This is a general account of the history and architecture of Crusader castles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli and Principality of Antioch between 1099 and 1291, the years during which the Crusaders had a permanent presence on the Levantine coast.

1. Prologue to the study of crusader castles; 2. Fortification in the east and west before the First Crusade; 3. Castles in the twelfth-century Kingdom of Jerusalem; 4. Twelfth-century castles in the northern states (County of Tripoli, Principality of Antioch and County of Edessa); 5. Siege warfare in the crusader lands; 6. Nobles, Templars and Teutonic knights in the thirteenth century; 7. The Hospitallers in Tripoli and Antioch; 8. Muslim castles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; Postscript: crusader castles and the west.