ABSTRACT
Several scholars have noted that the development of fortresses is a close and ongoing dialogue between siege warfare and the various methods of defense,24 both of which were constantly advancing during the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth centuries. Ayyubid military architecture is no exception to this rule. It developed and
responded according to advances in the field of siege warfare made by their immediate enemies. At the same time, it seems that the whole Ayyubid approach and attitude to frontier and rural fortifications was different in many ways from that imported by the Crusaders from Europe, further developed by the Franks and later adapted by the Mamluks. e dependence of the Crusader kingdom on its castle garrisons, during this
period and especially in the thirteenth century is well described by Marshall:
e Latin states were able to defend their territories against external threat and civil disorder by means of the army and the strong point. e dependence of the kingdom’s troops on the fortified sites is striking … Most of the available soldiers, rather, were dispersed among a series of individual garrisons … e relationship of a garrison to its strongpoint thus provided the basis of the kingdom’s military strategy and a framework for much of the military history of the period.25
