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Margat
Margat, also known as Marqab (), is a castle near Baniyas, Syria, which was a Crusader fortress and one of the major strongholds of the Knights Hospitaller. It is located around from the Mediterranean coast and approximately south of Baniyas. The castle remained in a poor state of preservation until 2007 when some reconstruction and renovation began. Fortress History Margat is located on a hill formed by an extinct volcano about above sea level on the road between Tripoli and Latakia, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. According to Arab sources, the site of Margat Castle was first fortified in 1062 by Muslims who continued to hold it within the Christian Principality of Antioch in the aftermath of the First Crusade. When the Principality was defeated at the Battle of Harran in 1104, the Byzantine Empire took advantage of their weakness and captured Margat from the Muslims. A few years later it was captured by Tancred, Prince of Galilee, regent of Antioch, and became pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rainald II Masoir
Rainald II Masoir was the lord of Margat from 1140 to 1185. In 1133, his father lost his castle to the Muslims, but it was regained in 1140. Rainald was an avid supporter of Aimery of Limoges, taking his side against Bohemond III of Antioch during the latter's war with the church. Early life The date and circumstances of Rainald's birth are not known. He was the son of Rainald I Masoir, an influential Antiochene nobleman, described by Walter the Chancellor : Walter the Chancellor (also known as Galterius cancellarius, the Latinized form of his French name, Gautier) was a French or Norman crusader and author of the twelfth century. He served as Chancellor of the Principality of Antioch and wrote '' ... as "of illustrious birth, powerful in property, of a great spirit and courageous in his person". In 1133, the castle of Margat was lost to the Muslims, and Rainald's father likely died the following year; Rainald would subsequently inherit the title of constable. However, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krak Des Chevaliers
Krak des Chevaliers (; , ; or , ; from , ) is a medieval castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world. The site was first inhabited in the 11th century by Kurds, Kurdish troops garrisoned there by the Mirdasid dynasty, Mirdasids. In 1142 it was given by Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, to the order of the Knights Hospitaller. It remained occupied by them until it was reconquered by the Muslims in 1271. The Hospitallers began rebuilding the castle in the 1140s and were finished by 1170 when an earthquake damaged the castle. The order controlled castles along the border of the County of Tripoli, a Crusader states, state founded after the First Crusade. Krak des Chevaliers was among the most important and acted as a center of administration as well as a military base. After a second phase of building was undertaken in the 13th century, Krak des Chevaliers became a concentric castle. This phase created the outer wall and gave the cas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concentric Castle
A concentric castle is a castle with two or more concentric Curtain wall (fortification), curtain walls, such that the outer wall is lower than the inner and can be defended from it. The layout was square (at Belvoir Fortress, Belvoir and Beaumaris Castle, Beaumaris) where the terrain permitted, or an irregular polygon (at Krak des Chevaliers, Krak and Margat) where curtain walls of a spur castle followed the contours of a hill. Concentric castles resemble one castle nested inside the other, thus creating an ward (fortification), inner and outer ward. They are typically built without a central free-standing keep. Where the castle includes a particularly strong tower (donjon), such as at Krak or Margat, it projects from the inner enceinte. Development Surrounding fortresses or towns with a series of defensive walls where the outer walls are lower than the inner walls is something that has been found in fortifications going back thousands of years to cultures like the As ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the west almost by the Morocco–Spain border. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about , representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only wide. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccation, desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. The sea was an important ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there until 1291, thereafter being based in Kolossi Castle in Cyprus (1302–1310), the island of Rhodes (1310–1522), Malta (1530–1798), and Saint Petersburg (1799–1801). The Hospitallers arose in the early 12th century at the height of the Cluniac movement, a reformist movement within the Benedictine monastic order that sought to strengthen religious devotion and charity for the poor. Earlier in the 11th century, merchants from Amalfi founded a hospital in Jerusalem dedicated to John the Baptist where Benedictine monks cared for sick, poor, or injured Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Blessed Gerard, a lay brother of the Benedictine order, became its head when it was established. After the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
The Mamluk Sultanate (), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled medieval Egypt, Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries, with Cairo as its capital. It was ruled by a military caste of mamluks (freed slave soldiers) headed by a sultan. The sultanate was established with the overthrow of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt in 1250 and was Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517), conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Mamluk history is generally divided into the Turkic peoples, Turkic or Bahri Mamluks, Bahri period (1250–1382) and the Circassians, Circassian or Burji Mamluks, Burji period (1382–1517), called after the predominant ethnicity or corps of the ruling Mamluks during these respective eras. The first rulers of the sultanate hailed from the mamluk regiments of the Ayyubid sultan as-Salih Ayyub (), usurping power from his successor in 1250. The Mamluks under Sultan Qutuz and Baybars Battle of Ain Jalut, routed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baniyas
Baniyas ( ') is a Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coastal city in Tartous Governorate, western Syria, located south of Latakia and north of Tartous. It is known for its citrus fruit orchards and its export of wood. North of the city is an Baniyas Refinery, oil refinery, the largest in Syria, and a power station. The oil refinery is connected with Iraq by the Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline (now defunct). On a nearby hill stands the Crusader castle of Margat (Qalaat el-Marqab), a huge Knights Hospitaller fortress built with black basalt stone. History Ancient In Phoenician and Hellenistic times, it was an important seaport. Some have identified it with the Hellenistic city of Leucas (from colonists from the island Lefkada), in Greece, mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium. It was a colony of Arwad, Aradus,Strabo, ''Geographica'', 16.2.12Greek sourcean and was placed by Stephanus in the late Roman province of Phoenice (Roman province), Phoenicia, though it belonged rather to the prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle
A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private fortified house, fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion, palace, and villa, whose main purpose was exclusively for ''pleasance'' and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain wall (fortification), curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace. European-style castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries after the fall of the Carolingian Empire, which resulted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qalawun
(, – November 10, 1290) was the seventh Turkic Bahri Mamluk sultan of Egypt; he ruled from 1279 to 1290. He was called (, "Qalāwūn the Victorious"). After having risen in power in the Mamluk court and elite circles, Qalawun eventually held the title of "the victorious king" and gained de facto authority over the sultanate. He is the founder of the Qalawunid dynasty that ruled Egypt for over a century. The current sultan, Barakah was exiled and rumored to have been poisoned by Qalawun. He would then wage war against the Crusaders, capturing lands held by the County of Tripoli, and later totally defeating them in 1289. Acre, a major Crusader stronghold was besieged by Qalawun but would only be taken by his son al-Ashraf Khalil as the former died before the siege was won in 1291. His son Khalil succeeded him as sultan. Biography and rise to power Qalawun was a Kipchak (a Turkic people living between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea) from the Burj Oghli () tribe, the sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Comnenus Of Cyprus
Isaac Doukas Komnenos (or Ducas Comnenus, c. 1155 – 1195/1196) was a claimant to the Byzantine Empire and the ruler of Cyprus from 1185 to 1191. Contemporary sources commonly refer to him as the emperor of Cyprus. He lost the island to King Richard I of England during the Third Crusade. Family Isaac of Cyprus was a member of the royal Komnenos family. His grandfather Isaac had been bypassed by a younger brother, Manuel I Komnenos, in the succession to the Byzantine throne, instead taking the auxiliary position of ''sebastokrator''. With his first wife Theodora Kamaterina (d. 1144) Isaac the ''sebastokrator'' had a daughter, Irene Komnene, who married one Doukas Kamateros and gave birth to Isaac of Cyprus, . Life Most of the following biography is derived from the works of Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates. Isaac was the son of an otherwise obscure Byzantine aristocrat, Doukas Kamateros, and Irene Komnene, daughter of ''sebastokrator'' Isaac Komnenos. He married an Arme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding territories from Muslim rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which culminated in the Siege of Jerusalem (1099), capture of Jerusalem in 1099, these expeditions spanned centuries and became a central aspect of European political, religious, and military history. In 1095, after a Byzantine request for aid,Helen J. Nicholson, ''The Crusades'', (Greenwood Publishing, 2004), 6. Pope Urban II proclaimed the first expedition at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for List of Byzantine emperors, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, AlexiosI Komnenos and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in Western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. Participants came from all over Europe and had a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
