Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

The medieval crusades are remembered for their sweeping military campaigns,

but the Crusades also engendered a brutality that stretched beyond the battlefield,

in the form of a violent criminal underbelly,

fuelled by hordes of dislocated, disinhibited young men.

Speaking to Emily Briffitt, Steve Tibble, the author of Crusader criminals,

uncovers why the Holy Land became a hotbed of lawlessness,

and shares some of the most surprising stories from the time,

from stately pirates and prisoner-led mafia rings to devious and deceitful murderers.

Hi, Steve, thank you so much for joining me on the History Extra podcast.

Well, hello, Emily. And it's lovely to be with you again. Very nice to see you.

We're going to be delving into the criminal underworld of the medieval holy land.

Now, you've written a book all about this. Can you tell us, why did you choose to write this book?

Yeah, thank you. I know what people may think.

It sounds quite geeky to talk about crusaded criminals.

To me, anyway, it simultaneously sounds great fun, but equally a bit geeky.

It's not the kind of topic that naturally springs to mind.

And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to write it, really, because I believe

it's a topic that is strangely important, but incredibly overlooked. And there's a kind of

serious reason, and there's a fun reason. The serious reason why I think it's been overlooked

and why I wanted to write this book was because historians tend to follow the evidence,

which is obviously a very good thing. And as a historian, you want to follow the evidence.

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