Buried treasure...
at my local Hawaii Library's 'friends of the library' book sale
…for we have created emperors,
dukes and kings, and we have manned castles
near the Turks and Arabs…
—No m'agrad' iverns ni pascors, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, ca 1190
So, I’m wandering the “Friends of the Library” book sale at my very small local library in Hawaii. I get a call from my wife, she needs me to head out. As I turn to leave, a book catches my eye.
What?
Did you know that T. E. Lawrence, whom you may know as “Lawrence of Arabia”, wrote a Ph.D. thesis on the Crusader Castles of the Levant?
As it happens, I have read some of this thesis after the suggestion from my good friend, author Thomas W. Jensen. But it was all online, and I never expected to run across a copy of it in my local bookstore!
Originally titled The Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture to the End of the 12th Century, his work examined how the Crusades introduced and adapted fortification techniques from (and to) medieval Europe. Lawrence traveled throughout the Middle East and studied castles in Syria, Palestine, and modern-day Israel. His excitement shines through his letters home during his wanderings. ‘I will have such difficulty in becoming English again: here I am Arab in habits, and slip in talking from English to French and Arabic unnoticing.’
Despite its subject, the thesis reads lightly. Lawrence has a gift for arch commentary and the odd turn-of-phrase. For example, “To consider the Crusading castles in their chronological order is extremely difficult; they are mainly a series of exceptions to some undiscoverable rule.” The thesis is filled with wonderful, hand-drawn artwork. Here is Lawrence’s sketch of the famous castle Krak de Chevaliers in Syria. Lovely sketches such as this appear every few pages!
Conventional historical wisdom at the time was that medieval castle construction in Europe was heavily influenced by the Byzantine and Islamic fortification designs that the Crusaders brought home from the Levant. Lawrence’s thesis challenged this conventional wisdom, based on his observations and travels. The thesis is quite interesting, and lovely to look at: his sketches reveal the eye of an artist:
His observations on the castle Château Gaillard, Richard the Lionheart’s masterpiece, are particularly pointed:
There is therefore no room in all this for any borrowings from Constantinople or the Templars in French architecture down to Château Gaillard. This unfortunate place is always quoted as an example of the influence of the Crusades on mediaeval castle-building; the opportunity of strengthening the statement possible in Richard's visit to the Fast is too good to be missed. On the other hand quite certainly there is nothing like Château Gaillard in the East. 'Un des plus bians chas-tiaus en terre, et des plus fors' as Guillaume Guiart describes it, it is nevertheless (or therefore) Northern French in design, and North French in execution. Richard undoubtedly devised it himself: all authorities agree upon that, and throughout it shows a unity of purpose that could only have been secured by a consummate master of war, absolutely uncontrolled.
…These ribbed walls have never yet been found anywhere else on earth. Viollet-le-Duc describes them most effectively, but cannot find a parallel…Probably Richard invented the idea: certainly no one copied it…Richard of course made it wonderfully strong, with its enormous talus (95), and massive walling: but his garrison were not able to make use of it against Philip Augustus. The day of very small castles had gone by.
There is a wonderful, probably apocryphal exchange about Château Gaillard between Richard and his nemesis, King Philip Augustus of France. Philip, undismayed by the strength of Gaillard, remarked that he would “take it though its walls were made of iron.” Richard responded that he could “hold it though its walls were made of butter.”
Beyond its scholarly and historical value, Lawrence’s thesis hinted at the skills that would later define his career. His ability to immerse himself in a foreign landscape, study its history and culture, and integrate himself, foreshadowed his leadership during the Arab Revolt and his legendary writings in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The thesis may have been about medieval castles, but it also evoked both the explorer’s spirit and the academic’s study of history.
I’ll leave you with a famous quote from Seven Pillars of Wisdom:
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
