The history of the County of Tripoli, a crusader state in the Levant, spans the period between 1103 and 1289. The county was established in the aftermath of the First Crusade by the Toulousian crusader leader Raymond of Saint-Gilles (d. 1105). He laid siege to the city of Tripoli with Byzantine support in 1103. Although the city resisted, Raymond adopted the title of count of Tripoli in the same year. After he died of wounds, his kinsman Willam Jordan (d. 1109) assumed the command of the siege but his claim to rule was challenged by Raymond's son Bertrand (d. 1112) who came to the Levant in 1109. William Jordan was assassinated and a large assembly of troops from all over the Latin East captured the city with Genoese and Pisan naval support in June 1109.
Bertrand swore fealty to King Baldwin I of Jerusalem (d. 1118), and contemporary documents indicate that the County of Tripoli was regarded a Jerusalemite fief, not an independent state. Its status changed during the reign of Bertrand's son Pons (d. 1137) who received important towns and fortresses, such as Tortosa and the future Crac des Chevaliers, in fief in the Principality of Antioch. He joined an alliance against the Jerusalemite king Fulk (d. 1129). Pons's son (d. 1152) saw the consolidation of the Muslim states in Syria under the rule of Imad al-Din Zengi (d. 1146), which forced him to entrust the Knights Hospitaller with the defence of large border regions, and also cede fortresses to their rivals the Knights Templar. His son (d. 1187) became deeply involved in the affairs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem where he held Galilee, and assumed the regency for underage kings twice. His conflicts with the Jerusalemite king Guy of Lusignan (d. 1192) prompted his alliance with Saladin (d. 1193) who had united Egypt and much of Syria, but Raymond was reconciled with Guy shortly before Saladin's complete victory in the Battle of Hattin. Although Raymond fled from the battlefield, he died of an illness. He named his godson, the Antiochene crown prince Raymond (d. 1199), as his successor.
Background
The city of Tripoli was one of the last Byzantine outposts on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean Sea during the early Muslim conquests; it surrendered in 645. Syria was a central province of the Muslim Caliphate, but the Abbasid caliphs' control of the region faded away towards the end of the . In the next century, the Fatimids (from Egypt) conquered much of Syria. Unlike the Sunnite Abbasids, they were Shiite who rejected the Abbasids' claim to rule, regarding themselves as (legitimate supreme heads of the Muslim community). Tripoli, the Fatimids' northernmost Syrian possession, was regularly approached by Byzantine troops. In response, the Fatimids heavily fortified the city and provided it with a permanent garrison . In the , much of Syria was seized by the Seljuk Turks, a loose confederation of nomadic Sunnite Turkic groups, known as Turkomans. Although Tripoli remained under the Fatimids' nominal rule, it emerged as an autonomous lordship headed by a native family of (judges), the Banu Ammar .
Facing foreign invasions from all directions, the Byzantines could not resist the Turkomans who in Anatolia. Although mutual excommunications had revealed a serious rift between the western (or Catholic) and eastern (or Orthodox) branches of Christianity, the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos () sought the support of Pope Urban II () in mustering western troops against the invaders. In response, Urban called for a military campaign for the liberation of fellow Christians and the Holy City of Jerusalem at Clermont in November 1095. His call, as the historian Malcolm Barber summarises, "set motion a series of events that ... led to the assembly of nine major armies from a very wide geographical area"; these included 50,000–60,000 people, according to modern estimations. Raymond of Saint-Gilles, the wealthy count of Toulouse () was the first aristocrat to join the expedition that would be known as the First Crusade. His wife, Elvira of Castile (d. 1151) accompanied him, indicating that he did not want to return to Europe.
The main crusader armies departed after 15 August 1096, and arrived at the Byzantine capital, Constantinople next spring. Here, all crusader leaders but Raymond took an oath of loyalty to Alexios and promised to return to him all former Byzantine lands that they would conquer from the Turkomans. They inflicted major defeats on the Turkomans in Anatolia before reaching Antioch, once the capital of a Byzantine (province) in northern Syria. They conquered the city in June 1098, but refused to cede it to Alexios's representatives. They were still besieging Antioch when the cleric Ebrard (who was, according to the historian Kevin J. Lewis, "likely in Raymond of Saint-Gilles's entourage") went to Tripoli to meet with the Jalal al-Mulk Ali ibn Muhammad (). Their meetings' results are unknown, but Jalal al-Mulk frequently sent gifts to the crusaders to secure their good will. According to Raymond's chaplain, Raymond of Aguilers, Jalal al-Mulk even erected the Toulousian banner over Tripoli's forts; Lewis does not give credit to this report. In Antioch, the Italo-Norman crusader Bohemond () assumed power. Raymond also seized lands in northern Syria but could not fully counterbalance Bohemond's ambitions. Their conflict led to a raprochement between Raymond and the Byzantines.
Most crusaders, including Raymond left northern Syria for Jerusalem early in 1099. Bohemond stayed behind and quickly seized Raymond's northern Syrian holdings. Raymond was planning to conquer Tripoli, but the common crusaders insisted on continuing the crusade towards Jerusalem. The crusaders captured Jerusalem on 15 July 1099. Raymond was one of the candidates to rule the Holy City, but another leader, Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine was elected Jerusalem's first western (or Frankish) ruler (). Raymond returned to northern Syria in late 1099. Bohemond had attacked the Byzantine port city of Latakia, but now Raymond forced him to abandon the siege. The city was seized by Raymond on Alexios' behalf, thus he ruled what the historian Jean Richard labels as a "Byzanto-Provençal principality". In 1101, he went to Constantinople either to make contact with new crusader armies, or to secure Alexios' consent to an attack against Tripoli. Raymond joined the new crusaders but the Turkomans nearly annihilated them. He fled to Constantinople, and agreed to return Latakia to the Byzantines, but Alexios sanctioned his plan to establish a lordship under Byzantine suzerainty. On his return to Syria, Raymond was forced to pledge to Tancred (d. 1112)—who administered Antioch on Bohemond's behalf—that he would not pursue his ambitions in the north.
Establishment
Raymond I (1102–1105)
Raymond withdrew from northern Syria and captured the coastal town of Tortosa with the support of other survivors of the 1101 Crusade and a Genoese fleet in March 1102. He had concluded a truce with Jalal al-Mulk's successor, Fakhr al-Mulk ibn Ammar (), but attacked Tripoli at the latest in May 1103. He built a fortress on the nearby Mount Pilgrim using material that Eumathios Philokales (d. after 1118), the Byzantine governor of the island of Cyprus provided him. Mount Pilgrim quickly transformed into a flourishing commercial center competing with Tripoli. Raymond began to issue charters, levy taxes, and style himself "count of Tripoli, by the grace of God", but the city resisted the siege with the support of a Fatimid fleet. The nearby city of Homs was ruled by the Sunnite emir Janah ad-Dawla (d. 1103). When he was murdered by members of the Nizari (radical Shi'te) Order of Assassins, Raymund attacked the city, but it was quickly relieved by Damascene troops. Next year, he conquered the coastal town of Jubail to the south of Tripoli with Genoese naval assistance. He kept its two thirds, and ceded one third to the Genoese. In February 1105, Fakhr al-Mulk made a sortie and set fire to several buildings on Mount Pilgrim. Raymond, who was old, fell into a burning building, and died after ten days of sufferings on 28 February 1105.
William Jordan (1105–1109)
Raymond had two sons, but one of them, Bertrand was absent, ruling Toulouse, and the other, Alfonso Jordan was an infant, born on Mount Pilgrim. Alfonso Jordan was soon taken from Syria to Europe, and Raymond's distant cousin Willam Jordan (d. 1109) assumed the command of Raymond's army at Tripoli. His exact position—regent or count—is unclear but in his charters he styled himself as Raymond's heir. He regularly raided the villages around the town of Shaizar, forcing the native Christian peasants to pay a tribute to him. In great need of reinforcements, Fakhr al-Mulk left Tripoli to meet with the Seljuk sultan, Muhammad I Tapar () in Baghdad, and the Seljuk (governor), Toghtekin () in Damascus, but could not convince them to support him against the invaders. After his return, rioters forced him to flee from Tripoli, restoring the Fatimids' direct rule in the city. Meanwhile, William Jordan defeated a Damascene relief army and captured the town of Arqa in March or April 1109.
Around the same time, Bertrand, who had ceded Toulouse to Alfonso Jordan, came to join the siege at the head of a 4,000-strong army. He claimed Raymond's inheritance but William Jordan resisted with Tancred's support. In response, Bertrand accepted the suzerainty of Godfrey of Bouillon's successor, Baldwin I of Jerusalem (). Baldwin held a council at Tripoli in April, where Bertrand's claim to his father's Syrian lands was confirmed, but William Jordan was allowed to keep Tortosa and Arqa. The compromise was short-lived as William Jordan was murdered under unclear circumstances. Bertrand soon seized Arqa, but Tortosa was captured by Tancred.
House of Toulouse
Bertrand (1109–1112)
Troops from all over the Latin East (the lands seized by the crusaders in the Near East) had assembled at the council of Tripoli. The presence of Genoese and Pisan fleets allowed the besiegers to blockade the city also from the sea. This forced the defenders to surrender to 1109. His grant of safe conduct to the Tripolitans did not prevent the Genoese from sacking the city. Bertrand reasserted his fealty to Baldwin declaring himself Baldwin's (liege man). Grateful for the Genoese's support during the siege, he ceded Jubail's comital two thirds to them. These districts were seized by the Genoese crusader Hugh Embriaco.
According to the late 12th-century historian William of Tyre (d. 1186), the Latin East was divided into four crusader states—Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa and Tripoli. In contrast, earlier sources (such as a decree attributed to the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy (d. 1098), and a mid-12th-century author known as Pseudo-Fretellus) write of two states, Jerusalem and Antioch, divided by a river. Lewis tentatively associates it with the Arqa, the river marking the northern frontier of Bertrand's county after Tortosa was seized by Tancred, concluding that "the county of Tripoli at this point should not be regarded as a separate "crusader state", but rather Jerusalem's northernmost fief" on account of Bertrand's oath of fealty to the Jerusalemite king.