Baldwin of Bourcq: Count of Edessa and King of Jerusalem (1100-1131)

281 Pages·2022·4.654 MB·English

by  Alan V. Murray

Baldwin of Bourcq
Baldwin of Bourcq left his home in France in 1096 to join the great crusade
summoned by Pope Urban II for the liberation of the holy sites and Christian
peoples of Syria and Palestine from the domination of the Muslim Turks. In 1100
he became ruler of the Franco-Armenian county of Edessa. In 1118 he succeeded
to the kingdom of Jerusalem. In just over two decades this younger son of a minor
French count had become one of only a dozen kings in Western Christendom. To
defend the principalities of Outremer against their Turkish and Egyptian enemies
he travelled thousands of miles and led his troops in over two dozen campaigns.
He spent two extended periods in Turkish captivity, yet he outlived almost all of
his fellow crusaders, and died leaving the succession to his kingdom secure.
This is the first biography in any language of a remarkable man. Drawing on a
wide range of narrative and documentary sources, it gives an account of Baldwin’s
ancestry and life from his first recorded appearance up to his death in 1131. It
explains the complex and shifting geopolitics of the principalities of Outremer
and the Muslim territories around them, and explores Baldwin’s character as a
ruler and leader in war, the significance of his wide-ranging kinship network, and
the succession to the kingdom of Jerusalem.
Baldwin of Bourcq will appeal to students, teachers and researchers in Medieval
History, especially Crusade Studies and Military History.
Alan V. Murray is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds.
He is the author of The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History,
1099–1125 (2000) and The Franks in Outremer: Studies in the Latin Principalities
of Syria and Palestine, 1099–1187 (2015), as well as over 60 articles on the crusades
and the Latin settlements in Outremer.
Rulers of the Latin East
Series editors
Nicholas Morton
Nottingham Trent University, UK
Jonathan Phillips
Royal Holloway University of London, UK
Academics concerned with the history of the Crusades and the Latin East will
be familiar with the various survey histories that have been produced for this
fascinating topic. Many historians have published wide-ranging texts that either
seek to make sense of the strange phenomenon that was the Crusades or shed
light upon the Christian territories of the Latin East. Such panoramic works have
helped to generate enormous interest in this subject, but they can only take their
readers so far. Works addressing the lives of individual rulers – whether kings,
queens, counts, princes or patriarchs – are less common and yet are needed if we
are to achieve a more detailed understanding of this period.
This series seeks to address this need by stimulating a collection of political
biographies of the men and women who ruled the Latin East between 1098 and
1291 and the kingdom of Cyprus up to 1571. These focus in detail upon the evolv-
ing political and diplomatic events of this period, whilst shedding light upon more
thematic issues such as: gender and marriage, intellectual life, kingship and gov-
ernance, military history and inter-faith relations.
Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100–1118
Susan B. Edgington
Godfrey of Bouillon
Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c.1060–1100
Simon John
The Counts of Tripoli and Lebanon in the Twelfth Century
Sons of Saint-Gilles
Kevin James Lewis
Fulk and Melisende: King and Queen of Jerusalem
Danielle Park
Baldwin of Bourcq
Count of Edessa and King of Jerusalem (1100–1131)
Alan V. Murray
Baldwin of Bourcq
Count of Edessa and King
of Jerusalem (1100–1131)
Alan V. Murray
First published 2022
by Routledge
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© 2022 Alan V. Murray
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has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-54530-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-54531-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-08960-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003089605
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of figures viii
List of maps ix
Preface x
List of abbreviations xii
A note on names xiv
Introduction 1
Documentary and narrative sources 2
PART I
Crusader (1096–1100) 11
1 Origins and ancestry 13
Who was Baldwin of Bourcq? 13
The counts of Rethel 15
Early life and kinship 18
2 The First Crusade (1095–1100) 23
Preaching and recruitment (1095–1096) 24
The course of the crusade (1096–1099) 28
PART II
Count of Edessa (1100–1118) 37
3 The Franks on the Euphrates 39
The county of Edessa 39
Franco-Armenian society 44
Allies and enemies 45
Warfare and strategy 49
vi Contents
4 From expansion to defeat (1100–1108) 57
Armenian marriage: Morfia of Melitene 58
Alliances and kinship: Daibert of Pisa and Joscelin
of Courtenay 60
Expansion in Mesopotamia (1103–1104) 62
Captivity and liberation (1104–1108) 65
5 Recovery and consolidation (1108–1118) 74
The spirit of jihād: the threat from Mosul (1108–1113) 75
New alliances: Roger of Antioch and Waleran of Bira
(1113–1117) 78
Consolidation of the county (1114–1118) 81
The succession in Jerusalem (1118) 84
PART III
King of Jerusalem (1118–1131) 91
6 The kingdom of Jerusalem 93
Accession and unction (1118) 94
Palestine and its people 96
Nobility and Church 99
The Muslim powers 101
7 From accession to coronation (1118–1119) 109
The government of the realm 110
The Terre de Suète (1119–1120) 114
The Field of Blood (1119) 116
The first expedition to Northern Syria (1119) 118
Coronation at Bethlehem (1119) 122
8 Between Jerusalem and Antioch (1120–1122) 128
The assembly at Nablus (1120) 129
Religious patronage 132
The second expedition to Northern Syria (1120–1121) 134
Tyre and Tripoli (1122) 138
The third expedition to Northern Syria (1122) 141
9 The years of crisis (1123–1124) 148
Capture and imprisonment (1123) 149
The kingdom under regency 150
The unstable throne (1123–1124) 152
Contents vii
A fleeting freedom (1123) 155
The taking of Tyre (1124) 157
10 Liberty and restoration (1124–1125) 165
The campaign against Aleppo (1124–1125) 166
The Privilegium Balduini (1125) 169
The fourth expedition to Northern Syria (1125) 170
The king and the nobility 171
11 New horizons (1125–1129) 177
The war against Damascus (1126) 178
The fifth expedition to Northern Syria (1126) 181
Return to Jerusalem 182
The succession to the kingdom 185
12 Final conflicts (1129–1131) 195
The patriarchate of Jerusalem 195
The Damascus Crusade (1129) 197
The sixth expedition to Northern Syria (1130–1131) 199
Last illness, death and burial (1131) 203
Conclusions 207
Appendix 1: Genealogical tables 211
Appendix 2: The succession to the kingdom of Jerusalem in the
Old French Crusade Cycle 215
Appendix 3: The reign of Baldwin of Bourcq in the Leeds
Genealogical History Roll 219
Chronology 223
Bibliography 230
Index 252
Figures
3.1 Coin of Baldwin of Bourcq as count of Edessa 45
7.1 Coin of Baldwin of Bourcq as regent of Antioch 120
A.1 The family of Baldwin of Bourcq (simplified) 212
A.2 The wider kinship of Baldwin of Bourcq (simplified) 213
A.3 The Great Saljūq dynasty 214
A.4 The Artūqid dynasty 214
A3.1 The Reign of Baldwin of Bourcq as described in the Leeds
Genealogical History Roll (right-hand column) 220
Maps
0.1 The Principalities of Outremer 3
1.1 Champagne and Neighbouring Areas 16
2.1 The Near East at the Time of the First Crusade 28
3.1 The County of Edessa 41
6.1 The Kingdom of Jerusalem 97
7.1 The Principality of Antioch 118