T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 152

The establishment of the military orders in all the frontier fortresses of the Latin Kingdom meant a new era in Syrian castle-building. It is only too evident in studying the works of the private holders of fiefs, even of important ones, that a lack of material resources, of money and labour, hampered their efforts most cruelly. Another obstacle to elaborate defence-works was the insecurity of tenure. Families were continually dying out, with the abnormal death-rate of Palestine through disease and accident, and besides this fiefs were continually transferred. The military orders were ideally fitted for such conditions. The members were celibate, and so easy to control, and without private interests: they had no heirs to search after, and no domain to preserve intact. Then the orders were everlasting, with an inexhaustible supply of the finest chivalry in Europe to draw upon in case of need. The military ability of the commanders, and of the simple members of either order is again and again brought out in striking contrast with the inefficiency of the laymen of the kingdom. There was a tradition, after a little, among the knights of the conduct of warfare against the Infidel, and each new-comer of repute virified this tradition with the fruits of his own talent and experience. Most important of all, perhaps, the orders were very rich, not only in the precarious possession of one half the most fertile land of Palestine, but in property in Europe; property which would