 Port of St Symeon on the Mediterranean coast of the Principality of Antioch in 1135 AD. |
St Symeon or Port St Symeon (Turkish : Samandağ or Suadiye) [1] was the medieval port for the Frankish Principality of Antioch, located on the mouth of the Orontes River. [2] It may be named after Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger, who dwelt on a mountain only six miles from St Symeon, or the original Saint Simeon Stylites, who was buried in Antioch.
Seleucia Pieria had been the Roman port of Antioch, but silting and an earthquake had rendered it unusable. The harbour of St Symeon, some fourteen kilometres to the west of Antioch, was the main harbour of Antioch. Its possession was essential for the armies of the First Crusade during the siege of Antioch and it seems that the crusaders maintained a force there for this time. [3]
In November 1097, the Crusaders besieging Antioch were heartened by the appearance of reinforcements in a Genoese squadron at St Symeon, which they were then able to capture. [4] The besiegers were very short of food, and supplies from Cyprus to St Symeon were subject to frequent attack on the road from the port to the Crusader camp. On 4 March 1098 a fleet said to be commanded by the exiled claimant to the English throne, Edgar the Ætheling, sailed into St Symeon with siege materials from Constantinople. Another raid by the Turkish defenders of Antioch seized the materials from the Crusaders, but the Crusaders successfully counter-attacked, killing (it was said) as many as fifteen hundred Turks. [5] The port was taken by the forces of Kerbogha of Mosul after the crusaders had taken Antioch and were besieged themselves but was reconquered after the battle of Antioch on 28 June 1098. [6]
At the start of the Crusader period St Symeon was only a local port, but in the second half of the twelfth century Nur ed-Din and later Saladin brought order to Moslem Syria, reviving its prosperity and opening it as a trade route to Iraq and the Far East. St Symeon shared in the prosperity as one of the ports used by the merchants of Aleppo until the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century resulted in a movement of trade routes to the north. In 1268 a Mameluk army under Baibars captured St Symeon and then went on to destroy Antioch. The city and its port never recovered. [7]
St Symeon gives its name to a Crusader style of pottery. [8]
Baldwin I, also known as Baldwin of Boulogne, was the first count of Edessa from 1098 to 1100, and king of Jerusalem from 1100 to his death in 1118. He was the youngest son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Ida of Lorraine and married a Norman noblewoman, Godehilde of Tosny. He received the County of Verdun in 1096, but he soon joined the crusader army of his brother Godfrey of Bouillon and became one of the most successful commanders of the First Crusade.
Bohemond II was Prince of Taranto from 1111 to 1128 and Prince of Antioch from 1111/1119 to 1130. He was the son of Bohemond I, who in 1108 was forced to submit to the authority of the Byzantine Empire in the Treaty of Devol. Three years later, the infant Bohemond inherited the Principality of Taranto under the guardianship of his mother, Constance of France. The Principality of Antioch was administered by his father's nephew, Tancred, until 1111. Tancred's cousin, Roger of Salerno, managed the principality from 1111 to 1119. After Roger died in the Battle of the Field of Blood, Baldwin II of Jerusalem took over the administration of Antioch. However, he did acknowledge Bohemond's right to personally rule the principality upon reaching the age of majority.
The Principality of Antioch was one of the crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of modern-day Turkey and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extended around the northeastern edge of the Mediterranean, bordering the County of Tripoli to the south, Edessa to the east, and the Byzantine Empire or the Kingdom of Armenia to the northwest, depending on the date.
Peter Bartholomew was a French soldier and mystic who was part of the First Crusade as part of the army of Raymond of Saint-Gilles. Peter was initially a servant to William, Lord of Cunhlat.
Pons was count of Tripoli from 1112 to 1137. He was a minor when his father, Bertrand, died in 1112. He swore fealty to the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in the presence of a Byzantine embassy. His advisors sent him to Antioch to be educated in the court of Tancred of Antioch, ending the hostilities between the two crusader states. Tancred granted four important fortresses to Pons in the Principality of Antioch. Since Pons held his inherited lands in fief of the kings of Jerusalem, Tancred's grant strengthened the autonomy of the County of Tripoli. On his deathbed, Tancred also arranged the marriage of his wife, Cecile of France, to Pons.
Bertrand of Toulouse was count of Toulouse, and was the first count of Tripoli to rule in Tripoli itself.
The Treaty of Devol was an agreement made in 1108 between Bohemond I of Antioch and Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, in the wake of the First Crusade. It is named after the Byzantine fortress of Devol. Although the treaty was not immediately enforced, it was intended to make the Principality of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire.
The siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098, on the crusaders' way to Jerusalem through Syria. Two sieges took place in succession. The first siege, by the crusaders against the city held by the Seljuk Empire, lasted from 20 October 1097 to 3 June 1098. The second siege, of the crusader-held city by a Seljuk relieving army, lasted three weeks in June 1098, leading to the Battle of Antioch in which the crusaders defeated the relieving army led by Kerbogha. The crusaders then established the Principality of Antioch, ruled by Bohemond of Taranto.
The Battle of Artah was fought in 1105 between Crusader forces and the Seljuk Turks at the town of Artah near Antioch. The Turks were led by Fakhr al-Mulk Ridwan of Aleppo, while the Crusaders were led by Tancred, Prince of Galilee, regent of the Principality of Antioch. The Crusaders were victorious and proceeded to threaten Aleppo itself.
Thomas Scott Asbridge is a historian at Queen Mary University of London, a position he has held since 1999. He is the author of The First Crusade: A New History (2004), a book which describes the background, events, and consequences of the First Crusade, as well as of The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land (2010), a volume providing a view on the crusading movement, portraying the ideas of justified violence and jihad.
Zardana is a village in northwestern Syria, administratively part of Idlib Governorate. The village lies in a relatively flat plain. Nearby localities include Taftanaz to the southeast, al-Fu'ah and Binnish to the south, Maarrat Misrin and Kafriya to the southwest, Kafr Yahmul to the west, Hizano to the northwest, Ibbin to the north, Kafr Nouran to the northeast and Maaret Elnaasan to the east. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Zardana had a population of 5,767 in the 2004 census.
Latmin is a Syrian village located in the Kafr Zita Subdistrict of the Mahardah District in Hama Governorate. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Latmin had a population of 1,113 in the 2004 census.
Artah was a medieval town and castle located 25 miles east-northeast of Antioch, to the east of the Iron Bridge on the Roman road from Antioch to Aleppo.
Cecilia of Le Bourcq was a Cilician fiefholder as Lady of Tarsus. She was the daughter of Hugh I, Count of Rethel, and Melisende of Crécy, the daughter of Guy I of Montlhéry. Cecilia's brother was Baldwin II of Jerusalem.
Geoffrey the Monk was the count of Marash in the Principality of Antioch from around 1114 to 1124.
The timeline of the Principality of Antioch is a chronological list of events of the history of the Principality of Antioch.
William of Zardana, also known as William of Saone, was a powerful baron who held Balatanos, Saone and Zardana in the Principality of Antioch. After his father, Robert the Leper, was executed by the atabeg of Toghtekin in 1119, William inherited Balatanos and Saone. Zardana, that his father had lost before his death, was restored to William by Baldwin II of Jerusalem in 1121. He supported Baldwin II's daughter, Alice, against her brother-in-law, Fulk of Jerusalem, in 1132, but Fulk defeated her allies. William died fighting either against Fulk's troops or against a Muslim army.
The siege of Aleppo by Baldwin II of Jerusalem and his allies lasted from 6 October 1124 to 25 January 1125. It ended in a Crusader withdrawal following the arrival of a relief force led by Aqsunqur al-Bursuqi.
The Battle of al-Atharib occurred in 1130 when Imad al-Din Zengi laid siege to al-Atharib in spring and defeated an army led against him to relieve the town commanded by King Baldwin.
The diocese of Marash was an ecclesiastical jurisdiction in eastern Cilicia with its seat in the city of Marash. By the sixth century, it was an autocephalous archbishopric, but it fell into desuetude after the Arab conquest in the seventh century. The archdiocese was never revived.