County of Tripoli

The County of Tripoli was the last-born of the Crusader states, founded in the Levant in 1102 and ruling Tripoli, northern Lebanon and corners of northwestern Syria until 1289. Raymond of Toulouse, rich and landless after the First Crusade, seized Tortosa and ground toward Tripoli, the fertile hinge between the French south and the Norman north; his son Bertrand took the city in 1109 as King Baldwin's vassal and first count. The county lived by the sword and the bargain: Raymond II gave the Hospitallers the Krak and the Templars held Tartus, Genoese Embriachi took Byblos for military aid, the 1170 earthquake bought a truce with Nur al-Din, and successions were settled by war, favour and negotiation among Franks, native Christians, Druze and Muslims. It outlived Edessa and watched Antioch and Jerusalem fall, until Sultan Qalawun's Mamluks stormed it in 1289 and folded the last Frankish county into Cairo's empire.