Significance
The battle was one of the first decisive Crusader defeats with severe consequences to the Principality of Antioch. The Byzantine Empire took advantage of the defeat to impose their claims on Antioch, and recaptured Latakia and parts of Cilicia. Many of the towns ruled by Antioch revolted and were re-occupied by Muslim forces from Aleppo. Armenian territories also revolted in favour of the Byzantines or Armenia. Furthermore, these events caused Bohemund to return to Italy to recruit more troops, leaving Tancred as regent of Antioch.
William of Tyre wrote that there was no battle more disastrous than this. Although Antioch recovered by the next year, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus imposed the Treaty of Devol on Bohemond, which would have made Antioch a vassal of the empire had Tancred agreed to it. Antioch was again crushed at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis in 1119; Edessa never really recovered and survived until 1144 only because of divisions among the Muslims.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Harran
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)