Principality Of Antioch

The Principality of Antioch , whose territory is in Turkey and Syria , was one of the Crusader States made during the Crusades.

Summary 1 History 1.1 The capture of Antioch 1.2 The first decades 1.3 The principality between Byzantium and Armenia 1.4 The fall of the principality 2 Geography and Demography 3 Institutions 3.1 Arms 3.2 List of the princes of Antioch 3.3 Organization of the principality 3.4 Lords vassals

/ / History

The founding of the principality is due to the will of Bohemond of Taranto to carve out a state in the Holy Land. Before participating in the Crusade, Bohemond of Tarentum, eldest son of Robert Guiscard , had been preferred his younger half-brother Roger Borsa as Duke of Apulia and Calabria.

Antioch was an ancient Byzantine city which had been conquered by Muslims that a decade ago, in 1084. And when they came to Constantinople, the emperor Alexius I ^Comnenus had exacted an oath of the principal chiefs believe he restore the lands previously lost to the Byzantines - and only Raymond IV of Toulouse refused to take oath.

The capture of Antioch

Faced with difficulties besiege Antioch , Bohemond saw this as an opportunity to be granted a fief. First he threatened, saying the extension of the seat to return to Italy for reinforcements, but his abilities as a strategist and the importance of the contingent accompanying him were necessary to the Crusaders, who promised him anything he wanted for him to stay. Then, the departure of Tatizius , the representative of Basileus gave him the opportunity to qualify for treason, which could allow the Crusaders to consider themselves released from their oath. Finally, having satisfied itself - by an intelligence within the city - will finally be able to enter, he promised by the leaders of the crusade the first to enter the possess. Thus in the early morning of 3 June 1098 , when the city was invested, only the banner of Bohemond floated over the city.

Just entered the city, the Crusaders must undergo to turn the seat in place by an army Seljuk who tried to retake the city. The discovery of the Holy Lance allowed the Crusaders to regain courage and to repel the army. Bohemond became the undisputed leader of the city and refusing the title of Byzantine duke of Antioch, said the prince as he was already (as prince of Taranto) to call himself prince of Antioch, marking a independence vis--vis Byzantium

The first decades

June 13, 1098, The Crusader armies resumed their road to Jerusalem, Bohemond except that now needs to secure its stronghold, if not expand it. However, it is captured in 1100 and his nephew Tancred became regent and expanded the principality, taking the cities of Tarsus and Latakia to the Byzantine Empire. Bohemond was released in 1103 , leaving Tancred as regent to seek new troops from Italy. He used his troops to attack Byzantium in 1107 and was beaten to Dyrrhachium and was obliged by Alexius I Comnenus to sign the Treaty of Dabolis in which it agreed to be recognized Antioch a vassal of the Byzantine Empire until the death of Bohemond and back to Byzantine lands conquered by the Crusaders for their passage to Constantinople in 1097. Bohemond also attacked Aleppo with Baldwin I of Jerusalem and Josselin I of Edessa , and when Baldwin and Joscelin were captured, Tancred became regent of Edessa also. Bohemond left once again to Tancred as regent for returning to Italy, where he died in 1111.

Alexius ^I asked for the return of the principality to Byzantium, but Tancred, backed by the Count of Tripoli and the King of Jerusalem refused. He died in 1112 and Bohemond II succeeded him under the regency's nephew Tancred, Roger of Salerno , who defeated the Seljuks in 1113.

However, the 27 June 1119 , Roger was shot to Ager Sanguinis Antioch and became a vassal state of Jerusalem with King Baldwin II as regent until 1126. Bohemond II, who married Alice , daughter of Baldwin II, ruled only four years before being killed in 1130 , and Baldwin II and his son Fulk of Anjou assured the regency on behalf of Constance , daughter of Bohemond II. In 1136 , Constance, still aged 10, married Raymond of Poitiers , who had 36.

Raymond, like his predecessors, attacked the Byzantine province of Cilicia. The Emperor John II Comnenus retaliated and besieged Antioch, Raymond forced to acknowledge his suzerainty and a Greek administration, but a riot by formente Josselin II of Edessa forced the Greeks to flee the city. John II was planning to take over the Crusader states when he died in 1142.

The Principality between Byzantium and Armenia

After the fall of Edessa in 1144 , Antioch was attacked by Nur ad-Din. Poorly rescued by the Second Crusade , much of the east of the principality was lost and Raymond was killed at the Battle of Inab in 1149. Baldwin III of Jerusalem became regent on behalf of the widow of Raymond, until 1153 when she married Reynald of Chatillon. Renaud came immediately into conflict with Byzantium, who looted the Byzantine island of Cyprus. He was attacked in 1158 by Manuel I and had to humble himself and acknowledge his suzerainty.

Renaud was taken prisoner by the Muslims in 1160 and the regency was assumed by the Patriarch of Antioch (Renaud was not released until 1176 and never returned to Antioch). Manuel married Mary , daughter of Raymond and Constance. In 1163 , Bohemond III succeeded his mother, but was also a prisoner in the ensuing years and the course of the Orontes River became the final border between Aleppo and Antioch. Bohemond returned in 1165 and married a niece of Manuel I, and he also authorized the establishment of a Greek Orthodox patriarch in the city.

With the help of the Italian fleet, the state of Antioch survived the reconquest of Saladin. Neither Antioch, Tripoli or not participated in the Third Crusade , although the remains of the army of Frederick Barbarossa stopped some time at Antioch in 1190 to bury their king. The eldest son of Bohemond III, named Raymond became Count of Tripoli after the battle of Hattin and married an Armenian princess in 1194 , but died in 1199. Bohemond III died in 1201.

His estate was the beginning of a succession war between Bohemond IV , second son of Bohemond III, supported by the Latins of Antioch and Raymond Roupen , son of Raymond and grand-son of Bohemond III, supported by the Armenians. It was not until 1221 with the death of Raymon-Roupen the war ended. Bohemond IV died in 1233 and Antioch, ruled by his son Bohemond V took no great part in the Fifth Crusade , or the struggle between Frederick II and the barons of the East nor the Seventh Crusade of St. Louis. Bohemond IV cleverly placed there to save to submit to the Holy Roman Emperor in raffirmat Byzantine suzerainty over the principality of Antioch.

The fall of the principality

In 1254 , Bohemond VI married Sibyl, an Armenian princess, ending the fight between the two states, although on this point the Lesser Armenia was the most powerful of the two and Antioch was the vassal. Then began the conflict between the Mamluks and the Mongols , and when the Mongols were defeated at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 , Baybars turned against their allies, Antioch and Armenia. The city was taken in 1268 with the entire northern Syria Frankish thirty three years later, it was the turn of Acre and the state cross disappeared. The title of Prince of Antioch went to the extinction of the Counts of Tripoli, the kings of Cyprus from a younger branch of the family of Poitiers-Antioch.

Geography and demography

The principality was, even during its greatest extension, smaller than the county of Edessa and the kingdom of Jerusalem. It extended north-eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea and bordered by the County of Tripoli to the south, the County of Edessa in the north-east, the Muslim states (including Ayyubid and Mamluk) east, ephemeral the Byzantine Empire and especially the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia to the north-west.

There were probably 20,000 people in the ^twelfth century , mainly Armenian and Orthodox Christians, with some Muslims outside the city. There were very few Roman Catholics outside of the Crusaders, even if a Latin Patriarchate was established there in 1100