Roger of Salerno, Prince of Antioch, captures Azaz from the Seljuk Turks.

Roger of Salerno was regent of the Principality of Antioch from 1112 to 1119. He was the son of Richard of the Principate and the 2nd cousin of Tancred, Prince of Galilee, both participants on the First Crusade. He became regent of Antioch when Tancred died in 1112; the actual prince, Bohemond II, was still a child. Like Tancred, Roger was almost constantly at war with the nearby Muslim states such as Aleppo. In 1114 there was an earthquake that destroyed many of the fortifications of the principality, and Roger took great care to rebuild them, especially those near the frontier.

The Principality of Antioch was one of the Crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of Anatolia 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.

Azaz is a city in northwest Syria, roughly 20 miles north-northwest of Aleppo. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Azaz had a population of 31,623 at the 2004 census. As of 2015, its inhabitants were almost entirely Sunni Muslims, mostly Arabs but also some Turkmen.

The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids alternatively spelled as Saljuqids or Seljuk Turks, was an Oghuz Turkic, Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persian culture.