Bohémond de Tarente

See also: Tarente (homonymy)

Bohémond de Tarente or Bohémond of Hauteville or Bohémond Ier d' Antioche Large the (as much by its size that by its prestige), (born v. 1054 - died the March 17th 1111), was the oldest son of Robert Guiscard, and its first wife Aubrée de Buonalbergo or of Burgundy.

It takes part in forwardings of his father and it second between 1081 and 1085 in its war against Byzance in Byzantine territory. With died of this one in July 1085, it is isolated succession on the duchies of Apulie, of Calabria and Sicily to the profit of his/her half-brother, the young person and weak Roger Borsa, supported by the mother of this last, Sykelgaite of Salerno but seizes the south of the Apulie and the county of Tarente with its partisans the same year.

In 1096, whereas it took part in the sides of his uncle Roger Ier of Sicily count de Sicile, with the seat of the principality independent of Amalfi, it learned that a great forwarding for the Orient was on the way, a good means for him of going to cut a vaster stronghold and more rich person whom his county and took on board with troops and close relations of which its nephew the young person Tancrède de Hauteville and Roger of Salerno, for the First Crusade, of which it was one of the main leaders. It seizes by trick Antioche the June 3rd 1098 and preserves the city, in spite of the vehement protests of Raymond IV, count de Toulouse. It makes city the center of a principality where its indirect descendants control after a fashion during more than two centuries. However the situation of Bohémond, become the prince Bohémond Ier d' Antioche , is precarious between the ambitions of Alexis Comnène, the Byzantine emperor, who lorgne on his formerly Byzantine possessions, but also will of the Arab and the Turks, to take again the control of the Syria North.

In August of the year 1100 Bohémond is made prisoner by the emir of Sivas and is released only in May 1103: Tancrède controls Antioche in its place during this period.

After its Bohémond release sets out again in Europe in 1104 in order to obtain reinforcements. In fact it returns never again in its principality. Indeed he marries the girl of Philippe Ier, King de France, Constance and tries to attack the Byzantine Empire with an unloading in Dalmatie like his father more than twenty years earlier 1105. With the end of the year 1107, it takes Avlona and besieges Durazzo. Unfortunately, a year later, the Byzantine hold it in failure and its forwarding turns short; humiliated, it must treat with the emperor who makes him recognize the authority of Byzance on his principality of Antioche (Traité of Déabolis, 1108). As a prince d' Antioche it must be recognized vassal of Alexis Ist This treaty is badly accepted by Tancrède which hastens to denounce it after the death of Bohémond in Apulie, with Canosa the March 26th 1111, leaving a young person wire, Bohémond.

The Byzantine princess Anne Comnène, eyewitness of the time of the Crusade left us a detailed description of Bohémond, which she admired, description which arrived to us.

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