ABSTRACT
Bohemond of Taranto took the cross in September 1096 while besieging Amalfi with his uncle and half-brother. He and his forces then crossed the Adriatic in a piecemeal fashion in late October, which gives the lie to the story of the Gesta Francorum that he did not till then know about Clermont and the launching of the Crusade.2 The anonymous author of the Tudebodus imitatus et continuatus historia peregrinorum wrote that he reached Avlona at All Saints, 1 November,3 but it would have been impossible to have gathered the resources needed for such an expedition in such a short period of time. The forces landed either at Dyrrachion or at Avlona or just generally in “Bulgaria”, and after landing their route took them to “Andrinopolis”, which was Byzantine Drynopolis, on the river Drino near Gjirokaster.4 Leaving there they marched through Albania and reached Kastoria at Christmas and crossed the Vardar outside Thessalonike on 18 February. He himself reached Constantinople on 1 April and his forces on 26 April. This was a very slow march, and particularly slow from the landings to Kastoria, a distance of
only around 350 kilometres. A little less than two months to cover 350 kilometres at an average of around six to seven kilometres a day was inordinately slow.
