Region · as at first light, 1 January 1200

The Latin East and the Ayyubids

On the morning of 1 January 1200 the Atlas records 18 realms and principalities in The Latin East and the Ayyubids, with 65 lords and officers, 142 towns, ports and sites, 7 church lands and religious houses and 2 provinces, peoples and free lands.

The realms

  1. Kingdom of JerusalemAimery of LusignanKingdom

    On 1 January 1200 the kingdom of Jerusalem is a coastal kingdom without Jerusalem.

  2. Principality of AntiochBohemond IIIPrincipality

    On the morning of 1 January 1200 the principality of Antioch is a shrunken state: the great walled city of Antioch with its citadel, its port of Saint Simeon at the mouth of the Orontes, the lower Orontes valley and the hills round them, the Latin patriarch's

  3. County of TripoliBohemond IVCounty

    The county of Tripoli on 1 January 1200 is the coast from the Nahr Ibrahim north of Beirut to Tortosa and Maraclea, with the slopes of Mount Lebanon behind it, the Akkar plain, and the Homs Gap (the Buqaia) guarded by the Hospitallers' Krak des Chevaliers.

  4. Kingdom of CyprusAimery of LusignanKingdom

    On 1 January 1200 Cyprus is a young Latin kingdom, eight years old as a Frankish state and two years old as a crowned one.

  5. Al-Adil's lands: Damascus, Kerak and the southSayf al-Din Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ayyub, al-Malik al-AdilAyyubid principality

    Saladin left his empire to his family in March 1193: Damascus with Palestine to his eldest son al-Afdal, Egypt to al-Aziz, Aleppo to al-Zahir, Kerak, Shawbak and the lands beyond the Euphrates to his brother al-Adil, Hama to his nephew's son al-Mansur, Baalbek

  6. Homs (Shirkuh II)Asad al-Din Shirkuh II ibn Muhammad ibn ShirkuhAyyubid principality

    An inherited Ayyubid principality in three pieces: Homs and the middle Orontes, the oasis of Palmyra in the desert, and al-Rahba on the Euphrates, joined by the caravan road from Syria to Iraq and by the Bedouin steppe between them.

  7. Baalbek (Bahramshah)Majd al-Din Bahramshah ibn FarrukhshahAyyubid principality

    A small inherited Ayyubid principality in the Bekaa, ruled since 1182 by Bahramshah, son of Saladin's nephew Farrukhshah, from the walled temple acropolis of Baalbek.

  8. Aleppo (al-Zahir Ghazi)Ghazi ibn YusufAyyubid principality

    Saladin's son al-Zahir Ghazi holds Aleppo, the great city of northern Syria, with its citadel, its district and a ring of castles and towns from Ain Tab and Tell Bashir in the north to Harim on the Antiochene frontier and the ports of Latakia and Jabala on the

  9. Hama (al-Mansur Muhammad)Muhammad ibn UmarAyyubid principality

    Al-Mansur Muhammad, a scholarly prince who wrote history and verse, holds Hama on the Orontes with its citadel, Salamiyah on the steppe edge, Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, and far to the north-east the Euphrates towns of Manbij and Qal'at Najm, the remains of his father

  10. The Nizaris (the Assassins) of the Syrian mountainsProbably Nasr al-Ajami, the Persian da'i sent from AlamutNizari castles

    The Syrian branch of the Nizari Ismailis holds a compact group of mountain castles in the southern Jabal Bahra (the Nusayri mountains), between the Hospitallers of Margat and Krak, the Templars of Tortosa and the Muslim princes of Hama and Homs: Masyaf, al-Kah

  11. The Ayyubid Jazira (al-Adil's, under al-Kamil)al-Malik al-Adil Sayf al-Din Abu Bakr ibn Ayyub, Saladin'sAyyubid viceroyalty

    The Ayyubid share of Upper Mesopotamia: the old county of Edessa and the Diyar Mudar plain (Edessa, Harran, Saruj, Raqqa, Qal'at Ja'bar, Samosata, Ras al-Ayn) and, separated from it by Artuqid ground, the great walled city of Mayyafariqin in Diyar Bakr.

  12. Mosul (Nur al-Din Arslan Shah)Nur al-Din Arslan Shah I ibn Izz al-Din Mas'ud ibn MawdudZengid principality

    The senior Zengid house, ruling Mosul and the plain of Nineveh on the Tigris, with castles in the Kurdish mountains to the north (al-Imadiya in the Hakkari country, Aqr and Shush of the Humaydi Kurds).

  13. Sinjar (Qutb al-Din Muhammad)Qutb al-Din Muhammad ibn Imad al-Din Zengi IIZengid principality

    A small Zengid state on the Jazira steppe: the walled town of Sinjar at the foot of Jabal Sinjar, the castle of Tall Afar, the city of Nisibin on the Hirmas river, and the villages of the Khabur valley.

  14. Jazirat ibn Umar (Sanjar Shah)Mu'izz al-Din Sanjar Shah ibn Sayf al-Din Ghazi IIZengid principality

    A small, rich river principality on the Tigris where it leaves the mountains: the walled town of Jazirat ibn Umar (Cizre), made an island by a cut from the river, with its bridge and the farmland of the Tigris valley, between the Kurdish Bohtan mountains and t

  15. Irbil (Gokbori)Muzaffar al-Din Gokbori ibn Zayn al-Din Ali KuchukPrincipality

    The land beyond the Great Zab: the walled city of Irbil on its great mound and the plain between the Great and the Lesser Zab, with the Kurdish plain of Shahrazur to the south-east.

  16. Mardin (the Artuqids of Mardin)Husam al-Din YuluqArtuqid principality

    The Artuqid house of Mardin holds the near-impregnable citadel of Mardin on its ridge above the Mesopotamian plain, the lower town, the market town of Dunaysir on the great caravan road, and the castles and villages of the plain and the western Tur Abdin.

  17. Hisn Kayfa and Amid (the Artuqids of Hisn Kayfa)Qutb al-Din Sukman II ibn Nur al-Din MuhammadArtuqid principality

    The richer of the two Artuqid states: the great black-walled city of Amid (Diyarbakir) on the Tigris, given to Sukman's father by Saladin in 1183, and the old Artuqid seat of Hisn Kayfa, a cliff-top citadel and town at the great bridge over the Tigris, with th

  18. Ayyubid Egypt under the boy sultan al-MansurNasir al-Din Muhammad, al-Malik al-Mansur, son of al-AzizSultanate under a regent

    Egypt is the richest of the Ayyubid lands and, that winter, the prize of a family war.

Self-governing peoples and other lands

Records of this region that belong to no single realm page.

Primary sources for The Latin East and the Ayyubids

  • The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle to 1234, Anonymous (a Syrian Orthodox writer, probably of Edessa) (about 1234 to 1240). An Edessene chronicle independent of Michael the Syrian in its later part, with a secular section reaching 1234 that gives the Jazira, Edessa, Harran, Mardin and Melitene about 1200 under al-Adil's sons and the Artuqids, the Seljuks of Rum, the Armenians of Cilicia and the Franks of Antioch, and a church section to 1207 on the Jacobite succession after Michael's death in 1199.
  • The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian (Michael the Great), Michael the Syrian, patriarch of Antioch 1166 to 1199 (about 1180 to 1195). The Jacobite patriarch's world chronicle, in parallel columns of church, secular and miscellaneous events, ending four years before 1200 and shortly before his own death on 7 November 1199, which left the Syrian Orthodox church with a disputed succession in 1200.
  • The Chronicle of Smbat Sparapet (Sempad the Constable), Smbat Sparapet, brother of King Hetum I of Cilicia (about 1270 to 1276). The Cilician court chronicle, drawing on Matthew of Edessa for its early part and on family memory later.
  • The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir.
  • The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Jubayr (Abu'l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad) (1185, from a diary kept 1183 to 1185). The best eyewitness of the Mediterranean world fifteen years before 1200, by a secretary of the Almohad governor of Granada: the Almohad port of Ceuta and its Genoese ships, Alexandria and Cairo under Saladin with their customs houses, the pilgrim traffic from the Maghreb, Mecca under its emir and Medina, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, Damascus and Mosul, the Frankish ports of Acre and Tyre with Muslims living under Frankish rule, and Sicily under William II with its Muslim subjects and Arabic-speaking court.
  • Annals of Genoa, by Caffaro and his continuators, with Ogerio Pane for 1197 to 1219, Ogerio Pane and the other official annalists of Genoa (year by year under the commune's authority; the 1197 to 1219 section by Ogerio Pane). The official record of the commune.
  • Exhortations and Reflections on the Quarters and Monuments: the chapters on Nubia and the Beja, al-Maqrizi (about 1417 to 1442, at Cairo). Two centuries late, but al-Maqrizi copied earlier books that are now lost, above all the account of Nubia by Ibn Salim al-Aswani, who went as Fatimid envoy to Dongola about 970 and described the Nubian king, his court, the eparch, the church and the land, which is the fullest description of Makuria ever written and still broadly valid in 1200; he also gives the Beja tribes, the oases, the baqt treaty and the Ayyubid campaigns against Nubia of 1173.
  • The History of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and some Neighbouring Countries, Abu al-Makarim (formerly attributed to Abu Salih the Armenian) (about 1177 to 1208; the core about 1200). The one Christian text written in Egypt around 1200 that looks south: it describes the kingdom of the Nubians with its king at Dongola, his churches, the eparch of Nobadia, the churches of Qasr Ibrim and the raid of Shams al-Dawla Turanshah in 1173, the kingdom of Alwa (Alodia) with its 400 churches and its capital Soba, and the Abyssinians with their king, their metropolitan sent from Alexandria, the church of Aksum and the Ark, as a Coptic churchman heard of them through the patriarchate.
  • Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo.
  • Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • The Registers of Pope Innocent III (pontifical years 1 to 3, 1198 to 1201), Innocent III (Lotario dei Conti di Segni) and the papal chancery (1198 onwards, year by year). The register for the second and third pontifical years (February 1199 to February 1201) holds the letters that set the eastern stage for 1200: the exchange with Kaloyan of Bulgaria opened in December 1199 and continued through 1200 over union with Rome and a crown, letters to Vukan of Zeta and to Stefan of Serbia, letters to Alexios III and the patriarch John Kamateros pressing for church union and help for the crusade, the preaching commissions and the legation of Peter Capuano, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond and Leo of Armenia, letters to Aimery of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and the French interdict over Ingeborg.
  • 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.
  • Charters of the Teutonic Order, Various, edited by Ernst Strehlke (documents 1190 to about 1300; published Berlin, 1869). Prints the earliest documents of the German hospital at Acre founded in 1190 and turned into a military order in 1198: the papal bulls of 1196 to 1199, including Innocent III's confirmation of February 1199, the grants in Acre, Tyre and Cilicia, and the first European endowments.
  • Excerpta Cypria, Various, translated by Claude Delaval Cobham (texts from antiquity to the 19th century, translated and published 1908). Collects in English the passages on Cyprus from Greek, Latin, Arabic and other writers.
  • 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.
  • History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, Mawhub ibn Mansur ibn Mufarrij and continuators (Various) (compiled in Arabic 1088 to 1094 from Coptic lives; continued for the patriarchs of 1102 to 1243 and later). The Coptic church's own record.
  • The Book of Instruction and Admonition on Things Seen and Events Witnessed in Egypt (Account of Egypt), Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1204, from notes made 1197 to 1204). An eyewitness description of Egypt by a Baghdadi physician living in Cairo through the Nile failure of 1200: the height of the river year by year, the famine of 1200 to 1201 with its cannibalism and the flight of the poor, the plague of 1201 to 1202, prices, the state of the countryside, and the monuments, plants, animals and customs of Egypt.
  • The Book of the Two Gardens, on the Reigns of Nur al-Din and Saladin, and its Sequel, Abu Shama (Shihab al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi) (about 1240 to 1267, at Damascus). The Rawdatayn ends with Saladin's death in 1193 and matters for 1200 as the store of Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's lost al-Barq al-Shami and of al-Qadi al-Fadil's letters, quoted at length, which describe the Ayyubid princes, the Jazira and the frontier a few years earlier.
  • The Cairo Geniza Documents (about 950 to 1250 for the bulk of the historical documents). Letters, court records, accounts and lists from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Fustat that show the working of the trade that bound Egypt to Ifriqiya, Sicily, al-Andalus, Aden and India.
  • 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.
  • The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing.
  • The Cream of the History of Aleppo, Kamal al-Din Ibn al-Adim (about 1240 to 1260). The annals of Aleppo.
  • The Dispeller of Anxieties, on the History of the Ayyubids, Jamal al-Din Ibn Wasil (about 1272 to 1285, at Hama). The fullest Ayyubid dynastic history, written at Hama with access to the family's own tradition and to Ibn al-Athir, Ibn Abi Tayy and Sibt ibn al-Jawzi.
  • The Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem, Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (al-Katib) (about 1192 to 1193). Saladin's secretary's ornate account of the conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, ending with Saladin's death in 1193.
  • The Mirror of Time, on the History of Notables, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf) (about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus). A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201).
  • 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.
  • The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad (after 1193, probably between about 1198 and 1228, at Aleppo). Ends with Saladin's death in March 1193 and so gives no event of 1200, but it is the formative portrait of the Ayyubid house of 1200: al-Adil, al-Afdal, al-Aziz and al-Zahir Ghazi as Saladin's lieutenants, the Mosul and Jazira campaigns, the war of Acre and the treaty of Jaffa of 1192.
  • The Road to Knowledge of the Dynasties of Kings, Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (about 1400 to 1440, at Cairo). A late compilation, but for Ayyubid Egypt it keeps lost material: for 596 to 598 AH it records al-Adil's entry into Cairo, the removal of the boy al-Mansur Muhammad, the oath to al-Kamil as heir, the appointments at Cairo, the low Niles of 1199 and 1200 and the famine and plague of 1200 to 1202 with grain prices, the reports of cannibalism and the death tolls, together with Yemen, the Hijaz and the Mecca emirate.
  • 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.
  • The Complete History: the passages on the Maghreb and al-Andalus, Ibn al-Athir (about 1220 to 1231, at Mosul). The year entries for 595 to 597 of the Hijra (late 1198 to 1201) record the death of Yaqub al-Mansur, the accession of al-Nasir and the opening of Yahya ibn Ghaniya's war in Ifriqiya; the following years follow Yahya and the Ghuzz captain Qaraqush through Tripoli, Gabès and Mahdia to al-Nasir's reconquest in 1206, with the best eastern account of Qaraqush's career.
  • Records of Foreign Peoples: the entries on the African coast and Egypt, Zhao Rugua (1225, at Quanzhou). A Song customs inspector's handbook, written from merchants' reports, that reaches the African coast within a generation of 1200: Bipaluo (Berbera) with its ostriches and giraffes, Zhongli (the Somali coast), Cengba (Zanzibar and the Zanj coast) with its ivory and ambergris and its trade with the Arabs, Kunlun Cengqi (perhaps Madagascar or Pemba), and Wusili (Egypt) with Alexandria's lighthouse.
  • The Travels of Ibn Battuta: Egypt, the Horn, the Swahili coast and Mali, Ibn Battuta (dictated to Ibn Juzayy) (1355, at Fez). A century and a half late, but the first eyewitness of places that in 1200 are known only from hearsay: Zeila and its stench, Mogadishu with its sultan, qadi and merchant hosts, Mombasa, and Kilwa under the Mahdali sultan Abu'l-Muzaffar al-Hasan, raiding the Zanj of the mainland; and the Sahara road from Sijilmasa through Taghaza and Walata to the court of Mali under Mansa Sulayman, then Timbuktu, Gao and Takedda among the veiled Berbers.

The whole sources library

How these entries are made

Every entry describes one morning, 1 January 1200, and keeps later events in a dated "what the year holds" list with the conditions each depended on. Each entry names its sources, rates its confidence and says where the sources disagree. Published 4 November 2026. Corrections are welcome.