He was the son of Bohemund VI of Antioch, who died in 1275, and his wife Sibylla of Armenia. As Bohemund VII was still underage, Sibylla acted as regent, although the regency was also unsuccessfully claimed by Hugh I of Jerusalem, Bohemund's closest living male relative. Tripoli was very weak at this time and was divided among various factions; from 1277 to 1282 Bohemund was at war with the Knights Templar, but also in 1277 he made peace with Qalawun, the successor of the Mameluk sultan Baibars (who died earlier in the year), and the Venetians, who he exempted from harbour duties. In 1282 he defeated the rebellious Genoan lords of Jubail, by starving them to death in that town's castle.
Bohemund married Margaret of Acre but had no children with her. He died on October 19, 1287, and Sibylla tried to claim the regency, but this was opposed by the Italian merchants, who set up their own administration. Bohemund's sister Lucia soon arrived from Europe to take control of the county.
Bohemund of Otranto, the destined leader of the Crusade, with his nephew Tancred, led a fine force of Normans by sea to Durazzo, and thence by land to Constantinople, which he reached about the same time as Raymund.
Meanwhile the principality of Antioch, ruled by Tancred, after the departure of Bohemund (1104-1112), and then by Roger his kinsman (1112-1119), was, during the reign of Baldwin I., busily engaged in disputes both with its Christian neighbours at Edessa and Tripoli, and with the Mahommedan princes of Mardin and Mosul.
We have seen that the action of Bohemund at Antioch was the negation of this theory, and that Alexius in consequence helped Raymund to establish himself in Tripoli as a thorn in the side of Bohemund, and sent an army and a fleet which wrested from the Normans the towns of Cilicia (1104).
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