Montfort (Israel)
| Montfort | ||
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 Montfort castle ruins |
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| Alternative name (s): | Qal'at Qurein, Starkenberg, Franc-Chastiau | |
| Creation time : | around 1100 to 1150 | |
| Castle type : | Spurburg | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Geographical location | 33 ° 2 '46 " N , 35 ° 14' 10" E | |
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Montfort ( Hebrew מבצר מוֹנפוֹר Mivtzar Monfor , German for 'fortress Montfort' ) is a former crusader castle , which is located on the banks of the Keziv stream in Galilee in northern Israel . The Arabic name of the castle is "Qal'at Qurein", which translates as "Castle of the little horn" and is probably due to the pointed rocky peaks on the mountain side behind the complex.
location
The ruins of the crusader castle of Montfort are located in the mountains of Galilee, just a few kilometers south of the Lebanese border. The next larger cities are Naharija, about 12 kilometers to the west, and Ma'alot-Tarschicha, a few kilometers to the south -east . The castle ruin itself is located in an impassable area away from major roads on a rock spur. On the flat side the castle was secured by two neck ditches .
history
The more recent research assumes that the castle was a new facility of the Teutonic Order. In the numerous sources from around 1187/90, the fortified places in the hinterland of Acre in connection with the conquests of Sultan Saladin are mentioned almost completely. A fortification at the site of the later Deutschordensburg is not mentioned anywhere.
Burials and archaeological artefacts from Roman times can be traced below the castle ruins . In 1220 the German rulers acquired the inheritance of Joscelins von Courtenay , the so-called Seigneurie de Joscelin . The order wanted to build up a cohesive rule that had to be secured by a fortified administrative center.
The Castellum Regis ("King's Castle") in the neighboring town (today's Mi'ilya) was in an unfavorable position and was technically out of date. A written source from the years 1227/28 reports the establishment of a Frans Castiaus (Franconian castle) in this region. The builders are said to have been German crusaders. Possibly this “Franconian Castle” can be equated with the then nameless Montfort. It is quite conceivable that the order was supported by crusaders from the German-speaking area in building the new castle.
The main expansion of Montfort should not have taken place until 1228/29. The Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Hermann von Salza , succeeded in considerably expanding the fortification with the help of donations. The German name of the castle "Starkenburg" or "Starkenberg", which is mentioned again and again in the literature, is only a translation of the historical name Montfort and is not documented in any source.
In the Jaffa Treaty(1229) the order was expressly allowed to build the castle. In 1230 the Pope also decreed a ten-year indulgence in favor of the building. By 1240, the work was essentially completed.
The name "Montfort" used today comes from a contract document signed by Emperor Friedrich II and the Sultan Al-Malik Al-Kamil ( Treaty of Jaffa ). In this document, dated February 18, 1229, a Christian castle with this French name is mentioned for the first time.
The castle served as part of the defense system around the city of Acre, which was then the capital of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem . Numerous other defenses for the protection of the last crusader stronghold Acre can be proven to this day in the entire north of Israel.
Until about 1265 the fortress was hardly exposed to major attacks. Jerusalem fell in 1244, but the entire north of the kingdom remained firmly in Christian possession. In 1240/42, the strong Templar castle Safed (Saphet) was built east of Montfort . The old Castellum Regis was south of Montfort.
The Mameluke Sultan Baibars I tried in vain in 1266 to conquer Montfort Castle. A year earlier he had seized the Castellum Regis and taken Caesarea and Arsuf . The attack on the castle of the Teutonic Order was unsuccessful, but the Mamelukes devastated the hinterland of Akon and were able to conquer the castles Safed , Chastel Neuf and Toron in 1266 . Montfort was now largely defenseless. In 1268 the castle was probably still supplied from 10 Christian villages.
In 1271, Sultan Baibars managed to break a breach in the western wall, whereupon the castle garrison surrendered on June 23 after a 15-day siege . The Mamelukes had fired at the castle with catapults brought from Safed. In return, the crew was given safe conduct to Acre. The Christians, however, had to leave their weapons and financial assets behind. The order archive was allowed to be taken away. The Mameluks then destroyed the fortifications of Montfort to avoid recapture by the Crusaders. The Dominican Burchard from Mount Zion described Montfort in 1283 as "completely destroyed".
The ruins that are visible today date from the 13th century; most of them were uncovered in 1926 by an American team of archaeological excavations. However, the finds were rather sparse, in particular the extensive weapons finds hoped for at the time did not exist (the castle had been cleared). In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York there are several pieces of architectural sculpture, including a keystone of a Gothic ribbed vault, which comes from Montfort Castle and came into the possession of the museum as a gift in 1928.
investment
Outbuildings in the valley
At the foot of the castle hill, the ruins of a farm building from the time of the crusaders can still be found today. Presumably it also served as a water mill, at least for a time. This is supported by the spatial layout and the location directly behind the remains of a dam that once dammed the Keziv brook. More recent research interprets the building after a renovation as a representative guest house or infirmarium ( hospital ), whose location remote from the castle should have guaranteed protection against infections . One of the main tasks of the Teutonic Order was nursing, which can also be proven in Montfort.
Castle complex
Overall, the castle complex is quite well preserved. In the Middle Ages, there was no large settlement in the vicinity whose inhabitants could recycle the building material of the abandoned castle. The foundation walls of the farm buildings on the valley side can still be seen. Vaults have also been preserved on the walls in some rooms.
The core castle, which is around 125 meters long, lies on the ridge of a mountain ledge sloping to the west at around 280 meters above sea level. In the east, two parallel neck trenches protect the fortress. The narrower pre-ditch is about 8 to 10 meters wide, the main trench up to 20 meters. The depth of the inner trench is about 11 meters. Both trenches were dug into the limestone . The stone material obtained was used to build the castle.
The mighty front tower (approx. 21 × 25 meters), which also protects the endangered east side, is particularly impressive in terms of construction. While the buildings facing the valley side were built from rubble stones or smaller hewn blocks, the walls of the tower consisted of massive bosses - or mirror blocks , which today lie around the remaining tower stump. The stones have an edge length of up to 150 × 90 × 90 centimeters. It testifies to a special achievement of the builders that they succeeded in creating stones of this size and weight in this place, which is still difficult to access today. However, most of the stone material comes from the main trench that was dug directly in front of the front tower.
The attack side of the front tower was rounded, the wall thicknesses are between 5 and 7 meters. Contrary to the information in the older literature, the tower did not serve as a donjon , but was purely a defensive structure that took up the entire width of the ridge and thus covered the parts of the castle behind. The strength and representative design of the building could indicate that the order's treasure and the archive of the knight brothers were housed here. The front tower was certainly a symbol of power that was visible from afar. A consecration cross inside shows the existence of a sacred room or a chapel on the entrance floor. After the conquest by the Mamelukes , the tower was largely destroyed. Many of the very high quality bosses cuboids were thrown into the neck ditch at that time. Only a few layers of stone on the tower base indicate the former facade.
West of the main tower was a two-story hall building (approx. 20 × 55 meters), the ground floor of which was vaulted throughout. According to the findings of the 1926 excavation, a kitchen and workshop rooms were set up here. The upper floor is almost completely gone. Fragments indicate a representative building sculpture. Painted broken glass could indicate its function as the actual castle chapel , which, however, is speculative in the absence of further clear evidence.
A somewhat younger residential tower (approx. 20 × 25 meters) adjoins the west wall of the hall building , which was perhaps the commandant's residence. Of this component too, only the basement with its two parallel halls (pointed barrel vaults) remains. On the upper floor there is evidence of a rib vaulted hall, the central pillar of which protrudes from the floor as a stump. Two richly decorated vault keystones found here indicate the representative function and rich furnishings of the tower.
The next building has largely fallen apart. There is a cistern in the basement . Behind it, an arched section of wall closes off the main castle. It borders on a smaller gate tower , which was probably the actual main entrance. The approximately 17 meter high structure is designed as an inwardly open shell tower.
Extensive remnants of the external fortifications with a few smaller semicircular towers have been preserved under the main castle in the north and west. The steep southern flank does not seem to have been fortified. The outer castle gate was apparently in the east under the front tower. The access to the main castle led along the entire north flank to the small gate tower.
The sometimes very high quality and elaborate structures of the castle can be derived predominantly from contemporary French architecture. In some cases, Armenian models could also have been used, as indicated by the D-shaped floor plan of the front tower. Other details point to local influences, such as the bosses of the front tower and the shape of the vaults. An often discussed connection with German castle building cannot be clearly proven anywhere. The dominance of French influences is particularly evident in the very high quality building sculpture.
literature
- Meir Ben Dov: Fortress Montfort . In: Israel Guide . Jerusalem 1978 (Hebrew).
- Adrian J Boas, Rabei G. Khamisy (eds.): Montfort. History, Early Research and Recent Studies of the Principal Fortress of the Teutonic Order (The Medieval Mediterranean, Vol. 107) . Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden 2017 (English). ISBN 978-9-00425046-8 .
- Thomas Biller, Daniel Burger , Timm Radt: Montfort and the early castle building of the Teutonic Order. Edited by Thomas Biller (research on castles and palaces, special volume 5), Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7319-0015-3 .
- Philip K. Hitti : History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present . Macmillan, London 1970 (English).
- Walther Hubatsch: Montfort and the formation of the Teutonic Order State in the Holy Land . In: Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, I. Philosophical-historical class (1966/5) , pp. 159–199.
- Hans Wolfram Kessler, Konrad Kessler: Knights in the Holy Land: Crusader sites in Israel . Philipp von Zabern, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-8053-4552-1 .
- Mathias Piana (ed.): Castles and cities of the crusade time . Imhof, Petersberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86568-039-6 .
- Jehoshua Prauer: The History of Eretz Israel under Moslem and Crusaders Rule . Jerusalem 1981 (Hebrew).
- Denys Pringle: Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. To Archaeological Gazetteer. Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-521-46010-7 (English).
- Zeev Vilnay: Art u. Travel guide with regional studies . Translation by Helmut Ludwig. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-17-005027-3 .
- Zeev Vilnay: The Guide to Israel . Jerusalem 1978 (English).
- Dave Winter: Israel Handbook . Fotoprint, Bath 1999 (English).
