Bohemund, son of the Norman who conquered Sicily, was described as a tiger by Anna Comnena, Emperor Alexios’s daughter. His ferocious assault on Albania in past years had advertised Norman strength, and when he set out as a leader in 1097, everyone expected him to be the star. His crafty mind had landed him the Princedom of the biggest city in the region, but ever since then, life had been rocky, including his three years as a hostage among nomads.
In Antioch, Bohemund explained to everyone that while he was in captivity, he frequently prayed to St. Leonard, and now that he was free, he was under oath to give a silver model of shackles to the Cathedral of the saint in France. He would recruit more Crusaders while in France and return in glory! To make sure he could travel and recruit in style, he emptied the treasuries of Antioch. He packed up the gold and silver in locked chests and just legally stole it. Tancred, the nephew who had been reluctant to welcome him back, was left with regencies of both Edessa and Antioch, but without funds to do anything in either.
Bohemund was an enemy of the Byzantines by now; his un-neighborly actions had made it very clear to them that he classed them with the Turks or lower. Unfortunately, he had to pass through a lot of Byzantine territory in order to get back to Italy and France. According to the Emperor’s daughter Anna, he sneaked through dangerous parts by lying in a coffin with a rotting dead chicken. No Byzantine guards wished to search that coffin! It was a clever ruse if he actually did this, but the fact that he had to sneak in such a shameful way was not his proudest resume point.
In Italy, Bohemund was welcomed as a hero. Taranto and Apulia could bask in his conquering glory. Someone in his retinue wrote a history of the Crusading years, and Bohemund used some of the Antiochan gold to fund its copying and distribution. Naturally, it centered on each of Bohemund’s heroic acts as well as on the shameful, sneaking, lying actions of the despicable Greeks, his new enemies.
Bohemund visited St. Leonard’s shrine as promised, and while in France, he also married a princess. You may recall that King Philip was having bigamy problems around this time and was under excommunication. As a result, he had two daughters to give away, an old one and a young one.
Bohemund’s bride was Constance, who was 28 and newly divorced. One perk of the feudal marriage system was that widows and divorcees who still brought dowries and estates did not lose market value. Constance had already given birth to a son who died, and she was still elegant and pretty. Her brother Louis would be king; it was a very good match.
Constance’s little half-sister Cecilia, on the other hand, was only about 8. Bohemund at 52 was clearly too old for Cecilia, but Tancred at 31 seemed appropriate. The point wasn’t that Cecilia was actually old enough to be married, but that her legal and financial affairs could be settled now. Tancred would be near 40 when she was actually old enough to have children, but they assumed he’d still be interested. She was sent to Antioch in a separate retinue, by ship. (Don’t worry, it will work out okay for Cecilia in the end.)
Bohemund and his wife raised a new army of foot soldiers and younger knights, and with Pope Paschal’s blessing, they set off eastward. Along the way, Bohemund II was born to Constance. But there’s a catch: Bohemund wasn’t going back to Antioch. His really burning grudge was against the Byzantines, not the Arabs or Turks, and he led his army straight across the Adriatic Sea to Christian Greece.
His assault on Thessaly was such a disaster that the Emperor forced Bohemund into one of the most humiliating treaties of all time. It was signed at the fortress of Diabolis (now Devol) in Albania. (the Treaty of the Devil!) The Emperor kindly granted to Bohemund the right to remain Duke (not prince) of Antioch, but with the feudal ties all reorganized. He was now a vassal of Constantinople, and his city would have a Greek Orthodox patriarch, not Roman Catholic. On his death, Antioch would revert to the Empire, though his heirs could keep Edessa as vassals.
The only way to keep the treaty from being enforced was for Bohemund just not to return to Antioch. The agreement was between him and Alexios, and if Alexios considered it binding on their heirs, Bohemund didn’t. Bohemund was now covered in shame. With Constance and their toddler, he drifted back to Italy. His army’s survivors probably straggled home, too. In 1111, Bohemund died a natural death and was buried in Taranto. Constance stayed there, as regent of Taranto and Apulia, raising little Bohemund II.
The treaty was really a brilliant move for Alexios. Had it been enforceable, it would have achieved what he hoped originally: the return of rich Antioch to his tax base and the strengthening of Greek naval power along the north Mediterranean.