The Maronites
Closely related to the Druzes are their northwestern neighbors, the Maronites, a Christian people, who seceded from the Roman Church in the great schism that followed the council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.[248] They form a compact mass settled on the western slopes of the Lebanon mountains between the valleys of the Nahr-el-Kebir and the Nahr-el-Barid. Mountain isolation and intermarriage among them have maintained an old type with remarkable purity. Being better farmers than warriors they have suffered from the oft repeated depredations of their war-like neighbors.[249] Enmity with their Mohammedan neighbors dates from the time of the Crusades when the Maronites had sided with the Christian knights.