Long ago, the crusaders scattered a handful of castles and fortresses across the Holy Land. Some of them, in varying degrees of preservation, exist to this day, while others have practically disappeared from stone to stone. Montfort Castle belongs to the first.
It was built in 1220 by the knights of the Teutonic Order on the land bought from the French family de Milly, which received it, in turn, for use after the first Crusade in 1099 and gave the place such a beautiful but brutal name "Montfort" - Fortress Mountain …
Due to internal disagreements with the Templars and Hospitallers, the German knights were forced to leave Acre and look for a new place for the residence of the Grand Master. Montfort - a narrow 180-meter ridge hanging over the valley of the Kziv stream - was perfect for this purpose.
The Teutons rebuilt the estate into a powerful, inaccessible fortress with two lines of defensive walls, calling it "Starkenberg". The construction was financed by the Pope himself - Honorius III.
But for all its inaccessibility, the fortress did not carry any protective function for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as it stood far from important roads. The castle became the first official residence of the Teutonic Order and the archive and treasury were transported here.
Already in 1266, the fortress had to pass a test of strength, having withstood the attack of the troops of the Mamluk Sultan Beybars. Five years later, when most of the Crusader fortresses fell under the pressure of the conquerors, the Mamluks returned, and this time, after a two-week siege, the attempt to capture the castle succeeded. The Teutonic knights were forced to conclude an agreement with Baybars on the surrender of the fortress in exchange for the opportunity to leave it with all the property and return to Akko - the then capital of the Crusaders. Soon Akko fell, and the property of the Teutons was taken to Europe. The castle was destroyed and has not yet been rebuilt.
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There is a mystery in this story of surrender. Already contemporaries were perplexed by the unprecedented humanity of Baybars. He was a cruel, decisive ruler, who made a dizzying career from a slave-warrior, first to military leaders, and then to the sultans of Egypt, and magnanimity was not included in the list of his virtues. Shortly before the capture of Montfort, the Sultan, after a long siege, captured the fortress in Safed, also promising immunity to the defenders, but then changed his mind and killed everyone.
So how did it happen that the German knights left Baybars safe and sound? And why did the sultan need to capture a fortress that has no strategic significance, except perhaps for beautiful views of the surroundings?
I cannot vouch for the veracity of the information that I discovered, but according to the found documents of the order, which were kept in the Vienna archives, the knights owe their salvation not to Baybars, but to the underground passage leading from the fortress towards Akko. The Teutons modestly kept silent about this, since they managed to take out only the archive, but not the treasures. A particularly valuable part of the Montfort treasury was a dozen precious stones. According to the Teutons, these stones were from the confidant of the high priest - a quadrangular adornment that he wore during the service in the Temple. This most mysterious attribute of the Jerusalem Temple was used to communicate with God when performing a ritual called Urim Vetumim. The breastplate was inlaid with twelve precious stones, on which the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were engraved. The artifact was considered lost in ancient times, along with the knowledge about the performance of the rite. The Teutons believed that they had found these very stones just before the fall of Jerusalem. They secretly took them to Montfort and tried to unravel the secret of the ritual.
The knights hoped to return, recapture the fortress and take the jewelry. But, as you know, soon the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell completely, the crusaders themselves left the Holy Land forever and the treasure remained forever in the basements of the Montfort castle.
Baybars burst into the fortress, but did not find any treasures or an entrance to the dungeon, destroyed it.
We, too, could not help but try our luck and look for treasures to pass by the ruins of the fortress, which has such an amazing mysterious history.
As a rule, everyone gets to the fortress along the 89th highway, from the direction of the village of Miilya. Judging by the photographs, the road to the castle there is quite picturesque and, despite the fact that it has a “red” category of difficulty, in some places it is even equipped with a kind of railings.
I read somewhere that the best view of Montfort is from the Goren Park. From there, there are trails of three categories of difficulty: black - difficult, red - medium and green - along which you can walk, even with small children. Naturally, I dragged mine there!
The plan was as follows: Roman and I go down the red path, and my mother - along the green one, then we all enjoy the shady oasis of the Kziv stream, go up to the castle and inspect it, return back along the green one. But, we found the beginning of only the red path. And what a happiness that my mother refused to come with us! Why? More on that later.
We hit the road together. The path, which began as quite bearable, later turned into a treacherous stone path in places with small pebbles falling from under their feet. It was not scary, but the understanding came that it was impossible to relax.
At the bottom, a slight disappointment awaited me - after reading enthusiastic reviews about the stream, which told about natural shallow reservoirs with very clean and cool water, I expected, if not a stormy stream, then at least the presence of at least some amount of liquid in it, but the channel turned out dry.
There was no time for long chagrin, there was a climb to the castle ahead of us, so, brushing off a stingy tear, we continued on our way. Not to say that the way up was very difficult, but the heat was exhausting enough.
To date, the keep, one of the watchtowers with loopholes, the central knight's hall with an octagonal column, the remains of a church, a winery, and storage rooms have been preserved in the fortress.
When we got up, we found an information board that announced that the Israel Nature and National Parks Authority was working to preserve the ruins. This, on the one hand, made me happy, since it is pleasant to realize that the castle was not left to its own devices, on the other hand, scaffolding prevented the approach to some parts of the fortress.
Besides us, the fortress was visited by groups of schoolchildren with an excursion program.
Each individually and collectively, they greatly impeded the search for treasures, so we gave up on this lesson and just walked around the fortress.
But archaeologists were more fortunate in their search for treasures. During excavations in 1926, pieces of knightly armor, pottery and coins from the Roman era were discovered.
And the 2011 expedition turned out to be even more successful - archaeologists found gilded pieces of furniture, glassware, fragments of colored stained glass windows, wall frescoes and sculptural decor.
These findings demonstrated that the inhabitants lived in luxury, comparative for the monastic order, and the discovered dice and a board for the game "Mill" known in Ancient Egypt indicate what the stern knights did in their leisure time.
The descent from the fortress took less time than the ascent, and then the real adventures began!
According to our plan, we began our return journey along a green path that runs along the river Kziv. It was easy and pleasant to walk on a flat dirt road with shady areas. We enjoyed the walk. On the way, we came across a partially preserved building from the era of the Crusaders.
It almost grew into the ground, but we still looked inside. Gothic windows and pillars inside gave me the impression that it was a church, but then I found information that most likely it was a hotel or hospital.
And soon we reached a small dam, where, at last, we saw water in the stream. It was very handy, since we ran out of water in the fortress, so even though we did not dare to drink, we washed and moistened our heads.
The longer we walked along the green path, the more clearly we realized that we were moving further and further away from the car, which we had left in the parking lot opposite the castle, which means that after the ascent we had to return in the opposite direction, albeit along an asphalt road, but under the scorching sun … Therefore, when we saw a fork, one path from which rose sharply upward, we took a risk and went to conquer the slope. The trail turned out to be of the black category of difficulty …
For obvious reasons, I did not take pictures of the ascent - it was not up to that somehow … But to understand how it looked, I will quote the words of one of the tourists who went down this route: “in some places I had to even get up on 'all four' and help women …
I do not advise you to climb the black path, unless, of course, you are a physically hardened person who loves stress. This last phrase amused me and my husband.
The diagram below shows the possible routes and indicates the categories of their difficulty. Our car was in the parking lot at number (1), we went down the red path to number (2), then went up to the fortress (7), then from the fork (4) we went up the black path. And do not be confused that the path is short - it is very difficult, believe me:)
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, this scheme caught my eye when we returned home.
In time, the ascent with short stops in the shade of rarely growing trees took about forty minutes. It seemed there would be no end or end, but it all ends at some point. We went upstairs with a scraping palate like sandpaper, tongue and fingers, for some reason swollen and like sausages.
I was horrified to think that in this state we still have a way to the car, since we had moved far from it. And then … Remember in the children's song: "a magician will suddenly fly in … and give five hundred popsicle …". No, the helicopter didn't arrive, but, like a mirage in the desert, at the end of the trail, an ice cream van appeared in front of us! You know, such a mobile van. We rushed to him with lust.
- Water … water … - we prayed.
“No problem,” the wizard replied. - 10 shekels and a liter bottle is yours.
I probably never enjoyed such a mundane thing as a bottle of ordinary drinking water. "Life has become easier, life has become more fun!" ©
For some reason the water seemed salty, but then we realized that it was not water, it was our lips that were salty.
Fifteen minutes later we were at the car, then Safed was waiting for us.
Now, you probably ask me:
- But what about the schoolchildren who were in the fortress? How did they get there?
And they used the green path, at the end / beginning of which a bus was waiting for them in the parking lot (numbers (5) or (6) on the diagram).
But if we did not succeed, how did it happen - what would I tell you here?
Elena Smirnova
