Raymond III (1140 – September/October 1187) was count of Tripoli from 1152 to 1187. He was one of the most influential political and military figures in the Crusader states of the 12th century. Leader of the faction of the local nobility established in the Holy Land, Raymond III advocated a policy of diplomatic coexistence and truces with Saladin's sultanate, in opposition to the belligerent stances of the newly arrived nobles from Europe. Although he advised against the Christian army's advance through the desert before the decisive Battle of Hattin, his advice was ignored, resulting in the destruction of the Crusader forces and the subsequent loss of Jerusalem.

He was a minor when Nizari Assassins murdered his father, Count Raymond II of Tripoli. His cousin, King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, who was staying in Tripoli, made Raymond's mother, Hodierna of Jerusalem, regent. Raymond spent the following years at the royal court in Jerusalem. He reached the age of majority in 1155, after which he participated in a series of military campaigns against Nur ad-Din, the Zengid ruler of Damascus. In 1161 he hired pirates to pillage the Byzantine coastline and islands to take vengeance on Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos, who had refused to marry his sister Melisende. He was captured in the Battle of Harim by Nur ad-Din's troops on 10 August 1164, and imprisoned in Aleppo for almost ten years. During his captivity, his cousin King Amalric of Jerusalem administered the county of Tripoli on his behalf.

Raymond was released for a large ransom which he had to borrow from the Knights Hospitaller. He married Eschiva of Bures, making him prince of Galilee and one of the wealthiest noblemen in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Amalric died in 1174, leaving a minor son, Baldwin IV, as his successor. As the child-king's closest male relative, Raymond was elected bailiff (or regent). Raymond remained neutral during the conflicts between Nur ad-Din's successors and his former commander, Saladin, which facilitated the unification of Egypt and a significant part of Syria under Saladin. When Baldwin reached the age of majority in 1176, Raymond's regency ended and he returned to Tripoli. Baldwin was ailing, and Raymond and Bohemond III of Antioch sought to diminish the influence of his mother, Agnes of Courtenay, and her brother, Joscelin III of Edessa, over the government. Before Easter 1180, they marched to Jerusalem, but their arrival had the opposite effect: Baldwin promptly arranged for his sister and heir Sibylla to be married to Guy of Lusignan, a supporter of the Courtenays, and Raymond had to leave the kingdom. In the following years, relations between Baldwin IV and Guy became tense, and the dying king disinherited his sister in favour of her son Baldwin V. On his deathbed In 1185, the king made Raymond bailiff for Baldwin V. Raymond's authority would be limited, because Joscelin III of Edessa was made the child's guardian, and all royal fortresses were placed into the custody of the military orders.

Baldwin V died suddenly in the summer of 1186, and Raymond convoked the barons of the realm to an assembly to Nablus. In his absence, Sibylla's supporters took possession of Jerusalem. Raymond tried to persuade Sybilla's half-sister, Isabella, and Isabella's husband, Humphrey IV of Toron, to claim the throne, but Humphrey swore fealty to Sybilla and Guy. Raymond refused to do homage to them and made an alliance with Saladin, allowing Saladin to cross Galilee during his campaigns against Jerusalem and to place a garrison in Galilee's capital Tiberias. In the summer of 1187, Saladin decided to launch a full-scale invasion against the crusaders, and only then was Raymond reconciled with Guy. Raymond commanded the vanguard of the crusaders' army in the Battle of Hattin, which ended with their catastrophic defeat. He was one of the few crusader commanders who were not killed or captured. He fled to Tyre and then to Tripoli, where he died (probably of pleurisy) after bequeathing Tripoli to his godson, Raymond of Antioch. The late 12th-century historian William of Tyre held Raymond III in high regard, and contemporaneous Muslim historians praised his intelligence. After the Battle of Hattin, Western historians tended to blame him for the crusaders' catastrophic defeat. In modern historiography, scholarly opinions are divided, with some historians accepting William of Tyre's assessment, and others emphasizing Raymond's selfishness and failures.

Early life

Born in 1140, Raymond was the only son of Count Raymond II of Tripoli () and Hodierna of Jerusalem. The Tripolitan dynasty originated in the County of Toulouse in southern France, but by the middle of the links between their Occitanian homeland and their county in the Levant had weakened. Raymond was still a child when he first witnessed a letter of grant of his father in 1151. The letter was also signed by his mother, an influential and active "political agent" of her age (as the historian Kevin J. Lewis characterises her), similar to her sisters, Queen Melisende of Jerusalem () and Dowager Princess Alice of Antioch. Her husband's jealousy gave rise to scandalous matrimonial strife during the early 1150s. Although Queen Melisende came to Tripoli to mediate a reconciliation, Hodierna decided to leave for Jerusalem. Shortly after their departure, a band of Nizari Assassins murdered Raymond II at Tripoli's southern gate. Melisende's son King Baldwin III of Jerusalem (), who was staying in Tripoli, recalled the widowed Hodierna to the town.

Count

Minority

Baldwin held an assembly after Raymond II's burial at which the nobles of the County of Tripoli paid homage to Hodierna and her two minor children, Raymond and Melisende. Raymond II had decreed that "the master of the county and the count's son"—an otherwise poorly documented official—was to administer Tripoli if an underage count succeeded to the throne. When appointing Hodierna to the regency for her son, Baldwin ignored the late count's instructions. The teenage Raymond spent several years at the royal court in Jerusalem. The first extant document that he witnessed in Jerusalem was issued on 23 September 1152 or 1153. Lewis proposes that Baldwin III probably supervised Raymond's knightly education.

First years of majority Raymond reached the age of majority in 1155. In his first extant charter, issued on 11 June 1157, he confirmed his father's diploma about the grant of Tortosa (now Tartus in Syria) to the Knights Templar. Nur ad-Din, the Zengid ruler of Aleppo and Damascus (), ambushed Baldwin III at Jacob's Fort on the Jordan River eight days later. After Nur ad-Din laid siege to Baniyas, Baldwin III sent envoys to Tripoli and Antioch to seek assistance from Raymond and Raynald of Châtillon (). They hurried to Chastel Neuf (at present-day Margaliot in Israel) to join the decimated royal army. After their arrival, Nur ad-Din withdrew his troops without resistance.

An earthquake destroyed Tripoli, Arqa and Krak des Chevaliers in August 1157. Taking advantage of the arrival of Thierry, Count of Flanders () at the head of a sizeable army in October, Baldwin III, Raynald of Châtillon and Raymond decided to launch a joint campaign against the Muslim towns of North Syria which had been ruined by the catastrophe. The crusaders first attacked Chastel Rouge near the border of the County of Tripoli, but they could not force the defenders to surrender. They could not seize Shaizar, either; Thierry of Flanders and Raynald of Châtillon claimed the town even before it was occupied, and they could not reach a compromise. The siege of Harenc (now Harem in Syria) was a success, but the crusading leaders finished the campaign after they captured it in January 1158.

Seeking a wife from the crusader states, the widowed Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos () sent envoys to Baldwin III in 1160. Manuel said that he was willing to marry Maria of Antioch or Raymond's sister, Melisende, who were both closely related to the King. Baldwin proposed Melisende, and the emperor acknowledged his choice. Twelve galleys were built at Raymond's order, because he wanted to have a magnificent retinue for his sister during her voyage to Constantinople. The emperor then changed his mind and began negotiations about his marriage to Maria with her mother, Constance of Antioch (). Feeling slighted for himself and his sister, Raymond crewed his newly built fleet with criminals and sent them to raid the Byzantine coasts and islands in August 1161. The pirates captured and plundered sacred places, and attacked pilgrims.

Nur ad-Din raided Krak des Chevaliers and laid siege to Harenc in the summer of 1164. Raymond marched out to join the crusaders (who were assembling to relieve the fortress), but they were defeated in the Battle of Harim on 10 August. Thousands of crusaders fell during the battle and Raymond, Bohemond III of Antioch (), Joscelin III of Edessa, Hugh VIII of Lusignan and other commanders were captured.

Captivity

The crusader leaders captured at Harim were taken to Aleppo, where they were imprisoned. The chronicler William of Tyre's contemporaneous report about Raymond's captivity is contradictory. He claimed that Raymond had spent his imprisonment "in beggary and iron", but he also emphasized that Raymond had learnt to read and acquired a high level of education in the prison. Modern historians assume, without positive evidence, that Raymond learnt Arabic during his captivity. Raymond, as William of Tyre continues, instructed his "loyal vassals" to acknowledge King Amalric of Jerusalem (), who had succeeded Baldwin III, as the lawful ruler of Tripoli for the duration of his captivity. Amalric hurried to Tripoli and took full responsibility for its government, assuming the title of "administrator of the county of Tripoli". He was able to persuade Nur ad-Din to release Bohemond III and Thoros II, Prince of Armenia (), because they were the Byzantine emperor's vassals; Raymond remained imprisoned.

Amalric was the crusader states' supreme ruler but his position was fragile. Bertrand de Blanchefort, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, reminded Louis VII of France () in November 1164 that Amalric would be unable to defend the Frankish East alone. Nur ad-Din captured the fortress at al-Munaytira in 1165 (or 1166), and destroyed the Templars' castles at Halba, Araima and Safita in the summer of 1167. Lewis argues that Nur ad-Din captured Gibelacar during the latter campaign; the fortress was recaptured in late 1169 or early 1170.

The date and the circumstances of Raymond's release are uncertain. According to William of Tyre, Raymond was set free after spending eight solar years in captivity; the contemporaneous Muslim geographer Ibn Jubayr said that Raymond had been imprisoned for twelve lunar years. Another contemporaneous Arab Muslim scholar, Ali ibn al-Athir, incorrectly recorded that Raymond was released after Nur ad-Din died on 15 May 1174, but Raymond had witnessed a royal charter in Jerusalem on 18 April of that year. The historian Marshall Baldwin proposes that Raymond was set free in the fall of 1173 or early in 1174. Lewis writes that Raymond was released because of developing conflict between Nur ad-Din and his ambitious commander, Saladin who had taken over rule of Egypt. The ailing Nur ad-Din (or his advisers) most probably regarded the crusader states as a buffer between his Syrian realm and Saladin's Egypt.

William of Tyre reported that Raymond had to pay 80,000 pieces of gold as ransom, but could only pay 20,000. To guarantee payment of the arrears, Raymond surrendered hostages. Muslim authors wrote that Raymond's ransom amounted to 150,000 Syrian dinars. Raymond borrowed money from the Knights Hospitaller to pay at least part of his ransom.

Count and regent

First regency