Joscelin escaped on 8 August 1123 with the help of some local Armenians, but Baldwin was unable to negotiate his own release until over a year later, on 24 August 1124, when agreement was reached with Timurtash, Il-Ghazi's son, the ruler of Aleppo. The terms were not easy, for he had to promise to ally with Timurtash against his enemies, hand over the fortress of ‘Azaz, pay a large ransom and provide high-status hostages, the most important of whom were Iveta, Baldwin's youngest daughter, and a son of Count Joscelin.110 This did provide some respite, for by this time both Il-Ghazi and Balak were dead. Il-Ghazi had been taken ill and died on 8 November 1122.111 Walter the Chancellor, who had suffered so much at Il-Ghazi's hands, claimed that ‘his filthy soul issued forth from his anus along with a flux of dung from his belly and it was dragged away by the claws of infernal scorpions to tumble into the halls of deepest hell’.112 The Franks were equally glad to see the end of Balak, who was killed by an arrow on 6 May 1124 while besieging the city of Manbij (called Hierapolis by the Franks). His head was brought to Joscelin as confirmation of his death, and then circulated around the cities of Antioch, Tyre and Jerusalem.113
The news of Balak's death was brought to the Christian camp outside Tyre, for the bulk of Jerusalem's forces were engaged in a siege of the city, a circumstance that emphasises how different the priorities of the kingdom's nobility were from those of the north. Baldwin I had been well aware of the need to capture the two remaining coastal cities of Tyre and Ascalon, but he had failed in his attack on Tyre in the winter of 1111–12, while his foray to Farama in the eastern Nile Delta in 1118 had done nothing to dislodge the Egyptians from Ascalon.114 Both campaigns suffered from insufficient resources, notably lack of naval support. Baldwin II and Patriarch Warmund had therefore appealed to Calixtus II (who had become pope in February 1119) and to the Venetians, probably in the course of 1120 after the council of Nablus, although the chronology is not entirely clear.115 Thereafter the pope had issued a decree at the Lateran council in March 1123 offering remission of sins to those who went to help the Holy Land and threatening excommunication to those who had so far failed to fulfil previous vows unless they did so in the year following Easter (15 April).116
The Venetians had not taken a prominent role in the crusader states since the fall of Sidon in December 1110; most of the other coastal cities had fallen with the help of the Genoese.117 The doge and leading men of Venice, says William of Tyre, ‘had heard of the needs of the kingdom of the East’ and had now put together a large fleet.118 As in 1100, once the Venetians decided to commit themselves, they did so in force. Fulcher of Chartres, evidently informed by participants, describes a mixed fleet of 120 ships, loaded with timber for siege engines and carrying 15,000 men and 300 horses. Setting out on 8 August 1122, the fleet wintered in Corfu, where it failed to overcome the Byzantine garrison, and then sailed by slow stages to the East, constrained as ever by the need to make regular stops to take on fresh water.119 Fulcher includes ‘pilgrims’ in his overall figure, which may mean that other, probably German, crusaders had sailed with them.120 The Egyptians evidently knew of the approach of this formidable force and, in May 1123, seized the opportunity to launch a series of pre-emptive attacks on Jaffa from their base in Ascalon, which were only beaten off with great difficulty. When the Venetians arrived, however, they pursued and destroyed the Egyptian fleet and captured large quantities of booty.121
The Venetians were led by the doge, Domenico Michiel, the son of Vitale Michiel, who had taken part in the siege of Haifa in 1100. William of Tyre says that he had wanted to visit the holy places for many years.122 Christmas was celebrated in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and it was agreed with the leaders in the kingdom that after Epiphany (6 January) they would launch a joint attack ‘upon Tyre or Ascalon’.123 The Venetians appear to have primed the pump with a loan of 100,000 gold pieces to help pay the costs of the soldiers, always a chronic problem in the East when mounting a large campaign.124 In lieu of the king, William of Bures, lord of Tiberias and the royal constable, had been appointed as ‘guardian’, having succeeded Eustace Grenier, who had died on 15 June 1123.125 Together with Patriarch Warmund, Eustace and William were the most prominent participants at the council of Nablus; indeed, Eustace Grenier had helped negotiate the agreements over which Baldwin I had presided outside Tripoli as long ago as 1109.126 At some time in the second half of 1123, after Eustace's death, a ruling triumvirate of Warmund, William of Bures and Pagan, the chancellor, had formalised the promises previously made by Baldwin II in a treaty which William of Tyre records in full in his chronicle.127
A pattern had already been set in the first decade of the settlements, but the Venetian treaty was the most comprehensive. The Venetians would receive a church, street, square and oven in every royal and baronial city in the kingdom, ‘free from all exactions as are the king's own properties’, together with a square in Jerusalem equivalent to that of the king. The treaty confirmed their street in Acre, granted ‘on the acquisition of Sidon’.128 If they desired to set up their own facilities there, they could use them freely, including their own measures, except when purchasing goods from other parties, when the royal measure would apply. In addition, the king agreed to pay the Venetians an annual sum of 300 besants, drawn on the revenues of Tyre. Lawsuits between Venetians and against Venetians by outside parties were to be settled in Venetian courts, although if a Venetian had a complaint against another party, that would come under the royal jurisdiction. Property left by Venetians who died (including shipwreck) would be under Venetian control. Finally, the Venetians would have a third part of the cities of Tyre and Ascalon and the lands subject to them, although this excluded territories already in the hands of the Christians. The same privileges were to apply to the principality of Antioch, since the leaders knew that the king had previously granted these, presumably in his capacity as regent. Despite the king's captivity, the kingdom continued under the same leadership: all the signatories had been present at the council of Nablus.129
However, the treaty left open the question of which city to attack, apparently because the Jerusalem nobility could not agree among themselves. According to William of Tyre, who says he found this out from certain elderly men who had been present, there was a heated debate in which the viewpoints were determined by the geographical proximity of the various fief-holders to the two cities.130 William says that the matter was eventually settled by lot, and the choice fell on Tyre. The advocates of Ascalon had argued that it would be cheaper and easier to take, whereas those who wanted Tyre saw it as a city that could, if it remained in Muslim hands, be used as a base for bringing down the whole realm. It is, though, difficult to believe that the matter was left entirely to chance. Tyre was hemmed in by estates held by some of the most powerful nobles of the kingdom, including Humphrey of Toron, William of Bures and Joscelin of Edessa, as well as by the castle of Scandelion, built by Baldwin I for that purpose in 1117,131 while Warmund had already appointed a cleric called Odo as the first archbishop, probably in 1122.132 The presence of the Venetian fleet offered an ideal opportunity, for Tyre itself was almost entirely surrounded by water, having only one main gate on the landward side.133 Indeed, the Venetians would hardly have been interested in Ascalon with its limited harbour facilities when they had the opportunity to establish themselves in a great city like Tyre.134 At the same time, Ibn al-Qalanisi says that the affairs of the city were in disorder, a situation created by the division of responsibilities between the Egyptians and Tughtigin of Damascus, and not helped by the assassination of the vizier, al-Afdal, in December 1121, after which the government in Cairo ‘fell into disrepute’. When the Egyptians decided to cede the city to Tughtigin, ‘he deputed as its governors, a body of men who had neither ability, capacity, nor bravery’. The Christians, he says, were well aware of this vulnerability, and ‘their desire for it was stirred up and they persuaded themselves that the opportunity for capturing it was now come’.135
The siege began on 16 February 1124, and last
ed until 7 or 8 July, when Tughtigin agreed terms of surrender.136 Despite harassment from Ascalon, the Christians were not to be diverted from what was a unique opportunity. At Tyre, the besiegers gradually wore down resistance, helped by the arrival of Pons of Tripoli, whose additional forces undermined the morale of defenders already suffering an acute shortage of food.137 Siege towers and mangonels had been constructed, and an Armenian called Havedic was called in from Antioch to direct operations. His ability to hit predetermined targets with a high degree of accuracy was evidently a rare skill since he was paid a handsome salary, ‘so that he could support himself in his usual sumptuousness’, a sign of the increasing professionalisation of warfare in the twelfth century, as well as of its rising costs.138
Tughtigin did bring up forces to within a few miles of the camp, but retreated when challenged by Pons of Tripoli and William of Bures.139 He was, says Ibn al-Qalanisi, now ‘aware of the true state of affairs and the impossibility of remedying the critical situation of the town’, and he agreed to terms that allowed the citizens to leave with whatever possessions they could carry, an outcome bitterly resented by the Christian rank-and-file, who had hoped for the opportunity to pillage one of the richest cities on the coast.140 The news was immediately relayed to Jerusalem by the patriarch, where Fulcher describes how prayers and fasts gave way to great celebrations marked by the ringing of bells and an elaborate procession to the Temple of the Lord.141 It was a highly significant victory. The next year an Egyptian fleet sailed up the coast, but was forced to land near Beirut in order to obtain water, since there was no harbour open to it. Attacked by the inhabitants, the Egyptians had no alternative but to retreat.142
However, although he had obtained his release at the end of August 1124, the king did not reappear in Jerusalem. Once again Baldwin was occupied with northern affairs, reneging on his agreement with Timurtash by turning to attack Aleppo in alliance with Joscelin of Edessa and Dubais ibn Sadaqa, the most powerful of the local Bedouin leaders. Fulcher of Chartres, far away in Jerusalem, says that he was either trying to force Timurtash to give up the hostages or he actually intended to take the city, known to be suffering from famine at this time. In the end a siege lasting nearly four months between October 1124 and January 1125 achieved neither objective, and Baldwin retired to Antioch, before eventually returning to Jerusalem in early April 1125, two years after he had been captured.143
He did not stay much longer than a month, but some of the time must have been spent renegotiating the treaty with the Venetians since, on 2 May, the Privilegium Balduini superseded the Pactum Warmundi. The king was particularly concerned to prevent the erosion of royal authority and, with an eye to the future, struck out the clause in the Pactum that committed his successors to the agreement, as well as insisting that the Venetians provide military service in return for their property in Tyre.144 Within days of completing the negotiations, he must have heard news of the fall of Kafartab on 9 May to al-Bursuqi, atabeg of Mosul since the murder of Mawdud in 1113.145 The fortress was situated about 53 miles to the south-west of Aleppo, and the attack suggests that al-Bursuqi was attempting to fill the vacuum left by the deaths of Il-Ghazi and Balak. According to Ibn al-Qalanisi, he had already gained ‘great merit and renown’ for his role in the relief of Aleppo and now, as Fulcher of Chartres puts it, he was ‘trampling over Lower Syria’, having allied with Tughtigin of Damascus.146 The king had no alternative but to react, but by the time he had put together a small army al-Bursuqi was already besieging Zardana, another 44 miles to the north, midway between Antioch and Aleppo. When he heard of Baldwin's approach he retreated north to attack ‘Azaz, strategically important to the Franks because of its position between Antioch and Edessa. Pursued by the king, Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin of Edessa, on 11 June, he was defeated with heavy losses. Not surprisingly, Fulcher of Chartres offers no real details of the fighting, but Matthew of Edessa claims that the Franks adopted the Turkish tactic of feigning retreat.147 This victory not only relieved the pressure on Antioch, but also enabled Baldwin to retrieve the hostages, including his five-year-old daughter, Iveta.148 It cost, says William of Tyre, a large sum of money, but was at least partly paid for by spoils collected after the battle.
Baldwin must have been intimately familiar with the territories and fort-resses that lay between Antioch and Aleppo east of the Orontes, for he had spent most of his time when not in prison campaigning in the region. The Antiochenes saw the maintenance of their eastern frontier, extending from ‘Azaz to al-Atharib and Zardana, as an essential shield and, as ruler, Baldwin had been obliged to try to rebuild the defences shattered by the defeat at the Field of Blood. One method was to bring pressure on Aleppo itself. Frequent changes of regime in the city gave hope that it could be taken, but ultimately the Franks were never able to land what surely would have been the decisive blow. Nevertheless, when Bohemond II arrived in Antioch in the autumn of 1126, he took over a principality little different in territorial extent from that held by Roger of Salerno before 1119.149 William of Tyre is full of praise. For ten years, he says, Baldwin had given almost all his attention and resources to the principality, and for this cause he had endured nearly two years in prison. God's reward had been the protection of his kingdom of Jerusalem despite his absence.150
The strategy of defending the Antiochene frontier made sense for all the crusader states, but it cannot be expected that the nobility of Jerusalem would see their king's almost total preoccupation with the north in the same light. When Baldwin left to tackle al-Bursuqi in the summer of 1125, having spent only a few weeks back in the kingdom, Fulcher remarks that ‘he had only a few men from Jerusalem, since in the present and preceding years they had been much fatigued’.151 This created opposition to Baldwin among at least a section of the Jerusalem nobility and it appears that in 1123, while Baldwin was still in captivity, one group actually offered the crown to Charles the Good, count of Flanders.152 According to the Flemish notary and administrator Galbert of Bruges, writing in 1127, these men hated Baldwin ‘because he was grasping and penurious and had not governed the people of God well’.153 Charles was the overlord of Eustace of Boulogne, whose failure to claim the throne in 1118 had so disappointed a substantial party in the East. Some of them may have seen the count as a promising choice in lieu of Eustace, now advanced in age and by this time probably a monk at Cluny. Charles, indeed, was in the prime of life and was known to many of them because of an extended pilgrimage he had made to Jerusalem about fifteen years before.154 In fact, Charles refused the offer and Galbert, whose aim was to present the count as a martyr after his assassination in 1127, used this to reinforce his portrayal of Charles's outstanding qualities. The count, he says, did not wish to desert Flanders, which he had governed so well, but Charles would have been naïve indeed if he had not foreseen the possible dire consequences of any attempt to seize the throne from Baldwin.
Galbert was well informed about Flemish affairs, so it is unlikely that this story is a complete fantasy, and even in Fulcher of Chartres's account there are signs that there was discontent in the kingdom of Jerusalem. It may be that the expedition against Tughtigin of Damascus in late January 1126, apparently heavily supported by the Jerusalem nobility, was aimed at demonstrating Baldwin's commitment to the kingdom, for it resulted in a major battle on the plain of Marj as-Suffar, about 16 miles south of Damascus, eventually won by the Christians after a seven-hour struggle, but nevertheless representing a considerable risk.155 Fulcher of Chartres and William of Tyre offer no explanation for this undertaking, but Ibn al-Qalanisi says that the intention was ‘to invade the region of Hawrn in the government of Damascus, in order to ravage and devastate it’, which suggests an attempt to provide opportunities for plunder after the expense of the northern campaigns.156 Nevertheless, it is possible to overplay Baldwin's unpopularity: neither Fulcher of Chartres nor William of Tyre mentions the approach to Flanders, nor is it possible to identify any barons who may have been involved in the plot.157 Moreover, ther
e is no sign that Baldwin was worried about a coup, or he would have hurried back to Jerusalem as soon as he had been released from prison in 1124, whatever the circumstances in the north. At any rate the problem was solved for Baldwin by the arrival of Bohemond II in the late autumn of 1126. He was quickly married to Alice, the king's second daughter, and was then invested as prince, after which he received oaths of fealty from the Antiochene nobles.158
After the death of Fulcher of Chartres in 1127, there is no contemporary Latin chronicler resident in the East. The chief narrative source for the period is William of Tyre, but William was not born until 1130 and by the time he was writing there were few direct witnesses left for him to consult. Unsurprisingly, William sometimes omits events believed to be important by Muslim contemporaries like Ibn al-Qalanisi, while on other occasions he has to admit that he does not really know why something had happened. As a consequence, the latter part of Baldwin's reign and those of his successors, Fulk and Melisende and their contemporaries in Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa, are among the least known in the history of these states, and they have been the subject of much speculative argument among historians.
It is clear, however, that Baldwin had decided to continue the ‘western policy’ implemented after the council of Nablus, which had resulted in the successful conquest of Tyre. Tyre had held out for a quarter of a century, despite its isolation, but a combined attack in conjunction with the Venetians and the other crusaders they had brought with them had ended its resistance. Baldwin now conceived of a similar strike against the great inland city of Damascus, which would have had immense significance for the long-term future of the kingdom and would have complemented the acquisition of Tyre. There was a further compelling reason for seeking outside help: Baldwin had four daughters but no male heirs, and it was imperative that he find a husband for his eldest daughter, Melisende. The death of his wife, Morphia, served to underline the problem, for there was no immediate prospect of further legitimate children.159
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