War of Saint Sabas
Bohemond was also overlord of the Genoese Embriaco family. This involved him in a dispute between the Genoese and the Venetians, the War of St. Sabas, which started in 1256 and drew in many of the nobles in the Holy Land, wasted valuable resources and cost tens of thousands of lives. The Embriaco lords of Gibelet (also known as Jebail or Byblos, a small nearby territory) were resolute opponents of the princes of Antioch. Bohemond tried to persuade the Genoese to support the Venetians, but the Embriaco family rebelled against him in 1258 and escalated the situation to a civil war which lasted off and on for decades. Bohemond was able to achieve some measure of peace by having the leader of the revolt, Bertrand Embriaco (a cousin of Guy I Embriaco), murdered by some serfs, but the bitterness continued.
Bertrand's son Bartholomew Embriaco became mayor of a Commune set up by the Embriaco family. Bartholomew's brother William, along with his cousin the lord of Gibelet, were eventually defeated by Bohemond's son, Bohemond VII, and then completely driven out by the Muslims.
Read more about this topic: Bohemond VI Of Antioch
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or saint:
“Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus, 44:14.
The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.
“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This agglomeration which called itself and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)