Count of Tripoli (1109-1112).
Bertrand was the elder son of Raymond of Saint-Gilles, count of Toulouse, by a marriage later dissolved on grounds of consanguinity. His father left Bertrand in charge of the county of Toulouse and his other lands when he left on the First Crusade in 1096, but when Raymond died at Mont-Pelerin while besieging Tripoli (1105), his vassals insisted that his Western lands should pass to his younger son, Alphonse-Jordan, born in the East in 1102. Thus deprived of his expected inheritance, Bertrand sailed to Tortosa with substantial forces, conveyed by a Genoese fleet (1109), and laid claim to his father’s possessions on the Syrian coast as well as the future dominion of the Muslim-held city of Tripoli (mod. Trablous, Lebanon). Although opposed by William-Jordan of Cerdagne, the leader of Raymond’s forces, and Tan-cred of Antioch, Bertrand was awarded half his father’s lands in a settlement imposed by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem. The murder of William-Jordan shortly afterward and the capture of Tripoli by the assembled Christian coalition on 12 July 1109 left Bertrand as undisputed ruler of the county of Tripoli, which by the end of his reign had expanded as far east as the mountain ranges of the Lebanon and the Jabal Ansariyah. He died in January 1112, and was succeeded by his son, Pons.
-Alan V. Murray
Bibliography
Richard, Jean, Le Comte de Tripoli sous la dynastie toulousaine (1102-1187) (Paris: Geuthner, 1945).
World History
