Chapter 5

Antiochenes

In the same year that Guiscard launched his second Balkan campaign, the great Syrian city of Antioch – then under the semi-independent rule of the Armenian general Philaretos Vrachamios – was lost to Süleyman, the Selçuk sultan of Rum (r. 1077–86), whose capital at Nicaea (İznik), despite being separated from Constantinople by the Sea of Marmara, was nevertheless threateningly close (90km south-east). Added to this great blow was the loss of Edessa (1086), also under Vrachamios’ control, in addition to the secession of parts of Cilicia (southern Turkey) to the overlordship of the Armenian warlord Rupen. Such losses were all serious, but none more so than those in Anatolia, the principal recruiting ground of Byzantine troops since the Arab invasions of the seventh century. Indeed, Treadgold notes that, by 1086, ‘little more than the ports of Attalia, Ephesus, and Pontic Heraclea remained subject’ to Alexios in Asia Minor. Such a serious problem was exacerbated by the continuing depredations of Çaka, amīr of Smyrna (İzmir), who by 1092 had added to his existing Aegean possessions (Lesvos and Chios) the islands of Rhodes and Samos. While Alexios and his generals were soon able to defeat Çaka and thereby restore a semblance of order in the Aegean, the dire situation in Anatolia remained unresolved. Having spent much of the years 1086–94 waging successful campaigns against the Pechengs, Cumans (another Turkic people) and Çaka, Alexios was now ready to reverse the empire’s territorial losses in the east. In addition to the imperial army’s Frankish battalions, the emperor had also used 500 cavalrymen loaned to him by Count Robert I of Flanders against the Pechenegs. This harmonious and successful collaboration prompted Alexios to consider the possibility of using more soldiers from western Europe for his pending Anatolian campaign; to secure that end, he sent emissaries to Italy. Count Roger of Hauteville, noted by the Norman monk Orderic Vitalis to have enjoyed good relations with Alexios, was the important intermediary: when Pope Urban II (r. 1088–99) visited the count in Sicily in 1089, he was advised to travel to Constantinople and meet with the emperor. While the Pope was unable to make the trip, Urban evidently began to consider reviving his mentor’s proto-crusading plans – that is, Gregory VII’s intention to provide military assistance to the Byzantines and then march on Jerusalem (1074). Accordingly, when imperial representatives presented their case at the well-attended Church council held in Piacenza, Italy in March 1095, they received a positive response. The relevant source, however, does not actually specify what sort of assistance Alexios requested, but it seems probable that he had in mind a force of cavalry not unlike those previously loaned to him by Robert of Flanders.¹

To spread the message, Urban set out on a tour of France. At Clermont he launched his famous appeal for a military expedition against the Selçuk Turks. It was a watershed moment in western European history: the appeal struck a resounding chord not only with its intended audience – aristocratic lords and their vassals – but also the common people, who were undoubtedly attracted by Urban’s promise of the remission of their earthly sins. Unfortunately for posterity, the speech given by the Pope at Clermont has not survived. There are, however, a number of versions recorded by the chroniclers who wrote within two decades of the crusade. Although they are mostly rhetorical exercises, the majority of the accounts mention the relief of fellow Christians in the East. This, however, was an ancillary aim, for Urban wished to ‘liberate’ the Holy Land and to increase papal influence in the region. It was, in sum, a logical extension of the reformist policy of the eleventh-century papacy, which aside from a number of other considerations – such as improved relations with the Byzantine patriarchate – aimed at establishing the Roman patriarchate as the supreme authority throughout the Christian world.

The call to arms attracted a number of European nobles, notably including the son of William the Conqueror, Duke Robert of Normandy. Despite being embroiled in a dispute with Pope Urban II, Robert’s overlord, King Philip I of France (r. 1060–1108), was nonetheless represented by his younger brother Count Hugh of Vermandois. From Languedoc came Count Roger of Hauteville’s former son-in-law Count Raymond IV of Toulouse (r. c.1041–1105), whose retinue included Bishop Adémar, Urban’s appointed legate for the expedition. There was one other notable individual better known to Alexios: Marc Bohemond, who would be assisted by his nephew Tancred and by Richard of the Principate (son of Guiscard’s brother William, founder of the same Campanian lordship). In addition to the aristocratic contingents was a separate, large force, which arrived first at Constantinople under the leadership of a priest called Peter the Hermit, and the majority of its generally ill-disciplined members were ambushed and massacred in northern Anatolia on 21 October 1096.

Central to the newly emergent practice of crusading was the notion of war as a penance – that is to say, the killing of Muslims in battle would earn remission of sins. Hence, having arrived at the city of Amalfi in August 1096, a contingent of French-speaking crusaders were undoubtedly gobsmacked to see the Hauteville army besieging a Christian city with a large number of Muslim troops. The Amalfitans had previously refused to pay tribute and provide military service, in addition to expelling those faithful to Duke Roger Borsa from the city. As a result, the duke and Count Roger blockaded the city by land and sea. The siege was going relatively well until the disgruntled Bohemond, who had reluctantly agreed to assist his half brother and uncle, spoke with the new arrivals. As one of the Apulian annals observed:

… suddenly, by God’s inspiration, Bohemond with other counts and more than 500 cavalry, made the sign of the cross on the right shoulders of their garments, abandoned the siege, and proceeded to cross the sea to the royal city, where with the help of Emperor Alexios they could wage war with the pagans, then advance on Jerusalem to the Holy Sepulchre of Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer.²

Faced with the loss of a considerable portion of their army, and much to the joy of the beleaguered Amalfitans, the duke and count reluctantly abandoned the siege.³

When this diverse array of armed pilgrims began arriving at Constantinople, Alexios was faced with a considerable problem. Although Anna Komnene disingenuously gave the impression that the arrival of the crusaders was something of a surprise, her father was almost certainly expecting them, albeit in a much smaller numbers. Instead, especially in Peter the Hermit’s contingent, the emperor was faced with large numbers of people who plundered their way through the empire, mainly because they were inadequately organised and were bereft of the provisions required to feed such large numbers of troops, noncombatants, baggage animals, and horses. In order to protect the citizens of the towns en route to Constantinople, Alexios utilized mounted archers known as Tourkopouloi (‘sons of Turks’) as a sort of police force. Their main role was to prevent any pillaging should the crusaders dispense with the markets opened to them and choose to loot instead.⁴

As Bernard Leib observed almost a century ago, the Latin accounts of the First Crusade are generally hostile towards Alexios. Some of this hostility was due to the endeavours of the aforementioned policing forces, for the ensuing skirmishes between imperial troops and crusaders were perceived by the latter as calculated ambuscades ordered by ‘the unjust emperor’ himself. In addition, some of the crusading contingents, perhaps with knowledge of the emperor’s appeal to the council of Piacenza, seem to have expected Alexios to lead the expedition as commander-in-chief. Moreover, the crusaders presumed both land and naval support would be forthcoming, including troops and supplies. In essence, much of the mutual resentment that existed both during and well after the First Crusade was a direct result of the oaths taken between Alexios and the crusader leaders. To the anonymous member (hereafter, ‘the Anonymous’) of Bohemond’s contingent, the fact that the leaders consented to bind themselves to the emperor with oaths of fealty and homage was scandalous (not to mention complicated given some were already bound to other lords). Other writers considerably embellished this sentiment. Raoul of Caen, biographer of Bohemond’s nephew Tancred, styled Alexios as a fearsome beast from Greek mythology; ‘a monster no less cruel than the Chimera of the three forms’. The Norman’s penchant for classical imagery was elsewhere demonstrated: negotiations with the emperor were likened to unravelling ‘the unfair riddles of the Sphinx’. Incumbent with the oaths taken was the agreement that should the leaders capture imperial territories recently lost to the Turks, they were to be handed over to the emperor. Owing to the initial reluctance of some of the nobles to become the vassals of Alexios, the emperor more than likely refashioned the ceremonies in the manner of bilateral treaties. It was this sort of face-saving expedient which suggests that Alexios himself consented to undertake counter oaths (as was common among the Franks). Although it remains uncertain what these conditions were, it seems probable that they entailed continued military support and supplies.⁵

With oaths sworn and Alexios anxious to transport the often unruly crusaders over to Asia Minor, the ‘proper’ campaign – i.e. the contingents led by princes – began with the siege of the Selçuk capital Nicaea in May 1097. Given the hostility evident in the Latin accounts of the First Crusade, there has been a tendency to overemphasize the tensions between the crusaders and Byzantines. However, as Thomas Asbridge emphasizes, the siege was a collaborative effort, with the empire providing troops, siege engines, ships, money and food supplies. Indeed, despite being hostile towards the ‘Greeks’ on account of Tancred’s later wars against them, Raoul of Caen declared: ‘Gaul has fought, Greece has helped, God has carried it through’. In addition, the first letter of Count Stephen of Blois and Chartres to his wife Adele – daughter of William the Conqueror – illustrates the general accord between the crusader nobles and Alexios, stressing the latter’s generosity and affability, and how the emperor treated him as a son. After a lengthy siege as well as a victory over Sultan Kiliç Arslan’s relieving force, the city eventually surrendered to the Byzantine authorities. Visibly overjoyed at this success, Alexios distributed money, gifts, and provisions among the crusaders, including the rank and file. Soon afterwards, a meeting was held at which the leaders agreed that the great city of Antioch was to be the next target. With the Turks occupied by the crusader advance into Anatolia, Alexios was able to undertake a successful reconquest of western Asia Minor.⁶

Although the city of Antioch was to fall in the following year (1098) after a lengthy siege, the campaign was fraught with famine and disease, resulting in the decimation of large numbers of the crusaders. It was at Antioch that things began to go sour for Alexios: the great city, with the consent of most of the crusader leaders, was claimed by Bohemond, who argued that Alexios did not deserve it since he had allegedly failed to live up to his oaths. Antioch was to remain a bone of contention for generations afterwards, with each side accusing the other of oath-breaking. It all went wrong with two key events. Firstly, Tatikios, the imperial representative and commander of the Byzantine troops, departed with his men stating that he would soon return with supplies. Although only a few leaders seem to have believed that Tatikios would return, the departure being widely viewed as cowardly and treacherous, word later reached them that Alexios was approaching at the head of sizeable army. This relief force, however, never made it to Antioch. By June 1098 it had reached Philomelion (Akşehir) in central Anatolia, where it encountered the former commander-in-chief of the crusader forces, Count Stephen of Blois. At the time of Stephen’s departure (2 June), the city remained uncaptured, and a vast Muslim relief force was confirmed to be on its way. Believing the situation to be hopeless, William the Conqueror’s son-in-law proceeded to tell the emperor as much, adding that the crusader army would be dead to the man by the time Alexios’s army reached the city. After consulting with his commanders (including Bohemond’s brother Guy), Alexios took Stephen’s advice seriously, adopting a scorched-earth policy in the region in addition to transporting the Christians in the area to Europe. The reason for such drastic measures was due to information received that another Muslim force was on its way, and its intention was to intercept the imperial army before it reached Antioch.⁷

Alexios’ decision to turn back, while understandable based on the intelligence received, turned out to be something of a political blunder. Coupled with the relative lack of supplies that reached Antioch, as well as the departure of Tatikios, some of the crusaders began to feel that as the emperor had failed to deliver his side of the bargain, they were no longer bound to honour theirs. Although provisions were still forthcoming by sea from Byzantine Cyprus, they were not as plentiful as they had been at Nicaea, and were therefore insufficient to quell the increasing numbers of crusaders falling to starvation and disease. Aside from the obvious expense of provisioning the crusaders and the large numbers of non-combatants, it must be also noted that while Nicaea was well within imperial reach, Antioch was far beyond the empire’s south-eastern frontier. The crusader charges of oath-breaking, therefore, were somewhat one-sided, not to mention that they were written considerably later when relations with the eastern empire had worsened.⁸

Bohemond, Tancred, and the road to Antioch

Alexios must have been concerned when word reached him that among the multitude of armed pilgrims advancing on Constantinople was a southern Italian contingent led by the man who had twice defeated him in battle almost fifteen years earlier. Misled by later events – i.e. Bohemond’s invasion of 1107–08 – the emperor’s daughter maintained that Bohemond was intending to use the crusade as a way to overthrow her father. Yet the Anonymous, a member of the Hauteville contingent, told a rather different story: Marc ordered his men to refrain from pillaging, stating that nothing should be taken other than what was necessary for sustenance. Nonetheless, despite the emperor’s order that all towns and cities should provide markets for the crusaders, quite unsurprisingly given Bohemond’s capture of the city in the 1080s, in December 1096 the inhabitants of Kastoria in north-western Greece refused to comply. Accordingly, the Anonymous observed: ‘We seized oxen, horses, and donkeys, and anything else we could find’. From Kastoria the south Italian contingent marched 58km north to Pelagonia (Bitola), which the Anonymous noted was populated by a dualist sect variously known as Manichaeans, Paulicians, Bogomils or Cathars. Deeming heretics to be fair game, Pelagonia was besieged, and the Anonymous related that ‘we destroyed by fire the fortified town and its inhabitants’. Alexios to date had been generally tolerant of acolytes of this sect, primarily because they were required to bolster the ranks of the imperial army (2,800 Paulicians had served the emperor at the battle of Dyrrachion in 1081). While their faith was anathema to him, they were his subjects regardless, and an attack on them could not go unanswered. Accordingly, when Bohemond and around half of his army had traversed the overflowing River Vardar by means of boats on 18 February 1097, he was attacked by a mounted force of Tourkopouloi and Pechenegs. While Raoul of Caen and the Anonymous gave conflicting accounts of the clash, Marc’s men seem to have suffered greatly from the ‘hailstorm’ of arrows until his nephew Tancred made the crossing with 2,000 men. As the latter’s biographer noted, the ranged tactic was difficult to deal with, but since the mounted archers possessed neither shields nor spears, Tancred’s men were able to defeat them at close quarters with their swords and lances. Clearly not appreciating that the sack of Pelagonia had provoked the attack, Bohemond castigated the imperial captives, self-righteously declaring that he had not come to Romania to fight against the emperor.⁹

Having arrived at Constantinople in April 1097, Bohemond was summoned before Alexios. Naturally the latter recalled the former’s hostility, but the emperor warmed to him when it became clear that Marc was happy to become his vassal. As Anna Komnene put it, Bohemond attempted to ‘Cretan the Cretan’ (i.e. ‘outfox the fox’) by petitioning Alexios for the rank of Domestic of the East – that is, commander-in-chief of the imperial army in Anatolia, and hence a cunning ploy to secure overall control of the crusade. Knowing full well that the wily Norman might use the command to subvert the expedition to his own ends, the emperor declined. Yet it is nevertheless evident that from this point until the capture of Antioch, Bohemond acted on Alexios’ behalf as a sort of quartermaster and chief liaison officer to the crusaders. He was the perfect choice for, as Shepard has shrewdly observed in reference to passages in the accounts by the Anonymous and Komnene, Bohemond must have known the imperial language. Indeed, the Hauteville contingent was of the greatest value not only to Alexios, but also to the crusaders: Bohemond could speak one of the two common tongues of the eastern Mediterranean, and his relatives Tancred and Richard of the Principate knew the other: Arabic.¹⁰

Following the fall of Nicaea on 19 June 1097, the crusader army split into two columns and marched south-eastwards into central Anatolia. The vanguard comprised the forces of Bohemond, Duke Robert of Normandy, the latter’s brother-in-law Count Stephen of Blois and Tatikios (reported to have led 2–3,000 imperial cavalry), whereas the rearguard was led by Count Raymond of Toulouse, Bishop Adémar of Le Puy, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, Count Hugh of Vermandois and Count Robert of Flanders. After three days of marching, during which the army was shadowed by Selçuk scouts, the vanguard was attacked by a large force commanded by Sultan Kiliç Arslan himself on 1 July near Dorylaion (Eskişehir, 100km south-east of Nicaea). By this stage in his late thirties, Bohemond once again demonstrated his tactical ability. Much like the Byzantine attempt to entice a reckless charge at Larissa (1083), Bohemond did not take the bait, again calling for his cavalry to dismount and form a shield wall. This was a very important decision, for the bulwark of dismounted cavalrymen not only defended the women and other non-combatants, but also allowed the infantry to establish a camp, which Raoul of Caen noted they were able to defend with a screen of stakes. Bohemond also had word sent to the rearguard, requesting immediate assistance. The Turkic horsemen meanwhile assailed the shield wall and camp with a dangerous barrage of javelins and arrows and, had it not been for the general marshiness of the area flanking the crusader position, they would surely have surrounded it and inflicted a crushing defeat. While most of the Selçuk troops seem to have been light cavalry, the Anonymous also mentioned ‘Agulani’ – a corruption of ghilmān – on whom he elsewhere observed: ‘neither lances, arrows nor any other arms do they fear, since they and their horses are completely covered in iron’. Called ‘javelineers’ by Raoul of Caen, although another source observed that they also wielded ‘lances’, the heavy cavalrymen rode around the shield wall, inflicting substantial casualties on those in the camp with their spears and swords.¹¹

As Selçuk mounted archers harried their foe relentlessly, then retreated when charged only to wheel about and resume their devastating attacks, Alexios had earlier advised the crusader commanders to hold their ground and avoid reckless assaults. Bohemond’s men, then, were now subjected to a vital test: could they restrain themselves and maintain formation? While the sources conflict on this particular aspect of the battle, it seems that generally the beleaguered crusaders passed this most important of tests, although Komnene plausibly asserted that a certain ‘Latinos’ dashed out with forty men who were quickly slaughtered. Luckily the rearguard soon arrived, swiftly forming to the rear of the enemy cavalry. This welcome respite allowed the cavalrymen in the besieged camp to remount their horses and, according to Komnene, Bohemond’s charge in conjunction with those simultaneously launched by the rearguard caused the formidable enemy to flee. While he normally drew attention to the heroics of Tancred at the expense of all others, most especially Bohemond, Raoul regardless noted the important contributions of not only Robert of Normandy and Godfrey of Bouillon, but also Hugh of Vermandois, Robert of Flanders, and Raymond of Toulouse (whose chaplain praised the valour of Pope Urban II’s legate, Adémar). While the various crusader contingents were often at loggerheads, when they were able to put their differences aside in the face of great adversity, they were clearly a highly effective field force.¹²

After the crusaders subsequently defeated a smaller Selçuk force near Herakleia (Ereğli, 397km south-east of Dorylaion), Tancred broke off from his uncle’s army with a detachment, thereafter marching south-east through the Cilician Gates (Gülek Boğazı) into Armenian territory. As both Raoul of Caen and Komnene noted, the route through Cilicia to Antioch was the quickest, and the rest of the army’s decision to advance on Antioch via Kappadokia (central Anatolia), underscores the fact that the crusade’s commanders, ably advised by Tatikios, knew that campaigning in Syria would be pointless if their lines of supply and communications could be severed from the rear. Raoul of Caen claimed that Tancred took with him only 100 cavalry and 200 archers, which he later clarified as ‘a band of Turcopoli bearing bows’. Since the Franks were yet to recruit local cavalry units bearing the same name, all chroniclers had used it up to this point to denote imperial light horsemen. Tancred was evidently assisted by a detachment of Tatikios’ men, whom Komnene earlier identified as mounted archers. Following at a distance from Tancred’s contingent were 500 cavalry and 2,000 infantry led by Godfrey of Bouillon’s brother Count Baldwin of Boulogne. Arriving in the vicinity of Tarsus (100km south-east of Herakleia) in September, Tancred ‘admired the peaks of the towers, the expanse of the walls, the splendour of the buildings, and hurried to test the strength of the inhabitants’. Unsurprisingly Raoul’s account of the ensuing clash is the most detailed, but unfortunately sections of it are lost. Yet what can be gleaned is that Tancred, using much the same tactic as the one employed by Count Roger at Enna (1063), utilized a cavalry detachment to draw out the city’s garrison which, like its predecessor at Enna, was enticed to launch a sally given the small size of the enemy contingent. The mounted archers then seemed to have feigned flight, drawing the garrison into a prearranged area where Tancred’s heavy cavalrymen were concealed, who promptly burst out and routed the pursuers.¹³

At around the same time Baldwin arrived with his more numerous force, proceeding to ask Tancred if he would share the city and its spoils. The latter was furious at the count’s presumption but, deeming it unwise to engage Baldwin’s greater numbers, he abandoned Tarsus for Adana (40km north-east). Having arrived before the city’s walls, Tancred learned that Adana’s Armenian governor Oshin had managed to expel the Selçuk garrison, in addition to imprisoning its commander. After receiving the voluntary submission of Adana’s leading citizens, Tancred advanced on Mamistra (20km east), which Oshin advised, correctly as it turned out, would surrender quickly. Baldwin, who had in the interim captured and garrisoned Tarsus, rejoined Tancred’s army at Mamistra, where tempers once again flared, only this time violence ensued. The two leaders promptly drew up their battle lines and engaged. Tancred bolstered the assault capabilities of his outnumbered troops by means of anti-personnel catapults mounted on the battlements. Since either side was hesitant to engage, a series of one-on-one engagements were fought, during which Richard of the Principate, Bohemond’s cousin, was said to have particularly distinguished himself. Losses seem to have been minimal on both sides, and after a period of indecisive skirmishing and jousting, Baldwin and Tancred managed to put their differences aside and make peace.¹⁴

The main crusader army had meanwhile marched through the mountainous region of southern Kappadokia, and from there advanced south-east towards Antioch. While Baldwin ventured in the direction of Tell Bāshir (Tilbeşar, 177km south-east of Mamistra), Tancred headed for Antioch, traversing a south-western pass of the Amanos mountains (Nur Dağları) leading to the plain of north-western Syria. Although the main army had been successful in its aim of securing alliances with the Armenians and returning former imperial towns to Byzantine rule, its trek through the Anti-Tauros mountains of southern Kappadokia had been particularly trying: horses and pack animals had fallen off the precipices, and some disheartened cavalrymen had either sold or abandoned their arms and armour. While the troops must have breathed a great sigh of relief on entering the valley of Antioch, their trials and tribulations up to this point proved to be but a foretaste of what was to come. They were now faced with undertaking a protracted siege of what the Byzantines fittingly called ‘Antioch the Great’, a city so large it had once rivalled Constantinople in prestige, wealth and population size and, until 1084, had remained the empire’s second-largest city (lost to the Arabs in 637, recaptured in 969). As Baldwin’s chaplain Fulcher of Chartres related:

Antioch is truly a huge city on a strong site circled by a mighty wall, which indeed could never be captured by external enemies as long as its inhabitants were strengthened with bread and wished to resist.¹⁵

Situated on the east bank of the River Orontes (Asi), Antioch’s eastern flank was protected by two mountains – Stavrin (north) and Silpios (south) – crowned by fortifications, and the western approach was guarded by the aforementioned river, followed by walls up to twenty metres in height and two in width. While the crusaders could feel confident that their rear was secure, they were relatively more exposed to their east, south and west. However, the immediate threat to all of these flanks was diminished somewhat given that Count Robert of Flanders received the surrender of Arta (Reyhanlı, 38km north-east of Antioch), Count Raymond of Toulouse’s men had secured a foothold in the Ruj valley (40km south-east of Antioch) and the Byzantines controlled the sea around Cyprus.¹⁶

The siege began on 21 October 1097, and since the circumference of the city was much too large for the crusaders to surround completely, it was decided that the north-western entrances should be besieged – from north to south, the St Paul, Dog and Duke gates. Potentially further disadvantaging the crusaders was the lack of experts required to prepare siege engines, suggesting that the imperial engineers had remained with Alexios after the capitulation of Nicaea, and that many of their Provençal counterparts (mainly sappers) who may well have principally relied on the ‘city-takers of every kind’ supplied by Alexios, had died en route to Antioch (one source asserted that Raymond used siege weaponry, but on this all others were silent). Having crossed the Orontes by means of the misnamed ‘Iron Bridge’ (it was made of stone), Bohemond and Tancred, in conjunction with the other northern French contingents, focused on the gate of St Paul, Raymond of Toulouse’s Provençals assailed the Dog, Godfrey of Bouillon targeted the Duke, and Tatikios and the Byzantines, evidently acting as a scouting and support force, encamped to the rear of the others. Yağı-Sayan, governor of Antioch, meanwhile requested reinforcements from, among others, Dukak of Damascus (300km south). His choice of ally provides an interesting insight into the complicated rivalries and internecine warfare among the Muslim princes of Syria, for on the eve of the crusaders’ advance into the region’s north, Yağı-Sayan, in concert with the forces of Dukak’s fraternal nemesis Rıdvan of Aleppo (who had raided Antiochene territory in the previous year, 1096), was poised to invade Damascene territory. He did not, however, wait for aid: Bohemond’s contingent was assailed by missiles hurled and shot from Mount Stavrin, and Raymond and Godfrey’s camps were subjected to assaults by mounted archers sallying from both the city and from the fortress of Haram (30km north-east). While the crusaders were generally able to keep these attacks in check – for example by establishing a network of three forts – by December supplies had become a problem and the rank-and-file soldiers began to starve. What little remained of their morale was quite literally washed away by the incessant torrential rain and attendant flooding common to the region in winter. Accordingly a foraging expedition under the command of Bohemond, Stephen of Blois and Robert of Flanders was launched deep into central Syria on 28 December. Despite the initial success of the campaign, the foraging forces were intercepted by Dukak’s army three days later, and while the cavalry were eventually able to drive off the attackers, the baggage train was captured and most of the infantrymen who defended it were killed. Disaster struck again soon afterwards, as a sally by Antioch’s garrison managed to lure Count Raymond’s cavalry and infantry into a trap. Despite the claim of Raymond’s chaplain to the contrary, the death of fifteen cavalry and twenty infantry, in addition to the capture of two Provençal standards, greatly impacted on the overall morale of the embattled crusaders.¹⁷

Dukak’s seizure of the crusaders’ gathered resources was a serious blow indeed and, despite the best efforts of Alexios, who sourced supplies from various islands (Cyprus, Rhodes, Chios, Samos, Lesvos and Crete), in addition to those procured from a Genoese fleet, hunger remained a significant problem. In order to capitalize on the situation, local Armenians and Syrians procured foodstuffs, selling them to the crusaders at greatly inflated prices. Naturally expensive goods were beyond the means of many, and by mid-to-late January 1098 some rank-and-file soldiers had deserted, variously seeking refuge in Cyprus, Cilicia and Anatolia. Morale was clearly at an all-time low, and the only thing other than food supplies that could restore it was a military triumph. The opportunity to gain it soon presented itself in early February, when Rıdvan of Aleppo (Dukak’s estranged brother) advanced on Antioch with a sizable army. Once again the skill and experience of Bohemond provided the crusaders with the edge they so desperately needed. Arranging the army into six squadrons on 9 February, with himself commanding one kept in reserve, Guiscard’s son devised a risky battle plan: deployed near the great lake to the city’s north-east, the five squadrons were to entice Rıdvan’s forces to advance en masse towards them. Then, while the massed enemy was suitably occupied by the bulk of the crusaders, Bohemond’s crack cavalrymen were to burst forth from their concealed position – probably in the vicinity of the foothills of Mount Stavrin – into the unsuspecting Selçuk rear. While the gamble paid off, the result could well have gone the other way: the afflicted squadrons were beginning to rout when Bohemond, ‘like a lion that has endured famine for three or four days’, pounced with what must have been the tactic most suited to engaging enemy horsemen: a couched-lance charge (Fig. 5). The spirits of his embattled comrades were greatly raised; they turned and reengaged the enemy. Rıdvan’s men fled the field, and while some of them were able to escape to the fortress at Haram, others were ambushed by local Syrians, Byzantines, and Armenians.¹⁸

Emperor Alexios had wisely advised the crusaders to seek peace with the Fatimids of Egypt, whose observance of the Shia form of Islam made them natural enemies of the Sunni Selçuk dynasty. Fortuitously ambassadors arrived from Cairo on the same day as the battle, with whom a non-aggression pact was secured. Since the Fatimid navy controlled the sea south of the port of Latakia (85km south-west of Antioch) – recently captured by the Byzantines and garrisoned with a contingent of Varangian guardsmen primarily of Anglo-Saxon extraction – such an alliance was of vital importance. On 4 March a fleet bearing supplies and builders arrived at the port of St Symeon (Samandağ, 21km south-west). Often considered to be an ‘English’ fleet by modern historians, it remains possible that the flotilla consisted of yet another Anglo-Saxon detachment of Varangian guardsmen sent to garrison the port by Alexios. Bohemond and Count Raymond now advanced on St Symeon, with the intention of procuring the supplies and escorting the builders back to the city. During their return march to Antioch, Yağı-Sayan launched an attack on the crusaders who were in the early stages of repurposing a mosque as a fortress near to the Bridge gate (south-west). Having driven them off, the Antiochene governor ordered another assault on the following day (7 March), only this time the attack was directed against Bohemond and Raymond’s forces, who had arrived in the vicinity of the building site. As an eyewitness observed, the Antiochene garrison ‘surrounded our men from every side, threw javelins, cast arrows, and cruelly wounded and maimed … On that day more than a thousand … were martyred’. Those lucky enough to flee the scene would likely have met the same fate had it not been for the response: the fierce charge of Bohemond’s contingent, in addition to another led by Godfrey of Bouillon, drove the enemy cavalry across the bridge, inflicting 1,500 casualties in the process. Afterwards, the safely escorted builders were taken to the construction site, where a makeshift stone fortress protected by trenches and a curtain wall was erected within three days. Undoubtedly the lack of stone in the vicinity had more to do with the decision to use Muslim gravestones as a makeshift quarry, but there was nonetheless a psychological aspect to this rather macabre expedient (both sides had heretofore executed prisoners in full view of the enemy). While the close proximity of the newly erected fortress – dubbed la Mahomerie (Fr. ‘the Mosque’) – had the potential to prevent Yağı-Sayan from deploying troops and receiving supplies through the Bridge gate, there was yet another one to the south-west of Mount Silpios that needed to be dealt with. In return for payment, Tancred volunteered to take care of the problem in April, thereafter using a nearby monastery as a base for skirmishing and raiding in the vicinity of the gate of St George.¹⁹

In the same month, an armourer in charge of the towers defending the gate of St George – wrongly believed by all Latin chroniclers bar Raoul of Caen to be of Turkic extraction – began to treat with Bohemond. As an Armenian Firouz knew Greek, and both the Anonymous and Komnene made it clear that Marc conversed with the armourer in the Byzantine language. Negotiations continued for the next two months, during which time Bohemond managed, unsuccessfully at first, to convince all leaders except Raymond to recognize his authority over the city once it had been betrayed to him (but it was agreed that control would be given to Alexios or his representative if the promise of military succour was fulfilled). Rather than seeking to honour their commander in all but name, the change of heart was born out of necessity: a large army led by Gürboğa of Mosul, featuring troops from modern-day Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Israel, was confirmed to be on its way in late May, and hence capture of the city was necessary for survival. Perhaps numbering up to 25–30,000 men at this stage, the crusaders could ill afford a two-pronged assault by a large army on one front and a resilient garrison on the other. Following the war council of 29 May, Stephen of Blois, appointed earlier as commander-in-chief of the combined forces (although Bohemond clearly performed in this role on the field), declared that on account of illness he was abandoning the siege. As observed above, in the following month he encountered Alexios’ relief force in central Anatolia which, based on the count’s appraisal of the dire situation at the time of his departure, chose to turn back. Equally critical to imperial fortunes in Syria was the recent departure of Tatikios who, leaving his possessions behind as a gesture of good faith, had promised to return with supplies and reinforcements. Writing with vitriolic hindsight, the Latin accounts of the crusade maintained that Tatikios was nothing more than a cowardly, slippery traitor. Yet as the crusader high command in late May still expected Alexios to take control of the city, clearly its members believed that Tatikios’ promise was not disingenuous.²⁰

In the early hours of Thursday, 3 June 1098, around 700 soldiers, including a considerable number from southern Italy, gathered before the gate of St George. Firouz lowered a rope from the battlements, to which the crusaders attached a ladder. Encouraged by Bohemond, sixty men scaled the walls but, owing to their eagerness to get to the top, the ladder buckled under the weight and toppled. Firouz again lowered the rope, and this time the men were able to get access to the battlements, thereafter stealthily dispatching the guards of three towers. After the climbers had opened a nearby postern gate, the crusaders poured into the city, killing all they encountered. While Bohemond arranged for the erection of his standard on the south-eastern battlements, the Antiochene Christians rushed to open the other gates of the city. The many toils and suffering of the arduous siege now found a bloody outlet: Turks, Arabs, Byzantines, Syrians and Armenians were killed without discrimination. Although most of the Antiochene defenders were killed, a detachment led by Yağı-Sayan’s son managed to find quarter in the city’s impregnable citadel perched close to the summit of Mount Silpios, thus thwarting the efforts of those assigned to capture it: Godfrey of Bouillon and Robert of Flanders. The governor, however, showed less fortitude than his son. Fleeing with his bodyguard, he was thrown from his horse, meeting his end outside Antioch’s walls. While the Hauteville troops focused on the city’s suburbs in the vicinity of the St George gate, the Provençals burst through the nearby Bridge gate (east of la Mahomerie), and Count Raymond immediately claimed rights over this portion of Antioch (which included the governor’s palatial residence). Unsurprisingly, therefore, the two leaders now became bitter enemies.²¹

The joy of the crusaders at finally capturing the city after eight months was replaced the next day by dread: the advance party of Gürboğa of Mosul’s army arrived, which decisively dealt with a foolhardy sally launched by one of Bohemond’s men, Roger of Barneville, who led fifteen cavalrymen to their deaths. Owing to a serious shortage of horses, in addition to the inability to feed the remaining ones with adequate fodder, the crusaders were therefore in no position to fight a pitched battle, wisely choosing to man the battlements instead. Food supplies were also scarce, and this dire situation could only continue to deteriorate if Gürboğa was able to prevent them reaching the city from St Symeon. Another formidable problem besetting the defenders was the fact that the citadel remained in enemy hands: its commanding position could be used to rain missiles on the defenders and, as Bohemond himself later noted in a letter to Pope Urban II, the citadel’s gate offered close access to the city’s south-eastern walls. Less serious, but nonetheless detrimental to the morale of the defenders, was the ethnic tension between the various contingents. Animosity between the Provençals and Normans from southern Italy should not be surprising given the rivalry between their leaders, but variances in language, customs and food led Raoul of Caen to observe that the southerners were as different to the northern French ‘as the hen is to a duck’. There was also considerable animosity between the northern French and German-speakers from Lorraine: German chronicler Otto of Freising recorded that the ‘Romance [-speaking] French and Teutons’ were ‘in the habit of brawling frequently over certain odious and bitter jokes’, adding that Godfrey of Bouillon, a speaker of both languages, proved to be a vital mediator between the two ethnic groups. Raoul went into greater detail than Otto, relating that when the ‘Alemanni’ were quite literally caught napping by an enemy sally from the citadel, the northern French chanted ‘Germans are shit’.²²

The great fear that the city would be cut off from the port of St Symeon was soon realized when Gürboğa, having arrived with his main army, sent a force of 2,000 men to capture la Mahomerie. With 500 troops, Robert of Flanders valiantly resisted the besiegers for three days, but before dawn on the fourth day he chose to set fire to the fortress and seek refuge in the city. Further creating difficulties for the defenders was the fact that a detachment of Gürboğa’s army had been able to access the keep on Mount Silpios. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Bohemond established a camp facing the citadel. Meanwhile, Godfrey’s men were tasked with defence of the northernmost entrance to the city (St Paul), while Raymond’s Provençals manned the walls around the Bridge gate. A week after the capture of the city (Thursday, 10 June), Gürboğa launched a two-pronged offensive from the citadel, targeting both Bohemond’s camp and the city’s nearby postern gate. The battle raged without pause for two days and, although the defenders were eventually able to withstand the assault, morale was deeply impacted, resulting in desertions from the ranks of both infantry and cavalry. Also, a detachment of Gürboğa’s men advanced on St Symeon, seizing the cargoes on the various ships and burning them. The crusaders were now well and truly cut off: starvation again reared its ugly head, and many desperately resorted to eating the flesh of horses, donkeys, camels, and oxen.²³

On 14 June a ‘miraculous’ discovery was made in the Basilica of St Peter: a shard of the lance believed to have pierced Christ’s side on the cross. Since he had presumably seen the ‘real’ Holy Lance at Constantinople in the previous year, Bishop Adémar dismissed the authenticity of the relic. While both contemporary and modern observers (e.g. Jonathan Riley-Smith) have linked the consequent decision to engage Gürboğa’s army in pitched battle with the great morale boost gained by the discovery, Asbridge shrewdly stresses that ‘the unearthing of the relic was not the key turning point in the second siege of Antioch, much less a watershed in the fortunes of the entire crusade’. For example, he notes that while the relic was discovered on 14 June, the battle was not fought until fourteen days later. Clearly, then, the impact on morale was minimal at best, and as the relic’s authenticity was championed by Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond and the southern Italian contingent naturally took the opposite view. Rather than rushing out to do battle with a relic which they believed would grant them victory, the crusaders instead chose to prevaricate, probably owing to ongoing debates about what strategy should be used, in addition to the hope that Alexios’ arrival was imminent. There was also the decision to seek a diplomatic solution, and on 24 June emissaries were sent to negotiate with Gürboğa. While the Latin accounts had the ambassadors defiantly telling Gürboğa to abandon the siege, an Armenian source more believably emphasized that instead amnesty was requested in return for the surrender of the city. Ibn al-Aṯīr would later tell much the same story, adding that Gürboğa refused, stating ‘You will have to fight your way out’. At any rate, the diplomatic endeavour failed, thus leaving the starving crusaders with little choice but to confront the Muslims in pitched battle, a decision that must have seemed suicidal given their parlous state and the greater numbers of troops available to the enemy.²⁴

On 28 June 1098, Bohemond, now officially granted the command he had heretofore held in all but name, led the crusader army of about 20,000 men out of the city. Since there were very few horses available – Raoul of Caen stressed no more than 600 – Bohemond was effectively in command of a large body of infantry. Gürboğa’s army was a little different to the ones faced before, for in addition to the usual horse archers, javelineers and a relatively small contingent of heavy cavalry – said by the Anonymous to have totalled 3,000 – there was a substantial number of infantry. Much like the Latin sources for Count Roger’s battles in Sicily, the size of the Muslim host at Antioch was greatly exaggerated (e.g. 300,000). An accurate figure is unobtainable, but perhaps the crusaders faced an army of around 30,000 men. While Gürboğa’s camp was situated a few kilometres north of the city, the presence of enemy troops in the vicinity of la Mahomerie meant that the crusader march would not be unopposed. Leaving the city via the Bridge gate, attempts to hinder the army’s exit were driven off by a contingent of archers commanded by the younger brother of the king of France, Hugh of Vermandois. Having made it to the plain on the west bank of the River Orontes, the crusaders formed six columns, the first consisting of cavalry, the rest of infantry. According to the Anonymous, a participant in the battle, Hugh and Robert of Flanders commanded the vanguard; Godfrey of Bouillon, the second line; Robert of Normandy, the third, Bishop Adémar, the fourth; Tancred, the fifth, and Bohemond, the rearguard. Count Raymond, who was ill at the time, was left in charge of a small garrison posted near to the citadel. Gürboğa’s strategy up to this point is puzzling, for as a Provençal eyewitness observed, the crusaders’ exit from the city could have been prevented by the main army without difficulty. Accordingly a story developed that when Hugh’s archers were driving off the troops near la Mahomerie, Gürboğa was nonchalantly playing chess in his tent. All that really can be said is that the Muslim commander was supremely confident in his greater numbers; he seems to have wanted to annihilate the enemy fair and square in a glorious pitched battle. At least, that is what a later Muslim source implied. When petitioned by his generals to attack the crusaders before they could deploy, Gürboğa was made to say: ‘No, wait until they have all come out and then we will kill them’.²⁵

Given the Selçuk penchant for deadly ranged combat, the enemy needed to be engaged at close quarters as quickly as possible. Accordingly, the columns advanced on Gürboğa’s position to the north. Greatly assisting the advance was the fact that the western flank was protected by hills, the eastern by the river. The rear, however, was exposed. Unsurprisingly, this was the first section of the advancing army to be assaulted, presumably by the troops earlier driven from the vicinity of la Mahomerie, in addition to others investing the gate of St George to the south, and perhaps also from the citadel to the northeast of the gate. As Raoul of Caen observed, the attackers ‘threw javelins’ but, having wheeled around to face the assault, the southernmost ranks of the rearguard were able to drive them off. Meanwhile, the vanguard was subjected to a barrage of arrows and javelins, and while casualties seem to have been quite high, the crusaders continued to advance in formation. A Byzantine military saint, it will be recalled, was believed by Geoffrey Malaterra to have assisted Count Roger against a horde of unbelievers at Cerami in 1063. Another chronicler from southern Italy similarly noted the appearance of George at Antioch, only this time he attested to the presence of two other imperial military saints: Merkourios and Demetrios. Defensively, the Anonymous added: ‘These words are to be trusted, because many of our men witnessed it’. In stark contrast to the feeling in Bohemond’s camp, the Provençals felt that divine inspiration and protection was instead provided by the ‘Holy Lance’, wielded by the count of Toulouse’s chaplain, Raymond d’Aguilers. Not only do both interpretations attest to the great importance of saints and relics to the medieval mindset, but they also convey the feeling that what happened could only have been a miracle. The vanguard of cavalrymen led by Hugh, Godfrey and Robert of Flanders drove the enemy horsemen back, greatly impeding the advance of Gürboğa’s advancing forces. This devastating counterattack caused considerable confusion among the Muslim troops, which the Christian infantry columns now took advantage of. Rushing forth from behind the cavalry, they met their adversaries in mêlée combat, pushing them back with lethal force. Gürboğa, witnessing the rout of the central portion of his forces, chose to retreat. As Ibn al-Aṯīr related:

The only Muslims to stand firm were a detachment of warriors from the Holy Land [Jerusalem], who fought to acquire merit in God’s eyes and to seek martyrdom. The Franks killed them by the thousand and stripped their camp of food and possessions, equipment, horses and arms, with which they re-equipped themselves.

While Gürboğa possessed a skilled and probably larger army, he was nonetheless defeated by a desperate force led by a more talented general. Had he been the equal of Bohemond in military strategy, it is likely that the invaders’ astounding victory would instead have been a catastrophic defeat.²⁶

The prince and his regent

Having triumphed in one battle, Bohemond engaged in another of a different kind: at the end of the pitched engagement, Count Raymond had received the surrender of the citadel’s garrison, but its commander returned the banner given to him upon discovering that it did not bear Marc’s insignia. By happily submitting his banner to the commander, Guiscard’s son greatly exacerbated the existing tension between himself and the count of Toulouse. A fierce debate raged in the council convened on 1 November to mediate between the two, during which Raymond reminded the crusaders of their oaths to the emperor. While the latter had been overtly hostile to Alexios at Constantinople, he now began to champion the imperial cause. By favouring the Byzantine perspective, Raymond was deliberately attempting to undermine Bohemond’s growing power base, rather than, as the Anonymous claimed, ‘because he feared to swear falsely towards the emperor’. Taking this line of argument suggests that the crusaders were still unaware that Alexios’s army had turned back weeks before. Yet, while Bohemond conceded the oaths taken were clear on this matter, he nonetheless argued that since the emperor had failed to provide the promised succour, all oaths were null and void. Despite being more sympathetic to Bohemond’s cause, the leaders decided to send an embassy to Constantinople led by Hugh of Vermandois, who bore the message that the city would be handed over if the emperor fulfilled his obligations. While an uneasy peace between the rivals was secured in November, it would be irrevocably broken in January 1099 when Bohemond expelled the Provençal garrison while Raymond was absent at Ma‘arrat al-Numan (77km southeast of Antioch). When the Toulousain count chose to march on Jerusalem – wrested from the hands of Selçuk allies (Ortoqids) by the Fatimids in July 1098 – with the rest of the crusader army, Bohemond became the undisputed lord of Antioch.²⁷

The self-proclaimed prince of Antioch refused to hand over the city to emissaries from Constantinople, thus inaugurating a lengthy period of warfare between the empire and the nascent principality. While Tancred had earlier established a degree of control in Cilicia, authority over its principal towns and cities appears to have been, at best, nominal by 1099. The region had long belonged to the empire, and having re-established authority over coastal Anatolia, Alexios was now in a strong position to reincorporate Cilicia into the empire via diplomacy, martial means, or a combination of both methods. Should Cilicia’s reincorporation prove successful, not only could Antioch be threatened from the north, but also from the west given Count Raymond had handed over the important port of Latakia to Alexios. Bohemond was surely worried not only by the events at Latakia, but also by the recapture of Germanikeia (Kahramanmaraş, 155km north-east of Adana) and its neighbouring towns in northern Cilicia by Alexios’ general Manuel Voutoumites, yet he nonetheless seems to have been more concerned with probing the Muslim frontiers to his south and east. In June 1100 he led an expedition to Apamea (89km southeast of Antioch), laying siege to the fortress and destroying all crops within its vicinity. For reasons unclear Bohemond abandoned the siege, probably owing to the arrival of a relief force led by Rıdvan of Aleppo, which was defeated in the same month near Kella (location unknown). At around the same time the Armenian ruler of Melitene (Malatya, 305km north-east of Antioch) appealed to Bohemond for assistance against the incursions of Gümüştekin Gazi (r. 1097–1104), founder of the Turkic Danishmend dynasty of north-eastern Anatolia. The Antiochene prince assented to the Armenian request, advancing into Anatolia with a force – according to an Arab source – of 5,000 men. The Danishmend besiegers abandoned the investment of Melitene upon learning of Bohemond’s arrival in the vicinity and, despite the shrewd recommendation that he enter the city and rest, he regardless chose to engage the enemy in August. Heavy fighting ensued, but the army, probably comprising troops from southern Italy and local Armenian allies, was bested; its commander was captured and taken to Sevasteia (Sivas, 191km north-west of Melitene). With Bohemond in captivity and Tancred in Palestine, the embryonic principality was now leaderless and vulnerable.²⁸

Luckily for the fledgling principality, the regency of the youthful Tancred – by now in his mid-twenties – was as energetic as it was daring. In addition to his earlier martial exploits in Cilicia, Tancred’s prestige after the capture of Jerusalem (15 July 1099) had been greatly enhanced by the establishment of a sizable lordship in Palestine (Haifa, Tiberias and Baisan) known as the principality of Galilee, although he relinquished his princely title and lands to King Baldwin I (r. 1100–18) when assuming the regency of Antioch. As the Byzantines had by now managed to extend a degree of control deeper into Cilicia, Tancred marched into the region, receiving the surrender of Mamistra, Adana and Tarsus in quick succession. He then advanced on the port of Latakia, which Raoul of Caen noted was populous, garrisoned, highly fortified and well provisioned with water by means of aqueducts. The siege lasted eighteen months, during which Count Raymond, in an attempt to relieve the Byzantine garrison by sea, was captured. For much of the investment, the Byzantines had successfully launched sallies and set ambushes, the latter method targeting those foraging in the vicinity of Latakia’s walls. To counteract these debilitating tactics, towards the end of the siege Tancred posted some cavalry in a concealed position, ordering others to act as bait. The ruse worked, for when the Byzantine troops attacked those pretending to be foraging in a disorderly fashion, the reserve charged out and routed them, inflicting substantial casualties in the process. Komnene noted that supplies from Cyprus had been delayed, and with the loss of many of the port’s defenders in addition to famine caused by lack of food, Latakia’s governor was forced to surrender to Tancred in 1102.²⁹

Tancred’s first two years as regent were successful indeed, but his time at the top came to an end when Bohemond was released by Gümüştekin Gazi for a large ransom in May 1103. With the Byzantine threat diminished for the time being, the Antiochene prince once again strove to probe the Aleppan frontier. Raids to the east of Antioch prompted Rıdvan to seek a truce, which Bohemond agreed to in return for payment of 7,000 dinars and ten horses. In 1104 the Antiochene prince became increasingly ambitious, securing tribute from Elbistan (241km north-east of Antioch), a town well beyond the principality’s north-eastern frontier, which at this stage ended at Sarvandikar, Cilicia (Osmaniye, 151km south-west of Elbistan). Despite these gains, the principality was now to face its greatest challenge. As Ibn al-Qalānisī related:

Sukman [Sökmen] b. Ortuq [of Mardin] and Jikirmish, lord of Mosul … joined forces and made a solemn agreement with one another to prosecute the Holy Way against the Franks … God gave victory to the Muslims over the enemy, and they put them to flight … This was a great and unexampled victory for the Muslims; it discouraged the Franks, diminished their numbers and broke their power of offence, while the hearts of the Muslims were strengthened ….

The battle, fought on 7 May 1104 near Harran – also known as Carrhae, the same location where the formidable Parthians annihilated the Romans in 53 BC – was nothing short of a disaster. The sizable force, consisting of troops from Edessa, a county established in 1098 by Tancred’s former rival Count Baldwin I (now king of Jerusalem) and the Antiochene army, appears to have been largely decimated: Baldwin II of Edessa (r. 1100–18) and his chief vassal Joscelin were captured – the former would endure four years of captivity – and Bohemond and Tancred only managed to escape with a diminutive force of cavalry (only six according to an Arab source).³⁰

Unsurprisingly, all of Bohemond’s enemies took advantage of his catastrophic defeat: while a force of Byzantine cavalry commanded by Monastras took control of the major cities and towns in Cilicia, another force led by Kantakouzenos retook Latakia as well as some smaller ports in the region (although some of Latakia’s garrison continued to hold out for a time in the citadel). The seizure of the port was a testament to the formidable ingenuity of, and resources and manpower available to, Byzantine siege engineers: in just three days access from the city to the sea was prevented by the construction of a stone wall protected by a concrete-enforced keep, and enemy ships could neither enter nor exit the harbour on account of two towers speedily erected at its mouth, to which the enterprising general had a great iron chain affixed. To the east and south of Antioch, garrisons were expelled and the leading citizens reaffirmed their allegiance to Rıdvan of Aleppo (now in a more commanding position since the recent death of his brother and rival, Dukak of Damascus). Hemmed in by the Byzantines to the north and west, and by the Muslims to the east and south, in December 1104 Bohemond, now in his mid-forties, set sail for Europe, where he hoped to procure reinforcements. Tancred was once again made regent, and he was soon confronted with a monumental challenge: the Armenians of nearby Arta expelled their garrison and recognized Aleppan overlordship, and the fortress’s close proximity to Antioch meant that it had to be recaptured with all haste, especially since a large force led by Rıdvan himself was raiding in the vicinity. Accordingly, Tancred ordered all Christian men of suitable age within the principality and from the county of Edessa – under his command while Baldwin II was in captivity – to take up arms, managing to gather 1,000 cavalry and 9,000 infantry. The Latin accounts of the ensuing battle on 20 April 1105 are brief and generic, but al-Qalānisī of Damascus asserted that while the Aleppan infantry held their ground, the Antiochene and Edessan cavalry managed to rout the enemy cavalry (presumably posted on the flanks of the infantry). Without the cavalry to protect their flanks and rear, the Aleppan infantrymen were overcome, and total casualties among the Muslim mounted and unmounted troops were said to have totalled 3,000. Witnessing the defeat from Arta’s walls, the Muslim garrison immediately abandoned the fortress. Pressing home his advantage, Tancred boldly advanced on Aleppo, plundering its districts and capturing some of its inhabitants.³¹

Not one to rest on his laurels, Tancred succeeded where Bohemond had failed, seizing Apamea in August 1106, in addition to placing two sons of the local prince in charge. Asbridge believes that these men were unlikely to have been made vassals ‘as they were Muslims’ but, as noted in Chapter 3, this Hauteville practice is attested decades earlier in Sicily. Whatever the case, Apamea and its garrison would henceforth serve as the critically important bulwark of the principality’s southern frontier. The next target in the following year was Latakia, which Tancred’s biographer noted had recently been reinforced with a sizable contingent of imperial troops. Although the landward side of the port was circumvallated, the Byzantines controlled the roads, thus preventing the reprovisioning of much-needed supplies from Antioch. Unfortunately the sources are sketchy on what happened next – Raoul’s relatively detailed biography of Tancred ends abruptly at this point – but it seems that the port was eventually taken, perhaps due in part to the fact that the experienced commander Kantakouzenos was recalled to assist Alexios against Bohemond’s second invasion of the empire. Monastras, then in command of Cilicia from his base at Tarsus, was also recalled by Alexios, therefore providing Tancred with the perfect opportunity to launch another northern campaign. This time he was much better prepared, for the Antiochene army advanced on Mamistra in concert with a fleet that sailed up the River Pyramos. Besieged by both land and river, Oshin, the Armenian commander who replaced Monastras, was unable to break the blockade and chose to surrender. It unfortunately cannot be ascertained whether Tancred was able to make any further gains in Cilicia during 1107, but the following can be gleaned from the patchy sources in regard to the years until the regent’s death (1112): while Mamistra returned to Byzantine rule in 1108, within the next two years Tancred, in the words of al-Qalānisī, ‘captured Tarsus and the adjacent territories’. These ‘adjacent territories’ included Tarsus and Mamistra, which Tancred placed under the control of a lieutenant called Guy le Chevreuil.³²

Bohemond and Byzantium (1107–08)

By February 1106 Bohemond was in France, where he later managed to secure the hand of Constance, the daughter of King Philip I (r. 1060–1108). Travelling with Marc was the papal legate Bruno of Segni. Since Pope Paschal II had called for another expedition to the east, Bruno’s task was to canvass military support in France. He addressed a plenary council at Poitiers, a meeting at which Suger, the future Abbot of St Denis, was present. Historians, specifically Byzantinists, have often suggested that the crusade was intended by the papacy to attack the Byzantine empire, yet Suger’s eyewitness account specifies an expedition to the Holy Land, not to Constantinople. While Orderic Vitalis mentioned Bohemond’s policy of demonizing Alexios at every opportunity throughout France, and that Marc, like his father before him, had in his retinue a pretender to the imperial throne, it was made clear that the crusade ‘set out for Jerusalem’. As Christopher Tyerman observes, despite the fact that Bohemond clearly intended to use the crusade for his own aggrandizement, ‘his official line’ was focused on the Holy Land.³³

All sources agree that when Bohemond returned to Italy in 1107 he had amassed a large army and navy: a set of Apulian annals, for example, specified 34,000 troops and 230 ships. Bohemond’s armada, resembling ‘a transmarine city’ on the horizon as Komnene put it, reached Avlona in October, and by November the crusaders were laying siege to the city of Dyrrachion. If his daughter’s testimony can be believed, rather than expressing alarm at the news of Bohemond’s arrival in Illyria, Alexios instead ordered lunch! As entertaining as the anecdote is, it should not be taken too seriously; indeed, Anna herself later admitted that her father was actually somewhat perturbed at the news. Still, since he had dealt most effectively with Bohemond during the years 1083–85, the emperor may well have felt that the same tactics – bribery, subterfuge and guerrilla warfare – would negate this most imposing of threats. If correct, then Alexios was right to feel more secure this time. After all, it was through these very same methods that the crusaders were defeated: their lines of supply and communication were cut off; discord was sown throughout their ranks via the dissemination of forged letters indicating that various officers had passed into imperial service; they were defeated in pitched battle; and they were constantly harried by guerrilla-style assaults. Although he held out against these various tactics for almost a year, Bohemond knew that the campaign had failed; he was therefore compelled to sue for peace in September 1108.³⁴

As evidenced by the so-called ‘Treaty of Devol’ reproduced in Komnene’s history, Marc was now to be the liegeman of Alexios and his son and successor, John II. It therefore appeared to the Komnenos dynasty that Antioch and its environs were officially restored to imperial hands. But it was not to be, for Tancred steadfastly refused to acknowledge the treaty. He had actively been waging war against the empire during his relative’s absence, and since his uncle remained in Apulia until his death in 1111, Tancred would hardly have felt compelled to honour a treaty which he, the effective ruler of Antioch, had not signed. The conflict over Antioch, brewing since 1098, would continue to be of concern to Alexios’ son and grandson, John II and Manuel I (discussed below).³⁵

The last of the Hauteville line

In 1110, Tancred was forced to turn his attention to the eastern frontier, for Rıdvan of Aleppo began raiding it while the Antiochene regent was busy defending Edessa against an attack by Mawdūd of Mosul. While Rıdvan temporized, Tancred, ‘the valiant champion of Christ’ as an Armenian chronicler referred to him, had by early 1111 seized two fortified towns in the vicinity of Aleppo, al-Atārib and Zardana (respectively 30 and 40km southwest). With the principality’s eastern border now extended threateningly close to Aleppo, Rıdvan sought peace, agreeing to pay an annual tribute of 40,000 dinars. Gains were also made on the southern frontier: Tancred advanced on Shaizar (111km south-east of Antioch), the great fortress perched on a cliff face overlooking the River Orontes, and a Byzantine possession until the Arabic Banu-Munqidh clan gained it in December 1081. As an adherent of the Shia faith, the amīr of Shaizar was naturally opposed to the Sunni Selçuk dynasty (but not outwardly hostile towards it), and not only did he allow the crusaders to pass through his territory unimpeded in 1099, but had even provided guides and sold them horses. Byzantine emperors had long realized that the integrity of the southern Antiochene frontier required a neutral, neutralized or subdued Shaizar to the south: Nikephoros II sacked the fortress in 968, and Basil II captured it in 999. Tancred must have felt similarly, choosing in 1110 to lay waste to the hinterland of Shaizar until receiving payment of 10,000 dinars. The seemingly tireless regent, now in his mid-thirties, subsequently seized the commanding castle near Emesa (Homs, 61km north-west of Shaizar) called the ‘fortress of the Kurds’ (Hisn al-Akrad), but better known to posterity as the World Heritage listed site – crac des Chevaliers – granted to the Knights Hospitaller order by Count Raymond II of Tripoli in 1144 (and regrettably bombarded during, at the time of writing, the ongoing civil war in Syria).³⁶

Despite the truce secured with Abu‘l Asakir ibn-Munqidh of Shaizar, in September 1111 the amīr nonetheless allied himself with Mawdūd of Mosul, providing him with ‘five thousand well-armed infantrymen’. Tancred thus faced a serious challenge to the integrity of the southern Antiochene frontier, and accordingly raised an army and marched to the principality’s southernmost fortress, Apamea. The stronghold already possessed a garrison of 200 cavalry, and its strategic position in the region known as Jabal al-Summāq (Ruj valley to Kafartab, 20km north-east) helped to ensure a stalemate. Presumably threatening glances and insults were exchanged in addition to the rattling of sabres, but a pitched engagement did not ensue despite the fact that the two armies were said to have faced each other for sixteen days. The capture of Apamea in 1106 had now proven to be worth its weight in gold, helping to avert a potentially critical blow to Antiochene possessions in the south. This was but one of Tancred’s many legacies, and by the time of his death to an unknown illness in 1112 he had left the principality with borders extending from Marash (north) to Apamea (south), and from St Symeon (west) to al-Atārib (east). In his well-researched doctoral dissertation on Bohemond (1917), Ralph Yewdale asserted that Tancred ‘lacked the larger qualities of statecraft and generalship which his uncle possessed’. Assuredly Bohemond had, through a combination of determination, martial acumen, and customary cunning, laid the foundations of the principality, but it was his nephew’s resoluteness, ardour, and audacity that consolidated and extended it.³⁷

Tancred was succeeded by his nephew Roger of Salerno, son of Richard of the Principate (Bohemond’s cousin), who ruled as regent for Bohemond’s five-year-old son of the same name, then living with his mother Constance in Apulia. The beginning of his regency was marred by a series of earthquakes that devastated towns and cities in Cilicia and on the Aleppan frontier. His first test came in 1115, when the sultan of Baghdad’s commander Bursuq attacked the southern fortresses of Kafartab and Apamea in August. Once again a stalemate ensued, but Bursuq returned to besiege Kafartab in early September, this time with success. Pressing his advantage, the Muslim commander advanced into the Jabal al-Summāq, capturing the fortress at Ma‘arrat al-Numan (77km south-east of Antioch). Reacting with all haste to this most serious of situations, Roger assembled his forces in the Ruj valley on 12 September and, perhaps with the assistance of Muslim troops from Damascus, managed to defeat Bursuq two days later. In 1118–19, two prizes were gained beyond the eastern frontier, ‘Azāz and Būza‘a, and in the latter year Antiochene forces raided all the way to the city of Aleppo. Up to this point Roger was following in his predecessor’s footsteps, engaging in an aggressive campaign of eastern expansion, evidently with the aim of annexing Aleppo itself.³⁸

Following the death of Rıdvan in December 1113, Aleppo was beset by a series of power struggles, a situation made possible by the fact that the prince’s successor was his six-year-old son. However, by 1119 the fractious situation had stabilized, and Aleppo’s leading citizens appealed to İlgazi Bey, Turcoman ruler of Mardin (and brother of Sökmen, the victor of Harran [1104]). İlgazi’s army was joined by the forces of Tuğtekin of Damascus, who had earlier deposed Dukak’s sons when acting as their regent. Tuğtekin’s army was delayed, but İlgazi advanced regardless on al-Atārib, besieging the well-garrisoned fortress on 27 June without success. Choosing not to heed the advice to wait for the arrival of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem’s reinforcements, on the following day Roger’s main force ‘of Franks, Armenians, and other troops [i.e. Greek-speakers]’ – totalling 700 cavalry and 3,000 infantry – approached the enemy on the plain near Sarmadā (10km north-west of al-Atārib). The army was organized into five divisions, including one posted to the rear, and ‘three cohorts’ of cavalry were sent east to Sarmadā, perhaps with orders to attack İlgazi’s army from the rear once the Antiochenes had engaged it, or to serve as a decoy. While the right flank was able to drive back the enemy horsemen, the left was subjected to a devastating barrage of arrows and javelins, after which the Muslim light and heavy cavalrymen inflicted substantial casualties at close quarters with their swords and spears. Those who were not killed evidently fled to their right, for an Antiochene source noted that the rout hampered the advance of the army’s centre commanded by Roger himself. Although part of the regent’s centre was dispersed or entangled by the headlong flight, most of it seems to have held and, much like the Byzantines at Yarmouk, Syria (636), it was greatly disadvantaged by a sudden sandstorm caused by a great gust of wind emanating from the north. Blinded and in disarray, the Antiochene centre and its commander were surrounded and massacred. The same was true of the rest of the army, although a few managed to escape the slaughter and others were captured. According to both Latin and Arabic sources, only twenty of İlgazi’s men were killed. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the plain was henceforth known in Latin as ager sanguinis, the Field of Blood.³⁹

This disastrous defeat was followed by substantial losses of territory on the eastern and southern frontiers: İlgazi seized Arta, al-Atārib, and Zardana, and the ibn-Munqidh dynasty of Shaizar, despite failing to capture Apamea, secured Kafartab, thereafter gaining strongholds in the Jabal al-Summāq such as Ma‘arrat al-Numan. İlgazi also ventured west, raiding the outskirts of Antioch and the port of St Symeon. While capture of the city would have been a onerous task, it is possible that the rest of the principality might have disintegrated had it not been for the timely arrival of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem (r. 1118–31), who managed to recapture some of the fortresses, as well as expel İlgazi from Antiochene territory following an inconclusive battle on 14 August 1119 near Sarmin (56km south-east of Antioch). As Asbridge observes, the at times confusing events of the years 1120–26 were dominated by internecine warfare between Antioch and Aleppo, punctuated by truces, with strongholds regularly changing hands. Acting as regent for Bohemond II until 1126, King Baldwin was able to restore the eastern frontier to its extent prior to the battle that claimed Roger’s life, but despite some successes in the Jabal al-Summāq, they generally proved to be ephemeral. Perhaps Baldwin may have eventually reimposed total Antiochene authority in this strategically important region, but his capture by the Aleppans on 18 June 1123 and subsequent sixteen-month-long imprisonment, greatly disadvantaged such a goal. The king did, however, embark on an aggressive campaign into the heart of Aleppan territory two months after his release was secured for a hefty ransom of 100,000 dinars. Joined by the army of Joscelin of Edessa and various Muslim allies, Baldwin began a siege of Aleppo on 19 October 1124. The city was close to capitulating after three months, but an army arriving from Mosul on 29 January forced the king to abandon the siege.⁴⁰

Bohemond II took control of his principality in September 1126, and immediately began hostilities against the Aleppans and the ibn-Munqidh of Shaizar. Unfortunately the sources are sketchy for his reign; accordingly any description of it is necessarily brief and incomplete. Regarding Shaizar, all that can be said is that the eighteen-year-old prince fought an inconclusive cavalry engagement there. Bohemond in the next year turned his attention towards the Jabal al-Summāq, where he managed to besiege Kafartab successfully. In contrast to the clemency normally employed by Tancred and Roger before him, the young prince had the both the garrison and non-combatants slain. Further gains could have been made had the young prince been able to maintain good relations with Joscelin of Edessa, but the enmity between them prevented the combination of their forces against a common enemy (both led separate, ineffectual attacks on Aleppo in 1127). The hostility between the two continued to rage until the intervention of the Antiochene prince’s father-in-law, King Baldwin II, in 1128. Suitably reconciled, Joscelin and Bohemond later joined the king’s army – featuring the newly formed military order, the Knights Templar – for an ambitious campaign in November 1129. Having entered Damascene territory, Baldwin dispatched a force of infantry guarded by 1,000 cavalry to procure food and fodder for the horses. Unfortunately for the foragers, they were shadowed by enemy scouts, who promptly reported what they had seen to Tuğtekin’s son and successor, Tacülmülk Böri. The latter accordingly sent out a force to intercept the troops in question, and as the Damascene chronicler al-Qalanisi related:

The Muslims at once opened an attack upon the Franks, many of whom were killed by arrows before they could complete their mounting. Thereupon they [infantry] formed battle-ranks and stood up in a solid phalanx. The Muslims charged upon them, but they held their ground, until … they became discouraged and lost heart … [The cavalry] turned and fled … whereupon the Turks and Arabs … surrounded the remainder with blows of swords and thrusts of lances and showers of arrows….

Informed by the surviving cavalry of the massacre, the main body of the Frankish army tried to advance on the enemy, but was prevented from doing so by the outbreak of a particularly violent storm. Stopped dead in its tracks by Mother Nature, the Christian army abandoned the campaign.⁴¹

Much like his father before him, Bohemond II’s escapades elsewhere incrementally allowed Cilicia to slip through his fingers: only this time the adversary was an Armenian prince rather than a Byzantine emperor. In 1129 Thoros, based at Sis (Kozan, 60km north-east of Adana), seized Anazarva (Ağaçlı, province of Ceyhan, 25km south-east of Sis). His death later the same year was followed by a period of dynastic instability, which Bohemond chose to exploit by marching into Cilicia in February 1130. Thoros’ second successor, Leo I, appealed to the Danishmend dynasty that had captured Bohemond I in 1100. Gümüştekin Gazi II responded favourably, intercepting and massacring Bohemond’s army. The son, however, did not suffer the same fate as his father: rather than being taken into captivity, the prince was beheaded, and his embalmed cranium was sent as a ghoulish present to the caliph of Baghdad. The prince’s grisly demise did not go unrecorded in southern Italy, for the twelfth-century chronicle attributed to Archbishop Romuald of Salerno added that the ‘body was found without a head, and was interred in the monastery of St Mary’. Such was the untimely end of Tancred of Hauteville’s great-grandson, the last of this formidable family to rule Antioch as prince.⁴²

Aftermath: The return of the Komnenoi

Like his father before him, John II Komnenos (r. 1118–43) was a soldier emperor, spending much of his reign campaigning beyond his empire’s far-flung frontiers. Inheriting from Alexios the desire to bring the former Hauteville principality to heel, ‘the most powerful prince of the entire world’ – as William, chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem and archbishop of Tyre, called him – marched on Cilicia in 1137 with a sizable army and peerless siege train. Firstly, John strove to punish Leo I, who had managed to mop up much of Cilicia after the death of Bohemond II. Not only did John desire to reconquer the former Byzantine province, but also, had it not been for his attack on Gümüştekin Gazi II’s army following its victory over Bohemond II’s Antiochene force, Cilicia might well have been conquered by the Danishmend dynasty. In quick succession, John’s army stormed Tarsus, Mamistra and Adana, thereafter marching on Leo’s stronghold at Anazarva. Evidently with the use of counterweight trebuchets – the latest development in stone-throwing technology (see Chapter 6 and Appendix) – his engineers managed to demolish the walls of Anazarva. As Birkenmeier notes, this siege is one of the few examples in the medieval period where ‘a decisive victory was rapidly produced by siege engines’. With Leo I’s dream of ruling all of Cilicia in tatters, John advanced on Antioch. Having encamped on the west bank of the Orontes, William of Tyre related that John’s ‘enormous catapults’ hurled ‘huge rocks of immense weight’ at the city’s walls and towers, prompting the agreement of Prince Raymond of Poitiers (r. 1136–49) to rule Antioch henceforth in the emperor’s name.⁴³

Satisfied at having achieved the goal that had eluded his father, in March 1138 John decided to campaign throughout northern Syria, capturing various towns and fortresses in Muslim hands: e.g. Būza‘a (9 April), al-Atārib (21 April), and Kafartab. As William of Tyre observed, in May John’s trebuchets ‘utterly destroyed’ the walls and houses of Shaizar and, as a Muslim resident within the stronghold reported, the Byzantines stormed in ‘through a hole that the mangonels had punched into the wall’. However, despite the seizure of the lower section of this formidable town perched high above the west bank of the Orontes, its garrison resisted defiantly in the citadel. Much like Tancred before him (1110), John agreed to leave the citizens of Shaizar in peace upon receipt of the first instalment of an annual tribute. The emperor campaigned elsewhere over the next few years, but when news reached him of Prince Raymond’s rebellion in September 1142, he prepared for a new Syrian campaign. But John would not get the chance to punish his vassal: after sustaining a wound while hunting in Cilicia, he died shortly afterwards in April 1143. Rumours spread of foul play, and it remains possible that Raymond may have been complicit in a plot hatched by conspirators among the French-speaking element in the imperial army.⁴⁴

As was the case in all medieval territories, effective rule needed to be firm, direct and localized. While John II had forcefully reincorporated the former duchy of Antioch into the empire, it would be left to his son Manuel I (r. 1143–80) to see whether the Syrian prize could be held. In 1144 Manuel dispatched an army to Syria, which swiftly recaptured the various strongholds seized by Antiochene forces, in addition to routing a sally led by Raymond close to Antioch’s walls. After plundering the coast, the imperial force sailed back to the capital. Count Joscelin II of Edessa had willingly become John II’s vassal a few years earlier, but his county’s capital was successfully besieged by Imad ad-Din Zengi of Mosul and Aleppo in December of the same year that Manuel’s troops ravaged Syria. Weakened by the Byzantine show of force, and now open to raids emanating from the north-east following the capture of the Edessan bulwark, in 1145 Raymond journeyed to Constantinople, where he reaffirmed his homage to the emperor. He remained faithful to his imperial overlord, as did his successor Reynald of Châtillon (r. 1153–60): that is, until 1156, when in concert with the Armenian prince Thoros II, who had recently conquered much of Byzantine Cilicia, he afflicted the citizens of Cyprus with a series of particularly brutal raids. The incensed Manuel chose to lead an army to Syria himself, which swiftly reconquered Cilicia. Barefoot and dressed as a penitent, Reynald prostrated himself before Manuel’s feet in early 1159. Later that year (April), Manuel triumphantly rode into the city, with Reynald and King Baldwin III of Jerusalem escorting him on foot. In 1161, Reynald was captured and imprisoned by Maj al-Dīn of Aleppo, and Manuel decided to marry his widow’s daughter Maria in December. As Maria was the daughter of Bohemond II’s daughter Constance, her marriage to Manuel is particularly noteworthy given that despite various negotiations for almost a century, this was the first and last union between the Hauteville and Komnenos dynasties (albeit through the female line of the former). No doubt assisted by the legitimacy that came with Maria’s illustrious lineage, the Antiochene principality remained a faithful vassal state of the empire until Manuel’s death in 1180.⁴⁵