Crac des Chevaliers - Notes

The Crac des Chevaliers (an Arabic/French combination meaning "Castle of the Knights") was built at Qal'at al-Hisn by the Knights of St John, who occupied it from 1142 until 1271 when it fell to the great Mamluk leader Sultan Baybars. At it's peak, the garrison at the Crac consisted of over 2000 men and it's extensive underground storerooms could have held provision enough for very long sieges. The young T.E. Lawrence, long before he aquired the "of Arabia" epithet, visited the Crac as part of his undergraduate studies of medieval military architecture. He described it as being "...undoubtably the most impressive fortress in the world." Whilst it lacks the grandeur or scale of the great Moghul castle of Rajasthan it has instead a kind of uncompromising integrity not unlike some of the finer examples of neobrutalist architecture in 20th century europe. This was not a castle designed for comfort or pomp - it was simply the quintessence of defensive military engineering and even now, almost 900 years later, it still stands defiant, ready to take on all comers.