Defending the City of God: A Medieval Queen, the First Crusades, and the Quest for Peace in Jerusalem by Newman Sharan

Author:Newman, Sharan [Newman, Sharan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Training a King

Jerusalem, 1130

The year 1130 began with the leaders of the Crusader States still smarting from their defeat at Damascus. It seemed impossible that they could have failed. They had ignored old feuds to band together. Fresh, enthusiastic new recruits had come from the West. It should have worked. The only possible reason must have been that God was angry with them, but for what? No one gives any answers to this conundrum. At least this time there was no attempt to enforce draconian moral laws as there had been in 1119. For the present, Prince Bohemond returned to Antioch, Count Pons to Tripoli, and Baldwin and Fulk to Jerusalem. All the other survivors retreated to their respective lands and castles.

In Damascus, “the people felt secure and went out to their farms and dispersed to their own abodes and places of work, freed from sorrow and anxiety.”1

A side effect of the massacre of the Batini in Damascus was that the sect realized that it couldn’t hold on to the town of Banyas, which Tughtigin of Damascus had given them in return for their aid in fighting off a Frankish attack in 1125. Rather than let it fall to the Sunni Turks, they offered it to the Franks. No doubt surprised by this sudden twist, Baldwin accepted. Banyas became part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.2 The Batini retreated into the mountains north of Lebanon. They acquired several fortified towns, which they held for years against both Christian and Muslim attacks. They would continue in their special trade of assassination of selected Sunni enemies but don’t seem to have sent any missionaries back into Syria.3

Life went on more peacefully for a time. Things were calm enough that Michael the Syrian was able to report on local non-military events. He states that in this year a local woman gave birth to quadruplets, three boys and a girl. Ten days later, the boys died “at the same instant.” The girl survived.4 Multiple births were very rare and even twins often could not survive more than a few days due to low birth weight and other complications. For some reason, the nobility of the Crusader States produced more healthy female babies than male. The high rate of male death in the wars added to this gender imbalance and meant that Melisende would not be the only woman to inherit lands the first Crusaders had settled. The throne of Jerusalem would be passed through the female line from the late twelfth century until the demise of the kingdom.

For the moment, Fulk was proving himself a model son-in-law. “During Baldwin’s life,” William of Tyre says, “he deferred to the king, fulfilled the duties of a son and faithfully attended to royal business.”5 The three words “during Baldwin’s life” say much, but William was writing for Fulk’s son, King Amalric, so he kept most of his comments about Fulk positive.

William does mention one quirk that made life difficult for those at court. Fulk had a

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