The county of Tripoli in what is now North Lebanon is arguably the most neglected of the so-called -crusader states- established in the Middle East at the beginning of the twelfth century. The present work is the first monograph on the county to be published in English, and the first in any western language since 1945. What little has been written on the subject previously has focused upon the European ancestry of the counts of Tripoli: a specifically Southern French heritage inherited from the famous crusader Raymond IV of Saint-Gilles. Kevin Lewis argues that past historians have at once exaggerated the political importance of the counts- French descent and ignored the more compelling signs of its cultural impact, highlighting poetry composed by troubadours in Occitan at Tripoli-s court. For Lewis, however, even this belies a deeper understanding of the processes that shaped the county. What emerges is an intriguing portrait of the county in which its rulers strug
