The ‘Crusader’ Community at Antioch

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The ‘Crusader’ Community at Antioch: The Impact of Interaction with Byzantium and Islam

By Thomas S. Asbridge

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Ser., Vol. 9. (1999)

Introduction: 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-c. 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.

These rulers, drawn from an almost exclusively southern Italian Norman background, laid the foundations of a Latin settlement which survived in a hostile political environment untd 1268. My research into the early history of this settlement has sought to define the nature of the community which they helped to create. They were, of course, not presented with the metaphorical blank sheet of paper. Nor were they able to fashion the principality according to an idealised vision. Instead, military and political expediency compelled them to establish a functional settlement as rapidly as possible.

My aim has been, therefore, to assess the extent to which the principality’s development was influenced by the surrounding Levantine world, western European practice or, perhaps, the founding concepts of crusading. I have also sought to contextualise my findings by comparing the principality with the other Latin settlements created in the Levant, such as the kingdom of Jerusalem, and other medieval frontier societies in areas such as Sicily and Iberia. This article considers what I think makes Antiochene history distinctive; the influence exerted by Islam and eastern Christendom, both within the principality and on its borders. It explores the impact of external military pressure, the survival of Levantine administrative forms and the evidence of Latin Antioch’s early interaction with Islam.

http://learning.sec.hccs.edu/members/ja ... 0Islam.pdf

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