Bohemond's Crusade Against Byzantium, 1107
The county of Edessa was saved but at a heavy cost. The fatal battle at Harran not only cost the Franks on the Kingdom’s northernmost frontier thousands of skilled fighting men, it cost them their reputation. The Armenian and Syrian Christians already distrusted and disliked the Franks, but the debacle at Harran gave them even more reason to dislike their new rulers because it demonstrated that the Franks were not invincible. As a result, the Armenians, Syrians, Greeks and Muslims took matters into their own hands. Consequently, the Principality of Antioch teetered on the brink of collapse.
In the weeks following the battle of Harran, the Byzantines re-conquered Latakia and Cilicia. Only the citadel in Latakia remained in Latin hands. In the Summaq region, south-east of Antioch, the Armenian and Syrian Christians expelled their Latin garrisons from their cities. To make matters worse, they made an alliance with the Muslims of Aleppo. The Armenian and Syrian Christians at Artah, a city north-east of Antioch followed suit.
By the summer of 1104, all that remained of the Principality of Antioch was the city itself and a small tract of territory surrounding it.
That Fall, a disheartened Bohemond held a council meeting in the Basilica of St. Peter and announced his intention to leave Antioch. Raoul d’Caen, a 12th century chronicler, reported Bohemond’s speech: “We are surrounded. On the East we are invaded by the Turks of the interior; on the West a Greek fleet has just debarked. We are only a handful of men diminishing every time there is an attack. We need reinforcements from France. It will be there that our salvation will come and not from anyone anywhere else. I will go there to find reinforcements” (quoted in Rita Stark, 47).
While Bohemond was in prison he had prayed to St. Leonard for intervention. So, at the council meeting, he expressed his intention to fulfill his vows to St. Leonard – the saint who was responsible for Bohemond’s release – by visiting his shrine at Noblat in France.
Everyone at the council meeting believed Bohemond and they looked forward to the day he returned with a sizeable force. Bohemond had surely planned to pay his respects to St. Leonard, but he had no intention of returning to Antioch. His ambitions for his hard-won principality had failed, so he was prepared to leave it all behind forever.
The bitter taste of failure fueled Bohemond’s hatred for the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus and for the Greeks in general. The resentment between the two men dated back to the days Bohemond fought alongside his father, Robert Guiscard, in the Balkans against the Byzantines. More than anything though, Bohemond wanted land and wealth in large portions.
Bohemond had always desired the Byzantine crown, so he refocused his energy on that goal: to capture Constantinople and conquer the entire Byzantine Empire. There was only one problem: Alexius I Comnenus stood in his way and Alexius was not a man who could so easily be disposed of. Bohemond had to find some way to conquer his foe.
Bohemond kept his real intentions a secret until he left Antioch. He appointed Tancred as Antioch’s governor and then left, taking with him all the gold, gems and fine clothing, leaving Tancred with nothing for which to strengthen and defend the principality.
According to Anna Comnena, the Emperor Alexius’s daughter, Bohemond sailed back to Europe in a coffin. To make his feigned death authentic, Bohemond had his men kill a cockerel and then stick its carcass inside the coffin with him so that it emitted the pungent smell of death. That was how Bohemond escaped capture by the Byzantine navy as his ship sailed through the Eastern Mediterranean waters.
It is impossible to imagine Bohemond spending several weeks cooped up inside a coffin with a dead and rotting cockerel lying next to him. The toxic fumes emitted from the corpse would have made him extremely ill. It is more likely that that was a story fabricated by the Byzantines to explain their inability to capture the wily Norman prince. Moreover, it is also possible that Bohemond had the dead cockerel laid in the coffin while he hid himself away inside the ship. Regardless of Bohemond’s strategy, he managed to escape the Byzantines and arrived in Italy in 1105.
Bohemond arrived to a hero’s welcome. Everyone in all of Latin Europe was overjoyed to learn of Latin victory over the Saracens in the Holy Land. They were particularly impressed by Bohemond’s success at Antioch. To them, Bohemond was a larger-than-life figure, a courageous warrior for Christ. His instant star status propelled Bohemond into the highest echelons in Western European society.
True to the promise he had made while in prison, Bohemond travelled to Noblat in France and paid homage to the shrine of St. Leonard. At the same time, Bohemond sponsored the writing of his victories and struggles in the Holy Land. His account was as vivid as the Gesta Francorum. Though, in his account, Bohemond viciously condemned the Greeks, blaming them for all the hardships the crusaders endured at Antioch.
Bohemond’s narrative captured the interests of many people; it became the medieval version of a best-seller. More importantly to Bohemond, it caught the interest of Pope Paschal II, Pope Urban’s successor. In 1106, Bohemond secured a marriage alliance with the French king’s daughter, Constance while the king’s second daughter, Cecillia was betrothed to Tancred.
Pope Urban’s desired outcome for Holy War was to unite all of Christendom – The Greek Orthodox East and the Latin West – against the Muslims, a people he considered as the enemies of Christ. For that reason, he would have never sanctioned a Crusade against the Byzantines, fellow Christians.
It is highly doubtful Paschal would have strayed from Urban’s goal for Holy War. Historian Thomas Asbridge suggests that Pope Paschal II never sanctioned a Crusade against Byzantium. Rather, Bohemond tricked him into believing that the Crusade was against the Muslims in the Levant. However, given all the hype Bohemond caused in Europe, particularly in France and Italy, Pope Paschal would not have been ignorant of Bohemond’s real ambitions.
However, Bohemond’s portrayal of Alexius Comnenus and the Greeks as vile traitors must have been quite convincing. Moreover, his popularity and high status in Western Christendom lent him a lot of credit. Those were reasons enough for Pope Paschal to sanction Bohemond’s Crusade against Byzantium.
Once Bohemond received the Pope’s blessing, he set right to work, making preparations necessary to set his Crusade in motion. Bohemond and his most ardent supporters travelled throughout Italy and France, preaching Crusade against the Greeks.
Once more, the call to take up the Cross was heard in every corner of Western Europe. Men from all regions of Europe heeded the call to Holy War against their new sworn enemy. Nobody cared that the Greeks were Christians themselves and they did not even question the validity of Bohemond’s Crusade. As far as they were concerned, anyone -- be they Christian, Muslim or Jew – who betrayed them and blasphemed them was an enemy of Christ.
Somehow Alexius caught wind of what Bohemond was doing. He wrote a letter to Pope Paschal, attempting to exonerate himself from the accusations Bohemond had made against him. He urged Paschal to stop Bohemond’s expedition, but it was too late. By spring 1107, Bohemond had assembled a large army and had overseen the building of dozens of ships for which to carry men, horses and supplies. His goal was to attack Byzantium via sea. Historians differ over the exact size of Bohemond’s fleet. Though one thing is known for certain: it was large.
With no other recourse, Alexius had to prepare to defend his empire against his arch enemy. Fortunately for him, his martial skills paralleled those of Bohemond. Alexius could also take pride and comfort in the fact that he commanded a large, strong navy. While Bohemond planned his strategy for attack, Alexius drew up his own battle plan.
In October 1107, the Latin fleet crossed the Adriatic Sea and laid siege to the city of Durazzo (modern day Albania). Durazzo was then considered the western gate of the Byzantine Empire. However, Durazzo was no small, un-garrisoned outpost as Bohemond likely expected it to be. It was heavily fortified and garrisoned. As big as Bohemond’s force was, they could not breach the walls and they certainly could not outwit Alexius.
The imperial fleet blockaded the Adriatic, cutting off the Latin fleet from Italy. Soon hunger and starvation gripped the Latin camp which eventually compelled them to lift the siege. Treachery within the Latin camp dealt an even nastier blow to Bohemond’s bruised confidence. Several leading knights deserted the army after Alexius had promised them gold, silver and other treasure in return for their promise to surrender.
Unable to hold out any longer, Bohemond capitulated in September 1108. Standing, humiliated before the Emperor, Bohemond was forced to accept the Treaty of Devol, a peace accord that included the following terms which Bohemond was obliged to accept: he would hold Antioch as Alexius’s vassal and the Greek patriarch was to be restored to power in the city.
The Treaty proved ineffective because Bohemond never returned to the Levant. He returned to Apulia, a broken man; his reputation ruined. In 1109, Constance bore him a son, also christened Bohemond. However, two years later, in March 1111, Bohemond, the once great prince of the First Crusade, died.
Sources Used
Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The Authoritative History of The War For The Holy Land. New York; Ecco, 2011
Barber, Malcolm. The Crusader States. New Haven and London; Yale University Press, 2012
Stark, Rita M. Knights of the Cross: The Epic of the Crusades. Bloomington; iUniverse, 2008