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This is a general account of the history and architecture of Crusader castles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli and Principality of Antioch between 1099 and 1291, the years during which the Crusaders had a permanent presence on the Levantine coast. Extensive use is made of contemporary chronicles to show the reasons why castles were built and how they were used in peace and war. The book is fully illustrated by photographs, drawings and plans, and contains a comprehensive bibliography.
- Sales Rank: #1210375 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Cambridge University Press
- Published on: 2001-01-15
- Released on: 2001-01-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.72" h x .51" w x 6.85" l, 1.05 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 242 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Library Journal
The most famous medieval wars of European expansion, the Crusades, were originally military expeditions sponsored by the papacy for recovery of Christian sites in Palestine. The Crusades also provided land and opportunity for poor and restless knights. Castles were thus built by an alien aristocracy in a hostile environment to provide shelter and to maintain control over the surrounding countryside. After a sketch of the literature and of fortifications before the crusades, Kennedy (history, Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland) explores the evolution of castle styles, siege techniques, and defensive technologies, relying on the evidence of both Western and Muslim chroniclers and of archaeology. Although this old-fashioned history is attractively written and extensively illustrated, greater attention to social and environmental conditions would have given a fuller picture. For research and general collections.
Bennett D. Hill, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
'... a welcome addition to the literature of military architecture. With well-chosen drawings and excellent photographs taken by the author, it provides one of the best-balanced accounts of the fortification of Palestine in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ... a thoughtful and illuminating survey of the entire Crusader military building effort in its different phases.' The Times Literary Supplement
'... a brilliant survey ... Fully illustrated, Dr Kennedy's authoritative account demonstrates how the castles were used in war and peace.' Jerusalem Post
'The appearance in affordable paperback of this elegant, erudite and accessible study first published in 1994 ... is welcome. Professor Kennedy's lightly-carried learning is deployed in a style that consistently engages.' C. J. Tyerman, The English Historical Review
From the Back Cover
This is a general account of the history and architecture of Crusader castles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli and Principality of Antioch between 1099 and 1291, the years during which the Crusaders had a permanent presence on the Levantine coast.
Most helpful customer reviews
38 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Beyond Krak des Chevaliers
By jeffergray
This book successfully pulls off the difficult trick of being both a serious scholarly text and an enormously engaging introduction to the history and architecture of Crusader castles for the lay reader. The book is an obvious labor of love, which helps to account for its great charm. You first get a sense of this on the dedication page - "For Xana, with love, to remind her of Syrian days" - whereby Kennedy expresses his appreciation for his daughter's companionship on his rovings around Syria. (In his "Acknowledgements," he also credits his daughter with persuading him "to complete the climb to Bourzey when the spirit was willing but the flesh was getting a bit weak.")
If you needed any further confirmation that Kennedy is a scholar with a puckish sense of humor and a droll wit, you get it at the beginning of his "Note on Names," where he wryly observes that, "Like the naming of cats, the naming of Crusader castles is a complicated problem." Kennedy's writing voice conjures to mind images of a cozy library in some great English country house, where your host relaxes in a satin smoking jacket while both of you swirl brandy in your snifters and discourse about the comparative merits of crumbling castles on the western fringes of Asia. The book's first chapter - a survey of the development of Crusader castle studies from the mid-nineteenth century to the present - beautifully encapsulates Kennedy's discursive style and story-telling skills. "[Emmanuel Guillaume] Rey's life is something of a mystery," he muses, and you want to lean forward from your chair on the opposite side of the fireplace and say, "Tell me more." And he does, with an notable eye for the memorable quote, such as T.E. Lawrence's ironic complaint, while traveling around the Levant in 1909, that he was unable to reach Amman owing to "the unthinking activity of some local Bedawin in tearing up the Hejaz railway."
In form, the book consists of a generally chronological survey of the development of the Crusader castle, with individual chapters on siege warfare and the special features of (respectively) the castles of Templars, Teutonic knights, Hospitallers, and the Muslim princes. Another sign of Kennedy's passionate engagement with this project is the fact that he took all of the 90-some color and black-and-white photographs that illustrate the book himself. (There are also another two dozen plans, sketches, and prints illustrating the text.)
The photographs, together with Kennedy's text, cover not only the well-known structures like Krak des Chevaliers, Belvoir, Saone, and Montfort, but will also introduce you to a fascinating collection of lesser-known castles. Among these are the great Hospitaller citadel of Marqat, near the Syrian coast (which is depicted in the cover photograph); the two castles overlooking ancient Petra; and - most curious of all - the cave-castle of al-Halbis Jaldak overlooking the Yarmuk River valley, the subject of a siege memorably described by the twelfth-century historian William of Tyre (which Kennedy helpfully quotes in its entirety). Kennedy's enthusiasm also extends to the humbler fortified towers of the lesser Latin nobility.
Kennedy's secret is plainly that he is both a scholar and a romantic - as anyone who wishes to write effectively about the Crusades should probably be. Let me close this review by quoting his own explanation for his enterprise in producing this book:
"There is something fascinating and frequently moving about forlorn and failed enterprises, those `old, forgotten far-off things and battles long ago,' however perverse they may now seem. It is impossible for me to stand on the windswept battlements of Crac des Cevaliers, climb to the remote crags of the fortress overlooking Petra or explore the magical stillness of the deserted valley by Bourzey, without feeling a potent mixture of admiration and nostalgia which breathes excitement and emotional commitment into scholarship."
This book can be enthusiastically recommended to history buffs and armchair travelers, as well as to those with a more scholarly basis for their interest.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Still my favourite
By JPS
This book was first published in 1994 and it may, therefore, not be totally up to date and not include some of the latest findings or discussions on Crusader castles. It remains nevertheless my favourite, and certainly the best introduction and general survey to Crusader castles that I know of and because of this, it is still worth five stars.
The first reason for finding this book extremely valuable is its clarity.
It shows particularly well the evolutions in fortifications, from those existing in the West and the East prior to the Frist Crusade, to those of the 12th century in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the northern Crusader States to the fortresses of the 13th century in each of the remaining principalities of Outremer, including those of the Military Orders. It also highlights the two main reasons for these changes. One was the increasing shortages in military manpower, with the growing inability of the Franks to meet the Moslems in the field after Hattin, when large forces of Crusaders were not present. The other was the evolutions of siege warfare; in particular the talent deployed by the Moslems in terms of sapping and mining and siege artillery with the counterweight trebuchet.
Another interesting trend, which can also be found in the two books on Crusader warfare from R.C. Smail for the 12th century and Christopher Marshall for the 13th and which is well shown in this volume is the growing inability of the lay lords, counts of Tripoli, princes of Antioch and kings of Jerusalem to provide for the defence of their castles and towns. Overtime, this lead to the increasing importance and role of the Military Orders who took over so many castles and towns and of the increasing role played by Crusader lords and Kings, with one of the main contributors being Louis IX, despite his disastrous Crusade to Egypt, in financing and strengthening fortifications. The Orders and the lords from the West were the only ones to have the financial and military resources to be able to afford to do so.
A third quality of this book is to show how diverse the "crusader castles" even if the Military Orders seem to have developed some preferences during the 13th century (large rectangular towers for the Templars, large round ones for the Hospitallers). As the author shows rather well, it was essentially about experiments and experience, and trying to respond to evolving and emerging threats with the 12th century fortresses that remained in the hands of the Franks being heavily rebuilt or abandoned as indefensible.
Another strongpoint is, of course, the description of a large selection of castles and fortresses, including most of the main ones. The main features of each of them are described, with numerous plans and pictures provided to illustrate them, before the author presents a little resume of the castles history and, in particular, how it changed hands and was finally lost to the Moslems. While the presentation of Krak des Chevaliers is suitably impressive, that is Marquab, of Krak de Moab, of Château Pelerin or of a dozen other major fortresses is no less so.
One limitation, perhaps, is that some of the most heavily fortified sites, such as Acre, but also Jerusalem, Tripoli or Antioch are not described in detail. This is because the book focuses mainly on Crusader castles, rather than all types of fortifications including fortified cities. A number of these are mentioned in passing (for instance Tripoli and Antioch), but it is the castles or citadels included in them that are the subject of this book, as opposed to their walls. Moreover, the book is also focused on the castles built by the Crusaders, as opposed to the fortifications that they used and sheltered behind. Accordingly, there is little on the County of Edessa for instance, since almost all of the strong points and fortified towns pre-dated the Crusaders.
Yet another interesting feature is a short chapter about Moslem castles in the 12th and 13th century, including the citadels of Damascus, Aleppo and Cairo. The point made here is to show the "cross-fertilization" in terms of building techniques with some features being common to both Moslem castles and Crusader ones in the 13th century without it being possible to determine precisely who influenced who.
With all this going for it, and even if this book is almost two decades old, I could hardly see how I could not still rate it five stars since it is still a rather superb introduction to Crusader castles. Those wanting to learn more about this subject can make use of the host of more specialized works published by Denis Pringle over the past thirty years or so.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Love it!
By Robert
Well researched and historically the best book on its subject. Still used as a University text to this day in many Medieval programs across the world.
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