In accordance with the Roman tradition the enceinte of a town, formed, as we have seen, of ramparts strengthened by towers, were further defended by a citadel or keep, of which we shall have more to say in the following chapter. This keep commanded the whole place, which was usually situated on the slope of a hill above the bank of a river. The bridge which communicated with the opposite bank was fortified by a gate-house or tête de pont, to guard the passage.
The circumvallation of towns often consisted of a double enclosure, divided by a moat. By the close of the twelfth century architects had caught the inspiration of the great military works of the Crusaders in the East, and military architecture had progressed on the same lines as religious and monastic architecture.
The territories, conquered by the Crusaders in the course of establishing the Christian supremacy in the East, had been divided into feofs as early as the twelfth century. These soon boasted castles, churches, and monastic foundations, of the Cistercian and Premonstrant orders among others.
According to G. Rey, the following abbeys and priories were built in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem at this period:—The monasteries of Mount Sion, Mount Olivet, Jehoshaphat, St. Habakkuk, and St. Samuel, etc., and in Galilee, those of Mount Tabor and Palmarée. The military organisation was regulated by the Assises de la haute Cour (Assizes of the Supreme Court), which determined the number of knights to be furnished by each feof for the defence of the kingdom, and in like manner, the number of men-at-arms required from each church and each community of citizens.... The middle of the twelfth century was the period at which the Christian colonies of the Holy Land were most flourishing. Undeterred by the wars of which Syria was the theatre, the Franks had promptly assimilated the Greek and Roman tradition as manifested in Byzantine types of military architecture. The double enclosure flanked by towers, one of the main features of Syrian fortresses built by the Crusaders, was borrowed from the Greeks. Many of their strongholds, notably Morgat, the so-called Krak of the knights, and Tortosa, were of colossal proportions. They may be divided into two classes. In the first, the buildings are of the Frankish type, and seem to be modelled on the French castles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The flanking towers are nearly always round; they contain a defensive story, while their summits and those of the intervening curtains are crowned with battlements in the French fashion. Other features subsequently introduced were: the double enceinte, borrowed from the Byzantines, the inner line of which commanded the outer, and was sufficiently near to allow its defenders to engage, should assailants have carried the first barrier; secondly, stone machicolations in place of the wooden hourds or timber scaffoldings which were retained in France till the close of the thirteenth century; and finally, the talus, a device by which the thickness of the walls was tripled at the base, thus affording increased security against the arts of the sapper and the earthquake shocks so frequent in the East.
166. FORTRESS OF KALAAT-EL-HOSN IN SYRIA (KRAK OF THE KNIGHTS). SECTION, AS RESTORED BY M. G. REY
166A. FORTRESS DE KALAAT-EL-HOSN IN SYRIA (KRAK OF THE KNIGHTS). AS RESTORED BY M. G. REY
The buildings of the second class belong to the school of the Knights Templars. Their characteristic features are the towers, invariably square or oblong in shape, and projecting but slightly from the curtains. The fortress of Kalaat-el-Hosn,[60] or Krak of the knights, commanded the pass through which ran the roads from Homs and Hamah to Tripoli and Tortosa, and was a military station of the first importance. Together with the castles of Akkar, Arcos, La Colée, Chastel-Blanc, Areynieh, Yammour, Tortosa, and Markab, and the various auxiliary towers and posts, it constituted a system of defence designed to protect Tripoli from the incursions of the Mahometans, who retained their hold on the greater part of Syria.... The Krak, which was built under the direction of the Knights Hospitallers, has a double enceinte, separated by a wide ditch partly filled with water. The inner wall forms a reduct, and rising above the outer enclosure commands its defences. It also encompasses the various dependencies of the castle, the great hall, chapel, domestic buildings, and magazines. A long vaulted passage, easy of defence, was the only entrance to the place. To the north and west the outer line consisted of a curtain flanked by rounded turrets, and crowned by machicolations, which formed a continuous scaffolding of stone along the greater part of the enceinte.
[60] Étude sur les Monuments de l'Architecture Militaire des croisés en Syrie, by G. Rey; Paris, 1871.