One of the leaders of the First Crusade (1096-1099) and later first count of Tripoli (1102-1105).
Raymond was born around 1041, the second son of Pons II, count of Toulouse, and Almodis of La Marche. Raymond inherited the lordship of Saint-Gilles (situated at the mouth of the Rhone), as well as lands in Provence; to these he was able to add an inheritance from his cousin Bertha, consisting of the marquisate of Gothia and the county of Rouergue. On the death of his childless elder brother William IV (1094), Raymond was the ruler of a vast aggregate of territory; he had already taken the title of count of Toulouse. His first marriage (probably dissolved on the grounds of consanguinity) produced one son, Bertrand (later count of Tripoli); around 1080 he married his second wife, Matilda, daughter of Roger I of Sicily. His third marriage, to Elvira, daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile, may well have been contracted in 1088 on the occasion of a campaign conducted by several French lords in Spain against the Almoravids, in which Raymond probably took part.
A resolute advocate of church reform, Raymond was one of the fideles sancti Petri (vassals of St. Peter) whom Pope Gregory VII had planned to take with him on his intended expedition to aid the Byzantine Empire, and Raymond evidently met Pope Urban II before the Council of Clermont. Certainly by November 1095 he had announced his intention to set out for the East, and by the time of his subsequent meeting with Urban, he must have been well informed about the pope’s plans.
Raymond took command of an army drawn from the counts, bishops, and lords of southern France and Provence. He is not known to have alienated any of his own territories in order to finance his crusade, but he was nevertheless able to raise finances exceeding those of the other princes, and was even able to take some of them into his pay. Raymond’s army left France in the autumn of 1096 and marched through Lombardy, Friuli, and Dalmatia, but encountered difficulties in crossing Croatia, despite an agreement he had concluded with King Constantine Bodin. After entering Byzantine territory at Dyrrachion (mod. Durres, Albania), the crusader army was escorted by imperial Pecheneg auxiliaries, and there were clashes between the two forces. The crusaders stormed the city of Roussa on 12 April 1097, but were defeated by imperial troops at Rodosto after Raymond had gone on to Constantinople to negotiate with the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Komnenos. Raymond refused to do homage to the emperor, but did agree to restore to him any formerly Byzantine cities that might fall into his hands during the crusade.
Raymond’s army crossed the Bosporus on 28 April 1097, arriving at Nicaea (mod. Iznik, Turkey) in time to intercept the relieving forces sent to the defenders of the city by Qilij Arslan I, sultan of Rum. At Antioch (mod. Antakya, Turkey), Raymond insisted on a direct siege of the city rather than the blockade advised by the Byzantine general Tatikios, and he constructed a tower (known as La Mahomerie) in order to prevent enemy sallies from the Dog Gate (March 1098). He encouraged raids into the surrounding countryside to secure supplies for the besiegers, providing money for the establishment of a fund to replace horses lost on these occasions. After the capture of the city (3 June 1098), Raymond lent credence to the claims of the visionary Peter Bartholomew and was present at the discovery of the relic known as the Holy Lance in the Cathedral of St. Peter on 15 June. However, he disputed the possession of the citadel of Antioch with the Norman leader Bohemund of Taranto and insisted on maintaining a force of his own in the city. Subsequently Raymond made himself the spokesman of those who demanded that the city should be restored to the Emperor Alexios, even though he also subscribed to the appeal of the crusade leaders to Urban II to come to Antioch and take charge of the crusade (11 September 1098).
During the summer and autumn of 1098, Raymond proceeded to occupy the middle reaches of the Orontes Valley, taking the towns of Rugia, Albara (where he installed a bishop), and Ma‘arrat al-Numan. These actions intensified his dispute with Bohemund, but the pressure of those crusaders impatient to reach Jerusalem persuaded Raymond to put himself at their head, and he left Ma‘arrat in the attire of a pilgrim, leaving small garrisons in the places he had conquered, although Bohemund expelled the force he had left in Antioch. He obtained freedom of passage and supply facilities from the emirs of Shaizar and Homs, occupied Krak des Chevaliers, and besieged the town of Arqah for three months, hoping to compel the qddi (magistrate) of Tripoli (mod. Trablous, Lebanon) to submit to him, but perhaps also to give the emperor time to join him. He was forced to raise the siege by Godfrey of Bouillon and Tancred, although he was able to secure a large money tribute from Tripoli.
When the crusade armies reached Jerusalem, Raymond took up a position on Mount Zion, from where he besieged the southwestern sector of the city. When Jerusalem fell on 15 July 1099, he took the surrender of the Fatimid garrison in the Tower of David and had them escorted back to Ascalon. Raymond had hoped to be made ruler of Jerusalem, but eventually abandoned his claims, although he tried (in vain) to keep the Tower of David. He joined with Godfrey to repel the great Fatimid invasion of August 1099, and after the crusader victory outside Ascalon (12 August), the inhabitants of that city offered to surrender it to him; yet when Godfrey refused to accept this, Raymond withdrew, encouraging the Ascalonites to resist. He did the same at Arsuf, thus revealing his disappointment at being thwarted in his territorial ambitions in Palestine.
At the end of the summer of 1099, Raymond went north with crusaders who were returning home, although he had vowed to devote the rest of his life to the defense of the Holy City. He found Laodikeia in Syria (a city which he had previously restored to Byzantium) under siege by Bohemund I of Antioch and the Pisan followers of the papal legate Daib-ert; he forced them to withdraw and installed his own forces in the city. In the summer of 1100 Raymond traveled to Constantinople, and the next year he joined the Lombard army, which had arrived as part of the Crusade of 1101. Against Raymond’s advice, the Lombards marched into the north of Anatolia, only to be defeated by the Turks at Mer-sivan. Raymond fled to Constantinople, abandoning the Holy Lance in the rout.
While attempting to return to Syria, Raymond was apprehended and imprisoned by the Normans of Antioch. The regent Tancred agreed to release him on condition that he would not attempt to take territory in the region of Antioch, and his followers abandoned Laodikeia, Albara, and the neighboring places. Raymond and his troops marched south with the survivors of the Crusade of 1101, capturing Tortosa (mod. Tartus, Syria) on 18 February 1102 and inflicting a defeat upon the allied Muslim forces of Tripoli, Homs, and Damascus. Abandoning the aim of returning to Jerusalem, he proceeded to occupy the region of Tripoli instead, seizing Raphanea (mod. Rafaniyah, Syria), which threatened Homs. In order to blockade the city of Tripoli, he constructed a castle with Byzantine assistance, which he named Mont-Pelerin. He took the title “count of Tripoli,” founding several religious institutions around the castle, and on 28 April 1104 captured Gibelet to the south of the city. At the end of 1104, however, the Tripolitans attacked Mont-Pelerin, and although they were repulsed, Raymond was severely wounded. Alphonse-Jordan, the only one of his sons with him in the East, was still a minor, and so Raymond entrusted the command of his troops to his cousin William-Jordan, count of Cerdagne; the relics he had accumulated were bequeathed to the abbey of La Chaise Dieu. Raymond died on 28 February 1105.
-Jean Richard
Bibliography
France, John, “The Departure of Tatikios from the Crusader Army,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 44 (1971), 137-148.
Hiestand, Rudolf, “Saint-Ruf d’Avignon, Raymond de Saint-Gilles et I’eglise latine de Tripoli,” Annales du Midi 96 (1986), 327-336.
Hill, John H., and Laurita L. Hill, Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1962).
Richard, Jean, “Note sur l’archidiocese d’Apamee et les conquetes de Raymond de Saint-Gilles en Syrie du Nord,” Syria 25 (1946-1948), 103-108.
--, “Le chartrier de Sainte-Marie Latine et
L’etablissement de Raymond de Saint-Gilles a Mont-Pelerin,” in Melanges d’histoire dedies a la memoire de Louis Halphen (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), pp. 605-612.
Riley-Smith, Jonathan, “Raymond IV of St Gilles, Achard of Arles and the Conquest of Lebanon,” in The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. John France and William G. Zajac (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 1-8.
World History
