ABSTRACT
Are the terms ‘border’ and ‘border-line’ synonymous? Is the linear model the only possible way to define a boundary? Is there any other way, besides the demarcation of a single boundary line, of depicting the confines of suzerainty and territorial lordship? Is it possible that a political entity, even a medieval one, could exist without defined borderlines? Many of the scholars who dealt with the history of the Frankish kingdom assumed, as a matter of fact, that the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had external political boundary-lines, that the terms ‘border’ and ‘borderline’ were synonymous and that there was an association between borderlines and castles.1 Now, it is true that
1 See for example: E.G. Rey, Étude sur les monuments de l’architecture militaire des Croisés en Syrie et dans l’île de Chypre (Paris, 1871), 4; H. Prutz, Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge (Berlin, 1883), 195-6; T.E. Lawrence, Crusader Castles, ed. D. Pringle (Oxford, 1988), 120; P. Deschamps, Les châteaux des croisés en Terre Sainte , pt 1. Le Crac des Chevaliers, 2 vols, Bibliothèque archéologique et historique, vol. 19 (Paris, 1934), vol. 1, 16-42; R. Grousset, Histoire des croisades et du royaume franc de Jérusalem, 3 vols (Paris, 1936), vol. 3, xxi; R.C. Smail, ‘Crusaders’ castles in the twelfth century’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 10 (1951), 138; R.C. Smail, Crusading Warfare (1097-1193): A Contribution to Medieval Military History (Cambridge, 1956), 207; J. Prawer, ‘Ascalon and the Ascalon Strip in crusader politics’, Eretz-Israel, 4 (1956), 238 (in Hebrew); idem, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London, 1972), 44-5; J. Prawer and M. Benvenisti, ‘Crusader Palestine: map and index’, Atlas of Israel (2nd edn, Jerusalem, 1970), sheet 9.10; R. Fedden and J. Thomson, Crusader Castles (London, 1957), 34-5; M. Benvenisti, Crusader Castles, (Jerusalem, 1965), 13; idem, The Crusaders in the Holy Land (Jerusalem, 1970), 11-15; W. Müller-Wiener, Castles of the Crusades (London, 1966), 13. For a slightly different approach see: M. Barber, ‘Frontier warfare in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: the campaign of Jacob’s Ford, 1178-9’, in J. France and W.G.
such rhetorical questions would seem ridiculous when posed by someone like myself who lives in the modern nation state of Israel, which has existed for half a century without agreed or defined borders. But it is still true that most of us would find it difficult to imagine a state without a defined boundary-line and would be inclined to assume that such a border did in fact exist in the Middle Ages as well. Consequently, the very existence of external political boundary-lines is usually not disputed and the political borders are conceived of as psychological and practical necessities. Many extensive ancient artificial structures, such as Hadrian’s Wall or Offa’s Dyke, are interpreted as being ‘political borders’ separating political entities,2 and the argument makes sense because borderlines are mentioned in the Bible and were definitely a major geographical factor in the Roman period as well.
