ABSTRACT
The title of count of Tripoli became an anachronistic honorific granted by the kings of Cyprus, with last titular count being the Catalan pirate Juan Tafures in fifteenth century. The counts of Tripoli could not fail to recognise this strategic vulnerability, not least as one – Pons – died in battle with just such an easterly invasion in 1137. Of course, the county of Tripoli was shaped by more than the threat of invasion from Muslim quarters beyond the mountains. As the twelfth century wore on, however, it became increasingly difficult for either the princes of Antioch or the kings of Jerusalem to assert their authority over Tripoli, protected as it was by treacherous mountain roads. Thus, geographical obstacles to human power gave rise to county of Tripoli, and with it four crusader states familiar to every historian of Latin East since William of Tyre.
