"For Brocardus, the Assassins are hired, secret murderers, of a peculiarly skillful and dangerous kind. Though naming them among the hazards of the East, he does not explicitly connect them with any particular place, sect, or nation, nor ascribe any religious beliefs or political purposes to them. They are simply ruthless and competent killers, and must be guarded against as such. Indeed, by the thirteenth century, the word Assassin, in variant forms, had already passed into European usage in this general sense of hired professional murderer."