1556

Jul. 10-15. Rome. St Peter’s. In a letter to the bishops of France, Pope Innocent III summarizes his knowledge of events in the Latin East. Discord between the count of Tripoli and the king of Armenia has degenerated into warfare, with the Knights Templar and the people of Antioch favouring the count and the Hospitallers of St John and the patriarch of Antioch the king. The son of Saladin, who is sultan of Aleppo, is allied to the count of Tripoli but the dominus de Nephin[o] has been in conflict with him. Saphidinus, who is overlord of Damascus, Cairo and Egypt, fears that Jerusalem may be occupied in the way Constantinople has been occupied by the Latins, and is trying to build a major coalition against the Christians.