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Siege Of Safed (1266)
The siege of Safed (13 June – 23 July 1266) was part of the campaign of the Mamlūk sultan Baybars I to reduce the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The castle of Safed belonged to the Knights Templar and put up strong resistance. Direct assault, mining and psychological warfare were all employed to force the garrison to surrender. It was ultimately tricked into surrendering through treachery and the Templars were massacred. Baybars repaired and garrisoned the castle. The main sources for the siege from the Muslim perspective are Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir's biography of Baybars, Badr al-Dīn al-ʿAynī's ''String of Pearls'' and to a lesser extent Ibn al-Furāt's ''History of Dynasties and Kingdoms''. From the Christian perspective, there are the ''Gestes des Chiprois'', ''Estoire d'Eracles'', ''Annales de Terre Sainte'' and '' Maius chronicon Lemovicense''. Preparations According to ''De constructione castri Saphet'', an account of the construction of the castle of Safed probably written a ...
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Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to recover Holy Land, Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Muslim conquests, Islamic rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which resulted in the recovery of Jerusalem in 1099, dozens of Crusades were fought, providing a focal point of European history for centuries. In 1095, Pope Pope Urban II, Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for List of Byzantine emperors, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, AlexiosI against the Seljuk Empire, Seljuk Turks and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. The first Crusaders had a variety of motivations, including religious salvation, satisfying feud ...
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Syrians
Syrians ( ar, سُورِيُّون, ''Sūriyyīn'') are an Eastern Mediterranean ethnic group indigenous to the Levant. They share common Levantine Semitic roots. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to inhabit the region of Syria over the course of thousands of years. The mother tongue of most Syrians is Levantine Arabic, which came to replace the former mother tongue, Aramaic, following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century. The conquest led to the establishment of the Caliphate under successive Arab dynasties, who, during the period of the later Abbasid Caliphate, promoted the use of the Arabic language. A minority of Syrians have retained Aramaic which is still spoken in its Eastern and Western dialects. In 2018, the Syrian Arab Republic had an estimated population of 19.5 million, which includes, aside from the aforementioned majority, ethnic minorities such as ...
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Mangonel
The mangonel, also called the traction trebuchet, was a type of trebuchet used in Ancient China starting from the Warring States period, and later across Eurasia by the 6th century AD. Unlike the later counterweight trebuchet, the mangonel operated on manpower pulling cords attached to a lever and sling to launch projectiles. Although the mangonel required more men to function, it was also less complex and faster to reload than the torsion-powered onager which it replaced in early Medieval Europe. It was replaced as the primary siege weapon in the 12th and 13th centuries by the counterweight trebuchet. A common misconception about the mangonel is that it was a torsion siege engine. Etymology ''Mangonel'' is probably derived from the Greek ''mangana'', "a generic term for construction machinery." It could also be derived from ''mangon'', a French hard stone found in the south of France. In Latin it is called a ''manganum'', in French a ''manganeau'', and in English a ''mangonel ...
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Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Syria#Mediterranean east#Arab world#Asia , pushpin_label_position = right , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_map_caption = Location of Damascus within Syria , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Governorate , subdivision_name1 = Damascus Governorate, Capital City , government_footnotes = , government_type = , leader_title = Governor , leader_name = Mohammad Tariq Kreishati , parts_type = Municipalities , parts = 16 , established_title = , established_date ...
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Siege Engine
A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some are immobile, constructed in place to attack enemy fortifications from a distance, while others have wheels to enable advancing up to the enemy fortification. There are many distinct types, such as siege towers that allow foot soldiers to scale walls and attack the defenders, battering rams that damage walls or gates, and large ranged weapons (such as ballistae, catapults/trebuchets and other similar constructions) that attack from a distance by launching projectiles. Some complex siege engines were combinations of these types. Siege engines are fairly large constructions – from the size of a small house to a large building. From antiquity up to the development of gunpowder, they were made largely of wood, using rope or leather to help bind them, possibly with a few pieces of metal at key stress points. They could launch simple ...
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Anno Hegirae
The Hijri year ( ar, سَنة هِجْريّة) or era ( ''at-taqwīm al-hijrī'') is the era used in the Islamic lunar calendar. It begins its count from the Islamic New Year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib (now Medina). This event, known as the Hijrah, is commemorated in Islam for its role in the founding of the first Muslim community (''ummah''). In the West, this era is most commonly denoted as AH ( la, Anno Hegirae , 'in the year of the Hijra') in parallel with the Christian (AD), Common (CE) and Jewish eras (AM) and can similarly be placed before or after the date. In predominantly Muslim countries, it is also commonly abbreviated H ("Hijra") from its Arabic abbreviation '' hāʾ'' (). Years prior to AH 1 are reckoned in English as BH ("Before the Hijrah"), which should follow the date. A year in the Islamic lunar calendar consists of twelve lunar months and has only 354 or 355 days in its year. Consequently its New Year's Day occurs ...
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Montfort Castle
Montfort ( he, מבצר מונפור, Mivtzar Monfor; ar, قلعة القرين, ''Qal'at al-Qurain'' or ''Qal'at al-Qarn'' - "Castle of the Little Horn" or "Castle of the Horn") is a ruined Crusader castle in the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel, about northeast of the city of Haifa and south of the border with Lebanon. The site is now a national park inside the Nahal Kziv nature reserve, and is an important tourist destination attracting many visitors from inside and outside Israel. Etymology The name of the castle derives from the two French words ''mont'', mountain, and ''fort'', strong, meaning the "strong mountain". In German the castle was accordingly called ''Starkenberg'', meaning the same phrase (''stark'' meaning strong, and ''Berg'' meaning mountain). It was built on land that the Teutonic Order purchased from the French de Milly family in 1220 and is one of the finest examples of fortified building architecture in Outremer. History Montfort was the ...
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Sidon
Sidon ( ; he, צִידוֹן, ''Ṣīḏōn'') known locally as Sayda or Saida ( ar, صيدا ''Ṣaydā''), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. Tyre to the south and Lebanese capital Beirut to the north are both about away. Sidon has a population of about 80,000 within city limits, while its metropolitan area has more than a quarter-million inhabitants. Name The Phoenician name ''Ṣīdūn'' (, ) probably meant "fishery" or "fishing town". It is mentioned in Papyrus Anastasi I as Djedouna. It appears in Biblical Hebrew as ''Ṣīḏōn'' ( he, צִידוֹן) and in Syriac as ''Ṣidon'' (). This was Hellenised as ''Sidṓn'' ( grc-gre, Σιδών), which was Latinised as '. The name appears in Classical Arabic as ''Ṣaydūn'' () and in Modern Arabic as ''Ṣaydā'' (). As a Roman colony, it was notionally refounded and given the formal name ' to honour its imperial sp ...
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Tyre, Lebanon
Tyre (; ar, صور, translit=Ṣūr; phn, 𐤑𐤓, translit=Ṣūr, Greek language, Greek ''Tyros'', Τύρος) is a city in Lebanon, one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, though in medieval times for some centuries by just a tiny population. It was one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises and the legendary birthplace of Europa (mythology), Europa, her brothers Cadmus and Phoenix (son of Agenor), Phoenix, as well as Carthage's founder Dido (Elissa). The city has many ancient sites, including the Tyre Hippodrome, and was added as a whole to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1984. The historian Ernest Renan noted that "One can call Tyre a city of ruins, built out of ruins". Today Tyre is the fourth largest city in Lebanon after Beirut, Tripoli, Lebanon, Tripoli, and Sidon. It is the capital of the Tyre District in the South Governorate. There were approximately 200,000 inhabitants in the Tyre urban ar ...
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Tripoli, Lebanon
Tripoli ( ar, طرابلس/ALA-LC: ''Ṭarābulus'', Lebanese Arabic: ''Ṭrablus'') is the largest city in northern Lebanon and the second-largest city in the country. Situated north of the capital Beirut, it is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District. Tripoli overlooks the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and it is the northernmost seaport in Lebanon. It holds a string of four small islands offshore. The Palm Islands were declared a protected area because of their status of haven for endangered loggerhead turtles (''Chelona mydas''), rare monk seals and migratory birds. Tripoli borders the city of El Mina, the port of the Tripoli District, which it is geographically conjoined with to form the greater Tripoli conurbation. The history of Tripoli dates back at least to the 14th century BCE. The city is well known for containing the Mansouri Great Mosque and the largest Crusader fortress in Lebanon, the Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles. It has the second hig ...
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Akko
Acre ( ), known locally as Akko ( he, עַכּוֹ, ''ʻAkō'') or Akka ( ar, عكّا, ''ʻAkkā''), is a city in the coastal plain region of the Northern District of Israel. The city occupies an important location, sitting in a natural harbour at the extremity of Haifa Bay on the coast of the Mediterranean's Levantine Sea."Old City of Acre."
, World Heritage Center. World Heritage Convention. Web. 15 Apr 2013
Aside from coastal trading, it was also an important waypoint on the region's coastal road and the road cutting inland along the

Fidentius Of Padua
Fidentius of Padua ( it, Fidenzio da Padova) was a Franciscan administrator and writer active in the Holy Land between 1266 and 1291. He wrote a tract on the Christian recovery and retention of the Holy Land. Biography Fidentius may have been a native of Padua or its region, or else was attached to a convent there. He was born before 1226. In June 1266, he was made vicar provincial of the Holy Land, an office restricted by the Franciscan rule to those at least forty years old. That same year, acting on the request of the Templar grand master Thomas Bérard, he sent two friars to the besieged castle of Safad to serve as chaplains. In 1268, Fidentius was in Tripoli when he received a copy of the '' Liber Clementis'', probably in Arabic, from a Syrian Christian. On learning of the fall of Antioch (18 May 1268), he left Tripoli to visit the Christians captured by Sultan Baybars I to provide for their spiritual needs. He shadowed Baybars' army on horseback for several days, possib ...
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