Historiography
Excerpts Excerpts
A History Of The Crusades, Vol. 1 by Baldwin and Setton (1969)
XII - THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATIN STATES, 1099-1118
1098 - 1100 - The First States until the death of King Godfrey of JerusalemAntioch 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.5 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 Adhemar of Le Puy.6
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 communications7 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 1099.8 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 lrge 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.9
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-Aklal'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.10 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 Transjordan 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.11
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 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.12 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,"13 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.14
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.15 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.
Footnotes5 Chapter X, pp. 324, 326-327. It is even held by B. Kugler, Boemund und Tankred (Tubingen, 186z), p. 2, and E. Kiihne, Zur Geschichte des Furstentums Antiochia (Berlin, 597), pp. 2., 11, that Bohemond's seizure of Antioch was evidence of an ambition to found a great military power in the east.
6 Raymond, the most powerful of the crusader princes, apparently felt a special obligation to Urban II, since he had been involved in the initial plans for the crusade. He had also been close to Urban's legate, Adhemar of Le Puy, whose death made it easier for Bohemond to mature his plans for the seizure of Antioch. Raymond undoubtedly felt that if Antioch fell to Bohemond, Alexius' good will would be permanently forfeited and Urban's great plan for a Greek-Latin concord would be ruined beyond repair. Hence Raymond mast have been a prime mover in the resolution of the princes (July 5, 1098) to invite the emperor to come to Antioch and join them. For Urban's plan for the First Crusade see above, chapters VII and VIII.
7 Anna Comnena, Alexiad (ed. Leib, II), pp. 34, 39-41, 45-46
8 The fact that the Pisan fleet wintered in Corfu is among the reasons why A. C. Krey, "Urban's Crusade, Success or Failure?" AHR, LIII (1948), 241, note 21, and his student J. Bohnstedt, to both of whom I am indebted, believe that Daimbert and the Pisan fleet left Italy before the news of the death, August 1, 1098, of the papal legate, bishop Adhemar of Le Puy, could have been brought back to Italy from Syria. Hence Daimbert could not have been sent out from Italy as legate in succession to Adhemar, as has been widely assumed.
9 Albert of Aix (RHC, 0cc., IV), pp. 503, 507, 517; William of Tyre, IX, t9. For discussion of conditions in Jerusalem see J. Prawer, "The Settlement of the Latins in Jerusalem," Speculum, XXVII (1952), 491-495.
10 Albert of Aix, p. 498. For the rivalry of Godfrey and Raymond see J. C. Andressohn, The Ancestry and Life of Godfrey of Bouillon (Bloomington, 1947), pp. 109-111
11 Albert of Aix, pp. 532, 516; Baldric of Dol (RHO, OCC., IV), p. 111, MS. G.; W. B. Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East (Cambridge, 1907), p. 37. The best study of the manorial organization of the kingdom is H. G. Preston, Rural Conditions in the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Philadelphia, 1903), pp. 5-17. A subsequent volume in this work will contain a chapter on agricultural conditions in the kingdom by Jean Richard. See now also Richard, Le Royaume latin de Jerusalem (Paris, 1953), pp. 80 ff., 113 ff.
12 Krey, "Urban's Crusade," AHR, LIII (1940, 245, n. 32; R. B. Yewdale, Bohemond Prince of Antioch (Princeton, 1924), p. 91.
13 C. Moeller, "Godefroy de Bouillon et l'avouerie du saint-sepulchre," Mélanges Godefroid Kurth (Liege and Paris, 1908), p. 79. See also W. Heywood, History of Pisa (Cambridge, 1921), pp. 12-13.
14 William of Tyre, IX, 16; letter of Daimbert to Bohemond, quoted by William (X, 4). E. Hampel, Untersuchungen uber das lateinische Patriarchat von Jerusalem (Breslau, 1899), p. 25, accepts the naming of Babylon (Cairo). Babcock and Krey, William of Tyre, I, 418, n. 11, are doubtful.
15 Hagenmeyer, Epistulae a chartae, no. XXI, pp. 176-177. Daimbert seems to have desired, without evidence of papal authority, to make Jerusalem an ecclesiastical state ruled by the patriarch. Jerusalem does not seem to have been claimed as a papal fief until 1128, and not afterwards. Cf. M. W. Baldwin, "The Papacy and the Levant during the Twelfth Century," Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, III (1945), 281-283.
1100 - 1102 - Count Baldwin I of Edessa becomes King Baldwin I of Jerusalem and secures his new positionWhen 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 25.16 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).17 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.18 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.19 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 east 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 Kuhn 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.20
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-'Auja', 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 militiae, Baldwin of Le Bourg. The latter, now count of Edessa, was himself then obtaining help from Antioch following a defeat by Sokman ihn-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.21
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.22
Footnotes16 For an excellent discussion of Daimbert's position upon arrival see J. Hansen, Das Problem eines Kircbenstaates in Jerusalem (Luxemburg, 5928), pp. 29—77.
17 See above, chapter V, p. 164.
18 Caffaro, Liberatio cioitatum orientis (RHC,Occ.,V),p.59, and Annales Ianuenses (MOH, SS., XVIII), pp. 11-12
19 Fulcher of Chartres (ed. Hagetimeyer), pp. 352-354; Albert of Aix, p. 527. Albert states that Edessa was granted as a beneficium fief) to Le Bourg. Cf. R. Rohricht, Geschichte des Konigreichs Jerusalem, p. 10, and J. L. LaMonte, Feudal Monarchy irithe Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 190.
20 F. Kuhn, Geschichte der ersten lateinischen Patriarchen von Jerusalem (Leipzig, 1886), pp. 33-34. See also Hampel, Untersuchungen uber das lateinische Patriarchat, p. 33, n. 3, and Munro, Kingdom of the Crusaders, pp. 74-75
21 See Hansen, Das Problem eines Kirchenstaates:, pp. 102—108. Albert of Aix, pp. 538-541, 545-542, 598-600, gives a long account of Baldwin's persecution of Daimbert. The sources do not indicate what attitude Robert took regarding Daimbert. Hansen suggests that Robert was won over to Baldwin's view of the need for a strong secular government, but says that opinion must be reserved for lack of evidence (p. 106, note 1). For the rule of Tancred see R. L. Nicholson, Tancred (Chicago, 1940), pp. 132-134.
22 Hansen, op. cit., pp. 108-111 ; La Monte, Feudal Monarchy, p. 205. For Baldwin's royal formula see E. de Ruzicre, Cartulaire de l'eglise du saint-sepulchre (Paris, 5849), nos. 10—12, 25, 29, 36, 42, 122; R. Rohricht, Regesta regni Hierosolymitani (Innsbruck, 1893), pp. 5ff.; Kuhn, Geschichte des ersten latienischen Patriarchen, pp. 33-34.
1100 - 1112 - King Baldwin I expands and secures Crusader holdingsWhile 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 Iherusalem 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.23
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 (arriere-ban) 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.24 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-Aklal, 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, but 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, vizir 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 sent 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-Aftjal 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 1100.25
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.26 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.
Footnotes23 Fulcher of Chartres, pp. 387-394; Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantuium (RHC, Occ., III), p. 523. The latter chronicle, probably anonymous, has been ascribed to Bartolf of Nangis, otherwise unknown. On the Crusade of 1101 see above, chapter XI.
24 Albert of Aix, pp. 636, 653, 697; LaMonte, Feudal Monarchy. pp. 138-165, especially p. 159. For commercial concessions to Italian cities consult W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce au moyen age (tr. F. Raynaud, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1885-1886), E. H. Byrne, "The Genoese Colonies in Syria," Munro Essays (New York, 1928), pp. 139-148; and LaMonte, op. cit., pp. 261-275. Baldwin tended to favor the Genoese over the Pisans, compatriots of Daimbert.
25 For Turkish and Egyptian policies at this time see above chapter III, p. 988, and chapter V, pp. 172-173.
26 See Snorre Sturlason, Heimskringla: Norges Kongesagaer (eds. J. V. Jensen and H. Kyrre, 3 vols., Copenhagen, l948), III, 184-185; English tr. Erling Monsen and A. H. Smith (New York, 1932), p. 612.
1099 - 1112 - History of the Northern Crusader States until Tripoli is taken in 1109Let 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 militiae. 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-Ghaii 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 (oppidula).27 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 Sekchukid 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.28
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 B.C., 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 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-Fu'ah, Sarmin, Macarrat-Misrin, and Arta, whose people admitted his men, and Latmin, Kafarta, Ma'arrat-an-Nu'man, 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.29 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.
Bohcmond'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 Hierosolimitanorum, 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 1111.30
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 Tancrcd 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 11088 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 rudely 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, 1108.31 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.32 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.33 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,34 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 1101. 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.35 Its history may be treated with that of the latter.
Footnotes27 Albert of Aix, pp. 611-613; Radulf of Caen (RHC,Occ.,III), p. 709.
28 On Selchukid politics at this period see above chapter V, pp. 167, 172-173; for the Assassins, see chapter IV, pp. 110-111.
29 For the gains of Ridvan see Kamal-ad-Din (RHO, Or., III), p. 592, and for those of the Byzantines, Anna Comnena, Alexiad, III, 47-49; Radulf of Caen, p. 712.
30 For Bohemond's war with Alexius, see F. Chalandon, Essai sur le regne d'Alexis I Comnene (1081-1118) (Paris, 1900), pp. 242-250 R. B. Yewdale, Bohemond I, Prince of Antioch (Princeton, 1924), pp. 106-133; S. Runciman, Crusades, II, 47-51. For Bohemond's use of the Gesta Francorum, see A. C. Krey, "A Neglected Passage in the Gesta and its Bearing on the Literature of the First Crusade," Munro Essays, pp. 57-78. For the view that Bohemond deceived Paschal II as to his real intentions, see M. W. Baldwin, in Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, III (1945), 283-284. See also J. L. LaMonte, "To What Extent was the Byzantine Empire the Suzerain of the Latin Crusading States ?" Byzantion, VII (1932), 253-264.
31 Matthew of Edessa, pp. 85-46; Ibn-al-Athir, pp. 257-263; Michael the Syrian, Cbronigue (ed. J. B. Chabot, 4. vols., Paris, 1899-1910), III, ii, 195.
32 Histoire des croisades, I, 332-333. For details of the Crusade of 1101 see above, chapter XI.
33 Grousset, Histoire des croisades, I, 335
34 Albert of Aix, p. 667, "universae eccleaiae Iherusalem."
35 J. Richard, Le Comte de Tripoli sous la dynasties Toulousaine, 1102-1187 (Paris, 1945), pp. 26-43, presents some evidence that, while the counts of Tripoli owed liege homage to Alexius for Maraclea and Tortosa, they also owed liege homage for these cities to Tancred of Antioch. After Pons of Tripoli became friendly with Antioch in 1112 (see below) this connection with Byzantium became increasingly nominal. Tripoli thereafter depended more heavily upon her feudal relationship to Jerusalem for protection, however, although retaining a very real independence.
Regarding the relation between Jerusalem and Antioch, Cahen, La Syrie du tnord, p. 246, and Nicholson, Tancred, p. 186, respectively write that Baldwin had only a moral not a feudal ascendancy over Antioch.
1108 - 1115 - The Turks unite and then fall apart after the death of Maudud in 1113 and are defeated at the Battle of Danith in 1115For a number of years after the Franks took Tripoli the history of all four Latin states tended to run 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 (Salah-ad-Din). Maudud acted as Muhammad's commander-in-thief. It was his mission to lead the Selchukids of Iraq in a series of dangerous attacks upon the Franks.36
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. But Ridvan shut the gates of Aleppo. He feared the greed of the Mesopotamian 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 farrier 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 re sponsible 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 Tyre37 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 5.38 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 to an 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.39
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, Il-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.40 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, in tending to make Aleppo his base of operations. But the eunuch Lu'lu', 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. Lu'lu' called upon Il-Ghazi 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 Lu'lu'. 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 Lionhearted after the Third Crusade.41 Tughtigin of Damascus broke with his dangerous ally at once and made his peace with sultan Mukiammad 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.
Footnotes36 For Maudad's career see H. S. Fink, "Mawdad of Mosul, Precursor of Saladin," The Muslin: World, XLIII (1953), 18-27.
37 Ibn-al-Qalanisi, p. 127; William of Tyre, XI, 18. For Tancred's death see Nicholson, Tancred, p. 224, note 3. Grousset believes that Bertram died at the beginning of the year 1113 shortly after the death of Tancred (Hist. des crois., II, 889).
388 The best sources for the history of this remarkable invasion are Ibn-al-Qalanisi, pp. 133-139; Albert of Aix, pp. 694-696; Fulcher of Chartres, pp. 565-572; and William of Tyre, XI, 19. See also Ibn-al-Athir (RHC, Or., I), p. 289.
39 On Maudud's assassination see above, chapter IV, p. 113. For a discussion of Moslem politics at this period see above, chapter V, pp. 169—170.
40 Ibn-al-Athir, p.294.
41 Fulcher of Chartres, p. 589; Grousset, Histoire des croisades, I, 510. In addition to the usual chronicle sources see Walter the Chancellor, Bella Antiochena (ed. Hagenmeyer, Inns bruck, 1896), pp. 65-76. For a discussion of the importance of this battle see Cahen. La Syrie du nord, p. 274
1115 - 1118 - After the Battle of Danith in 1115 until the death of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1118The 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 Vasil, 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 Lu'lu' was alive Roger seems to have been satisfied. But when Lu'lu 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" (ager sanguinis), 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 rule of Antioch was, states Cahen, "the moment of greatest prestige in its history."42
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 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.43
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 (1102-1108), and Gibelin (1108-1112), 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.44 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'), southeast 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.45 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 leader ship 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.
Footnotes42 Cahen, op cit., p. 266. For the events around Aleppo see especially Kamal-ad-Din (RHC, Or., III), pp. 611-618. For Roger's death and the ager sanguinis see below, chapter XIII, p. 413.
43 Albert of Aix, p. 703.
44 William of Tyre, XI, 21, 26, 29; letter of Paschal II in de Roziere. Cartulaire, no 11; Kuhn, Geschichte der ersten lateinischen Patriarchen, pp. 55-57.
45 The whole period of the Comneni and the Angeli of Byzantium (1081-1204) will be examined in a chapter of volume II, where another chapter will consider the complex history of the Selchukids of Rum and their Moslem neighbors, chief among whom in the twelfth century were the Danishmendids.The Career of Najm al-Din Il-Ghazi
The Career of Il-Ghazi - 3rd Phase... The murder of Mawdud in 507/1113–1450 removed one powerful rival from İl-Ghazi’s path but in the event its consequences were to fan still further his resentment against Muhammad. İl-Ghazi had already been ignored once by the sultan when the latter had appointed Mawdud as governor of Mosul. Now, in 508/1114–15, the sultan replaced Mawdud with Aq Sunqur al- Bursuqi, the man who had taken over İl-Ghazi’s position as shihna in Baghdad.51 İl-Ghazi’s short- lived attempt at conformity with the sultan’s wishes had proved fruitless, and he refused to answer the next call to arms from the sultan.
In 508/1114–15 Aq Sunqur al-Bursuqi went to Mardin and forced the reluctant amir to submit to the sultan’s authority. The most İl-Ghazi would concede was to hand over a body of troops under his son, Ayaz. Aq Sunqur did not accept this insult lightly. He subsequently arrested Ayaz and plundered the countryside around Mardin.52 İl-Ghazi enlisted help from his nephew, Da’ud of Hisn Kayfa, fought and defeated Aq Sunqur and freed Ayaz.53 By this defeat of Aq Sunqur al- Bursuqi, İl-Ghazi’s transparently half-hearted support of the sultan had given way to open defiance.
At this juncture, İl-Ghazi apparently began to fear the wrath of the sultan, even in the security of his fortress at Mardin, especially after he had received threatening letters from Muhammad. Seeking an ally with a similar outlook, he fled to Tughtegin in Damascus and joined forces with him.54 Tughtegin had just cause to believe that he had incurred the sultan’s displeasure after Mawdud had been murdered in the previous year whilst in his company at Damascus. Although the blame for the assassination had been placed as usual on the Isma‘ilis, some of the chroniclers suggest Tughtegin’s own complicity in the deed.55
The alliance formed by İl-Ghazi and Tughtegin in 508/1114–15 was of long duration and mutually beneficial. Together they made a treaty that same year with Roger of Antioch56 and awaited the arrival of the combined forces of the sultan sent out under a new general, Bursuq. The twin objectives of this campaign were to quell the pride of İl-Ghazi and to prosecute the jihad against the Franks.57 The order of priorities is significant here. After İl-Ghazi, Tughtegin and Roger of Antioch had assembled their troops and Bursuq’s army had arrived near Aleppo, no battle actually took place. After eight days, Bursuq retreated, fell into an ambush set by Roger at a place called Danith, and was defeated. The battle took place in Rabi‘ II 509/September 1115.58
This serious defeat of an army sent out under the auspices of the sultan appears to have aroused feelings of guilt and fear in Tughtegin and perhaps in İl-Ghazi too. Tughtegin in Damascus was closer to Frankish territories and had more to lose from a complete break with the Seljuqs. He therefore broke off his alliance with Roger and made his peace with Sultan Muhammad.59 It seems that Tughtegin was not asked to break off relations with İl-Ghazi as the price of peace; he may even have spoken up for İl-Ghazi at Baghdad. İl-Ghazi did not feel the same pressures as his ally, although he did not fight again on the same side as the Franks. He apparently saw no need to seek pardon from the sultan since he had no cause to fear any more reprisals.60 Nevertheless he did not provoke the sultan further by continued defiance. He waited until the sultan’s death at the end of 511 and then sent his son, Temürtash, to Muhammad’s successor, Mahmud, with whom no doubt he hoped to have more friendly but indirect relations.61
Footnotes51. Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 350–1; Sibt b. al- Jawzi, 52.
52. Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 351.
53. Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 352; Michael the Syrian, 216–17; Matthew of Edessa, 287; Ibn al- Azraq, ed. ‘Awad, 284.
54. Michael the Syrian, 217; Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 352.
55. Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 352; Matthew of Edessa, 285. Sibt b. al- Jawzi mentions the rumour but rejects it as untrue (op. cit., 51). Ibn al- Qalanisi, as the Damascus chronicler and from a viewpoint of warm enthusiasm for Tughtegin, places the blame squarely on the Isma‘ilis and emphasises Tughtegin’s profound grief at Mawdud’s death (op. cit., 187).
56. Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 352; Matthew of Edessa, 292.
57. Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 356–7.
58. Matthew of Edessa, 292; Usama, tr. Hitti, 102–6.
59. Ibn al- Qalanisi, 193; Sibt b. al- Jawzi, 55–6; Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 360.
60. Runciman mentions only Tughtegin’s reconciliation with Sultan Muhammad (op. cit., 133). Stevenson, on the other hand, states that ‘Ilgazi and Tugtakin both effected their reconciliation with the sultan’ (op. cit., 100). There would appear to be no evidence of this rapprochement in the chronicles. Indeed, it would have been more consistent if İl- Ghazi had made no move towards the sultan.
61. Ibn al- Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-ta’rikh X, ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden and Uppsala, 1864)., 418.The Battle of Tell Danith, 14 September 1115There were many battles between the Franks and Turkic- Syrian armies. We are extremely fortunate that detailed accounts of two of the most important encounters have survived, written by someone who was not only a participant but who had taken an active role in the planning of each battle. His accounts show just how dangerous Turkic bands could be. These were armies of extraordinary violence, elemental and ferocious even by the standards of the time, but by no means easy to wield as an instrument of policy: armies with huge tactical strengths if used well, but with equally profound strategic limitations.27
In 1115 the sultan of Baghdad was trying to create a unified Muslim front against the Franks. He was faced with the usual problems. The major Muslim states in the region, such as Aleppo and Damascus, tended (entirely correctly) to see Baghdad as just as much of a threat to their independence as the Franks. In February 1115, Bursuq, the lord of Hamadhan, was chosen to lead Baghdad’s expeditionary force into the region, with a thankless brief: to try to kick the local Muslims into line and lead them in a war to destroy the Christian states.28
The local Muslims, and particularly the Damascenes under their Turkic overlord, Tughtigin, had other ideas, and did not greet this call to arms with enthusiasm. On the contrary, when Bursuq led his army into the region, the Damascenes formed an alliance with Prince Roger of Antioch to work against the sultan’s general. The armies of the other Frankish states also mustered together in the north to form an uneasy alliance with Damascus against the invaders.29
Bursuq withdrew in the face of this formidable force and waited long enough for the allied troops to disperse. Then, when it was difficult for them to reassemble quickly, he invaded the Principality of Antioch in strength. This presented Prince Roger with the traditional problem facing Frankish commanders: whether to act or to wait. A large Muslim force was loose within his lands, capable of inflicting massive damage on towns and castles that had already been devastated by earthquakes the previous year. Ma’arrat- an- Nu’man was captured. The important Christian castle of Kafartab was put under siege and eventually fell on 5 September 1115. Roger could ask for help from his allies again, and await their arrival, with Bursuq destroying large swathes of the frontier. Or he could move on his own to try to stem the invasion.
He chose the latter course. Strategy and caution suggested the prudence of waiting for reinforcements, but the emotional cost of doing so, and the loss of prestige it entailed, was immense. Roger and his nobles preferred to meet Bursuq on the field of battle, rather than suffer the humiliation of seeing their lands ravaged and their people killed.
We know the size of the Christian forces with some degree of certainty. They consisted of the field army of Antioch, together with the smaller allied army of the County of Edessa, commanded by Baldwin of Bourcq. Walter the Chancellor, who was present at the muster, wrote that the Antiochene and Edessan component of the allied forces that had gathered at Apamea earlier in the summer to face Bursuq’s initial invasion were good- quality troops, but had numbered no more than 2,000 men.30
Other sources, both Muslim and Christian, suggest that greater efforts had been taken to boost the numbers of the second muster in September, and that it eventually consisted of some 500–700 cavalry and 2,000 infantry ‘of all kinds, Franks and Armenians alike’. Much of the cavalry seem to have been Turcopoles, so the local Christians would have formed a very large part of the army as a whole.31
Descriptions of the Muslim army are vaguer. Bursuq had sufficient subsidies from Baghdad to make him a popular employer and, as well as the mercenaries that this allowed him to employ, he had brought large contingents from the Jazira and Mosul. A significant Turkic contingent from Sinjar was present, under their Emir Tamirek, whom Bursuq seems to have placed in charge of most of the Muslim cavalry on the day of the battle. Under duress, the city state of Mardin had also provided a company of soldiers, led by their emir’s son, acting in the uncomfortable dual capacity of sub- commander and hostage.32 Shaizar was another more or less willing ally. They certainly provided troops for the expedition, with separate detachments from Shaizar being present at both the siege of Kafartab and at the battle of Tell Danith.33 But even they were wary. Although Bursuq was allowed to camp nearby, he and his men were not allowed into Shaizar itself.
Altogether, Ibn al- Athir suggests that Bursuq had an army of some 15,000 men available for his invasion, although we know that the separation of various detachments, for instance to Kafartab and Buza’a, had reduced their numbers by the time the battle took place.34 One Christian source suggested that Bursuq had a total of 8,000 men with him at Tell Danith, perhaps excluding the usual ‘volunteers’ and non- combatants: this sounds plausible, given the casualties that the army took on the day, and is not necessarily at odds with Ibn al- Athir’s assessment.35
The Christians had mustered at Rugia, just east of the Orontes river. Panic- stricken reports were coming in from the local communities that Turkic troops were back in the region. On 13 September the army of Antioch and Edessa set off in column of march along the road to Hab, where Bursuq and his army were thought to be. There was inevitably some nervousness in the ranks. The expectation was that they would encounter the Turkic army later that day. They had not waited for reinforcements from Tripoli or Jerusalem, and they knew that they would be heavily outnumbered. The column moved quickly, to try to keep the initiative. Light cavalry detachments were flung out in front of the army and on the flanks, to ensure that maximum warning was received of the enemy’s presence.36
It was an anticlimax. The reports of the immediate whereabouts of the Muslim army had proved false. Perhaps it was Turkic raiding or foraging parties that had caused the local villagers to panic. Either way, the march to battle proved fruitless, and once the army reached Hab, they camped for an uncomfortable night’s sleep outside the small Frankish fortified settlement there.37
The army rose early on the morning of 14 September. The scouts had been on patrol throughout the night. We know that most of the light cavalry, certainly among the rank and file, were local Christians, Syrians or Armenians, but there were probably also some Turkic mercenaries, as translators were needed to verify their intelligence reports. A few months earlier, for instance, Antiochene scouts had returned from Muslim territory to report on Bursuq’s plans and preparations for war. Roger wanted to inter view them in person, but could only do so with the aid of an interpreter.38
The reconnaissance detachments that had headed north were commanded by a Frank, however, Theoderic of Barneville, a Norman knight whose family had settled in Sicily and had joined in the First Crusade.39 When Theoderic returned he could barely contain his excite ment. He and his men had scouted up into the Sarmin valley, a fertile area with good water supplies and well known to the Franks, to ensure that it was a safe position for the army to make camp later in the day. When they got there, however, the Antiochene scouts found that the Muslims were already starting to camp around the springs. Crucially, Bursuq’s army were not only unaware of the proximity of the Franks, but they had not yet fully mustered in the valley: part of the army was there, but other detachments were arriving piecemeal. Some tents were already pitched, but others were yet to be set up. Roger was elated but knew that he needed to act quickly. He jumped on his horse and rode to each of the army’s sub-commanders for discussions, urging the men to get their weapons ready and prepare for battle as soon as possible.40
The army, like all armies of this period, was deeply religious. Spiritual preparations were just as important as the sharpening of swords or the adjustment of battle lines. The troops had received mass earlier in the morning, with William, bishop of Jabala, conducting the service and delivering what seems to have been an appropriately militaristic sermon. ‘In that very place’, we are told, ‘the renowned bishop, bearing in a spirit of humility the Cross of holy wood in his reverend hands, circled the whole army; and while he showed it to all of them he affirmed that they would claim victory in the coming battle through its virtue, if they charged the enemy with resolute heart and fought trusting Lord Jesus.’41<
With the religious inspiration completed, it was time for more secular morale boosting. It was always going to be difficult to compete with the True Cross, or even a fragment of it, but Roger made a good, soldierly attempt. His speech in the approach to the battle of Tell Danith was recorded in some detail. The army was small and the speech could have been heard by most of the men. It was not flowery or particularly clever, but its simplicity makes it all the more credible. This was a young leader talking to a group of hardened veterans, each potentially looking death in the face. He started by reminding them how important it was that their actions as men should be remembered with honour. He then followed up with the comfort that any who died in the battle ahead would have been fighting for a just cause and would be well received by the Lord. More practically, and probably in much more comfortable territory, he ended up by telling them to charge in with the lance but then to get stuck into hand- to- hand combat with swords. He could give them no certainties, but he could talk of honour, consolation and, most importantly, instructions for battle.42<
Before the army set off, there were still things to do. Stronger detach ments of light cavalry were sent out along the road to the Sarmin valley, to ensure that the situation had not changed and that the Franks would not be entering a trap. Once they had been sent off, the order of march was decided. This was more than just a formality, because the order of march would determine the order of deployment on the field. The army of Edessa, commanded by Count Baldwin of Bourcq, was given the honour of the vanguard. Although smaller than the Antiochene forces, the Edessans were veterans of numerous campaigns against Turkic raiders, and were trusted to launch the initial attack.43
Finally, Roger personally rode up and down the army to emphasise the need for discipline with regard to plunder. If anyone paused to start collecting booty in the middle of the battle, he promised that the punishments would be severe. The customary sentence for disobedience in the Antiochene army at this time seems to have been blinding, something picked up from their frequent interactions with the Byzantine army to the north of the principality.44 As if that was not enough, Bishop William also went to each unit to reinforce Roger’s edict: he emphasised the threats of physical punishment which would accompany disobedience by plundering, but culprits would also be condemned, ‘he assured them, to suffer eternal damnation’.45<
This was not as excessive as it might seem. Plunder was an essential part of any medieval campaign, and a great motivator for the men. In this instance, however, the scouts were reporting that much of the enemy camp was at the end of the valley closest to the Franks, and that Bursuq’s troops were gradually filtering into the valley from the other end. Plundering normally took place towards the end of a battle, as a routing enemy fled to the rear through their baggage train and camp. In this case, with the Muslim camp in front of their main army, the Franks were going to be offered plenty of plundering opportunities before the battle had been decided. If discipline broke down at that point, disaster would be inevitable. The Franks would hopefully have surprise on their side, but were also heavily outnumbered: once battle began, Bursuq’s troops could be given no opportunity to regroup and rally.
As the Franks entered the valley, the Muslim forces were entirely unpre pared. Foraging parties were still out. The camp was only half set up, with further troops and supplies gradually filtering through. And a significant body of Turkic troops had left the army to occupy Buza’a.46 To make matters worse, Bursuq misinterpreted what he saw taking place in front of the camp, and instead of pulling his troops back to form a defensive line, began to send men forward to capture what he thought were Frankish scouts. It was only when the Antiochene banners came into sight that Bursuq real ised that he was facing the field army of the northern Franks. Perhaps convinced that Prince Roger would wait for reinforcements before trying to intercept him, as he had done before, Bursuq had split his forces, marched his troops without proper discipline, and, above all, had failed to grasp even an approximate sense of the location of the Frankish army.47
He withdrew his main line back through the camp, trying to use his heavier troops to form an impromptu defensive position on the hill of Tell Danith. The main body of Turkic horse archers, who would need mobility if they were to be used to best effect, were pulled back behind the hill under the command of the Emir Tamirek of Sinjar, with orders to outflank and surround the Franks once they were fully committed to their front.48
The Franks deployed across the valley floor, facing the Muslim camp, with Tell Danith behind it. The Edessan army was the vanguard division, holding the left of the Frankish line, and split into three main units. The Turcopole light cavalry archers were deployed on the far left. A unit of knights and other troops, including a Cilician contingent led by Guy Le Chevreuil, one of Antioch’s leading noblemen, was posted on the left with orders to move up to attack Tell Danith from its flank. The core of the Edessan army, led by Count Baldwin himself, were positioned to charge frontally to the left of the hill.49
The main Antiochene army was split into two divisions, in the centre and right of the line, each echeloned behind the other, and with the central division commanded by Prince Roger himself. Having the divisions drawn back had the advantage of providing a reserve and rearguard if needed (always important when facing large numbers of nomadic horse archers) while at the same time positioning them to launch a direct attack on Bursuq’s troops on Tell Danith when the moment was right.
The first Frankish attacks were launched in a staggered way, across the Muslim front and progressing from left to right. The Turcopoles moved forward on the far left, to try to prevent the Christian army being outflanked. The Cilicians and Baldwin of Bourcq’s Edessans moved through the wreckage of the hastily abandoned camp and tore on up into the left of Tell Danith. The initial charge inflicted some damage on Bursuq’s defence lines on the hill, but once the first shock of impact was over, lances were shattered or discarded, and the fighting settled down to the close combat of sword and shield. The Franks began to carve their way through the Muslim lines: ‘recovering their strength . . . they put the enemy to flight, hacked them to pieces and killed them’.50
Once the Frankish heavy cavalry were fully committed on the left, the Turkic cavalry to the rear of Tell Danith launched their attack. This was well timed. With the Frankish troops on the left already occupied, they attacked the Frankish light cavalry and ‘at a swifter pace they caused the Turcopoles, who were shooting arrows at them, to be swallowed up among our men’.51 The Turcopoles fled before Tamirek’s men could connect with them, retreating back towards the army’s centre and the relative safety of the Christian infantry. In fact, there was little else they could do. Heavily outnumbered, and probably outclassed as well, their position on the left could only hope at best to slow down the Turkic advance, and buy additional time for the Frankish heavy troops in the centre to do their work.
Tamirek’s troops then began to sweep round behind the Christian main lines, bypassing the Cilician and Edessan units. The Christian chronicles were correct in suggesting that the Turkic cavalry had diverted around the Frankish divisions on the left for sound military reasons, as ‘they did not dare to attack it, and they could not use a constant bombardment of arrows to disrupt the charge’.52 Charging unbroken Frankish knights at close quarters was never going to play to their strengths.
Indeed, probably as was always intended, they continued to move towards the rear of the Christian centre, attempting to disrupt their all important heavy cavalry charge in other parts of the line. They were gradually engaged by men from the Antiochene divisions. The first troops they faced were those of Robert fitz- Fulk, probably in Prince Roger’s central division, who turned to face them with his men. The Turkic cavalry met them as the Frankish troops were ‘advancing from the right, head on’.53
Robert, known to his more literally minded friends as ‘Robert the Leper’, led a powerful contingent from his frontier lands in Zardana, the major castle of Saone and the nearby town of Balatanos.54 The fighting in the centre was fierce. One of the casualties was Robert Sourdeval, from a Sicilian Norman family, who had had a distinguished career working with Prince Roger. He and his men charged into the oncoming Turkic troops and were surrounded. The reins of his horse were cut during the fighting and he was brought down by Turkic archers. His men were completely routed.55
Robert fitz- Fulk survived, helped by the swift arrival of reinforcements from the Frankish right. The tough frontier contingent from al- Atharib, led by their lord Alan, and troops from Harim, commanded by Guy Fresnel, rushed to contain the Muslim light cavalry and succeeded in neutralising the threat they posed to the rear of the Christian army.56
Tamirek’s men had done the best they could under the circumstances. But as long as the Franks held their nerve they could do little more than distract. Prince Roger committed his reserves to cope with the light cavalry to his rear and remained focused on the tactical priority: the destruction of the core of Bursuq’s army on Tell Danith in front of his battle line. He gave the order to charge, and the central division crashed into the Muslim troops on the hill in front of them. The Frankish division on the right flank followed almost immediately. The charge was particularly aimed at Bursuq and his retainers, as Roger’s men ‘assailed the enemy in wondrous manner wherever they saw the mass was densest’. Desperate attempts were made to try to stop the Frankish cavalry charge with archery, but with no success. The knights carried on through the hail of arrows and hurled themselves onto the centre of Bursuq’s forces. The Muslim army, already reeling from Baldwin of Bourcq’s assault on the left, collapsed almost immediately. The rout began and Bursuq’s troops ‘at first resisted for a little while, then suddenly fled’.57
As the Muslim forces broke and ran, the detritus of their baggage train slowed down their pursuers for a short while. As Walter the Chancellor later wrote, the ground was ‘partly covered by dead bodies, partly crammed by a mass of camels and other animals laden with riches, which were a hindrance to killing for our men, and a help to escape for those fleeing’. The Turcopoles, having been humiliated by the Turkic cavalry earlier in the day, were now unleashed to maximise the damage to the retreating army. The initial pursuit continued beyond the town of Sarmin, with the Christian cavalry ‘running them through, wounding them and killing them’.58
Some of the fleeing Muslim troops spread out across the countryside, and tried to hide in nearby villages, only to find themselves attacked by the local farmers. The villagers, who had been terrorised by the Turkic raiders over the previous days, took their revenge in full. An additional operation by the Frankish cavalry and light troops was put in place over the next couple of days to round up the Muslim stragglers dispersed in the area.59
Muslim casualties were high, reflecting the scale of the defeat in their centre and the punishing nature of the pursuit. One Frankish chronicle estimated that ‘three thousand Turks were killed, and many captured. Those who escaped death saved themselves by flight. They lost their tents in which were found much money and property. The value of the money was estimated at 300,000 bezants. The Turks abandoned there our people whom they had captured, Franks as well as Syrians, and their own wives and maid- servants.’60
Roger remained on the field of victory for two or three days after the battle, so the army could regroup and tend to its wounded. Discipline about the distribution of booty was vitally important at this stage, in order to ensure the continued motivation of the cavalry detachments which were still in pursuit of enemy stragglers. Pursuit after defeat was the most important opportunity to inflict casualties on an enemy army. If the pursuing troops, and particularly the cavalry, thought that their share of the plunder would be gone before they returned, this chance would be lost. He delayed the division of spoils for three days to ensure a fair distribution of the plunder and as suitable encouragement for the mopping- up operation, and he ‘personally directed the wealth which was brought to him to be kept for him . . . the rest was to be shared out, as his sovereignty and the custom of that same court demanded’.61
Usama was part of the Muslim garrison at the recently captured castle of Kafartab when the battle took place, but left an account of the personal loss his family had sustained on the field. His father, who had been with Bursuq at Tell Danith, came back having ‘had all his tents, camels, mules, baggage and furniture taken from him’.62 Hearing of Bursuq’s defeat, Usama and his comrades killed the Christian prisoners they had taken ten days earlier and set off back to Shaizar.63
The leaders of the Muslim army seem to have left the battlefield with embarrassing speed, leaving their men behind. Despite the large number of casualties, ‘the army lost no commander nor even any well- known personage’.64 Bursuq’s personal performance on the day was so poor that elaborate excuses were made for him. Ibn al- Athir suggested, implausibly, that he wanted to take part in the fighting but was prevented by the ‘camp- followers and pages’ who surrounded him. Bursuq died the following year ‘full of remorse for this defeat’.65 He had commanded a polyglot force, some of whom were there more or less unwillingly. But he had also split his forces in the face of the enemy and, despite the large numbers of light cavalry at his disposal, had remained ignorant of his enemy’s intentions or location. The element of surprise was reflected in the casualties his men suffered, and in the large number of prisoners taken.
The young Prince Roger had much to be pleased with. His men had been heavily outnumbered but the cohesiveness of the army in attack and the heavy weight of a Frankish charge had won the day and inflicted massive damage on the Muslim force. There were lessons to be learned, however, and lessons are taught more compellingly by defeat than by victory.
Too much had been asked of the Turcopoles. They were extremely useful light cavalry, important for a wide range of tasks. They made a major contribution to the Frankish success through their role as scouts in the run- up to the battle and in the pursuit that took place afterwards. But although they were horse archers, it was too risky to expect them to face large numbers of Turkic troops on their own. The nomads were the experts, living the role in a way that more regular troops could never achieve. And there were always more of them. Outnumbered and outclassed, the Turcopoles could not be expected to hold a flank on their own.
The other lesson was far more important but also more counterintui tive. Roger and his nobles could logically deduce from their victory that a well- led Franco- Armenian army, even when outnumbered, could face an enemy invasion on its own: it did not need to wait for reinforcements. Instead of holding back, and watching its people being slaughtered and its towns destroyed, such an army could see off an invading force on its own. The beguiling quality of this ‘lesson’ was, of course, that it was partially true. On a good day, in good circumstances, and with the enemy commanded by someone who was more of a diplomat than a battlefield general, this could all be true.
The risks, however, were far less apparent. And the risks of open combat under less than ideal conditions were always greater for the Franks than the potential benefits. At best, victory would inflict some casualties on the enemy and bring an invasion to a halt. But the casualties never amounted to very much. Muslim commanders were rarely killed or captured: they had good horses and tended not to fight in the front line. There was an almost limitless number of Turkic tribesmen, waiting to be tempted off the steppes by the lure of the plunder. A major victory might gain respite for a year, possibly two, but little more than that.
The consequences of defeat in battle against nomadic armies, on the other hand, were huge. The Christians were always outnumbered, and their ability to replace highly skilled and heavily armoured warriors was extremely limited. Frankish commanders often needed to fight in the front line, in order to maximise their chances of success. In the event of defeat, casualties among the infantry, harried remorselessly by Muslim light cavalry, could be catastrophic. Vital garrisons would already have been stripped back to create the field army and give it a chance of victory: if the field army was lost, then town after town, castle after castle, would fall. Where a Muslim defeat might be a temporary setback, a similar defeat for the Franks, if fully exploited, could lead to virtual annihilation.
Victory felt good, but for Roger and his men, the battle of Tell Danith was the medieval equivalent of a schoolboy placing winning bets on his first day at the races: satisfying but dangerously deceptiveFootnotes27. We are also lucky in having a wonderful translation and commentary on this work by Susan Edgington and Tom Asbridge, which brings it so vividly to life: Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999.
28. Barber 2012, pp. 102–4. This is either Barber, M. and K. Bate tr. (2002) The Templars, Manchester Medieval Sources, Manchester. or Barber, M. and K. Bate tr. (2010) Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th–13th Centuries, Crusade Texts in Translation 18, Farnham.
29. Barber 2012, p. 104. This is either Barber, M. and K. Bate tr. (2002) The Templars, Manchester Medieval Sources, Manchester. or Barber, M. and K. Bate tr. (2010) Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th–13th Centuries, Crusade Texts in Translation 18, Farnham.
30. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., pp. 89–90.
31. Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. and tr. S.B. Edgington, Oxford, 2007., pp. 854–5; IA I, p. 173; ME, p. 219.
32. Ibn al- Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al- Athīr for the Crusading Period from al- Kāmil fī’l- Ta’rīkh, parts 1 and 2, tr. D.S. Richards, Crusade Texts in Translation 13 and 15, Aldershot, 2006, 2007. I, p. 166.
33. Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation, tr. P.M. Cobb, London, 2008., p. 88.
34. Ibn al- Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al- Athīr for the Crusading Period from al- Kāmil fī’l- Ta’rīkh, parts 1 and 2, tr. D.S. Richards, Crusade Texts in Translation 13 and 15, Aldershot, 2006, 2007. I, p. 166; KD RHCr Or. III, p. 609.
35. Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. and tr. S.B. Edgington, Oxford, 2007., pp. 856–7.
36. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 98.
37. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 98.
38. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 87.
39. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 99 n. 136.
40. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 99.
41. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., pp. 98–9 and n. 132.
42. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., pp. 99–101.
43. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., pp. 99–100.
44. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 92.
45. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 101.
46. Kamal al- Din. Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep par Kemal ed- Din, in RHCr Or., vol. 3, Paris, 1872, pp. 571–690. III, pp. 609–10.
47. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 101.
48. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., pp. 101–2.v
49. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 102.
50. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., pp. 103–4.
51. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 103.
52. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 103.
53. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 103.
54. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 103 n. 166.
55. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 104.
56. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 105.
57. Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127, tr. F. Ryan, ed. H. Fink, Knoxville, 1969., pp. 213–14.
58. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 106.
59. William of Tyre, A History of Deeds done beyond the Sea, tr. E.A. Babcock and A.C. Krey, 2 vols, Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies 35, New York, 1943. I, p. 505; Kamal al- Din. Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep par Kemal ed- Din, in RHCr Or., vol. 3, Paris, 1872, pp. 571–690. III, pp. 609–10.
60. Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127, tr. F. Ryan, ed. H. Fink, Knoxville, 1969., p. 214.
61. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, tr. T.S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation 4, Aldershot, 1999., p. 106; William of Tyre, A History of Deeds done beyond the Sea, tr. E.A. Babcock and A.C. Krey, 2 vols, Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies 35, New York, 1943. I, p. 505.
62. Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation, tr. P.M. Cobb, London, 2008., p. 88.
63. Ibn al- Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al- Athīr for the Crusading Period from al- Kāmil fī’l- Ta’rīkh, parts 1 and 2, tr. D.S. Richards, Crusade Texts in Translation 13 and 15, Aldershot, 2006, 2007. I, p. 173.
64. Kamal al- Din. Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep par Kemal ed- Din, in RHCr Or., vol. 3, Paris, 1872, pp. 571–690. III, p. 610.
65. Ibn al- Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al- Athīr for the Crusading Period from al- Kāmil fī’l- Ta’rīkh, parts 1 and 2, tr. D.S. Richards, Crusade Texts in Translation 13 and 15, Aldershot, 2006, 2007. I, p. 173.Was the The Battle of Tell Danith before or after the 29 November earthquake ?After
Before
- Walter the Chancellor dates the Battle of Tell Danith to after the 29 November Earthquake (Asbridge and Eddington - 80-84, 100-104
- Ibn al-Athir dates the Battle of Tell Danith to after the 29 November Earthquake - the earthquake was in A.H. 508 and the Battle of Tell Fanisth was in A.H. 509 (Richards, 2006:253, 255-257
- Matthew of Edessa dates the Battle of Tell Danith to after the 29 November Earthquake (Dostourian (1993:215-219)
- William of Tyre dates the Battle of Tell Danith to after the 29 November Earthquake (Babcokk and Krey (1943:500, 503-505)
- Bar Hebraeus dates the Battle of Tell Danith to apparently after the 29 November Earthquake (Budge, 1932:247-248) but the reference of the battle is muddled and Bar Hebraeus has wrong years in his chronology
Still working on it
- Fulcher of Chartres dates the Battle of Tell Danith to before the 29 November Earthquake (Ryan (1969:213-214)
Not finding it
- Kemal ad-Din dates the Battle of Tell Danith to the 29 November Earthquake
- Albert of Aachen dates the Battle of Tell Danith to the 29 November Earthquake
- Michael the Syrian dates the Battle of Tell Danith to the 29 November Earthquake
- Chronicon Ad Annum 1234 dates the Battle of Tell Danith to the 29 November Earthquake
- The Chronicle of Sembat dates the Battle of Tell Danith to the 29 November Earthquake
- Ibn al-Qalinisi dates a quake to AH 508 (7 June 1114-26 May 1115) doesnt seem to mention the Battle of Tell Danith (Gibb, 1932:148-149)
- Abbot Anselm mentions the earthquake on 13 Nov. in Bethmann (1848:375-376) but I don't see the Battle of Tell Danith. Its in Latin
- Ibn al-Jawzi mentions 29 Nov. quake but unsure about battle of Tell Danith I can only find texts in arabic
- Usama Ibn Muniq mentions the Battle of Tell Danith but no earthquake from around this time (Cobb, 2008)
Northern Syria in the Time of the Crusades - Cahen (1940)
Part 2 Chapter 2 Territorial Development of the Frankish states
IV 1113-1115 The Muslim Counteroffensive at the Beginning of the Principate of Roger
The death of Tancred, immediately replaced by his nephew Roger, son of Richard of the Principate, who had died shortly before, did not change the situation (1). If Roger, with the same pride as Tancred, had less of a sense of difficulties than him, if he was more given to the pleasures of this world and less generous, he was nonetheless an energetic man, a magnificent and skillful knight, who, in circumstances quite similar to those that Tancred had known at the end of his life, would lead the same policy as him. The day after Tancred's death, a raid on Aleppo advised, it is said, by the dying man showed that the Muslims had no reason to expect a weakening of the Frankish force, and Ridwan hastened to renew to Roger the tribute promised to Tancred. The Sultan of Shaizar did the same (2). On the other hand, Roger had married a sister of Baldwin du Bourg, Cécile, which made the relations between the two princes particularly close (3). He was no less faithful ally of the king of Jerusalem. It was under Roger's reign that the principality would reach its greatest power and this fact, combined with the personality of the prince, made it the most prestigious moment in its history..
- from Cahen (1940:266-275)
From 1113, Roger had to render to the kingdom the service rendered by Baldwin I of Jerusalem to Tancred in 1111. Mawdud, in fact, returned again with help from Il-Ghazi (April), and this time, at the call of his ally Toghtekin who, when he was alone, did not fear him, marched straight towards central Syria: all the Franks in turn were to be struck. Baldwin I called on Pons and Roger, who arrived as quickly as possible; Baldwin had not had the prudence of Tancred and, seeing his country devastated, had allowed himself to go as on the Ballkh in 1104, to engage in a battle, which ended for him in defeat (end of June). But the arrival of Pons and Roger made it possible to limit the damage and finally Mawdud and Toghtekin, after several weeks spent under observation near Tiberias, as in 1111 near Shaizar, returned to Damascus (September (4). Baldwin was able to quietly celebrate his remarriage with the rich widow of Roger of Sicily, Adelaide, in the presence of Roger of Antioch who, related to the house of Sicily, received from her for the occasion particularly important gifts (5).
Events soon turned in favor of the Franks.
First Mawdud with Toghtekin had requested Ridwan's help in application of the recent treaty; Ridwan made his contingent wait until after the Muslim victory and still sent only a minimal troop; Toghtekin then denounced the treaty and repudiated the khotba in Ridwan's name (6). Ridwan's conduct did not prevent the Aleppo territory from being mistreated, on their return, by Roger's men (7). Then in October 1113, Mawdud was assassinated in the great mosque of Damascus; it is probable that the murderers were Assassins, who reproached him for his hostility towards them in the East; but in the general atmosphere of distrust, public rumor accused Toghtekîn, who now suspected of the sultanate party, would find himself led to approach the Franks (8). Finally in December 1113 Ridwan died, leaving as his successor a young man, Alp Arslân (9).
Aleppo then entered a period of disorder and extreme weakness. The death of Rodwan was the occasion of an explosion of popular hatred against the Assassins, which despite some decautious statements (10) the deceased prince had protected until the end, whatever Sultan Mohammad had done to detach him from them (11); they, moreover, took advantage of his benevolence for anything other than to serve him, since it was only due to a last-minute blunder that they did not succeed in seizing, towards the end of his reign, the citadel of Aleppo (12); the day after his death again, they would get their hands on Qolai'a, near Bàlis, and in Aleppo itself, they had a large militia, commanded by the Turk Ibn Dimlàdj. Already during Ridwan's lifetime, a failed attack against a rich Persian merchant (505) had led to a popular uprising against the Assassins (13). Ridwan died (14), the rais Ibn BadV, son of a Persian astrologer brought to Aleppo by Aqsonqor, and the Shiite qadi Ibn al-Khachchàb extracted from Alp Arslàn the order to put to death Abu Tàhir and the missionary Ismâ'il (15); this was done, and the populace, running against their followers, massacred them for a few weeks (16). At the same time, the Assassins failed in an attempt made by them to seize the citadel of Shaizar; the vigorous reaction of the population led by the Banou Mounqidh allowed it to be retaken from them; all were executed (17). Their followers remained numerous in Northern Syria and we will find them there:. Nevertheless, it is elsewhere that in the years to come we will see them carry out their political attempts.
No longer having the free police of the Batenians on his side, Alp Arslan had to think about obtaining other protection. He went to Damascus to obtain that of Toghtekin, who accompanied him back to Aleppo (March 1114). But the official exercise of the Shiite cult in Aleppo displeased Toghtekin, accustomed to acting in Damascus with inhabitants who were mostly Sunnis. So the agreement did not last (18). Roger of Antioch then came in arms to demand the advance payment of the tribute (19). Then Alp Arslan, of a cruel temperament, made enemies and was finally assassinated, with almost his entire family, by the head of his government, Lu'Lu, who took power, with as army leader Chams al-Khawâçç, the lord of Rafànya, recently dispossessed by Toghtekin (autumn 1114); then Roger came to demand a new tribute, the collection of which displeased the population and provoked riots (20). The armed force at the disposal of Alp Arslan, Lu'Lu and their successors, just sufficient to ensure their domination, is not sufficient to safeguard the security of the territory. Having neither the strong army of soldiers that only princes whose country is not ruined can afford, nor the personal military clientele of the Bedouin or Turkoman chiefs, they tremble before the Franks, the Orientals, all of them, and even more than ItoçlwAn spend their time trying to play one against the other. To tell the truth, hoping that each of the armies, of which they tremble, will not suppress them, they are less and less the real leaders of Aleppo: they are just the military commanders of a citadel. The real leaders are the leaders of the people, rais in particular, who last while the princes pass, who have, themselves, a large clientele, who negotiate directly with foreign sovereigns, who, sometimes, suppress the princes. Aleppo is a republic of notables. However, they too do not have an army sufficient for external defense, and their policy which constantly seeks to engage a military leader, while avoiding at all costs days of paying for it with no concession of power, is a seesaw game parallel to that of the masters of the citadel, although often discordant.
Outside Aleppo, Mawdud's death did not stop, but dissociated the sultan's holy war effort. He replaced the dead leader in Mosul with Aqsonqor al-Boursouqî, with the same holy war mission.
But from the outset Il-Ghazi, who had only borne the suzerainty of Mawdud out of necessity, from which he had gained nothing, showed himself recalcitrant, and a demonstration of force was necessary under the walls of Mardin to compel him to send his son Ayaz again with reinforcements to the Sultan's army. Even then his submission was not perhaps not very deep, because when Bursukl arrived under Harran, which belonged to Il-Ghazi, the governor refused for a long time to let him pass and even intrigued with the Franks. He then went to attack Edessa, but came up against a resolute defense, and was content to pillage the regions of Sarouj, Blra, QaPat as-Sinn, Samosata. In the meantime a rupture broke out between him and Ayaz, whom he had arrested, at the same time as he sent the emir of Sinjar, Tamirak, to attack Mardin. Il-Ghazi called on his nephews Daoud of Izfi Kaïfa and Balak, gathered together all the Turkomans he could and finally inflicted a resounding defeat on Bursukl, in which Tandrak was taken prisoner (21).
However, the campaign of Bursouqî had had a dangerous indirect consequence for the Franks; the widow of Kogh Vâsil, whether she was worried about their intentions or wanted to protect the future in the event of a Turkish victory, sent to offer Bursouqî her homage and ask for reinforcements. He sent her the governor of Khâbour, Sonqor the Long (22). In vain, the Franks of Edessa, warned, tried to surprise them at the crossing of the Euphrates; informed by the Armenian princess, the Muslims were victorious. Sonqor did not remain with her, however, and limited herself to taking the presents that she sent to Bursouqî. She had with her Frankish soldiers from Antioch, who left her (23). For the moment, the episode was therefore not serious. But, added to the intrigues of the Armenians of Edessa with the Turks in 1112 and 1113 (24), it was a serious symptom of disaffection, which would force the Franks to a policy of mistrust, mistrust which would further develop disaffection.
Nevertheless, for the moment, if the Sultan's army was not victorious, it remained too constantly threatening for Baldwin to be able to engage in an open struggle against the Limanians. These threats were all the stronger because, at the end of November 1114, a violent earthquake occurred which destroyed a multitude of fortifications; on the Muslim side, Aleppo, 'Azâz, Bàlis were quite tested; but in Frankish or Armenian territory Antioch, Attirib, Zerdana. Tell Itliàlid, Edessa, Samosate, Ra'bàn, lçaïçoùn, Hiçu Mançoùr, Mar'ach, Sis, Misis are reported as having suffered more or less considerable damage (25).
Now, a new sultanal expedition, the sixth since 1110, was being prepared, as powerful as that of 1111, because this time it was a question of both holy war and reprisals against the unruly emirs, such as Il-Ghazi. Boursourii, relegated to his personal fief of Rahba because of his defeat, had been replaced in Mosul by Djouyouchbeg i'atabek of the sultan's son; but the direction of the holy war had been given to the governor of the province of Hamadhân, Bursuq ibn Bursuq, augmented by part of the troops of the Inini. The army marched directly on Syria via Raqqa (May 1115). Indeed, Ilghàzl, worried about the consequences of his escapade, had gone to Syria to ask for the support of Toghtekin, treated as a rebel by the sultan since the death of Maudoùd, which he attributed to him. Not yet judging themselves sufficiently sure if they stuck to their own forces, the heavenly emirs decided to resort to the Frankish alliance and to negotiate with Roger of Antioch.
An interview took place between the Frankish prince and them near Hornç, in the last days of 1114. The coalition, it is true, almost got hit from the start by the intervention of the lord of Homç, Khîrkhân, who had for three years replaced his father, Qa. radja, the successor of Djenâh ad-daula, under the suzerainty of Toghtekin. Unlike Qaradja, Khîrkhân submitted impatiently to this suzerainty; the passage of Ilghâzl gave him an unexpected opportunity: one day when the latter, after the withdrawal of Toghte kin and Roger, did not park, he surprised him and took him prisoner; then he appealed to Sultan Mobammad. Nevertheless, threatened by Toghtekin before the arrival of the sultanic troops, he was content to keep Ayâz, the son of Ilghâzî, as a hostage, and the latter was able to go to Diyâr Bakr to raise his Turcomans (26).
Aleppo remained. The conditions of his seizure of power did not give Lu'Lu much confidence in Toghtekin and, feeling the need for legitimation, he had written to the Sultan, hoping to receive, in exchange for verbal submission, a formal consecration. In reality, everything happened as in 1111 between Mawdud and Ridwan.
Bursuq, approaching Aleppo, invited Lu'Lu to effectively surrender the city to him. Then Lu'Lu called Toghtekin and Il-Ghazi, who rushed to Aleppo. For his part, Roger, who had concentrated his troops at the Iron Bridge, came to post himself at Athârib, thus cutting short the attempts at negotiations of his Muslim allies with Bursuq against him. Moreover, Bour-souq himself had not believed in it and went to take Hamâh, where Toghtekin had left his baggage (27); Toghtekin, Il-Ghazi and Lu'Lu then threw themselves unconditionally into the arms of Roger of Antioch. This time there was indeed the Franco-Muslim Syrian coalition against the Eastern intervention of which 1108 and 1111 had shown the first symptoms.
Unable to take Aleppo as a base of operations, Bursuk had in fact turned away towards Hamâh, in order to operate his liaison with Khîrkhân, who received the city in exchange for Ayâz. He could still count further north on the Munqidhites of Shaizar, always threatened both by the Franks and the sovereigns of Aleppo, and too compromised in 1111 with the sultanal party not to have remained attached to it. In these conditions, Bursuk's plan of It was worth first subduing Northern Syria and relying on Chaizar, the allies were led to come face to face with him and occupy near Apamea a position similar to that of the Franks in 1111 (28). Instructed by the defeat of Baldwin Ior in 1113 near Tiberias, Roger had also called on Baldwin of Edessa, Pons and the King of Jerusalem. In vain did Bursuq, by attacks on Kafartâb, then on the camp of the allies itself, try to draw them into a battle before he had lost his numerical superiority: Roger knew how to tame his impatience and that of his own and Toghtekin, who did not want a clear victory for either party, could only encourage this tactic. Pons and Baldwin having arrived, Bursuq now withdrew. 1111 seemed to repeat itself (29).
But this time it was only a ruse. If some emirs were dissatisfied with the sultan's order to give Khirkhân the conquests made in Syria, Bursuq nevertheless had his army more in hand than Mawdud had had it. The allies, believing him to have left, had dispersed. He then returned. With the help of the Munqidhites he again furiously attacked Kafare , who had to capitulate (30).
Then, taking advantage of a break between Lu'Lu and the leader of his army, he sent Djouyouchbeg to occupy Bouzâ'a and worry Aleppo. But Roger was watching. If he could not recall the Franks of Tripoli and Jerusalem quickly enough, he had at least 1- help from Baldwin of Edessa and came to post himself at Chastel-Ruge. The Turks, believing themselves to be at peace, dispersed and moved without precaution (31). Now, Lu'Lu informed Roger about their movements. Knowing the Turks in the - region of Sarmin he came, sheltered by the western edge of Djabal Bani 'Ulaim, to post himself at Hab, on September 14, 1115. A reconnaissance revealed that Bursuq was at Tell Dânfili, between Hab and Sarmîn. Without losing a moment, Roger gave the haranle to his armies. The Turkish camp, prepared in front of the approaching army, was swept away in a hurricane. Then, putting off the pillage until later, the Franks went to surprise Bursuq who, after a fine defense on Tell Dânith, barely managed to flee. In vain, Tamfrak of Sinjâr, having gathered men under the shelter of the tell, managed for a moment to drive back the Turkoples of the Frankish army; the situation was restored and Tamfrak in turn reduced to flight. The Turkish army was annihilated in the pursuit. In the camp, the victors gathered an enormous buffalo. The corps of Bouzâ'a, informed of the disaster, hastily left for Djéziré. Another, fleeing towards the South, was destroyed by Toghtekin (32).
The victory at Dânîth was perhaps the most important that the Franks had won since the crusade. It put an end to the sultanal reaction that had been a constant threat to them for six years. Bursuq wanted to prepare a revenge, but he died the following year and the affair was not taken up again. In 1118, Sultan Mohammed in turn died and in the troubles that broke out over his succession and all that remained of Seljuk strength (33) disappeared. The consequences of the French victory which in fact go far beyond the circle of frank interests. As a result, it had broken the authority of the Sultan over the emirs of the external provinces. Il-Ghazi, for example, despite the loss of his son Ayaz killed by the vanquished in their defeat, became practically independent, as well as the other Artouqids, and was soon to take Mayafari from his sultanal lieutenants (84). As for Syria, the Frankish power had wanted the victory to be the work not of the Franco-Muslim coalition, but of the Franks alone. They therefore received the benefit alone, to the point that Toghtekin, frightened, had no other choice but to go and obtain his pardon from Sultan Mobammad, who, obliged to be henceforth conciliatory, granted him the official investiture of Syria (1116)Footnotes
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The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East - Morton (2018)
Chapter 2 - Riding The Storm: Seljuk Turks And Arab Emirs 1111–1118
... The Munqidhs had won this round in their family’s long game of survival, but their security would not last forever. The Arab position across the Near East was in long-term decline. The Turks were steadily driving most Arab dynasties, particularly those whose lands lay further to the east, out of the handful of towns that remained under their control. Shaizar itself would eventually be claimed by the Turks after an earthquake in 1157. The First Crusaders had arrived in a world where Turkish supremacy was in the process of entrenching itself across the region and native rulers had, for the most part, already submitted or been crushed. The Christian victories of 1097–1099 disrupted that dominance, creating a window of opportunity for those who wished to resist the Turks, and it was several decades before the Turks fully regained their grip. During this time, the remaining Arab emirs were still very much in play in the bitter arena of the Near East, and their leaders would help shape the events of the following years.
- from Morton (2018:62-70)
For the Turkish leaders of northern Syria, the 1111 campaign was something of a nonevent. Yet Ridwan’s refusal to cooperate with Mawdud’s forces underlined the distrust and dissension that plagued the Turkish sultanate. There had always been some infighting within their ranks, but prior to the First Crusade it had rarely prevented the Seljuk Turks from expanding their authority across the Near East. Now, however, far from advancing, the Turks were struggling even to hold on to their existing lands. The Frankish threat to Aleppo was especially hazardous. The next few years would be decisive in determining whether the Turks would resume their former position of supremacy or be driven back. Their dominance across the Near East was deceptively frail. Like the crusaders, they were conquerors who had arrived in the region only recently, and their supremacy was not fully entrenched.
The Turks’ earliest incursions into the Muslim world had begun in the years before the turn of the first millennium, far to the east. At this time, tens of thousands of nomadic warriors and their families had suddenly poured out of the steppe country of central Asia and into the cultivated agricultural lands of the Islamic world to the south. Exactly why this migration took place is unclear. One suggestion is that they were driven south by climate change: cooling temperatures forced these nomadic tribes south into warmer climates. Another hypothesis is that the movement was driven by the implosion of several tribal confederations. 25
Whatever the underlying cause, multiple Turkic peoples along with other nomadic groups penetrated the Islamic world’s frontiers and swiftly took control across Persia (modern-day Iran) before moving west into Iraq. Their arrival caused widespread devastation as Turkish commanders battled against their rivals, and nomadic Turkmen tribes spread out to pillage the landscape. The Turks’ main leaders were the descendants of a mighty warrior named Seljuk (d. 1002). During the wars for the Islamic world, the Seljuk family managed to secure a position of supremacy over both their native Arab and Kurdish opponents and their Turkish rivals, and, following their capture of Baghdad in 1055, Seljuk’s grandson Tughril took the title of Seljuk sultan. In the following years, the Seljuks conquered province after province, drawing them into their newly founded empire. Some local Arab and Kurdish rulers submitted to Turkish rule, others managed to negotiate a form of quasi-independence, and still others chose to resist and were destroyed. Either way, Seljuk power grew steadily during this time and much of southern and central Asia and the Near East came under their control. By the 1060s their territories spanned from the Himalayas to the marches of Anatolia.
During the 1070s and 1080s, the Turkish advance across Syria and Anatolia was almost uninterrupted. In 1071 the great sultan Alp Arslan moved into Syria, forcing Aleppo’s Arab ruler Mahmud to acknowledge him as overlord, before continuing on into Byzantine lands. At the Battle of Manzikert, he crushed the main Byzantine field army, led by Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes, breaking open the Greeks’ frontier defenses and allowing the nomadic Turkmen tribes to spread far into Anatolia, causing havoc. Alp Arslan had already laid waste to Christian Georgia only a few years previously. To the south, in Syria, the Turkmen commander Atsiz conquered Jerusalem in 1073 and Damascus in 1075. With these towns in his grasp, he was able to advance on Egypt, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that the Fatimids drove him out of the Nile delta. The Turkish sultan’s authority reached its apogee in the 1080s under the leadership of Sultan Malik Shah and his great vizier Nizam al-Mulk. This high point did not last. Malik Shah’s death in 1092 caused a ruinous civil war that fragmented Seljuk power across much of their empire and ultimately opened the door to external invaders, including the crusaders. At the heart of the infighting was a major struggle over the sultanate in Iraq between Malik Shah’s sons Berkyaruq and Mohammed. This war, coupled with a slew of rebellions and invasions that broke out across the empire, kept the eyes of the Turkish world focused squarely on its central territories until Berkyaruq’s death in 1105.
The arrival of the First Crusade on the empire’s western margins was initially not a priority for the combatants waging war over the sultanate. The coastal regions of Syria and the Holy Land were peripheral to the empire and had never been satisfactorily brought under Seljuk control. Karbugha, Berkyaruq’s commander in Mosul, did set out to engage the First Crusaders in battle, but this was an isolated case. There were far more pressing concerns for the contenders for the sultanate—in fact, some Arabic historians of the Seljuk dynasty recorded the events of this period without even mentioning the Franks.
Viewed from the sultanate’s perspective, the Syrian region was of secondary importance, merely one among a large number of frontier provinces. After Malik Shah’s death, rule in the area was claimed by his brother Tutush. He too had pretentions to become the new sultan but in 1095—on the eve of the crusade—he led his army against Berkyaruq, only to be defeated and killed at the Battle of Dashlu. Tutush’s power was split between his young sons, with Ridwan receiving Aleppo and Duqaq taking power in Damascus. Overall, Turkish authority in Syria on the eve of the First Crusade was in chaos. The civil war engulfing the central lands of the sultanate to the east drew the bulk of their attention (and troops). To make matters more complicated, Ridwan and Duqaq immediately began to fight one another and continued to do so even as the crusaders advanced from the north.
As the crusade progressed, the Turkish position crumbled still further. Both Ridwan and Duqaq suffered major defeats at the crusaders’ hands in their separate attempts to break the siege of Antioch, and these losses encouraged dissent and rebellions from the region’s native Arabs and Armenians. The Fatimids also scented blood and took advantage of the chaos to invade from the south, retaking Jerusalem in 1098 (the year before the crusaders conquered the city). It was for these reasons that Turkish resistance to the Franks was so limited in the years following the First Crusade. Their authority was tenuous, and the Franks were merely one enemy among many.
Confronting such hazardous regional politics, Ridwan of Aleppo had often judged it wiser to pay tribute to the Franks than to risk facing them in battle. He had tried to wage campaigns against them in 1097, 1100, and 1105 but had been defeated on each occasion. The city itself was riddled with dissent and imperiled by raiding from the local Arab tribes. Even some of his own Turkish officers had defected to the Franks. Moreover, the ongoing civil war for control over the sultanate both threatened his position and occupied warriors who might otherwise have marched to his aid.
The events of 1106–1107 provide a classic example of the kind of political knots that entangled the competing Turkish warlords of the region and prevented them from offering serious resistance to the Franks. In 1106, the Seljuk sultan sent a commander named Jawuli to Syria to assert the sultan’s authority and to fight the Franks. Jawuli was promised control of the town of Rahba to serve as his base. He proceeded to Mosul to seek military support for this venture from its ruler. The ruler of Mosul, no doubt concerned about maintaining his own power, was reluctant to render aid, so Jawuli first raided his lands and then soundly defeated Mosul’s army in battle. The ruler of Mosul’s sons then appealed to the Turks of Anatolia, who came to their assistance against Jawuli but were also beaten off. Jawuli then traveled to Rahba, which he tried to seize, only to find himself vigorously resisted by the inhabitants (members of the Arab Banu Shayban tribe) and their overlord, the Turkish ruler of Damascus. At this point Jawuli summoned Ridwan of Aleppo and some Turkmen forces to his side. With their help, he captured Rahba, only to be almost immediately confronted again by the Anatolian Turks, who had arrived in force. He was forced to defeat this new challenger before heading east to take his revenge against Mosul, which he captured soon afterward. During this eastward journey to Mosul he alienated his former allies, Ridwan and the Turkmen26.
This rather unedifying series of events played into Frankish hands. Jawuli may have been dispatched with the intention of striking a blow against the Crusader States, but his actions had the reverse effect. Rather than facing a new enemy, Frankish forces from Jerusalem, Edessa, and Antioch were all free to expand their territories, safe in the knowledge that the Turks were warring among themselves. The fractured political landscape of the Turkish world meant that suspicion, treachery, and conflicted loyalties prevented the many Turkish warlords in the region from forming a united front against any enemy, and the Syrian Turks distrusted forces led by the sultan’s commanders, fearing that they might try to force them to submit.
All these problems manifested themselves in a new campaign instigated by the Turkish sultan in 1115. Two years earlier, Ridwan of Aleppo had died of illness, and Aleppo became engulfed in factional infighting. Ridwan’s eldest son and heir, Alp Arslan, attempted to take control, but he was assassinated by one of his eunuchs, a man named Lou Lou, in 1114. Lou Lou then called on the Turkish sultan Mohammed for aid, offering him the city in exchange for his protection. Sultan Mohammed saw an opportunity to solidify his power and launched another major campaign to the north. The resulting campaign revealed, yet again, the fracture lines in the Turkish world. 27
The army set out in February 1115 under the command of Bursuq of Hamadhan. It mustered additional forces in the Jazira and then marched west, crossing the Euphrates at Raqqa. As Bursuq approached Aleppo he asked Lou Lou to fulfill his promise to yield control of Aleppo, proffering letters from the sultan to confirm his authority. Lou Lou seems to have panicked and to have decided that it was too dangerous to give up power. Consequently, he called on the Damascenes (under their current ruler Tughtakin; Duqaq had died some years before) and the Turkmen commander Ilghazi to rescue him from this predicament. 28
This request placed Tughtakin and Ilghazi, two leading Turkish warlords in Syria and the Jazira, respectively, in a dangerous position. On the one hand, if they defied the sultan’s army, they were in effect declaring themselves to be rebels. This was not necessarily a major problem because both Tughtakin and Ilghazi were out of favor at this time anyway (and allied to the Franks), though purposely obstructing the sultan’s army would be an unnecessarily overt statement of their defiance. On the other hand, if they simply allowed Sultan Mohammed to acquire a strong foothold in Syria by taking Aleppo, it would only be a matter of time before all the local rulers were brought to heel—themselves included. The region’s Turkish chieftains might have been prepared to acknowledge the sultan’s theoretical supremacy, but that authority was generally far away, and the chieftains prized their independence. Eventually both men made their choice: they converged to defend Aleppo, in direct opposition to the sultan’s army.
With armies massing to the east, the Antiochenes, under their new ruler Roger of Salerno (Tancred having died in 1112), grew alarmed at these troop movements and feared that the Turks were uniting to attack Antioch. So they too assembled their army, at their frontier stronghold of al-Atharib. They do not seem to have immediately appreciated the deep divisions hindering the Turkish army, but the fracture lines soon became apparent when Ilghazi and Tughtakin made contact with the Franks, offering to make common cause with them against the sultan’s army. The Franks accepted their offer and sought further aid from their allies in Tripoli and Jerusalem, who set out for the principality shortly afterward. These cascading events must have both surprised and alarmed Bursuq. He had been told to expect the willing compliance of the Aleppan leaders but was instead confronted by a major alliance of Syrian Turks and Franks. He was more enraged with his fellow Turks than with the Franks because, after taking a brief swipe at Edessa, he moved south to punish the Damascene ruler Tughtakin by attacking his town of Hama. This siege was swiftly and successfully concluded, and Bursuq moved on to Shaizar to confront the Frankish and Damascene armies, which were then encamped outside the Antiochene town of Apamea.
For the Munqidhs in Shaizar, these events created yet another awkward dilemma: Should they support the sultan’s army as they had in 1111 (and risk angering all their neighbors, both Frankish and Turkish)? Or should they jettison the sultan’s goodwill and treat his approaching army as an invading force? In the event, they sided with the sultan. Unfortunately, this time they made a bad choice. The sultan’s army, under Bursuq, remained inactive outside Shaizar’s walls, and rumors abounded that the Turks were drinking heavily. It was only when news came that Baldwin I’s army would soon arrive to join forces with the existing Frankish-Turkish coalition that Bursuq’s forces stirred themselves to action. 29
Bursuq launched a frontal assault on the Antiochene camp before it could join forces with Baldwin I’s army but he achieved nothing. Roger of Salerno was a capable warrior who understood that the Turks’ strengths lay in their archers and in their mobility. Consequently, he formed his army into a tight array and harshly ordered his men to remain in line. He marched along their ranks, sword unsheathed, instructing them that under no circumstances were they to charge against the Turks. This was frustrating to many impetuous knights—eager for a chance at glory—but it was also sensible.30
The Turks wanted to provoke a reaction. If the Christians could be stung into making an ill-timed charge, the Turks would simply veer away and stay out of reach until the Christians exhausted their horses. Then the Turks could descend upon them. Roger understood this danger. He was also determined to wait for Baldwin’s arrival before he risked battle. Bursuq, seeing that the usual strategy would not work, adopted a different approach. He pretended to withdraw, giving the impression that he had accepted defeat. His enemies fell for the deception and split up their forces, assuming the threat had passed. Tughtakin and Ilghazi returned to their homelands, Roger headed back to Antioch, and the other Frankish forces returned to Tripoli and Jerusalem. Once the main army had disbanded, Bursuq suddenly wheeled around and, in early September 1115, launched a new and vicious assault on the Antiochene frontier at Kafartab. 31
The siege of Kafartab was executed with the utmost speed. Whereas Frankish lords tended to carry out slow, grinding sieges supported by towers and catapults, seeking to climb over or destroy enemy walls, Turkish commanders preferred to tunnel under them. They employed specialists to carry out this dangerous work, most famously miners from the region of Khurasan, far to the east. Starting in Kafartab’s dry moat, the miners excavated under the walls. This was skilled work. First they cleared a large space under the ramparts, propping up the walls’ foundations with large wooden beams so the masonry would not fall on the diggers. When they had burrowed far enough under the wall, they filled the whole space with firewood and set it alight. The fire burned the supporting beams, causing the wall to collapse and creating a breach that the troops could assault.32
Learning of the attack, Roger hurriedly regathered his troops, marshaling them, along with supporting Edessan contingents, at Rugia in preparation for meeting the sultan’s army. By this time, having taken Kafartab, Bursuq was besieging Zardana (another frontier stronghold). As Roger’s army moved against the Turks, his scouts reported that the enemy was unaware of their approach; Roger had the element of surprise. With this advantage, early on the morning of September 14, he led his army against the sultan’s forces. The Frankish horsemen were divided into different squadrons, and each formation was instructed to attack the enemy army at a different point with their lances couched (held under the arm, rather than raised above the head like a javelin). The cavalry launched themselves at their enemy, breaking their lances on first impact and then drawing their swords to engage in hand-to-hand combat. The Turks did not have time to form into squadrons and consequently were stampeded by the oncoming cavalry. The Turkish army panicked, and Bursuq himself only managed to survive his army’s rout by climbing a hill with his bodyguard, from which he was able to escape. 33
This battle, which came to be known as the Battle of Tell Danith, was a classic cavalry victory, of the kind that had made the Christian knights so feared during the First Crusade. Their strategy was to ensure that the full energy of their charge broke directly on an enemy formation, without giving enemy troops any opportunity to take evasive action. The knights could then plow through their foes, producing shock and disorder that would spread virally throughout the enemy ranks and rout any resistance before the opposing army could swamp the Franks with their overwhelming numbers.
For the Franks, the Tell Danith campaign was a major victory, and their army returned to Antioch laden with their enemy’s riches; they were met at the city’s gates by a triumphal procession led by the patriarch. For Bursuq, it was a humiliation, and he felt deeply shamed by his defeat. He died the following year. For Syria’s Turkish warlords—Tughtakin and Ilghazi—the campaign had forced them to show their true colors. They had made it clear that they would side with the Franks if the sultan attempted to take control in Syria. The Turkish world was as divided as ever, and as Bursuq’s remaining forces fled back east, Tughtakin’s own troops harried the survivors.
For Tughtakin of Damascus, this campaign had been a triumph of sorts, yet his opposition to the sultan had been too visible, and he worried about how his Turkish peers would respond. Rumors reached him that he had made many enemies in the sultan’s court, so in 1116 he set out for Iraq, sending magnificent gifts in advance of his arrival, and seeking to be reconciled to Sultan Mohammed. In the event, Mohammed proved tractable to Tughtakin’s overtures. Perhaps the Turkish sultan concluded that Syria was too distant and too complex to be subdued and that it was better to accept Tughtakin’s shallow display of loyalty than to reject him and drive him into permanent opposition. ...Footnotes25. For a review of the possible reasons for the Turks’ migration, see A. C. S. Peacock, The Great Seljuk Empire, Edinburgh History of the Islamic Empires (Edinburgh, 2015), 25.
26. Ibn al-Athir. The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh. Translated by D. S. Richards. 3 vols. Crusade Texts in Translation 13, 15, and 17. Aldershot, UK, 2006–2008., 1: 111–117.
27. Kemal al-Din. “Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep.” Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Orientaux. Vol. 3. Paris, 1884, 606–608.
28. Ibid., 608.
29. Walter the Chancellor. The Antiochene Wars: A Translation and Commentary. Translated by T. Asbridge and S. B. Edgington. Crusade Texts in Translation 4. Aldershot, UK, 1999., 90, 92.
30. Ibid., 92–93.
31. Ibid., 95.
32. Usama ibn Munqidh. The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades. Penguin Classics. London, 2008, 85.
33. Walter the Chancellor. The Antiochene Wars: A Translation and Commentary. Translated by T. Asbridge and S. B. Edgington. Crusade Texts in Translation 4. Aldershot, UK, 1999., 96–104; Ibn al-Athir. The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh. Translated by D. S. Richards. 3 vols. Crusade Texts in Translation 13, 15, and 17. Aldershot, UK, 2006–2008., 1: 172–173; Anonymous. “Syriac Chronicle.” Translated by A. Tritton. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 65 (1933): 69–101, 86.Online Versions and Further Reading ReferencesBaldwin, M. W. and K. M. Setton (2016). A History of the Crusades, Volume 1: The First Hundred Years , University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated. - open access at archive.org
Cahen, C. (1940), La Syrie du nord a l’´epoque des croisades et la principaut´e franque d’Antioche , Paris: Institut Francais de Damas, Gauthner. - fully open access at Foundation Institut kurde de Paris
Hillenbrand, Carole (2021) The Career of Najm al-Din Il-Ghazi in: Hillenbrand, The Medieval Turks p. 1-49
Morton, N. (2018). The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East, Basic Books.
Tibble, Steve (2018). The Crusader Armies 1099-1187 . New Haven and London: Yale University Press.