Frankish society: a frontier and migrant society

The difference between the picture presented here and the approach of the “existing model” can be summarized in the use made of the concept “Frankish settlement” as opposed to that of “Crusader settlement” which was used by Prawer and Smail. Both terms signify, in my opinion, different aspects of Frankish life in the Levant. “The Crusades” were limited both in space and in time and can be characterized by their bellicose aspects. The nature of the “Frankish settlement” was more civilian and extended over a much longer period of time. The Crusades, it is true, created the territorial expanse in which the new settlements were established and the process of Frankish settlement was a natural consequence of the military conquest but the fact that these two processes occurred consequently and influenced each other does not justify identifying one with the other. It would be more correct, in my opinion, to study each process separately as two consecutive stages in the creation of a “Settlement Frontier.”

In the first stage (which is, in our case, the “Crusader” stage) of the creation of such a frontier the “vanguard” pinpoint the borders and capture them from a well-defined enemy. The enemy on the different kinds of frontiers need not necessarily be human. The enemy could also be a physical obstacle such as swamps, forests, and deserts, and the conquest does not necessarily have to have a violent, belligerent aspect.