THE TEMPLE IN THE EAST 37
Franks were adopting luxurious and slothful ways} they
lived in the midst of a civilisation more advanced than that
of Europe, and many of them had chosen to adopt its worst
features. Even a petty lord in Syria could acquire wealth
such as was beyond the reach of the greatest nobles of
Europ^ and the splendour and magnificence of the courts
of the Christian princes in the East were unsurpassed by the
kings of Europe. Dressed in silks trimmed with costly fur,
their beards cut in Eastern fashion, the Franks lived like the
potentates that they had displaced; the barons had their black
slaves, their dancing girls for entertainment, their eunuchs
for secretarial work* The chroniclers tell of drunken orgies,
of huge sums lost at dice, and of immense expenditure
on the favourite sports of hawking and hunting, The
drunkenness does not seem to have been exceptional for the
twelfth century, but the gambling stakes were fur higher
than was usual in Europe at that time and the habit more
widespread.
The armies of the Palestine princes had ceased to he
entirely composed of Europeans. Bodies of light horsemen,
usually recruited from the children of marriages between
Greeks and Moslems and known as Turcoplcs, formed part
of every force, but not for many years yet did the Franks
learn how to use these troops to advantage. The knight
was still the backbone of an army, throwing himself furiously
into the fight and showing his contempt for the enemy by
rashness on the field. His weapons had not changed—he
carried a sword and ashwood lance for offence, and for
defence had a wooden buckler, covered with leather and often
highly ornamented. Armour had undergone some altera-
tion. The men of the First Crusade had worn a tunic of
iron rings, but within a generation the knight went into
battle in chain mail, a hauberk covering him from chin to
knee, and a conical helmet on his head. Over his mail he
wore a silk or linen mantle. The men-at-arms had breeches