Montréal Castle

Wind is the first thing you notice up here. It comes across the open highland with nothing to stop it, and it carries dust, the smell of dry earth, and sometimes the bleat of goats somewhere below. Under your feet the path is loose stone and packed soil. Ahead, pale walls rise from the top of a steep, rounded hill. This is Montréal Castle, known locally as Shobak, and it has watched over this plateau for roughly nine hundred years.

You are standing in the high country of southern Jordan, in the uplands that run between Tafilah and Petra. The land around the castle is broken and hilly, with terraced fields, orchards, and small villages. In winter this area can be cold, and snow is not unusual. That surprises many visitors, who expect only desert. The hill itself rises sharply from the surrounding ground, and that natural height is the reason anyone built a fortress here at all.

The name tells the first part of the story. Montréal comes from the Latin Mons Regalis — the Royal Mountain. The castle was founded in 1115 by Baldwin the First, the Crusader king of Jerusalem. The Crusaders were Christian armies from Western Europe who had taken Jerusalem less than twenty years earlier. Baldwin wanted a strong point east of the Jordan Valley, far from the coast, on land he hoped to control.

Why here? Look at the position. The castle sits close to the route that caravans and armies used to travel between Syria, Egypt, and Arabia. Whoever held this hill could watch that traffic, tax it, and threaten it. For the Crusaders, Montréal became a key part of a territory they called Oultrejordain — simply, the land beyond the Jordan. Later, the larger castle at Kerak, to the north, joined it as the main strongholds of the region.

Now imagine the castle in the twelfth century. Thick walls followed the edge of the hilltop. Inside there were living quarters, storerooms, and chapels for the garrison and their families. The ground outside was farmed, and local people worked the land and paid dues to the lords of the castle. Life here was remote. Messages to Jerusalem took days, and the garrison had to be largely self-sufficient through long periods of isolation.

That isolation was tested in the late twelfth century. Saladin — the Muslim sultan who united Egypt and Syria — pushed the Crusaders back after his great victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Montréal was besieged for a long time. The defenders held out with great stubbornness, but they were cut off from any help. In 1189 the castle finally surrendered. It was one of the last Crusader strongholds in this region to fall.

Here is the first detail many visitors miss. A popular story says the defenders suffered so badly during the siege that some lost their sight, perhaps from lack of salt in their food. Treat this as a tale handed down rather than a confirmed record. But it shows how people remembered the siege — as a slow, grinding test of hunger and endurance, not a single dramatic battle.

After Saladin, the castle did not fall silent. His successors, the Ayyubids, and later the Mamluks — a dynasty of soldier-sultans who ruled Egypt and Syria — repaired and rebuilt it. Much of the stonework you see today belongs to these later periods rather than to the Crusaders. As you walk the outer walls, look for bands of Arabic inscription carved into the stone. These carved lines record later building work and mark the castle as part of a Muslim state.

And now the second surprise. Somewhere inside the hill is a long tunnel with a stairway cut down into the rock. It descends deep beneath the castle, and it was dug to reach water during a siege. Some guides lead visitors a short way inside with a torch. The steps are uneven, narrow, and dark, and the air turns cool very quickly. Please only enter if a guide or site staff confirm the passage is safe and open.

As you move through the site, you will notice that this is a ruin with many layers rather than a restored showpiece. Arches stand with no roof above them. Walls stop at different heights. Some stones are neatly cut and closely fitted, while others are rough and patched. The remains of Crusader-era chapels sit near later Islamic structures. You are reading several centuries of building and rebuilding in one walk around the hilltop.

For a long time in more recent history, people lived in and around the castle itself. Families built homes among the old walls, and the hilltop functioned more like a village than a monument. Today the village of Shobak has spread across the surrounding land, and the castle stands mostly empty. Still, the area keeps its farming character. Notice the orchards and the small fields, and the way the land is still worked below the walls.

Take a moment at the edge of the hilltop and look outward. On a clear day the view runs across folded hills, dry valleys, and distant ridges. This view explains the castle better than any text. From here, watchmen could see movement across the plateau long before it arrived. Fires or signals could pass warnings between strongholds. The landscape was the castle's first line of defence, and its builders understood that very well.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment. Listen to the wind moving through the empty arches. Feel the warmth stored in the stone, or its chill if the day is cold. These walls have held Crusader knights, Ayyubid governors, Mamluk soldiers, and village families. Now they hold you. As you walk back down the slope, turn once and look up. The castle sits exactly where its builders wanted it — high, alone, and watching the road.