definitely. It helped with the overflow. Over time, the city grew beyond the initial bounds of Mansur's design in 762. You have this sprawling city with millions of people connected to the flow of roads, people, and goods. In fact, the medieval traveler Ibn Battuta gives us a fascinating description. He says, after sunset or nightfall, the director comes to the funduq with his secretary and writes down the names of all the travelers who will pass the night there. He seals it and locks the door of the funduq. In the morning, he and the secretary come and call everybody's name and write down a record. He sends someone with the travelers to conduct them to the next post station, and he brings back a certificate from the director of funduq, confirming that they have all arrived. So it's a system that connects all the funduqs together, one to the next to the next.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my god, this isn't just super efficient, but this is literally a postal system with bodyguards.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, that's exactly what they were. This is what allowed their communication to happen in the empire, a relay system that allowed you to send a message quickly, because rather than one person running the entire distance, they would run to a funduq, someone would take over the message, then they would run to the next funduq, someone else would take the message. So you always had fresh horses, fresh messengers, and you were able to travel long distances very quickly.
Deana Hassanein: And were the guards really that necessary? Was it that dangerous?
Ali Olomi: Yes, very dangerous. I mean, you're out in the deserts, you're out in the mountains, you're out in the plains, you're looking at a variety of different topographies and geographies, and that's where all the thieves were hanging out.
Deana Hassanein: This is literally a postal system with bodyguards. And I get it, because I imagine these merchants were targets for brigands and thieves on the road.
Ali Olomi: Absolutely. The funduqs were the safest way to travel and the fastest way to travel. Without them, you want to avoid the roads, because that's where the thieves would be hanging out. That's why we call them highwaymen, right? They're on the highway. But now with the funduqs, you can travel that road and be safe. So it was a quick way to travel and a fast way to send your messages from funduq to funduq to funduq.
Deana Hassanein: Here's me thinking a funduq is just a hotel, but it's actually so much more. It creates a good deal of safety. You record everyone that's staying. You then guide them to the next funduq and check that everyone's off your roster. What an efficient system.
Ali Olomi: Very efficient. But I've got to say, they could also be quite rowdy, the funduqs, that is.
Deana Hassanein: What do you mean they could be rowdy?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I mean, we see a lot of stories of things going wrong in funduqs. If you've got a lot of people gathering together after a long day of travel in the heat and in the desert, and you've just come together to eat and drink, maybe sometimes with strangers, things are going to go wrong. Tempers are going to flare.
Deana Hassanein: Give me a story. You can't just tease them, not tell me a story.
Ali Olomi: I have a great story about one of these trips to the funduqs. So there is this famous astrologer known as Abu Ma'shar. He is an icon and a legend and we'll be talking about him in the future. But he's traveling to one of these funduqs with a bunch of different merchants. They spend the night and the next morning, Abu Ma'shar wakes up and he casts his horoscope and he goes, the stars do not look good today. We should not leave the funduq. And the merchants are like, oh, we don't need to listen to you. That's silly. We're going to leave. They leave. Abu Ma'shar says, no, I'm going to follow the advice of the stars. And he hangs out in the funduq only for the merchants to come back a couple hours later. Some of them are bleeding. Their goods are missing. They had been attacked by thieves and brigands. But in their mind, Abu Ma'shar was part of the thieves and brigands. Somehow he had caused it. So they took their anger out on him. They took out their sticks and attacked him. The guards had to intervene. Abu Ma'shar fled for his life and famously wrote in his diary, never again shall I share wisdom with fools who will not listen.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, my God. Plot twist.
Ali Olomi: Plot twist. The astrologer gets blamed for the funduk's troubles.
Deana Hassanein: To be fair, as someone who's not hugely obsessed with horoscopes, it kind of does sound like he was involved.
Ali Olomi: It does sound shady. And Abu Ma'shar was slightly shady. Let's be real.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, travel and trade. That is good advice for all of us, though. Avoid the troublemakers.
Ali Olomi: That's right.
Deana Hassanein: It was so nice that we got a chance to travel outside of Baghdad today. It's the first time in the season. And I'm in awe of these super efficient systems, this postal service slash bodyguard system that allowed trade to flow so well. Yes, they did exist before Baghdad and became a huge part of the city, the role in its trade. It's all tied into these repeated themes that we keep seeing. How Baghdad was built on history of the region, but also expanded in it. Next time, let's travel to its political heart, the Palace of the Golden Gate. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss out the next episode of Baghdad Soundwalks. See you next time, fellow travelers.

The Palace of the Golden Gate

Deana Hassanein: Baghdad Sound Walks. Hello fellow travelers, I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali, ready to continue our tour of medieval Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: I'm always ready, Ali. Little by little we are seeing this city come to life.
Ali Olomi: We've been to its walls, its market, its bathhouses, the inns, and the great mosque.
Deana Hassanein: And it's finally time to head to the palace. As you can hear in my voice, I'm very, very excited about this. A theme we keep seeing throughout the different locations is how much politics was woven into each part of the city. From handling trade to the sermons said on behalf of the Caliph. And now it's time to get right to the center of it all. The Palace of the Golden Gate was in the center of Baghdad, near the mosque.
Ali Olomi: That's right, a stunning structure really meant to impress. Imagine with me, you're a new visitor to the city, or you're a traveler coming in from one of the funduq. You've traveled for miles, perhaps stopping at the various caravans sarai along the way, slowly making your way into the Round City. There's a bustle as the crowds of visitors like you wind their way from the many roads to the gates of Baghdad. As you pass the entry, you see it right in your line of sight. The palace in the center of the city, rising above all the other buildings with its gleaming green dome that stands out against the backdrop. Atop that dome is a figure of a horseman with a lance. The traveler next to you whispers into your ear, legend has it the figure is enchanted. When enemy armies march on Baghdad, the Caliph turns the figure to face the oncoming horde. It's eye-catching, inspiring, and it lets you know who's in charge.
Deana Hassanein: The Caliph, it makes it very, very clear. The idea of a Round City is making more and more sense. In a way, all the roads lead to the Caliph. You can see the city from afar, and you know the most important person is right in the middle. It would also make the palace the center of city life. It's basically giving main character energy.
Ali Olomi: I love that, that's really important to know. The palace is not just this private residence of the Caliph.
Deana Hassanein: Right, because that's technically the harem where the household including the wives and all the children live. The harem is the private quarters of the Caliph.
Ali Olomi: And the palace was the official seat of power.
Deana Hassanein: And as we've talked about this before, the palace was built alongside the Great Mosque, so it was technically accessible to the public.
Ali Olomi: You know, the palace and the mosque were probably the first two structures built by al-Mansur, allowing him to move in quickly.
Deana Hassanein: Set right in the center of the Round City.
Ali Olomi: Like Ba Sing Se.
Deana Hassanein: Gosh, you really love your Avatar: The Last Airbender, right?
Ali Olomi: It's a good analogy.
Deana Hassanein: I can definitely see the symbolism though. Building a circular city and putting your palace right in the middle lets the world know who is in charge.
Ali Olomi: Definitely, Deana. It puts you in the center of the world symbolically. But it was also about drawing the people right into that center.
Deana Hassanein: This is why the mosque was adjacent to it. Putting the palace and the mosque together, or at least next to each other, sends a clear message. It's the center of religious life and political life. It was probably a powerful sight seeing the Caliph walk next door to join in the prayers as well.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, the palace was the Caliphal residence, but it was also the public administration. It had this sort of wide open courtyard, or a maidan, with surrounding gardens, a structure, a house, the hujariyah, or the horse guard. That is the private guard of the Khalif, these people who would protect him. And then there were smaller residences for administrators, the captain of the shurta, or the city guard, bureaucrats, and even palaces for the princes, all next door to that mosque.
Deana Hassanein: Do you know what really stands out to me, Ali? The city design tries to balance prestige and access. So the closer you get to the center, the closer you are to the center of power. I can just never imagine popping to the center of London and casually running into the king.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, the structure of the city, this round city, it tries to balance it all. It tries to create prestige for the Caliph, while technically also being accessible, because the mosque is also in that center. So it would draw everyone to stand before God in prayer equally. But it's a non-subtle way of reinforcing who's in charge, because the Caliph is right next door.
Deana Hassanein: Exactly, the people with all the real power. Think about it. The Khalif only has to walk next door to the mosque, but anyone else would have to walk much further if they wanted to visit it. The design of the city really highlights access, who has it and who has to work for it.
Ali Olomi: Over time though, we should point out that Caliphs really built other palaces. So there was this central palace that was a symbol of their power, but they weren't always at home in that central palace.
Deana Hassanein: Were these palaces within Baghdad itself or elsewhere? Because I'd imagine there is a difference between having other palaces within the city walls versus having to travel outside the city. This actually reminds me of why the rivers were probably so important, easy access up and down the Tigris.
Ali Olomi: That's a really good point. You could take a leisurely barge up to your palace. And some of these Caliphs did have winter palaces and other locales they'd like to visit, like Anbar. But they also built palaces inside Baghdad, like Qasr al-Khuld or the Palace of Eternity, which was built right on the river.
Deana Hassanein: That is prime time waterfront property. It reminds me a little bit of the Thames in London and how it was used to travel the length of England and how kings sailed on barges.
Ali Olomi: Royals do seem to love taking trips on barges for some reason.
Deana Hassanein: I love being on the water, so I get it. If you were a Khalif, you could enjoy a leisurely trip on the river while hanging out in your waterfront palace. Doesn't get better than that. Why don't we go inside the palace? Maybe we can paint a bit of a picture and see how the other half lives. What can we see?
Ali Olomi: Well, the first thing you would see are the guards. The Khalif, despite claiming this title, like the shadow of God on earth, had to manage a lot of different power blocks. He had to navigate big, powerful alliances.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, and the guards were one of those. This is an empire after all. So you had scholars and administrators and advisors, but you also had to deal with the people who kept security in the city itself.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750 CE and they established their own dynasty, but they were only able to do that with the help of other factions. In fact, they initially didn't even have a centralized army, but relied on different units.
Deana Hassanein: And each of these had their own political interests as well.
Ali Olomi: Very much so. You had three big units, the Anba, which were the old guard. These were the Arabian Muslims that had come out of Arabia and settled in the region. There's the Maghreba, who are mostly East and North African soldiers, and the Khorasaniya, which were local Persians, each with their own political intentions and their political goals.
Deana Hassanein: I remember a story that you mentioned before about how the troops once revolted and it took the queen intervening to settle them down. I believe it was Queen Khayzuran. She intervened to ensure her chosen successor.
Ali Olomi: And that's because they were paid troops. And so they did rebel from time to time. Each faction had its own politics and interests that the Caliph would have to navigate. The Anba, for example, as I mentioned, were the oldest and most powerful faction. They were made up of the Arabs who had settled into this region. And they intermarried with local elites, so the Caliph would have to make sure that he kept them on his side.
Deana Hassanein: These are houses that are run by hereditary lords or ladies. They hold titles and land and have a great deal of power and influence within the family. Think Bridgerton, but less entertaining.
Ali Olomi: All right, confession. I've never actually seen that show.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my God, Ali. But you've watched Avatar and the Airbender like 70 billion times.
Ali Olomi: That should tell you all about my personality. Look, lineage here really matters. And there were certainly noble families, but it really wasn't exactly an aristocracy like we would imagine in, say, Europe. Instead, what we have were powerful families that were originally local rulers, kings and commanders and generals that eventually sided with the Abbasids, one being the Tahirids.
Deana Hassanein: So the first thing we'd see was a show of power by these groups. This was their way of showing they were in the center of political life. They weren't just servants of the Khalif or his aides, but powerful in themselves.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. As you walked up to the palace, you would then be greeted by the hujariyah who patrolled the grounds and they had their building nearby. Then you'd actually see the anba and they always wore black, which was the Khalifu colors, and they represent the old guard. Then you would enter the palace itself and you would come across the chamberlain who's known as the Keeper of the Doors. I love all these titles. He would manage the number of visitors who could see the Khalif.
Deana Hassanein: Did the Caliph sit on a throne and wear a crown like how I imagine kings and queens?
Ali Olomi: Not exactly. What's funny?
Deana Hassanein: It's a valid question.
Ali Olomi: Because I could envision the Caliph sitting on a throne, but it isn't exactly like that. He had a cushion that he would be on, but more likely he had a formal seal, a special ring with an insignia. He had some type of staff of office they would care and he wore a mantle of power that they claimed actually came from Prophet Muhammad.
Deana Hassanein: What is a mantle of power?
Ali Olomi: It's like a cape, if you will, that you wear over your shoulders, but it goes down the front as well.
Deana Hassanein: You made it sound so cool. Then I was like, wow! And then it's a cape.
Ali Olomi: They have fancy names for everything.
Deana Hassanein: I love that. It sounds very grand and I can see the Khalif sitting in the palace decked in his royal garb. Confessionally, when I was younger, I was convinced that I was a princess and that my family had kidnapped me and my real family were out there looking for me and that one day they'd find me and I'd be decked out in gold from head to toe, still waiting.
Ali Olomi: If you didn't imagine some type of escape or fancy life, did you really have a childhood?
Deana Hassanein: Exactly.
Ali Olomi: All right. Imagine the space that is underneath the green dome of the palace. You've got elaborate silks, wooden panels carved with geometric designs that cleverly let in air and light, elaborate embroidery and fine clothing. And within all that finery, there is the Caliph, recognizable with his staff and mantle. You knew who he was by sight.
Deana Hassanein: Who would be with the Caliph? The palace has a lot of buzz to it, people coming and going, but there wasn't in a court, people who advised the Khalif or ran his empire for him, the government, if you like.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, there were scholars and philosophers and viziers. Remember, the Abbasids were warrior nerds. They loved to surround themselves with philosophers and host debates even.
Deana Hassanein: Kind of like the debate with Timothy.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. The court played chess, they debated philosophy, they listened to recited poetry, they even smoked...
Deana Hassanein: I know what you're going to say.
Ali Olomi: Shisha.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, I knew that was coming.
Ali Olomi: And of course, they argued policy and strategy all while hearing petitions.
Deana Hassanein: It sounds very lively, Ali.
Ali Olomi: Lively, but also dangerous. Powerful families often vied for power in the court. One of them that started really early on with the Abbasids was the Barmakids. Let me ask you, have you ever seen Aladdin? Do you remember the vizier Jafar?
Deana Hassanein: It's only one of my favorite Disney movies. Of course, I remember Jafar with his black snake staff and Iago, his parrot.
Ali Olomi: Well, Jafar is based on an actual historical character.
Deana Hassanein: No.
Ali Olomi: Known as Jafar of the Barmakids. He was an advisor to the various caliphs and he was a patron of the arts. He supported different poets. And at one time, Harun al-Rashid, wanting to keep him close, marries him off to his sister just so that they have some type of political alliance. But it was not meant to be a love marriage. There was just meant to be a marriage of convenience so that the families were tied together. But Harun al-Rashid has no control over the matters of the heart and Jafar falls in love. And eventually, the caliph's sister ends up pregnant. And when Harun al-Rashid discovers it, he has Jafar executed. And this brings the Barmakids to an end. One great family destroyed by marriage.
Deana Hassanein: I'm sorry, we're gonna have to back up here. So he was expecting them to be married but not actually ever procreate.
Ali Olomi: Yes, he was very clear about that. It was a political marriage. No, no, no, you can get married, but don't you dare touch my sister.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my God, so that's the inspiration for Jafar.
Ali Olomi: It is.
Deana Hassanein: I feel like we've just scratched the surface of the messy politics of the Abbasids. There is so much depth to this palace. The location, the architecture, and the symbolism. The way it was more than just a private residence. The tricky navigating of power at the heart of it. The families like the Barmakids who were in the heart of power, all inside a palace at the center of a round city. In future episodes, we are going to dive even further into those politics. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Baghdad Sound Walks. See you next time, fellow travelers.

War between the Brothers

Deana Hassanein: Hello fellow travellers, welcome to Baghdad Sound Walks, I'm Deana–
Ali Olomi: –and I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: You know Ali, we've travelled all around Baghdad and almost everything we've talked about is touched by politics, from the marketplace, to the mosques, to the harem, even the hammam.
Ali Olomi: Politics was everything, Deana. Muslims spilled a lot of ink pondering what good government should look like, what a wise ruler should be like, and why it all mattered for society.
Deana Hassanein: And we got a little glimpse of this when we visited the palace, the caliph, the viziers, and all the different powerful groups who are right in the centre of the political intrigue. We know throughout history how messy succession can be.
Ali Olomi: I mean the issue with the caliph is that technically he's not a king. Muslims in fact were initially very averse to monarchies, that's why they invented the concept of the caliph, because he was supposed to be a custodian of sorts, if you will, the social and political leader who guided the Muslim community and guarded their realms.
Deana Hassanein: A very good way to get around the label, even in Arabic, caliph doesn't mean king, but vice-sergeant if I remember right. But honestly, it sounds exactly like a kingship. Power wrestled with them and they were part of the dynasty that passed the rule down and they lived in a palace.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, a king in all but name. Names can be deceiving, for example, Baghdad was called the City of Peace, but really there were some skeletons in the closet.
Deana Hassanein: I'm glad you finally said it. Ali, I can tell you're gearing up for a story.
Ali Olomi: Do you remember the founder of Baghdad?
Deana Hassanein: Al-Mansur and his dream of a round city, yes.
Ali Olomi: Well, this story goes right back to him. Apparently, once he had built the city, he gives the key to the vault to Raita, a future queen, and he says to her, do not open these vaults until I have passed. And Raita being a faithful woman said, all right, I won't. And once they heard news that Al-Mansur had died, she goes to her husband and says, listen, Al-Mansur gave me this key and he told me not to open up the vaults, but now he's dead. Let's go see what's inside the vaults. So they go down, put the key in, the door creaks open, and they discover wall after wall of bodies. The bodies of the Talibit, a powerful dynasty that were the rival of Al-Mansur. He had kept all the skeletons in the vault with tags on them so that you could identify whose body was whose. Eventually they buried them and gave them a formal funeral.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, my God. So literal skeletons in the closet. That's so disgusting. Can you imagine what that smelled like?
Ali Olomi: And with that heat, ooh.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, my God. The politics of this time period was no joke. Putting the bodies of your enemies in a big vault with a label.
Ali Olomi: It's a tale as old as time from the ancient Achaemenids to the Romans to the Huns. One of the universal constants of history is that human competitions for power are always lethal.
Deana Hassanein: And it's this type of political intrigue that will make Baghdad, the city of peace, into a place of civil war. I know that Baghdad is technically destroyed several times throughout history.
Ali Olomi: Destroyed and rebuilt. The War of the Two Brothers is one of those instances. But to know that, we actually have to go to the Night of the Three Caliphs first.
Deana Hassanein: I love how dramatic all the names are from this time period. The Palace of the Golden Gate, the House of Wisdom, the Night of the Three Caliphs.
Ali Olomi: They really, really don't name things like they used to.
Deana Hassanein: Literally.
Ali Olomi: This night sets the stage for everything. So al-Hadi, the caliph, rules for one year. The reason for only one year is that he tries to sideline his powerful mother Khayzuran, who we visited before. He doesn't like women being in charge. Like all dunderheads, he thinks that women shouldn't be involved in politics. So what does she do? She has him killed. It's unclear how. Some say she hired his favorite wife to smother him with a pillow. Others say poison. But on that night, his brother Harun al-Rashid will hear that he has been named caliph in 786. He gets this news. The old caliph is dead. You are the new caliph. And at the exact same moment, he also hears about the birth of his son al-Ma'mun, who will be caliph later. So you have one dead caliph, the ascension of another, and the birth of a third.
Deana Hassanein: That is one busy night.
Ali Olomi: It really is. Imagine hearing all that. By the way, the old king is dead. You're the new king. And the future king has been born.
Deana Hassanein: What stands out to me in that story as well is Khayzuran, who we've spoken about a few times. Like Zubaydah, she stands out as one of the powerful women of this time. She quelled the rebellion of the guards in the marketplace by paying them off. She changed the whole succession of the caliphate from one son to another. And Zubaydah managed the marriage of al-Amin and built the roads around Baghdad for the pilgrimage and the caravanserai. Talk about exceptional women.
Ali Olomi: Truly.
Deana Hassanein: So I'm guessing this is where the war begins.
Ali Olomi: I mean, it's certainly when the seeds are planted, but actually Harun al-Rashid will rule over a pretty peaceful period. In fact, some call it the golden period of al-Rashid. It's his golden rule because of how prosperous it was, how stable it was. He moves out of the palace of eternity and moves back into the palace of the golden gate, which we talked about. And he's the one who really builds the house of wisdom and is responsible for the cultural renaissance that is taking place.
Deana Hassanein: I can't wait till we cover the house of wisdom. But for now, back to the brothers. They were the sons of Harun al-Rashid.
Ali Olomi: Yes, al-Amin and al-Ma'mun, night and day.
Deana Hassanein: Isn't that always the case of siblings? Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Ali Olomi: I have two sisters and I can tell you night and day.
Deana Hassanein: I'm the exact same. My brother and I, we are so different.
Ali Olomi: I mean, we already know that families can be pretty messy. But then you add in the politics and you can just imagine.
Deana Hassanein: This all came down to a sibling rivalry between two brothers over their father's throne, both competing to see who should rule.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. And this is what Harun al-Rashid feared. He actually woke up one night from a nightmare where he saw his empire in flames and he called for his dream interpreters who warned him of a coming civil war. To stave it off, he named al-Amin his successor with the promise that after al-Amin's death, al-Ma'mun would rule. So he's trying to balance the brothers out. The problem was al-Amin was the younger brother.
Deana Hassanein: I can imagine this was a really big deal because back then dreams and astrology were so important.
Ali Olomi: They were omens.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, exactly. And I find it quite weird that Ma'mun, al-Ma'mun was older. Why wasn't he first in line?
Ali Olomi: Al-Ma'mun was the son of a Persian concubine. So even though he was older, he's technically a half-brother. And so that's the reason.
Deana Hassanein: That makes sense. So it was a lineage issue.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, this succession would really come to haunt Baghdad, honestly. I mean, Harun al-Rashid made the whole court swear to this particular succession when they went on pilgrimage to Mecca. In the meantime, al-Ma'mun would be given governorship of Khorasan. This is a region in the eastern parts of Persia, but it's a really important region for the Abbasids since that's where their power originally comes from. That's how they overthrew the Umayyads from Khorasan.
Deana Hassanein: Well, that would make al-Ma'mun very powerful. That's a very large piece of land. Eastern parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. He'd be a king in his own region, basically. So he'd have his own army base.
Ali Olomi: You bring up a good point because added to the tensions around this succession is those different military factions that we talked about when we discussed the palace. You had the Anba, the oldest army block based in Baghdad, who would become al-Amin supporters. But al-Ma'mun would have the backing of the Khorasaniyah, the Persian troops.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my God, this is getting real messy real quick. Despite these rulers basically being kings, the Khalif has to manage the different power blocks and navigate tricky courtly politics. That has to take some strong political instincts.
Ali Olomi: And that honestly is what al-Amin lacks. Originally, his reign is sort of peaceful for about two years. He wasn't a bad caliph. He just had some really bad political instincts and really bad advisers. Namely, the powerful and conniving al-Rabbi. Think of him as the Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings. He begins to sort of provoke brother against brother.
Deana Hassanein: Uh-uh, bad move. He sounds like my brother always picking fights with me that he can't win.
Ali Olomi: I could see that.
Deana Hassanein: It's probably also a really bad idea to piss off the guy who's basically got his own kingdom at this point with armies and territories that are loyal to him.
Ali Olomi: It was a big mistake, Deana. Al-Ma'mun removes the Khalif's name from the Friday sermon prayers.
Deana Hassanein: No.
Ali Olomi: Yep.
Deana Hassanein: That is a big move. We already saw how important that was. It literally gives legitimacy to the caliph.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. And al-Amin responds. So you got a bit of a tit for tat. He responds by removing al-Ma'mun from succession, naming his own son and therefore breaking their oath to their father. That's when al-Ma'mun declares himself imam or the prayer lady. And this, of course, increases the tension. Al-Amin ups the ante, declaring a new governor of Khorasanah, Ali ibn Isa, who is under orders to arrest al-Amin's brother. It becomes a tit for tat, which eventually spirals into a civil war in 811 CE.
Deana Hassanein: So on one side, we have al-Amin and his Anba troops and the powerful families of Baghdad. And on the other side, we have al-Ma'mun and the Persian troops and the powerful families of Khorasan.
Ali Olomi: And al-Ma'mun had much better advisors. He had this guy named Fadl ibn Sal, and a very powerful general known as Tahir. Fadl was way more clever than the advisor al-Rabi, who was actually counseling al-Amin.
Deana Hassanein: When we looked at the Palace of the Golden Gate, I remember you saying how powerful viziers and advisors were. They made up the core of the court. Did they have their own Jaffars, and were they evil like him?
Ali Olomi: They were a little bit. Al-Rabi definitely falls into that mold. I mean, a good advisor could make all the difference in the world. Al-Fadl was a good advisor. He in fact, counseled not to push the battle, but to wait and to take up a defensive stance, letting al-Amin's forces come to al-Ma'mun. Al-Rabi, on the other hand, who is like this Jaffar-like character you mentioned, pushes for the war. He told al-Amin, dispatch your army and quickly depose your brother. And so what does al-Ma'mun do? He listens to advisor. He waits. He has Tahir wait with the army from Baghdad coming to them, and then they fight them on familiar ground. And despite the fact that al-Ma'mun's forces are much smaller from the troops in Baghdad, al-Ma'mun wins the day.
Deana Hassanein: That has to change the game on the ground. Losing the first battle of war would literally sap your soldier's motivation and weaken your support, no?
Ali Olomi: The momentum was al-Ma'mun's. Tahir won that battle and then battle after battle after that. Until at one point, even al-Amin's own troops begin to rebel in a mini coup of sorts. Now al-Ma'mun tries to hold on for a little bit, but the damage was done.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, there's really no coming back from something like that, is there? No. If your own troops and supporters abandon you, then that's the final nail in the coffin.
Ali Olomi: It was a disaster for al-Amin. Tahir is given this fancy title, the one with the two headships, along with his commander Hathama, and they press their advantage. And slowly, bit by bit, different territories fall under their control. Arabia joins al-Ma'mun, as does Egypt, your hometown. That's a big deal. Now you have North Africa. You have Arabia, the place of Mecca, siding with you. Then falls Mosul and Basra and Khufa. And eventually, that evil Jafar-like advisor al-Rabbi, he resigns.
Deana Hassanein: Like a rat on a sinking ship. He also flees after he was the one who pushed for the war in the first place.
Ali Olomi: Right.
Deana Hassanein: The one who set the whole thing in motion. Usually, I say, if you can't handle the heat, don't step in the kitchen. But he literally thought he could handle the heat. Overconfidence.
Ali Olomi: That was his big failure. He saw the writing on the walls, though. Hathama swept in from the east and Tahir came in from the west of Baghdad. And the city was caught right in the middle of it. Al-Amin tried to call upon the ordinary people to kind of rise up. But this time it was over for him. It was too late. Tahir took Harbiya.
Deana Hassanein: And Harbiya is the suburb where a lot of the Persian and non-Arab population lived.
Ali Olomi: Right. So the base of power for al-Ma'mun. And because of this, by taking Harbiya, we're going to actually see a suburb versus suburb war. The civil war will become a year-long city fight between these different factions.
Deana Hassanein: It's like the war focused on the city. The fight outside of Baghdad was brought into Baghdad, which must have been devastating.
Ali Olomi: Ah, it was brutal. In 811, Tahir managed to cut off the bridges to the river and cut Baghdad's support. Al-Amin tries to flee, but he's caught and he's executed.
Deana Hassanein: By his own brother.
Ali Olomi: By his own brother's troops. So his brother's hands are technically clean.
Deana Hassanein: We've heard of caliphs who were killed or poisoned, but execution must have been a completely different experience, especially if it's your brother.
Ali Olomi: It was. It fractured the caliphate pretty severely. It would take al-Ma'mun nearly eight more years before he got the caliphate back under control. But really, it would never be quite the same. In 819, he finally, after bringing it all under control, marches into Baghdad with his whole retinue wearing green. But his reign would be fraught.
Deana Hassanein: We all know that putting together the pieces after a civil war is very hard. Not everyone manages it. Countries break up from civil wars.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, it would be a completely different caliphate from then on. Still powerful and wealthy, but new factions would arrive, new powers and families. You'd have more power in the Turkic mercenaries and slave soldiers, while a lot of the regions would actually begin to have dynasties of their own, loyal to the caliph, but with their own power base.
Deana Hassanein: The civil war is the turning point. There is no going back. You can almost see old Baghdad, the city of peace, fade away for this new one to emerge. Ali, does Baghdad survive it?
Ali Olomi: It does. It's rebuilt, but it will continue to be full of strife. Within a generation, it will be caught between the anarchy in Samarra, where a troop rebellion will remake the entire politics of the Abbasids, and then the Zanj rebellion, a great slave rebellion, which will shake the caliphate to the core. What ends up happening is that the Abbasids, originally the most powerful family, would simply become one among many powerful families.
Deana Hassanein: So even though it continues on for centuries more and as a huge cultural hub, the city of peace has now changed. It's more tense than ever before. Baghdrama. Did you like that?
Ali Olomi: I love it.
Deana Hassanein: I love a good pun. The intrigue and drama is intense. This should be a miniseries or TV show.
Ali Olomi: I would absolutely watch that.
Deana Hassanein: Of course you would, warrior nerd. From the night of the three caliphs to the war between two brothers, it was all so intense. I'm looking forward to something a bit more peaceful next time. Thank you for joining us. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History Podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Baghdad Soundwalks. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Education & The House of Wisdom

Deana Hassanein: Hello fellow travellers, welcome to Baghdad Soundwalks. I'm Deana–.
Ali Olomi: –and I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: And we've made it, we are at the end of our journey. Where are we headed for our final stop in Baghdad?
Ali Olomi: Deana, I have saved the best for last, the House of Wisdom.
Deana Hassanein: AKA the Great Library, where we finally get to dive into the cultural and intellectual achievements of medieval Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: I mean, for nerds like me, the House of Wisdom is the dream. This is my Library of Alexandria.
Deana Hassanein: The Library of Alexandria was built by Cleopatra, by the way.
Ali Olomi: Oh yeah, and interestingly enough, we have something similar here. Arun al-Rashid, the famed caliph who ruled over that golden period of Abbasid Baghdad, he's often credited with building the House of Wisdom. But in actuality, it was his wife Zubaydah who founded it. She was a major patron of the arts and sciences.
Deana Hassanein: Do people know that it was Zubaydah or is it?
Ali Olomi: Historians know, but the average person probably not.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, Zubaydah is one of those queens whose name keeps popping up across our journey. She was also the one funding the pilgrimage roads and the caravanserai roads too.
Ali Olomi: We all aspire to have her impact, Deana.
Deana Hassanein: Seriously, so the House of Wisdom was a library?
Ali Olomi: It was the private library of the caliph that housed his books originally, but it was also an institution that funded scholars, learning, and most importantly, translation.
Deana Hassanein: I remember you mentioning that translation is such an important process. Is the only way we know what we know? I mean, even the information in this episode is only possible because someone somewhere translated important texts like the writings of Euclid, Aristotle, and Plato. What we know about science and mathematics are all part of the process of translation.
Ali Olomi: That's a pretty important point. I mean, it makes you really think knowledge throughout history is really a product of a collective process of people working together across cultures and centuries.
Deana Hassanein: That makes total sense for Baghdad, Ali. We talked about how medieval Baghdad was made up of Muslims, Jews, Christians, Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Africans, and Syriac people, and even location reflects that blending.
Ali Olomi: You know, that cultural sharing that you're talking about, Deana, becomes so important for the Abbasids. Even their predecessors, the Umayyads, were interested in knowledge of other cultures and societies, but it's really the Abbasids that would take it to the next level. They'll translate the great works of Greek and Persian thinkers, stuff that had been sidelined to some degree in Europe, but now they would be brought back into the public debate and learning in medieval Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: This reminds me that the city design was partly based on Euclid.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, we see all these old classics, Plato and Aristotle, Galens and Ptolemy, Hipparchus.
Deana Hassanein: So, the House of Wisdom was home to both the translation movement, bringing Greek and Persian knowledge into Arabic, and it was home for the texts themselves.
Ali Olomi: Now that I'm thinking about it, it's probably more of a learning center plus a library, or maybe a public academic center.
Deana Hassanein: Did it start that way, or did it gradually evolve into that?
Ali Olomi: I mean, under al-Mansur, who was the founder of Baghdad, it starts off really as a private library for the caliph, but under Harun al-Rashid, it becomes this public learning center, thanks to the patronage of his wife, Zubaydah.
Deana Hassanein: She's the money behind the whole operation.
Ali Olomi: Absolutely, this was a cushy time to be a scholar, especially under either Zubaydah and later under al-Ma'mun.
Deana Hassanein: The man who ends up winning the war of the two brothers. So, after he's established himself as caliph and restored his empire, he turns his attention to the House of Wisdom.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, al-Ma'mun really fancies himself as a sort of philosopher king, so he expands those translation efforts greatly, and he even used to hold regular scholarly debates himself.
Deana Hassanein: You weren't kidding when you said the Abbasid caliphs fancied themselves as warrior nerds.
Ali Olomi: I mean, the whole society was like this. Knowledge was deeply, deeply valued. The result of this was that knowledge spread throughout society. You saw philosophers engage in public debates, translated works, wouldn't just be hidden away, but even copied, so that they were made for reading. We had high literacy rates, and scholars held positions of power.
Deana Hassanein: Just like the mutanabi, or the street of booksellers, I can still envision the books piled high as people sought through them.
Ali Olomi: Oh, a dream.
Deana Hassanein: All right, Ali, why don't we step into the House of Wisdom? Who would we meet there?
Ali Olomi: So, scholars from all over would be drawn to Baghdad. The House of Wisdom was a magnet. If you could land a job there, the chance of learning the mysteries of the universe and engaging with your fellow scholars, that's ace.
Deana Hassanein: In the same way, young people applied to certain colleges today, like Oxford, or Cambridge, or Sorbonne, or Harvard.
Ali Olomi: Like those kids, education was a way to get ahead in life, to go up the social ladder, so to speak. But it was also a way to participate in something deeply valued, learning. So you'd have people from all walks of life. You had Fabet ibn Qurra, who was a haren, a special religion that worshipped the stars. He would translate Euclid and Ptolemy. You had Ibn Ishaq, who was an historian Christian, a physician, and he would translate Galens and Hippocrates. You have original, brand new types of mathematics from al-Khwarizmi, and you'd have fusion Islamic and Aristotelian philosophy under al-Kindi.
Deana Hassanein: The combination of translation and original work must have had major consequences, though, Ali. We talked about how there was such a big advancement in science and technology in this time. I'm still imagining those beautiful water clocks and mechanical clocks.
Ali Olomi: Right, the one that I want in my garden and you want an elephant.
Deana Hassanein: Good memory.
Ali Olomi: Yeah. I mean, in a lot of ways, Deana, this is the birth of modern science and mathematics as we know it. Ibn Sina's Qanun of Medicine is the standard of medicine for the next thousand years. I said that right. A thousand years. His model will be used. The idea of quarantining, the idea of germ theory all comes from Ibn Sina. Al-Khwarizmi will give us the algebra and algorithm, modern mathematics as we know it, the ones and the zeros. And Ibn al-Haytham gives us the scientific method.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, so I have al-Khwarizmi to thank for my math classes in school.
Ali Olomi: Al-Khwarizmi had to be a nerd, and now we are all suffering for it. But as much as he's a pain, he's the man who introduces the zero from India. Sefer. It's part of the Arabic mathematics of this time period. That alone is what makes technology like computers, cell phones, and any technology really that relies on ones and zeros possible.
Deana Hassanein: So much of what we study in school is really only possible because of the advancement in this moment. I mean, without the house of wisdom, there goes a lot of science and medicine, maths, and chemistry. School would be really different without them.
Ali Olomi: And we've got to throw in astronomy too. I mean, we see such a massive advancement in astronomy. One of Al-Mansur's closest friends is a guy named Yahya ibn Abi Mansur. And he creates the most advanced solar eclipse calculations the world has seen to this date. And of course, advancements in astrology. The only reason we know what our star signs are is because people of Yahya ibn Abi Mansur and Abu Ma'shar who write them down.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, astrology. We've seen the importance of that in the founding of Baghdad itself. Ali, do you want to try and guess my star sign?
Ali Olomi: All right, all right. Based off of your positive energy, I'm going to guess a Gemini. But based off of your ability to keep me and this podcast in line, I'm going to guess Virgo. So it's one of those two.
Deana Hassanein: I don't know where to start with the compliments you're giving me or the fact that you actually did guess my star sign.
Ali Olomi: Oh, did I?
Deana Hassanein: You did. I am a Virgo, but I don't trust you. I reckon you found my date of birth somehow.
Ali Olomi: I'm not that technologically literate. So that's a-it's totally a guess. Here, let's actually read what the most famous Abbasid astrologer says about your sign. This is a man named Abu Ma'shar who in the ninth century writes the most important text of astrology. He says, those born under Virgo or Al-Adra are said to be pleasant, but anxious about the future, playful, but restrained. They grow to be wise, are just, generous, judgmental, and cultured. They enjoy music and have good manners.
Deana Hassanein: I'm currently speechless because I need to ask you, are you making this up?
Ali Olomi: No, no, I swear.
Deana Hassanein: That's a little too true. It's quite scary how accurate that was. I don't really know how to feel about that.
Ali Olomi: I mean, there's a reason astrology was the queen of the sciences for them. In fact, they actually build some of the world's first and most amazing observatories so that they can watch the stars.
Deana Hassanein: You know, my homework tonight is going to be hunting your star sign down. I'm going to use any evidence that is out there to get it because I'm actually in awe of what just happened.
Ali Olomi: It's classified.
Deana Hassanein: What I really want to know, Ali, is did they share this knowledge? Because they built a society that genuinely valued knowledge. All of medieval Baghdad is caught up in it, but what about the rest of the world?
Ali Olomi: You know, remember when we talked about Abbasid diplomacy and how they relied on trade routes which allowed them to send lavish gifts? Well, some of those gifts that they were sending were engineering marvels and whole treasure troves of books. One of those mechanical clocks makes its way to Europe, in fact.
Deana Hassanein: I still want the gift of an elephant. I remember how access to paper from China made books cheaper so they could produce more and more books.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, that was the effect on the outlying regions as well, from Cairo to Cordoba, Samarkand, Balkh, Damascus. All of these are going to become major centers of knowledge. This is an Islamic impulse that is shared amongst all of them.
Deana Hassanein: Who are some of the other scholars we would see in the House of Wisdom?
Ali Olomi: So, in addition to the cultural mix, we talked of Muslims, we talked of Christians, we also saw that knowledge was open to women at this time. You had Zainab al-Shada, who was the first jurist. In fact, some argue that she might have been a sort of the equivalent of a Supreme Court Justice at this time period, the High Court. You have Fakhr al-Nisa, who was a Hadith scholar. And as you know, the Hadiths are the sayings of Muhammad. So, she was incredibly important for religion. And of course, you had Zumarud Khatun, who creates her own mosque and becomes a patron of it. So, you have women justices, women scholars, even religious leaders in this time period.
Deana Hassanein: It's so exciting to see women participate in intellectual culture like this, because we don't have many cases of women theologians and scholars in medieval Europe at this time period, at least not for another several centuries.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I mean, women were legally entitled to an education under Islamic law. And given that the Abbasids had this great love of learning, it makes perfect sense for them. That's why you end up with female theologians and female scientists like Sutayata, who's working on And, you know, these are only the women that we know about.
Deana Hassanein: I imagine there were even more whose names we don't know or who lived quite scholarly lives.
Ali Olomi: I mean, we know that there were many women translators, for example. We don't know all their names, but the very texts that we read today were made possible by them.
Deana Hassanein: Now, that is what I call leaving an impact.
Ali Olomi: You know, the House of Wisdom's influence cannot be overstated. It was culturally, intellectually one of the greatest turning points in history. Without it, our civilizations today would look vastly different.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, you really did save the best till last.
Ali Olomi: I love it.
Deana Hassanein: The House of Wisdom was everything I imagined it to be. When you have a name as fancy as that, it's hard to live up to it, but it really did. And what's even more exciting is that we'll be diving further into some of these intellectual figures in our next season as we continue our journey. For now, we've studied the layout and design of the city, like fellow travelers walking through from Baghdad's winding streets to its palaces.
Ali Olomi: From its mosque to its House of Wisdom.
Deana Hassanein: We've seen a lot, but there is still so much more. Thanks for joining us. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is Ubisoft Podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Follow Echoes of History wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Figures of Baghdad

Who were the Banū Mūsā brothers?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travellers. Surprise! We're back with a whole new season dedicated to the different figures of Baghdad as found in the game Assassin's Creed Mirage. In this season, we'll be exploring the rich world of the Abbasids and their capital city. Ali, I'm glad to be back and excited to get to know some of these cool people.
Ali Olomi: Oh, I'm so excited to be back too. We have some fascinating people to visit with rich stories full of drama, intrigue and mystery. As you say, Deana, in every episode of this season we'll be covering characters that feature in Assassin's Creed Mirage. And today we're kicking it off with the three brothers of dubious origin who are actually adopted by the caliph. Raised in the court, they become famous scientists and scholars and eventually political figures amidst the chaos of warring factions.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, I'm ready. Yalla, let's do this. In the last season, we left off at the House of Wisdom. So now let's meet some of the scholars who studied in this incredible institution. Let's meet these three brothers. Disclaimer though, they have no links to the Night of the Three Caliphs from last season's episode, The War Between Two Brothers.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, no relation whatsoever. But for whatever reason, they do love the symmetry or the harmony of three for all of their descriptions. You're gonna frequently see three this, three that.
Deana Hassanein: So it's good to get out of the way.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, true. The three brothers of the Banu Musa were actually a family of brilliant engineers and scientists with a really interesting history.
Deana Hassanein: I'll be honest, Ali, that sounds super predictable. I'm not even surprised that you said that because growing up Egyptian, all I ever heard is that this person's graduated in engineering. Oh, your cousin's become an engineer. So I know that feeling all too well.
Ali Olomi: It's honestly the same. My mom wanted me to become a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. I became a professor. Sorry, mom.
Deana Hassanein: I don't see how that's not amazing. I'm sure she's oozing with pride. My mom and dad...
Ali Olomi: I hope.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, I'm sure she does. I mean, my mom and dad still don't really fully get what I do.
Ali Olomi: I had to explain what being a professor was actually like to my mom.
Deana Hassanein: Really?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, she's like, so you're a teacher. And I'm like, sort of.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, she wasn't happy with the professor title. She's like, so you're just a teacher, basically.
Ali Olomi: Yeah.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, Ali, so did the Banu Musa's mom want them to become engineers too?
Ali Olomi: You know, we don't actually know a lot about their mom, but I will tell you, their dad was a con man.
Deana Hassanein: A con man?
Ali Olomi: Yep.
Deana Hassanein: I did not see that coming. Now I know this story is going to be very good. How'd you go from being a con man to a dad with three engineer sons?
Ali Olomi: Well, the funny story is their father is a man named Musa ibn Shakir, and he was originally a highwayman. And he used to steal from people. There's actually a really interesting story. Is during Friday prayers, while everyone was congregating during those times, he would sneak out of the mosque and then steal from their possessions, from the houses. And he would come back before the prayers were finished. For whatever reason, at some point, he comes across caliph al-Ma'mun and he impresses him. And so al-Ma'mun hires him to be his personal astrologer. So from thief to astrologer.
Deana Hassanein: When you say impresses him, what do you mean as in his ability to steal while people are praying?
Ali Olomi: He ends up being very smart. For whatever reason, like they have this conversation and Musa is like an intelligent person, not just a thief, but really well-read.
Deana Hassanein: I can't get over the contradiction, by the way, of people praying and then him stealing while they're doing a religious act. Okay, Ali, I've come across a lot of job titles in my time, but that one is definitely out there. Talk about strange evolution. How can you go from being a thief to a personal astrologer to the caliph? Not only is that an upgrade, but I'm sure that came with a lot of perks.
Ali Olomi: Oh yeah, it's kind of goals. I mean, why can't a rich patron of the arts give us a cushy court position?
Deana Hassanein: Maybe they will after this podcast, but...
Ali Olomi: Maybe.
Deana Hassanein: What would you want to be, Ali?
Ali Olomi: Definitely court astrologer, but I'd probably get in trouble for rousing the rabble against the caliph. How about you?
Deana Hassanein: I'd be chilling in the palace as a queen, duh.
Ali Olomi: Of course.
Deana Hassanein: So the Banu Musa grew up very close to the court.
Ali Olomi: They did. When their dad died, the caliph takes over their education, so they were practically raised in the house of wisdom, which we've talked about.
Deana Hassanein: That means they would have got a really high quality education. We know from the last season that the house of wisdom not only has the best translations in the world, but access to the latest theories in mathematics, science, philosophy, and they're working with the brightest minds at such a young age.
Ali Olomi: They got one heck of an education, Deana. They were taught by the head of the house of wisdom, Ibn Ishaq, who was an historian Christian. And so each brother actually goes on to develop their own unique expertise. Jafar Muhammad becomes an expert in mathematics, astronomy, and astrology. Ahmed becomes an expert in engineering and mechanics. And Al-Hassan is an expert in geometry and algebra. It's really cool.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, their parents must have been really proud of them. And they covered a range of subjects. From what I remember from the house of wisdom episode is that these are predominantly Greek sciences. So you can really see their interest coming through.
Ali Olomi: Their love of the Greek sciences was very, very real. I mean, you can see in what they mastered. They even traveled actually on behalf of caliph al-Ma'mun, collecting various points. And at one instance, even goes to the Byzantine Empire to collect some books and return them to Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: And collecting books was a big deal for the Abbasids. They are, as you always say, warrior nerds.
Ali Olomi: Like me.
Deana Hassanein: Exactly. And this isn't just a trip for books for them. There's so much more to it.
Ali Olomi: Totally. Knowledge is political. In the same way that empires build great monuments and statues as their legacies, for the Abbasids, it would be their knowledge. And so they would hire people like al-Hajjaj who will translate Euclid.
Deana Hassanein: And his theories were important for Baghdad itself because the round city was a homage to his mathematics.
Ali Olomi: Euclid inspired them. So the Banu Musa traveled west to the Byzantine Empire, to your hometown, in fact, Egypt, and even to East Africa because they were inspired.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, they acted like agents of the caliph. You don't always think of scholars in that way. But for the Abbasid scholars, learning and education was really important.
Ali Olomi: It was part of their imperial project, in fact, to create an empire of learning.
Deana Hassanein: Now I can see why you really like these warrior nerds, Ali.
Ali Olomi: Mm-hmm. What can I say? They are people after my own heart.
Deana Hassanein: So in their travels, what did they do? You know, who did they meet and what books did they translate?
Ali Olomi: They actually gathered quite a bit, Deana. They focused mostly on the Greek translations that you mentioned, but they also had original works of their own.
Deana Hassanein: And that's a good point to make because it wasn't just about translating and preserving knowledge. The scholars of Medieval Baghdad were advancing it. They were coming up with their own theories and own inventions.
Ali Olomi: Yeah. For the Banu Musa, they wrote important treatises around the degrees of the Zodiac constellation. They even calculated the astronomical years so they got the exact timing of how long it takes the sun to revolve around. We even have some brilliant mechanical feats that are inspired by Phylo of Byzantium. One of which is a mechanical tree made of gold and silver with birds that sing. And all of it was mechanical.
Deana Hassanein: What was the purpose of that?
Ali Olomi: It was just to demonstrate they can do it. Some of it was for timekeeping measures, but others was to demonstrate the mathematical accuracy of this moment.
Deana Hassanein: Like the water clocks and mechanical clocks that we talked about last season. I remember those because I have to get you a sundial.
Ali Olomi: And I got to get you an elephant.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, you're taking your time though, aren't you? Okay, Ali, math keeps coming up. Can we talk a bit more about just how much investigation and study was dedicated to math?
Ali Olomi: Allah, I mean, the medieval scholars were totally obsessed with math. They saw it as the harmony of the universe. Just don't ask me to explain the math because I'm a history major and it flies completely over my head.
Deana Hassanein: Both of us know though, those calculations were super important for medieval scholars.
Ali Olomi: Very much. So for example, the biographer Ibn Khalqan talks about how the Banu Musa go out to the Sinjar desert and they use the pole star and measuring stakes and ropes. And with it, they're able to calculate the circumference of the earth, which is 24,000 miles. And that's incredibly accurate. So when I say investigate, that's what I mean. They're carrying out these intense experiments.
Deana Hassanein: So many of the theories, calculations, and measurements from this period still stand up.
Ali Olomi: Totally.
Deana Hassanein: Something I've been thinking about actually is what the politics of the House of Wisdom was like, because we've talked about their achievements, but if you've got that many different personalities trying to win the favor of the caliph, it must get spicy.
Ali Olomi: Honestly, it's not too different from the cutthroat life of universities today.
Deana Hassanein: University life then seems way more interesting though.
Ali Olomi: It's a story for another time, but it really, it was the same with the House of Wisdom. So when I read about this time, Deana, I recognize it because the politics could be incredibly fierce. Now, while the patronage was great under al-Ma'mun, his, and of course, his immediate successor, by the time of al-Mutawakkil, things got a bit tense. Mutawakkil was a much harsher ruler. He curtailed some of the rights of non-Muslims, for example, and he was way more demanding of the scholars. So it really depended on the caliph.
Deana Hassanein: And that's really important to know, Ali, because the Abbasids were generally known for their tolerance. It's what makes medieval Baghdad so unique. But those rights all depended on whether the caliph was a tyrant or not. And that wouldn't just affect the targeted group. It also affects everyone.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, and the Banu Musa used this to their advantage. They were very close friends with the court astrologer, Abu Ma'shar.
Deana Hassanein: His translation of my Zodiac we read last season.
Ali Olomi: A bit of a legend, that Abu Ma'shar. But he and the Banu Musa had a little bit of a rivalry with al-Kindi, who's the father of Arabic Aristotelian philosophy. We'll mention him a little bit later.
Deana Hassanein: So each of these people are incredibly important in their own ways. Abu Ma'shar is the court astrologer, al-Kindi is a famous philosopher, and the Banu Musa are scholars and agents of the caliph.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. And the Banu Musa in particular ended up hating al-Kindi. He criticized one of their calculations at one point, and that pissed him off.
Deana Hassanein: Never hurt a man's ego.
Ali Olomi: That's what the Banu Musa said. So they actually had Mutawakkil confiscate all of al-Kindi's books and his library.
Deana Hassanein: That's got to hurt.
Ali Olomi: Yeah.
Deana Hassanein: Books were so important in this time and cherished by all. So the labor that went into that book, the knowledge, and having it taken away is a huge deal.
Ali Olomi: Oh, they get a little bit of their own kebab, or just a tad. Because shortly afterwards, the Banu Musa end up getting in trouble with the very same caliph. They're put in charge of a canal in Jafariyya, and they're supposed to calculate how to build this canal so that it keeps the water. But they end up miscalculating it. And so the caliph tells them, if this canal doesn't work and the water doesn't stay there, we are going to have you executed. So an even worse punishment than al-Kindi. But the Banu Musa get lucky. The court astrologer predicts that the caliph is going to die soon. So they just wait him out. He dies and they survive.
Deana Hassanein: Saved by astrology again.
Ali Olomi: In the end, for all their exploits, the Banu Musa would become really, really wealthy and powerful. And they're going to play a role in future politics.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, I love how scandalous the scholars were. We dived into the rich history of the Banu Musa, their work, their schemes. And there is so much more to come as we learn more about the people who lived and plotted in medieval Baghdad. What's great about this season is we're going to be talking about other people with surprising origin stories and how they go on to achieve great things or leave a mark on history. Thanks for joining us. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was Al-Mahani?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travelers, welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I’m Deana–
Ali Olomi: –and I'm Ali. Who shall we visit today?
Deana Hassanein: I really liked how messy the Banu Musa were, so I'd like more of the same please.
Ali Olomi: I've got just the guy. A mysterious figure at the heart of Baghdad's intellectual culture, Al Mahani. We really know very little about his life except for the amazing body of work that he leaves behind. You'll meet him in your travels in Mirage.
Deana Hassanein: But first, I want to know more about how Greek philosophers and thinkers were brought into medieval Baghdad because we've mentioned Euclid a few times in previous episodes. From the round city of Baghdad to the translations of Banu Musa, so who was Euclid?
Ali Olomi: Good question. Let's take a look at some of these Greek thinkers who inspired Abbasid scholars.
Deana Hassanein: Give us the big ones, the ones who were translated the most, whose ideas really shaped Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: Alright, the top four would have to be Galens, Ptolemy, Euclid and Aristotle.
Deana Hassanein: I definitely remember Aristotle from school. Each of these represent different strains of thought and different fields of knowledge.
Ali Olomi: That is precisely why they were so influential. They were each representative of different fields of knowledge which the medieval scholars were interested in. You had medicine, which was Galens. You had astronomy, which was Ptolemy. You had mathematics, which was Euclid. And you had rational philosophy, which was Aristotle.
Deana Hassanein: So how did Euclid's mathematics become part of medieval Baghdad? Because if you think about it, Euclid lived centuries and centuries before Baghdad was even built. How his ideas show up in this period is interesting.
Ali Olomi: Totally, Deana. We talked about this a little bit last season, but translation of knowledge is so incredibly important in this time period. It was their way of bringing what they saw as the ancient past into their present. And so the first translations are people like al-Hajjaj who brings Euclid into the Arabic. And then al-Mahani in 860 or so will write further translations and commentaries on Euclid.
Deana Hassanein: But we're not just talking about word-for-word translations. This wasn't a copy and paste job. They were expanding and adding their own thoughts and ideas.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, in fact, al-Mahani writes an extensive commentary on Euclid. If we think about it, there's really two impulses that are happening at the same time. There's an encyclopedic impulse, which is about cataloguing everything, recording everything. And the second is an experimental impulse.
Deana Hassanein: Wait, are you saying they were doing experiments like Dexter's laboratory type experiments?
Ali Olomi: Funny enough, that's exactly what they were doing. We talked a little bit about the Banu Musa's experiments out in the desert, but they also did mathematic experiments like al-Mahani's equation, which, surprisingly enough, he actually fails to solve.
Deana Hassanein: Sometimes, Ali, that's just the way it is.
Ali Olomi: In fact, that's my motto. It is what it is.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, solid motto. Mine is out of sight, out of mind.
Ali Olomi: Like that one.
Deana Hassanein: I've got to ask, though, why was there such a focus on maths? Because I'm an ex-maths teacher, but it was more of a surface-level thing. I wasn't in love with it. I didn't have a passion for it.
Ali Olomi: You know, Deana, this is what I've wondered myself. And it wasn't until I read al-Mahani's work or the works of others like Juarezmi, because then you start to see that they saw God in the beauty of math.
Deana Hassanein: Sorry, what do you mean they saw God? In maths? That's a completely different way of looking at maths.
Ali Olomi: I mean, for them, math shows the harmony of the universe, a perfectly created cosmos by the hands of the creator. So they really did see math as beautiful.
Deana Hassanein: That's such an interesting way to talk about it, because I just remember when I taught in a school, all I heard was, Miss, when am I ever actually going to use this?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I mean, it's a different way of looking at it. When I was in high school, my algebra teacher was talking about solving for x. I was thinking about lunchtime.
Deana Hassanein: Wow. It's a good thing they did care about maths, though, because without them, we'd live a completely different life.
Ali Olomi: Too true. I mean, what would the world look like? In 825, al-Juarezmi introduces the Indian and Arabic numerals with zero. And think about it. What happens if we don't have that zero?
Deana Hassanein: Our maths would look entirely different. The hands on the clock, the numbers in your car's mileage, how you'd calculate your taxes, and of course, how you count your money. What would our dollar bills look like?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, totally. Even our technology would be different. Our digital technology uses binary code. So without the introduction of that zero, which literally comes from the Arabic word sifr, would we even have the technology that we have today?
Deana Hassanein: No phones, no tablets, no computers, no podcast. Boom. There goes our job.
Ali Olomi: So thank God for these medieval thinkers then. But this is why this time period is so incredibly exciting. We are looking at a moment that changed the very course of history.
Deana Hassanein: What I love is this sort of a bridge between the ancient knowledge of the past, transformed in the medieval period, then connecting and shaping our world in the present.
Ali Olomi: That's a really cool way of looking at it, Deana.
Deana Hassanein: And of course, al-Mahani wasn't alone. He was part of this wider intellectual culture. I remember the descriptions of the House of Wisdom and the back and forth between the scholars.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, the dialogue and debate and the collaboration is what makes this such a unique moment. You have al-Mahani working on Euclid, while al-Khwarizmi is working on algebra.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, that's who we have to blame.
Ali Olomi: We can really blame him. He's the one that gives us our 8am math classes. But also, he developed some of the world's first algorithms and complex formulas that we've never seen in history before.
Deana Hassanein: Just like the concept of zero, we take that for granted, but it's so impactful on algebra and algorithms. It really, really does impact our lives. It changes everything.
Ali Olomi: Right. I mean, like our entire digital system, our system of information, our militaries, our banking system, our whole way of modern life relies on algorithms.
Deana Hassanein: I wonder if they ever considered things like AI, artificial intelligence.
Ali Olomi: Oh yeah, it's a hot topic, but for sure they did. We have this fascinating set of writings from this time period that discusses automatons.
Deana Hassanein: Automaton sounds like a warrior robot, by the way.
Ali Olomi: It is a little bit.
Deana Hassanein: A little bit, but it's just like the ones built by the Banu Musa, the mechanical tree with the birds.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, there was this fascinating way in which all knowledge was practical. Their mathematics was a practical. There was, of course, a theoretical component. They believed knowledge was beautiful for its own sake. And of course, any learning was worthwhile on its own, but they were really, really interested in practical applications.
Deana Hassanein: So this could be maths you would use for different purposes, just like with the Banu Musas, that meant engineering and the building of the canal.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. And for al-Mahani, new calculations in math allowed him to improve the astronomy of the time period.
Deana Hassanein: Baghdad itself was meant to reflect the order of the heavens, so astronomy was paramount.
Ali Olomi: Astronomy and astrology were the queen of the sciences, they say.
Deana Hassanein: So what was the practical application for al-Mahani?
Ali Olomi: He was able to use his new advancements in calculations to get the exact time of the eclipse. He could get the timing down to just a few minutes. And like the circumference, it's impressive.
Deana Hassanein: Wow. This is a huge deal because if we think about it, they didn't have the type of technology we did. No computers, no telescopes. So getting that type of accuracy is very impressive.
Ali Olomi: I mean, what gaps they had with technology, they made up with mathematics. Using algorithms, Euclidean geometry, algebraic equations, all of that helped them improve precision, whether it was engineering with the Banu Musa or astronomy with al-Mahani. I think for me, what makes al-Mahani so interesting is that he represents the lineage of knowledge that is forming in this time period.
Deana Hassanein: Right. Like we said, he's bringing knowledge of the ancients into his present world.
Ali Olomi: And the connection is paramount for understanding the learning and scholarship of this time period. They created bridges between that Greek past and their Muslim present. For al-Mahani, this was through Euclid and his translation and commentaries of those works.
Deana Hassanein: Which then would be picked up by someone after him, the future scholars.
Ali Olomi: That's the lineage of learning we are talking about. Al-Mahani is important in his own right, of course, but he's also important because of the influence that he has on later scholars.
Deana Hassanein: They probably relied on the work of al-Mahani for their own calculations, right?
Ali Olomi: That's too true. Al-Mahani and his near contemporary al-Khwarazmi were instrumental in developing the math of this time period. A century later, al-Khazn would actually use al-Mahani's math to solve Archimedes' problem. Then, a century later, al-Biruni would take it even further.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, I can tell we're gearing up for a good science story, Ali. Let's hear it.
Ali Olomi: All right, so al-Biruni was a Persian scientist, just like al-Mahani, and he would rely on the mathematic groundwork laid by al-Mahani and al-Khwarazmi for a stunning calculation. In fact, he would use an astrolabe, a tool that we've actually mentioned before.
Deana Hassanein: I remember it, the medieval iPhone. It was used for calculations, for navigation, architecture, astronomy, timekeeping, and of course, a lot more.
Ali Olomi: The very one. It was incredibly important. You know, sometimes I wonder if people in medieval Baghdad would have waited in long lines to get the latest astrolabe in the same way that we wait for the latest iPhone.
Deana Hassanein: The astrolabe 14 or 15, worth the wait.
Ali Olomi: Kind of a perfect ad. All right, I'm sold. Okay, so al-Biruni would take this astrolabe, maybe version 14 or 15, and with it, measure the degree of a mountain using angles. He then used the formula from algebra and trigonometry with the calculated angles to get the exact height of a mountain.
Deana Hassanein: You've already lost me. This is incredibly complicated.
Ali Olomi: Look, I'm not a math person and I'm already lost. But there's more. He used these measurements to imagine a triangle with its point being the top of the mountain, then the other point being the horizon, and the final point being the center of the earth. So I just sort of imagine a giant triangle going from the mountain to the horizon, and then the horizon to the center of the earth. With algebra, he was then able to calculate the circumference of the earth, roughly around 25,000 miles. And guess what? He was right. He got the calculation down to barely a percent of an error, even more accurate than the Banu Musa calculations.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, wow, wow. What I love is how we see each generation of scientists improving on one another, leaving knowledge for the next person to come along and further their research.
Ali Olomi: Oh, wait, Deana, there's more.
Deana Hassanein: Really? You sound like a cheesy game show host, by the way.
Ali Olomi: With his calculations, Al Biruni was able to theorize that there was actually another continent besides Africa, Asia, and Europe, that another continent lay beyond them.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, stop, hold up. Are you saying he figured out the Americas?
Ali Olomi: That's right. Hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus or anything in Europe, Al Biruni was able to use the mathematics to figure out the continent of America.
Deana Hassanein: My mind is blown right now. So school lied to me, to us.
Ali Olomi: That's why these lineages of learning matter. The way Al Bahani brings Euclid into his present world and then how his work is passed on to later generation of scholars like Al Biruni. It's like they're collaborating across time and the mathematics that they are doing has practical applications, like determining the radius of the Earth or the existence of other continents.
Deana Hassanein: We're slowly bringing you around, looking at the people who lived in medieval Baghdad. We see a wide range of scientists who, like Al Mahani, are engaging and reconnecting with the knowledge of the past, but in new and exciting ways. And the impact is huge. It really was a turning point in history. All our contemporary math and science can be traced back to this. Thank you for coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travellers.

Who was Hunayn ibn Hishaq?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travelers, welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I'm Deana–
Ali Olomi: –and I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: So Ali, who shall we visit today?
Ali Olomi: Who do you want to hang out with? We visited the engineering nerds and the math dorks.
Deana Hassanein: You know, it's time for the doctors. When we chatted last, we talked about the major sciences of this time period. So I want to hear about them. Astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and medicine.
Ali Olomi: And with all these sciences, they were related to each other in some way. We can see that in the form of Hunyan ibn Ishaq.
Deana Hassanein: We met him briefly last season where he was in charge of the House of Wisdom and one of the lead translators.
Ali Olomi: That's our guy. He was an historian Christian who lived from 808 to 873.
Deana Hassanein: Which again really stresses that we are looking at cultures sharing with one another. Jewish and Christian scientists working alongside Muslim ones. Now, what does the job of the head of the House of Wisdom involve, Ali?
Ali Olomi: Ibn Ishaq basically had about four responsibilities. He needed to collect new texts. He would then translate texts. He also directed the research and translation projects of the entire House of Wisdom. And then either he or his agents would educate the students.
Deana Hassanein: And I really have to say this again. The House of Wisdom really is so much more than a library. It's a learning center. It doesn't just house the world's knowledge, but they're also expanding it in different ways. We talked about how al-Mahani was commenting on Euclid.
Ali Olomi: This is true of Ibn Ishaq too. He was commenting and expanding the knowledge he was encountering. His origins though are actually quite humble. He's originally a Syriac and an Arabic native speaker.
Deana Hassanein: That probably helped with the translations. Most of these scholars were multilingual, but it was in languages they were native speakers in. What were some of the common languages scholars at this time spoke, Ali?
Ali Olomi: You know, Deana, we believe that most of them were at minimum trilingual. I mean, that kind of blows your mind considering that some of the struggle being bilingual or even monolingual. But the most common languages here were Arabic, Greek, Syriac, and Persian.
Deana Hassanein: And they were each specialists in their own languages. Did Ibn Ishaq work mostly in Syriac and Arabic?
Ali Olomi: Greek too, actually. His origins are really interesting here. His father was a pharmacist, so that probably indicates why he had such a deep interest in medicine.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, so that is the start of his medical journey. I've noticed that frequently there is a family connection for the scholars. They either learn from their fathers or they develop an interest early. Nowadays, we don't really pick a major until university. Or as you'd say, Ali, college.
Ali Olomi: What was your major? I know we talked about engineering, but what did you want to be?
Deana Hassanein: I majored in economics. I actually wanted to be the first female president of Egypt. Obviously, not going well. What about you?
Ali Olomi: I was really interested in politics, but I was always a history major all through college.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, I found politics quite frustrating as a subject. That's exactly why I majored in economics.
Ali Olomi: Makes sense. But if you think about it, our system is very different from what we see in medieval Baghdad. While the House of Wisdom is a learning institution, and there were certainly classes, we're really looking at more of an apprentice-style structure.
Deana Hassanein: So it's more like a one-to-one tuition, learning from an expert or master who then passes their knowledge on to you.
Ali Olomi: And it wasn't always one-on-one, we should be clear. I mean, it could be a class or group setting, but it was always focused on the individual teacher rather than the subject. In fact, if you think about it, a lot of our graduate school education today is based off of this structure. You pick an advisor and then they guide you through until you get your master's or your doctorate. For Ibn Ishaq, this was Ibn Masawi.
Deana Hassanein: And through one-to-one instruction, you get a really high quality education. Having the attention of a teacher and their focus on not just the education, but your learning style is incredible. You can see a passing down of knowledge from teacher to student in so many of the people we have discussed before.
Ali Olomi: True enough, but that didn't quite work as well with Ibn Masawi. Ibn Ishaq was a bit of an annoying student. Apparently, he kept asking question after question after question until his teacher, Ibn Masawi, kicked him out of class.
Deana Hassanein: He was that student. But thinking about that as a lecturer, as a professor, would you not love it when students ask you questions?
Ali Olomi: I love students like that.
Deana Hassanein: Do you think it was maybe an ego thing?
Ali Olomi: Maybe.
Deana Hassanein: I can kind of see you asking a lot of questions, Ali, as a student.
Ali Olomi: Nah, I was too rebellious.
Deana Hassanein: You? Okay, warrior nerd. But obviously, Ibn Ishaq was brilliant regardless of how things went down with Ibn Masawi. He goes from humble but annoying student to the head of the house of wisdom. And that's quite a climb.
Ali Olomi: In fact, they actually reconcile at some point. Ibn Ishaq goes away to master more languages, specifically Greek, so that he can get a strong grasp over medicine. And he comes back to Baghdad where he meets his old teacher and he shows off by reciting the complete works of Homer in Greek.
Deana Hassanein: That must have felt so good to be able to come back and show up your teacher. It's definitely something I would have loved to do. I can see why he goes on to become the head of the entire house of wisdom project. He worked so hard to get to where he did.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, and under him, the house of wisdom really flourishes. His translations were numerous. He translated more texts than absolutely anyone, adding new contributions to the field. He actually had a very interesting approach to translation. He was the expert in Greek and Syriac, so he would translate from Greek into the Syriac. And then he would have his son and his nephew translate from the Syriac into the Arabic.
Deana Hassanein: That's probably why he was so prolific. He had a conveyor belt like technique. I love that he collaborated in that way. You know, each book is a product of not just one person, but many people working on it together.
Ali Olomi: A true community of scholars all working in partnership. But of course, his greatest works were in the field of medicine.
Deana Hassanein: That is what he's known for after all. In addition to being the head of the house of wisdom, he was the personal physician to many caliphs.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, he advised al-Ma'mun, but from al-Mutawakkil on, he would be the court physician, the chief physician, in addition to being the head of the house of wisdom. Though I don't know what it says about him that he outlived so many of his patients.
Deana Hassanein: Or maybe he actually took his own advice. Maybe those patients didn't listen.
Ali Olomi: I mean, he did have a pretty long life.
Deana Hassanein: And he accomplished a lot in his time.
Ali Olomi: He definitely did. But it was also a very, very cushy job. I mean, you had to keep the favor of the caliph, but if you managed to do so, it was a good way to live. The Banu Musa, who were students, eventually become very wealthy, and they added on top of what the caliph did, which is why he's so interesting, because it tells us the ordinary life of a scholar.
Deana Hassanein: So what was a normal day like for him?
Ali Olomi: We have a biographer who talks a little bit about Ibn Ishaq's day. So I'm going to quote, after writing, he would have water poured on him. He would lie down until he stopped perspiring. Sometimes he would fall asleep. Then he would get up and burn perfumes to fumigate his body and have dinner brought in.
Deana Hassanein: That sounds like a nice life. Go for a nice ride, bathe, nap, eat. But despite all of that, he's still got a lot done, which is something I couldn't even imagine trying to do.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, he really did. Just his theories of medicine alone were incredibly important. He translated the most definitive work of Galen's, which laid the foundation of medicine.
Deana Hassanein: So he's the founder of a new school of medicine. Well, an Islamic science of medicine.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, it's called Tebunoni. It's a fusion of Greek, Arabic, Indic, and Syriac medical techniques, drawing upon Galen's and Hippocrates. It actually theorizes that everyone is made up of four different humors. And maybe we can take a look and see which humor you are, Deana, and which humor I am. So the four are hot and dry, cold and wet, hot and wet, and cold and dry. So hot and dry is someone who is inflexible, but passionate, and they are sort of aggressive, impulsive. Cold and wet is a person who is adaptable, but reserved. Hot and wet is a person who is adaptable, but social. And cold and dry is a person who is inflexible, but reserved.
Deana Hassanein: Which one are you, Ali?
Ali Olomi: I think I'm cold and dry. I'm very reserved, but I'm very set in my ways.
Deana Hassanein: I'm hot and wet, definitely. I'm very adaptable, I'm very social.
Ali Olomi: So you've got that social component.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, I have a lot of hot and dry friends, though. I don't know if you can relate. A lot.
Ali Olomi: I can definitely relate. And this entire scheme was the key to health because it was the balance of the humors, the harmony between mind, body, and spirit.
Deana Hassanein: So tell me a bit about the techniques they use for maintaining that balance in their health.
Ali Olomi: So they had a few different techniques. First was dietary and nutrition, changing the way you ate and what you ate. They had medicinal compounds that they would take. They even had cupping and body manipulation.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, like in the Hamem?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, and then they also had surgery and bloodletting.
Deana Hassanein: Surgery sounds very dangerous. Even today there's always a risk of infection and recovery can be a real challenge.
Ali Olomi: They do mention that surgery was the most dangerous approach and so they were very sparing when they were doing it and very careful in applying it. But they also developed some really new antiseptic techniques which they could use in some of those surgeries.
Deana Hassanein: Having said that, Ali, we do hear a lot of horror stories about amputations.
Ali Olomi: I mean, mostly they did things like C-sections and eye surgery for cataracts, but there's actually a funny story about an amputation that I gotta tell you. So there's this guy named Usama ibn Munqith who's living during the Crusades and he's in Jerusalem and he comes across a man who has an abscess on his leg and he and a Crusader doctor try to treat this man. Usama ibn Munqith, being an expert in Islamic medicine, he applies a poultice, an herbal mixture wrapped up in a bandage and places it on the abscess and says, we will cleanse it, purify it and it will go away. The Crusader doctor on the other hand goes, nope, you've got to lose the leg. You have a choice, die with two legs or live with one leg. So he calls for an axe and there goes the man's leg. Usama ibn Munqith is so shocked by this that he says, never again will I treat these barbarians. But if I'm being honest with you, I think Usama ibn Munqith was exaggerating a tad.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, so he likes to brag.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, a little bit.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, let's get back to the eye surgery because that really stood out and blows my mind. Surgery on the eye back then?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, this is ibn Ishaq's specialty. His contributions to eye medicine were incredible. His diagrams, in fact, were so advanced that they became the standard for the next 900 years.
Deana Hassanein: I really wanna know more about some of the other treatments. Can you give me some recipes from Islamic medicine? For example, if I have a headache, what should I do?
Ali Olomi: All right, so I'm gonna read some of his formulas. If you have a headache, particularly a headache from heat, what you're supposed to do is get a towel with cool water. You're supposed to put camphor oil on it or fumigate it with camphor and place it upon your head as a compress until the headache goes away.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, what if I had tummy problems or like a common cold?
Ali Olomi: All right, here he says, take one teaspoon or one part violet flowers and boil them in three cups of water for several minutes, then strain them and take it on an empty stomach.
Deana Hassanein: So not a cold and flu tablet then?
Ali Olomi: No, but we're getting complex and simple medicine techniques here. Very interesting.
Deana Hassanein: Totally, really intriguing stuff. And we're really seeing a turning point in knowledge and science in this time period and Ibn Ishaq's influence is all over it. This humble Christian man who learned Greek and became a translator and physician would transform the world of medicine and learning. And we still have so many more cool people to visit. Thank you for coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was Arib al'Mamuniyya?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travelers, welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I'm Deana–
Ali Olomi: –and I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, we've visited some interesting scientists and scholars the past few episodes. I'm ready to change it up.
Ali Olomi: I feel you. Let's hang out with one of the most interesting people of this time period and probably one of my favorite, Arib al-Mu'miniyya.
Deana Hassanein: Finally, let's talk about the women. We've already got a glimpse of some of the interesting women of this era in the last season. We talked about brilliant queens like Khayzuran and Zubaydah, politically savvy with rich lives.
Ali Olomi: And Arib lives up to that as well. Hers is an interesting tale and one that is linked to a story we've already looked at, the fall of the Barmakids.
Deana Hassanein: I remember them. The Barmakids were a powerful family of viziers who were in charge of the politics of the court. The Abbasids relied on their expertise until there was a falling out with Harun al-Rashid and they were stripped of their power.
Ali Olomi: Right, and with the war of the two brothers, the power of the Barmakids came to an end. But while their power was gone, it was not the end of their story. Supposedly, Arib was the daughter of one of the Barmakids who had been stolen away in the dead of the night from the family and so survived the fall of her house.
Deana Hassanein: The last survivor of a great house. What happened to her, Ali?
Ali Olomi: Supposedly, she was sold into slavery and lived the early portion of her life as an enslaved woman. For all the achievements of the Abbasids, this was still a slave society, very much like the empires that came before them, like the Persians and the Romans.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, let's talk a little bit about this so we can understand Arib's life a bit better. How was the life of a slave like in this time period?
Ali Olomi: The life of a slave was hard. They had little to no freedom and were sold to the wealthy. They often occupied the lowest rung of society, though not always, as some could become advisors and members of the royal court. Most slaves were taken into captivity during war or conquest and some were enslaved on a contractual basis, kind of like an indentured servitude. In either case, they were stripped of their freedom and put into mostly domestic labour. It was a hard life and an unjust one.
Deana Hassanein: Tell me a bit more about the jobs that slaves did, because you just said that some of them could be found in the royal court.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I mean, some were soldiers who occupied a position similar to mercenaries. They received booty and a stipend in turn for fighting.
Deana Hassanein: When you say booty, you mean treasure?
Ali Olomi: We mean treasure, yes, that booty. Most were domestic servants in the household. They too were kind of paid a small amount and others were in the royal court as advisors, counselors and even some entertainers.
Deana Hassanein: So they could be advisors, not just doing domestic work in the palace?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, because they were enslaved, they were part of society, not just outside of it. It was a social class that meant that they could move up in the social ranks. Certain enslaved people, while still not free, held a lot of power. Eventually, some of them, like the Mamluks, would found their own dynasty and rule over places like Egypt for centuries. But those were exceptions on the whole because slaves had little to no freedom.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, I'm trying to understand this a little more. How could a slave have power if they weren't free? You have a system in place to enslave people, but some of those same people can become rulers. I don't get it.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I think it's partly because the enslaved were sometimes treated as the most trusted members of society. Unlike political figures, a ruler could rely on those that were directly under his command and under his pay. So there was a trade-off. You lost your freedom, but you gained access to the caliph or ruler. But it's not like you had much choice either.
Deana Hassanein: So that's important to understand Uribe, I'm guessing, because she starts off as a daughter of a noble household and then is sold into slavery. So it's a big change in her situation, the loss of her freedom and the challenges of a life as a slave. You usually hear the reverse.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, her origins are a bit murky at best and we don't actually know if she was sold into slavery or born into it. But either way, large parts of her life were enslaved. She was part of those entertainers who were enslaved. She lived from 798 to 890, so a pretty long life. And at some point, she catches the eye of Al-Amin, the caliph who was particularly interested in poetry. And Uribe was well trained in poetry.
Deana Hassanein: Al-Amin was one of the caliphs who fought in the war of the two brothers, the loser of the two.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I mean, that's fair. He did lose the war pretty spectacularly.
Deana Hassanein: So she was caught up in the civil war. What happened to her afterwards?
Ali Olomi: Once Al-Ma'mun wins, he ends up buying her and it's possible she becomes his concubine or his lover.
Deana Hassanein: We know how important poetry was to the Abbasids and in Islamic culture. So being a poet was very important. I'm thinking this is why she became a favourite of the caliphs.
Ali Olomi: I think so too. If the Barmageddon connection is true, then she may have been trained by Mukharik, who was already the most famous poet and musician of the time. Uribe would go on in her own right to become the most famous, especially with the oud.
Deana Hassanein: We have ouds in Egypt. They're this stringed instrument with a small neck and a roundish body. They have a beautiful sound. I could honestly just sit there for hours and listen to someone play the oud.
Ali Olomi: Oh yeah. And along with the lute, the oud is really the predecessor to the guitar, which surprisingly enough, comes from the Arabic qitara. So that's your fun fact of the day.
Deana Hassanein: I love a fun fact. I also like the idea that the oud, which we know today, would have been played in the streets and courts of medieval Baghdad. That's a really nice thing to think about because they make such beautiful music. I would have loved to sit there and listen to some of the music from this moment in history because Arab and North African music is a huge passion of mine.
Ali Olomi: Oh, me too. And Arib was said to be the best of them. She once held a competition between her and her students versus a rival, a young group poet and musician, Sharia.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, like a music competition, kind of like The Voice, medieval Baghdad style.
Ali Olomi: Yes. Can you imagine? All the drama too. This competition actually took place in Samarra. The city was divided into two teams, hashtag team Arib and hashtag team Sharia, and each side used applause to show their support. They took turns with like cutting verses and clever lyrics, each side rising in thunderous applause, almost like a rap battle.
Deana Hassanein: Who won?
Ali Olomi: The legend herself, Arib.
Deana Hassanein: Okay. I liked her before, but now I'm loving her even more. What's not to like about a woman who can kick ass with music and poetry?
Ali Olomi: I mean, she impresses caliph after caliph, from Al-Amin to Al-Ma'mun. Al-Ma'mun's successor and younger brother, in fact, Al-Mutasim, will grant her manumission, letting her go free.
Deana Hassanein: From an enslaved woman to a free woman, she used her wits to work her way up Abbasid society until she's free.
Ali Olomi: And she makes the absolute most of it. She goes on to earn a reputation not only as the favorite singer and poet of the Caliphs, but as a savvy businesswoman.
Deana Hassanein: And we know from our previous episodes and previous discussions that women could participate in trade and own their own wealth in this time period.
Ali Olomi: She becomes an incredibly wealthy woman, actually.
Deana Hassanein: The arc of her life is fascinating, though, because I'm trying to think of a more compelling life to go from enslaved, where your freedom is stripped, to becoming a powerful and wealthy free woman.
Ali Olomi: I mean, it speaks to the tenacity and willpower, but also the complexities of Abbasid society.
Deana Hassanein: I just really want her to have a happy ending at this point in time. She has been through too much, and I'm rooting for her.
Ali Olomi: Your wish comes true. She ends up taking on many, many lovers over time, and several powerful people, including the Caliphs, are among her patrons, and some are even her lovers. She goes on to live to the ripe old age, roughly around over 90 years.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, what a full and rich life. She really lived by her wits, and her ability in poetry and music helped her ascend to new heights.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. In a time where literacy was prized and learning was valued, she was intelligent, educated, literate, a lyrical genius, skilled in chess, calligraphy, and poetry. It's no wonder she became a medieval rock star. And like a rock star, she was also pretty controversial.
Deana Hassanein: A little bit of controversy makes life worth living, though, Ali, right?
Ali Olomi: So according to Matthew Gordon, once, during the time that she was enslaved, she ran away from her master to be with her lover, Ibn Hamid. So her master takes the matter to the Caliph, where Ibn Hamid, who's brought before them, refuses to reveal where Arib is. So the Caliph plans to have him flogged. But right before that punishment, Arib shows up in dramatic fashion and shouts, I am Arib. If I am a slave, then he should sell me. But if I am free, then he has no claim on me. This he being her master, of course. She, in fact, forces the matter to court. On top of all that, her poetry and music was really, really raunchy, and she even bragged about sleeping with something like seven to eight Caliphs during her lifetime and spurning many others.
Deana Hassanein: That must not have gone down well.
Ali Olomi: She's all over the place.
Deana Hassanein: She is. She's so chaotic. But at the same time, she's fighting for her freedom in court, and even the Caliphs were her groupies, and I think that's pretty cool. I can see why they were obsessed with her. It's hard not to be obsessed with a woman like this. Ali, we have to do proper justice, though. Can you read me some of her poetry, please?
Ali Olomi: All right. Why don't we take turns? I'll read one from Uthari's translation. To you, your treachery is a virtue. You have many faces and ten tongues. I am surprised my heart still clings to you in spite of what you put me through.
Deana Hassanein: That's quite deep. I quite like this one translated by Matthew Caswell. As for the lover, he went away. In spite of and against my will, I erred in being separated from one for whom I have found no substitute because of his absence from my sights.
Ali Olomi: That's so good. So there's this one poem by Arib that's one of my favorites, because it goes right to what we're all experiencing, even in today's world. And it's about a cold and distant lover, and she talks about how she apologized, but he didn't accept the apology, and how her body aches for him in a bad way. Deana, why don't you read the Arabic for us? Oh, straight to my heart. I'm telling you, a rock star.
Deana Hassanein: I know, Ali, and I think we can all relate to heartbreak, but they just don't do poetry quite like that anymore. You know what, Ali? Arib is definitely my favorite so far. Her life is so interesting and complex, from an enslaved woman to a wealthy and powerful woman. She freed herself, and with her wit and poetry, winning music battles and winning the hearts of the caliphs. I'm looking forward to meeting more historical figures, but good luck, Ali, finding someone who impresses me more than Arib. Thank you all for coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was al-Jahiz?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travellers and welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, the life story of Arib has really sparked my curiosity and I am ready for more. Can we visit another scholar maybe? Someone as interesting as Arib?
Ali Olomi: Let's do it. Let's take a walk to Al-Jahiz's house which is really nearby.
Deana Hassanein: Hold on. Al-Jahiz? Doesn't that mean...
Ali Olomi: Bug-Eyed. It's a horrible nickname.
Deana Hassanein: Ouch, poor guy. Honestly, a nickname can really affect you.
Ali Olomi: It really can.
Deana Hassanein: Did you have one growing up, Ali?
Ali Olomi: No, but that Prince Ali song was the bane of my existence. Kids could come up with the most creative lyrics, let me tell you. How about you, Deana?
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, kids can be really mean. I had loans because I had a monoprow when I was in school. So I'll let you run wild with your imagination and what the kids could have called me. But, I mean, Bug-Eyed, that must have been a really tough childhood for Al-Jahiz.
Ali Olomi: It was not an easy early life for him. I mean, he grew up very, very poor in the city of Basra. He used to fish in one of the canals in order to help support his family.
Deana Hassanein: A very different life from the Banu Musa who grew up in the courts and enjoyed the power and wealth of their patrons, the Caliphs.
Ali Olomi: Al-Jahiz and the Banu Musa come from two completely different social worlds, but they really were united by their love of learning.
Deana Hassanein: And I remember you mentioning that the House of Wisdom is open to everyone, even if you're poor. But I know that it would be a lot harder to have access to the type of knowledge and learning that the wealthy and powerful have. The Banu Musa had one-on-one tuition in the House of Wisdom. So what did Al-Jahiz have?
Ali Olomi: I mean, access was so different based on class. But I mean, thanks to that Abbasid cultural renaissance and that availability of paper that we talked about, books became increasingly accessible. What the House of Wisdom would produce would eventually be sold in local bookshops, and that's how he would gain access. So sort of filtering down, if you will.
Deana Hassanein: And we know very well that Medieval Baghdad really valued, as a culture, learning and knowledge. They would want books to be widely spread. They would want people to learn. And thanks to the availability of books, there were more and more people who were literate.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I mean, learning and education was one of the few ways that the Abbasids had real social mobility. If you became learned, it didn't matter what your background was, actually.
Deana Hassanein: So you could be a poor kid fishing in canals, but still become a scholar. A very meritocratic society.
Ali Olomi: And that's Al-Jahiz. He actually used to hang out near the local mosque where he and his other young friends would listen in to the latest theories and the philosophies. Basra, the city that he was in, was reputed to be a major intellectual centre for language and grammar. So they would listen in, and then Al-Jahiz and his friends would have debates of their own right out in the streets.
Deana Hassanein: Like a medieval version of those dude podcasts, but less annoying.
Ali Olomi: Definitely more interesting.
Deana Hassanein: So Al-Jahiz worked his way up. He earned his knowledge bit by bit. That can't have been easy.
Ali Olomi: Quite literally. His learning was really hard. And he had to gain his knowledge little by little. But he was an incredibly prolific writer. In fact, at one point he supposedly wrote a treatise about the Caliphate and that captures the attention of Al-Ma'mun.
Deana Hassanein: And we should all remember that Al-Ma'mun was the Caliph who really treasured scholarship, just like his father. So all the Caliphs loved knowledge, but Al-Ma'mun, as we know, hosted debates and even was a bit of a scholar himself.
Ali Olomi: He fancied himself a philosopher king of sorts.
Deana Hassanein: So catching the attention of Al-Ma'mun would have been huge for Al-Jahiz. It could literally change his life.
Ali Olomi: And it did. He was invited to Baghdad, where he would now be among the very scholars he was reading. He would no longer need to fish for a living and instead live off his knowledge and his books.
Deana Hassanein: I really love the stories of people who work hard at what they're really passionate about and are rewarded for it. Al-Jahiz's humble origins are somewhat similar to Arib from the previous episode, who started off as a slave and became wealthy in her own right.
Ali Olomi: And what's fascinating is that we're seeing these people change their social class, like you mentioned, Arib. From medieval city or a time and place that's bound by lineage and dynasties, there are these people who absolutely change their lot in life, whether through skill or knowledge. And that's partly because of the Abbasids themselves, because they cherished learning.
Deana Hassanein: When I look back at history and society, I never really think about people climbing social ladders. Something that's beautiful from the discussions we've had is that there really is a chance for people to gain knowledge and change their life.
Ali Olomi: Right. For Al-Jahiz, it meant that he could now live the life he loved more than anything else, the life of a scholar. And he truly loved learning. He truly loved knowledge. And now he could make a living off of it.
Deana Hassanein: He's a scholar's scholar then. With some like the Banu Musa, they put their research and studies in service of the Caliph, but Al-Jahiz seems to do what he does for the sake of learning itself.
Ali Olomi: I love that. I'm going to borrow that from when I describe Al-Jahiz, Deana. So the biographer Ibn Nadim tells a story of how Al-Jahiz would stop at a bookstore, pick up a book and read the whole thing right then and there. Nothing could stop him from reading. He was truly a book nerd.
Deana Hassanein: They didn't make him pay for the book he just read?
Ali Olomi: He would just pick up a book and read it right there.
Deana Hassanein: He must have loved Baghdad then, because I remember last season, we talked about Al-Mutanabi, the book markets overflowing with books.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, he was in his element. And honestly, many of those books he wrote himself.
Deana Hassanein: Did he write even more than Ibn Aisha, the head of the House of Wisdom?
Ali Olomi: Maybe. I mean, he's credited with writing over 200 books covering a range of topics from grammar to humour to religion, politics and science.
Deana Hassanein: 200 books in a single lifetime?
Ali Olomi: Uh-huh.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my God, I think that really drives home how different this time was. If the Khalif or someone wealthy patronised you, you then could spend your entire life writing.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I mean, it's a good life.
Deana Hassanein: I mean, today, even if someone is prolific, Ali, 200 books is huge. I'm not over that.
Ali Olomi: It is a really wild number. It's kind of goals, to be honest, if you're an author. But that was, you know, the life he always wanted growing up. We mentioned that learning in the Islamic period had kind of two impulses, remember?
Deana Hassanein: Yes, I remember. It was encyclopedic knowledge and investigative knowledge.
Ali Olomi: Right. So Al-Jahiz was drawn to that encyclopedic style of knowledge and writing. He saw himself as a witness recording the world around him. So that's why he was so prolific.
Deana Hassanein: OK, so he wrote books on his observations, what he saw. Can I then say that's ancient medieval journaling?
Ali Olomi: I love that. That's a great description. These were medieval journals of sorts.

These were medieval versions of encyclopedias, cataloguing the knowledge of his day while also, of course, expanding it.

Deana Hassanein: And these aren't small texts. I'm talking encyclopedic-like books. He's writing in a large scale, large texts.
Ali Olomi: With multiple volumes.
Deana Hassanein: I can envision it now, a medieval version of the Encyclopedia Britannica spanning multiple volumes, thick with knowledge.
Ali Olomi: Oh, that's perfect. I always wanted those Encyclopedia Britannica in your house. That's how you knew you were a real book nerd is when you had those collections. And it's really that love of books that he had that made him one of these great book collectors. So not only an author, but an amazing book collector in his own right. It's said that his library, his personal library, was absolutely massive.
Deana Hassanein: And I guess that makes total sense. He grew up very hungry for learning.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, he would have to earn these books the hard way, gather sort of snippets of knowledge here or there from passing scholars.
Deana Hassanein: And now when he's made it, he enjoys the wealth he spends on the things he wanted the most growing up, books. That's beautiful. Ali, let's talk a little bit about the books he wrote. We can't just skip past this 200.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, they cover a wide range of topics from grammar to religion to rhetoric and to science. One of his most favourite books and probably his most famous, in my humble opinion, is the Kitab al-Hayawan or the Book of Animals.
Deana Hassanein: I love animals, as you know. What's your favourite animal, Ali?
Ali Olomi: I'd have to say cats and otters. Don't you have a very cute dog?
Deana Hassanein: I do. I have a stubborn Shiba Inu called Leela. She's beautiful and she's cute and fluffy and white.
Ali Olomi: That's so cute. So the Book of Animals is this massive encyclopedia cataloguing all the different species of animals there are out there. It also has, and this is the most fascinating bit, some early hints of the theory of evolution. Maybe not the complete theory, but Jahiz really speculates on the role of the environment on different animals. Why some animals have fur, some have horns, that the environment shapes them that way.
Deana Hassanein: I really love how the thinkers of this time were always looking at changing the way they see the world or trying to take notes of what's different. Am I right in saying that his theory came before Darwin's theory of evolution then?
Ali Olomi: Oh, yeah. He's almost a thousand years before Darwin. That really puts into perspective how radical what he's doing is. It kind of blows your mind. Again, it's not like the full theory of evolution, but a thousand years before Darwin, he's already introducing this environmental component that wouldn't be picked up in the rest of the world a thousand years later. He even uses that same environmental theory to talk about his fellow humans. He talks about race. He's one of the earliest thinkers talking about race and why people are different. He rejects some of the racist theories about, for example, Africans being cursed by God. He writes, in fact, I quote, the Zanj, which is the name for sort of East Africans or people from Africa, and we'll talk about the Zanj in a future episode. He says that the Zanj say that God did not make them black to disfigure them. Rather, it is their environment that made them so. The best evidence of this is that there are black tribes among the Arabs. I mean, we're talking about stuff from a thousand years ago, and he's talking about scientific theories of difference.
Deana Hassanein: That is honestly so amazing. And his observations line up even today. We are shaped by our environment. That is true. And maybe he didn't explicitly talk about evolution or name it evolution, but he knew about the impact of the environment.
Ali Olomi: Oh, absolutely. And he takes his theories even further. The idea that the environment and the climate has an impact on your health, so that if you felt sick or poorly, it wasn't just that you were cursed or you were facing a demon or a spirit, but maybe it was from the heat. Maybe it was from the climate that doesn't mesh with your own internal climate.
Deana Hassanein: That reminds me of Ibn Ishaq's theory about hot and cold, dry and wet.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, so they're really thinking of a holistic understanding of health, climate, diet. So you can see that Ibn Ishaq and al-Jahiz are lining up their theories, whether they're talking about your internal balance or they're talking about the environment around you. It's a really, really brilliant time, and al-Jahiz is a brilliant guy. And I got to say, I would like to think that he went out the way he wanted.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, what do you mean? I'm almost afraid to ask.
Ali Olomi: Do you remember that massive library of his?
Deana Hassanein: Oh God, yeah.
Ali Olomi: Well, when he was in his 90s, one of the piles of books toppled over and it ended up killing him.
Deana Hassanein: No way. Ali, we can't end the podcast on that note.
Ali Olomi: Honestly, I kind of would like to go out that way as well.
Deana Hassanein: You and your warrior nerd stuff. Stop saying that.
Ali Olomi: All right, you're right. We can't end it on that note. So let me just end it by saying, in addition to his scientific writings, al-Jahiz was a really, really funny guy. He was a humorist. He, in fact, wrote a book called The Book of Misers, where he complains about all the greedy people and stingy people in the world. And one of the people he complains about is al-Kindi. Do you remember al-Kindi?
Deana Hassanein: Oh, the man who had his books confiscated by Banu Musa.
Ali Olomi: That's right. Maybe now, once you hear this story, we'll say, okay, he deserved to have his books confiscated. Because according to al-Jahiz, one time he had guests over in his nice house and the guests came with their family members. All went well until the end of the visit when al-Kindi slaps them with a bill for all the food and board. This is like a medieval version of Airbnb from A Nightmare.
Deana Hassanein: That is a huge no-no in Arab culture. We're very much, we'll cover the bill. We're inviting you into our home. It's all on us. So I can't even imagine someone doing that.
Ali Olomi: Oh, yeah. I mean, breaking taboos around generosity and hosting, it's al-Jahiz gives them a poke for a reason.
Deana Hassanein: And what's worse is that al-Jahiz has written it. And you're going to see that forever. He will always be known as the stingy, stingy person.
Ali Olomi: Yeah. In addition to being a great philosopher, we will always remember that al-Kindi had this other side to him.
Deana Hassanein: What a life al-Jahiz had from a poor boy selling fish to one of the greatest scholars in medieval Baghdad, author to hundreds of books, an encyclopedia thinker, and a bookworm. Thinking about the scientific impact of the natural world on humans and animals as well. And I can see why we visited al-Jahiz. Little by little, we are seeing all the diverse people of this historic city, figures that are part of Assassin's Creed Mirage. Thank you for coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was al-Mutawakkil?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers, and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travelers, welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: You know Ali, I've loved hanging out with all the scholars, but I'm sort of missing the juicy politics, especially after all the drama of the war of the two brothers.
Ali Olomi: How about this Deana, let's visit in with the Caliphs and see what they've been up to since we last saw them.
Deana Hassanein: Yes, let's visit the palace. Who's the Caliph now?
Ali Olomi: Well, here's the issue. We first have to decide which palace.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, good point. We have the splendid palaces, the Palace of the Golden Gate or the Palace of Eternity.
Ali Olomi: And by this time in the ninth century, there were even more. You see, after the war with the two brothers, something had shifted in the Abbasid empire.
Deana Hassanein: Al-Ma'mun stabilized the empire after the civil war and had re-established the Caliphate. But things were different now. The Abbasids were a powerful family still, but they had to manage even more factions.
Ali Olomi: And that would become a major challenge for them. So after Al-Ma'mun dies unexpectedly, his younger brother Al-Mu’tasim becomes Caliph. And he does something extraordinary. He builds a new capital.
Deana Hassanein: Wait, wait, wait. But what about Baghdad? What about its symbolism, its location and its history? That's literally like a president deciding to build a new capital instead of D.C. or a prime minister deciding a new capital instead of London.
Ali Olomi: That was kind of the problem. Baghdad had too much history. Mu’tasim wanted a clean break, somewhere he could consolidate power for himself. So he moved a little north by about 60 miles or so and established Samarra in 836 CE.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, so close enough to Baghdad that he could travel there, but somewhere completely his own that was still connected to the round city. How did everyone react, Ali? I mean, Baghdad was such an important symbolic force in Abbasid politics.
Ali Olomi: I mean, there was definitely a great deal of controversy, but Mu’tasim had created a private army of sorts. The war of the two brothers had highlighted that tension between the different political and military factions. So he wanted an army directly loyal to him.

And when you have an army directly loyal to you, people can't say too much.

Deana Hassanein: Ah, now I'm starting to see. New city, new army, a very clever strategy that would centralise power in the caliph.
Ali Olomi: So he brought in these Turkish soldiers described as mercenaries or slave soldiers. Our old friend, actually, al-Jahiz, called them the best of warriors, masters of the horse and archery.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, that would make them a very strong base to build your support on. A strong, loyal army, your own capital. Al-Mu’tasim was changing the caliphate completely.
Ali Olomi: And Samarra would reflect that. As we arrived, we would see these grand palaces larger than the ones we've seen in Baghdad. A beautiful new grand mosque with a spiralling minaret and fortresses of guards all around.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, there's actually a mosque in Cairo, Mosque of Ibn Tulun, and it has a spiral there as well. Is that what inspired it?
Ali Olomi: Yes, inspired from Samarra.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, okay. So Samarra would be the military and political capital and Baghdad would be the capital for the people, the cultural hub.
Ali Olomi: Very much so. But this new militaristic warrior caliphate could only be supported if the caliph himself was a warrior who could command the loyalty of this new powerful elite guard. So for example, Mu’tasim himself would lead expeditions. In 838, he would lead his new Turkish army against the Ophilos in the battle against the Byzantine Empire. He would defeat them and personally take the gates of the city back to his new city and set it up as the gate to his own palace.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, really cementing a new style for the Abbasids here. A warrior city for a warrior caliph. But if you weren't a warrior caliph, you could get into trouble. The same force that was meant to be loyal could also be difficult to manage.
Ali Olomi: And that's what happens to Mutawakkil. So let's travel to Samarra. We take a comfortable barge up the river, floating out of Baghdad with its bustle and cacophony of color and sound. We make our way up north to the new city of Samarra. It's entirely different. It's a city of palaces and soldiers, where Baghdad was a city of science, of mathematics and celestial harmony, all reflecting the glory of God and of course, subtly the caliph. Samarra was purely about the caliph. One medieval historian describes it and says, the caliph had it decorated with great images of gold and silver and made a great pool whose surface inside and out was in plates of silver. He put on it a tree made of gold in which birds tweeted and whistled. These were the birds and trees we talked about with the Banu Musa, that mechanical tree that they made. This is the description of it. He had a great throne made of gold, which there were two images of huge lions and the steps to it had images of lions and eagles and other things, just like the throne of Solomon.
Deana Hassanein: I love your descriptions, Ali. It's my favourite part of this, by the way. And I love...
Ali Olomi: Credit to the medieval historians.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, but it's the way you delivered it. Let me get this straight. Samarra is a city of soldiers. It's a military city. It's a city that completely centres the Caliph and a city that's separate from the population of Baghdad, separated by a wall of soldiers.
Ali Olomi: And I mean, think about what that means when the palace is surrounded by military garrisons. Under Mu’tasim, it was a symbol of how powerful the Caliph was. Under Mutawakkil, it would be a threat to the Caliph himself.
Deana Hassanein: It's a real shift from what we've discussed about everything being accessible, like the palace or the house of wisdom. And I can already see where this is headed. I'm assuming Mutawakkil is a very different sort of Caliph than his father.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, where Mutasim was a warrior Caliph, al-Mutawakkil was an artsy Caliph. After his brother died, he was appointed by several powerful members of Samarra's court and he immediately began ousting those figures.
Deana Hassanein: Probably not a good idea to take on powerful figures right at the beginning of your reign. It sounds like a really good way to make enemies. I mean, we talked about the difference between smart management and bad management. Don't change things too quickly.
Ali Olomi: True, but al-Mutawakkil had some grudges to settle. In fact, there was this advisor, Ibn al-Zayt, who he had come to and asked for help and Ibn al-Zayt had publicly embarrassed him. So Mutawakkil waited, keeping those hate fires burning until he became Caliph and then he stripped him of all his possessions, threw him in jail and kept him alive for days until he died from lack of sleep.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, now that is a dish best served cold. Maybe not a good idea though to piss off someone who's eventually going to be a ruler?
Ali Olomi: Never a wise idea. But I mean, it really speaks to Mutawakkil's insecure position also. He did not command the same loyalty of others. Only a year later, he would do the same thing to Ettach, the head of the Guard. In 848, the head of the Turkish Guard would be forced to go on pilgrimage and once there, all his property would be confiscated. So when Ettach returns, it's easy to execute him.
Deana Hassanein: It sounds like he is consolidating his power in a way. He's removing all the powerful members of Samarra's court and establishing a new base.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, Mutawakkil is moving that capital away from a military one established by his father and creating a new one based off of this idea of splendor.
Deana Hassanein: I like the idea of splendor. I'm envisioning imposing but beautiful courts, people with colorful robes, poets reciting poetry, elaborate feasts, and courtiers flocking around the caliph.
Ali Olomi: Ah, your visions are true. For Mutawakkil, he would adopt this more Persian style of monarchy and prestige and the culture adapted with him. It became more luxuriant, more ostentatious. They went from this warrior, scholarly elite of Furosiye that we talked about last season to Zarifa or Zarif.
Deana Hassanein: In Arabic, Zarifa would mean interesting. This is still true to this day. It is the art of conversation, of symbolism and interaction. Everything has a meaning. You know, the gift you give, the color of the clothes you wear, the food you present. It's a culture of communication where everything you do conveys something. It governs hospitality and parties and social interactions and all of it is tied to poetry and its symbolism. We're a deep people.
Ali Olomi: That's very true. It's a very beautiful and artistic style of etiquette. I mean, even the gardens would have further symbolism in this time period. New types of flowers and plants were introduced by Mutawakkil. He was particularly obsessed with the rose.
Deana Hassanein: The rose! Is that why so many Middle Eastern gardens have roses today, Ali?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, a lot of the cultural values we've talked about, whether that spiral minaret or now roses or even the culture of Zarifa and Zarif come from this time period. He, in fact, used to call the rose the king of flowers. So he had them planted everywhere. He was also obsessed with oud.
Deana Hassanein: Oh my God. Middle Easterners are still obsessed with it, Ali. They love oud. It's in like every fragrance. It's a deep woody smell and it's burned in incense on burners, especially if you go into a home, but it's also put in a lot of perfumes and it's super expensive.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I think it's called black gold or something like that, right?
Deana Hassanein: Correct. Yeah, that's right.
Ali Olomi: So al-Mutawakkil actually heard about this scent that was so heavenly and so he sends his envoy all the way to India to go and get some for him.
Deana Hassanein: That's passion right there.
Ali Olomi: It really is. Go to India and get me some perfume.
Deana Hassanein: I know, right? If only... I mean, we can do that now online shopping, right? The gardens have been so fragrant and beautiful with all the importing of flowers and resins and plants. We have a little bit of garden revolution on our hands.
Ali Olomi: I mean, gardens were always important, but now they became even more so. It became a cultural practice, in fact, to nap in your garden near the running water fountain to keep cool. And that makes sense. It's a very hot area. So the garden with the water would be the coolest place. There was a very famous poet, Ibrahim al-Musali, who would nap in this garden where two jinn in the form of cats would come and teach him poetry. But they warned him that if he ever taught his poetry to anyone else, they would turn those people into cats.
Deana Hassanein: Is that a bad thing?
Ali Olomi: I don't think so.
Deana Hassanein: To be turned into a cat?
Ali Olomi: I kind of like cats. It's a good life.
Deana Hassanein: I was just going to say they have a very sweet life. Cat teachers. I mean, that is a new one. Honestly, this all sounds very heavenly. Beautiful gardens, luxurious courts, fun poetry. I just don't see the problem, Ali.
Ali Olomi: Well, if you build a military city with a new type of politics based on the military and then you spend your times building gardens and having parties, you're probably going to piss off that military.
Deana Hassanein: And in a city like Samara, you are literally surrounded by the new soldiers you've elevated. Garrisons all around. But I have to ask, Ali, why were they so annoyed that he was enjoying his time in the gardens?
Ali Olomi: Well, they wanted war. They're soldiers. They wanted more action. Because if they get action, they get booty. They get treasure. They get gold. And that was Mutawakkil's undoing. One night when he had gathered with his close friends, he was drinking and eating. His own Turkish guards decided that they were going to bring him to an end. They wanted a new caliph, a warrior caliph that would lead them into battle and bring them new wealth. So in the dead of the night, when the caliph had been just a little drunk, having just a little bit too much wine, they snuck into the palace. They were the guards who were going to question them. Led by Bugha the Ox, they march into the caliph's throne room. The caliph's friends throw themselves over the caliph in order to protect him. But they swing with their swords, killing them first. Then they strike at the caliph. For the first time, the white robes of the caliph would be stained with blood.
Deana Hassanein: The murder of a caliph. Caliphs have been killed before, but this seems very different, Ali. Your own troops turning on you. It also really makes clear how powerful the Turkish soldiers were at that time. Even if Mu'tasim and Mutawaklil were trying to consolidate the power of the caliph again, the Abbasids were very different. They are not as powerful as they once were.
Ali Olomi: It's a completely different political landscape. The death of Mutawakil would usher in the anarchy in Samarra. After that, there would be a massive succession crisis between Al-Muntasir on one side and Al-Mutaz on the other side.
Deana Hassanein: So even though Al-Ma'mun stabilized the empire in his lifetime and his successor Mu'tasim consolidated the power for a brief time, the fractures were too big. Things had changed too much. The civil war had changed the Abbasid empire. There would be no anarchy in Samarra without the war of two brothers.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, and the fact that they now had two capitals was emblematic of that fracture. Baghdad would continue on. The Abbasids would continue on. They would still be a powerful empire, but something had changed. Their power was waning.
Deana Hassanein: The politics of this time period is so fraught. From civil wars between brothers to rebellion from your own troops to even competing capitals, Mutawakkil's cultural innovations couldn't stem the changing politics. What a fascinating time with fascinating people. And we have so many more cool people to visit that you will encounter in the game. Thank you for all coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was Qabiha?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travelers, welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: Last episode we left Baghdad and we're still not returning yet.
Ali Olomi: Not yet.
Deana Hassanein: You and I visited the city of Samarra and I want to visit the harem in this city. I'm curious to see how different it is to Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: And the last time we talked about the harem it was very different than expected, no?
Deana Hassanein: Completely. It wasn't just a place of relaxation, rejuvenation and pleasure. It's the private quarters of the Caliph and his family.
Ali Olomi: And it's important to note that the harem probably emerged gradually rather than being a sort of fixed institution in Islamic societies.
Deana Hassanein: Originally the harem was part of the Middle East and older empires. Once the Muslims came on the scene they adapted some of the local customs like the harem.
Ali Olomi: Right. In fact in the early periods of the Abbasids the harem wasn't particularly common. Even among the Caliphs. In the 8th and the 9th century most of the queens and princesses had their own palaces. I mean you remember Khizran?
Deana Hassanein: As if I could forget her. The queen who started off as a slave and shaped the entire succession of the Abbasids when she chose Harun al-Rashid over her other son.
Ali Olomi: And she had her own palace. While she probably had some type of private quarters with the Caliph, she had her own palace. We also know that Zubaydah had her own on the banks of the river.
Deana Hassanein: And that makes perfect sense to me. If the harem was developed because of changing social conditions for the Caliph and the adoption of older Persian institutions then of course the queens and princesses would have their own palaces. But as with most things in this world Ali, it eventually changes.
Ali Olomi: It's really around that late 9th century that we start to see more and more the use of the harem among the Abbasid Caliphate. It really coincides with a clear shift towards this Persian style of monarchy that we saw under Mutawakkil in the last episode. So you have a Persian style monarchy, a Persian style city and now a Persian style harem.
Deana Hassanein: So more and more elite and royal women would be secluded through social convention. They were still politically powerful but they were adapting to new cultural norms.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, cultural norms is a really good way of thinking about it. There wasn't a law that prohibited royal women out in public but social pressure and convention were really powerful motivating forces. And as you said, they could still shape politics from inside the harem.
Deana Hassanein: So the harem would also become a place of politics. Families are already messy Ali but add in politics and I can only imagine the drama. The place that was supposed to be the refuge of the Caliph could become pretty intense.
Ali Olomi: And out of that harem politics, we would see some incredibly fascinating women emerge.
Deana Hassanein: We've already talked about Khayzuran and Zubaydah, compelling and interesting figures.
Ali Olomi: And Buran, who was the advisor to her husband al-Ma'mun.
Deana Hassanein: I remember her. She was also a scientist and a scholar in her own right.
Ali Olomi: That's her. And in Samar, we would have another powerful woman, Qabiha.
Deana Hassanein: Now wait a minute Ali, doesn't Qabiha mean ugly in Arabic? I mean beauty is in the eye of the beholder but did people think she was unattractive?
Ali Olomi: The opposite actually Deana. She was supposed to be stunning, beautiful physically and in manner. Her name was probably meant to be ironic.
Deana Hassanein: Well that's a little confusing. Was she more like Khayzuran or Zubaydah?
Ali Olomi: Khayzuran. Qabiha was another one of these politically powerful but very deadly queens.
Deana Hassanein: Now we know how deadly the politics of this time period could be. So of course it would be the same for the harem politics. The stakes were just too high. You were competing for who would become the next Caliph. And for queens like Khayzuran and I'm guessing Qabiha, it was about making sure their sons inherit.
Ali Olomi: And through their sons, they could shape the entire empire Deana. Qabiha, like Khayzuran, had these humble origins, probably Greek we think and she was likely a concubine. She quickly would become the favorite of Mutawakkil, enchanting him with her manner. One night when he comes to visit her, she has tattooed his name in henna on her face.
Deana Hassanein: Would you ever get a tattoo on your face Ali?
Ali Olomi: No, no. My face can't. I have a beard already so I can't support any tattoos.
Deana Hassanein: That was a risk and I mean it paid off. Honestly, I've seen some face tattoos and maybe Qabiha had a good idea there but that wouldn't work for me.
Ali Olomi: I mean yeah. What would even happen if you get your partner's name tattooed and you then break up? I mean at least with henna it washes off eventually.
Deana Hassanein: That's true, that's true. But it's still a risk.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, but it definitely worked for Qabiha. Mutawakkil was smitten. With her direction, he appointed her son Mu’tazz to be his successor and he gave her full control over the court festivities.
Deana Hassanein: And from the Zarif or Zarafa culture we talked about, parties and planning all carried important meaning now. Nothing was casual. Everything was intentional.
Ali Olomi: Everything had symbolic power. Now add to this that she was a bit of an architect. So she designed large palace audience halls.

She created this open and beautiful space to celebrate her son and for Nowruz.

Deana Hassanein: On a side note, I love how these figures that we're learning about all have multiple talents and occupations.
Ali Olomi: They're very talented.
Deana Hassanein: You mentioned Nowruz. Nowruz is a Persian word. It means new day or new year.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, it's the Persian new year which along with these other customs we've talked about, the palace, the harem, the city, they were all adopted by the Abbasids.
Deana Hassanein: I really love how every culture has new year celebrations and variously beautiful ways of looking to the future.
Ali Olomi: And the Persian new year is actually celebrated on the spring equinox we should point out.
Deana Hassanein: Which makes sense more so than the random calendar date that we've picked.
Ali Olomi: I mean, I quite like Nowruz. People put out these special tables with symbolic items to draw in good fortune for the year. You've got mirrors and fruits and sweets. They read poetry in their horoscopes and hope for a good year.
Deana Hassanein: My best friends are actually Persian and they always get goldfish too. That's part of the spread, right?
Ali Olomi: Yeah.
Deana Hassanein: It sounds like such an important festival and Qahiba plays a big part in shaping it. We really can't overlook how important cultural power like that could be. Especially in Samarra where symbolism and formality would become part of the court culture.
Ali Olomi: Right, and Khabiha was the master of that. Her influence even extended to the issue of succession. She had already secured the Caliphate for her son. But with the death of Mutawakkil in 861, the anarchy in Samarra would begin and last until 870.
Deana Hassanein: I can see how like the War of the Two Brothers, the anarchy would pit faction against faction. The Turkish guards, which were loyal to the Caliph, turned on Mutawakkil and chaos would ensue.
Ali Olomi: It was bad. There was a series of rapid succession Caliphs. First, Al-Muntasir was elevated to the Caliphate by the soldiers who had supported him over Qabiha's favourite, Mu'tazz. But he was poisoned within about six months. Some say he died of natural causes, some say poisoned.
Deana Hassanein: Which one do you think it is?
Ali Olomi: I think poison. I always think it's poison. And then you had Musta'in, who was a cousin and he was appointed. But the situation was rocky. So along with his supporters, led by Bugha, the guy who killed Mutawakkil, they would flee to Baghdad. That allowed Mu'tazz to be named Caliph in Samarra. So now you have two Caliphs. That means the anarchy would become civil war.
Deana Hassanein: It really seems that killing Mutawakkil unleashed something. Caliphs had been murdered in the past. That's not new. But it was always hinted at a secret plot. The outright killing of a Caliph, however, by his own troops is such a different affair.
Ali Olomi: It marked a new type of political force. The Mamluk Turkish soldiers were now kingmakers.
Deana Hassanein: Two Caliphs, two capital cities, two warring factions. It sounds really familiar, Ali. It's like the war of the two brothers with the new factions and a new capital. Yet another civil war.
Ali Olomi: And this civil war would be brutal, Deana. Some historians actually think it was worse than the war with the two brothers. The forces of Samarra under Mu'tazz raised the agricultural grounds and cut off the canals leading to Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: And that's important because the canals were the lifeblood allowing trade and resources. The entire movement of goods and people is through the winding roads and canals.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. In the end, it would be Qabiha, actually, who works out a truce of sorts. She sends a message to al-Musta'in and convinces him to abdicate and return for his safety. And in fact, she relies on some old friends that we visited earlier, the Banu Musa.
Deana Hassanein: Wow. So Qabiha literally ends the war. That's a huge diplomatic win.
Ali Olomi: And she gets even a bigger win from there. So first she works behind the scenes with the Banu Musa. You can see how the Banu Musa and Qabiha become the powers behind the throne. But then it's not enough that al-Musta'in abdicates. She turns to one of the Turkish guards, ibn Tulum, and says, kill him and bring me his head. And he does. Musta'in is killed. His head is brought to Mu'tazz, her son, who's busy playing chess. So he says, throw it over there. And that is the end of the previous caliph.
Deana Hassanein: Talk about securing your son's position, Ali. Qabiha was taking no prisoners.
Ali Olomi: Literally.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, she does give me Khaizeron vibes. A powerful queen playing a lethal game of politics.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, and Qabiha ends as one of the most powerful people in this time period. She's also super wealthy.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, now that gives me more Zubaydah vibes, who used her wealth to support the different projects of Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: Well, sort of, but not exactly. She has a slightly different use for her wealth. Mu'tazz's power is not particularly secure. And at one point, the Turkish guard will put him under arrest and demand a ransom. So he turns to his mommy, he turns to Qabiha, and says, Qabiha, you've got to help me out. But Qabiha says, I have no money. And this pisses off the Turkish guards. So they put him in prison until he dies. Angered, they storm her palace, only to find it empty. She had disappeared. Where did she go? They start to tap on the walls, and they discover a false wall. Pushing it open, they find a secret tunnel where she had escaped. And wall to wall, gold. They were so angry, they accused her. For a few dinars, you had allowed your son to die. And so she's exiled to Mecca and Medina.
Deana Hassanein: Number one, these Turkish soldiers are really problematic.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, I know.
Deana Hassanein: They're causing a lot of issues.
Ali Olomi: Caliph after Caliph.
Deana Hassanein: I know, right? And number two, Qabiha, you didn't value your son?
Ali Olomi: Apparently not. She put him on the throne, but she didn't work. And she even gave him the throne a second time, when she forces another Caliph to abdicate. But then in the end, abandons him. It's possible the story is a little bit made up to malign her.
Deana Hassanein: To make her seem like an evil mother.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, a retroactive, oh, she was actually a bad mom.
Deana Hassanein: I don't even know what to say. She's such a complicated, but interesting figure. No doubt, Qabiha was powerful. We'll give her that. She shaped the succession, secured power for her son, even commanding the Turkish guards before they turned on her. I do want to hear more about her son though, because I get a feeling that there is even more to the anarchy in Samarra. But we'll leave that for the next episode. Thank you for coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast, so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was al-Mu'tazz?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travellers, welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, the chaos of the anarchy in Samarra is even more intense than the war of the two brothers. I liked how you put it.
Ali Olomi: From anarchy to civil war.
Deana Hassanein: And the people involved from Musta'in to Qabiha and all Martas are in a lot of ways caught up by different factions.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, we can see how people like Al-Mu'tazz try to navigate the politics of the Turkish guard only to really become victims of it. You'll see some of these guards actually in the game.
Deana Hassanein: We had a bit of a spoiler because we kind of know what happens to Al-Mu'tazz.
Ali Olomi: And he has an interesting story and a really messy life.
Deana Hassanein: Those are my favourite.
Ali Olomi: And he's Mutawakkil's favourite too. Probably because of his love for Qabiha. Mutawakkil increasingly favours Mu'tazz over his eldest son, Al-Mu'tasir.
He even makes moves to make Al-Mu'tazz his successor.
Deana Hassanein: Which is what started the anarchy in Samara. The Turkish guard sided with Al-Mu'tasir and assassinated the Caliph.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, on that night Al-Mu'tazz is actually pressured by the powerful factions backing Al-Mu'tasir to relinquish any claim he has on the Caliphate and to give an oath of allegiance to his brother. Now these oaths of allegiance are incredibly important in medieval society. It's what forges the relationship between people and groups. But it doesn't seem to be enough this time.
Deana Hassanein: If everything had gone smoothly that should have been the end of it.
Ali Olomi: But Al-Mu'tasir is killed or maybe he dies. Only a couple months later though and without an heir.
Deana Hassanein: So technically Al-Mu'tazz should be Caliph now. He was his father's favourite son and he was a younger brother to Al-Mu'tasir.
Ali Olomi: Right, but again the Turkish guard intervene. Instead his cousin is appointed Caliph, Al-Musta'in.
Deana Hassanein: So the Turkish military basically takes over succession entirely. They're deciding who gets to be Caliph. That's how powerful they've become. Because they were a separate faction built by the Caliph to be loyal to the Caliph. They end up having more direct influence and power over the Caliph.
Ali Olomi: And of course add to that the geography of Samarra.
Deana Hassanein: That's right, where Baghdad was a city full of all sorts. But Samarra was built as a military and administrative city.
Ali Olomi: Right, and we definitely can't overlook how the military structure of Samarra lent power to the troops over Khalda Caliph. In a lot of ways the Caliph was at the mercy of those troops. He's quite literally surrounded by them. But which of the troops is the question?
Deana Hassanein: You had grand Caliphal palaces that displayed the power of the Khalif, surrounded by the military garrisons of the Turkish troops. The garrisons projected military power, but that military power now was directed at the Caliph himself.
Ali Olomi: And then there were the main rivals to the Turkish Mamluks, the Shakariya, elite cavalry troops.
Deana Hassanein: Because in addition to the Turkish Guard, there were other factions like the Anbar and Khurasaniyya. Let's break these down a bit more. Some of these we've heard about before Ali.
Ali Olomi: That's right. The Anbar were the elite old guard who descended from the Arabs who had settled in the region. The Mamluks were the Turkish slave soldiers who came to dominate in Samarra. The Khurasaniyya were mounted Persian troops. And the Shakariya were an elite cavalry unit. Some of these you'll actually get a glimpse of in the game.
Deana Hassanein: That is a lot of different military factions.
Ali Olomi: That's what makes the anarchy in Samarra so chaotic. The Shakariya in fact at one point rebel on behalf of Al-Mu’tazz and have to be put down. They charge the honor guard of Musta'in. The Caliph tries to buy them off, but it quickly gets out of hand and fighting breaks out in the streets. The losses are heavy on both sides.
Deana Hassanein: The position of the Caliph is a lot weaker than in the past. We have the assassination of one Caliph, the attacking of another and chaos in the streets.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. To secure his position, Musta'in places his cousin Al-Mu’tazz under house arrest. He needs to keep him under close watch just in case he's behind the various unruly troops.
Deana Hassanein: So he puts him in jail. Actually Ali, we haven't really talked much about jails until this point.
Ali Olomi: It's a little tricky because there isn't exactly a prison system as we imagine it today. Long-term imprisonment is not usually sanctioned by Islamic law. The only prisons that existed were usually military institutions that dealt with prisoners of war. For everyone else, detention was relatively short-term and pretty insecure. I mean, the oldest prisons of the Caliph were like literally house dwellings.
Deana Hassanein: That sounds very different from the prisons with bars that we see today. It doesn't sound very secure at all actually. I think anyone could escape.
Ali Olomi: They weren't very secure and you know, the mention of escape is bringing up a funny story for me. And during one of the early Caliphates, there were two twins and one of which was imprisoned. But because the dwellings weren't particularly secure, they would switch spots so that they could have a weekend off. Literally pulling off the old twin switcheroo.
Deana Hassanein: Weekends off, that's actually really funny. It sounds like something straight out of a TV show. So when the records say the Caliph was imprisoned, they don't actually mean a prison system with bars or gates, something else basically.
Ali Olomi: It's more akin to a type of house arrest. Still probably unpleasant though, but Almutaz was placed in this type of house arrest and likely kept in one of the palaces in Samara.
Deana Hassanein: Mu’tazz’s fortunes really fluctuate from the favorite son of his father to being imprisoned by his own cousin. Talk about bad luck.
Ali Olomi: And we've got another twist to his story, because along comes Abu Ma'shir.
Deana Hassanein: The famous astrologer. I remember you reading one of his horoscopes for my star sign.
Ali Olomi: That's right. Our boy, the man, the myth, the legend himself. Apparently, Abu Ma'shir had gotten in trouble with Al-Musta'in, which is, you know, typical of Abu Ma'shir. At one time, the Caliph asks him for the prediction of a particular event, and Abu Ma'shir does so, but the outcome is unfavorable to the Caliph, and that pisses him off a little bit. But worse, the prediction comes true. So not only is it unfavorable, but Abu Ma'shir is right. So what does Al-Musta'in do? He has him flogged, to which Abu Ma'shir responds quite humorously, I hit the mark, so got hit.
Deana Hassanein: I'm really starting to like Abu Ma'shir. He has such a mischievous personality, and he's so quotable. From his troubles in the fondot back in season one, to his problems with the Caliph.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, he's one of my favorites. So he was down on his luck, because he had gotten flogged by Al-Musta'in. So he took a gamble, a big one. He cast a horoscope on a napkin, and predicted that Mu'tazz would be elevated to the Caliphate eventually. Then, in the dead of the night, he secretly passes that napkin to the imprisoned Mu'tazz through a window, telling him, be patient, you will be Caliph soon. And sure enough, Mu'tazz does eventually ascend to the Caliphate.
Deana Hassanein: Abu Ma'shir coming through again, I bet it must have been a huge relief for Mu'tazz to receive that type of news. And of course, that helps Abu Ma'shir too. He'd be back in favor with the new Caliph.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. Mu'tazz appoints Abu Ma'shir to the position of court astrologer, and gives him a handsome reward. But Mu'taz's turn of fortune is not really an easy one. In 865 CE, Mu'ta'in takes his supporters to Baghdad, having increasingly lost control of some of the Turkish soldiers in Samarra.
Deana Hassanein: The anarchy forces him to leave his military city, so he goes to Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: Back to the old capital, hoping to gather with his supporters there. With Al-Musta'in gone, the remaining troops free Al-Mu'tazz and name him Caliph, just as Abu Ma'shir predicted.
Deana Hassanein: Okay, let's recap this again. So he goes from favorite son, to passed over for succession, to imprisoned, and now Caliph.
Ali Olomi: But a Caliph facing a civil war.
Deana Hassanein: And we know from the life of Qabiha what happens. With his new position, he lays siege to Baghdad, and thanks to his mother Qabiha, he's able to force Mu'ta'in to relinquish his claim to the Caliphate.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, but by that time, the damage had been done. Even though the civil war really only lasted a year, a lot shorter in fact than the war of the two brothers, it was devastating.
Deana Hassanein: We heard about the damage to the city. The once glorious round city was scarred by war, broken roads, damaged canals, and destroyed buildings.
Ali Olomi: The damage was devastating, Deana. We have historians at the time mentioning how long it took to rebuild the city. Even the great mosque was damaged. And of course, the political situation would continue to deteriorate as well. Despite winning the civil war, Mu'tazz would be the next victim of the anarchy in Samarra.
Deana Hassanein: Navigating politics was tricky enough, but having to balance the loyalties of the different military factions is even more fraught. The addition of the Turkish troops that were initially loyal directly to the Caliph, but who became a power block of their own, meant now the Caliph had to manage their interests too. In other words, the Caliph's own guards had to be managed carefully.
Ali Olomi: And Mu'tazz really tries that. He slowly replaced the heads of the various Turkish troops, Burgha, Wassef al-Turki, and others, consolidating his power, trying to manage the different factions. But he's unable to pay off the troops who had lifted him up to the Caliphate.
Deana Hassanein: The anarchy in Samarra, plus a year-long civil war, would have depleted the treasury for sure. The money it takes to buy off troops, to mobilize a war, and then the funds needed to rebuild would be incredibly costly. I also imagine if the Caliph's position is weak, then it's hard to bring in further revenue from the territories. He's trying to manage the unruliness of Samarra and Baghdad, which leaves little time for anything else.
Ali Olomi: Too true, Deana. That becomes his undoing, really. He tries to sideline the powerful Tahirid family in Baghdad. We'll actually talk about them next. And eventually, the son of Wassef, Saleh, comes to power.
Deana Hassanein: That's when they demand their payment, and al-Mu'tazz has to turn to his mother, who, for whatever reason, ends up abandoning her son.
Ali Olomi: And once she doesn't pay, he's imprisoned and dies in 869 at the hands of the very troops that put him in power in the first place. He ruled for roughly three years. I mean, this time, the troops take great pains to demonstrate they didn't directly kill him. They put his body and white cloak on display to his family to show that it was not stained with blood, like in the case of al-Mutawakkil. But the reality is that they likely abused him in prison, and he died of either thirst or their brutality.
Deana Hassanein: Yet another caliph killed. How many caliphs come into power and fall during the anarchy in Samar, Ali?
Ali Olomi: Well, from al-Mutawakkil, you have al-Muntasir and al-Musta'in, al-Mu'tazz. And then there's al-Mu'tadi, who only really rules for about a year. And then finally, al-Muta'mid, who, along with his brother, puts an end to the anarchy in Samar. So in total, we're looking at like five or so caliphs who die or are murdered by one faction or another.
Deana Hassanein: Gosh, that really highlights how badly things have changed. The Abbasid caliphate, now with two capitals, was more divided than ever.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, too true. Al-Mu'tawakkil would really stabilize the empire again. But you're absolutely right. The politics were just so different now. The Abbasid dynasty was fractured. And though they would continue to be a powerful force for several more centuries, in fact, to the 13th century, the politics would be fraught. This was their new reality. Baghdad would continue to be intellectually, culturally, and even politically important. But the power of the caliph himself was waning. The empire remained strong for centuries still, but something had changed.
Deana Hassanein: Mu'tazz's changing fortunes from favorite son to passed over to imprisoned to caliph to betrayed by his own troops highlight the changing fortunes of the empire itself. Caliphs were now being appointed by the very guards they brought in to protect them. They had become just another player in the game of politics rather than the player. And the chaos doesn't end with Anarchy and Samarra. Stay tuned for the seeds of rebellion. Thank you all for coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so that you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Tahir?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travelers, welcome to Figures of Baghdad. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, visiting Samarra has been chaotic. The courts and palaces sound beautiful, but the scheming and never mind the anarchy, makes me miss the good old days of Baghdad. Not that it was any more peaceful, but I'm kind of feeling nostalgic.
Ali Olomi: I feel you, Deana. Why don't we take a barge and float down to the city of peace? It's been a while.
Deana Hassanein: That sounds like a beautiful plan. Back to where our journey began. Back to the round city with its palace, its mosque and the house.
Ali Olomi: But fair warning, the chaos of the anarchy in Samarra, it's likely going to follow us to Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: Of course, this is a time of two caliphs in two cities. A contest between al-Mu'tazz on the one hand versus al-Musta'in, between Samarra versus Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: Too right. And the real power in Baghdad wasn't even the caliph. When the caliphate moved to Samarra, Baghdad came under the control of the powerful Tahirid family.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, so like many things, this goes back to the war of the two brothers from last season.
Ali Olomi: Exactly.
Deana Hassanein: Al-Ma'mun didn't just revive the caliphate, but had such a strong influence on the politics that would come after him. So many of the caliphs tried to emulate him, but failed. And so many of the powerful families and factions that emerged go back to his time.
Ali Olomi: Couldn't agree more. It was really him who elevated the Tahirids. Tahir and later his son, Abdullah ibn Tahir, were originally al-Ma'mun's most important political allies. The Tahirids helped al-Ma'mun, in fact, restore order to the region after the civil war and buttress the power of the caliph. They likely originated from the eastern parts of Persia known as Khorasan, so there are deep roots and connections that they could call upon to support al-Ma'mun and stabilize his empire.
Deana Hassanein: What really stands out from the war of the two brothers is just how competent and influential the supporters of al-Ma'mun were. The Abbasids, for all their power, relied on effective administrators and allies.
Ali Olomi: Which is really how all large empires were. If you ruled over big swaths of territory, even if you had a strong army, you needed loyal and competent allies who could handle the different regions for you.
Deana Hassanein: And for al-Ma'mun, this was the Tahirids.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. They became an incredibly influential family. Eventually, they are going to be appointed the governors of Khorasan, where I mentioned they're probably from.
Deana Hassanein: And that was originally al-Ma'mun's own power base. Khorasan is a large region that includes so many different countries today, from Iran to Afghanistan to Uzbekistan. And it was from there the Abbasids initially drew their power. So giving the Tahirids Khorasan is a huge deal.
Ali Olomi: Right. It links the Tahirids with the Abbasids and it cements them as the most important dynasty and allies of the caliphate. Eventually, they would even have control of Baghdad itself.
Deana Hassanein: With the caliphate moving to Samarra, the Abbasids would need someone to manage and run their old capital. After all, Baghdad was still the cultural and intellectual heart of their empire, the place of the house of wisdom. So it makes sense they turned to their oldest allies.
Ali Olomi: In the 9th century, Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Tahir is going to be appointed governor of the city and general of the shurta. That's the city guard. And he would hold that position, in fact, for 15 years.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, being governor of Baghdad must have been an incredibly important position. They are like the courtiers around the caliph himself. But Baghdad is still Baghdad, symbolically, culturally, and financially central to the empire. All roads lead to Baghdad after all.
Ali Olomi: And ibn Tahir would make the most of that. In fact, you're going to see him as an important character within the game itself. And in history, he builds even more roads leading to Baghdad, establishes even more canals, and under his policy, Baghdad thrives. Even if Samarra was where the caliph was, Baghdad doesn't lose any of its importance.
Deana Hassanein: So Samarra may have had its grand palaces, but Baghdad was still the city of peace. The dream of Al-Mansur and where all the merchants are hanging out.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. And that's what makes it a wealthy city, Deana. All that tax revenue is flowing through the city.
Deana Hassanein: And with the house of wisdom, all the scholars and intellectuals are coming to Baghdad still.
Ali Olomi: As we see in the game itself, ibn Tahir will become an important patron of the arts. Like all who participate in the Khasa culture of Baghdad, he was literate, a poet, in fact, and a great patron.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, I remember the Khasa from last season. It was the elite chivalrous culture based around art, poetry, and nightly pursuits like archery and horse riding, right?
Ali Olomi: That's right. Ibn Tahir was the embodiment of that, in fact. He was one of the patrons of the Bana Musa, our old friends. After the death of Al-Ma'mun, he continues to support the three brothers in their endeavors.
Deana Hassanein: My favorite three brothers, Muhammad, Ahmad, and Hassan. They were physicians, engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, and political schemers. And now Ibn Tahir was their patron. So they went from one powerful patron to another.
Ali Olomi: By this time, they were already independently wealthy. But Ibn Tahir relied on Muhammad of the Bana Musa to run his treasury. His use of al-Jarrah would make the treasury and the tax system incredibly effective. Empires always care about taxes. You know what they say, the two things you can't avoid.
Deana Hassanein: Death and taxes.
Ali Olomi: That's right.
Deana Hassanein: You know, Ali, one of the things that stand out to me is how wealthy the scholars become. Some have very humble origins like al-Jahiz, but in the end, many of them become wealthy themselves. It really speaks to how highly prized scholars were. I mean, no judgment, but the Bani Musa are the sons of a thief and con artists and now are independently wealthy.
Ali Olomi: You know, that's a good point. We see a great example of why this is, in fact, with Ibn Tahir. He hires one such scholar, the historian, Faleb, to be a tutor for his son. And the historian describes how cushy that job was. He says that he teaches the son for four hours a day. He has extravagant meals with banquets. And he says, quote, he gave me a salary of a thousand dirham per month.
Deana Hassanein: Four hours a day, extravagant meals and a thousand dirhams. That must have been so high for that time period.
Ali Olomi: It would be enough that Faleb would go on to become an incredibly wealthy man, in fact, owning land of his own.
Deana Hassanein: And the extravagant meals must have been a sign of Ibn Tahir's generosity and part of that elite khasa culture.
Ali Olomi: Right. Ibn Tahir, like many Baghdad leaders, was an intellectual, but one who would use his wealth to support poets, scholars and other intellectuals. So it was a sign of his generosity, but also his duty in the pursuit of knowledge and culture. It drives home just how much Ibn Tahir and others like him valued scholars. The rich and the powerful genuinely wanted to spend their money on learning and knowledge. It also is a demonstration of his own power. I mean, think about it. It's power through generosity. Demonstrating how much you can give.
Deana Hassanein: And as a governor, he would have the wealth and power to truly show off and in turn, it could be taken as a sign of his influence. We already saw with Zubaydah how influential a person can be by supporting the scholars.
Ali Olomi: And it's matched by his political power. He would play a central role in the anarchy in Samarra.
Deana Hassanein: That's right, because the anarchy eventually leads to a battle between the forces of Samarra and the forces of Baghdad.
Ali Olomi: Yeah, when al-Musta'in flees Samarra for Baghdad, he will take up residence in Ibn Tahir's palace.
Deana Hassanein: So in other words, he turns to the most powerful ally of the Caliphate, the Tahrids.
Ali Olomi: And just like in that last civil war, it will be the Tahrids, the ones who had supported the Abbasids in the first place and the people who had stabilized their empire, who will come through. But this time, it would be Ibn Tahir who will have a large hand in shaping the outcome of the conflict.
Deana Hassanein: Gosh Ali, it's so interesting to see how similar elements and themes keep popping up.
Ali Olomi: Right. To paraphrase Mark Twain, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Deana Hassanein: Oh, I like that. And it's so true for this. So Ibn Tahir would have organized the defense of Baghdad on behalf of his caliph, right?
Ali Olomi: And when Mu’tazz comes down from Samar, he's confronted by that organized resistance. He has a fully fortified and prepared Baghdad waiting for him. Ibn Tahir even recruits the local citizens to defend the city, giving them bows and arrows and clubs and paying them from the treasury.
Deana Hassanein: And I remember from season one with the War of the Two Brothers, just how crucial the local population can be. They can hold out against invading forces.
Ali Olomi: And they did for a long time. Ibn Tahir was able to rally the troops several times. He gave important speeches from the balcony of his palace and personally would walk the caliph to the mosque of Al-Mansur in the center of the city for Friday prayers, which would motivate the troops.
Deana Hassanein: And we've spoken before about how important the Friday prayers could be. The symbol of the caliph walking to those Friday prayers was equally important. But in the end, it just wasn't enough. Al-Mu'tazz still defeats them.
Ali Olomi: Yeah. After a year of fighting, hunger begins to set in the city and the people demand that either Ibn Tahir rallies the troops to defend Al-Musta'in or he negotiates peace.
Deana Hassanein: And that's when Qabiha steps in. She sends representatives to negotiate a peace deal.
Ali Olomi: That's right. Under Qabiha's influence, the two sides meet under a great red pavilion set up by Ibn Tahir, where they negotiate a truce that involves Al-Musta'in abdicating the caliphate.
Deana Hassanein: One of the many reasons I love Qabiha. So Ibn Tahir does in fact save the city. After defending it, he does what he has to do to ensure Baghdad survives.
Ali Olomi: And really, he walks away stronger for it. He is reconfirmed as governor of Baghdad and he's to receive a third of all the revenue, which would make him incredibly wealthy. And he'd enjoy that position until his death.
Deana Hassanein: So politically savvy. Imagine fighting a war that you'd technically lose, but still walk away a winner.
Ali Olomi: It really is a win-win for Ibn Tahir. And his influence is just another one of his lasting legacies. Like the emergence of that military faction, the Tahirids would mark the beginning of the rise of the great families. While the caliphate would be stabilized after the anarchy in Samarra, the end of course the empire will survive and thrive for several more centuries, it would now be dominated by two factions. A professional military class, that's the influence of the Turkish Mamluk, and the powerful families like the Samanids and the Buyids, that's the influence of the Tahirids.
Deana Hassanein: It's also interesting how despite the caliph being the ruler, a lot of the power rests with the people behind the scenes, the people pulling the strings.
Ali Olomi: Exactly, from Qabiha influencing the succession and intervening in civil wars, to Ibn Tahir and his influence over al-Musta'in, together they would manage to get a caliph to abdicate and likely save the empire from even further chaos.
Deana Hassanein: I've said this so many times, but this period of history is so interesting and full of surprises. So let's recap. The Abbasids continued to rule, but they would have to rely on new powerful factions. They would be caught between the military elite and the political elite. Ibn Tahir and his political acumen not only shaped the intellectual culture of Baghdad, but he quite literally saved it from ruin, and in turn would usher in a new type of politics. The consequences of the anarchy of Samarra were long-lasting, and the chaos doesn't end there. Thank you all for coming along. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to the Echoes of History podcast so you don't miss the next episode of Figures of Baghdad. See you next time, fellow travelers.

Who was Ali ibn Muhammad?

Ali Olomi: A jewel in the desert.
Deana Hassanein: A round city full of merchants, rulers and scholars.
Ali Olomi: The great minds of the Abbasid Empire.
Deana Hassanein: This is Figures of Baghdad. Hello fellow travellers, I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali.
Deana Hassanein: Ali, I'm hearing something in the distance. Can you hear it too?
Ali Olomi: I do, I hear drums, the drums of rebellion.
Deana Hassanein: Away from Baghdad and Samarra and the politics of the court and military, something new was stirring. Tell us what we'd see, Ali.
Ali Olomi: If we travel just a little south, we would see large marshlands with people working in. These were mostly enslaved people and the heart of the agricultural world of Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: We've touched on slavery here and there. Some of the queens we discussed were enslaved. And even some of the historical figures either owned slaves or were one themselves.
Ali Olomi: That's right. The Abbasids, like most societies of this time period, were a slave society. But historians debate the terminology a bit.
Deana Hassanein: In school, we talked about different types of slavery throughout history. When we think of slaves today, we generally think of the slave trade that kidnapped Africans to the Americas.
Ali Olomi: Right, we think of the transatlantic slave trade, which was especially brutal. Slavery in the Abbasid world was complicated. The enslaved were part of the society and had certain rights. They were even paid. We saw how some of them could become kingmakers, viziers, own land. And some even owned slaves themselves. But that doesn't make this system better or more humane. It's still slavery. These individuals were not free. They were exploited and abused. They couldn't suddenly decide to stop being a slave. Any system that owns another is going to be brutal.
Deana Hassanein: True, and the nuances and differences don't make it better, but it's important to note because they matter in the context of this period.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. When we arrive in the marshes beyond Baghdad, we would see enslaved people working the land, many of whom were Zanj, a region in Southeast Africa, but also people of other backgrounds.
Deana Hassanein: And as you said, the marshes are a place of agriculture. I would imagine with the connection to the Tigris and the Euphrates, it was prime real estate for farming. I know that's how Egypt used the rich soil around the Nile.
Ali Olomi: Exactly. But here there would be farming, building various platforms, draining the marsh, and other activities. That's because the Tigris and the Euphrates were far more volatile than the Nile.
Deana Hassanein: And anyone who's done farm work can tell you it's hard work. Add to that that this is forced labor by people who are not free, and these are not ideal conditions.
Ali Olomi: They are extremely hard conditions, Deana, and it would be those exact conditions that plant the seeds of rebellion. For you see, if you look closely among the marshlands, you will see a man preaching to the Zanj.
Deana Hassanein: When you say preaching, do you mean like religiously?
Ali Olomi: Yeah, like a messiah. This is Ali ibn Muhammad, a man of mysterious background who had been rabble-rousing against the Abbasids around their empire for a while. Now here in the marshes, he's found his audience.
Deana Hassanein: And the conditions would be just right for this. The Anarchy in Samarra and the civil war would have weakened the Abbasids. We already discussed how a lot of outlying territories in the empire became increasingly autonomous and basically difficult to manage.
Ali Olomi: It was the perfect conditions, Deana. Ali ibn Muhammad would also invoke religion to support his cause. He reminded the Zanj that by religious law, they had the right to good nutrition and safety in their bodies. Abusing the body of a person was forbidden by law. But the Zanj, they had faced abuse.
Deana Hassanein: And as we've mentioned before, culturally, things like slapping someone's face is considered an extreme taboo.
Ali Olomi: Right, and the conditions of the Zanj were even more deplorable. Not only were they an enslaved people, but they didn't even have the same rights that other enslaved people did, like, say, in the capital. While others, like the Mamluk soldiers, which we've discussed, could get wealthy or powerful, the Zanj dealt with back-breaking work, poor working conditions, and poor food.
Deana Hassanein: So, Ali ibn Muhammad's message was perfect for the conditions. The Abbasids had mistreated the Zanj even by their own rules.
Ali Olomi: And he was a charismatic figure, a firebrand who really tapped into these powerful themes. And like all good messianic figures, he had a very clear message. He got the timing right for sure, Deana. His message was also effective, though. God is great. God is great. There is no God but God. There is no judgment except by God. And in this particular formation, it actually goes back to the Kharijites, a deeply controversial movement that sparks a lot of anxiety for Muslims. They were a puritanical group that led to the first civil wars in Muslim history. Good memory, Deana. Their civil wars led to the death of two different groups. Two different caliphs, at least. But their message was extremely attractive. They were radically egalitarian. They rejected the idea of dynasties completely. They believed that anyone, so long as they are righteous, they could be caliph. And of course, all were equal before God, and God was judge.
Deana Hassanein: That is a powerful message, and the Kharijites are willing to fight for it. They spread a lot of chaos and dissension and violence with those early civil wars.
Ali Olomi: Their message might have been attractive, but their methods were pretty extreme. They were an openly violent movement.
Deana Hassanein: So Ali ibn Muhammad is making it very clear what his intentions are. He is demanding freedom for the Zanj, and he's willing to go to war for it. With his slogan, he's connecting himself to the Kharijites of old, right?
Ali Olomi: True. By invoking the Kharijites, he's declaring war. He wants a brand new Caliphate open to all. But at least, or perhaps at least, presumably for him, because he sees himself as a messianic figure.
Deana Hassanein: And if there was discontent with the Abbasids from all the chaos and infighting, then other rivals would see this as an opportunity too.
Ali Olomi: That's exactly what happened. In 869, Ali ibn Muhammad led the Zanj on the first outright revolution against the Abbasids. And he was quickly joined by various Arab and Bedouin tribes, all demanding to be free from the Abbasids. All the groups who felt disenfranchised or exhausted from the high cost of the political turmoil quickly joined with the Zanj.
Deana Hassanein: Oh gosh, this was a full-fledged revolution then. Unlike the past conflicts between political factions, these are the people themselves who are rising up.
Ali Olomi: It's a coalition of people, Deana, a social revolution of sorts. It included the enslaved Zanj, laborers, tribes of people, and everyone else who wanted to see a different government than the Abbasids. While the Zanj initially referred to a place in Africa, in this moment, in this time, it likely refers to the coalition of rebels from a variety of backgrounds. They may not have all had the same goals, but...
Deana Hassanein: But they share one thing. They want the Abbasids gone. And that was a powerful incentive to band together.
Ali Olomi: The Zanj rebellion would last for 15 years and be one of the most ferocious wars the Abbasids fought. His initial attacks gained him a lot of support. He would target slave caravans and slave owners, capturing them and then rebuking them publicly in front of the enslaved. According to the historian al-Tabari and related in an article by al-Naim, he says to them, I want to kill you all for the way you have treated these slaves in a way that Allah has forbidden.
Deana Hassanein: Wow, that must have been such a sight.
Ali Olomi: Exactly, I mean, he got the right message and it's really the right time for this movement.
Deana Hassanein: After the years of political infighting and all the conflicts and civil wars, the Abbasids would have been militarily vulnerable.
Ali Olomi: And economically stretched thin, in addition to being militarily exhausted.
Deana Hassanein: So I'm guessing the rebels were initially successful and because they came from outside the capital, the military factions with Samarra and Baghdad would not have been able to put it down easily.
Ali Olomi: Right, their tactics would also help here. They fought a guerrilla war that the Bedouin in particular were masters at. They'd raid villages and gather weapons from the garrisons they attacked, adding tribal allies. And so with each attack, they grew.
Deana Hassanein: Ah, and I remember how important momentum was when we talked about the war of the two brothers. If it's on your side, you can press your advantage and increase your military victory significantly.
Ali Olomi: Add to it that Ali ibn Muhammad effectively brought together all the social classes yearning for something different. There was a great apocalyptic fervor brewing.
Deana Hassanein: Yeah, I can see that. If you've had a powerful empire that has lasted hundreds of years and then it's rocked by war after war, civil strife, and your great capitals are laid under siege, you'd probably feel like the world was coming to an end.
Ali Olomi: Too right. Ali ibn Muhammad really taps into that. In 871, he proclaimed that he would take the city of Basra under a lunar eclipse, tying the celestial symbolism to his movement. And we've already seen how important that type of symbolism was in the founding of Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: And Basra was an important city. One of the major gates of Baghdad was named after it. Now, does that mean they came close to taking Baghdad too, Ali?
Ali Olomi: Very close, Deana. Basra was a big coup for them. After laying siege to the city for a year, Ali ibn Muhammad claimed that he had a vision that he would take the city under the eclipse I mentioned. He divided his troops into two, coming at the city in a pincer move. The weakened city put up a valiant defense, protecting the mosque and even pushing back the rebels to the cemetery. But by attacking on multiple fronts after a long siege, the city could not hold out. The rebels swept through the city, looting it victoriously.
Deana Hassanein: The loss of Basra would have been huge. A major Abbasid city under the control of rebels, large parts of the marshlands now part of the rebellion, and a coalition of people all rising up against the Abbasids. That's a lot to handle.
Ali Olomi: It was. The Abbasids really struggled to respond effectively.
Deana Hassanein: The fact that it lasted 15 years is major too. That's almost as long as the War of the Two Brothers.
Ali Olomi: The Abbasids were fighting multiple conflicts. After all, they were trying to stabilize their empire after the civil war between the Caliphs.
Deana Hassanein: They also had to contend with different internal factions, powerful military groups and powerful families.
Ali Olomi: But they did finally manage to cobble together a defense. In 879, they met Ali ibn Muhammad's coalition in open combat and were able to turn the tide in their favor.
Deana Hassanein: Of course they did. That seems to always be the solution.
Ali Olomi: It is. Pay them off. They offered really good terms to anyone who would lay down their arms. Over two years, Muwaffa cleverly broke away and chipped away at the coalition of Ali ibn Muhammad. Because they were such a diverse group with different aims, he was able to play into that until only a small core group was left. And then he was able to take their base and end Ali ibn Muhammad for good.
Deana Hassanein: And so ends the Zanj Rebellion, one of the most interesting social revolutions in Abbasid history. Ali, I feel like we've only scratched the surface. There is so much more to this history.
Ali Olomi: That's so true, Deana. We could never hope to cover all of Abbasid history in a couple of seasons. But we hope that we've whet your appetite, that we've sparked your curiosity, and maybe you'll dive into the history even more and hopefully have a bit more context behind the game, Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Deana Hassanein: Honestly, I wish we could keep going forever. But Ali, I've loved our short trip into medieval Baghdad and its amazing history and people.
Ali Olomi: It's been a blast hanging out with you, Deana, my travel companion, as we wander through the great city of Baghdad.
Deana Hassanein: We visited this city's historical figures, scholars and scientists, queens and viziers, soldiers and rebels. And if you want to stay in touch with us, your guides, you can find me on my socials @deannahassanein.
Ali Olomi: And you can catch me everywhere @aaolomi.
Deana Hassanein: Thank you for exploring with us. I'm Deana.
Ali Olomi: And I'm Ali. This is a Ubisoft podcast produced by Paradiso Media. Be sure to subscribe to Echoes of History wherever you get your podcasts so you can hear the full two seasons of our journey through medieval Baghdad. Until our paths cross again, fellow travelers.

Shadows

Civil War in Feudal Japan: The Sengoku Period

Matthew Lewis: Welcome to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. This is the place to explore the rich stories from the past that bring the world of Assassin's Creed to life. I'm Matt Lewis. The next episodes are very exciting as we venture into the heart of an era that has shaped legends. In case you hadn't seen it, the world premiere trailer for Assassin's Creed Shadows was released recently and we can see that it's situated in feudal Japan, a time renowned for its samurai and ninjas, a time of rich history, culture and stories. So for the next seven episodes, we wanted to spend some time dedicated to exploring this fascinating period in history. We'll navigate the intricate landscape of power and ambition, which you'll be able to explore in Shadows and introduce you to the figures who dominated and dared to defy. From the warring states of the Sengoku period and the unification of Japan to the first encounters with Portuguese missionaries, we'll explore a period in time that continues to fascinate. We'll also take a closer look at the remarkable story of one of Shadows' two playable characters, Yasuke, the first black samurai. Today, we embark on this epic saga with a focus on the Sengoku period, a time of warfare where the very fabric of society was tested and the period in which the game is set. I'm joined by Dr. Chris Harding from the University of Edinburgh, who will help us peel back the layers of history to reveal what life was like in these turbulent times and how this period laid the foundations for a unified Japan. Chris, can you help us to locate Assassin's Creed Shadows in the world? We know we're in Japan, but we're in the Sengoku period. What does that mean in terms of when we are? And I guess for a bit of context, can you tell us a bit about what else might be happening in the world that we might be familiar with?
Christopher Harding: Yes, so this is the 1460s in Japan, running for at least a century into the 1560s, and some historians would give it another few years after that. So at least a century or more of this all-against-all warfare between some of the different fiefs that we're going to be talking about. And for context elsewhere, you've got the Tudors in England, beginning with Henry VII's seizure of the crown in 1485. You've also got, I suppose almost but not quite midway between England and Japan, India, where from the 1520s you have the rise of the Mughal dynasty, who are in power there for a good couple of centuries. So relative dynastic stability in England and India, but pretty much chaos in Japan.
Matthew Lewis: Sounds like an ideal place to set an Assassin's Creed game. And what was feudal medieval Japan like before the upheavals of the Sengoku period? How is Japanese society ordered?
Christopher Harding: For a while, for a few centuries, thinking about maybe the 600s through to around 1100 or so, Japan is ruled more or less by an emperor based in what we now call Kyoto, alongside an aristocracy, most of whom are based in Kyoto and own these vast tracts of land elsewhere. And then across the 1100s, you have the rise of these warrior bands, who initially are just employed by aristocrats as bodyguards in Kyoto or to look after their concerns out in the countryside, where a lot of aristocrats really aren't very much interested in going. They might write poetry about it, but they wouldn't spend much time there. And I think that partly explains why you get the rise of warrior bands who, after a while, don't just work for an aristocratic employer, but actually have loyalty to one another within their groups. So this concept of vassals starts to develop. This gets to the point actually from the late 1100s onwards, where Japan is ruled de facto by warrior governments, what we would call shogunates. A Kamakura shogunate from the late 12th century through to the early 14th, and then the Ashikaga shogunate after that. So just before this era of chaos breaks out, Japan has had a few centuries of warrior rule.
Matthew Lewis: So during those shogunates, does the position of the emperor still exist? Is he still there or is he pushed aside completely during those periods?
Christopher Harding: So the emperor is always there in Kyoto. The story that the imperial family tells about itself is that it's divinely descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu. So that story, plus centuries of history, I think ensures the imperial family a good deal of respect. But what's interesting is that runs alongside the shogunate, the successive shoguns individually, being willing to really push them around to quite an extent. The notion of a shogunate means something like barbarian crushing generalissimo. So there in the title is the fact that this individual officially works for the emperor. His role is to go out there and crush the emperor's enemies. Normally the people who are at the periphery, for example, in the far north of Japan, considered to be barbarous and dangerous and in need of being kept on a bit of a leash. So in theory, that's what the shogunate does. And successive shoguns in taking that title are playing up to this idea that they are acting in the interests of the emperor, who is far too important and refined a person to get their hands dirty, basically in politics and military activity. But in fact, it's the shoguns who organize taxes, the shoguns who says who gets which pieces of land, and the shoguns who issue these legal codes and oversee a system of judgment. So in every meaningful way, the shoguns are in charge.
Matthew Lewis: So I guess being divinely descended provides you with some kind of protection, but it sounds almost like the emperor was someone we could think of as a constitutional monarch during that period, perhaps.
Christopher Harding: I think that's right. Certainly, it's someone who is mostly behind closed doors in the imperial palace in Kyoto, performing rituals which are thought to be for the good of the nation, what we now call Shinto, the way of the gods. This is the cosmology within which the emperor or the emperors operate. So I think people consider that to be important. And without a degree of legitimacy conferred by the emperor, the shogunate would struggle. Then again, they are at pains to make sure that the emperor, and at no point, use that prestige to try and gather an army around themselves. So there are stories of emperors dying and their families being unable to afford even to give them a decent burial because they simply don't have the income because tax, trade, and all the rest of it is being controlled by the shogunate. So there's a kind of refinement, but it's an impoverished refinement for sure.
Matthew Lewis: And so if that's the role and the position of a shogun, essentially he's the head of government, just thinking of another couple of words that might crop up when we think about medieval Japan, what is a samurai? I mean, samurai has got to be a word that everybody knows, but what does it really mean?
Christopher Harding: So it comes from the verb meaning to serve. So initially, the ethos was that these people were trained bodyguards, so they might stand outside the door of a particularly high strung aristocrat just to make sure that nothing would befall them during the night, or they might look out for people's interests. A lot of the aristocrats based in Kyoto would own land in far-flung places which they weren't, as I said, terribly interested in actually visiting. So they would look after those sorts of concerns. And it's the sense of being, I think, a professional warrior on that basis and passing on those skills to the next generation. The key change that I think happens across the 1100s is that the object of loyalty for the samurai changes from being the employer who pays them to actually being a senior member of their band, maybe related by blood, and you start to have these hierarchies within the samurai. That really is the focus of their loyalty, of their entire ethos. So the whole samurai culture that develops is quite divorced from this idea of basically a paid bodyguard, which is how they begin.
Matthew Lewis: During the medieval period, we can think of the idea of a samurai as still in evolution. It's something that's changing and developing throughout the period.
Christopher Harding: Yes, I think that's right. And I think it even changes during the Sengoku period and then in the period that follows. I think it is always evolving, particularly, and we'll probably come to this at the end, in the aftermath of the Sengoku period. Once Japan enters this period of settled fiefdoms, which are almost completely independent, the fact that the top samurai in each fief, called the daimyo, is more or less an autocratic ruler with nothing to do with anybody else outside his fiefdom. The samurai structure underneath him, I think, comes to matter all the more. So I think there's that shift all the way through, and it probably reaches its height in the period just after the Sengoku era, I would say.
Matthew Lewis: I think it's one of those things we tend to, maybe from the outside, we view it as quite a static thing. We think a samurai is a thing, but a samurai is actually a concept, an idea that evolves and changes throughout the period. It's quite interesting. Another word that you mentioned there, daimyo. Can we get a bit of an idea of what the daimyo was and what he did?
Christopher Harding: Yes. When the old shogunates were working properly, I was saying a moment ago, you've got the Kamakura shogunate, then you've got the Ashikaga shogunate after that. These are two different shogunates with two different families controlling them. One follows on from the other. In theory, in that system, the way they control the rest of Japan is they send out what are called shugo, these warrior constables, you could call them. So people in there employ, they'll send them out to these provinces, and they'll say, you look after law and order for us out there. Make sure you hold on to this province. If we need to raise troops out there, you can take care of that. Those sorts of roles for the shugo who may, when they initially went out to that part of Japan, have had no family connection at all. But what happens, I think, during the Sengoku period is that some of these warrior constables, they actually put down roots in these areas. They make alliances. They perhaps marry. They come to have much more autonomy and control over what goes on within that territory. Then they initially did when they were parachuted in by the shogunate. So a fully-fledged daimyo, which is what emerges at the end of this process, is someone who is in absolute control of his province or his domain and who needs to answer to nobody else. So some of the really wealthy daimyo, when we're getting into perhaps the mid-1500s, for example, might now and again lend the shogun a bit of money or pay for an imperial palace to be done up if it's been damaged. But that would be charity rather than something you have to do. So it's that sense of real, complete independence within their fiefdom.
Matthew Lewis: They sound a little bit, I might be showing my ignorance here, but they sound a little bit, when they start off, not dissimilar to English sheriffs in that they're the royal representatives in the regions who go out, enforce law and order, collect the taxation. But then in Japan, they perhaps managed to get more power than the sheriffs in England ever did.
Christopher Harding: Yes, I think they absolutely do. I suppose what's key to it is at the beginning of the Sengoku era, we have what's called the Ōnin War, running from 1467 to 1477. Huge damage done to Kyoto in the process of this war. It begins as a kind of succession dispute within the shogunate, but an enormous proportion of Kyoto is destroyed in fire. Lots of these different warrior constables from around the country end up coming to the Kyoto region to get involved. When that war ends, some of them go back to their provinces to find that someone else has usurped them. And that someone else who has usurped them manages to solidify their own power until they become what we would call daimyo, this real independent warlord. And in other cases, the warrior constables, when they go back to their provinces, they're the ones who manage to do that. Because this war, this Ōnin War, this 10-year conflict, pretty much destroys the idea of a functional shogunate. And so there really is no one in Kyoto anymore that you have to answer to. So it becomes easier to build up these independent power bases.
Matthew Lewis: And I guess if we get into then what the Sengoku period really was, it's also sometimes called the Warring States period. What precisely is it? When we talk about the Sengoku period, what are we really talking about?
Christopher Harding: So it's a period when central authority in Japan has completely gone. So you've still got the emperor in Kyoto, but as we were saying a moment ago, they're kind of impoverished and not really able to do very much politically or militarily. You've also still got a shogun in Kyoto. So if we go to the end of the Ōnin War, 1477, which is also pretty much the beginning of this Sengoku era, you've got a shogun there, but they're also extremely poor. If anyone listening to this has been to Kyoto, and they've been to see the silver pavilion, they may have been disappointed to find that there's no actual silver on it. It was supposed to be covered in glorious silver, the way that the Golden Temple is gloriously covered in gold. But the pavilion was built in the early 1480s. This is the exact period after the Ōnin War, when the Ashikaga shogunate is descending really into complete impotence. Their writ doesn't run far outside Kyoto, and they haven't got much income. So they simply couldn't afford to put the silver on there. So instead, people appreciate it for this withered wooden look. So against that backdrop, where you don't have a shogunate that can really extend its authority beyond Kyoto, what you have is these regional leaders becoming daimyo, as we were saying a moment ago, trying to secure their fiefs, in some cases trying to use warfare, marriage alliances, other kinds of dealings to extend their power against their neighbours. So it's pretty much an all against all. It's not warfare wall to wall for an entire century, but certainly on and off it becomes quite bloody.
Matthew Lewis: It must be quite embarrassing to call something a silver palace and build it, and then have to kind of publicly display the fact that you can't actually afford to cover it in silver anymore. It's a great big elephant in the room at that point, isn't it?
Christopher Harding: Yeah, you wonder why they stuck with the name, but for some reason the name stuck.
Matthew Lewis: And how does the Sengoku period really start? So you mentioned the Ōnin War there, 1467 to 1777, a bit of a succession crisis. Should we view that as the catalyst for the Sengoku period? I think that's right, yes.
Christopher Harding: So after that period, the shoguns don't have terribly much power at all, even actually within Kyoto, they are under the control of the Hosokawa family. So the shoguns themselves are all but puppets at this point. So I think that's certainly the beginning of it. You have the freedom in the rest of Japan for people to sort of do what they like.
Matthew Lewis: How then do those local daimyo begin to assert their more independent authority, and I guess consolidate their power? And how do they go about drawing samurai to them? Presumably the samurai have previously been loyal to the government, and now they're looking to draw their loyalty to something more local. How do they go about doing that?
Christopher Harding: Well, I think the evolution, as you were saying, the idea of the samurai is always on the move. I think there was a strong idea of loyalty within these samurai groups, probably going back as far as the late 1100s. So that's always been the case. But more and more these families or clans are separating themselves out from the shogunate as being a real kind of locus of loyalty for them. And instead, it's much more about the hierarchy within each province. So I suppose to give you an example, one of the most famous daimyo from this period would be Oda Nobunaga. We'll have a lot to say about him later on, I think. But he's from the small province of Owari. But he's a really good example of someone who was able to use a combination of smart tactics, smart use of weaponry, judicious use of alliances to gradually expand beyond that province. So he takes another province for himself quite early on. This is the middle of the 1500s. Then he makes some alliances. By 1568, after really only a few short years, and he's still, relatively speaking, a young man, he's able to do what most daimyo ultimately wanted to do, which is to mount a successful march on Kyoto and have the emperor under his beady eye and also have the shogun under his control.
Matthew Lewis: It'd be really good to understand the kind of weaponry and tactics and the military mindset that prevails in Japan as they move into this period.
Christopher Harding: Yes. So I think early on, if we're going back centuries and centuries, you have a sense of samurai warfare where the ideal would be for a samurai mounted on horseback to call out to someone on the opposing side and to have this, what we might think of as a kind of gentlemanly one-to-one combat. But during this period, that changes. It comes to be partly all about numbers. So a really important feature of warfare in this period, I think, is the humble foot soldier, ashigaru in Japanese. At the beginning, they're thought about pretty much as cannon fodder. They're not really given much armour, much protection at all. They're thought to be pretty replaceable. They're just pretty much peasants who are fighting in exchange for loot, you know, for whatever they can pick up on the battlefield. But then things start to change. They do become of more value because you can see they're being given armour, they're being given specific roles on the battlefield. And I think one of the most important roles they're given, this is certainly true of the armies that Oda Nobunaga runs, is they are trained in firearms. So in the middle of the 1500s, first contact is made with the Portuguese. They arrive off Japan's southern shore. And one of the things they're bringing alongside Christianity is firearms. Quite quickly, the Japanese are able to develop their own version of these firearms. And quite soon, the battlefield's used by people like Oda Nobunaga in great numbers. It's a bit controversial as to how far those firearms really helped someone like Nobunaga go from quite small beginnings to the very good heights that he eventually reached. But I think it's certainly true if you were a top samurai in this period and you really valued your life, one of the things you would look for is a suit of armour that perhaps has a few little dents in it because it's proof that it can withstand a bullet as opposed to letting one through. So I think they certainly have a role to play. Certainly the body count is higher as a result. Oda Nobunaga was an extraordinarily ruthless individual anyway. So I think the foot soldiers are important. I think the firearms are important. I think also there's a role for civil engineering, building things like pontoon bridges so that you can get your troops where they need to be as far as possible. And I think also just a degree of strategy. Oda Nobunaga mounted the kind of attacks, sometimes at night, sometimes against an overwhelming enemy who wouldn't have thought he would have tried it. Those sorts of things that come down to, I suppose, just a quirk of leadership and of ruthlessness on the part of someone like Oda Nobunaga. All those sorts of factors, I think, loom large in this period.
Matthew Lewis: I think it's always interesting to think about whether people like Nobunaga are a product of a period that he lived in or someone who drives the period that he lived in. He sounds like he was keen to adopt new technology and to think about his armies and his tactics in a different way to everybody else during that period. So is that a product of desperately trying to find new ways to win or is the fact that he's so good at what he does driving this period further forward?
Christopher Harding: I think from what we know of him, from the biographies that are out there, the people who met him, including actually one of the Jesuit missionaries out in Japan who became a bit of a friend of Nobunaga and gave us kind of a pen portrait of him, I think he really was a standout character. One of the stories told about him when he was a young man, just after his father left, all the Buddhist priests who had been tending to his father, praying for him, looking after him before he died, legend has it anyway that Oda Nobunaga had them all locked inside a single building and then shot to death for what they did, i.e. failing to keep his father alive. He also had a reputation as a teenager for being just quite strange, swaggering around town, eating nuts, letting them fall out of his mouth. He had sort of dishevelled hair. At his father's funeral, he's said to have picked up a fistful of incense and just thrown it and walked out. So quite a strange character, probably an unpromising character early on, but he was given this motto of rule the realm by force. And I think that carried him through. He had a strong sense that he was always going to do this, that he was always going to succeed. And I think there's a combination of deep self-belief and ruthlessness, and I suppose a degree of luck as well, that really seems to carry him forward. By the time that he died in the 1580s, as a result of treachery on the part of some of his own men, actually, he had controlled most of Japan's main island of Honshu, and he was on the verge of going to its second biggest island, Kyushu, down south. He actually, at that point, looked unstoppable. So through a combination of all those factors, I know the great man in history can be a bit of a cliché, but I think there is something in that when it comes to a warlord like Oda Nobunaga.
Matthew Lewis: And apart from those kind of battlefield tactics and the men who are being deployed around the place, I guess when we think about Europe during this period, we're maybe seeing a move away from castles and castle warfare and sieges. They're becoming less important. Where did Japan stand during this period in terms of castles? What did castles look like in Japan, and how important were they still during this period?
Christopher Harding: I think castles remained really important in Japan for this time, I suppose for a number of reasons. Most obviously, their defensive value. So in Japan now, if people go, lots of these old castles have been more or less faithfully rebuilt, so you can see them. But you have these enormous, many feet thick, sloping stone walls, a series of stone walls around the castle. You've got a series of moats as well. You've got the central donjon, it's called, which can be six or seven storeys high. So I think they were really important for defensive purposes. Extraordinarily difficult to successfully attack a castle like that. I think what they also provided is a degree of security, not just for armies, but also for ordinary people, if there were to be a sudden attack on a particular domain. So in some of these castles, what you see is a mini town growing up around it. So these castles, if they were felt to be secure places, they would draw lots of people, lots of different crafts people, trades people, merchants, et cetera, to come and set up their homes and shops all around the castle, which in turn is very useful for someone like Oda Nobunaga, who wants to try to raise these enormous armies. Obviously that costs money. So if you have a thriving economy around your fortified castle, a fortified castle town, basically, then it allows you to raise the kind of money that you need to gather together tens of thousands of troops and feed them and equip them. So I suppose in all those ways, castles were quite important in this period.
Matthew Lewis: Do we see a lot of siege warfare during this period in Japan? And I guess how different might that look from European siege warfare at the time?
Christopher Harding: You see, now and again, I suppose there's a really good example of siege warfare involving Oda Nobunaga. So in Japan, you have these different Buddhist sects, and one of them, Jōdo Shinshū, was particularly powerful and particularly worrying for Oda Nobunaga, because the people in this particular sect could be almost pitted out at the last minute to become a kind of pop-up army, so that the patriarch, for want of a better word, of this particular sect could issue a statement against Oda Nobunaga as he did, declaring him an enemy and saying that people would be rewarded in the next life if they stand up against him. And followers of this sect included some fairly wealthy merchants who could effectively equip themselves and feed themselves. So the danger of these pop-up armies appearing almost out of nowhere was extraordinary for Oda Nobunaga, and he worried about it, and he actually resented it very much, and so he launched a siege against the main compound in Osaka of the Jōdo Shinshū sect, which lasted actually for a while. It wasn't entirely successful, because Osaka, of course, is on the water, and so the patriarch had allies, pirate daimyo, I suppose you could call them, who for a while would supply the castle by sea, but Oda Nobunaga managed to defeat those pirates at sea, and so after a while, the Jōdo Shinshū sect, holed up in this fortified temple complex in Osaka, had to give up. They did at the last minute. The son, I think, of the patriarch, if I've got it right, when he was forced to come out, set fire to the place just before he came out, on the basis that if the Jōdo Shinshū sect cannot have that fortress anymore, then Oda Nobunaga certainly can't have it either. So there were quite remarkable sieges along the way. A company that has to be said, certainly in the case of someone like Nobunaga, with extraordinary slaughter. I think he particularly hated the idea that Buddhist sects would interfere in the running of the country. So there's another Buddhist sect, the Tendai sect, which he attacked on their mountain base called Mount Hiei, sent thousands of troops up there, killed everybody, burned everything, just destroyed the entire sect, including people unrelated to the sect who were living on the mountain. So it just gives you an idea of how bloody and uncompromising some of this warfare could be.
Matthew Lewis: And so for the Sengoku period, we seem to have a situation where the power of the shogun has kind of fractured and we get numerous local daimyo then establishing their own power bases. But I guess we call it then warring states because they start going after each other. So are we looking at sort of the fracturing of power, but also a lingering drive to bring it back together and for someone to conquer everybody and reunite Japan? Or is everyone happy with the idea that it's split into lots of different states at this point?
Christopher Harding: I think there is always the idea that Japan has been a single polity in the past and should be again. I don't think there is a celebration of war for the sake of it by any means. And so what anyone at a serious level, any way of influence in this period would like to see is the nation, nation maybe not quite the right word, but the country anyway, brought back together that Kyoto should be the natural center of power, but that ideally certainly someone like Oda Nobunaga, he would want to be the person who is fully in charge of that. So although it's a long period of time, it's a century, the Japanese, I suppose not unlike the British actually, have a very long history, are very conscious of that history. You have chronicles, you have poetry, you have songs, you have all sorts of things there in the culture that remind people of what the natural, if you like divinely ordained state of affairs ought to be. So there's certainly a desire to return to that, but shuffling the deck in terms of who is actually at the top of the hierarchy.
Matthew Lewis: And how does Japan think about the Sengoku period today? So I'm thinking we think about things like the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War and the effect that they had on this country. And I think we're probably still quite conscious of that in Britain, maybe. How do the Japanese think about the Sengoku period today?
Christopher Harding: I think there is a certain amount of affection for it, partly because although, you know, in the West we have an obsession with samurai, there's a pretty serious obsession with samurai, I think, in Japan as well. So if you're a dramatist, novelist, film director, the idea of setting a drama in a period like this where you've got spies, you've got skullduggery, you've got romance, you've got epic battles, you've got tales of honour and treachery, etc. I think it's enormous fun on that level. Maybe that sounds a bit superficial. I think it's also a period where you could say that some elements of Japanese culture, the core of Japanese culture, in terms of deep loyalty, in terms of having values and acting upon them, in terms of a culture that's pretty much, not entirely, but pretty much untouched by Western influence. All of these things, I think, make it quite an attractive period for the Japanese. It's also worth saying that alongside all the spilling of blood that we've been talking about, there are also great developments in the arts. Things like Zen Buddhism are developing just before and then during the Sengoku period. You've also got art, you've got the tea ceremony. You have an enormous degree of cultivation and an emphasis on self-cultivation in the arts and in religion in this period. So it's not all about fighting and the spilling of blood. So I think for all those sorts of reasons, people can remember it quite affectionately. And then especially the idea that you then have these great unifying figures, beginning with Oda Nobunaga, men, it's said, of great foresight, people who really have ended up setting Japan, actually, on a settled, peaceful footing for the next two and a half centuries.
Matthew Lewis: One more thing, if I can ask before we finish as well. What source material do we have for this period in Japan? Do we have to be slightly careful about where it's coming from? Is it the voices of the powerful, those daimyo who are in conflict? Or do we have fairly good source material that allows us to get to the bottom of what's really going on?
Christopher Harding: We have, for example, for some of the battle scenes, we have painted screens, which show roughly what was going on and how these battles were being fought. I think within some of the larger families, you have chronicles of what their great members have done. Certainly someone like Oda Nobunaga has that. You have individual writings by some of the samurai. For a while, part of the way things went on a battlefield was that whatever your deeds were, as a samurai, if you wanted to be rewarded for them, you had to have some kind of a record of them. Whether you were writing down what you'd done, whether you kept some kind of trophy from the people who you've killed, whatever it might be, those sorts of things, I think, become records as well. We also have records from within some of these great Buddhist sects that are kept. You have official histories with the imperial household. I think you could say, couldn't you, thinking about them, they are largely elite sources for the most part. But nevertheless, I think it's quite a lot of material, both written and visual, that gives us a real feel for what was going on.
Matthew Lewis: It's really interesting to think about that flourishing of art and that cultivation of core elements of Japanese culture and identity during a period that looks like it's just a lot of war. It's fascinating how much is going on during that period.
Christopher Harding: You know, I think it really is. And I think it's something that Westerners thinking about Japanese history always struggled with. I mean, even if you were to fast forward just very briefly to the 20th century and the Second World War, the idea that a country that was known for the tranquility of Kyoto, this gorgeous architecture, these quiet lakes, meditation, all these sorts of things, could yield fighting forces that were so zealous and that behaved as they did. I think that's always fascinated people in the West, that you can have those two things be true of a culture at the same time. And it really goes all the way back, at least to the Sengoku period, I think.
Matthew Lewis: I guess it's that fundamental dichotomy that we in the West struggle to get our heads around, but which seems absolutely natural to Japanese people.
Christopher Harding: It does. I suppose I would just ask you a quick question because I don't really know the answer myself. I have a vague image of Europeans getting their blades in their hands dirty and then wandering into a church, maybe still bloody, to thank God for the victory. Would that be anything vaguely comparable or is that just a completely different culture, do you think?
Matthew Lewis: No, I guess I think there is lots to be said about Western European understanding of warfare as it related to religion. How do you square that circle that thou shalt not kill? But actually, aren't I great because I've just killed 15 people on this battlefield today and God has given us this victory. You know, there was this association of God giving victory to people by way of slaughtering your enemies. But God doesn't want you to kill people and doesn't want you to have enemies. So I guess that's a very similar juxtaposition that perhaps we can compare to that idea in Japan that there is tranquility, but there is also fierce war.
Christopher Harding: Yes. Yeah, I think that's a very useful comparison. Absolutely.
Matthew Lewis: That seems like a really nice place to leave it. There's plenty to think about there. Thank you very, very much for joining us, Chris. It's been great to talk to you.
Christopher Harding: Thank you for having me.
Matthew Lewis: Thank you for listening to this episode of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Next time, we'll be discovering more about the unification of Japan at the close of the Sengoku period. So join us for the next episode to find out more about the history behind the world of Assassin's Creed.

↑ Henderson, Tom (23 April 2024). EXCLUSIVE – Early Details on Assassin’s Creed Hexe. Insider Gaming. Archived from the original on 24 April 2024. Retrieved on 11 May 2024.

[1] Henderson, Tom (23 April 2024). EXCLUSIVE – Early Details on Assassin’s Creed Hexe. Insider Gaming. Archived from the original on 24 April 2024. Retrieved on 11 May 2024.

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-|title=<div style="padding-right:3em; padding-left:6em;">''[[Assassin's Creed: Shadows – Iga no Monogatari|<font style="color:black; font-size:13.5px; font-family:tahoma;">Assassin's Creed: Shadows – Iga no Monogatari</font>]]''</div>
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-|list2=TBA
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-|list3=[[Fujibayashi Nagato|Fujibayashi Masayasu]] • [[Hattori Hanzō]] • [[Momochi Sandayu]]}}
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User:VilkaIsBack/Sandbox: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:15, 24 March 2025

Contents

Assassin's Creed Hexe

Gameplay

Echoes of History transcripts

Assassins vs Templars

Baghdad Soundwalks

Figures of Baghdad

Shadows

Navigation menu

User:VilkaIsBack/Sandbox: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:15, 24 March 2025

Assassin's Creed Hexe

Gameplay

Echoes of History transcripts

Assassins vs Templars

Baghdad Soundwalks

Figures of Baghdad

Shadows

Navigation menu

Search