- Armand de Périgord
Armand de Périgord (or Hermann de Pierre-Grosse) (1178 – 1247?) was a descendant of the Counts of Périgord and a Grand Master of the
Knights Templar .He was master of the Province of
Apulia andSicily from 1205 to 1232. In 1232, he was elected Grand Master of the Templars. He organized attacks onCana ,Safita , andSephoria , and against the Muslim positions around theSea of Galilee . All of these expeditions were failures and diminished the Templars' effectiveness.In 1236, on the border between
Syria andCilicia , 120 knights, along with some archers andTurcopole s, were ambushed near the town ofDarbsâk (Terbezek ). In the first phase of the battle, the Templars reached the town but they met fierce resistance. When reinforcements fromAleppo arrived, the Templars were massacred. Fewer than twenty of them returned to their castle inBagras , fifteen km from the battle.In September 1239, Armand arrived at Acre. He made a treaty with Sultan of
Damascus , in parallel with the Hospitaller treaty with the Sultan of Egypt. In 1244 the Sultan of Damascus demanded that the Templars help repel theKhwarezmians fromAsia Minor . In October 1244, the Templars, Hospitallers andTeutonic Knights , together with the Sultan of Damas, confronted with Sultan of Egypt and his Khwarezmian allies at theBattle of La Forbie . The Christian-Muslim coalition was defeated, with more than 30,000 deaths. Some Templars and Hospitallers reachedAscalon , still in Christian hands. Armand de Périgord may have been killed during the battle, but may have been captured and survived until 1247.
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