CHAPTER XIII .

THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATIN STATES : 1099-1118

 

After the capture of the city of Jerusalem on July 15, 1099, most of the crusaders felt that their work was done. They remained long enough to establish a government to protect the Holy Sepulcher and to repel a Moslem attack from Ascalon on August 12. Then the majority set out for their homes in Europe, marching back to northern Syria in order to embark in Byzantine ships. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the crusaders of 1101-1102 did the same thing in their turn, and so we must now consider the situation which these crusaders were leaving behind in Palestine and Syria.

About three thousand Frankish fighting men, in addition to the clergy and other noncombatants, remained in and about Jerusalem, a larger number in and about Antioch, and a small band at Edessa (Urfa). Antioch was three hundred and ten miles to the north of Jerusalem, across hostile territory; Edessa was one hundred and sixty miles northeast of Antioch, and forty-five east of the Euphrates. There were thus three isolated groups of western European invaders left in a foreign land. It was an ancient land whose Semitic inhabitants had seen many changes of fortune in the past, and whose upper classes were superior to the Franks in manners, breeding, and education.

The region in which these newcomers had chosen to find their homes is essentially a narrow strip between the Mediterranean Sea and the Syrian desert. First there is a coastal plain of sandy wastes interspersed with cultivable areas. At places this narrows to nothing as at Dog river pass near Beirut where a road is cut into the face of the cliffs fronting the sea. This coastal area contains a number of seaports such as Latakia, Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, and Acre which since time immemorial have exported both caravan goods and local manufactures to the west. Back of the coastal plain is a series of mountain ranges running north and south. They vary in elevation up to five thousand feet in northern Syria, to eleven thousand feet in the Lebanon, and to nearly four thousand feet in Palestine. There is a valley running north and south between these ranges with its high point at Baalbek, Northward flows the Orontes until it breaks through the mountains at Antioch to reach the sea. Southward runs the Jordan until it reaches the depression of the Dead Sea 1,292 feet below sea level, about twenty miles east of Jerusalem,

From November to March moisture-laden winds from the Mediterranean bring rains to the western slopes of the mountains. This causes the land to bloom in the spring. Although much water runs off, more so now than in medieval times owing to deforestation and overgrazing by sheep and goats, some of it soaks into the underlying limestone strata. This water accounts for the springs and streams, some of which continue to flow in the dry season when the winds blow in from the desert. Consequently irrigation has ever been important in Syria and Palestine, and the land has always had a significant agricultural as well as commercial population. This is true even on the eastern side of the mountains where the occasional streams eventually lose themselves in the desert. Here nourished in fertile areas are located cities famous since ancient times for manufactures and the caravan trade. Such are Aleppo, Hamah, Homs, and Damascus. These cities were never conquered by the crusaders.

With the exception of the county of Edessa the Frankish conquests were to hug the coast, dependent upon sea communications with Europe and reaching back into the highlands only for an average distance of fifty miles. Under these circumstances the enemy was seldom more than a day’s ride away. Therefore the Frankish states had to be garrison states, and their history is in large part military. Let us first examine the Moslem lands surrounding the Franks in 1099, and then the Latin Christian states themselves.

Southwest of Jerusalem, across the Sinai peninsula, lies Egypt. At the end of the eleventh century it was one of the wealthiest countries of the world with a dense though not warlike population. Its ships dominated the coasts of Palestine and Syria northward to the Byzantine sphere of control around Cyprus. In Ascalon, Palestine, it had an advanced base only forty miles from Jerusalem. As preceding chapters have made clear, Egypt was technically ruled by the Fatimid caliph of Cairo, al-Mustali, but was actually governed by a capable vizier, al-Malik al-Afdal. This caliphate championed the Shiite school of Moslem belief, and represented a challenge to the older Sunnite caliphate of the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad. In the latter part of the eleventh century the caliphs of Cairo had lost control of Syria and most of Palestine to the warlike Selchukid (Arabic, Saljuq) sultans who had begun to dominate the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad in 1055. Consequently the Moslems were badly divided by the religious and political rivalries of the two caliphates when the crusaders arrived.

Between Jerusalem and Antioch Syrian affairs were in great confusion. The two most powerful centers of authority were Damascus and Aleppo, east of the mountain ranges and facing the Syrian desert. In 1099 they were governed by two Selchukid princes, brothers and rivals, Ridvan of Aleppo and Dukak of Damascus. Their father, Tutush, governor of Syria, had aspired to succeed his own brother, the Selchukid sultan Malik-Shah, who died in 1092. Tutush was killed in battle with his nephew, the sultan Berkyaruk, son of Malik-Shah, in 1095. Berkyaruk was thereafter much more concerned with the rivalry of his brother Muhammad in Iraq and Iran than with affairs in Syria and Palestine. Ridvan seized Aleppo and aspired to rule all of Syria, but Dukak seized Damascus. Selchukid affairs in Syria were therefore, aside from Fatimid hostility, hopelessly muddled when the crusaders arrived in 1097, a fact of great importance to the invaders. After the Franks had come, Ridvan and Dukak continued to be primarily jealous of each other, and of any real authority to be exerted by the sultan in Baghdad. They were not disposed to attack the crusaders unless the latter threatened them.

The rest of Syria, the region of the coast and the mountains, went its own way after the death of Tutush. The wealthy seaport towns were generally ruled by ex-Fatimid governors who had repudiated Fatimid political but not religious authority, and who would call upon Egypt for naval aid when necessary. In the mountains were the Nusairi Shiite sect in the north; the neo-Ismailite Shiite Batinites (the so-called “Assassins”) in the direction of Aleppo; the Maronites, Syriac-Monothelite Christians, in Mount Lebanon, and the Druzes, a Shiite sect, around Mount Hermon. All three Shiite groups hated one another and also the Sunnite Moslems, but hated Christians more. Shaizar, between Damascus and Aleppo, defended by an immensely strong fortress, contained a considerable Christian population, but was ruled by an Arab family, the Banu-Munqidh. Other than the Shiite sects and the Maronites the rural peoples were generally Syrians who had gone over the Sunnite Islam and to the Arabic language. They hated the Turks who had recently conquered them. The towns of Syria contained important Christian elements, Jacobite, Nestorian, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian, which grew larger the farther north one went. These native Christians were disposed to cooperate with the Franks against the Turks.

North of Antioch in the Taurus mountains and their southern foothills lay a series of Armenian principalities. The Armenians had moved into this region from their ancient homeland in Greater Armenia around Lake Van in the late eleventh century as a result of both Byzantine and Turkish pressure. Consequently their princes were disposed to welcome the Franks as allies. One of them, however, Toros of Edessa, had been displaced in 1098 in favor of Baldwin of Boulogne. This was described in an earlier chapter. Baldwin thus became count of Edessa, and his was the first of the Latin states in the east. Moreover, he had subsequently strengthened his position by marrying Arda, the daughter of an Armenian noble; and he had conquered Samosata on the Euphrates, about thirty miles northwest of Edessa, and Saruj, about the same distance southwest of his capital. Having consolidated his position Baldwin remained in his principality and did not rejoin the army of crusaders marching south.

North of the Taurus range was the Anatolian plateau. In the western part the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus, was ex­panding his territories at the expense of the Selchukid sultan, Kilij Arslan of Iconium (Konya), who had been greatly weakened by the progress of the crusaders through his realm in 1097. Eastern Anatolia was held by a powerful Turkish prince, Malik-Ghazi ibn-Danishmend, the emir of Sebastia (Sivas). South of the Armenian principalities lay the crusader states of Antioch and Edessa. East and southeast of Edessa lay Iraq, the main center of Selchukid power. In its capital, Baghdad, resided the impotent Abbasid caliph, al-Mustazhir, and his real master, the Selchukid sultan. In 1099 the latter was Berkyaruk, more concerned with the rivalry of his brother and eventual successor, Muhammad, than with Syria and Palestine, as we have seen.

Antioch was at first clearly the strongest of the Frankish states. It extended northward into Cilicia, eastward to the frontiers of Edessa and Aleppo, and southward a vague distance into the no man’s land of central Syria. The population was largely Christian — Jacobite, Nestorian, Armenian, and Greek Orthodox. In fact this area had been nominally Byzantine territory as late as 1085. The city of Antioch still retained some of its ancient commercial importance. It was also powerfully fortified. A major source of the new state’s strength lay in its ruler, Bohemond, one of the ablest of the crusader princes. Many of the Franks had remained there with him. But Bohemond was also a source of weakness. He was the son of the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard, who had wrested much of south Italy from the Byzantines. Robert and his son had been bold enough to make, in Albania, a major attack upon the Byzantine empire itself in 1081-1085. Bohemond was like his father ambitious and crafty. Like most of the Latin princes he had sworn an oath at Constantinople in 1097 to return Antioch, when captured, to the emperor Alexius Comnenus. But, as we already know, he had seized possession of Antioch for himself in 1098-1099 after it had been captured. Very plainly Bohemond had embarked upon the crusade in order to secure a dominion for himself rather than to recover the Holy Sepulcher for the church.

Bohemond’s usurpation naturally made Alexius an enemy of the Franks in Antioch. It also prevented Alexius from aiding in the capture of Jerusalem and ruined whatever chance there may have been for a rapprochement of the Latin and Greek churches based upon a common crusade to the Holy Sepulcher, as seems to have been a part of pope Urban’s plan in starting the First Crusade. Bohemond’s ambition had also offended Raymond of St. Gilles, count of Toulouse, whom Urban had consulted before preaching the crusade in 1095, and who had hoped to be regarded as its secular leader under the papal legate, bishop Adhémar of Le Puy.

Let us now examine Bohemond's problem after he had seized possession of Antioch. He was faced by a hostile Byzantium. Three of his logical maritime outlets, Latakia, Valania, and Maraclea, had been turned over to Byzantine officers by count Raymond of Toulouse when the latter continued with the crusade to Jerusalem in 1099. Byzantium now controlled Bohemond’s coastal waters, as well as the island of Cyprus to the west. The emperor Alexius, learning of Bohemond’s usurpation of Antioch and violation of the oath made at Constantinople, protested at once, and was rebuffed. Alexius dispatched an army to seize Cilicia and from there to operate against Antioch. It took only Marash, the Cilician Armenians preferring the Franks to the Greeks. But in 1099 a Byzantine fleet occupied the ports of Corycus (Korgos) and Seleucia (Silifke) on the Cilician coast, basing a squadron at Seleucia to harry Bohemond’s sea communications. Possession of Cyprus and these ports gave the Byzantines several strategically located naval bases.

During this time Bohemond had begun the siege of the important port of Latakia. Suddenly, late in the summer of 1099, a great Pisan fleet of one hundred and twenty ships arrived. Though sent to take part in the crusade against the Moslems and very probably to get commercial concessions in captured Syrian and Palestinian ports, this fleet, on the way out, had engaged in hos­tilities against the Byzantines. It had seized Corfu and wintered there, and had fought a punitive Byzantine naval squadron near Rhodes in the spring of 1099. The dominating personality in this fleet, archbishop Daimbert of Pisa, was accordingly in a receptive frame of mind when Bohemond accused the Greeks in Latakia of being enemies of the crusaders, although Bohemond was more properly an enemy of the Greeks. The upshot was that Daimbert joined Bohemond in the siege of Latakia. At this junc­ture, in September, there arrived three of the principal chieftains of the First Crusade. Raymond of St Gilles, Robert, duke of Normandy, and Robert, count of Flanders, leading their troops home from the conquest of Jerusalem. The three princes vigorously protested against this attack upon fellow Christians. This is excellent evidence that they were still strongly motivated by pope Urban’s original plans for reconciliation with the Greek church, as well as by their oaths to Alexius. They won over Daimbert and forced Bohemond to desist. Raymond must have had another motive; he must have also desired to embarrass his old rival Bohemond. Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders, and most of Raymond’s Provençal army now returned home, by way of Constantinople, in ships furnished by the Byzantines. Raymond himself wintered at Latakia among the Greeks, and went on to visit Alexius at Constantinople the next year.

Bohemond meanwhile was in an uneasy position. He realized that he did not have the support of the other Latins in his war with the Byzantines. He had violated his oath to Alexius and the intent of Urban’s crusade, and had not even fulfilled his vow to go to Jerusalem. But Bohemond was resourceful. He invited Baldwin of Edessa, who likewise had not fulfilled his vow, and archbishop Daimbert to accompany him to Jerusalem to celebrate Christmas at the Holy Sepulcher. As a result the three leaders arrived with a large force, principally Bohemond’s, at Jerusalem, December 21, 1099.

Now let us examine the situation at Jerusalem when Bohemond, Baldwin, and Daimbert arrived. The dominating influence there was Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, who now held the title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher. Godfrey’s greatest immediate problem was the safety of the city and the surrounding area. After the battle of Ascalon, disagreements between Godfrey and the other leaders and his unwillingness to permit any advantage to Raymond of St. Gilles prevented further cooperation. There were two unfortunate consequences. First, Ascalon did not surrender and, indeed, was only captured with great labor a half century later. Second, there followed an almost wholesale exodus of crusaders led, as we have seen, by count Raymond and the two Roberts. The chronicler Albert of Aix writes that about twenty thousand left with them. Of the leaders only Godfrey and Tancred, a nephew of Bohemond, remained. Godfrey begged the departing princes to send him aid when they returned home. Albert reports that Godfrey had about three thousand men that fall (1099). Next spring it was estimated that Godfrey had only two hundred knights and a thousand footmen. William of Tyre writes that men who had originally decided to stay deserted their holdings and went back to Europe.

The little state of Jerusalem was thus left an island in the sea of Islam. It consisted of Godfrey’s own domain in southern Palestine and of a semi-independent barony begun by Tancred around Tiberias. Godfrey’s domain chiefly comprised the port of Jaffa and the inland towns of Lydda, Ramla, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. At first it consisted of little more than these towns. The peasants of the countryside, largely Arabs, were hostile and given to ambushing the unwary on the highways. The towns were depopulated, short of food, and subject to plundering by the Arabs at night. The nearest possible source of help was Tancred, seventy-five miles to the north, and Tancred’s resources were even more insignificant than those of Godfrey. Godfrey had no sea power. Saracen squadrons from Sidon, Tyre, Acre, Caesarea, Ascalon, and Egypt scoured his coast and threatened traffic into Jaffa.

What saved the tiny state was al-Afdal’s failure to renew a prompt and vigorous offensive.

Godfrey’s first step in providing for the defense of the country was to attempt to gain control of the Palestinian seaports. Thus he could make safe the entry of pilgrims and supplies from Europe, could deprive the Saracens of bases for raids by sea and land, and could gain control of the commerce of the hinterland. An attempt to gain the surrender of Ascalon after the battle near there, August 12, was foiled by the rivalry of Raymond, who disliked the selection of Godfrey as Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem and who wanted the surrender of Ascalon for himself. Albert of Aix relates that a few days later an attempt to gain Arsuf, forty miles to the north, was spoiled by the obstinacy of Raymond. Godfrey was so infuriated that he wanted to attack St. Gilles, and was only dissuaded by Robert of Flanders. Godfrey tried again to take Arsuf that fall, but failed because of approaching winter and the lack of men and ships. The next spring he suc­ceeded, with the aid of Daimbert’s Pisan fleet, in compelling Arsuf to pay tribute. Meanwhile in January he strongly fortified Jaffa with the help of Daimbert’s men. This, and the presence of the Pisan fleet, so alarmed the Saracen governors of Ascalon, Caesarea, and Acre that they also agreed to pay tribute. Soon after, the shaikhs of the Transjordan, seeing that the new state might prove to be more than transitory, made treaties with Godfrey. Their merchants gained the right to come to Jerusalem and Jaffa. Likewise the merchants of Ascalon could come to Jerusalem, and those of Jerusalem to Ascalon. This is interesting evidence of how soon commercial activity brought the two sides together. But Godfrey ordered the death penalty for any Moslem who came in by sea. He wanted the Saracens of Palestine and the Trans-Jordan to be economically and politically dependent upon him, and not upon Egypt.

Godfrey set up a feudal system on the western European model to defend Palestine. Albert of Aix writes that on the fourth day after the arrival of Godfrey’s brother and successor, Baldwin I, every knight and important man was called in to account for his arms, revenues, and fiefs (beneficia), including his fief in money revenues from the cities. Then the oath of fealty was exacted. The principal fiefs were in land. The greatest territorial vassal was Tancred. This prince, immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, had taken about eighty knights and had begun to carve out a domain in northern Palestine, the future principality of Tiberias. Within a year Tancred controlled Nablus, Tiberias, Baisan, and Haifa. His domain served as a march over against Damascus. In the west Godfrey promised Arsuf as a fief to Robert of Apulia. In the south, according to Albert of Aix, he gave a large fief called St. Abraham, centering around Hebron, to Gerard of Avesnes. This all agrees with the statement in one manuscript of the chronicle of Baldric of Dol that Godfrey's own domain extended north to Nablus, south to St. Abraham, and eastward to the Jordan and Dead Sea. It included the city of Jerusalem and the port of Jaffa. Stevenson has remarked that the countryside lent itself to the establishment of manorial holdings, that the natives, accustomed to foreign masters, lived in small villages whose headmen were easy to coerce.

Godfrey's position in the realm was therefore seriously challenged when Bohemond of Antioch, Baldwin of Edessa, and archbishop Daimbert of Pisa came to Jerusalem. Bohemond had a considerable army and Daimbert a badly needed fleet at his disposal, Godfrey was very weak by land and sea, and had just given up a heart­breaking siege of Arsuf when these guests arrived.

Daimbert and Bohemond immediately reopened the question of the patriarchate of Jerusalem. Arnulf of Chocques, chaplain of duke Robert of Normandy, had been chosen patriarch on August 1 by the influence of the princes favorable to Godfrey. This was over the objections of those of the clergy who felt that the patriarch should be the ranking official in a state dedicated to the Holy Sepulcher, and that there should be a lay advocate or defender as his assistant. Arnulf was instead willing to be the assistant of the lay advocate, Godfrey. Daimbert and Bohemond now insisted that Arnulf, as yet unconfirmed by the pope, step down and that Daimbert be chosen in his place. Daimbert apparently acted on his own responsibility, for Krey has shown that he does not seem to have been sent out by the pope either as a legate or as a prospective patriarch. Behind Daimbert were two compelling arguments, the Pisan fleet and the military forces of Bohemond. As a result Arnulf was ousted and Daimbert installed. Bohemond and Godfrey became vassals of the new patriarch. As Yewdale has pointed out, Bohemond in doing homage to the patriarch of Jerusalem hoped that he had secured a title to Antioch which would be acceptable to the Latin world. Up to this time he had felt his position compromised by his violation of his oath to restore Antioch to the emperor Alexius. Having secured a title at the price of acquiring an absentee sovereign who would trouble him not at all, Bohemond departed for Antioch after Christmas. Baldwin of Edessa left at the same time. There is no record that he defended Godfrey’s position against Bohemond and Daimbert. Probably he was not strong enough to oppose Bohemond. Nor is there any record that he did homage to Daimbert. He had nothing to gain by doing so. Arnulf was given what consolation he could find in the important position of archdeacon of the Holy Sepulcher. Godfrey was left to deal with his new suzerain. Daimbert was an able and ambitious man. He had dominated the affairs of Pisa as if it were, in the words of Moeller, “a sort of episcopal republic”, and at a time when Pisa was extending its influence in Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and even Valencia. He stood high in the counsels of pope Urban, who had elevated him to the rank of archbishop in 1092, and had used him as a legate in Castile and Sardinia. Daimbert had accompanied Urban to the Council of Clermont in 1095 and on the great speaking tour that followed the next winter and spring. They were both supporters of the Cluniac reform movement in the church, which sought to free the latter from domination by the feudal princes. Such a man, though he seems, as we have noticed, to have been neither papal legate nor patriarch-designate, would play no modest role in Jerusalem. He at once demanded possession of the city of Jerusalem with its citadel, of the Tower of David and of the port of Jaffa, the essential link with Europe. Godfrey, weak in resources and probably conscious of the need of church support from the west, reluctantly made formal cession of a fourth part of the port of Jaffa, February 2, 1100, and of the city of Jerusalem itself on Easter Sunday, April 1. Title was vested in the church of the Holy Sepulcher, to which as well as to the patriarch the Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher swore homage. But on the latter occasion Godfrey inserted the provision that he would retain physical possession of Jaffa and Jerusalem until such time as he could conquer one or two other cities, Babylon (the Frankish term for Cairo or, more precisely, its suburb Fustat) being suggested according to Wil­liam of Tyre.

We may conclude that Daimbert, confident that he represented official church views but lacking direct papal authority, on his own initiative took the position that the crusade had been an ecclesiastical enterprise, that its conquests were church conquests, and that the patriarch of Jerusalem was the trustee and ruler for the church of the Holy Sepulcher, in which title to Jerusalem was vested. He considered that Bohemond and Godfrey were merely lay vassals and defenders. Bohemond was out of the way in the outer province of Antioch, and Godfrey might be got out of the way elsewhere, in Cairo, for example. Such were the ambitious views of Daimbert. In his letter to the Christians of Germany in April 1100, the patriarch spoke of his difficulties in defending the Holy Land, and did not even mention Godfrey. But Daimbert’s whole position, at first so favorable, changed rapidly with the homeward departure of the Pisan fleet after Easter, the death of Godfrey, and the arrival of Godfrey’s brother Baldwin of Edessa in the fall of 1100.

Godfrey died July 18, 1100, after falling ill while helping Tancred in the region east of Tiberias. What this famous but little understood man would have accomplished, had he lived, no one can say. He faced appalling difficulties in his one year as advocate, and he faced them with singular courage and pertinacity. His followers, huddling in the ruins of Jerusalem, were few, their communications with the outside world precarious, and their morale at the breaking point. The imperious Daimbert presented a special problem. He had to be humored because he represented both naval strength and prevailing ecclesiastical opinion. But Godfrey had enough of both personal ambition and practical military common sense not to yield actual control of Jerusalem. Tenacious, shrewd, and tactful, rather than the pious zealot of later legend, he managed to avoid a break with the patriarch. He held together the tiny state. His reputation rests upon a solid foundation of achievement.

When Godfrey died the patriarch Daimbert had his great opportunity to make Jerusalem a church-state. He should have gone to Jerusalem at once. But suspecting no danger he remained with Tancred, who was undertaking the siege of Haifa, until about July 25. Meanwhile a group of Lotharingian knights, hitherto obscure, seized the Tower of David, the citadel of Jerusalem, and summoned Godfrey’s brother, count Baldwin I of Edessa. Their leader was Warner of Gray, a cousin of Baldwin. High in their counsels was archdeacon Arnulf, bitter against Daimbert and from this time on the firm ally of Baldwin. Daimbert, when he realized his peril, sent an appeal to Bohemond of Antioch, his nominal vassal, to stop Baldwin, by force if necessary. The message never reached Bohemond. That redoubtable prince was captured in the middle of August by the Turkish chieftain, Malik-Ghazi ibn-Danishmend of Sebastia, in an ambush on the road to Melitene (Malatya). Meanwhile Daimbert remained with Tancred. He promised the latter the fief of Haifa when Tancred became suspicious that Godfrey had promised it to another, Galdemar Carpinel. Daimbert and Tancred, both ambitious men, must each have had hopes of becoming the dominant figure in Jerusalem. Certainly victory would have made them rivals. But for the time they cooperated. Meanwhile Tancred was tied down by the siege of Haifa, where he had the indispensable but temporary help of a Venetian blockading squadron. At the same time the little group of Lorrainers remained in control in Jerusalem.

When Haifa was taken in August Tancred delayed a little, establishing himself there. During the next month he was sud­denly called to Latakia by cardinal Maurice of Porto, newly arrived as papal legate. Maurice, and the commanders of the Genoese fleet that had brought him, invited Tancred, about September 25, to assume the regency of Antioch in the emergency created by the capture of Bohemond. But Tancred, rather than trying to seize Antioch, whose authorities after all had not invited him, hurried back to Palestine where he had more pressing business. This time he went to the gates of Jerusalem and demanded entrance. He was refused because he would not swear allegiance to Baldwin.

Tancred considered Baldwin a dangerous enemy, for Baldwin had once quarreled with Tancred over possession of Tarsus, in Cilicia, in 1097, and had compelled the latter to yield. Enraged, Tancred now withdrew to Jaffa where he besieged the small Lotharingian garrison. He was so engaged when Baldwin appeared in Palestine.

Count Baldwin of Edessa, upon being informed of his brother's death “grieved a little, but rejoiced more over the prospect of his inheritance”, according to Fulcher of Chartres, his chaplain and biographer. He named as his successor in Edessa his kinsman, Baldwin of Le Bourg. He then levied heavily upon Edessa for his expenses, and departed on October 2 with nearly two hundred knights and seven hundred footmen. He went by way of Antioch. Here, according to Albert of Aix, he was offered the regency, but declined. No doubt he felt that Jerusalem would offer him more possibilities of prestige and of material support from Europe than would either Antioch or Edessa. He turned south, and after fighting his way through a dangerous ambush at Dog river near Beirut, reached his new dominion, in the vicinity of Haifa, about October 30.

Baldwin, who had the qualities of statesmanship, arrived determined to conciliate Tancred if possible. He did not try to enter Haifa, wishing to avoid trouble with Tancred, whose garrison held the place. Tancred, hearing of Baldwin's approach, dropped the siege of Jaffa, fifty-four miles to the south, and hastened by a circuitous route to the security of his own domains around Tiberias. Baldwin reached Jerusalem about November 9, and was welcomed by his Lotharingian friends. Patriarch Daimbert, who had come back to the city late in August, too late to take advantage of Godfrey's death, remained in seclusion. Baldwin did not bother him. Instead, as we have seen, he called in Godfrey’s vassals to an accounting on the fourth day, and received from them an oath of loyalty. Then on November 15, before the week was out, feeling it necessary to overawe the Arabs of the south and east who might be tempted to harass the tiny state, he took one hundred and fifty knights and five hundred footmen and departed on a campaign to the south. He first made a demonstration before Ascalon and then, boldly marching cast into the region of the Dead Sea, terrorized the natives of that area. He returned to Jerusalem on December 21. Baldwin then constrained patriarch Daimbert, who had had time for reflection, to crown him king four days later, December 25, 1100. But Daimbert succeeded in salvaging some of his prestige. He crowned Baldwin in Bethlehem, not in the capital, Jerusalem. This was because Baldwin was to be regarded not as king of Jerusalem but of something else, as king of Asia, or king of Babylon (Cairo) and Asia, for example. Daimbert clung to his technical position as suzerain-lord of Jerusalem. As Kühn says, Daimbert regarded Baldwin as a resident of the patriarch's domain, and expected him like Godfrey to go out and conquer one of his own.

All during the winter of 1100-1101 Tancred remained sullenly aloof in his fief around Tiberias. He did not intend to recognize Baldwin. The latter gently but persistently sought to bring Tancred to terms. Twice Baldwin sent Tancred a formal summons to his court, but was ignored. The third time Tancred, who had sworn no oath to Baldwin, agreed to meet the latter on opposite banks of an-Nahr al-Nauja, a little stream between Jaffa and Arsuf. At this meeting, February 22, nothing was decided except that Baldwin and Tancred were to meet again in fifteen days. By then, early in March, Tancred had been offered the regency of Antioch by a delegation from that city. Antioch needed a strong leader during the captivity of Bohemond in the hands of Malik-Ghazi. The Franks of Antioch were unable to get any help from Bohemond’s princeps militia, Baldwin of Le Bourg. The latter, now count of Edessa, was himself then obtaining help from Antioch following a defeat by Sokman ibn-Artuk of Mardin at Saruj early in 1101. Tancred decided to accept the offer. He agreed with king Baldwin on March 8 to give up his fiefs in northern Palestine, with the right of resuming them in fifteen months. This was obviously based upon the calculation that Bohemond might be ransomed within that time. The next day Tancred left for Antioch with all his knights and about five hundred footmen. He never came back to recover these lands.

Baldwin, having settled with Tancred, now turned upon his other rival, the patriarch Daimbert. By this time, in the spring of 1101, Baldwin had captured two cities, Arsuf and Caesarea, putting Daimbert in a logical position to demand that Baldwin vacate the patriarch's domain, the area of Jerusalem and Jaffa. Baldwin forestalled this by a vicious attack upon Daimbert, accusing the latter of attempting a conspiracy with Bohemond against his life, and of high living while the state needed money for defense. Baldwin, aided by archdeacon Arnulf, made Daimbert’s life so miserable that the latter retired to Jaffa in the fall of that year, and to the protection of Tancred at Antioch the next spring,

But Daimbert clung tenaciously to the plan of making Jerusalem a church-state. He returned in the fall of 1102 with Tancred and Baldwin II of Edessa who brought military support to Baldwin of Jerusalem following a defeat of the latter by the Egyptians earlier in that year. As a result Daimbert was briefly restored to his office. Possibly, as Hansen says, they felt that the quarrel at Jerusalem would impair the necessary good relations with the church in the west. Tancred, as far as he was concerned, had private reasons for resentment against king Baldwin. But Daimbert’s restoration was subject, at Baldwin’s insistence, to an immediate inquiry by a local synod. This court, presided over by cardinal Robert of Paris, a new papal legate, and packed by the king’s friends, promptly decreed Daimbert’s removal, October 8, 1102. It thereupon elected Evremar of Chocques, a fellow townsman of Arnulf, and Tancred had to accept this situation.

Daimbert returned to Antioch with Tancred, and in 1104 to Italy with Bohemond. In 1107 he was declared the official holder of the patriarchal office by pope Paschal II, but he died that year at Messina on the way back. There is no evidence that Paschal restored or indeed had ever recognized Daimbert as feudal suzerain of the Holy Land. Hansen, indicating that Paschal was heavily involved with the emperor Henry V in the celebrated contest over the lay investiture of bishops, believes that the pope told Daimbert to return and arrange a modus vivendi with Baldwin. La Monte, speaking of subsequent papal policy, goes so far as to suggest that the papacy accepted the situation at Jerusalem, not wishing to exalt a potential rival in the strategic patriarchate of Jerusalem. Certainly after Daimbert’s death the papacy allowed king Baldwin a free hand with the patriarchate. It permitted Evremar to be locally deposed in 1108, a victim of Arnulf’s intrigues. It thereafter recognized the patriarchs of Jerusalem who were Baldwin’s nominees — Gibelin of Arles (1108-1112) and Arnulf himself (1112-1118). With Daimbert’s eviction in 1102 died any chance to make Jerusalem a church-state ruled by the patriarch as suzerain-lord and defended by a lay advocate. Feudal monarchy had won. Yet there was deference for ecclesiastical feeling for a long time. Baldwin usually used some oblique formula such as “Ego Balduinus, regnum Ierosolimitanorum dispositione Dei optinens” in his official documents, as in 1114, rather than the “Dei gratia Latinorum rex” of his successors.

While Baldwin was contending with Tancred and Daimbert for the domination of the Holy Land, he was facing a precarious military situation. This was especially true during his first winter, 1100-1101, until the arrival of a Genoese squadron at Jaffa in April relieved the situation. Baldwin’s chaplain, Fulcher of Chartres, says that in the beginning the king had scarcely three hundred knights and as many footmen to garrison Jerusalem, Ramla, Jaffa, and Haifa. There were so few men that they dared not lay ambushes for enemy marauders. The contemporary writer of the Gesta Francorum Ierusalem expugnantium reports that Baldwin’s power extended scarcely twelve miles from the capital city. Land communication with Antioch was through hostile ter­ritory. Sea communication was also precarious, Fulcher also states that the Saracen corsairs were so numerous that pilgrim ships could only slip into Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem, by ones, twos, threes, or fours. He adds that while a few of the new arrivals would stay in the Holy Land the others would return home, and that for that reason the kingdom was always weak in manpower. A typical instance of this occurred in the spring of 1102, and was described in the preceding chapter. A number of the knights of the Crusade of 1101 joined the king against an Egyptian attack at Ramla. Many were killed in the ensuing disaster and almost all the survivors returned to Europe. Thus the hope of permanent reinforcements offered by the Crusade of 1101 proved vain.

One of Baldwin’s most pressing problems, therefore, was the organization of a military system. His first step was to swear in Godfrey's vassals, holders of fiefs in money and in land. An indication of the nature of the first is given by Albert of Aix who states that Gerard, a knight of the king’s household, held a part of the revenues of Jaffa for his services. The great land fiefs were: Tiberias, given to Hugh of Falkenberg when Tancred left for Antioch in 1101; Haifa, given to Galdemar Carpinel at the same time; St. Abraham, given to Hugh of Robecque; and Caesarea and Sidon, given after capture to Eustace Gamier. There is no record that Baldwin granted out Montreal (ash-Shaubak) as a fief when it was established in 1115. In general he held more of the land in his own domain than did the later kings of Jerusalem.

King Baldwin had other resources. He had paid garrisons in Jerusalem and Jaffa, his capital and chief port. To pay these men he demanded a share of the patriarch’s Easter pilgrim receipts in 1101. Albert of Aix relates that in 1108 two hundred knights and five hundred footmen of the garrison of Jerusalem captured a large caravan beyond the Jordan to provide money for their pay. The annual influx of pilgrims provided a welcome though temporary source of manpower. La Monte sees in Baldwin’s appeal to patriarch Evremar in 1102 a request for sergeanty service. He adds that on unusual occasions, such as the determined attack upon Acre in 1104, Baldwin called for a levy en masse from the kingdom. There is no record that Baldwin used Moslem troops in his own service although Albert of Aix writes that queen Adelaide brought some over from Sicily in 1113. Baldwin never had a navy. He had to depend upon naval agreements with squadrons from Europe, usually Genoese, Pisan, or Venetian, in return for commercial concessions. The famed military orders of the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar came after his time. On occasion, we shall find, Baldwin campaigned in alliance with Moslems.

The king's greatest problem, after consolidating his power at home, was to conquer the seaports along his coast. He started with two, Jaffa and Haifa. Ascalon, Arsuf, Caesarea, Acre, Tyre, Sidon, and Beirut were all in the hands of Saracen emirs dependent upon al-Afgal, vizir of Egypt, for support. In Saracen hands these cities could serve as bases for hostile operations on sea or land, and choke both communications with Europe and the export trade of the hinterland. Therefore it was vital for Baldwin to capture these ports. Godfrey had tried to make a start, as we have seen, but failed, partly owing to the rivalry with count Raymond and partly owing to lack of sea power.

Arsuf and Caesarea were the first to fall to Baldwin. He took them in the spring of 1101 with the help of a Genoese fleet. By agreement he gave the Genoese a third of the spoils, and perpetual rights to a street (as a market place) in each town. Acre was besieged in 1103, bat not taken until 1104 when Baldwin had the aid of another Genoese fleet.

The offensive against the coast towns was halted during the years 1105-1108. In 1104 Shams-al-Muluk Dukak, ruler of Damascus, died. Zahir-ad-Din Tughtigin, a very able man who as atabeg (regent or tutor) for Dukak had been the power behind the scenes, now assumed full control as atabeg for Dukak’s infant son Tutush. King Baldwin interfered by sheltering a disappointed heir, Ertash (Bektash). As a result the government of Damascus, hitherto unfriendly to the Fatimid regime in Cairo, now became a partner in opposition to Baldwin. The effect of this new alignment was soon apparent. Al-Afdal, vizier in Cairo, made a last serious effort to overthrow the Latin state of Jerusalem in 1105. He gathered a large army, to which Tughtigin contributed thirteen hundred cavalry, and seat it to the plain of Ramla. Here Baldwin met and defeated it, August 27, but otherwise only held his own in that year. During the next three years pressure by Tughtigin in the north and al-Afdal in the south prevented Baldwin from making any conquests, although he attacked Sidon in 1106 and 1108 when he had the necessary help of fleets from the west. Soon after the latter event Baldwin and Tughtigin made a truce that lasted four years. Apparently it applied strictly to their own territories, for they fought elsewhere, around Tripoli in 1109 and Edessa in 1110

King Baldwin played a leading role in the capture of Tripoli in 1109. But since Tripoli became the capital of one of the four Latin states in the east, this event will be discussed later. Baldwin continued his offensive. He took Beirut in May 1110, with the help of a Genoese squadron. He secured Sidon at last, in December of that year, with the aid of a fleet of Norwegian crusaders and adventurers under the youthful king Sigurd (1103-1130), “Jorsalfar” or Jerusalem-farer, son of Magnus Barefoot. This force had been four years in preparation and three years en route, wintering in England, Spain, and Sicily, fighting Moors and being entertained by friends as it went along. King Baldwin made an attempt to obtain Ascalon by conspiracy in 1111. He plotted with Shams-al-Khilafah, a governor traitorous to al-Afdal of Cairo, and even succeeded in introducing three hundred men into the city as guards for Shams-al-Khilafah. But at that juncture Baldwin was called north to help Tancred against the Selchukids of Iraq, and when he returned found that his confederate had been overthrown and his men killed. It would have been a very great advantage to the state of Jerusalem if this intrigue had succeeded for Ascalon remained an Egyptian advanced base until it fell in 1153. King Baldwin I made a most determined effort to take Tyre by siege in the winter of 1111-1112. But a skillful and bitter defense, aided by operations by Tughtigin of Damascus in the rear, forced Baldwin to desist in April 1112. Tyre was not to be taken until 1124, by Baldwin II.

By 1112 the efforts of Baldwin I to reduce the coast towns were over. He had all but Ascalon and Tyre, and although they were important he could get along without them. In the remaining years of his life he was busy in the larger cause of the defense and unity of all the Frankish states, and later in extending his own domains in the south.

Let us now examine the history of the Latin states in the north, starting with Antioch. We have observed that this principality was founded by Bohemond early in 1099, and that it came into the hands of Tancred as regent in March 1101, after Bohemond’s capture by Malik-Ghazi of Sebastia the summer before. Tancred’s first act was to expel the partisans of Baldwin of Le Bourg, Bohemond's princeps militia. Le Bourg, kinsman of Baldwin of Jerusalem, had been the latter’s successor as count of Edessa since October 1100. Tancred thus made himself more secure in Antioch but he embittered relations with a powerful neighbor whom he should have had as a friend and ally. Nevertheless, he did have a friend and ally in the new Latin patriarch, Bernard of Valence, whom Bohemond had appointed to replace the Greek, John the Oxite.

Tancred immediately began to extend his power. First, by the end of 1101 he recovered the Cilician cities of Mamistra (Misis), Adana, and Tarsus which he had helped to conquer for Bohemond in 1097 and which the latter had let slip to the Byzantines. Second, he took Latakia from the Greeks in the spring of 1103, after a siege of a year and a half. Third, he intervened in the affairs of Baldwin of Jerusalem. As a result of a disastrous defeat administered to king Baldwin near Ramla by the Egyptians in the spring of 1102 Tancred and Baldwin of Le Bourg appeared in the southern realm with large supporting forces in September. Tancred used this occasion to insist upon the restoration of patriarch Daimbert, but with only momentary success, as we have seen.

One project which the regent Tancred did not push was the ransoming of his uncle, Bohemond. Albert of Aix relates that Bo­hemond was released from Turkish captivity in the following way. Tancred’s pressure upon the Byzantines led the emperor Alexius to desire Bohemond as a hostage and to make a bid for his possession. This led to jealousies between Bohemond’s captor, Malik-Ghazi, and Kilij Arslan, sultan of Iconium. The wily Bohemond offered Malik-Ghazi favorable terms, including an alliance against Kilij Arslan and Alexius in return for freedom. Bohemond’s friends then raised the necessary funds for his ransom. They included the Latin patriarch, Bernard of Antioch, the Armenian lord, Kogh Vasil of Kesoun, and Baldwin of Le Bourg of Edessa, Tancred’s rival. Tancred contributed nothing although he did not hinder collections. Bohemond, freed, promptly went to Antioch and assumed complete authority, in May 1103. Radulf of Caen says that Bohemond left Tancred with scarcely two small towns. It was a bitter humiliation for the proud and ambitious young Norman.

Bohemond was in an excellent position after his release. His territory had been strengthened by Tancred’s conquests of the valuable port of Latakia and of the Cilician cities. Baldwin of Edessa and the Armenian Kogh Vasil were his friends. Bohemond had embroiled his enemies, the emperor Alexius and Kilij Arslan, with Malik-Ghazi. In Iraq the Selchukid Turks were weak at the center of their power. Berkyaruk and Muhammad, sons of the late great sultan Malik-Shah (d. 1092), were still quarreling over their vast inheritance. Bohemond’s immediate neighbor Ridvan, lord of Aleppo, was jealous of his independence and suspicious of the Selchukids of Iraq. Ridvan cared nothing for Moslem solidarity, but instead had a leaning toward the Assassins.

Ridvan’s peculiar attitude did not prevent the Franks from seriously threatening him. Successes by Bohemond and Baldwin of Le Bourg in 1103 apparently alarmed Ridvan’s nominal over­lord, the Selchukid sultan Muhammad. In January 1104, the latter had been allotted Syria and northern Iraq as a share in a division of his paternal inheritance. Certainly two powerful Mesopotamian emirs, Shams-ad-Daulah Chokurmish of Mosul and Sokman ibn-Artuk of Mardin, were moved to act. They composed their differences, gathered a large force, and advanced upon Edessa in the spring of 1104. Baldwin of Le Bourg called for help. Bo­hemond, accompanied by Tancred, united with Le Bourg’s chief vassal, Joscelin of Tell Bashir, and marched to the aid of Baldwin. The four leaders then moved to attack Harran, a strategic stronghold twenty-three miles south of Edessa. This move created a diversion in favor of Edessa, for it brought down the Turkish army.

Chokurmish and Sokman employed the old ruse of pretended flight which the Parthians had used against Crassus and the Romans at the same place in 53 BC, and with the same decisive result. The Turks retreated south for three days, causing the Franks to separate into two bodies, which were successively annihilated May 7, 1104. Baldwin of Le Bourg and Joscelin were captured. Bohemond and Tancred escaped with difficulty to Edessa with a handful of followers.

The Frankish defeat at Harran had far-reaching results. As in the time of Crassus it put a limit to Latin conquests eastward. It ended forever any chance the Franks might have had to penetrate Iraq. It ruined Bohemond’s hope of building up a major power around Antioch. It saved Aleppo and the Moslem position in north Syria by preventing Antioch and Edessa from using the strategic location of Harran to cut off contact with the east.

The immediate results of the battle of Harran were several. Tancred became regent of Edessa. Bohemond, his uncle and patron, though shaken was now without question the dominant Latin prince in the north. Thus out of general disaster the two Normans snatched some personal gain. The return of Baldwin of Le Bourg would have disturbed this situation. Consequently Bohemond and Tancred seem to have neglected the matter of Baldwin's ransom, although the subject was broached both by the Turks and by king Baldwin in Jerusalem. As a result Le Bourg endured a captivity of four years. On the other hand Chokurmish and Sokman profited little from their victory. They conquered nothing although the former tried to take Edessa. Their chief gain was two valuable prisoners, Joscelin who was held by Sokman and Le Bourg who was kidnapped from Sokman’s tent by Chokurmish. Ridvan of Aleppo, who had done nothing, profited greatly. With almost no fighting he won back from Antioch the barrier fortresses of al-Fuah, Sarmin, Maarrat-Misrin, and Artah, whose people admitted his men, and Latmin, Kafartab, Maarrat-an-Numan, and Albara, whose garrisons fled. Of these Artah, the gateway to Antioch, was particularly valuable. Likewise, according to Anna Comnena, the Byzantine admiral Cantacuzenus seized Latakia, though not the citadel, and al-Ullaiqah, al-Marqab, and Jabala to the south. The Greek general Monastras occupied Tarsus, the adjacent port of Longiniada (not now extant), and Adana and Mamistra, being welcomed by the Armenian population. The Byzantines already held the island of Cyprus with its naval bases off the Syrian coast, and from them were helping Bohemond’s enemy, Raymond of St. Gilles, establish himself around Tripoli to the south of Antioch, as we shall see.

Bohemond’s position was therefore rendered desperate by pressure on all sides from the Byzantines and Aleppo. With many of his troops lost at Harran, his home garrisons demoralized, Edessa weak, and now himself in debt for his ransom of 1103 and unable to secure more men, Bohemond was at the end of his resources. He might remain and face defeat or decay, or he might return to Europe and embark upon a bold new venture. He chose the latter course. He appointed Tancred his regent in the east, and sailed for Italy, arriving in January 1105.

Bohemond’s plan was nothing less than to make a frontal attack on the Byzantine empire through Albania, as his father, Robert Guiscard, with Bohemond as second-in-command, had done in 1081-1085. Bohemond’s experience convinced him that he might succeed, particularly if he could channel the mounting anti-Byzantine prejudices of the west into support of his venture. These prejudices were born of the friction and misunderstanding engendered by the passage of the hungry and ill-disciplined forces of the First Crusade through the Byzantine empire, and by the disaster of the Crusade of 1101, which Alexius was widely suspected of sabotaging. The wily Norman, therefore, decided to promote a new “crusade”, directed not against the Moslems but against the Byzantines. Its real purpose was not to protect the Holy Sepulcher, but to increase the power of Bohemond. To start a crusade he would have to have the sanction of pope Paschal II. He saw the pope in 1105. As a result Paschal appointed bishop Bruno of Segni as legate to preach a new crusade.

Although the reports of the Council of Poitiers where the crusade was formally launched in 1106 mention the “way to Jerusalem” rather than Byzantium, it seems likely that Paschal succumbed to the anti-Byzantinism of the day and fell in with Bohemond’s plans. At any rate there is no record that the pope denounced Bohemond’s purpose when it became publicly apparent. Indeed, in his relations with the Norman, Paschal does not emerge as a strong character.

The prince of Antioch made a triumphal tour of Italy and France in 1105-1106, everywhere greeted as a hero of the First Crusade, and everywhere calling for volunteers for his new venture. As bases for propaganda against Alexius he carried in his train a pretender to the Byzantine throne, and circulated copies of the anonymous Gesta Francorum et aliorum Ierosolimitanorum, a pro-Norman chronicle of the First Crusade, which Bohemond had brought over from Antioch and into which he seems to have had inserted a passage saying that Alexius had promised Antioch to him.

By the fall of 1107 Bohemond was able to sail from Apulia to Albania with 34.000 men. He took Avlona and laid siege to Dyrrachium (Durazzo). Alexius however was ready for Bohemond. He blockaded him by land and sea and forced the proud Norman to ask for terms in September 1108. The treaty required Bohemond to take an oath of vassalage for Antioch in western style, and to return to Italy. Bohemond, a broken and discredited man, never went back to Antioch. He spent the few remaining years of his life in Apulia, dying there in 1111.

Bohemond's death ended the career of one of the boldest and most ambitious men of the time. He saw in the First Crusade an opportunity to establish himself as a powerful prince. He did succeed in founding a principality at Antioch, but it was much less than he had expected. His seizure of this city in 1098, his denunciations of the Byzantines, and his wars against them wrecked whatever chance the crusading movement may have had to realize the apparent hope of pope Urban, a new understanding between Latin and Greek Christendom.

Let us now return to Tancred when Bohemond left him as re­gent of Antioch in 1104. He had now to rebuild his power. He appointed as his governor at Edessa his kinsman, Richard of Salerno (also known as Richard of the Principate). Thus Edessa became for a time a dependency of Antioch although king Baldwin in Jerusalem had originally given it to Baldwin of Le Bourg. Tancred attacked Ridvan of Aleppo in the spring of 1105. He took the key fortress of Artah, completely shattering an army Ridvan led to its relief, and then scoured the country, capturing Tall Aghdi and Sarmin, and threatening Aleppo itself. Ridvan was dismayed. He seems to have made a submission to Tancred for he gave no more trouble for five years. In 1106 Tancred took the powerful fortress of Apamea. He could now threaten the important emirate of Hamah, to the south of Aleppo. He also gained prestige by marrying Cecilia, a natural daughter of king Philip I of France, a bride sent him by Bohemond.

The young regent of Antioch set out to regain what had been lost to the Byzantines in 1104. He attacked Mamistra, the key to Cilicia, in the year 1107, when Bohemond was attacking Dyrrachium. Apparently he took it late in 1107 or early in 1108, and then moved south to recapture Latakia, the chief port of his principality. By the spring of 1108 Tancred had regained nearly all that Bohemond had lost, and he was overlord of Edessa in addition. It is true that Bohemond in the treaty of Deabolis in 1108 had recognized Alexius as suzerain lord of Antioch, but Tancred treated the emperor’s claims with contempt. Bohemond was partly responsible for Tancred’s success, as his attack in Albania drew off Byzantine troops toward the west.

If Tancred, regent of Antioch and overlord of Edessa, felt in 1108 that he was at the height of good fortune after his Cilician victories, he was due to be widely disillusioned by the loss of Edessa. It is at this point necessary to review the history of Edessa up to 1108. We have seen that Baldwin of Boulogne became its ruler in 1098. When he took over Jerusalem in 1100 he gave Edessa to his kinsman, Baldwin of Le Bourg. The latter immediately strengthened his position in Edessa in several ways. He married an Armenian princess, Morfia, daughter of the wealthy Gabriel (Armenian, Khoril) of Melitene. He received Basil, patriarch of the Armenian Church, with great honor, probably in 1103. Thus he sought the favor of his Armenian subjects. He chose as his chief vassal his kinsman Joscelin of Courtenay, recently arrived from France. He gave Joscelin the great fief of Tell Bashir, lying between the Euphrates and the borders of Antioch. Finally, in 1103 he helped procure the ransom of Bohemond of Antioch, with whom he could cooperate, in place of Tancred, with whom he could not. We have seen that the immediate results were the attacks upon Ridvan of Aleppo in 1103, and the Harran campaign of 1104, which led to the capture of Baldwin and Joscelin by the Turks. Then followed the short regency of Tancred in Edessa, the departure of Bohemond for Europe, the second regency of Tancred in Antioch, and Tancred’s bestowal of Edessa upon his cousin, Richard of Salerno, all in the year 1104.

Richard lacked ability. He did not hold in check the tyranny and greed of his Frankish followers. He rapidly lost the loyalty of his Armenian subjects. Stevenson is doubtless correct in saying that the authority of the Franks was confined to the garrison towns. As a result the territory of Edessa was open to invasion. Chokurmish of Mosul raided the countryside in 1105 and Kilij Arslan of Iconium did the same in 1106 and 1107. Therefore Richard’s rule of Edessa (1104-1108) was a period of great weakness for this exposed northern state.

While Richard governed Edessa, Baldwin of Le Bourg experienced changing fortunes in captivity. Shortly after his capture in 1104 by Sokman of Mardin he was kidnapped by Chokurmish of Mosul. He fell into the hands of Chavli Saqaveh when the latter conquered Mosul, probably late in 1107. The growth of Chavli’s power soon aroused the jealousy of the Selchukid sultan Muhammad, son of the great conqueror Malik-Shah. Muhammad commissioned Sharaf-ad-Din Maudud, of whom we shall hear later, to take Mosul from Chavli, Chavli now did an astonishing thing. He offered Le Bourg liberty in return for an alliance against Maudud, in addition to a ransom. Baldwin accepted, and was released, probably in the summer of 1108. He went to Antioch and demanded of Tancred the return of Edessa. According to Matthew of Edessa, Baldwin was refused because he would not accept it as a fief from Tancred. Tancred’s selfishness blinded him to the fact that he and Baldwin of Le Bourg, by taking the side of the rebel Chavli, could deal the Selchukid power a dangerous blow. Le Bourg at once turned for support to the Armenian prince Kogh Vasil of Kesoun, who feared Tancred, and to Chavli. Border fighting developed, with Tancred holding his own. Shortly afterwards Tancred and Le Bourg were reconciled, largely through ecclesiastical interven­tion according to Ibn-al-Athir. Edessa was then restored to count Baldwin, September 18, 1108. Thus Tancred, earlier in the year at the pinnacle of power, not only lost the suzerainty of Edessa but embittered its rightful lord, Baldwin of Le Bourg.

Then began a strange double civil war between Tancred and Ridvan of Aleppo on one side and Le Bourg and Chavli on the other. Chavli, who had left the defense of Mosul in the hands of his wife, appeared in the district of Rahba, east of Aleppo, in order to recruit allies. His capture of the stronghold of Balis alarmed Ridvan, lord of Aleppo. Ridvan called upon Tancred, with whom he apparently had had a truce since 1105, for aid. He pictured the plight of the Franks in Syria if Chavli should seize Aleppo. Tancred came, perhaps moved in part by resentment against Chavli for freeing Baldwin of Le Bourg. Chavli now became alarmed. He called upon Le Bourg and Joscelin for help. They responded, bitter against Tancred. In the battle which ensued Tancred scattered his enemies near Tell Bashir in the early fall of 1108. He besieged Le Bourg in Duluk for a short while, but was driven off by threatening moves made by Chavli.

Thus ended the civil war of 1108. The Franks might have destroyed the power of the Turks in the region around Edessa while the latter were fighting among themselves. They could even have had the help of one of the Turkish factions. Such an opportunity was not to come again soon, for Maudud, a very able man, established himself in Mosul in September and the renegade Chavli succeeded in making his peace with the sultan Muhammad. On the other hand the Turks had lost an opportunity. If they had been united, they could have attacked the Franks when the latter were divided. The whole episode is illuminating because it shows how quickly the Frankish and Moslem princes could forget rivalries and become allies when private diplomatic and military considera­tions so warranted.

 

The capture of the city of Tripoli by the Franks, one of the key events of the period, occurred during the next year, 1109. This became the capital of the Latin county of the same name. The origin of this state is intimately connected with the name of Raymond of St. Gilles, count of Toulouse. Raymond, it will be recalled, had, come out on the First Crusade having sworn to devote his life to the cause. But the establishment of his rival Godfrey as ruler of Jerusalem and the homesickness of his Provençal troops had forced Raymond to leave Jerusalem in August 1099. He marched his men to Latakia where most of them embarked for Europe, as we have seen. Raymond, now a leader without an army, went on to Constantinople the next year to seek whatever aid he could get from the emperor Alexius. The bond between them was dislike of Bohemond of Antioch, who had thwarted them both.

About the beginning of 1102 Raymond returned by sea to Syria. In the year 1101 he had assumed the leadership, with the approval of the emperor Alexius, of a host of crusaders, principally Lombards, who had reached Constantinople fired by enthusiasm generated by the success of the First Crusade. It was now Raymond’s hope that he might appear in Syria and Palestine with this new army at his back and dictate a settlement more in accord with his conception of the original purposes of the crusade. It was Alexius’s hope that Raymond would reopen Anatolia to Byzantine occupation, and would reduce Antioch to a dependency of Byzantium.

As we saw in the preceding chapter, however, the crusaders of 1101 were virtually exterminated by Kilij Arslan of Iconium and Malik-Ghazi of Sebastia (Sivas). If Raymond of St. Gilles had arrived in Syria in 1101 with a large and victorious army, it is presumable that the Byzantines would have recovered the Anatolian provinces in his wake, that he might have been able to restore Antioch to them, and that the Greeks would thereafter have played a much more important and friendly role in the history of the Latin states. It is also presumable that Raymond, who had been consulted by pope Urban in 1095 in planning the First Crusade, and who thought that he more truly represented its original purposes than did the other princes, would have had a large influence upon the disposition of affairs in general in Syria and Palestine. Grousset goes further and suggests that Raymond and his large army might have conquered Aleppo and Damascus and made possible the establishment of a Latin power much stronger and more stable than Edessa and the three coastal states that did result from the efforts of the Franks. However in the Crusade of 1101 not only were the hopes of Alexius and Raymond defeated, but when Raymond returned to Syria in 1102 he was virtually without a following. The old count endured the humiliation of arrest and delivery into the hands of the youthful Tancred, regent of Antioch for Bohemond, then a prisoner of Malik-Ghazi. Tancred compelled Raymond to swear to make no conquests between Antioch and Acre, and released him. Observance of this oath would have virtually excluded St. Gilles from any acquisitions on the coast of Syria and Palestine.

The count of Toulouse now proceeded to do just what Tancred had feared. He started the conquest of an area south of Antioch in Tancred’s natural sphere of expansion. By now his hopes had to be reduced to the immediate business of getting a foothold in Syria. Raymond had passed through this area twice in 1099, and had become familiar with it. Grousset suggests that it reminded him of his native Midi. Raymond began by capturing the port of Tortosa in 1102, and used it as a base for further operations. Then he laid siege to Hisn al-Akrad (Castle of the Kurds, later Krak des Chevaliers), which he had taken and abandoned in 1099. He gave up this siege when the assassination of Janah-ad-Daulah of Homs in May 1103 seemed to offer an excellent opportunity to seize that rich and powerful emirate. However, Homs delivered itself to Dukak of Damascus and Raymond retired. Then in 1103 the count of Toulouse found his objective at last. He established a permanent camp on a hill outside the important port of Tripoli, living off the hinterland with a few hundred followers and blockading the city by land. Gradually he transformed this camp into a fortress, Mons Peregrinus (Pilgrim Mountain), with the help of workmen and materials sent by Alexius’s officials in Cyprus. In 1104 Raymond with Genoese naval aid captured the port of Jubail, twenty miles to the south. The Genoese admiral, Hugh Embriaco, received Jubail and established a hereditary fief around it. But on February 28, 1105, count Raymond died, his ambition to conquer Tripoli still unrealized. Disappointed in his hopes to carry through the plans of pope Urban, Raymond had remained to play out the role of a petty conqueror. His monument was to be the county of Tripoli, the smallest of the four Latin states.

Raymond’s successor in Syria was his cousin, William Jordan, count of Cerdagne. For four more years William, with slender resources, kept up the land blockade of Tripoli from Pilgrim Mountain. Then in the beginning of March 1109, there arrived from France Raymond’s son, Bertram of St Gilles, to claim his paternal inheritance. Bertram had left France with an army of four thou­sand men convoyed in a fleet largely Genoese. On the way out he had come to an understanding with the emperor Alexius, a step consistent with the policy of his father. On the other hand he incurred the enmity of Tancred by stopping at St. Simeon and lay­ing claim to that part of Antioch originally held by his father in 1098. Tancred stiffly ordered Bertram to leave the principality of Antioch.

Bertram then sailed with his forces to Tortosa, a port controlled by William Jordan. He immediately claimed a part of his father’s estate. William, the defender and possessor for four years, rebuffed him. But William, fearing his cousin’s large forces, appealed to Bertram’s enemy, Tancred, offering to become a vassal in return for protection. Tancred, eager for power and desirous of checking St. Gilles, accepted the proposal and prepared to join William Jordan.

Count Bertram, fearing Tancred’s intervention, hastened to Tripoli and laid siege to it by land and sea. He hoped to settle the matter by seizing the great prize before William and Tancred could act. William's small garrison in the stronghold of Pilgrim Mountain looked on helplessly.

The young count of St. Gilles had another resource. He sent word to king Baldwin of Jerusalem, Tancred's rival of other days, offering to become a vassal in return for help. Baldwin accepted. He welcomed the opportunity to extend his power northwards and to forestall Tancred. He was glad to help reduce another Saracen port and he could hope for an alliance with the Genoese fleet for further attacks upon coastal towns. But to Baldwin, who had the qualities of statesmanship, there was still a greater opportunity. He saw then the possibility of ironing out differences among all the Franks and of uniting their energies as crusaders under the leadership of the regime at Jerusalem.

For these reasons king Baldwin formally summoned Tancred to meet him at Tripoli to give satisfaction to the complaints of Bertram, and also to those of Baldwin of Edessa and Joscelin of Tell Bashir. But Tancred owed no allegiance to king Baldwin. Therefore Baldwin summoned him in the high name of the church of Jerusalem, a formula which reminds us of the stand originally taken by the ecclesiastics and others regarding the proper regime to be established in the holy city. Soon two coalitions faced each other outside Tripoli. On one side were king Baldwin, Bertram, Baldwin of Le Bourg, and Joscelin. On the other were Tancred and William Jordan with a smaller following. Under the circumstances Tancred proved conciliatory. King Baldwin achieved the great personal triumph of sitting in judgment and hearing the complaints of Le Bourg versus Tancred and of Bertram versus William Jordan.

A number of compromises were worked out. First, Tancred gave up his claims in Edessa and recognized the restoration of Baldwin of Le Bourg, kinsman of king Baldwin. In return king Baldwin granted Tancred the fiefs of Tiberias, Nazareth, Haifa, and the Templum Domini (now the shrine Qubbat as-Sakhrah) in Jerusalem. Tancred formally became Baldwin’s vassal for these fiefs. This meant that, if Bohemond returned to Antioch, Tancred could expect to resume the place in the state of Jerusalem that he had left in not. It was provided that meanwhile he could enjoy the revenues from these fiefs. Tancred did not become Baldwin’s vassal for Antioch. Second, it was agreed that William Jordan should keep Arqah and apparently Tortosa. William became a vassal of Tancred. Thus the northern part of the territory of Tripoli was to be under Tancred’s influence. Third, Bertram was to get the remainder of his father’s inheritance, that is, the area around Tripoli and Tripoli itself when it should fall. He became a vassal of king Baldwin. It was a great day for Baldwin I. Edessa and Tripoli were thereafter dependent upon him, while Tancred of Antioch could expect to control only the northern part of Tripoli. The prestige of king Baldwin had never been so high. Tancred, thwarted and disappointed, marched off, and besieged and captured the ports of Valania and Jabala in May and July, 1109. He thus forestalled Baldwin I and Bertram by extending his rule about a third of the way south from Latakia toward Tripoli.

The city of Tripoli surrendered July 12, 1109. It was divided between Bertram, who received two-thirds, and the Genoese, who received one-third in return for their naval help. In addition Bertram inherited the holdings of William Jordan, who was killed a little before the fall of Tripoli. Thus Bertram extended his possessions as far north as Tancred’s territory. This deprived Tancred of the influence he had expected to have as the suzerain of William Jordan. A year or two later Tancred seized Tortosa from Bertram. Beyond this, king Baldwin was the beneficiary of the Tripolitan campaign, for the county of Tripoli remained a fief of the south­ern kingdom. Its history may be treated with that of the latter.

For a number of years after the Franks took Tripoli the history of all four Latin states tended to ran in the same channel. This was because the Turks of Iraq, aroused by the fall of Tripoli, were now disposed to unite and take the offensive. Therefore, the Latin states had to stand together. The jihad of the Turks was authorized by the Selchukid sultan Muhammad. There soon emerged as its moving spirit a devoted Moslem, Sharaf-ad-Din Maudud, lord of Mosul since 1108, and a worthy forerunner of Imad-ad-Din Zengi, Nur-ad-Din, and Saladin. Maudud acted as Muhammad’s commander-in-chief. It was his mission to lead the Selchukids of Iraq in a series of dangerous attacks upon the Franks.

Maudud’s first campaign was in 1110. He ravaged the lands of Edessa in the spring. Baldwin of Le Bourg called for help. Baldwin of Jerusalem, after finishing the siege of Beirut, May 13, appeared in the north in the early summer. Bertram of Tripoli and two Armenian princes, Kogh Vasil of Kesoun and abu-l-Gharib (West Armenian, Ablgharib) of Bira (Birejik), also came. Tancred did not respond. He resented Le Bourg’s possession of Edessa. King Baldwin, wishing to preserve the unity attained the year before at Tripoli, summoned Tancred to join the rest of the Franks, and if he had grievances, to present them. It was apparently a direct appeal, not a feudal summons, for Antioch was not a fief of Jerusalem. Its sanction was both crusader sentiment and the power of the coalition, which Albert of Aix says disposed of twenty-five thousand men. Tancred came, reluctantly, went through the forms of reconciliation with Le Bourg, and soon withdrew. The other allies, not daring to remain long absent from their lands, prepared to go home also. They provisioned and garrisoned the city of Edessa, evacuated the agrarian population, and crossed the Euphrates. Maudud, now joined by Tughtigin of Damascus, appeared and killed five thousand Armenians before they could cross. He then devastated the whole countryside of Edessa on his way back to Iraq. The county of Edessa, especially the part east of the Euphrates, never recovered from this blow. Nor was this all. The Franks of Edessa now in their weakness became suspicious, vengeful, and cruelly extortionate, and were hated by the people they had originally been welcomed to defend.

The Turks made a second effort in 1111. An offensive by Tancred caused individuals from Aleppo, rather than the weak and suspicious Ridvan, to clamor for aid from both the sultan and the caliph in Baghdad. As a result Maudud assembled a new coalition of Iraqian princes, invaded the county of Edessa, and then in August marched south to join Ridvan in a war against Tancred. Rut Ridvan shut the gates of Aleppo. He feared the greed of the Mesopotamia emirs more than that of Tancred. He cared nothing for the holy war or Moslem unity, for as we have said he sympathized with the esoteric and heretical sect of Assassins. Accord­ingly Ridvan’s would-be deliverers ravaged his lands for seven­teen days, doubtless confirming him in his suspicions of them.

Maudud and his Iraqian allies marched farther south, early in September, to join Tughtigin of Damascus, who desired an attack upon Tripoli. Tripoli was the natural maritime outlet for Damascus. But Maudud’s Mesopotamian allies, tired of the long campaign, balked at this and went home. Only the zealous Maudud remained with Tughtigin.

Meantime Tancred had taken alarm. He called for help, although he had been unwilling to help others the year before. Baldwin of Jerusalem came, abandoning the promising intrigue to gain Ascalon. Count Baldwin of Edessa and his vassal Joscelin of Tell Bashir, Bertram of Tripoli, and a number of Armenian princes also gathered at the meeting place, Chastel-Rouge, thirty miles south of Antioch up the Orontes valley. There was a little skirmishing near Shaizar, and then both sides warily withdrew and went home. One may conclude in regard to the whole campaign of 1111 that the splendid prospects of the Turks were ruined by internal dissensions, and that the policy of unity and cooperation sponsored by king Baldwin in 1109 and 1110 was brilliantly justified. However it is a matter of irony that the selfish Tancred was the principal beneficiary of this solidarity, and that king Baldwin, who was re­sponsible for it, lost a promising opportunity to gain Ascalon.

In the years 1111-1112 Bertram and especially king Baldwin made another contribution to the cause of Latin unity. The emperor Alexius, following the death of Bohemond in Italy in 1111, again demanded Antioch of Tancred, in accordance with Bohemond’s treaty of 1108. Tancred rebuffed him. Alexius then sent an envoy, Butumites, to bribe Bertram and king Baldwin into an alliance against Tancred. Bertram dallied with the idea but Baldwin’s refusal was decisive for them both. Such a scheme was hardly consistent with Baldwin’s policy of Frankish unity and cooperation. For Bertram it meant dropping his father’s historic quarrel with the Normans of Antioch and ceasing the intrigues with Alexius.

As a result the courts of Antioch and Tripoli became friendly. Ibn-al-Qalanisi writes that when Bertram died, probably a little before February 3, 1112, the guardians of his young son Pons sent the latter to Antioch for training as a knight. He also states that Pons was given four fiefs by Tancred —Tortosa, Safitha (later Chastel-Blanc), Hisn al-Akrad, and Maraclea. After Tancred died (probably December 12, 1112), Pons was also given Tancred’s young wife, Cecilia of France. This was by wish of Tancred, ac­cording to William of Tyre. Thus ended the old quarrel begun at Antioch in 1098 by Raymond of St. Gilles and Bohemond. This policy of friendship was continued by Tancred’s successor in the regency of Antioch, Roger of Salerno, son of Richard of the Principate, former regent of Edessa,

Tancred’s death ended the career of the youngest of the leaders of the original crusading expedition. He was certainly one of the ablest, ranking immediately below Bohemond and Baldwin I. The young Norman was perhaps more than Bohemond the real founder of the principality of Antioch. He rather than his uncle, who was usually an absentee, established the state upon a permanent foundation. A restless fighter, Tancred extended his conquests as long as he lived. Usually he fought Moslems but he was unscrupulous enough to fight fellow Christians, whether Byzantines, Armenians, or even the Franks of Edessa, if he saw a chance to gain an advantage. He was more concerned with the immediate expansion of his own power than with the larger interests of the Latin states. Yet on the whole the career of Tancred belongs on the credit side of the Latin ledger. He built up the principality of Antioch into a powerful military state that considerably outlasted the southern kingdom of Jerusalem.

Maudud’s third campaign against the Franks was in 1112. This time he came alone. He harassed the city of Edessa from April to June, and nearly captured it by corrupting some of the Armenian guards. When this failed he returned home. The pro-Turkish plots of some Armenians inside Edessa, notably in 1108 and 1112, led Baldwin to take vigorous counter-measures, including a mass deportation to Samosata in 1113, rescinded in 1114. Baldwin’s poverty after the constant Turkish devastations east of the Euphrates, contrasted with the prosperity of Joscelin at Tell Bashir, led him in 1113 to imprison his chief vassal briefly, strip him of his fief, and expel him. Joscelin was welcomed at Jerusalem by Baldwin I and given the fief of Galilee.

The Selchukids attacked the Franks again in 1113. This time Maudud passed by Edessa and straightway joined Tughtigin of Damascus, who had been suffering from raids from the Franks of Jerusalem. The combined Turkish army boldly took position south of Lake Tiberias, east of the Jordan, across from the village of as-Sinnabrah. King Baldwin summoned what was probably his maximum strength, seven hundred knights and four thousand footmen according to Albert of Aix, and marched north. At the same time he called upon Roger of Antioch and Pons of Tripoli for help. Baldwin, always aggressive and usually shrewd, this time blundered into the enemy at as-Sinnabrah, June 28. He lost twelve hundred infantry and thirty knights, and himself barely escaped. The next day Roger and Pons arrived at Tiberias, and reproached their senior colleague for his rashness.

But the end was not yet. The Frankish force, inferior in numbers, took refuge on a hill west of Tiberias where though safe they suffered from lack of sufficient water. Ibn-al-Athir writes that the Franks were immobilized here for twenty-six days. For two months Turkish raiding parties roamed the kingdom to the environs of Jaffa and Jerusalem itself. The Arab peasantry assisted the Turks in the plundering and devastation. However the towns, except Nablus and Baisan, held out behind their walls. As the summer wore on the Frankish army, which stayed around Tiberias, grew by accretion of pilgrims from Europe until it numbered about sixteen thousand men according to Albert of Aix. At the same time Maudud’s Iraqian allies became more and more insistent upon returning home, and eventually did so. Maudud dismissed his own men, and himself went to Damascus with Tughtigin, September 5. He intended to prepare for a campaign the next year.

Maudud’s invasion of the kingdom in 1113 was strikingly like that of Saladin in 1187. In each case the Moslems entered via the Tiberias gateway, and caused the kingdom to muster its full strength which the invaders then disastrously defeated. Both times the Franks were marooned on a hill short of water. But there were three differences. King Baldwin’s troops were not entirely without water, he received reinforcements, and he was astute and had the respect of his colleagues in spite of his error. King Guy in 1187 would enjoy none of these advantages.

The danger to the Franks implicit in the existence of the able and energetic Maudud ended with the murder of that prince, October 2, 1113. He was struck down in the presence of Tughtigin, probably by a member of the fanatical sect of Assassins. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Tughtigin, jealous of his autonomy and annoyed at the continued presence in his capital of the sultan’s generalissimo, was involved. For the Franks the results were wholly fortunate. First, the murder removed a most powerful, persistent, and capable adversary. Second, Tughtigin, though he posed as innocent, became suspect in the court of sultan Muhammad at Baghdad. As a result Tughtigin was driven to making a permanent truce with king Baldwin in 1114, and even roan alliance with the Frankish princes in 1115. Thus the circumstances of Maudud’s death bred suspicions among the Turks and destroyed much of the unity it had been his life work to create.

Maudud’s death did not, however, cause sultan Muhammad to abandon the holy war. He named Aksungur al-Bursuki to be Maudud’s successor as governor of Mosul and leader in the war. Aksungur made a futile attack upon Edessa, in May of 1114. A more positive achievement was the acceptance of an offer of loyalty from the widow of the Armenian prince Kogh Vasil (d. 1112). Her husband had suffered from aggression by Tancred in 1112. By her action Marash, Kesoun, and Raban, all northwest of Edessa, were included in the Turkish sphere of influence.

However, Aksungur permitted himself to be badly defeated by a Mesopotamian rival, U-Ghazi ibn-Artuk of Mardin, probably late in 1114. As a result Il-Ghazi, fearing the vengeance of the sultan, made an alliance with Tughtigin of Damascus. According to Ibn-al-Athir the two princes even made an agreement with Roger of Antioch. A wide breach was opened in the ranks of the Turks. A second result of Aksungur’s defeat was his replacement as Muhammad’s generalissimo by Bursuk ibn-Bursuk of Hamadan. Bursuk was ordered to punish Il-Ghazi and Tughtigin as well as carry on the holy war against the Franks.

In the spring of 1115 Bursuk gathered a large army of Iraqian contingents, threatened Edessa briefly, and then moved on, intending to make Aleppo his base of operations. But the eunuch Lulu, atabeg in that city for the child Alp Arslan, son of Ridvan (d. 1113), was as unwilling to open his gates to the army of the sultan as had been Ridvan in 1113. Lulu called upon and Tughtigin for aid, and they in turn called upon Roger of Antioch. As a result the troops of these strange allies took position in two camps, one Turkish and one Frankish, near Apamea, to watch Bursuk. Roger in turn called upon the other Frankish princes for support. King Baldwin, Pons of Tripoli, and Baldwin II of Edessa all gathered at Apamea by August. The stage was now set for a great battle between the sultan’s army under the command of Bursuk, and the coalition of Latin princes and Turkish rebels. But there was no battle, the Latin-Turkish allies being very cautious. After eight days Bursuk slyly retreated into the desert and his enemies scattered to their homes. The whole affair is excellent evidence that the Franks and Syrian Turks though given to fighting each other could close ranks against others from outside Syria.

Bursuk’s withdrawal was a ruse, however. He slipped back to capture Kafartab, a mountain fortress of Roger’s, and to menace the lands of Antioch and Aleppo. Roger took the field and succeeded in ambushing Bursuk at Danith half way between Apamea and Aleppo, September 14. The rout was complete and appalling. Bursuk himself escaped but the Franks slaughtered three thousand male camp followers, enslaved the women, and committed the children and old men to the flames. The prisoners who remained, other than those held for ransom, were sent to Tughtigin, Il-Ghazi, and Lulu. It took the Franks two or three days to divide the spoils, which were worth three hundred thousand bezants according to Fulcher of Chartres.

The battle of Danith made a deep impression upon the Moslems. According to Grousset, Roger, as “Sirojal” (Sire Roger), became a legendary figure among them something like Richard the Lion-hearted after the Third Crusade. Tughtigin of Damascus broke with his dangerous ally at once and made his peace with sultan Muhammad the next spring. Nor do we hear more of Il-Ghazi as an ally of Roger. This catastrophe broke the offensive spirit of the Selchukids for some time. Maudud was dead and there was none to take his place. The Frankish states now, until Roger’s defeat by Il-Ghazi at Darb Sarmada in 1119, enjoyed more security than they had ever known before.

The safety enjoyed by the Latin states permitted them to go their separate ways. They could unite in danger but not in victory, Pons of Tripoli, possibly in the summer of 1116, began to plunder the Biqa valley, the country around Baalbek. As a result he was badly defeated by Tughtigin of Damascus and Aksungur al-Bursuki of Rahba. The latter, probably to regain the laurels lost in 1114, had come down to cooperate with Tughtigin in a holy war of their own. The two years following Danith were spent by Baldwin II of Edessa in a war upon the neighboring Armenian principalities. It will be remembered that one at least, Kesoun, antagonized by Tancred’s brutality, had sympathized with Aksungur in 1114. Baldwin acquired the territory of Dgha Vasil, son of Kogh Yasil, by torturing Dgha Vasil; that of abu-l-Gharib of Bira after a year-long siege of the latter’s capital; and that of Pakrad of Cyrrhus and Constantine of Gargar also by violence. Baldwin of Le Bourg thus rounded out his territories in the Euphrates valley to the west and north, and in a measure recovered the strength he had lost in 1110. His county was secure when he left it in 1118 to become king of Jerusalem.

Roger of Antioch, strange as it may seem, apparently was not actively aggressive for two years after his great victory. Probably his chief concern was Aleppo. As long as the weak and incompetent Lulu was alive Roger seems to have been satisfied. But when Lulu was murdered in 1117 there began a confused struggle for the control of the city. It was Roger’s role to combine with each successive faction dominant in Aleppo to keep out powerful candidates such as Il-Ghazi of Mardin, active probably in 1118 or early 1119. This able prince purchased an expensive truce from Roger, made plans with Tughtigin, went home, proclaimed a holy war, and raised a large army. He then returned to defeat and kill Roger at Darb Sarmada near al-Atharib, west of Aleppo, June 28, 1119. This disaster, called the “field of blood”, will be discussed more fully in the following chapter. But the Franks of the north lost in 1119 much of the security that they had gained in 1115. They now faced a powerful and active prince in Aleppo, where there had always been a weak ruler. But this is beyond the limits of our story. In 1118 the results of Danith still stood. Roger’s brief role of Antioch was, states Cahen, “the moment of greatest prestige in its history”.

Let us now turn and see what king Baldwin of Jerusalem was able to do with his own dominions after the lapse of the Turkish peril in 1115. In the fall of that year he built in the Transjordan the castle of ash-Shaubak, or Krak de Montreal, as it was called in his honor. This was on a commanding height south of the Dead Sea eighty-five miles from Jerusalem and eighty miles north of the Red Sea. Its fine strategic position enabled the Franks not only to protect the kingdom in that quarter, but to levy tribute upon the Moslem caravans passing between Damascus and Egypt and also between Damascus and the holy cities of Medina and Mecca.

The next year Baldwin extended his influence still farther south by leading a military force to Ailah (Elat) at the head of the gulf now called Aqaba, on the Red Sea. This town, one hundred and fifty miles south of Jerusalem, became the southernmost point in his kingdom. According to Albert of Aix, Baldwin now visited the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, which is ninety miles to the southwest, but made no claim upon the territory in this area.

Late in 1116 Baldwin put away his queen, Adelaide of Sicily. He had put aside Arda, his Armenian queen, in 1113, in order to marry Adelaide. He wanted to secure a rich dowry and the friendship of Adelaide’s son, count Roger II of Sicily. It was agreed that Roger should inherit the kingdom if the royal pair should be childless. It is presumable that this political marriage had the approval of Baldwin’s close friend and adviser, patriarch Arnulf. Arnulf, a royal partisan during the patriarchates of Daimbert (1099-1102), Evremar(11o2-11o8), and Gibelin(118-1112), and privy to the removal of the first two, became patriarch in 1112. But there was enough of clerical opposition to his policy of subordinating the church to the interests of a strong monarchy, and of personal opposition to Arnulf himself, to secure his deposition in a papal legatine court in 1115. Arnulf promptly went to Rome and was reinstated in 1116. At this time he agreed to urge Baldwin to give up his bigamous union with Adelaide. King Baldwin, becoming very sick late in 1116, and still childless, fell in with this idea. It is probable, as Kuhn suggests, that both Baldwin and Arnulf felt that the little kingdom could not be safely left to an absentee king, for Roger’s most important interests would be in Sicily. Therefore with Arnulf’s connivance the marriage with Adelaide was annulled. Although Baldwin, when he died two years later, left the kingdom to a resident sovereign, he had forfeited permanently the friendship of the wealthy Sicilian court. The affair of Adelaide is also significant because it shows the close support given the throne, even the strong influence upon royal policy, by the patriarchate under Arnulf. But it was an influence exerted for a strong monarchy, not an independent church.

In the spring of 1118 Baldwin led a small reconnoitering expedition into Egypt for the first time. He plundered Pelusium (al-Farama), south-east of modern Port Said, late in March. He then pushed on to Tinnis on one of the mouths of the Nile. Here he became fatally ill. He attempted to return to Jerusalem but died at al-Arish, sixty miles southwest of Ascalon, April 2, 1118. He was succeeded by Baldwin of Le Bourg, whose formal consecration as king of Jerusalem took place on April 14 of that year. As a result another Latin state, the county of Edessa, also changed hands, for Baldwin of Le Bourg gave it to Joscelin of Courtenay in 1119. In the year 1118 there died several others identified with the early history of the Latin states, namely pope Paschal II, Adelaide of Sicily, patriarch Arnulf, and emperor Alexius Comnenus.

The reign of Alexius Comnenus, whose death occurred in August, four months after that of Baldwin I, had been advantageous to his empire and not inimical to the Franks. He had reorganized and strengthened the administration and had restored the security and prosperity of his people, while protecting his frontiers against the usual attacks in the Balkans, the pseudo-crusade of the avaricious and vindictive Norman, Bohemond, and the menacing raids of the Turks in Anatolia. He had preserved his realm against the threat implicit in the presence of large western armies, too often composed of ambitious and unprincipled leaders with bigoted and undisciplined followers, only too willing to blame all their hardships and misfortunes on the Greeks, whom they regarded as wily profiteers, as schismatics, and eventually as treacherous renegades. However accurate these accusations might be against certain of Alexius’ successors, they had no basis in his own conduct, but originated chiefly in the shrewd propaganda attempt of his enemy Bohemond to cast a cloak of justification over his own marauding.

Alexius had profited from the First Crusade and from his maritime strength by recovering the Anatolian littoral, but this territorial gain was partially offset by the loss of Cilicia — acquired only in 1099, lost in 1101, and retaken in 1104 — definitively in 1108 to Tancred, and by the suppression of his nominal Armenian vassals by the counts of Edessa between 1097 (Tell Bashir) and 1117 (Gargar and Cyrrhus), with Gabriel of Melitene overwhelmed by the Turks in 1103. By 1118 no portion of the crusading arena was under Greek control, and none under that of Armenians except in the Taurus mountains north of Cilicia, where Toros (1100-1129) —son of Constantine, son of Roupen — still held Partzapert and Vahka, and Hetoum, son of Oshin, ruled at Lampron. The population of Cilicia, and of that part of the county of Edessa which lay west of the Euphrates, remained largely Armenian, with a mutually antagonistic admixture of Orthodox Greeks and Syrian Jacobites, all of whom had quickly learned to detest their Frankish overlords.

The year 1118 therefore marks the end of an era. This is particularly true because of the death of Baldwin I of Jerusalem. He was the last of the original leaders of the First Crusade, with the exception of Robert of Normandy, who died in 1134, after many years as a prisoner of king Henry I of England. Godfrey, Raymond, Bohemond, and Tancred, all of whom had elected to stay in the east as builders of states, had passed. Of these Baldwin was probably the ablest. He was certainly the most successful as a prince. He founded the first Latin state in the east, the county of Edessa. He was virtually the founder and was for eighteen years the ruler of another, Jerusalem, which he transformed from an ecclesiastical state into a monarchy. He even had a hand in the capture of the city of Tripoli and in the establishment of the fourth and last state, the county of Tripoli.

With small means Baldwin accomplished much. He founded the county of Edessa with a mere handful of knights. As Godfrey’s successor at Jerusalem he took over a weak state torn by factionalism and surrounded by enemies. He left it united and powerful. He found it in economic ruin. He revived and maintained commerce with the people he had come to fight, the Moslems. When he arrived he controlled but one port, Jaffa. When he died he ruled all but two along his coast, Tyre and Ascalon. He never had a fleet, yet he found Italian naval help for coastal conquests and for the protection of the vital sea routes to the west. Baldwin rarely had more troops than a modern battalion or regiment. Yet he was able to protect his small state, leave it secure and aggressive, aid the Latin states in the north, and extend his own dominions, He was a conqueror to the day of his death. His powerful enemies al-Afdal of Egypt and Tughtigin of Damascus early gave up any notion of conquering him. As a king he had very scanty revenues. He relied upon customs duties, upon contributions from pilgrims, upon raids and tribute, and upon the economic prosperity he revived in his kingdom. He fostered this prosperity by conciliating and protecting the natives, both Christian and Moslem, who formed the bulk of the wealth-producing population of his “Latin” kingdom. He induced the Christian peasants of the Transjordan and adjacent districts to migrate to his kingdom and replace the hostile Arabs, in lieu of the potential colonists lost in the disastrous crusade of 1101.

King Baldwin had become the leader of the Franks in the Levant although he had no real means with which to coerce the three other Latin princes. It is true that he was suzerain of Tripoli, and had granted Edessa to its lord, yet their feudal rulers could have defied him if they had wished. Baldwin was statesman enough to know that the Franks would stand or fall together. He had sufficient moral authority to unite and lead them, even the reluctant Tancred, against the Turkish peril in the north. When Baldwin died his kingdom was first in dignity, power, and leadership among the Latin states in the east. All, even the exposed county of Edessa, were secure. King Baldwin's passing marks the end of the formative period of these states. It was now the turn of others to maintain what had been won.