Tripoli

Who holds it

Name

Bohemond IV

Title

Count of Tripoli

Since

1187 or 1189

Confidence

high

The count's capital and port.

Lord in 1200

Bohemond IV, count of Tripoli

Allies and rivals

See Tripoli.

How things stand that morning

Held by Bohemond IV.

Wealth

Port dues, markets, crafts, the mint; no figures.

Military

Town walls and Mount Pilgrim.

Threats

• Earthquake damage (1202, later)
• Vassal war reaching its walls (1204, later)

Charter

Privileges of the Italian communes: the Genoese, who helped win the city in 1109 and were rewarded with property in it, and the Pisans; others not pinned for 1200.

Council

The count's High Court; a court of the burgesses under a viscount (general reference; holders not pinned for 1200).

Communities

Latins (Franks, Genoese, Pisans); Greek Orthodox; Maronites from the mountain; Syriac Christians; Jews (Benjamin of Tudela passed through about 1170); some Muslims (general reference).

Walls and castle

The walls of the peninsula town and the castle of Mount Pilgrim (Qal'at Sanjil) on the hill above the Abu Ali river.

Trade and crafts

Silk weaving, glass and sugar are well attested for crusader Tripoli in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (not pinned for 1200); the port trades with Genoa, Pisa and the other Frankish ports, and caravans come through the Homs Gap from Homs and Hama; gold bezants and billon deniers are struck for the count.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The town and its lord are certain; its crafts and communities in 1200 rest on general evidence for the period.

On the map: City and near land; the plain is the count's domain (Bohemond IV).

Primary sources for Tripoli

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Chronicle of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer, Ernoul, squire of Balian of Ibelin, and later compilers (the 1187 core soon after the event; the whole in its present form 1227 to 1232). The Ibelin household's version of events in Outremer. Read online
• The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (Eracles), Anonymous continuators, the earliest drawing on Ernoul (about 1220 to 1277; the first continuation (1184 to 1197, the Lyon Eracles) compiled about 1230 from material of the 1190s). For the Latin East at 1200 it narrates the aftermath of the Third Crusade: the truce of 1192, the succession to Jerusalem through Queen Isabella's marriages to Henry of Champagne (died September 1197) and Aimery of Lusignan, Aimery's rule as king of Jerusalem from 1198 while king of Cyprus, the German crusade of 1197 to 1198 and the recovery of Beirut and Sidon, the truce with al-Adil of 1198, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond IV and Leo of Armenia, and the Pisan plot against Aimery. Read online
• Calendar of the Acts of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Various, calendared by Reinhold Rohricht (documents 1097 to 1291; calendar published 1893, Additamentum 1904). A chronological calendar of every charter, letter and treaty of the Latin East then known, with date, parties, witnesses and the edition where each is printed. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online
• General Cartulary of the Order of the Hospital, Various, edited by Joseph Delaville Le Roulx (documents 1100 to 1310; published in 4 vols, Paris, 1894 to 1906). Volume 1 (1100 to 1200) and volume 2 (1201 to 1260) print in full the Hospital's charters: royal and baronial grants in Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch and Cilicia, papal bulls, the order's European priories and its agreements with the Temple and the Italians. Read online
• The Rule of the Templars: the Latin Rule, the French Rule and the hierarchical statutes, Anonymous (the Council of Troyes and the order's chapter) (Latin rule 1129; French translation about 1140; hierarchical statutes (retrais) about 1165; further statutes to about 1260). Not a chronicle but the constitution of the Temple as it stood in 1200: the hierarchical statutes describe the master, seneschal, marshal and the commanders of Jerusalem, Tripoli and Antioch, the drawing up of the line of battle, the convent's discipline and the horses, squires and tents allowed to each rank. Read online
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China. Read online