Cities in Medieval Kingdoms: Crusades

[Antiochus Seleukos]

The following cities (roughly) are in the Medieval 2 Kingdoms Crusaders campaign:


Antioch
Diyabakir
Arsuf
Ashkelon
Tyre
Acre
Baniyas
Alanya
Edessa
Nicaea
Smryna
Trebizond
Tripoli

However, I can't find almost anything of these cities in the medieval period online and wonder whether anything remains in the cities?


Thanks,

[GarretJax]

A lot of these seem to have to do with the crusades, I was able to find a couple links for the first few . . . shouldn't be too difficult to find the rest. Should have good info up to the Mongolians showed up.

http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/crusade/antioch.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diyar_Bakr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsuf

[Antiochus Seleukos]

A lot of these seem to have to do with the crusades, I was able to find a couple links for the first few . . . shouldn't be too difficult to find the rest. Should have good info up to the Mongolians showed up.

http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/crusade/antioch.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diyar_Bakr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsuf

There is something about them ,sure, but almost nothing remains from their once glorious period? Especially Antioch was a hue city

[ArmoredCore]

Some of these towns were important trade centers that flourished in times of peace but once they were sacked fell to ruin and never recovered.
Others were purely significant as outposts of Christian power but not much else. Hence they become lost in history and overshadowed by other towns.

As for textual sources on these towns, most of it probably would come from Byzantine or later Arab chronicles. And I am not sure how much there really is.

[Antiochus Seleukos]

Some of these towns were important trade centers that flourished in times of peace but once they were sacked fell to ruin and never recovered.
Others were purely significant as outposts of Christian power but not much else. Hence they become lost in history and overshadowed by other towns.

As for textual sources on these towns, most of it probably would come from Byzantine or later Arab chronicles. And I am not sure how much there really is.

Thanks, but Antioch was once amongst the largest cities in the Levantine area/ What happened to it?

[Condottiere 40K]

Speaking of trade routes, once those were replaced, the oversized oases would decline in importance and population.

[white-wolf]

The following cities (roughly) are in the Medieval 2 Kingdoms Crusaders campaign:


Antioch --> Antakya
Diyabakir --> Diyarbakır
Arsuf
Ashkelon
Tyre
Acre
Baniyas
Alanya --> Alanya
Edessa --> Urfa
Nicaea --> İznik
Smryna --> İzmir
Trebizond --> Trabzon
Tripoli

However, I can't find almost anything of these cities in the medieval period online and wonder whether anything remains in the cities?


Thanks,

Above I wrote the modern Turkish names of the cities which are in Turkey. All of them are providence capitals but Alanya. All of them bustling with life I can assure you. Lot of historical monuments to see and visit on those cities.

[ArmoredCore]

Thanks, but Antioch was once amongst the largest cities in the Levantine area/ What happened to it?

From wikipedia it states that after the Mongols sacked Damascus, trade no longer reached the city and it eventually was abandoned.
This is the case with many of the ancient citadels and cities of the crusading era. Populations move to safer cities and take the trade and wealth with them.
And apparently after the Mameluke sack of the Crusader citadel no rulers had any interest of restoring it to any level of permanence. That said there were settlements in the surrounding area.
It was just the city citadel proper that was destroyed and was lost.

[Antiochus Seleukos]

I see. But what are the best ruins in Antioch and Smyrna? From the Crusader period of course.

[Tureuki]

What do you mean by crusader period ? you meean stuff built by Crusaders ? doubt there are much.

[Antiochus Seleukos]

What do you mean by crusader period ? you meean stuff built by Crusaders ? doubt there are much.

Yes that is what I meant

[Ciciro]

Yes that is what I meant

All the crusaders really did was squat in the stuff that had been built by the Arabs and Byzantines before they arrived.

[ArmoredCore]

I agree with Cicero. If you go to this region and only look for crusader ruins while ignoring all the more numerous byzantine, persian, Islamic, Greek and Roman ruins, among others, you are missing the point.

That said, Diyarkabir still has much of the old city walls in place, the Old City of Damascus is still there. Of course the Fatimid cities of North Africa and Egypt are still there and so forth. And there are still some crusader fortresses left.

And you have to take into account that most of these places are in Islamic countries so many crusader christian ruins are not well maintained except if they were later taken over by Muslims. A good example is Armenia where most of the major Christian cities were located that the crusaders encountered. The Turkish government has not been particularly protective of a lot of those monuments including whole cities like Ani.

[Cyclops]

All the crusaders really did was squat in the stuff that had been built by the Arabs and Byzantines before they arrived.

That's fair enough, the crusaders left a very few marks on the landscape though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_des_Chevaliers

[Condottiere 40K]

Depending on future events, there might not be much left of Damascus, there certainly doesn't seem much left of Aleppo.

[Kyriakos]

The crusaders never were in Nicaea* (which was the capital of the Nicaean empire anyway). Not sure if they actually controlled Smyrna at any time either, but they obviously had a stronghold at Rhodes for centuries, and there is the Hospitaler castle there. Some other dodecanese islands also have castles, not sure if they are Byzantine or Crusader, or Byzantine turned to Crusader and altered (eg in Kos)

Not that it matters now, cause i am sure those lands will be Byzantine again. Never forget

*edit: you mean in the first crusade? not well-versed in that at all, but reading a bit it seems the city was in the end returned to Byzantine control without an actual breech of the wall by the allied first crusade.

[René Artois]

The Franks built a lot actually, especially fortifications. While a lot were on existing sites, it would incorrect to say that all they did was "squat". If you examine a site like Ascalon, it was variously fortified and destroyed and rebuilt during the middle ages, by both Islamic and Frankish occupiers.

Denys Pringle is a good scholar to read on the subject.

[Mary The Quene]

Krak de chevaliers is perhaps the most famous building built by the crusaders that remains today.

Soon perhaps it will be under siege again lol by the islamists.



Old Damascus is fine for now (only the very outskirts are affected)

[Cyclops]

The Franks built a lot actually, especially fortifications. While a lot were on existing sites, it would incorrect to say that all they did was "squat". If you examine a site like Ascalon, it was variously fortified and destroyed and rebuilt during the middle ages, by both Islamic and Frankish occupiers.

Denys Pringle is a good scholar to read on the subject.

I think its a fair point to say if you went to the East Mediterranean littoral (Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan) and only looked for crusader ruins you'd be missing the best stuff. The franks were there for a couple of centuries and left traces rather than swathes of buildings. The Hellenistic, Roman and Ottoman eras all left more and more impressive things to see. Not sure about the Abbasids, I think a lot of their stuff was built over?

[sumskilz]

The Franks built a lot actually, especially fortifications.

Not all of them are even mentioned in the historical sources. For example, there is a crusader fortress built on a Middle Bronze tel called Hanathan (also mentioned in the Bible) which is apparently never mentioned in any primary sources from the crusader period.

It's never been excavated, but the architecture that is visible is Frankish:

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