The Crusades, the Genoese and the Latin East - DSpace at ...

Guglielmo Embriaco, and thus the lordship of Gibelet was founded. 87 During the following one-
hundred years, many changes occurred in the position of the Embriaco family in the Latin East
and in the family's relations with Genoa. Financial disputes led to a series of problems which
affected the two branches of the Embriaco family that lived in two communities away from each
other. Importantly, the story of the Embriaco family is linked to the experience of other settlers in
the Latin East. It will be argued that there is some similarity between the course of action taken
by members of the family from the middle of the twelfth century until the fall of the first kingdom
of Jerusalem and the experience of other members of the high and low nobility of the Latin East.
In many ways, this chapter tells the story of the gradual separation of the second and third
generation of settlers in the Latin East from their place of origin and the ways an independent
lordship was formed in the crusader states.
The discussion in this chapter begins in the early parts of the twelfth century when
Gibelet was granted to the Genoese. Sources utilised in research on this period consist primarily
of the Genoese annals, contemporary chronicles concerning the Latin East and charters. The
archives of Genoa contain letters, dozens of charters of concessions of properties and privileges
as well as other documents that the commune retained. These were compiled in Genoa, in the
Latin East or elsewhere and are concerned with Gibelet or its lordship. Other documents which
were compiled in the crusader states are included in other collections. Especially useful are the
documents that remain in the archives of the Order of St John, due to the fact that the Embriaco
family of Gibelet was in close relationship with the Order in the county of Tripoli. Archaeological
excavations of medieval Gibelet are non-existent. Available reports regarding the structure of this
town consist mainly of a nineteenth-century survey which was carried out by Ernest Renan, and
several descriptions of the remains by Maurice Dunand who led the excavations of another part of
town where ancient Byblos was located. These excavations took place in the first half of the
twentieth century388 Art historians wrote about the remaining structures. Camille Enlart, Paul
Deschamps and recently Jaroslav Folda contributed much to the analysis of the medieval town,
despite the lack of ample excavations.
389 It will be argued that an analysis of the remains of the
387 WT, vol. 11,9; De liberation civitatum orientis, in Ann. Ian., vol. 1, p. 124. See also Eugene H. Byrne,
`The Genoese Colonies in Syria', in Louis J. Paetow, ed., The Crusades and Other Historical Essays (New
York, 1928), pp. 146-148.
388
Ernst Renan, Mission de Phenicie (Paris, 1864); Maurice Dunand, Byblos, son histoire, ses ruines, ses
legendes (Beirut, 1963).
389
Camille Enlart, Les Monuments des croises dans le royaume de Jerusalem, texte, vol. 2 (Paris, 1928),
pp. 116-124; Paul Deschamps,
La Defense du comte de Tripoli et de la principautc d'Antioche, in Les
Chateaux des croises en Terre Sainte, vol. 3 (Paris, 1973), pp. 203-215; Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the
Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098-1187 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 54-5,70-72.
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