Krak des Chevaliers

According to the historian Ibn Shaddad, the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo and Homs settled Kurdish troops at the site in 1031, hence the name Hisn al-Akrad, “fortress of the Kurds”. In January 1099 the army of the First Crusade under Raymond of Toulouse encountered the fort and briefly occupied it; permanent Crusader control began in 1110 under Tancred. In 1142 Count Raymond II of Tripoli handed it to the Hospitallers.

The Hospitallers built a new castle until an earthquake struck in 1170; the German Wikipedia also records a quake in 1157. After another earthquake in 1201/02 came the 13th-century expansion that gave the castle its present form. In 1271 Sultan Baibars took it after undermining a tower; on 8 April the garrison surrendered, deceived by a forged letter from its Grand Master. The Mamluks repaired the damage, and in 1285 Qalawun added a square tower.

In the Ottoman period the castle housed a company of janissaries and was the centre of a tax district. In the late 19th century a village of about 500 people grew up inside it. On 16 November 1933 the castle passed into French control; the villagers were moved and compensated, and clearance and restoration followed under Pierre Coupel (1934–1936 according to the German Wikipedia). The English Wikipedia has Syria assume control at independence in 1946, while the German Wikipedia cites a treaty of 7 February 1949.[1][2]

Krak is a spur castle that became a fully developed concentric castle after its 13th-century expansion. The inner castle of 1142–1170 had a curtain wall with slightly projecting square towers. In the 13th century its west and south sides received a steep glacis with large round towers, the south-western one housing the Grand Master. The hall of the Knights has Gothic tracery, probably of the 1230s.

The outer circuit, about 9 m high, has strongly projecting round towers and box machicolations that resemble work at the Citadel of Aleppo. From the north-east gate a vaulted bent entrance 137 m long, fitted with murder-holes, climbs to the inner ward.[1][2]

For the Hospitallers the castle was both a military base and the administrative centre of their holdings in the County of Tripoli. In the first half of the 13th century it held a garrison of about 2,000; from here the knights exacted tribute from Hama and Homs and mounted expeditions, for example against Hama in 1230 and 1233. In 1218 King Andrew II of Hungary called it the “key of the Christian lands”.

After 1271 the Hospitaller chapel was converted into a mosque with two mihrabs. According to the German Wikipedia the fortress remained in military use until the early 19th century; in 1894 the district seat was moved to Talkalakh. Under the French Mandate it became one of the main tourist sites of the Levant.[1][2]

The castle is one of the few places where Crusader painting survives: wall paintings came to light in 1935, 1955 and 1978 as later plaster decayed, among them a Presentation of Jesus in the Temple on the outside of the chapel. UNESCO describes Krak as the best-preserved Crusader castle and an archetype of the medieval castle of the military orders.[1][2][3]

During the civil war the castle was occupied by rebels in 2011/12. In August 2012 shelling by the Syrian army damaged the chapel; further damage was caused by air strikes in July 2013 and on 18 August 2013. In March 2014 (on 20 March according to the German Wikipedia) government forces retook the castle and village. The property has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2013.

Between 2016 and 2024 a Hungarian mission from Péter Pázmány University coordinated extensive restoration, including conservation of the chapel frescoes, reconstruction of the Baibars gate and repair of war damage and of damage from the 2023 earthquake.[1][2][3]