Decline & Fall - Byzantium 03 (14 page)

1
See
Byzantium: The Apogee,
p.
264.

2
'More likely a henchman than a kinsman' -
Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.

3
Chalandon
(Jean Comnene et Manuel Comnene)
devotes two whole pages
(108-9)
to this knotty problem; the three cities had been taken and retaken again and again and it is hard to say exactly where the frontier lay. He finally concludes that Leo more probably captured them from the Byzantines - but it remains an open question.

a brief period of imprisonment, from which he was released only after surrendering to his captor both Adana and Mopsuestia - though not, apparently, Tarsus - together with sixty thousand pieces of gold. Hardly had he regained his liberty when, in the early spring of
11
37,
messengers arrived with the worst news he could possibly have received: John Comnenus was marching against him.

The Emperor was taking no chances. He had brought with him not only his old army, tried and trusted, case-hardened after nearly twenty years' hard campaigning; he had also added several new regiments, including one composed of his Pecheneg prisoners and others recruited from the Turkish populations who had rallied so enthusiastically to his standards over the past few years. There may even have been substantial numbers of Armenians; for the Rubenids were no more popular among the majority of their countrymen than were the Frankish Crusaders, and many were the refugees from both regimes who had found their way to Constantinople. From the moment that this tremendous force appeared in Cilicia it carried all before it. The three great cities referred to above changed hands yet again; so too did Seleucia (Selifke), and - after a siege of thirty-seven days - the near-impregnable fortress of Anazarbus (Anavarza) on its
500
-foot escarpment above the river Pyramus. Even now Leo did not surrender, but withdrew with his two sons deep into the Taurus. John, anxious not to lose time, did not bother to pursue him. Pausing only to mop up a few more Armenian strong points, he pressed on via Issus and Alexandretta, and on
29
August drew up his army before Antioch.

The city had been passing through a time of crisis. Young Bohemund II, arriving from Apulia at the age of eighteen in
1126,
had been killed by Ghazi less than four years later, leaving a two-year-old daughter, Constance. His widow Alice, daughter of King Baldwin of Jerusalem, should properly have waited for her father - as her nominal suzerain -
to appoint a successor. Instead, she had assumed the regency herself; and on hearing that the furious Baldwin was on his way to Antioch to settle matters as he thought fit she had gone so far as to send an envoy to Imad ed-Din Zengi, Atabeg of Mosul and effective master of all northern Syria, offering him a magnificently caparisoned horse and the promise of homage in return for his recognition of her right to rule over Antioch as its Princess.

But the envoy never arrived. Intercepted by Baldwin's men, he was brought before their master and executed. The King had then continued his journey to Antioch, only to find the
gates shut in his face. It was
several days before two of his supporters inside the city were able to open them again under cover of darkness to admit him and his troops; and even then Alice had barricaded herself in a tower, emerging only after guarantees had been given for her safety. Her father forgave her, but exiled her to her property at Laodicea and himself assumed the regency - which, after his death in
1131,
passed to his son-in-law and successor, Fulk of Anjou, who had married his eldest daughter, Alice's sister Melisende. For four years Alice had bided her time; then in
113 5
Melisende had persuaded Fulk to allow her sister to return, and Alice had immediately sent another envoy - to Constantinople this time, with a proposal of marriage between her daughter Constance (now aged seven) and the Emperor's youngest son Manuel.

In the circumstances prevailing, such an alliance would have been no bad thing for Antioch; but the Franks in the city were outraged at the thought of Constance's marriage to a Greek - even an imperial one -and King Fulk, when he heard the news, had reacted in much the same way. Obviously an alternative husband for Constance must be found, and Fulk did not take long to make up his mind. His choice fell on Raymond of Poitiers, younger son of Duke William IX of Aquitaine, who chanced at that time to be in England at the court of King Henry I. Fulk secretly sent off one of his knights to fetch him, and in April
1136
- narrowly escaping capture by King Roger of Sicily, who as we have seen claimed the principality for himself - Raymond had duly arrived in Antioch. The problem of obtaining Alice's consent was neatly avoided by the Patriarch, Radulf, who told her that this handsome young prince had come to ask for her own hand in marriage. Alice, who was still under thirty and longed for a new husband, was predictably delighted and withdrew to her palace to prepare for his arrival. Meanwhile Constance was carried off to the cathedral, where the Patriarch married her to Raymond on the spot. Faced with a
fait accompli,
her mother knew that she was beaten. She returned disconsolately to Laodicea where she died shortly afterwards.

When the Byzantine siege engines started their bombardment of the walls of Antioch and the Byzantine sappers began tunnelling beneath them, many of those within the city must have reflected that if only Alice had had her way and Constance had married Manuel Comnenus, they would not be in their present predicament. How much better, they must have thought, if their new Prince had remained in England. Raymond of Poitiers probably felt much the same. After scarcely more than a year in the East, what was Antioch to him, or he to Antioch? He had little love for his new principality, which possessed none of the sophistication that he was accustomed to in Europe. He was bored and lonely, and his child wife had nothing to offer a husband almost thirty years her senior. He knew, too, that against the forces of John Comnenus there was no possibility of holding out for long; nor was there the slightest chance of a Crusader army coming to his relief. For a few days he made a show of resistance; then he sent a message to the enemy camp. If he were to recognize the Emperor as his overlord, would John in return allow him to remain as his Imperial Vicar, or Viceroy?

But John Comnenus was in no mood for bargaining. He demanded one thing only: unconditional surrender. To this Raymond replied that he was not empowered to make such an offer without first consulting the King of Jerusalem. Fulk's answer was careful. Zengi was growing stronger every day and was by now posing a serious threat to the survival of the Crusader states; it would have been folly to antagonize the only Christian power capable of holding him in check. Besides, just how far into Syria and Palestine did the Emperor intend to go? If the sacrifice of Antioch would prevent his further advance to the south, should Antioch not be sacrificed? In any event, his reaction was better than Raymond — or John — can have dared to hope:

We are all aware, as we have learnt from our elders before us, that Antioch was part of the Empire of Constantinople until it was taken away by the Turks, who held it for fourteen years, and that the claims made by the Emperor concerning the treaties made by our forebears are correct. Should we then deny the truth and oppose what we know to be right?
1

And so Antioch capitulated, and John for his part showed his usual generosity. Raymond must come on foot to his camp and swear allegiance to him, giving him free access to the city and the citadel. He must also undertake that, if the
basileus
were successful in his coming campaign and were to return to him Aleppo, Shaizar,
2
Emessa (Horns) and Hama in perpetual fief, he would surrender to him Antioch in exchange.
3
The imperial standard was then hoisted over the city, the Emperor bestowed

1
Ordericus Vitalis, XIII,
34.

2
In classical times known as Larissa (not to be confused with the city in Thessaly), and today as Saijar: an important fortress on the Orontes, some twenty miles north-west of Hama.

3
Chalandon (op. cit., p.
132-3)
is wrong when he suggests that the Emperor also insisted,
'sans doute',
on the appointment of an Orthodox Patriarch. In March
1138
Pope Innocent II forbade any member of the Western Church to remain with the Byzantine army should John take any action against the Latin authorities in Antioch. See Runciman,
A History of the Crusades,
Vol. II, p.
218.

rich presents on Raymond and all the local Latin nobility, and some time in the first half of September the victorious army struck camp. It being by now too late in the year to start a major campaign, John decided to complete his unfinished business with the Armenians and set off for the high Taurus, where Leo and his family had entrenched themselves. A few weeks later their resistance was at an end: all the Rubenid princes were safely in imperial hands, and were sent off to prison in Constantinople.

With the Armenians crushed and his position at Antioch assured, the Emperor was free to embark on the next stage of his plan: to join forces with his Crusader vassals against the Arabs of Syria. Towards the end of March
1138
he was back with his army in Antioch, where he and Raymond were joined by a regiment of Knights Templar and an additional force commanded by Joscelin II of Courtenay, Count of Edessa.
1
Joscelin, now twenty-four, inspired neither liking nor trust. From his Armenian mother — the sister of Leo, whose three sons had actually sought refuge with him a few months before - he had inherited his unusually dark complexion, the effect of which was not improved by a huge nose and deeply pock-marked face. Devious and deceitful, lazy and lascivious, he was in every way the antithesis of the popular image of a Crusader. To John Comnenus, a soldier to his fingertips, he appeared even less impressive than the Prince of Antioch.

It was thus with two most unsatisfactory allies that the Emperor settled down to plan the coming campaign. His first objective was Aleppo. A month before his departure he ordered the arrest of all merchants and travellers from that city and its neighbourhood, to prevent any word of his preparations reaching the inhabitants; then he set out eastward. He managed to take one or two small castles along the route; but a quick reconnaissance of Aleppo itself, its garrison reinforced in the nick of time by Zengi, showed that it would put up a formidable resistance. Rather than waste time and energy on a long siege, he pressed on to the south until on
28
April he reached Shaizar. In comparison with Aleppo it was a small and commercially unimportant town, the property of an equally insignificant local Emir; but it controlled the valley of the middle Orontes and promised to be invaluable in blocking

1
Josce
lin was the son of Joscelin I, who had received the County of Edessa from Baldwin II of Jerusalem as a reward for recommending him for the throne after the death of the childless Baldwin I.

any further advance by Zengi into Syria. The army surrounded it and dug itself in; its eighteen huge mangonels were manoeuvred into position at strategic points along the walls; and the siege began.

All the sources, Christian and Muslim alike, agree on John's energy and courage. Conspicuous in his gilded helmet, he seemed to be everywhere at once, encouraging the faint-hearted, berating the idle, consoling the wounded, instructing the siege engineers, infusing all his soldiers - Greek, Varangian, Pecheneg or Turk - with his own indomitable spirit. If his Latin allies had only proved worthy of him, Shaizar might have been theirs. But neither Raymond of Antioch nor Joscelin of Edessa had stomach for the fight. For Raymond, there was always the danger that if the Emperor made too many conquests he would, by the terms of the recent agreement, exchange them for Antioch; and he dreaded having to move into the front line. Joscelin for his part, who hated Raymond almost as much as he hated the Emperor himself and had no wish to see him extending his territory to the south or east, lost no opportunity of stirring up his suspicions and mistrust. The result was, according to William of Tyre, that the two took virtually no part in the siege and spent most of their time back in the camp, playing endless games of dice.

Meanwhile Zengi was approaching, his army swelled by a strong contingent from the Caliph in Baghdad. Left to himself, John Comnenus could almost certainly have defeated him; but he could not leave his siege engines undefended, nor could he trust the Franks. He was still debating the matter with his sons when a message arrived from the Emir of Shaizar, offering recognition of the Emperor as his overlord, an annual tribute, a large indemnity and presents which included his two most treasured possessions: a table inlaid with precious stones, and a cross set with rubies that had formerly belonged to the Emperor Romanus Diogenes and had been taken from him at Manzikert. Had John succeeded in actually storming the town, he could hardly have asked for more. He accepted the Emir's terms at once. On
21
May he raised the siege and headed back towards Antioch.

On his arrival, he exercised for the first time his rights as its suzerain by making a solemn entry into the city together with his sons, his court and a representative detachment of his army. Received at the gates by the Patriarch, he proceeded on horseback through the decorated streets, while the distinctly surly-looking Prince of Antioch and Count of Edessa escorted him on foot as his grooms. After Mass in the cathedral he passed on to the palace, where he took
up his residence. Then, after a
few days' rest, he sent for Raymond, Joscelin and the leading Latin barons. The war, he told them, was not ended; Aleppo remained in infidel hands; he could not yet make over to Raymond the territories he had promised him. Future campaigns, however, must be planned in Antioch; furthermore he needed a safe place in which to store his war equipment and his treasure. He must therefore require Raymond, according to the treaty of the previous year, to surrender the citadel forthwith.