T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 22

despised; and the precarious situation of the Latin King-dom made it the more necessary that means should be found, as in the Eastern Empire, to restore the balance between defence and offence. In Europe in the same way it is said that all the excellencies of western castle building are due to the quickening instance of the later Greek Empire. Professor Oman quotes "outer wards and fore-works" .. with their "numerous and strong curtain-towers" (i) as borrowings from Byzantium. Another imported feature is the provision of flanking or covering fire for exposed points, with the general idea of "concentric" castles. Even Château Gail--lard, the masterpiece of Richard I, is supposed to have drawn the greater part of its excellencies from the East; sometimes it has been said that Syrian workmen were import--ed to build it; at least that Richard was incapable of it before his experience in Palestine. On the other hand, examination of Crusading castles in Syria itself, and a comparison of them with contemporary castles in France, appear to lead to conclusions wholly different. It is obvious that in the early state of the Latin Kingdom, the period of the private feudatories, the castles erected in Syria were of a purely Western pattern. Later on the two great Orders developed rival styles, of (i). Oman, "Art of War," p.533.