Hi everyone, and welcome to episode three hundred and eighteen of the Medieval Podcast.

I'm your host Danielle Sebalski.

Since a certain blockbuster video game came on the scene almost twenty years ago, the shadowy Assassins of the medieval Middle East have seen a serious resurgence in popularity, and yet, like so many medieval people and groups, it's still hard to tell the legend from the reality.

And that's just the way the Assassins wanted it.

This week I spoke with doctor Steve Tibble about the medieval order of the Assassins.

Steve is an honorary research associate at Royal Holloway University of London, who you may remember from his previous visits to the podcast when he spoke about his books Templars and Crusader Criminals.

His latest book is Assassins and Templars, A Battle in Myth and Blood.

Our conversation on who the Assassins were, what tactics they used in the Middle Ages, and what they stood for is coming up right after this.

Well, welcome back, Steve.

We've already been talking for like half an hour.

It's time to get to work and talk about the Middle Ages.

Welcome back to the podcast.

Yeah, thank you, Daniel.

It's always always a treat talking to you.

It's a very lovely treat.

Well, you're back to talk about assassins and Templars, and you've talked about the Templars on this podcast before, so I think today we're probably mostly going to focus on the assassins.

But I need to ask why did you decide to tell their stories together?

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, it's an interesting one, and I think it's partly because they've become so interweaved in popular culture.

I mean, if you you know, I love gaming, toy soldiers videos, all all the usual sort of silly stuff, but I do love it, and Assassin's Creed, for instance, you know, just brings them together, and it's there is this kind of weird melding of the two.

It's kind of like Aliens versus Predator and you know, the popular mind.

And weirdly, because I wrote that book on the Templars that you talked about there, the Templars, the knights who made Britain.

I was coming across a lot of stories of the Templars in Lebanon and bumping into the assassins and then and then after that, I wrote a book called Crusader Criminals, which had a huge chapter on murder, and you can't go from on two minutes on medieval murder without bumping into the assassins, you know, thankfully not literally.

So you had this thing where, you know, you can see the two guys, the two sets of groups operating together, bouncing off each other, hating each other, killing each other, but sometimes working together.

And then I realized that the Assassin's Creed stick, you know, is there's actually more than a grain of truth to it.

Bizarrely, you know, the guys that don't pretend that there game is anything other than a fantasy game, so you know, actually science fiction really, I guess.

But the world they create in the original one, the two thousand and seven classic Assassin's Creed, has great atmosphere and it's got more than a germ of truth in it.

So really, what I ended up writing was the backstory of Assassin's Creed because I just thought it was hilarious.

And these guys, say so larger than life in real life.

They are legends in their own lifetime and they have fabulous stories.

So bringing the two of them together, it looks artificial in some ways, but it's not at all because they were in the same place, the same time, often the same relationship, same strategies, same enemies, you know, the same mutual enemies.

We can talk about it later that they both hated Saladin and they knew he was a harbinger of doom really, so they both really wanted to get rid of him.

So they've got a huge amount in common.

But it's just one of those weird relationships that until you're under the skin, you don't realize it's even.

Happeningsolutely Okay, So who are the assassins?

From the beginning, who are these guys?

They just sort of appear in history.

I don't think many of us know that backstory that you're talking about.

So where do they come from?

Who are these guys?

No, you're absolutely right, they are.

They do appear, and they appear at the same time as the templars, I mean in the same way as sort of appear in the dictionary as well.

They're one of the few medieval sects that live in everyday parlance because they came to mean death and murder so literally that it actually is in the you know, Oxford English Dictionary or the webster or they stand for a huge amount.

Their beginnings are much more prosaic, I guess, but equally weird.

So basically they are an extreme religious sect.

They're a sect of Islam, so they are technically known as the Nizari Ishmaelers, so they're a branch of Ishmaelism, which still exists today.

The Aga Khan is their leader at the moment, but obviously it's very very different in the same way as you know, the Catholic Church is very different from the templars launching charges.

So the Aga Khan is very different from the kind of assassins we're talking about today.

They were an offshoot of Ishmaelism, which was in Egypt.

So I don't know if you're aware, but there was an Egyptian empire at the beginning of the Crusades called the Fatimid Empire.

The Fatimids were in control in Egypt, and they in turn were an offshoot from Siism, and Sheism is an offshoot from mainstream Islam or the center of Islam.

The Fatimids, the Ishmaelis in Egypt had a bit of a breakdown in ten ninety four, actually mainly political and military rather than anything else.

It was a power grab by the Visia, you know, the traditional power grab.

And the guys who lost that battle they supported a guy called Nizzar who was one of the contenders.

He was killed in the fighting and they fled to Persia or Iran as it is now, and the Ishmaeli is over in Iran decided to side with them rather than side with the Fatimids, and from that point on you find the Assassins or Thezarish Mailers have had their kind of headquarters in Persia and in a place called Alamot, and that where they conduct this kind of low level war against the foreign Sunni guys, the Turks who have overrun Persia, and you find that so from Alamot they're famous castle, famous headquarters.

They have a war that's it's a bit like Vietnam, you know, it's a war that's partly nationalism, but it's also partly ideological.

If you can get those two things together, it's a very powerful blend.

And the Assassins fought a very strong kind of provincial nationalist war against the Tyks in Persia before they gradually spread out into the Crusader lands and the Holy Land, which I'm sure, we'll talk about and that's where they met our friends, the Templars.

So when we're talking about this war that they're conducting against the Sunnis, what is it that they want?

And I think this is a question that people are asking, you know, when they start to see the assassins conducting their ugly business sometimes what is it that they want from from the world, from the region, because they are they are moving, as you say, closer to the sea.

What is it that they want from life, from the world.

Well, they don't want a quiet life, he probably guess they don't dream of beach holidays like you know, you and I might do.

I think there's two parts of that question.

I mean that's a very good question.

I mean one is, you know, one of the objectives.

But the other thing is, you know, you mentioned an ugly business, So I think maybe it's worth thinking a little bit about how ugly it was and how different it actually was.

But so firstly, in terms of the objectives, when the old man of the mountain wakes up on Monday morning, what does he you know, what's top of his agenda?

What's he thinking about?

Has he got hrs is to worry about?

Or it isn't like that.

It's easier to understand them if you think of them as religious fanatics, and that sounds pejorative way of looking at it, but from our perspective, almost everybody in the Middle Ages is a religious extremist.

I mean we you know, even if you're devout, you get a mass every week, you're never going to be as religious as you know your ancestors in the twelfth century.

But even in an age of extreme religiosity, the Assassins and the Templars actually really stood out as people who are on an extreme They were very, very devoted to their sect and to their religious beliefs.

So the primary thing thereafter is the kind of day minimous subjective is survival.

So they are a religious group that are hated by almost everybody, particularly the sooner is so that they've got a lot of enemies, people who think they're heretics.

Ironically, the Christians, who you, I think, because we're all a bit inward looking and a bit Eurocentric, and we kind of assume that it's all the assassin the fighting the crusaders, and actually that couldn't be further from the truth.

The Assassins didn't have really much of a beef with the Christians, you know, and they were.

Funnily enough, the Assassins were quite open minded.

I think that's one reason why they were unpopular.

They were very open minded about philosophy and happy to talk to people of other faiths.

But the trouble was that the Sooners would see them as heretics.

So they were on the edge of a one particular branch of Islam, and that made them very unattractive to the Sooners.

So I think survival day Minimus.

But equally, they were very charismatic guys, as you can imagine.

You know, these we're still talking about them now, but they were legends in their own lifetime.

Their leaders were incredibly charismatic people.

You know.

Even their job title, you know, Old Man of the Mountain.

I mean it's absolutely redolent.

Yeah, it's it's the stuff of movies, isn't that.

The other thing they would like to do is grow So they always had missionaries going out.

They were kind of ultra violent version of the Book of Mormon.

I guess, you know, they're sending their young lads out doing good work, you know, and you know, the guys the Mormons come around with a clean shirt and the good book, and yeah, the Assassins came with a sharp dagger and what have you.

But if you think of them as a cult, and I'm saying that not in a pejorative way, but if you think of them as a kind of religious act, that you're not going to go far wrong.

That is their main motivation.

But particularly in Persia, they've got this added kicker that makes them even more attractive, which is that there's a nationalist element to it.

So a lot of the people in Persia are Sheites like the Assassins, and they tend not to be Turkic.

You know, the Turks have invaded, so they're kind of sunny and their foreign overlords.

So the Assassins in Persia managed to combine this helpful from their perspective, combination of spiritual ideas and nationalist emotion and of course the types a lot of problems in Persia.

Well, I need to add this question because the Assassins, what they're known for is their sort of well literally cloak and dagger tack when it comes to making a political point.

But the reason that I wanted to dig into this is because often there's a backlash, like it seems like a bad way to conduct business, because when they conduct an assassination, there's often a huge backlash, including everybody who might be sort of on the edges of the religion of whatever community this assassination has happened, and like there's there's a program, so like I'm wondering, like, this doesn't seem like a good way to do business.

No, you're absolutely right.

I guess the key thing is if you're if you're genuinely very fanatical, you're genuinely devoted to your religious sect, you know, you actually don't care that is collateral damage you're prepared to sustain.

And I think just coming back to you, medt a very good point about ugly business, and I think we all feel that, you know, you read about this essence and you realize that the way they project power effectually, their foreign policy is to go around murdering people, which doesn't if you say it like that doesn't sound very attractive.

You know, it's pretty grim stuff.

But in fairness to them, you know, and I'm not saying I want to go on holiday with them, but they look at things in a very precise way.

You know, they don't have big armies, so what they do to project power is discover that a single man with a dagger can exert as much leverage as a ten thousand man cavalry army if he's in the right place at the right time.

So they would argue, and I think that there is some case behind this that the big armies of their neighbors and enemies caused far more damage than their hit squads.

Did you know when Saladin invades the region, or any of the Turkic leaders or Kurdish leaders in his case, thousands of people died, Villages were burnt, mass rape, mass slavery, you know.

I mean, it's hell on earth when big armies moved around that region, whereas what they were doing was killing, and it's horrible obviously, but they were killing an indo.

It was very precise.

They would argue that they were the kind of the telescopic sites and the rifle approach, which was ironically less blood thirsty than the kind of shotgun approach that everybody else had.

And they were forced into doing that because they didn't have any choice because there weren't many of them.

But they were also a kind of oppressed minority, so I'm sure they would argue that that, in fact, there's a quote from Sinan, who's probably the most famous old man in the mountain.

He and Saladin had this incredibly vitriolic correspondence because they were both trying to kill each other, you know, so it really got personal, and you know, they killed some of a lot of Saladin's people.

Where Sinan said, he started the letter saying, we are the oppressed and not the oppressors.

And when I first read it, I thought it was a bit of a joke, you know, because it sounds counterintuitive, but he meant it literally, and on one level, it's one hundred percent tury.

These were an oppressed minority and they were fighting in the only way they could.

And I mean again, like this is not to condone their tactics, but there is a reason that assassination has always been with us, because people find it an effective way to make a point.

So I think that it's a good way that you're approaching us where you're taking it from a sort of a fanatical perspective, because I think what is really shocking about the tactics of the assassins is they go against cultural norms.

Right.

These are people who find themselves they integrate and ingratiate themselves into communities where they're supposed to be trusted and they're supposed to follow the societal norms, and they don't do that.

And I think that the only way to really understand is to understand that the objective is much more important than breaking rules like hospitality.

Am I on the right track?

Yeah?

Definitely, right, definitely right.

I mean I think they are.

And this is this is another area where then the Templars have so much in common, is the extraordinary level of commitment.

You know, they basically have small teams of young men in their hip squads, in the same way as there are a small team of Templar brothers in squadrons.

You know, they both have their own squads of young guys who are prepared to die, and they are absolutely committed to doing anything for the cause.

They're not suicide squads, neither of them.

Actually, they don't want to die, and they usually have an accept strategy, but they're fully prepared to die.

But I think it was quite easy to characterize the assassins as terrorists.

And when you describe their modus operandi, it's like you think, wow, okay, this is classic terrorism.

So probably they invented terrorism.

And I think there's two aspects of that.

One is that they didn't invent it.

I think, you know, since ever since two monkeys found stakes, you know, there have been political murders, and they certainly didn't invent it.

But what they did was they didn't have any choice.

So in many societies, you know, you have an army, you have a navy, you have an air force.

Maybe you have a few assassins and you know in the CIA or you know, I five or whatever, so you have different grades of capability.

The thing about the assassins was they have they only had one you know, they only had one weapon, and that was the Dais, who were the young men in the hit squads.

The commitment those guys had, I think you're absolutely right shows through in the way that they were.

That's one reason why there were legends in their own lifetime.

They were the James Bond of the Middle Ages.

You know, they were people really were scared of them, way out of all proportioned to their numbers or their capabilities.

And it was partly because they were able to infiltrate, you know, and they were so implacable, and it is partly a branding thing.

And there's one thing I'll try and explore it in the book is you know, we're all used to brands intuitively.

You know, you go to McDonald's, you know what McDonald stands for for good or bad.

You're going to get this since it's pretty much going to be that in Bangkok, same as in Montreal or wherever.

And I think the Assassins intuitively grasped that, and they realized that their foreign policy would only work if people really were scared to the core, and that people really understood what the Assassin brand stood for.

So they made the Assassin's brand stand for death.

It's the promise of death.

And that's where the implacability comes in.

So you can insert these guys into society.

They're efventively sleepers.

They can become Catholics, you know, and they can.

Edward Longshanks was actually godfather to one of them.

They were so trusted that he you know, so the Assassin was called Edward after his godfather, Edward before he tried to kill him.

And you could work your way into Sunni society pretending to be a Turk or being this or being that, and they were just superb getting away with that.

They had language skills, they had empathy skills, they had weapons training.

There is a kind of James Bond mystique to this.

But the other aspect of it is that the other part of the brand was we are never going to give up.

So if you get on the wrong side of the assassins, even if they don't get you on the first hit or the second hit or the third hit, you know, they're in the back of your mind.

You're just knowing they're not going to stop.

They're never going to stop.

And there was one incident where a Bedwind leader and his tribe got the better of a group of assassins.

And the Bedwin are just as clannish as the assassins.

You know, they're incredibly difficult to infiltrate.

And the assassins literally waited over twenty years before the guy who'd led the attack on them came out into the open, you know, went down to the supermarket to buy something or whatever it is.

So they managed to catch the guy in the open and they killed them.

They had men tracking him for over twenty years, and he must have thought that he was all clear, you know, he maybe had even forgotten all about it.

But the assassins never forget all about it, you know.

And it's the fact that they will follow you forever with a dagger that really creates political power for them, and for a tiny group of oppressed heretics in a verted commas, that's the only thing keeping them from death themselves.

Reading your book really brought me back to my childhood during the Cold War, which is really aging right now.

I wondered where that sentence was going.

I said, Wow, you had a very different childhood, didn't you.

No, But I mean there was that sort of legendary, mystical aspect of it where you could trust no one because you know, at some point someone who's going to come out of the shadows with a dag or a gun or something that sort of moment.

I don't think we were living in that moment anymore, but we certainly were when I was a child, And so this brought it back to me, this idea that you really have to be careful because it could be anybody at any time, and this is really frightening.

And that's what they wanted you to think.

I mean, yeah, there was that brilliant TV called The Americans.

I think, wasn't it.

What it was just basically about two sleepers operating, and that had similar elements, you know, people who were super committed to an ideology, an ideology that you know technically, so for instance, you know, like the socialist states in eastern Europe were economically way lower than the West, but they managed to project power partly by those kind of things, you know, building a lot of tanks, but also having very committed spies and agents who would do their bidding.

And I'm sure we did the same, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well, one of the things that is sort of the crux of the Assassin's success in this branding and fear that they're creating that you mentioned is that they have a sort of a corporate identity, and so did the Templars, instead of a family business identity.

I think this is really important, So tell us what you mean by this.

Yeah.

Absolutely, It is a funny thing and it did only occur to me about halfway into writing the book.

Is that what they again, what they did intuitively realize, is that they had a different organizational structure that gave them unique power.

So if you think of the twelfth century, in the thirteenth century, I mean, you work a lot in well the fourteenth century, so you know you're basically when you're looking at power in the Middle Ages, nine times out of ten, it's about families.

You know, it's about as to the throne.

It's about people in power and their wives, husbands, children, nephews and so on, which is all great up to a point.

And if you've got that kind of connection, it can bring stability and so on, but it also brings huge vulnerability.

If you kill the right person at the right time, you can destabilize a huge country in a second.

You know, one knife blade in the right place at the right time can totally change history.

And that's what the Assassins and the Templars realized.

A they could exploit, but b that they were impervious to because both the Templars and the Assassins were corporations.

You know, if you killed the old Man of the Mountain sounds like a person, but it's actually a job title.

You know, if you if you kill the old Man of the Mountain by the following Tuesday, you've got another Old Man of the Mountain, and all you've got.

If you thought the assassins were angry before you know, you've you've discovered a whole new level of anger with the next time.

The same with the Templars.

You know, you could, you could kill the Master of the Templars, but again, you know, Monday afternoon there's another one.

And yet they're just even more pissed off with you.

So they realized they could exert power.

So you know, the assassins would deliberately go to literally the jugular of the political system where it met families, so effectively, I mean, Saladin was on the receiving end of up to five assassination attempts by the assassins, definitely a couple, but probably a couple of others as well, and they didn't actually kill him, but just the fact that the implacable nature of it, plus the fact that he was so vulnerable, meant that he actually was forced to come to an arrangement with them.

They detested each other, and we've still got private correspondence from Saladin after he'd made peace with them, showing that he absolutely hated their guts, but he knew it was the only way he could literally get them off his back, because you know, he loved his nephew, he loved his family, and he knew that none of his family were going to be safe while you've got these super crazily motivated guys prepared to track you forever.

So for a small group of people who are under threat, they discovered a wonderful way of how to, you know, survive.

It's the opposite of making friends and influencing people.

It's sort of making enemies and totally guiding them by fear.

But for them that was the only altentive they had.

Really, Yes, well, I mean you have to picture it like Saladin's on the move a lot.

He's intents a lot that is not a place where you can feel very safe.

And there's a pervid story that that got passed down where they're like, Saladin is in a tent with just a few people, tell us his story, Steve, because it's amazing.

Well, the Assassin's got to him an a tent several times.

Yeah, I mean the first time they went in mob handed, he was besieging Alepo, and that the reason the assassins hated Saladin so much was because they knew he was their death.

Now, you know, if they hadn't done something, he was a usurper.

So to justify his own position.

He needed to say that he was going to damp out heretics and infidels.

You know, the infidels are the Crusaders and people like the Templars and the heretics of the Assassins.

And he was super.

Rich and he was basically taking over the whole region.

So they knew that if soon the Islam kind of united under Saladin in a focused way, everybody was dead, you know, all the Crusader states were dead, and the Assassins were dead too.

So the Assassins pulled out all the stops.

The first hit or the first conspiracy, there was a murder conspiracy, but they actually joined joined forces with the Crusaders, and they worked together in the winter of eleven seventy three seventy four to have a conspiracy against him in Egypt, presumably to kill him.

It didn't come off.

Everybody was crucified who was involved when they got found out by Saladin's secret service.

But then within a few months they were back and they you know, when Saladin's proceeded Aleppo, they send and you're absolutely right, he's in a tent.

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

They were just walking very nonchalantly, as you do, towards the great Man's tent, and suddenly somebody shouted out, you know, don't I know you?

What are you doing here?

That kind of thing.

And if you and I were in that situation, we'd think, oh, maybe it's one of our friends.

But they don't have any friends, so they know that now about half a second from destruction.

So they've got the assassins.

We've got half a second to decide whether to move forwards or to run away, and of course, being assassins, they just go pell mell for it.

They stopped to kill the guy who shouted at them, and then they all run into Salden's tents and there's blood and blades flashing and blood everywhere.

They nearly get him, but they get all cut down by his guards before they get to the great Man.

But then the following year they do exactly the same thing, except even cleverer.

So Saladin has got his guard up.

By now he's besieging another Muslim castle called Azaz, and three assassins managed to get to him, get to the tent, and they actually stab him.

They draw blood, but underneath and you've seen all those portraits of Saladin, which was wearing these gorgeous clothed, fabulous silks, and what the pictures don't show you is that underneath that there's three or four layers of male leather plate.

You know, he's absolutely guarded up to the nines.

So even though the assassins tried to get him in the in the neck and in the head, he was still wearing a steel cap and they drew blood.

They managed to stab him, but they didn't get a fatal wound.

And again they were wiped out.

And then they just go into this horrible relationship where Saladin invades the assassin's territory, burns as many villagers as he can.

They enter into this vitriolic correspondence and it seems like there was at least another one assassination attempt on him.

And this is quite a funny one because the guy is so incompetent.

You know, we're used.

We're talking about these kind of superhuman James Bond figures here.

But one of the guys hid in a walnut tree.

Supposedly Saladin rode underneath the tree and the guy jumped off, but instead of instead of tying it right and hitting the great Man, he hits the horse's bum.

So he bounces off, the horse's bum, falls on the ground, and then he's cut to pieces.

But interestingly, I mean, you could say, well, the assassins have failed.

You know, that's possibly the fourth attempt, and maybe there was another one afterwards, so each time they failed to kill him.

But the interesting thing is that that Saladin makes peace with them at this point.

He knows this can go on forever.

He's heard all the horrible stories about, you know, the way that the old man of the Mountain can just tell his guys to jump off a cliff and they will.

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

I mean, I think the core of the story, the message of the story is true.

I think, you know, the actuality of it is legendary.

But there is that core which at this point Saladin realized that there were an unending number of assassination attempts coming, so he had to do something about it.

He couldn't destroy them totally, but they hadn't got to him yet, so he had to patch up a piece and he did, and he sort of included them in peace streets and kind of looked out for them.

You know.

It went totally against the grain because he hated THEA and they killed a lot of his friends in these assassination attempts, and they threatened the lives of his family, and particularly his nephew, who was very fond of was under threat.

Button.

Yeah.

But despite all that, the assassins won because they forced him to come to the negotiating table and treat them as you know, as equals, which they weren't.

I mean, it was amazing diplomatic coup.

And if there was ever a way of explaining why they did what they did, it was because it worked.

Yeah, That's the thing that is exactly right is that it worked, and so they just kept on with it.

And the more they kept on with it, the more the legend grew, the more it worked.

And for as you say, like a small group, it's a plan that that works, whether we are on board with it or not.

Yeah.

Absolutely, but you have to say, I mean, like Saladin's response, his repast was, to my part, villages full of you know, women and children, and the Crusaders would have done the same.

You know, the warfare in that period or any period, really is brutal and grim and wide reaching.

At least what the assassins did was highly focused.

They would argue that what they were doing was more honest, but more focused than what their enemies were doing.

Yes, well, you have mentioned four seas in the book that the using I love this, so castle's conversion, carnage, and chaos.

We've covered most of those.

But what is it What is the role of castles in their strategy overall?

Because they are very focused on castles.

I mean, I think it's kind of intuitive why do you need a castle?

But why don't we spell it out?

What was their thinking of castles?

No, you're absolutely right, and again yes again, this is something that in the Templars have in common.

You know, if you're a small group that's under threat, you need, I think what the military nowadays called a force multiplier.

You know, fifty assassins on an empty plane are just dead meat, you know, because the Sooners can feel the ten thousand man coverry army.

They won't even notice when they ride over them.

And the same with the Templars.

But if you put those fifty guys, super fanatic in a castle on the top of a mountain incredibly hard to get to, and from that kind of mountain fastness, they can come out at the time that they're choosing and do all the crazy things that they want to do at a time when fifty men really can make themselves felt.

So the assassins used the castles, and they actually had a very big network of castles in Iran and in Syria on the borders of Lebanon, where they took over whole kind of mountain ranges and they used them as places to retreat from so they could actually keep themselves to themselves as a religious community and then come out when they needed to launch you know, diplomatic activity in the shape of a knife raid or something.

Yes, well, one of the things that we keep coming back to is that they don't have a lot of manpower.

So how do they acquire these castles?

They're not building them themselves, how do they acquire them?

Yeah, well tis a bit of a mystery.

But I think I've discovered the answer to the mystery because, as I say, very similar to the Templars.

The Templars they needed castles that weren't very many of them either.

There are only a few hundred Templar brothers at any time.

So they both build a lot of castles.

And we know that castle building is hideously expensive.

It's like it's like a navy building an aircraft carrier.

You know, these are a massive investment.

We haven't quite got builders receipts, but we've got a lot of evidence about Templar castles, like like Safet or Safad it's called where we've we've got a lot of the you know, an itemized bill of what it costs, what the running costs were, and so on, and it's horrendous.

And the assassins had up to some people estimate seventy castles.

Seven zero castles now part of The problem with running a castle network in the mountains is it's it's a bit like you know Tolkien and and how the woodland creatures survive.

You know, how what are the elves, what's what's the Eldvish economy?

Like you because you're in the middle of nowhere, you know, you've got very few visible means of support.

So these guys, so you look at you look at the mountain network in Lebanon with the castle and you think, wow, that's really impressive.

You know, with the templars.

We know where the money's coming from because it's coming from Europe.

You know, they're investment bankers.

They're getting they've got bigger states in Europe.

Bring the cash in, cash transferred out, pays for mercenaries, pays for castles.

You know, job done.

With the assassins, there's no obvious you know, money trail.

You know that the old thing, follow the money.

It's very difficult to do that with the assassins.

But I think the fact that they're kind of cash strapped most of the time explains one of the other mysteries, which is very often they were killing people not on their own account but for somebody else, and that somebody else was often one of their sunny enemies, so you think it's a bit weird.

You know, You've got this sect that are fanatically religious.

They're in the mountains, so they keep themselves to themselves.

You know, the logic would be they just honker down.

They don't interact too much with the world of Sunni Islam.

But in fact they venture out and they sometimes quite frequently do killings on behalf of you need warlords, So you think, wow, what's that about?

And actually I think the two mysteries explain each other.

You know, the mystery of where's the money for the castles coming from?

And the mystery of, you know, why do they take on contracts with their enemies explain themselves.

They are so short of money that they need to operate with people that they would much rather not deal with than vice versa, to trade in death.

So their brand of death is so powerful that even the people who really hate them are prepared to use them, because you know, if you're a tokic warlord, you've got a lot of enemies.

I mean mainly amongst your own side, really, I mean, the Crusaders you can see them coming, but the Wallers were always incredibly nervous of each other, very competitive market.

So having the assassins in your pocket meant that your next door neighbor could have a tragic accident when he was leaving the masque and you could say, oh, it wasn't me, you know, it's those Persians, those assassins.

They're dreadful people, aren't they.

And it was a way of outsourcing.

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

Yes, well, I mean there's a reason why when people talk about assassins there there usually is a money element involved, Like it's usually a contract killing when we use this word, because there has to be sort of a grain of truth somewhere.

And we will get to this in a second.

That sort of the end of the assassins heyday comes down to contract killing near the end.

But I do want to come back around to castle before we get there, because I've already aged myself by talking about the Gold War.

So of course, one of my favorite stories in your book is about the time the assassins tried to take over a castle and they failed because of some very angry middle aged women.

It Oh, I love this, Yeah, it was because, well, it's partly because obviously I'll need a very simple life and I don't get out much, so I'd only recently come across the expression man'splaining, and you don't see it much in the medieval chronicles.

And also the other thing is that the assassins are a bit kind of pantomime villains stroke James Bond characters, so it's hard to relate to them other than in the abstract, you know.

But there was an incident in eleven fourteen.

It was the largest as far as I can make out, it's the largest assassination attack where it basically was about one hundred of the assassins got together and surprised a castle held by one of their Sunni enemies, and the garrison of the castle were off patrolling.

I think they were actually partying for the day, but they were reading between the lines.

But anyway, they were off at Christian villages celebrating Easter, so I can't imagine what, you know, what were they doing when they were out there, probably having a drink but anyway, so that so Ches is the name of the castle, and it's emptied because the garrison's off having a nice time and the assassins were waiting for this.

So they had one hundred guys ready to go, and they swept through the castle and it's a bit like Showgun, one of my favorite books.

Loved it when I was a kid, and there's a wonderful scene in there, which I've probably read a hundred times of a ninja attack where the ninja just swarm over a building and kill everybody in it, and that's pretty much what happened.

So these hundred assassins broke through the city, infiltrated their way in, killed everybody they needed to in the town, and then rushed up to the citadel, which was almost empty because the garrison had gone.

A few older guys hanging around, but none of the care garrison, the people they call the Askar, And they pushed their way into the citadel, started killing people, captured half of it, and then and then and then they just really lost it.

And this is where man's blaining comes into it.

So just you know, the key thing in these situations is moment you know you're on a winning streak.

You just keep pushing forward.

The enemy's disoriented and so on.

And the leader of the assassin stopped because he saw that the only people left in the citadel were women, and particularly being led by a middle aged woman who was the mother of Usama Ibn Munkid, who's quite a famous memoirrist.

He was out at the easter parties as well, but his mum was there, and she was a hell of a figure.

She was a very haughty and snobbish lady, but she had, you know, a real backbone, and she managed to get all her people behind her.

And so she started talking to the head of the assassins in the attack, and he was so patronizing.

So he goes into man's plaining mode and he goes it's effectively, oh, come on, love, you know you know how this works.

We're already here, We're going to take over now.

We'll kill you if you don't move quickly.

You know you're out now.

So just you know, behave yourself loved.

So get they come into this kind of crap man's plaining thing, and she refuses, She absolutely refuses.

She arms all her servants, even you know, women, old women who had you know, domestics, cleaners, cleaning ladies are dressed up and they put chain mail on, and there's a wonderful thing where she's simultaneously kind of domestic goddess at the same time as she's running with this battle.

She distributes swords from the family cabinet to everybody, but she refuses to give them the scabbards because they're too richly decorated and she doesn't trust the staff to not walk off with her highly decorated scabbards.

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

And the first time I read it, I thought, wow, that's that's really good.

She's trying to, you know, save her daughter.

This is real fanaticism, but really shows backbone.

And then I carried on reading and then she's because she's so haughty.

She says, no, I was always going to I was going to kill her I was going to kill my daughter if they break through, And then you're kind of expecting her to say because their assassins and their heretics, and she didn't.

She said, I'm not going to have her touch by peasants.

So it was they were down market.

It wasn't that they were the enemy or that they were heretics.

It was the fact that they were too down market to touch her daughter.

So this matron and her cleaners basically held off the assassins.

They didn't need to hold on for long because the garrison got word of the assault.

They started coming back, and eventually they broke in through the town again and wiped all the assassins out.

But it is just this lovely story really, where the most scary people on the planet got too cocky, believed their own propaganda, started to behave in a very patronizing way to a few women, and really the penalty, every single one of them died because of that man's plaining.

So I think there's a lesson for all of us there.

You know, let it be known, you should.

You should never underestimate a middle each woman who is just enough.

Exactly exactly they're not going to take it anymore.

And that's that's what the assassins found.

All right, Well you can tell where I needed I think the listeners can tell where I needed this story to be told.

All right.

It's a good story and it's true.

Yeah, So the Templars and the Assassins are at their height around the same time, the time we were talking about when there's a really famous old man of the mountain.

But they do, they do come down.

They do sort of end up receding from from the spotlight at the same time as the Templars kind of have an end the way the Templars have an end, but differently.

So tell us how this came about.

I mean, we don't have a lot of time to talk about it, but in a nutshell, how did they end up losing their alleged becoming lesser at the end?

Yes, no, you're absolutely right.

I mean that they are still legendary.

That's the weird thing.

I mean, the legends have actually grown over time.

But you're one hundred percent right.

They both petered out politically at the same time.

And then again, you know, as with the Templars, you know, same time, same place.

So by the end of the thirteenth century, and the Holy Land.

In the thirteenth century, things were really turning.

As we've been talking about Man explaining it's you know, that is the danger of believing your own propaganda.

And by the middle of the thirteenth century there were a really, really tough group entering into the region called the Mongols that we all heard of.

I mean, these are really really scary guys.

I mean, for a lot of the Muslim chroniclers that they write about them like it was a zombie apocalypse.

They really have you know, mythic proportions of beer.

And the assassins.

You know, the Mongols went through and destroyed an awful lot of Islam in a place like Baghdad, killing everything, and the Assassins at the time thought this was quite a good you know, they thought anybody who's killing this many Sunni Muslims can't be all bad.

So they cozed it up to the Mongols, and we're even encouraging them.

They were trying to help spot targets for them, you know, all there's you know, rich pickings if you go and destroy that town and so on.

But because they believed their own propaganda, they basically overstepped the mark and they got pissed off with one Mongol general.

They responded instead of instead of behaving diplomatically, they said, oh, I know what, well, he'll enjoy a visit from the Fideis.

So they sent a hits god In killed them and expected that that would be a way of, you know, starting negotiations and exerting power, but in fact, Mongols being Mongols, that was just the end.

The Mongols just went ballistic, and if the Assassins thought they were implacable, you know, the Mongols were totally remorseless.

So they absolutely wiped out the assassins in Persia, which was you know, been taken over by the Mongols.

And I think a lot of people use the word genocide in a very loose and unrealistic way now, but you could pretty much apply it to what the Mongols did there.

They really did wipe out domestic animals, women and children, men, you know, everything they could of the assassins in Persia.

Interestingly, the assassins in Syria, which is where you know sin And is based, It's where Assassin's creed is sort of based as well, they survived longer because there was another large Muslim group, another large Sunni group called the Mamlukes who took over, and actually they beat the Mongols in twelve sixty at the Battle of Anzuloute, and again you can just see the Assassins breathing asidh of relief.

They're thinking, Oh, okay, yeah, it's like we can go everything and go back to normal down, you know, we can do our usual tricks.

But again they were disappointed because the guys who took over were so tough and so powerful.

I mean, the clue is that if you're powerful enough to destroy the Mongols, you know you're not going to be a pleasant guy to go on holiday with.

So they basically are particularly sort tankled Bybars absolutely loathed the Assassins.

So he took over their castles, he took their lands, but he interestingly was he was ruthless, but in a kind of clinical way, so he didn't destroy them.

What he did was what all good warlords wanted, which was to have hit squad in his back pocket.

So he basically allowed them to survive as long as they became his creatures.

And in a sense, he, more than anybody, helped create the fact that we've got the word assassin in the dictionary as well as in the history book, because he really did kind of pervert them into just becoming hard killers.

So they community was saved, but only on the basis that they would do whatever by Bars told them to do, and he would he would even write about them in peace streeters, you know, with say, with the Franks and Crusaders.

He would say, yeah, there's a truce and it'll run for ten years and ten months and ten days, and my soldiers won't go there, but I reserved the right to send in a hit squad to kill you.

It's really really crazy stuff in black and white threatening people, but with the Assassins, you knew you could do that.

So he basically bought them and then twisted the brand for his own personal use.

So they kind of the one Sincerea didn't die out, which is why we've got you know, the lovely ish mails now and the Alga can and everything.

But they were very much not the same group they were.

They were new toed and they enter into a different kind of legend from that point.

Well, I think that this moment really sort of sells your argument for telling stories about Assassins and Templars together, because they are both sort of destroyed in their original form, but people can't leave it at that because they're two legendaries, so you have to you have to do something with them.

In fact, you have a chapter that's like, we can't leave it here because.

Yeah, no, I know, I know it was that was originally called don't leave Me this way, but I'm told I had to change the chapter heading.

It's like, yeah, could both of them I think deserve to be remembered better.

You know, the Templars did great sensible things, you know, as well as crazy charges.

The Assassins put a lot of effort into saving their community.

You know, it was the commitment of their hit squads that saved their people.

And both of them survived in a position of power for two hundred years.

And you know, most countries, if you look at the UN, most of the countries in the UN are less than two hundred years old.

So although they failed, you know that, let's not get carried away, they performed very well, particularly given how small they were.

You look at the lack of resources, particularly for the assassins, and you think, wow, these guys achieved a lot for their people using dubius methods obviously, but you know, I would have to say I think almost everything about the medieval world is dubious, really, I mean, particularly warfare.

So I don't know why the Assassins get singled out for blame on that front, because I think they were they did an extraordinary job in trying to save their people.

Yes, well, I'm sure there are reasons, reasons, they're pretty obvious.

But we're not going to get to do right now why the Assassins have a worse reputation than the Templars too.

We're not going to get into that now.

But indeed, so many people who listen to you visiting this podcast or read your books really love the way that you talk about your subjects, and you have now created a new way that people can listen to you talk about the Templars.

So this is a moment to give us your pitch.

You are now doing a new project called Talking Templars.

Tell us about this.

Yeah, well, yeah, thank you, Daniel.

It's basically a fun video podcast on YouTube and all the usual channels that I'm doing with Tony McMahon, who's is a well known TV personality, and Tony is looking at the legends and the conspiracy theories, and I'm looking at the history.

So the stick is that we kind of bounce off each other on the voice of reason, and Tony's the crazy one.

He obviously disagrees with that, but it's it's just a very fun way of kicking the tires on the templars in the past and the truth and looking at what they've become in the present and identifying where the elements of truth are and where it's just complete madness.

But you know, to a large extent, it's just me and Tony having fun, and hopefully that fun is a little bit infectious.

Wow.

I always enjoy having fun with you, Steve, So thank you so much for coming back again and telling us all about the assassins today.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, thank you, Danielle.

It's always a treat.

To find out more about Steve's work, you can visit his website at Steve Tabble dot com.

His new book is Assassins and Templars, a Battle in Myth and Blood.

Before we go, here's Peter from Medievalisttnet to tell us all the things that are going on.

Welcome back Peter from Greece.

Indeed, indeed, I was at the Orthodox Academy of Crete for a conference on Christianity, and man, that was a really good conference.

Close about thirty of us were there.

Talks range from like tang China to Lithuania to Armenian manuscripts, a lot of fun stuff, and I also.

Spoke to So it was a great conference beyond just the weather.

Oh that weather was nice, I have to say.

And so I want to thank that Academy, not the Academy, but the Orthodox Academy from having us there.

And man, if you want to have a conference, that is a good place to do it because you wake up to a beautiful view every day.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

I'm going to try not to be too jealous of you.

But after the conference, you went exploring, right indeed?

Indeed, yeah, I know it took a few days to go to Athens, why not, right, And had a wonderful time there, explored a few medieval monasteries and churches.

One thing I really want to give a shout out to is the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens.

I know, like there's the other kind more famous museums there, but if you're a medievalist, you really have to go.

I was just floored, not just by the artwork.

But like how the museum is very modern.

It laid it out very nice, so it was wonderful just to walk through.

So everyone needs to put it on their list, their bucket list.

Everyone wants to go to Greece and now they can go to this museum.

Indeed, indeed it's called the Byzantine and Christian Museum.

And the artworks to kind of painted icons, that room was just amazing, So yeah, go there, and as well as the medieval monasters.

I was like the first one I went to.

I was like the first one there.

No one came for like another hour, so.

That sounds amazing.

That sounds perfect.

Indeed, I quite liked it.

It was just me in cats and cats.

Yeah, there are a lot of cats just wandering around in Greece.

Every monastery that Monsor had like four cats.

That sounds like the ideal place for you.

It is.

It is so if your Athens forget all the ancient stuff that's too old at the medieval stuff.

I don't know if I can agree with you on that, because I love ancient Greek stuff as well.

I think that I need to spend many days in Athens before I was tired out so.

Anyways, that's what I did.

But now back and the site is moving along and we actually were able to do a few posts thanks to you.

Yes, that's right, I pinch hit for Medievalist dot net.

I got into the back end of the program and started putting out some articles while Peter was away.

I didn't write them, but I did make sure that Peter's site kept going, because that's what friends do while other friends are having amazing freak vacations.

Right, why not, I shouldn't call it a vacation.

You did do work there kind of.

Yeah, it's a working vacation.

There you go.

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

Right, and it's Medieval Studies dot thinkific dot com.

And what's the code again?

Is just black Friday?

It just Black Friday.

All one word saves you twenty five percent off.

Amazing.

Well, welcome back, Peter.

Those people who are shopping for a Black Friday idea are so happy that you're back, and so are we all.

I think welcome.

Back, Oh, thank you, thank you.

As you heard last week, in twenty twenty six, I'll be taking over the patreon dot com slash medievalists account and turning it into a medieval podcast community.

My plan is to create a fun and welcoming space to discuss all things medieval, and I'd like to know what you think should be featured there.

To find out, I've set up a survey open to all patrons so that you can have your say.

If you're not currently a patron but you'd like to fill out the survey, go ahead and join the freezier at patreon dot com slash Medievalists so you can let me know what you think.

Thank you to everyone who's already filled out the survey and sent me such kind messages and suggestions.

I'm so glad to hear this podcast has been a positive part of your lives, and I'm looking forward to exploring more ways to share the love.

One of those ways has been to create a medieval podcast website where you can find what you're looking for when you need it.

At the moment, it's still under construction, but as you heard last week, I've put together a holiday booklist with somewhere around seventy five of the books featured on the podcast, going back to episode two hundred and fifty and including Peters and My Top Books of twenty twenty five and Steve Tibble's Assassins and Templars.

I'm hoping it'll make holiday shopping for your loved ones or for yourself easy.

If you choose to shop at Amazon this season, clicking through the affiliate links will help fund this podcast, so you have my extra things, but the list is there for you to shop wherever you like, or just to take a stroll down memory lane.

You can find it all at medieval podcast dot com slash Holiday Booklist.

Thank you for all the ways you've been supporting the podcast, whether it's through Patreon or affiliate links, or letting the ads play, or just sending me your kind words.

I'm grateful to you for being here for everything from Assassins to how they put stained glass in Sorry, that was a really tough one.

Follow Medievalist dot net, on Instagram at medievalist net, or blue Sky at Medievalists.

You can find me Danielle Sabalski across social media at five min Medievalist or five minute medievalist, and you can find my books at all your favorite bookstores.

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Thanks for listening, and have yourself a wonderful day.