Read A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 for Free Online Page B

less cause for rejoicing. Their chief foe was
the Danishmend emir, whose triumph soon encouraged him to attack them. And the
Normans at Antioch, who, like the Roupenians, feared the Byzantines more than
the Turks, were given a useful respite. Bohemond still languished in captivity;
but his regent, Tancred, took full advantage of the situation to consolidate
the principality at the Emperor’s expense. Fate soon placed a trump-card in his
hand.
     
    1102: The Arrest
of Count Raymond
    The Duke of Aquitaine, the Count of Bavaria and
the Count of Nevers had already arrived with their few surviving comrades at
Antioch by the autumn of 1101; but the leaders of the Franco-Lombard Crusade
were still at Constantinople. Alexius found it hard to forgive them their
follies. Even Raymond, on whom he had built great hopes, had disappointed him.
At the end of the year the western princes decided to continue their
pilgrimage, and Raymond asked leave to rejoin his wife and his army at
Lattakieh. The Emperor willingly let them go and provided ships to convey them
to Syria. About the new year Stephen of Blois, Stephen of Burgundy, the
Constable Conrad and Albert of Biandrate disembarked at Saint Symeon and
hastened up to Antioch, where Tancred gave them a warm welcome. But Count
Raymond’s ship was separated from the others and put into the port of Tarsus.
As he stepped ashore, a knight called Bernard the Stranger came up and arrested
him for having betrayed Christendom by his flight from the field of Mersivan.
Raymond’s small bodyguard was powerless to rescue him. He was taken away under
escort and was handed over to Tancred.
     
     
    CHAPTER III
    THE NORMAN
PRINCES OF ANTIOCH
     
    ‘ These all do
contrary to the decrees of Caesar’ ACTS XVII, 7
     
    Bohemond’s defeat and capture by Malik Ghazi
the Danishmend, alarming though it had seemed at the time, had not been without
its compensations for the Frankish princes. Antioch was in need of a regent;
and Tancred was the obvious candidate to take his uncle’s place. King Baldwin
was thus enabled to rid himself of his most dangerous vassal in Palestine;
while Tancred was glad to extricate himself from a position that was
embarrassing and insecure and to move to a sphere that offered greater scope
and independence. Tancred left Palestine in March 1101, only stipulating that
if his uncle returned from captivity within three years and Antioch needed him
no more, his fief of Galilee should be restored to him. It was therefore to
Baldwin’s interest as well as to Tancred’s that Bohemond should not be released
from his prison too soon. No attempt was made to negotiate with his captor.
     
    1101: Tancred
and Byzantium
    Tancred was a correct regent. He did not assume
the title of Prince of Antioch. Though he struck coins, the legend, written in
bad Greek, merely entitled him the ‘servant of God’; and at times he called
himself the ‘Grand Emir’. It is probable that public opinion in Antioch would
have restrained him had his ambitions carried him farther. The Normans still
regarded Bohemond as their leader; and Bohemond had a loyal friend in the
Patriarch whom he had appointed just before his captivity, the Latin Bernard of
Valence, in whose favour he had ejected the Greek, John the Oxite. Tancred’s
policy was the same as Bohemond’s, internally to consolidate the administration
of the principality and to Latinize the Church, and externally to enrich
himself at the expense of the Byzantines and of the neighbouring Moslem
princes. But his ambitions were more local and less world-wide than his uncle’s.
    His first preoccupation was to guard himself
against any attack from Byzantium. The disastrous Crusades of 1101 greatly
helped him; for the resurgence of the Anatolian Turks meant that the Emperor
could not venture for some time to send an army right across the peninsula to
the far south-east. Tancred believed that attack was the best defence. So, in
the summer of 1101, probably as soon