The turcopoles, or turcoples, were archers riding Arabian horses, lightly equipped and dressed in the Turkish style. In French, the word appears in the 12th century.
The etymology seems to indicate that initially these auxiliary troops were made up of fighters of Turkish origin (polos =foal, in the sense of child), Christianized Seljuks. But this corps also received fighters of mixed ancestry, of cross father and Christian mother from the East, Armenian, Greek or Syrian, called “colts”, or of Turkish father and Greek mother. One could find there, more generally still, combatants from the local Christian population, of oriental customs and type, even Christianized Muslims (Syrians, Bedouins, etc., or Turkish soldiers captured on the battlefields preferring the conversion to death), which is why the Mamluks considered them traitors and renegades, showing no mercy to those they captured:after Hattin, in 1187, Saladin had the Turcopolis prisoners executed as apostates.
They were essentially at the service of the various military orders established in Cyprus, Jerusalem, Rhodes and other places, and served to counter the Turkish tactics of harassment relying on more mobile forces than the heavy Frankish knights. They were commanded by a Sergeant brother, called Turcopolier. Later, the Teutonic Order called up its own native cavalry Turkopolen.
The turcopoles were mercenaries who could be hired for the duration of a military campaign. More typical than the fighters coming from the West, they could easily serve as spies or scouts and infiltrate enemy lands. In addition to the services they rendered to religious orders, they were also in the pay of Byzantium which, just like towards the Almogavars, did not always show them great gratitude. This is why it happened to them, at the beginning of the 14th century, to ally themselves with the latter when they had fallen out with Andronicus II Paleologus to their death.