Abstract
This chapter introduces vocabulary in the Palestine that the crusaders found in 1099. It points out special words for a settlement whose population had fled, the gastina or khirbet, meaning a deserted village. It also relates gastina or khirbet to some of the traditional views of the crusades. The chapter focuses on the narrative which envisages Frankish rule as an oppressive regime, imposing itself on crusader states by violence or the threat of violence. It analyzes the gastinae or deserted villages as an inevitable consequence of local peasants fleeing from hated invaders. It also describes Frankish castle building within the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which were often done during times when the level of external threat was ostensibly at its lowest.
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