The Crusades dog breeds: which dogs went with knights on campaign

Part 1

What dogs actually traveled with crusaders

Formal dog breeds, in the sense you and I use the word today, are a fairly recent idea, dating mostly to the 18th and 19th centuries, with only a few breeds set earlier. In the medieval period, dogs were grouped more loosely by the job they did than by a fixed look passed down through generations.

The Romans had used mastiff-type dogs as guard dogs stationed within their encampments and even sent some, armored, into battle.

Part 2

The alaunt and other war dogs of the period

A type, not a modern breed

The alaunt was a type of dog used for large-game hunting, as a war dog, and as a guard dog. The alaunt was an extinct type of dog that came in different forms rather than a single, fixed breed. The name spread with the Alans, a nomadic people known as skilled horsemen, herdsmen, and dog breeders, and it became attached to a kind of working dog rather than one bloodline. In France, alaunts were split into three recognizable types by appearance and job: a lighter, greyhound-like type, a heavier mastiff-like type, and a third used to guard livestock. One writer who studied the term closely concluded that no one at the time claimed alaunts as a distinct breed at all.

Hunting and battlefield support

Alaunts were prized for seizing large, dangerous animals such as wild boar, and their temperament had to be fearless for that work. They were also used as war dogs and guard dogs alongside their hunting duties. One source states that during the Middle Ages, the alaunt was used as a war dog and trained to take down armored knights, which gives you a sense of how formidable these dogs were meant to be.

A link to later mastiffs and bulldogs

The heavier alaunt type, sometimes called the alaunt de boucherie, is described as the progenitor of later mastiff and bull breeds. Through crossbreeding with sighthounds and scenthounds, this working type is said to have fed into guarding, baiting, and fighting breeds across France, England, Italy, and Spain. Even so, this is described as an influence on later dogs, not a documented, unbroken bloodline you could trace with certainty.

Part 3

Sighthounds and the limits of the evidence

You have probably seen claims that crusaders brought Middle Eastern sighthounds back to Europe, and it is worth pausing on that one. Medieval writers already used "greyhound" as a broad term covering many kinds of sighthound, from small Italian types to large wolfhound-like dogs, which tells you Europe already had a wide sighthound tradition of its own.

Part 4

Dogs as symbols in crusade-era art and heraldry

Dogs are often carved at the feet of knights on their tomb effigies as a symbol of loyalty. On medieval tombs generally, dogs are described as symbols of fidelity, most often placed under the feet of the effigy, looking upward. You will also find dogs among the animals used as foot supporters on tomb brasses, sometimes grand hunting dogs for a knight and small, bell-collared lap dogs for his lady.

It is tempting to read a knight's crossed legs on a tomb as proof he went on crusade, but that reading does not hold up. In the case of the effigy of Gilbert Marshal, 4th Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1241, in the Temple Church in London, the crossed legs and the beast being trodden underfoot are explained as representing the virtuous, active life of a soldier rather than crusade service specifically.

Part 5

How later breeds trace their claimed crusade origins

You will often see modern breed histories reach back to the crusading era for a dramatic origin story, and it helps to know why that happens. Writers researching the alaunt have concluded that many of the origin theories built around it were imagined in the West and repeat assumptions and unreliable accounts rather than solid evidence. One dog historian noted that no one in the medieval period ever claimed the alaunt as a single, distinct breed. Formal, standardized dog breeds mostly took shape from the 18th and 19th centuries onward.

• Mastiff-type dogs were used for hunting, fighting, and guarding.
• The alaunt was a working type of dog, not a single fixed breed, associated with hunting and war.
• The heavier alaunt type is linked to the later development of mastiff and bulldog lines.
• Dogs at the feet of knightly tomb effigies were carved as symbols of loyalty.