The Maronites of Lebanon Under Frankish and Mamluk Rule (1099-1516)

Abstract

NORTHERN Lebanon, with its predominantly Maronite population, was an outpost of militant Western Christendom in Syria during the period that elapsed between the Crusader and the Ottoman conquests. Its history, a confused medley of localized events and seemingly insignificant internal struggles, can only be understood when viewed in relation to Crusader and Western Christian policy and interests in Syria. Were it not for the Crusades the Maronites might very well have remained the fossil peasant community which the Franks found in Mount Lebanon in the last year of the eleventh century. It was, in fact, the Frankish conquest of Syria that gave this fossil community of fugitive heterodox Christians, which had already been reduced to the mountain fastnesses of Lebanon by the Islamic conquest, a new lease of life and a new raison d'etre. While the Franks were in Syria the Maronites were their men; and after their departure, during the two centuries of Mamiluk rule, the Maronites remained faithful to the memory of their Western Christian patrons and lived in the almost messianic hope of their return. The history of the Maronite community before the advent of the Crusaders is a matter of conjecture. Maronite historians, starting with al-Duwayhl (i629-I704) 1, have identified their people as