ABSTRACT
The beginning of the modern scientific investigation and recording of castles and fortifications in the Latin East may be traced back to the expeditions. The role of castles for Frankish colonisation was analysed by the Israeli scholar Joshua Prawer. The whole question of crusader castles and frontiers has more recently been reassessed by Ronnie Ellenblum in his book Crusader Castles and Modern Histories. In the Frankish East, the geographical boundaries between different political entities have been well known to contemporaries. In fact, the tree would have been in the territory of Banyas, which although at that time in Muslim hands was contested territory and regarded by the Franks as theirs. Medieval chroniclers act as a shield for the Christians of Acre or closing the gates of Damascus. Linear political boundaries between Franks and Muslims did indeed exist. Evidently they recognised it de facto, if not necessarily de jure.
