A Kingdom Divided

 In his introduction to Downfall of the Crusader Kingdom: The Battle of Hattin and the Loss of Jerusalem W.B Bartlett writes

During the latter decades of the twelfth century, Outremer was sleepwalking to disaster. Seemingly oblivious to the dangers of a resurgent Islam, the kingdom began to split apart. The nobles who governed with the king sought to outmaneuver one another, seeking to raise themselves up and bring their political opponents down.

This is by no means an isolated view, and most modern fiction about the period has followed the portrayal whether it is Cecilia Holland’s Jerusalem in which, according to the New York Times review, she brings to life the “atmosphere of conspiracy, betrayal…and political intrigue….” or Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven” in which the fictional Tiberius condemns the struggles for power and land that he claims corrupted the ideals of the Holy City.
I question this interpretation.

The character of Tiberius, loosely based on Raymond of Tripoli, in the film "The Kingdom of Heaven."

But let’s be realistic. There has never been a kingdom or state that has been entirely without factions — not even totalitarian dictatorships.  To expect a state to have perfect harmony and unity is not merely idealistic, it is naive. Where there is power, there will be differences of opinion on policy, and where there are competing policy options there will be factions — usually aggravated by personalities, rivalries and the prospect of personal gain associated with proximity to power or the execution of one policy over another.

It is, in short, absurd to expect the Kingdom of Jerusalem to be without factions supporting competing policies.  Whether these can be divided into “hawks” and “doves” or “insiders” and “outsiders” is not the issue here. The fact is that the mere presence of advisors advocating competing policies and/or even passionate rivalry between powerful noblemen in a medieval kingdom is neither unusual nor inherently self-destructive.

The question is whether the divisions within the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the second half of the twelfth century mortally crippled the kingdom to the point where the threat posed by Salah-ad-Din was ignored.  Let's look at the historical record.

The Arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Although it is safe to say that no kingdom on earth would have welcomed the ascension of a man suffering from leprosy, the High Court of Jerusalem took no longer than usual to recognize Baldwin IV as his father’s heir.  Furthermore, a powerful regent was rapidly installed who peacefully surrendered the keys to the kingdom to the leper prince when he turned fifteen. No sign of exceptionally destructive factions here, despite the explosive situation of a leper boy being heir to the throne.

Just a little over a year after Baldwin IV came of age, the Kingdom of Jerusalem faced the first full-scale invasion led by Salah-ad-Din.  The Count of Tripoli, the Hospitallers and hundreds of other knights from the Kingdom were at the time laying siege to Hama in Syria; Salah-ad-Din invaded from Egypt and immediately invested Ascalon. It was a very dangerous situation. The sixteen-year-old king, with no experience of battle whatsoever, gathered his forces — some 376 knights — and rode to the relief of Ascalon. He then broke out of Ascalon, met up with a Templar force from Gaza and called up the army of Jerusalem. And they came. At Montgisard, under Baldwin IV’s personal leadership, the Christian army dealt Salah-ad-Din a devastating and humiliating defeat. The bulk of the Saracen army was killed or captured, and Salah-ad-Din barely escaped on a pack camel. Nothing about this suggests a kingdom divided against itself — nor blind to the threat posed by Salah-ad-Din.

A Depiction of Montgisard, Copyright Fireforge Games

The very next year, King Baldwin ordered the construction of a castle at Jacob’s Ford — a clear indication that he recognized the threat posed by the Kurdish leader. Two years later, during the next invasion by Salah-ad-Din, Baldwin again successfully mustered his forces and successfully broke the Saracen vanguard.  Unfortunately, the Templars (who were not under Baldwin’s command) were routed by Salah-ad-Din’s main forces at the same time. When the Templars fell back, the entire Christian army withdrew. While the Templars lack of coordination is certainly to be condemned, it has nothing to do with internal rivalries or factions among the barons of Outremer.

The first hint of serious internal divisions surfaces in 1180. According to William Archbishop of Tyre, who was chancellor to Baldwin IV and so not only a contemporary but an insider, Baldwin IV’s illness had taken a dramatic turn for the worse by this time. It was clear, therefore, that the crown of Jerusalem would pass through Baldwin’s older sister Sibylla to whoever her husband might be; Sibylla in 1180 was a twenty-year-old widow. 

Sibylla as depicted in Ridley Scott's "The Kingdom of Heaven"

For whatever reasons (and they are controversial), the Baron of Ramla and Mirabelle with the backing of the Count of Tripoli and the Prince of Antioch considered himself the best candidate for Sibylla’s hand, but Sibylla — with or without her brother’s consent — married a young French noblemen of dubious character, Guy de Lusignan. 

Now Guy de Lusignan was a younger son with no title or wealth, and, more important, he had allegedly been expelled from the realm and territories of Baldwin IV’s first cousin, Henry II Plantagenet, for killing the Earl of Salisbury by stabbing him in the back.  Not a very savory character, to say the least, and I submit it is entirely understandable that the barons of Jerusalem did not think him a suitable man to become their liege lord — not to mention be crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and wear a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorns…..

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem today.

And yet! The uproar did not tear the country apart. To be sure, Ramla refused to do homage to the new Count of Jaffa (the title given by Baldwin to his sister’s husband) — but he still brought his troops to muster at each of the subsequent invasions by Salah-ad-Din — as did the other barons. Admittedly, in 1182 during the full-scale invasion that led to the battle at La Forbelet, Baldwin IV was still personally in command of the army, leading from a litter. But a year later, in September 1183, Baldwin IV had officially abdicated his authority, retaining only the title of King, the city of Jerusalem and an annual income of 10,000 gold pieces, while naming Guy de Lusignan regent.  Yet the barons of Jerusalem all mustered — even Tripoli and Antioch and Ramla. It was allegedly the largest army ever mustered by the crusader kingdoms. Indeed, the force was so big that Salah-ad-Din preferred not to give battle and withdrew to lay siege to the castle of Kerak on his way home to Egypt instead.

View from Kerak Castle today.

Nevertheless, something happened here that has escaped the pages of history. William of Tyre had been passed over for the post of patriarch and apparently lost his insider knowledge. He was to die shortly afterward, and with him, we lost our window into what was happening inside the Kingdom of Jerusalem at this crucial moment. But one thing is clear, the barons of Jerusalem refused to go to the relief of Kerak under the leadership of Guy de Lusignan. Baldwin IV — whether reluctantly or furiously — dismissed him from the regency and had himself dragged in a litter all the way to Kerak with his army around him. Salah-ad-Din abandoned the siege rather than face the leper in a liter across a battlefield.

Baldwin IV returned from Kerak determined to find a way to dissolve his sister’s marriage to Guy de Lusignan. Why? Regardless of possible personal slights, the most obvious reason is simply that the barons of Outremer, who had rallied readily enough in September of 1183, were by November of the same year not prepared to follow Lusignan. Baldwin IV knew he could not leave his kingdom in the hands of a man who did not command the respect of the barons. 

So here is a dangerous rift — but hardly one in which the kingdom is “sleepwalking to disaster.” Baldwin IV was obviously acutely aware of the danger. He sent out a desperate, indeed almost pathetic, plea to the most powerful Christian monarchs, the Holy Roman Emperor, the King of France, and the King of England, to come to Jerusalem’s aid. He offered whichever Western monarch would come to the defense of Outremer the keys to the Tower of David, effectively offering to abdicate — and bypassing both his sisters — turn the crown over to whoever would pick up the burden of defending Jerusalem.

The Tower of David in the Citadel of Jerusalem

Baldwin IV’s appeal went unheeded, and so to prevent Guy de Lusignan from becoming king Baldwin had his nephew, Sibylla’s son by her first husband, crowned in his own lifetime as Baldwin V. At Baldwin IV’s death, the crown passed seamlessly to Baldwin V and the Count of Tripoli was named regent by the High Court of Jerusalem. Again, there is amazing unity here.

Unfortunately, Baldwin V died within a year. Defying Baldwin IV’s wishes and without the consent of the High Court of Jerusalem, Sibylla had herself crowned Queen of Jerusalem and then placed the crown on her husband’s head as her consort.  This was a clear “coup d’etat,” a usurpation of the throne. And here — in the summer of 1186 — the Kingdom started to crack.  Faced with a usurpation, a number of barons considered crowning a rival king, the husband of Baldwin IV’s younger sister, Isabella. But the young man, Humphrey de Toron, rejected the role of rival-king and paid homage to Guy de Lusignan.  So, reluctantly, did all the other barons with two notable exceptions.

The key here is that despite a clear case of usurpation, the danger of division was fully recognized. Humphrey de Toron must be credited with putting the well-being of the kingdom ahead of his personal ambitions, and the bulk of the other barons likewise swallowed their distaste of Lusignan and did homage. The two exceptions were the Baron of Ramla, Guy de Lusignan’s erstwhile rival for the hand of Sibylla, and the Count of Tripoli. Ramla took the unprecedented course of turning his entire inheritance over to his younger brother, Balian d’Ibelin, and leaving the kingdom, never to be heard of again. Tripoli simply withdrew to his own territories and concluded a separate peace with Salah-ad-Din.

This was an act that can best be described by the German term “Landesverrat.” In contrast to “Hochverrat” (treason against the state or government), Landesverrat is treason against the nation. Tripoli might have legally been correct not recognize Guy de Lusignan as his overlord, but by allying himself with the man who had vowed to drive the Christians from the Holy Land, he hurt more than King Guy, he hurt all the crusader states and their inhabitants.

The Sea of Galilee, part of Raymond de Tripoli's lands by right of his wife.

King Guy threatened to invade Tripoli’s territories and “force” his submission, but the rest of the Christian leadership — from the Grand Masters of the Military Orders to the Patriarch of Jerusalem — recognized that this was suicidal in the face of Salah-ad-Din’s threat. No one was stumbling blindly to destruction here except, perhaps the two embittered protagonists themselves!  

Guy was prevailed upon to send mediators instead of troops. The Masters of the militant orders, the Archbishop of Tyre and two leading barons, including Balian d’Ibelin, whose brother had been such an inveterate opponent of King Guy, were sent to Tripoli to effect a reconciliation between Tripoli and King Guy. They were ultimately successful.

When Salah-ad-Din again invaded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Raymond de Tripoli was among the commanders who mustered, bringing with him one of the largest contingents of troops. His voice in the war councils was a voice of reason, but it went unheeded. Despite this — and unlike the fictional characters of Tiberias and Balian d’Ibelin in “The Kingdom of Heaven,” when Guy de Lusignan marched the Christian army out onto the Horns of Hattin, he led the entire army of Jerusalem including Tripoli and Ibelin. To destruction.

In retrospect, perhaps more division would have served the Christian kingdom better. If Raymond de Tripoli (with the men of Tripoli and Galilee) and Balian d’Ibelin (with the troops of Nablus, Ramla, Mirabelle, and Ibelin) had not been at Hattin, the Kingdom — or at least Jerusalem — might have been defensible even after this devastating defeat. But no one believed that the combined forces of Jerusalem could be so poorly led that they would be obliterated by the same man the Leper King had forced to withdraw on no less than five occasions. And had Tripoli and Ibelin failed to muster, they would have been blamed for the defeat. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that Guy de Lusignan alone lost Jerusalem. 

My award-winning biographical novel of Balian d'Ibelin in three parts is set in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the last quarter of the 12th Century.

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is an award-winning novelist and author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction. Her three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin won a total of 14 literary accolades. Her most recent release is a novel about the founding of the crusader Kingdom of Cyprus. You can find out more at: http://crusaderkingdoms.com

For the Love of her Husband….The Constitutional Crisis of 1186

In August 1186, Baldwin V of Jerusalem died at the age of nine. His death had been anticipated even before he became king, and it was the presumption that he would not live to sire heirs of his body that led his predecessor and uncle, Baldwin IV, to settle the succession in advance. 

On his deathbed, Baldwin IV had made his barons and bishops swear to seek the advice of the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Kings of England and France about the successor to his nephew, Baldwin V. The reason was simple: Baldwin V’s closest relative (and so his heir presumptive) was his mother.  While the constitution of Jerusalem allowed women to reign in their own right, it did so only if they had a consort, a husband capable of leading the feudal armies in the threatened Christian kingdom. Sibylla of Jerusalem had a husband — but one that almost no one on the High Court of Jerusalem considered worthy or capable of fulfilling that task. He was the man who would ultimately lead the feudal armies to an unnecessary defeat — but that is getting ahead of the story. At the time of his brother-in-law’s death, Guy de Lusignan was simply a comparative newcomer to the Holy Land, who had succeeded in alienating almost the entire local elite in less than a decade.

Thus, when Baldwin V died, the lords secular and sacred of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were bound by oath to seek the advice of the most powerful men in the Latin West.   The kingdom was also surrounded by enemies that had been united by the ambitious, charismatic and ruthless Kurdish leader Salah ad-Din, more commonly known in the West as Saladin. By 1186, Saladin had declared jihad against the crusader states and had already led four full-scale invasions in addition to numerous smaller-scaled campaigns. There was a short truce in effect and the forces of Jerusalem had so far succeeded in beating off Saladin’s attacks, but the situation was clearly precarious. Under the circumstances, the bishops and barons of Jerusalem were understandably reluctant to await the decision of Western leaders notoriously at odds with one another. The Kings of England and France (Henry II and Philip II respectively) were engaged in nearly perpetual warfare against one another, after all.  Another solution was needed.

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was by this time a well-developed document, which had evolved based on the unique history of the kingdom. The kingdom had been established in 1099 as a result of the First Crusade. That campaign had been led by a group of noblemen, who commanded jointly and did not recognize any of their number as superior to the others.  When, having captured Jerusalem, they recognized the need for more permanent leadership structures, they chose among themselves Godfrey de Bouillon to “rule,” but he was still effectively little more than “first among equals.” Furthermore, he explicitly refused the title of “king” on the grounds that it would be inappropriate for a man to wear a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorns. Furthermore, within a year Godfrey de Bouillon was dead. The leaders of the First Crusade met again to “elect” their leaders, and although this time their choice, Baldwin de Bouillon (younger brother of Godfrey) had himself crowned, the precedent had been set that the kingship was based less on hereditary right than on the consent of the leaders. By 1186 this tradition had been institutionalized in the form of the High Court of Jerusalem, which retained the right to “elect” the next king at the death of the last.

It is notable that the most famous militant orders established shortly after the Kingdom of Jerusalem likewise elected their leaders. Here the Hospitallers.

Although over the years the High Court had shown a strong bias toward choosing a close relative of the previous king, on more than one occasion there were several viable candidates and the High Court had effectively exercised its rights. Furthermore, the High Court had demonstrated the power to make contenders bow to its will as when, for example, it forced the obvious heir to Baldwin III, his brother Amalric, to set aside his wife of six years (Agnes de Courtenay) before he was acknowledged, crowned and anointed.

Given the threat Saladin posed, no one in the Kingdom of Jerusalem wanted to risk a long interregnum after the death of Baldwin V, while the Pope, Holy Roman Emperor and the Kings of England and France were consulted (and possible bickered) over the next king. Furthermore, there were two obvious successors to Baldwin IV: his elder, full-sister Sibylla — who was unfortunately married to the unacceptable Guy de Lusignan, and his younger, half-sister Isabella, married to a perfectly acceptable young man, Humphrey de Toron. Had Sibylla been married to a man more agreeable to the High Court, there is little doubt that the High Court would rapidly have recognized Sibylla. But Guy, as I said, had made himself so hated that Sibylla knew she was facing serious opposition — as did Guy.

Rather than risk a reversal in the High Court, the couple rushed to Jerusalem to seize the throne illegally — i.e. without the consent of the High Court. Guy had secured the support of the Templar Grand Master, who used his knights to secure control of the Holy City. Once there, Guy and Sibylla, supported by Sibylla’s maternal uncle the Count of Edessa, and her mother’s former lover the Patriarch, badgered the aging Master of the Hospital into giving up the third key needed to remove the coronation vestments from the treasury.  

But there was still the issue of popular opinion, and Sibylla felt compelled to promise she would divorce Guy in order to garner sufficient support to carry out her planned coup. Sibylla made her promise to set Guy aside conditional on being allowed to choose his successor as her husband. On the basis of this promise, Sibylla was crowned queen in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in August 1186. She then promptly broke her promise to her own supporters and crowned Guy de Lusignan as her consort, saying she chose him as her “next” husband.*

The problem was that most members of the High Court were not in agreement and not in Jerusalem. They were meeting in the royal city of Nablus to discuss the succession. While surprised by Sibylla’s coronation, they did not accept it. In their view, without the consent of the High Court, her coronation was invalid.

The High Court (or the majority meeting in Nablus) decided that their best course of action, therefore, was to crown Sibylla’s younger half-sister Isabella queen. They sought to thereby create a legitimate ruler who could force Sibylla into irrelevance if not submission. Given that the barons known to have collected at Nablus represented the some of the richest of the baronies (Tripoli/Galilee, Sidon, Toron, Nablus, Ramla/Mirabel and Ibelin), and probably included a number of unnamed barons as well, any armed confrontation between the factions of the rival queens would almost certainly have resulted in Sibylla’s forces being outnumbered. Sibylla is known to have had only three supporters: Edessa (an empty title since 1144),  Oultrejourdain — and the Templars.

An illustration allegedly depicting Isabella of Jerusalem and one of her four husbands.

The High Court’s choice of queen, Isabella, was the youngest child of King Amalric, and her mother was the Byzantine Princess Maria Comnena. In 1186 she was 14 years old and she had been married for three years to Humphrey de Toron.  Although Toron was young, probably in his late teens, his family had been in Outremer for generations. His grandfather had been Constable of Jerusalem, and had been highly respected. Toron was present in Nablus when the decision was made to crown his wife as an alternative to Sibylla. That same night he fled Nablus, made his way to Jerusalem and did homage to Sibylla.

When the bishops and barons meeting at Nablus discovered what Toron had done, most resigned themselves to the fate of taking oaths to Sibylla and Guy, but the two most powerful barons did not. The Baron of Ramla and Mirabel refused to do homage to Guy de Lusignan, preferring to abdicate his rights and titles to his infant son. He left the latter and his lands in the care of his younger brother, Balian d’Ibelin, and he left the kingdom altogether to seek service with the Prince of Antioch. The other baron to refuse to recognized Sibylla and Guy’s illegal coronation was Raymond III, Count of Tripoli. Raymond had been regent of the kingdom for both Baldwin IV and Baldwin V. He ruled Tripoli in his own right as an independent county, which did not owe homage to Jerusalem, and he furthermore held the rich and vitally important barony of Galilee by right of his wife. The latter straddled the River Jordan and surrounded the Sea of Galilee. Raymond III refused to take the oath of homage, withdrew from court altogether, and went so far as to seek a separate peace with Salah ad-Din to protect himself from an anticipated attack on his territories by Guy de Lusignan.

While the departure of Ramla did not seriously weaken the kingdom because his brother was a highly competent commander, Tripoli’s defection gutted it. The barony of Galilee lay on the border and extended far toward the coast. It also owed one of the largest contingents of knights to the crown. Without Galilee and Tripoli, the Kingdom of Jerusalem became effectively indefensible.

Sibylla must have known this, and all she had to do to save her kingdom was to keep her word, i.e. to set Guy aside and marry a man acceptable to Tripoli and the other disaffected bishops and barons. She refused. Her love of Guy was so great, she preferred to see her kingdom torn apart, gutted and, ultimately, overrun by the enemy.

To be sure, thanks to the diplomatic skills of Ibelin, a temporary reconciliation was patched up between Tripoli and Lusignan. Tripoli loyally brought his full feudal contingent to the feudal call-up in July 1187. But Lusignan was still king and he proved all his detractors right by leading the combined forces of the kingdom to a completely unnecessary defeat at the Battle of Hattin.

Sibylla lost her kingdom and three years later her life as well. She died of fever during a squalid siege of the jewel of her former kingdom, Acre. Neither need have happened had she acted legally and sought election by the High Court of Jerusalem, rather than seizing the throne in a coup d’etat. Had she followed the constitution, it is almost certain that the High Court would have recognized her as queen but required her to set aside Guy before she was crowned and anointed, just as her father had been forced to set aside her mother.  She would have been required to choose a different husband, a man who enjoyed the confidence and support of the barons of Jerusalem. Whoever that man might have been, he is unlikely to have been as disastrous for the Kingdom of Jerusalem as Guy de Lusignan.

 *

The exact timing of the coronation of Guy is unclear. Some sources suggest she did it immediately, during her own coronation; others that it was done later in a separate ceremony.

The constitutional crisis of 1186 is described in Book II of my three part biography of Balian d'Ibelin:

A divided kingdom,
                             

              a united enemy,
                                             

                            and the struggle for                    

                                                          Jerusalem!

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Or read more about the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at: Balian d'Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Short and Tragic Life of Baldwin V

“Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child”

Ecclesiastes 10:16

Baldwin the V is one of the tragic “child kings” of the Middle Ages, similar to Edward VI and other more familiar figures of Western Europe, but perhaps even more deserving of pity.

Baldwin was born in August 1177 to Princess Sibylla of Jerusalem. She was the elder sister of the ruling King of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV, who by this time had already been diagnosed with leprosy.  Sibylla was thus the heir apparent to the Kingdom, with the expectation of reigning within a few years due to her brother’s deteriorating and debilitating disease. At Baldwin’s birth she was at most 17 years old, and already a widow. Her husband, William “Longsword,” Marquis of Montferrat, had died only two months earlier in June, possibly from malaria. In consequence, Baldwin never knew his father.

His mother, being very young herself, does not appear to have taken a strong interest in her child. Certainly it was imperative for her to find a new husband, as the laws of Jerusalem required a queen to have consort; the precarious security of the Kingdom made a ruler capable of leading the feudal armies imperative. No sooner was Sibylla widowed than the search for a new husband began and various names were put forward for her, while she herself appears to have favored a local baron, Baldwin of Ramla and Mirabel — until she met and fell in love with Guy de Lusignan.

There can be little doubt that Sibylla was infatuated with — and throughout her life intensely loyal to — Guy de Lusignan, and this attachment appears to have further weakened her ties to her child by her previous marriage.  Sibylla’s marriage to Guy when she was at most 20 years of age and her son not yet three years old, effectively endangered the boy’s future. Guy de Lusignan had every reason to covet the throne for himself or, at a minimum, want to see his own children wear the crown of Jerusalem; Baldwin V stood in the way of both goals, and he had no reason to look kindly on his step-son.

It appears that Baldwin V was removed from his mother’s care at this stage in his life, if not before. Certainly, two years later, when his uncle King Baldwin IV dismissed Guy as regent, Baldwin was not in his mother’s keeping. On the contrary, while Sibylla was trapped in the Castle of Kerak surrounded by a besieging army led by Saladin, her brother had her son crowned co-King of Jerusalem with himself. Baldwin was just six years old and his coronation was a device to prevent Guy de Lusignan seizing the throne of Jerusalem via Sibylla at the death of the fatally ill Baldwin IV.

For the remaining 16 months of his reign, the dying king sought to have his sister’s marriage to Lusignan annulled, while Baldwin presumably was cared for and educated by men and women who enjoyed the King’s favor. Who these people were is not recorded, but at the death of Baldwin IV the young king, now sole ruler of Jerusalem, was placed under the guardianship of his maternal great-uncle, the titular Count of Edessa, and his kingdom was placed in the hands of a regent, Raymond III of Tripoli.

Edessa was a singularly ineffective, not to say cowardly and selfish, man, whose title was empty: the County of Edessa had fallen to the Saracens in 1144. He distinguished himself by intriguing against the High Court to put his niece illegally on the throne, and then, after the debacle at Hattin, by negotiating the surrender of the rich and defensible of city of Acre without a fight — a completely unnecessary act of cowardice that caused rioting in the streets. His position as guardian of the young king did not arise from concern for the boy’s welfare, but rather the determination of the Count of Tripoli to avoid blame for Baldwin’s death.

This latter fact highlights the fact that by the time his uncle died making his sole King of Jerusalem, young Baldwin V was already so sickly that his death was anticipated. The fragile state of his health is underlined by his uncle’s demand that the barons of Jerusalem swear to send to the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Kings of England and France for a successor to his eight-year-old nephew. The assumption of everyone seems to have been that he would not live to maturity, let along long enough to have children of his own.

They were right. Baldwin V died in August 1186 just barely nine years old. He had lived all his life as a pawn of the powerful in the kingdom, effectively an orphan, whose closest relative (after his neglectful mother) was a youth dying of leprosy. It is hard to imagine that his short life was a particularly happy one.  

Baldwin V's short reign is described in:

A divided kingdom,
                             

              a united enemy,
                                             

                            and the struggle for                    

                                                          Jerusalem!

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or Kindle!

or on Barnes and Noble!

                                                                     
                                                                          

Jerusalem on the Brink: The Constitutional Crisis of 1183

In the summer of 1183, the health of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem took a dramatic turn for the worse.  The King had long been suffering from leprosy, contracted when he was still a child, but the chancellor of the kingdom and chronicler William Archbishop of Tyre reported that by the summer of King Baldwin “had lost his sight and the extremities of his body became completely diseased and damaged, so that he was unable to use his hands and feet.” This is in sharp contrast to Baldwin’s ability to lead his armies on horseback in 1177 and 1179.

The deterioration of the king’s health coincided with a major victory by Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Damascus. On June 12, Saladin took possession of the strategic city of Aleppo that had for nearly a decade defied Saladin, refusing to recognize him as the heir to Nur ad-Din. With the surrender of Aleppo, resistance by other fortresses and towns in northwestern Syria also collapsed. Saladin had eliminated a powerful rival and greatly expanded his own empire. Saladin used that new strength to turn again against the thorn in his side: the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, which he had vowed to destroy.

King Baldwin, despite his deteriorating health, summoned the feudal host and roughly 1,300 cavalry and 15,000 infantry mustered at the springs of Suffuriya (Sephoria), while the King, attended by his mother and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, moved to nearby Nazareth. Here the King was taken by fever and his death appeared imminent. The High Court, most of whom had already mustered with the feudal host, hastened to the King’s bedside. Baldwin IV named his sister Sibylla’s husband Guy de Lusignan regent while retaining for himself (for as long as he should live) the title of King, the city of Jerusalem and an annual income of 10,000 pieces of gold. The arrangement suggests that Baldwin was not so sure he was on death’s door, but was feeling too ill to bear the burden of ruling — particularly of leading the army. The arrangement, therefore, was essentially about allowing the King to retire from public life and die in peace. Notably, however, the King first required Guy de Lusignan to swear he would not try to seize the throne while Baldwin yet lived — a clear indication that Baldwin was highly suspicious of Guy de Lusignan and his motives already.

Guy swore as requested and became both regent and commander-in-chief of the army. By September 17, the size of the Saracen muster so alarmed the Christian leadership that appeals for reinforcements were sent out to the coastal cities, and on September 29 the Sultan crossed the River Jordan with a large host to lay siege to the city of Bethsan. In one early skirmish, Humphrey de Toron was bested by the Saracens, and in a second at the Springs of La Tubanie, “the brothers Ibelin” reinforced the Constable, Guy’s able elder brother Aimery, and chased the Saracens away to retain control of the vital source of water. And then — nothing. Despite raiding in the surrounding countryside, Saladin singularly failed to provoke the Christians into fighting on his terms and vice-versa. By October 14, Saladin’s supplies were running low and he withdrew. After a few cautious days, the Christians likewise demobilized.

That is what we know for sure, but based on what happened next it is probably only half the story. Shortly afterwards word reached Jerusalem that the strategically pivotal castle of Kerak was under siege with half the ladies of Jerusalem trapped inside (they had collected for a wedding). Clearly, the feudal army needed to muster again and go to the relief of Kerak — but the Barons of Jerusalem unanimously refused to go to the rescue of their ladies until Guy de Lusignan was dismissed as regent. 

Clearly Guy de Lusignan had done something between September 17 and October 22 that alienated the entire High Court of Jerusalem. The same men who had accepted Lusignan and followed him in September now flatly refused. Apologists for Lusignan that attribute mere “jealously” to all the other barons fail to recognize that these barons had followed Guy in September and would again — tragically — follow him to catastrophe at Hattin. These weren’t inherently rebellious men. They recognized the need to fight together and throughout Baldwin IV’s reign they repeatedly overcame their internal rivalries to face the common enemy. That they at this critical juncture flatly refused Lusignan’s leadership suggests that something had happened — unrecorded as it is — that made them collectively determined to rid themselves of Guy’s leadership. The disaster at Hattin proved the High Court of Jerusalem tragically correct in their assessment of Guy, but that is getting ahead of the story.

In November 1183, King Baldwin IV was facing a peaceful but near unanimous (Oultrejourdain, Toron and Edessa were trapped in Kerak with the ladies) revolt by the barons of Jerusalem against the man he had appointed regent. Baldwin’s immediate response was to dismiss Guy de Lusignan and take the reins of government back into his own hands, but this solution was clearly not satisfactory. Baldwin had recovered from the fever that had appeared to threaten his life in August/September, but he was still slowly dying of leprosy. He knew he could not live much longer, but he also recognized that he could not leave Guy de Lusignan as his heir. He had to find an alternative to Lusignan.

The solution Baldwin IV found was to not only designate his nephew and namesake, Sibylla’s son by her first husband, his heir but to crown the boy king immediately. By crowning his nephew king in his own life-time, he was attempting to avert a crisis at his death. There would be no risk of factional fighting at his death, if a king (his nephew) was already crowned an anointed.

On November 20, 1183, Baldwin’s six-year-old nephew was crowned and anointed in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Only after that, did the barons muster their feudal levies and follow King Baldwin IV, commanding from a litter, to the relief of Kerak. The siege was successfully lifted without bloodshed — and Baldwin IV spent the rest of his reign trying to annul his sister’s marriage to Lusignan.

This constitutional crisis is described in:

A divided kingdom,
                             

              a united enemy,
                                             

                            and the struggle for                    

                                                          Jerusalem!

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