Bohemond I the Great
House of Hauteville
1054-1111
Prince of Tarento 1085-1111,
Prince of Antioch 1098-1111
Son of Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily and Alberada of Buonalbergo
Married Constance, daughter of Philippe I, King of France
Father of Bohemond II, who follows
Although he was christened under the name of Mark, the future Prince of Antioch earned his name Bohemond after the legendary giant Buamundus, due to his distinct height (« He (Bohemond) was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms » would write Anna Comnena in her Alexiad), and later to his own glory. A product of his times, son of Robert Guiscard, the conqueror of southern Italy, and coming from the Norman race, which conquered the throne of England when he was twelve.
Bohemond of Tarento (XIXth Century painting)
Taking his first command in the Norman army at 25, Bohemond participated to his father’s attack on the Byzantine Empire, assuring the command when Robert Guiscard was absent, and pushing through as far as Larissa until the Basileus Alexios I repulsed him and the reinforcements led by Robert Guiscard arrived ; during the expedition, he had promised the throne of Constantinople to Bohemond. Alas, Robert would breathe his last while he was in campaign, in 1085 : Bohemond inherited his father’s positions on the Adriatic Sea, which were immediately overwhelmed by the Byzantines, and he would lost his claims on the ducal titles to his half-brother Roger Borsa and the latter’s mother, Sigelgaita ; thanks to a sympathetic revolt, Bohemond seized the cities of Oria, Otranto and Tarento, which were recognized as his property by the Pope.
Bohemond’s life would change in 1096, when he saw the troops of the First Crusade passing nearby the city of Amalfi, which he was besieging along with his uncle, Count Roger of Sicily : overwhelmed by the piety of the Crusaders or ambitiong to carve himself a demesne in the lands of his archenemy, Alexios. Along with his nephew Tancred, he gathered a large and fine Norman Army and participated to the Crusade, proving himself respectful to Alexios during an audience at Constantinople : if the First Crusade had no clear leader and if the tradition mostly remembered Godefroi de Bouillon or Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Bohemond was maybe among the most able, if not the finest baron of the Crusade.
The Siege of Antioch (medieval miniature painting, date unknown)
Bribing one of the defenders of Antioch during the 1097 siege, Bohemond decided to settle there, having previously considered Cilicia as his principality : due to his role and later his successful resistance to the army of relief led by Atabeg Kerbogah, his rights on Antioch finally privaled on Raymond de Saint-Gilles’, and he stayed in the eastern city in order to consolidate his hold. Hoping to make of the Principality of Antioch a strong land that would dwarf the future kingdom of Jerusalem, he had to cope with the Byzantines and the Turks. Bohemond was captured in 1100 by the Turks, during a relief operation of the Armenian city of Malatia, and was to be detained until 1103, after much delaying by the Basileus. When he was back, Tancred had expanded the Principality, but all expansion was stopped : in the south by the newly established county of Tripoli, in the east by a defeat at Harran and in the north by a Greek breakthrough in Cilicia. In 1104, Bohemond had to go back to Europe in order to find help to his cause.
Tancred of Hauteville (XIXth Century painting)
He managed to gather a large army and to marry the king of France’s daughter, Constance, but decided to use his army to attack Alexios : the attack was a terrible failure, and had to sign a humiliating peace in 1108 where he recognized himself as the Basileus’ vassal, installing a Greek Patriarch of Antioch and abandoning the disputed territories. He would die without returning to his principality, at 57, a broken man.
If the principality of Antioch was born in great pain, Bohemond had managed to enhance a new part of history…
-From
the Beginner’s Guide to the Crusader States, Charles Atkinson,
Resurrection Press, 1998