County of Tripoli

The last of the crusader states to be founded and among the last to fall, created by a siege that outlived the man who began it. Raymond IV of Toulouse, the wealthiest leader of the First Crusade, had been passed over for Jerusalem and turned instead to the Lebanese coast, beginning the blockade of Tripoli in 1102 from a castle he built on the ridge above it - still called Qalaat Sanjil, the citadel of Saint-Gilles. He died in 1105 and the city held out until 1109, when it fell to a coalition fleet after seven years, its celebrated library reportedly destroyed. The county was the smallest of the four Latin states, a narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, and it was formally a vassal of Jerusalem, though its counts behaved independently. Its real strength was castles: Krak des Chevaliers, held by the Hospitallers from 1142, is the finest surviving crusader fortification anywhere. The population was largely Maronite Christian and Muslim under a Frankish elite, and Maronite ties to Rome date from this period. Nur al-Din and then Saladin pressed it repeatedly without taking it. The county passed to the princes of Antioch by marriage in 1187, joining the two states. Qalawun took Tripoli in 1289 and razed the coastal city. Acre fell two years later, ending the crusader presence. Tripoli, now Lebanon's second city, was the capital. The county ran roughly from Tortosa to Beirut. Its counts came from the house of Toulouse and used the title count of Tripoli and Saint-Gilles. Krak des Chevaliers fell to Baybars in 1271 and is a World Heritage site.

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