alternatehistory.com

Edessa was the first of the Crusader states to be lost. The main reasons for that was it was landlocked, and it consisted of a lot of land, but the demographic base was too small, with Edessa alone being inhabited by roughly 10,000 people. Did the counts of Edessa ever try to encourage settlement into their own territory, by either the Latin and Frankish crusaders, or by the Armenians from Cilicia and from up north? Seems like they were the first line of defense against the likes of Zengi and and his successor, Nur ad-Din.
Top