[1] As a guide to the English-speaking reader, the following notes on
the pronunciation of Bohemian names are appended. The Czech (Cech)
alphabet is the same as the English, with the omission of the letters
q, w and x. Certain letters, however, vary in pronunciation, and are
distinguished by diacritical marks, a device orginated by John Huss.
The vowels a, e, i, (y), o, u, are pronounced as in Italian; but e =
Eng. ye in "yet," and [ou] = Eng. oo.
The consonants, b, d, f, k, l, m, n, p, r, v, z, are as in English; g
= Eng. g in "gone"; s = Eng. initial s. But n = Span. n (in _canon_);
r = rsh; s = sh; z = zh (i.e. the French j); k before d = g; v before
k, p, s, t = f. Of the other consonants c = Eng. ts; c = ch; ch =
Germ. ch; j = Eng. y, but is not pronounced before d, m, s. Accents
on vowels lengthen them; on d and t they are softening marks. H is
always pronounced in Czech. At the end of words and before k and t it
= Germ, ch; in other places, as in _bahno_ (morass) its pronunciation
is somewhat softer.
[2] _Protestatio Bohemorum_, frequently printed in English and
German, as well as in the Latin original.
[3] Laurence of Brezova's (contemporary) _Kronika Husitska_.
[4] This work has been translated into English by Count Lutzow for
the "Temple Classics."
BOHEMUND, the name of a series of princes of Antioch, afterwards counts
of Tripoli. Their connexion is shown in the following table:--
Robert Guiscard = (1)Alberida: (2)Sicelgaeta.
|
Bohemund I. = Constance, daughter of Philip I. of France.
|
Bohemund II. = Alice, daughter of Baldwin II. of
| Jerusalem.
(1)Raymund = Constance = (2)Raynald of Chatillon.
|
Bohemund III. = (2)Orguilleuse.
|
Bohemund IV. = (1)Plaisance.
| (2)Melisinda, daughter of Amalric II.
|
Bohemund V. = (1)Alice, widow of Hugh of Cyprus.
= (2)Luciana, daughter of count of
|_________ Segni.
| |
Henry I. = Plaisance Bohemund VI. = Sibylla,
of Cyprus | | sister of Leo
| |of Armenia. III.
Hugh II. Bohemund VII.--_o.s.p._
BOHEMUND I. (c. A.D. 1058-1111), prince of Otranto and afterwards of
Antioch, whose first name was Marc, was the eldest son of Robert
Guiscard, _dux Apuliae et Calabriae_, by an early marriage contracted
before 1059. He served under his father in the great attack on the East
Roman empire (1080-1085), and commanded the Normans during Guiscard's
absence (1082-1084), penetrating into Thessaly as far as Larissa, but
being repulsed by Alexius Comnenus. This early hostility to Alexius had
a great influence in determining the course of his future career, and
thereby helped to determine the history of the First Crusade, of which
Bohemund may be regarded as the leader. On the death of Guiscard in
1085, his younger son Roger, born "in the purple" of a Lombard princess
Sicelgaeta, succeeded to the duchy of Apulia and Calabria, and a war
arose between Bohemund (whom his father had destined for the throne of
Constantinople) and Duke Roger. The war was finally composed by the
mediation of Urban II. and the award of Otranto and other possessions to
Bohemund. In 1096 Bohemund, along with his uncle the great count of
Sicily, was attacking Amalfi, which had revolted against Duke Roger,
when bands of crusaders began to pass, on their way through Italy to
Constantinople. The zeal of the crusader came upon Bohemund: it is
possible, too, that he saw in the First Crusade a chance of realizing
his father's policy (which was also an old Norse instinct) of the _Drang
nach Osten_, and hoped from the first to carve for himself an eastern
principality. He gathered a fine Norman army (perhaps the finest
division in the crusading host), at the head of which he crossed the
Adriatic, and penetrated to Constantinople along the route he had tried
to follow in 1082-1084. He was careful to observe a "correct" attitude
towards Alexius, and when he arrived at Constantinople in April 1097 he
did homage to the emperor. He may have negotiated with Alexius about a
principality at Antioch; if he did so, he had little encouragement. From
Constantinople to Antioch Bohemund was the real leader of the First
Crusade; and it says much for his leading that the First Crusade
succeeded in crossing Asia Minor, which the Crusades of 1101, 1147 and
1189 failed to accomplish. A _politique_, Bohemund was resolved to
engineer the enthusiasm of the crusaders to his own ends; and when his
nephew Tancred left the main army at Heraclea, and attempted to
establish a footing in Cilicia, the movement may have been already
intended as a preparation for Bohemund's eastern principality. Bohemund
was the first to get into position before Antioch (October 1097), and he
took a great part in the siege, beating off the Mahommedan attempts at
relief from the east, and connecting the besiegers on the west with the
port of St Simeon and the Italian ships which lay there. The capture of
Antioch was due to his connexion with Firuz, one of the commanders in
the city; but he would not bring matters to an issue until the
possession of the city was assured him (May 1098), under the terror of
the approach of Kerbogha with a great army of relief, and with a
reservation in favour of Alexius, if Alexius should fulfil his promise
to aid the crusaders. But Bohemund was not secure in the possession of
Antioch, even after its surrender and the defeat of Kerbogha; he had to
make good his claims against Raymund of Toulouse, who championed the
rights of Alexius. He obtained full possession in January 1099, and
stayed in the neighbourhood of Antioch to secure his position, while the
other crusaders moved southward to the capture of Jerusalem. He came to
Jerusalem at Christmas 1099, and had Dagobert of Pisa elected as
patriarch, perhaps in order to check the growth of a strong Lotharingian
power in the city. It might seem in 1100 that Bohemund was destined to
found a great principality in Antioch, which would dwarf Jerusalem; he
had a fine territory, a good strategical position and a strong army. But
he had to face two great forces--the East Roman empire, which claimed
the whole of his territories and was supported in its claim by Raymund
of Toulouse, and the strong Mahommedan principalities in the north-east
of Syria. Against these two forces he failed. In 1100 he was captured by
Danishmend of Sivas, and he languished in prison till 1103. Tancred took
his place; but meanwhile Raymund established himself with the aid of
Alexius in Tripoli, and was able to check the expansion of Antioch to
the south. Ransomed in 1103 by the generosity of an Armenian prince,
Bohemund made it his first object to attack the neighbouring Mahommedan
powers in order to gain supplies. But in heading an attack on Harran, in
1104, he was severely defeated at Balich, near Rakka on the Euphrates.
The defeat was decisive; it made impossible the great eastern
principality which Bohemund had contemplated. It was followed by a Greek
attack on Cilicia; and despairing of his own resources, Bohemund
returned to Europe for reinforcements in order to defend his position.
His attractive personality won him the hand of Constance, the daughter
of the French king, Philip I., and he collected a large army. Dazzled by
his success, he resolved to use his army not to defend Antioch against
the Greeks, but to attack Alexius. He did so; but Alexius, aided by the
Venetians, proved too strong, and Bohemund had to submit to a
humiliating peace (1108), by which he became the vassal of Alexius,
consented to receive his pay, with the title of _Sebastos_, and promised
to cede disputed territories and to admit a Greek patriarch into
Antioch. Henceforth Bohemund was a broken man. He died without returning
to the East, and was buried at Canossa in Apulia, in 1111.
LITERATURE.--The anonymous _Gesta Francorum_ (edited by H. Hagenmeyer)
is written by one of Bohemund's followers; and the _Alexiad_ of Anna
Comnena is a primary authority for the whole of his life. His career
is discussed by B. von Kugler, _Bohemund und Tancred_ (Tubingen,
1862); while L. von Heinemann, _Geschichte der Normannen in Sicilien
und Unteritalien_ (Leipzig, 1894), and R. Rohricht, _Geschichte des
ersten Kreuzzuges_ (Innsbruck, 1901), and _Geschichte des Konigreichs
Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898), may also be consulted for his history.
BOHEMUND II. (1108-1131), son of the great Bohemund by his marriage with
Constance of France, was born in 1108, the year of his father's defeat
at Durazzo. In 1126 he came from Apulia to Antioch (which, since the
fall of Roger, the successor of Tancred, in 1119, had been under the
regency of Baldwin II.); and in 1127 he married Alice, the younger
daughter of Baldwin. After some trouble with Joscelin of Edessa, and
after joining with Baldwin II. in an attack on Damascus (1127), he was
defeated and slain on his northern frontier by a Mahommedan army from
Aleppo (1131). He had shown that he had his father's courage: if time
had sufficed, he might have shown that he had the other qualities of the
first Bohemund.
BOHEMUND III. was the son of Constance, daughter of Bohemund II., by her
first husband, Raymund of Antioch. He succeeded his mother in the
principality of Antioch in 1163, and first appears prominently in 1164,
as regent of the kingdom of Jerusalem during the expedition of Amalric
I. to Egypt. During the absence of Amalric, he was defeated and captured
by Nureddin (August 1164) at Harenc, to the east of Antioch. He was at
once ransomed by his brother-in-law, the emperor Manuel, and went to
Constantinople, whence he returned with a Greek patriarch. In 1180 he
deserted his second wife, the princess Orguilleuse, for a certain
Sibylla, and he was in consequence excommunicated. By Orguilleuse he had
had two sons, Raymund and Bohemund (the future Bohemund IV.), whose
relations and actions determined the rest of his life. Raymund married
Alice, a daughter of the Armenian prince Rhupen (Rupin), brother of Leo
of Armenia, and died in 1197, leaving behind him a son, Raymund Rhupen.
Bohemund, the younger brother of Raymund, had succeeded the last count
of Tripoli in the possession of that county, 1187; and the problem which
occupied the last years of Bohemund III. was to determine whether his
grandson, Raymund Rhupen, or his younger son, Bohemund, should succeed
him in Antioch. Leo of Armenia was naturally the champion of his
great-nephew, Raymund Rhupen; indeed he had already claimed Antioch in
his own right, before the marriage of his niece to Raymund, in 1194,
when he had captured Bohemund III. at Gastin, and attempted without
success to force him to cede Antioch.[1] Bohemund the younger, however,
prosecuted his claim with vigour, and even evicted his father from
Antioch about 1199: but he was ousted by Leo (now king of Armenia by
the grace of the emperor, Henry VI.), and Bohemund III. died in
possession of his principality (1201).
BOHEMUND IV., younger son of Bohemund III. by his second wife
Orguilleuse, became count of Tripoli in 1187, and succeeded his father
in the principality of Antioch, to the exclusion of Raymund Rhupen, in
1201. But the dispute lasted for many years (Leo of Armenia continuing
to champion the cause of his great-nephew), and long occupied the
attention of Innocent III. Bohemund IV. enjoyed the support of the
Templars (who, like the Knights of St John, had estates in Tripoli) and
of the Greek inhabitants of Antioch, to whom he granted their own
patriarch in 1207, while Leo appealed (1210-1211) both to Innocent III.
and the emperor Otto IV., and was supported by the Hospitallers. In 1216
Leo captured Antioch, and established Raymund Rhupen as its prince; but
he lost it again in less than four years, and it was once more in the
possession of Bohemund IV. when Leo died in 1220. Raymund Rhupen died in
1221; and after the event Bohemund reigned in Antioch and Tripoli till
his death, proving himself a determined enemy of the Hospitallers, and
thereby incurring excommunication in 1230. He first joined, and then
deserted, the emperor Frederick II., during the crusade of 1228-29; and
he was excluded from the operation of the treaty of 1229. When he died
in 1233, he had just concluded peace with the Hospitallers, and Gregory
IX. had released him from the excommunication of 1230.
BOHEMUND V., son of Bohemund IV. by his wife Plaisance (daughter of Hugh
of Gibelet), succeeded his father in 1233. He was prince of Antioch and
count of Tripoli, like his father; and like him he enjoyed the alliance
of the Templars and experienced the hostility of Armenia, which was not
appeased till 1251, when the mediation of St Louis, and the marriage of
the future Bohemund VI. to the sister of the Armenian king, finally
brought peace. By his first marriage in 1225 with Alice, the widow of
Hugh I. of Cyprus, Bohemund V. connected the history of Antioch for a
time with that of Cyprus. He died in 1251. He had resided chiefly at
Tripoli, and under him Antioch was left to be governed by its bailiff
and commune.
BOHEMUND VI. was the son of Bohemund V. by Luciana, a daughter of the
count of Segni, nephew of Innocent III. Born in 1237, Bohemund VI.
succeeded his father in 1251, and was knighted by St Louis in 1252. His
sister Plaisance had married in 1250 Henry I. of Cyprus, the son of Hugh
I.; and the Cypriot connexion of Antioch, originally formed by the
marriage of Bohemund V. and Alice, the widow of Hugh I., was thus
maintained. In 1252 Bohemund VI. established himself in Antioch, leaving
Tripoli to itself, and in 1257 he procured the recognition of his
nephew, Hugh II., the son of Henry I. by Plaisance, as king of
Jerusalem. He allied himself to the Mongols against the advance of the
Egyptian sultan; but in 1268 he lost Antioch to Bibars, and when he died
in 1275 he was only count of Tripoli.
BOHEMUND VII., son of Bohemund VI. by Sibylla, sister of Leo III. of
Armenia, succeeded to the county of Tripoli in 1275, with his mother as
regent. In his short and troubled reign he had trouble with the Templars
who were established in Tripoli; and in the very year of his death
(1287) he lost Laodicea to the sultan of Egypt. He died without issue;
and as, within two years of his death, Tripoli was captured, the county
of Tripoli may be said to have become extinct with him.
LITERATURE.--The history of the Bohemunds is the history of the
principality of Antioch, and, after Bohemund IV., of the county of
Tripoli also. For Antioch, we possess its _Assises_ (Venice, 1876);
and two articles on its history have appeared in the _Revue de
l'Orient Latin_ (Paris, 1893, fol.), both by E. Rey ("Resume
chronologique de l'histpire des princes d'Antioche," vol. iv., and
"Les dignitaires de la principaute d'Antioche," vol. viii.). R.
Rohricht, _Geschichte des Konigreichs Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898),
gives practically all that is known about the history of Antioch and
Tripoli. (E. Br.)