County of Tripoli in the context of "Tartus"

The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade, which was proclaimed by the Latin Church in 1095 in order to reclaim the Holy Land after it was lost to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. From north to south, they were: the County of Edessa (1098–1150), the Principality of Antioch (1098–1268), the County of Tripoli (1102–1289), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291).

The three northern states covered an area in what is now southeastern Turkey, northwestern Syria, and northern Lebanon; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost and most prominent state, covered an area in what is now Israel, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and western Jordan. The description "Crusader states" can be misleading, as from 1130 onwards, very few people among the Franks were Crusaders. Medieval and modern writers use the term "Outremer" as a synonym, derived from the French word for overseas.

Qalāwūn aṣ-Ṣāliḥī (Arabic: قلاوون الصالحي, c. 1222 – November 10, 1290) was the seventh Turkic Bahri Mamluk sultan of Egypt; he ruled from 1279 to 1290. He was called al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn (المنصور قلاوون, "Qalāwūn the Victorious"). After having risen in power in the Mamluk court and elite circles, Qalawun eventually held the title of "the victorious king" and gained de facto authority over the sultanate. He is the founder of the Qalawunid dynasty that ruled Egypt for over a century.

The current sultan, Barakah was exiled and rumored to have been poisoned by Qalawun. He would then wage war against the Crusaders, capturing lands held by the County of Tripoli, and later totally defeating them in 1289. Acre, a major Crusader stronghold was besieged by Qalawun but would only be taken by his son al-Ashraf Khalil as the former died before the siege was won in 1291. His son Khalil succeeded him as sultan.

The Principality of Antioch (Latin: Principatus Antiochenus; Norman: Princeté de Antioch) was one of the Crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extended around the northeastern edge of the Mediterranean, bordering the County of Tripoli to the south, Edessa to the east, and the Byzantine Empire or the Kingdom of Armenia to the northwest, depending on the date.

It had roughly 20,000 inhabitants in the 12th century, most of whom were Armenians and Greek Orthodox Christians, with a few Muslims outside the Antioch city itself. Most of the crusaders who settled there were of Norman origin, notably from the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria in southern Italy, as were the first rulers of the principality, who surrounded themselves with loyal subjects. Few of the inhabitants apart from the crusaders were Roman Catholic even though the city was under the jurisdiction of the Latin Patriarchate of Antioch, established in 1100. This patriarchate would endure as a titular one after the Crusades, until it was dropped in 1964.

The count of Toulouse (Occitan: comte de Tolosa, French: comte de Toulouse) was the ruler of Toulouse during the 8th to 13th centuries. Originating as vassals of the Frankish kings, the hereditary counts ruled the city of Toulouse and its surrounding county from the late 9th century until 1270. The counts and other family members were also at various times counts of Quercy, Rouergue, Albi, and Nîmes, and sometimes margraves (military defenders of the Holy Roman Empire) of Septimania and Provence. Count Raymond IV founded the Crusader state of Tripoli, and his descendants were also counts there.They reached the zenith of their power during the 11th and 12th centuries, but after the Albigensian Crusade the county fell to the kingdom of France, nominally in 1229 and de facto in 1271.

Later the title was revived for Louis Alexandre, Count of Toulouse, a bastard of Louis XIV (1678–1737).

In the Middle Ages, the term bezant (Old French: besant, from Latin bizantius aureus) was used in Western Europe to describe several gold coins of the east, all derived ultimately from the Roman solidus. The word itself comes from the Greek Byzantion, the ancient name of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

The original "bezants" were the gold coins produced by the government of the Byzantine Empire, first the nomisma and from the 11th century the hyperpyron. Later, the term was used to cover the gold dinars produced by Islamic governments. In turn, the gold coins minted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and County of Tripoli were termed "Saracen bezants" (besantius saracenatus), or "fake dinars" (dīnār ṣūrī), since they were modelled on the Fatimid dinar. A completely different electrum coin based on Byzantine trachea was minted in the Kingdom of Cyprus and called the "white bezant".