The Military Orders and the principality of Antioch

On 26 September 1188, the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin (d.1193), having already swept through the southern and central regions of the Latin principality of Antioch, now raised his banner over the Templar-held fortress of Baghras, just 25 kilometres north of Antioch itself. ¹ Overlooking a major route into Cilicia through the Amanus Mountains, the loss of Baghras was a major blow to the principality, while the speed with which Muslim forces convinced the Templar garrison to surrender is somewhat surprising given the order’s famed martial abilities. It was especially problematic given that this, and the rapidity of the principality’s broader capitulation in summer 1188, came despite the Templars and Hospitallers having successively increased their Antiochene holdings during the twelfth century, coming to govern many of its key frontiers in the hope of staving off military disaster. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to explore the processes by which the Templars and Hospitallers came to hold such influence in the principality, as well as to determine whether and how their integration into Antioch’s existing structures of power might have contributed to the disasters of 1188 (Figure 24.1).