Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Map I Southern Italy and Sicily
- Map II The island of Sicily
- Map III The southern Balkan peninsula
- Genealogical table: The Norman dukes
- Dedications
- Introduction
- 1 Primary Sources and the Problems of Military History
- 2 Norman Military Institutions in Southern Italy in the Eleventh Century
- 3 The Byzantine Army of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries
- 4 The Byzantine Naval Forces of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries
- 5 The Establishment of the Normans in Southern Italy and Sicily
- 6 Robert Guiscard's Invasion of Illyria
- 7 The Norman Advances in the Balkans and the End of the Dream
- 8 Bohemond of Taranto and the First Crusade
- 9 The Count's Campaign of 1107 and the Treaty of Devol
- Conclusions
- List of Byzantine Emperors
- The Hauteville family
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - The Count's Campaign of 1107 and the Treaty of Devol
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Map I Southern Italy and Sicily
- Map II The island of Sicily
- Map III The southern Balkan peninsula
- Genealogical table: The Norman dukes
- Dedications
- Introduction
- 1 Primary Sources and the Problems of Military History
- 2 Norman Military Institutions in Southern Italy in the Eleventh Century
- 3 The Byzantine Army of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries
- 4 The Byzantine Naval Forces of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries
- 5 The Establishment of the Normans in Southern Italy and Sicily
- 6 Robert Guiscard's Invasion of Illyria
- 7 The Norman Advances in the Balkans and the End of the Dream
- 8 Bohemond of Taranto and the First Crusade
- 9 The Count's Campaign of 1107 and the Treaty of Devol
- Conclusions
- List of Byzantine Emperors
- The Hauteville family
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I want you [Alexius] to know that, although I was ‘dead’, I have escaped your clutches […] I have handed over the city of Antioch to my nephew Tancred, leaving him as a worthy adversary for your generals […] If I reach the mainland of Italy and cast eyes on the Lombards and all the Latins and the Germans and our own Franks, men full of martial valour, then with many a murder I will make your cities and your provinces run with blood, until I set up my spear in Byzantium itself.
Bohemond returned to Italy in the early months of 1105, after having to fake his own death and be transported from Syria to Italy through Corfu. By 1104, he had left his territories in Syria under serious pressure from the imperial forces, with the Byzantine army firmly in control of Cilicia and the lower city of Laodicea, while the imperial navy was moving offensive operations from Cyprus and the Cilician ports. Hence, if Bohemond had taken his newly recruited army back to Antioch he would not have achieved much, with the Byzantine resources in manpower and money far outnumbering what the Normans could put on the field. Since Bohemond must have been perfectly aware of this, he thought that he had to strike at the root of all his troubles in Syria, the Byzantine emperor himself, and attempt to replace him with someone more sympathetic to him – a plan that brings to mind the Fourth Crusade some hundred years later.
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- The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081-1108 AD , pp. 200 - 214Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014