The Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa stands in Tartus, Syria. It was built from the mid-twelfth to the thirteenth century, after the Franks captured Tortosa in 1099, and the Knights Templar governed the area from 1152 to 1291. The eastern end is Romanesque and was built first, while the western end is Early Gothic. It is a basilica more than 45 meters long and 30 meters wide, with a barrel-vaulted nave.
An earthquake damaged it in 1202, and it was repaired soon after. Raymond, son of Bohemond IV, was killed in the cathedral by the Assassins in 1213. Fortification began in the 1260s, with machicolations on the buttresses.
After the Templars left in 1291, the Mamluks converted it into a mosque. It has housed the National Museum of Tartus since 1956. Historians call it the best-preserved religious structure of the Crusades.
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