A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 Read Free Page A

Lattakieh under his control and his navy based on Cyprus, he awaited an
opportunity to reassert his rights. The Orthodox within the principality were
eager to see Byzantine rule restored; but the Normans could play off against
them the Armenians and the Jacobites. Antioch had suffered a severe blow in the
summer of 1100, when Bohemond led his expedition to the upper Euphrates, and
his army was destroyed by the Danishmend emir and he himself taken into
captivity. But apart from the loss of man-power, the disaster had not done
lasting harm to the principality. The prompt action of King Baldwin, who was
then still Count of Edessa, had prevented the Turks from following up their
victory; and a few months later Tancred came up from Palestine to take over the
regency during his uncle’s imprisonment. In Tancred the Normans found a leader
as energetic and unscrupulous as Bohemond.
    The second Frankish state, the county of
Edessa, served as a buffer to protect Antioch from the Moslems. The county, now
ruled by Baldwin’s cousin and namesake, Baldwin of Le Bourg, was larger than
the principality. It sprawled on either side of the Euphrates, from Ravendel
and Aintab to a vague frontier in the Jezireh, to the east of the city of Edessa.
It lacked natural boundaries and a homogeneous population; for though it was
mainly occupied by Christians, Syrian Jacobites and Armenians, it included
Moslem towns such as Saruj. The Franks could not hope to set up a centralized
government. Instead, they ruled by garrisoning a few strong fortresses from
which they could levy taxes and tribute on the surrounding villages and could
embark on profitable raids across the border. The whole district had always
been border-country, subject to unending warfare, but it contained fertile land
and many prosperous towns. From his taxes and his raids the Count of Edessa
could raise an adequate revenue. Baldwin I was comparatively far wealthier as
Count of Edessa than as King of Jerusalem.
     
    Moslem Cities on
the Coast
    The chief need of the two states was man-power;
and even here their need was less than that of Jerusalem. In Palestine the
Christian population had been forbidden to bear arms since first the Moslems
had invaded the land. There were no native soldiers on whom the new rulers
could rely. But Antioch and Edessa lay within the old frontiers of Byzantium.
There were Christians there with a long tradition of military prowess, notably
the Armenians. If the Armenians would work in with the Frankish prince, he would
have an army ready-made. Both Bohemond and Tancred at Antioch and Baldwin I and
Baldwin II at Edessa, tried at first to conciliate the Armenians. But they
proved themselves to be unreliable and treacherous. They could not be given
places of trust. The rulers of Antioch and of Edessa needed western-born
knights to lead their regiments and to command their castles, and western-born
clerics to administer their government. But while Antioch offered to immigrants
the prospect of a fairly secure existence, Edessa could only attract
adventurers ready to lead the life of a brigand-chief.
    Jerusalem was divided from these two northern
Frankish states by a long stretch of territory ruled by a number of jealous
Moslem potentates. The coast immediately to the north of the kingdom was held
by four rich seaports, Acre, Tyre, Sidon and Beirut, each owing an allegiance
to Egypt that waxed and waned according to the proximity of the Egyptian fleet.
North of Beirut was the emirate of the Banu Ammar, with their capital at Tripoli.
The emir of Tripoli had recently profited by the departure of the Crusaders to
the south to extend his dominion as far as Tortosa.Jabala, between
Tortosa and Lattakieh, was in the hands of a local magnate, the Qadi ibn
Sulaiha, who in the summer of 1101 handed it over to Toghtekin, the atabeg of
Duqaq of Damascus, from whom it passed to the Banu Ammar. In the Nosairi
mountains, behind Tortosa and Jabala, were the small emirates of the