The Treaty of Devol was signed in 1108 between Bohemond I of Antioch and the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. It was intended to make the Principality of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire. Antioch came temporarily under Byzantine sway in 1137, but it was not until 1158 that it truly became a ByzantineVassal.
About Treaty of Devol in brief
The Treaty of Devol was signed in 1108 between Bohemond I of Antioch and the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. It was intended to make the Principality of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire. Bohemond, the son of Alexios’ former enemy Robert Guiscard, claimed the Principsality for himself. Alexios did not recognize the legitimacy of Antioch, and Bohemond went to Europe looking for reinforcements. He launched into open warfare against Alexios, laying siege to Dyrrhachium, but he was soon forced to surrender and negotiate with Alexios at the imperial camp at Diabolis. Under the terms of the Treaty, Bohemond agreed to become a vassesal of the Emperor and to defend the Empire whenever needed. He also accepted the appointment of a Greek Patriarch. In return, he was given the titles of sebastos and doux, and he was guaranteed the right to pass on to his heirs the County of Edessa. Antioch came temporarily under Byzantine sway in 1137, but it was not until 1158 that it truly became a ByzantineVassal. The Treaty is viewed as a typical example of the. Byzantine tendency to settle disputes through diplomacy rather than warfare, and was both a result of and a cause for the distrust between the. Byzantines and their Western European neighbors. The Crusaders regarded their oaths as invalidated. By 1100, there were several Crusader states, including Antioch, founded by Bohemond in 1098.
Antioch had an important port, was a trade hub with Asia and a stronghold of the Eastern Orthodox Church, with an important Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch. It had only been captured from the empire a few decades previously, unlike Jerusalem, which was much farther away and had not been in Byzantine hands for centuries. The Crusader armies assembled at Constantinople in 1097 to fight the Seljuk Turks. In 1098, when Antioch had been captured after a long siege and the Crusaders were in turn besieged in the city, Alexios marched out to meet them, but, hearing from Stephen of Blois that the situation was hopeless, he returned to Constantinople. He believed Alexios had abandoned them and considered the Crusantines completely untrustworthy. After Bohemond was released by Tancred as regent in Antioch he was defeated by the Seljuks and returned in control of the West in 1104. He was captured by the Danishmmm of Syria and was imprisoned for three years during which the Antiesochen chose Tanc red as regENT. He later died in the Battle of Harran in 1105, and his nephew became regent of Antioch in the West. He added a further insult to both Alexios and the Latin Orthodox Church in 1100 when he appointed Bernard of Valence as the Oxite Patriarch, and the same time expelled the Latin Patriarch, John of Oxite, who fled to Constantinople and fled to the Latin Church.
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This page is based on the article Treaty of Devol published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
