| |
Henry I. = Plaisance Bohemund VI. = Sibylla,
of Cyprus | | sister of Leo
| |of Armenia. III.
Hugh II. Bohemund VII.--_o.s.p._

BOHEMUND I. (c. A.D. 1058-1111), prince of Otranto and afterwards of
Antioch, whose first name was Marc, was the eldest son of Robert
Guiscard, _dux Apuliae et Calabriae_, by an early marriage contracted
before 1059. He served under his father in the great attack on the East
Roman empire (1080-1085), and commanded the Normans during Guiscard's
absence (1082-1084), penetrating into Thessaly as far as Larissa, but
being repulsed by Alexius Comnenus. This early hostility to Alexius had
a great influence in determining the course of his future career, and
thereby helped to determine the history of the First Crusade, of which
Bohemund may be regarded as the leader. On the death of Guiscard in
1085, his younger son Roger, born "in the purple" of a Lombard princess
Sicelgaeta, succeeded to the duchy of Apulia and Calabria, and a war
arose between Bohemund (whom his father had destined for the throne of
Constantinople) and Duke Roger. The war was finally composed by the
mediation of Urban II. and the award of Otranto and other possessions to
Bohemund. In 1096 Bohemund, along with his uncle the great count of
Sicily, was attacking Amalfi, which had revolted against Duke Roger,
when bands of crusaders began to pass, on their way through Italy to
Constantinople. The zeal of the crusader came upon Bohemund: it is
possible, too, that he saw in the First Crusade a chance of realizing
his father's policy (which was also an old Norse instinct) of the _Drang
nach Osten_, and hoped from the first to carve for himself an eastern
principality. He gathered a fine Norman army (perhaps the finest
division in the crusading host), at the head of which he crossed the
Adriatic, and penetrated to Constantinople along the route he had tried
to follow in 1082-1084. He was careful to observe a "correct" attitude
towards Alexius, and when he arrived at Constantinople in April 1097 he
did homage to the emperor. He may have negotiated with Alexius about a
principality at Antioch; if he did so, he had little encouragement. From
Constantinople to Antioch Bohemund was the real leader of the First
Crusade; and it says much for his leading that th