Pitched on its dust cover as essential reading for medieval and military historians, Michael Fulton’s Siege Warfare During the Crusades is the first book produced for a popular audience dedicated to the history of siege warfare in the Levant during the central middle ages. As such, this book is not really the place for brand-new discoveries or contentions nor for novel methodologies. It generally benefits from and draws on previous studies of medieval warfare, strongpoints, and siege warfare, including--and this should be stressed and acknowledged--his own impressively researched monograph, Artillery in the Era of the Crusades. Siege Warfare and the Development of Trebuchet Technology (2018), which it follows and borrows from in many respects.
Chapter One sets the stage for the non-specialist audience, providing a sweeping narrative of the changing geopolitical fortunes of the Latin Christian (or Frankish) and Muslim powers in the Near East from the time of the First Crusade (1095-1099) through to the Frankish loss to the Mamluks of their last strongholds on the mainland in 1291. Chapter Two introduces the different types of strongpoint found in the Near East before the arrival of the First Crusaders, subsequent building trends and the numerous administrative, symbolic and tactical uses of strongpoints. Chapter Three briefly addresses the strategies an aggressor might employ to negate or reduce the risk of relief forces arriving to lift a siege. Short discussions on the composition of Frankish and Muslim armies are rather shoe-horned into the beginning of Chapter Four before it moves on to address the various means by which an aggressor might cause an enemy garrison to capitulate. The chapter contains an accessible synthesis of Fulton’s impressive and significant research on artillery weapons published in his Artillery in the Era of the Crusades. Chapter Five introduces the reader to the various defensive architectural features to be found in castles and includes the important observation, also examined at length in Fulton’s Artillery in the Era of the Crusades, that the development of ever-greater strongholds and the highly sophisticated Frankish concentric castles from the latter half of the twelfth century onwards was the result of increased investment in defence against the threat of larger Muslim field armies (rather than as a measure to nullify the over-rated destructive power of counter-weight trebuchets). The chapter finishes with a very brief overview of the active means of defence. Chapter Six, the shortest chapter, first addresses the trends and possible influences on the designs of fortifications during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and these brief discussions are followed by a section on the chronological distribution, success and duration of Frankish, Byzantine, Muslim and Mongol sieges, neatly illustrated by tables and pie charts. The conclusion addresses the Mamluk siege of Frankish Acre in 1291 and conveniently summarises many of the discussions raised during the course of the book.
The book is unusual to review because, as noted above, its dust cover pitches the book as essential reading for medievalists and military historians, whereas Fulton composed it with a popular audience in mind. To this latter end, the book works very well. One finds its general themes and contentions usually full-enough and up-to-date, offered with an appropriate level of sophistication for a popular audience and, overall, difficult to challenge. Fulton’s attempt to address the Muslim experience of siege warfare in attack and defence as well as the Christian experience is pleasing, and the bias towards the latter is understandable given the focus of previous studies necessarily utilised in the composition of this work.
A reviewer can usually find something to quibble about in any book. Here, for example, one might baulk at Fulton’s bald assertions that “European fiefs were plots of land” (49) or that in “much of Europe...land and authority over the people who occupied it were held of a superior lord in exchange for military support” (38). It is well known that fiefs were not always plots of land and their holders did not always owe military service in exchange for a fief. Why perpetuate the popular belief that clockwise spiral staircases were designed to give an advantage to right-handed defenders (268)? Castles were built with counterclockwise spiral staircases as well. Some people may even find Fulton’s excessive use of the em-dash in concluding statements irksome. There are too many examples of this casual form of punctuation to note here, although it is perhaps telling that, by comparison, it is used flittingly and more fittingly in his Artillery in the Era of the Crusades.
The laudable attempt to touch on all the key roles and features of fortifications during the period and every aspect of siege warfare is not complete. Suitable discussions on an aggressor’s uses of chevauchees and smaller raids to destroy a town’s economic infrastructure and damage the morale of its inhabitants as preludes to appearing before the town’s gates are glaring omissions. Indeed, the work can lack the complexity necessary to satisfy the needs of medieval and military historians. For large swathes of the book, Fulton’s approach is very simple and consists largely of dividing topics by headings and sub-headings, followed by a brief preamble on the topic and then a catalogue of narrative examples to illustrate the point at hand to greater and lesser effect. Fulton does offer analyses, as in Chapter Six and the aforementioned syntheses of his previous work on artillery and concentricity. There are new, although usually brief, discussions on, for example, the castles of ‘Ajlun and Jacob’s Ford (53 and 78-79 respectively) and battering rams (133). However, Fulton tends to move quickly back to compiling examples from the narrative sources, and one is frequently left to speculate on his methodologies and--in the absence of notes--wonder about his evidence.
That said, the work contains plenty of other material. A table of sieges listing the year of the sieges, their location, the names of the main besiegers, weaponry employed by the besiegers, the length in days of the sieges and whether the sieges were a success is appended to the work, as is a list of rulers, a glossary and a select bibliography of secondary works for each location followed by a fuller, substantial bibliography. Images, including many of Fulton's photographs, as well as schematics and other plans, are scattered throughout the book and enable the reader to better envision and reconstruct fortifications in the mind’s eye. Maps help locate strong points relative to each other and the broader topography. Boxed sections contain passages in English and various other forms of data derived from the sources. A better attempt to connect, integrate and even refer to this useful material would have been beneficial. And again, one is often left to speculate on the methodologies underpinning the collection of data and from where the data originally derives.
In short, the book is not essential reading for medievalists and military historians who have already been well-served recently by Fulton’s Artillery in the Era of the Crusades. However, one should have no hesitation in recommending Fulton’s Siege Warfare During the Crusades to undergraduates and non-specialists wishing to read a fine introduction to siege warfare in the Levant during the central middle ages.