Montferrand was a fortress in the County of Tripoli (at the present-day village of Baarin in Syria), built in 1126.

History

The construction of Montferrand started when the united crusader troops from

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, Tripoli and

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; , ) "Antioch on Daphne"; or "Antioch the Great"; ; ; ; ; ; ; . was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as ...

laid siege to Rafaniya on 13 March 1126. Originally, it was destined to complete the blockade of Rafaniya and to secure the protection of the besiegers. Rafaniya fell to the crusaders on 31 March. Count Raymond II of Tripoli granted his claims to Montferrand and Rafaniya to the Knights Hospitallers in 1142 to persuade them to make efforts to recapture it. In 1238/9, the

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

emir of

Hama Hama ( ', ) is a city on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria. It is located north of Damascus and north of Homs. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate. With a population of 996,000 (2023 census), Hama is one o ...

, Al-Muzaffar Mahmud, decided to raze the citadel to the ground.

References

Sources

* * Crusader castles Castles in Syria County of Tripoli 1120s in the Crusader states {{Syria-hist-stub