Crusades 1

Seite 1

AT the end of the eleventh century, in the wake of the First Crusade, a Latin principality was established at Antioch, in northern Syria.' Founded by the crusade leader Bohemond (1098-^.1105), this Latin community experienced a period of territorial expansion under the energetic rule of his nephew, Tancred (c. 1105-12), followed by seven years of less aggressive leadership by Roger of Salerno (1113-19). The principality suffered a serious setback with the defeat of its army at the evocatively named battle of the Field of Blood in 1119, during which Prince Roger was slain. Power then passed to a regent, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem (1118-31), until Bohemond II (1126-30), the son of Antioch's first prince, arrived in northern Syria.2 These rulers, drawn from an almost exclusively southern Italian Norman background, laid the foundations of a Latin settlement

New Page