T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 166

the part remaining about the year 1160. On one of the towers, are some machicoulis (34.) and they were evidently in the original plan: there are no signs of rebuilding. Their pattern is not quite an ordinary one, since there were only a few, spaced with wide intervals around the top of a very large tower. At the same time they were unquestionably machi- coulis, and not at all rudimentary in design. The common view \L Failed) of course is that machicoulis were invented in Syria owing to Machi- coulis are comparatively rare in the East and the Templars, who re- present the native style of building, never adopted them at all. The design of the buildings of the Hospital were on the French model, and ... machicoulis have a very distinct Provencal or North-Italian feeling. Banias was probably the first castle the Hospitallers put up in Syria, and yet their architect must have had frequent opportunity of build- ing machicoulis, since only by use could their distinctly decorative quality have been developed. They do not appear on any other Crusading castle in the country; and when the Arabs adopted machicoulis they were not of this shape. The other two great Hospitaller castles in the north, Crac des Chevaliers (Hoan el Akrad j^rVI.^^,Kalaat el --------------------------------------------------------- (i) According to Mr. Lethbby who saw the photograph. d.