The Crusader States

by Malcolm Barber

  This was a serious challenge to the authority of the new king. Baldwin I had received the rulers of Tripoli and Edessa as his vassals in 1109, but, in 1121–2 under Baldwin II, Pons had tried unsuccessfully to escape this bond.21 This was clearly another and more dangerous bid for independence, backed by Pons's refusal to allow passage to Fulk's forces, obliging them to sail to Saint Simeon. Using his bases in the fortresses of Arzghan and Rugia, Pons then directly confronted the king, resulting in a prolonged and bitter battle. William of Tyre does not mention casualties, but in 1132–3 Ibn al-Qalanisi heard reports that fighting had taken place among the Franks ‘in which a number of them had been killed’. Such a dispute, he says, was ‘not usual among them’.22 Fulk eventually prevailed and this enabled him to impose a new government in Antioch under the control of the experienced Rainald Mazoir, lord of Marqab and constable of Antioch.23

  It soon became clear, however, that, as in the early 1120s, without authoritative leadership, the affairs of Antioch would not remain stable for long. Fulk's intervention was again required in 1133, when he was obliged to take another army north, first to relieve Pons of Tripoli, besieged in his castle of Montferrand (Barin) by Turcoman forces, and then to beat off the emir Sevar, Zengi's governor in Aleppo, at Qinnasrin, about 23 miles south-west of Aleppo.24 A new prince in Antioch was evidently needed and, not surprisingly, Fulk looked to France for help. In concert with the Antiochene nobility, it was agreed to ask Raymond of Poitiers, younger son of William IX, duke of Aquitaine, who had been one of the leaders of the expeditions of 1101. Fulk himself was familiar with the family, having spent part of his youth as William's cupbearer before succeeding to the county of Anjou.25 Raymond had recently been knighted at the court of Henry I of England and, as a cadet member of a distinguished family, seemed an appropriate choice as a husband for Constance, Alice's young daughter. In contrast to the very public deputation sent to bring back Fulk himself in 1127–8, this plan was kept secret to prevent pre-emptive action either by Alice or by Roger II of Sicily, who was believed to be interested in picking up the Norman inheritance in Antioch. Consequently, a low-profile emissary in the form of a Hospitaller brother called Gerald Jeberrus was chosen.26

  Even so, during this time Alice appears to have maintained her independence, styling herself ‘princess of Antioch’ and issuing her own charters from Latakia, suggesting that she had more support than William of Tyre admits and that her attempts to gain power cannot simply be dismissed as the wilful behaviour of a selfish woman.27 The importance of this enclave should not be underestimated, for Latakia was the main port of Antioch and thus strategically and economically significant; indeed, it might well have been difficult for Rainald Mazoir to govern the principality without Alice's co-operation. Moreover, Hugh of Le Puiset, the leader of the revolt against Fulk in the latter part of 1134, is known to have been there in July of that year and it is quite possible that ‘she acted as a focal point of resistance to Fulk of Anjou's rule’.28

  William of Tyre relates that, shortly after the king had returned from dealing with the affairs of Antioch, Hugh of Le Puiset, count of Jaffa, and Romanus of Le Puy, lord of Transjordan, ‘are said to have conspired’ against the king. Hugh was the son of Hugh II of Le Puiset, in the diocese of Orléans in the royal demesne south of Paris, who had come to the East on pilgrimage in 1106, where he was later given the lordship of Jaffa by Baldwin II. The younger Hugh had been born in Apulia in the course of his parents’ journey to the East, where he had been left in the care of Bohemond, to whom he was related. But when Hugh II died, he came to the kingdom of Jerusalem, where he received his inheritance, presumably soon after 1120, when he would have been fourteen years old. He must have been favoured by Baldwin II, because after the death of Eustace Grenier in 1123 he was allowed to marry his widow, Emma, the niece of Patriarch Arnulf.29 William of Tyre is mistaken in identifying Romanus of Le Puy as lord of Transjordan in 1134, but he had held this key frontier fief until sometime before 1126 when, for an unspecified reason, he and his son, Ralph, had been deprived of it by Baldwin II, leaving Romanus with much less substantial possessions in Samaria.30 He might have been involved in the opposition to the king, an action that Baldwin could not have punished until he returned to the kingdom in 1125.31 Whatever the reason, William is certainly justified in describing these two men as among the leading nobles of the kingdom.

  Matters were brought to a head by Walter of Caesarea, one of the twin sons of Eustace Grenier and Emma, who, in the curia regis or ‘high court’, publicly accused Hugh of planning to assassinate the king. Hugh denied this and agreed to settle the matter by single combat, which William says was the custom of the Franks, but he failed to appear on the designated day and, as a consequence, was declared guilty of the accusations in the curia regis. Hugh then called in help from the Egyptians at Ascalon, who responded by raiding the kingdom as far as Arsuf, north of Jaffa. As with Pons of Tripoli, Fulk was now obliged to use armed force, besieging the count in Jaffa, thus forcing his vassals to make a choice. Unsurprisingly in the circumstances, led by Barisan, constable of Jaffa, who had been one of the most prominent men of the kingdom since at least 1120, they abandoned Hugh, but the intervention of the patriarch, William of Messines, seems to have effected a compromise by which the count would be banished for three years, after which time he would be able to return without further recrimination.32 This was not quite the end of the affair, however, since before his departure, Hugh, absorbed in a game of dice in Jerusalem, was stabbed several times by a Breton knight, an act many attributed to Fulk's instigation. The knight was tried and sentenced to mutilation, but at no point did he admit that he had acted with the king's knowledge, saying only that, by his deed, he had hoped to gain royal favour. The wounds, though, may have had a long-term effect, for Hugh never returned, dying soon after in Apulia, where he had been given the lordship of Gargan by Roger II of Sicily.33

  William of Tyre devotes three chapters of book 14 to the revolt, so he clearly thought that it was important, but at the same time, dependent upon the fallible memories of elderly men, he really did not know why it had happened. Some, he says, claimed that Fulk believed that Hugh and Melisende were too intimate, so that the king developed ‘an inexorable hatred’ of Hugh.34 Others, however, dismissed these rumours, instead alleging that the count's arrogance had led him to disobey the king and to refuse allegiance to him. While the two explanations are not mutually exclusive, their implications are different, since the first suggests that it was the king who took the initial action, while the second suggests a revolt to which the king had to respond. It may or may not be true that the queen and Hugh were having an affair but, taking the three chapters together, the whole tenor of William's story is that there had been a revolt involving a good deal more than personal animosity based on marital infidelity.

  It looks as if two parties had developed within the kingdom apparently because Fulk had tried to marginalise Melisende, despite the intention of Baldwin II in 1130–1 that Fulk, Melisende and the infant Baldwin should be associated in power.35 Like most new rulers, the king also brought in his own men, replacing the older established families with what Orderic Vitalis calls ‘Angevin strangers’, an action that was particularly relevant to Hugh as the first cousin of Baldwin II and an obvious beneficiary of the previous regime.36 This would not only have deprived him of patronage, but possibly even of Ascalon, which in 1126 appears to have been promised to Hugh by Baldwin II in anticipation of its capture. Others, such as Romanus of Le Puy, were nursing their own grievances; in 1126, for unknown reasons, he had been deprived of his fief of Transjordan.37

  The Angevin ‘invasion’ encompassed more than Fulk's military followers and political staff, for there are signs of a cultural colonisation of the kingdom as well, reflected in the development of sculptural motifs and styles characteristic of west-central France. Capitals and friezes decorated with acanthus leaves, vines and symbolic animals became increasingly common from the late 1120s, suggesting
that Fulk's entourage included not only his vassals and administrators, but sculptors and probably other craftsmen as well.38 It is not fanciful to suggest that at several social levels the early settlers and their families would have felt disparaged by the new regime.

  A substantial body of opposition had thus built up against Fulk, who may have used Walter of Caesarea's challenge to bring it into the open, for Walter and his brother must have been materially affected by their mother's remarriage to Hugh.39 In the end Hugh was undone by his attempt to use Egyptian forces, not because alliances with Muslim powers were unique, but because of the real danger posed by Ascalon and the damage its garrison had done to the southern part of the kingdom, for the Egyptians had not given up their goal of regaining Palestine, despite their defeats at the hands of Baldwin I.40 Nevertheless, the outcome cannot be seen as a total defeat for Hugh – any more than Fulk's intervention in Antioch was completely successful in undermining Alice – for the count received only a three-year exile for an offence that could have ended with his execution. The attempt by the Breton knight to take matters into his own hands serves to emphasise this: there were evidently some who thought the treatment of Hugh had been too lenient.

  Melisende's role remains unclear, but she must have been involved. Her later history shows that she was no passive consort, but a powerful personality fully conscious of her lineage as the hereditary link with the founding rulers. William of Tyre's contrasting treatment of the two sisters, Melisende and Alice, should not obscure the similarities between them.41 In these circumstances, it is possible that Fulk may have been about to repudiate the queen and was using rumours of adultery as a means of achieving this, although there is no solid evidence for such a risky course of action.42 Whatever his original intentions, after the revolt the king seems to have taken extreme care to involve Melisende even in relatively unimportant matters.43 For at least a year afterwards the queen kept up the pressure, persecuting Fulk's supporters and making life as unpleasant as possible for the king.44

  However, once she had been restored to what she regarded as her rightful position and influence, it was not in the queen's interests to maintain hostilities at this level. Fulk, perhaps wisely, spent at least part of 1135 in Antioch, where he was fulfilling his administrative responsibilities. On 2 August, he restored to the canons of the Holy Sepulchre the properties the church had held in the Byzantine era in a charter in which he is described as ‘governor and guardian’ of Antioch.45 He returned to Jerusalem soon after, since in late 1135 or early 1136 Fulk and Melisende's second son, Amalric, was conceived.46 There are two evident reasons for Melisende's changed attitude: firstly, with only one son, the succession of her family rested on fragile foundations; and, secondly, she wished to influence Fulk's policies in Antioch, for at about the same time Alice once more seized power in the city. ‘Her sister,’ says William of Tyre, ‘interceded with the king not to interfere with her actions’, adding significantly that ‘she [Alice] had the support of certain nobles’.47

  Melisende was equally concerned to use her position to make provision for her two younger sisters, Hodierna and Iveta, both of whom had still been children when their father died in 1131. Hodierna's marriage to Raymond, son of Pons of Tripoli, which took place sometime before 1138, must have been the result of Melisende's influence, ensuring that the lines of the rulers in Jerusalem, Antioch and Tripoli would all continue through the daughters of Baldwin II.48 Melisende remained a presence in her sister's life, for when Hodierna quarrelled with Raymond shortly before his assassination in 1152, it was the queen who tried to reconcile them and, having failed, who accompanied the countess on her departure from Tripoli.49

  Iveta, the youngest, had been given as hostage to Timurtash, Il-Ghazi's son, in August 1124, and ransomed nine months later. This must have been a traumatic experience for a child of four or five.50 Her mother, Morphia, had died between 1126 and 1128, and at that time Iveta may have been entrusted to the care of the sisters at the convent of St Anne, situated north of the Temple platform near the gate of Jehoshaphat on the eastern side of the city. When she reached an appropriate age, perhaps about 1134, she took vows as a nun there. The convent had been established very soon after the capture of Jerusalem and Baldwin I's second wife had entered the house in c.1103, when the king repudiated her.51 The pilgrim Saewulf visited Jerusalem at about the same time and mentions a church there that, repeating a tradition that stretched back to the seventh century, he associates with Joachim and Anna, the Virgin's parents, and identifies as the birthplace of Mary.52 Baldwin had provided extra endowments at the time of the repudiation and it is probable that these were considerably increased when Iveta was professed there, which perhaps enabled the church to be enlarged.53

  However, Melisende had more ambitious plans, made possible after 1134 by the king's accommodating attitude, for she decided that her sister needed a position in the monastic world more in keeping with her status. As in her relations with Alice and Hodierna, it is difficult to know how far she was motivated by genuine affection. Any political threat that Iveta may have represented as the only sister born while Baldwin was king had been negated when she became a nun. Even so, there is no way of knowing whether she had really wished to become a nun, or whether Melisende had played a role in inducing her to take vows.54

  Melisende chose to establish a new house at Bethany, about a mile and a half east of Jerusalem, famous as the site of the resurrection of Lazarus and the home of his sisters, Martha and Mary. On Palm Sunday, Jesus had begun his journey from Bethany, culminating in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem through the Golden Gate.55 For the queen, its proximity to Jerusalem meant that it would be easy to maintain contact. In a charter of 5 February 1138, Fulk and Melisende therefore persuaded the patriarch and the canons of the Holy Sepulchre to abandon their rights on the church at Bethany and its dependent villages, so that they could establish a convent of monks and nuns on the site. The small community of a prior and canons that appears to have already been established there was compensated with the grant of the casal of Thecua (al-Tuqu) in Judaea, together with lands stretching as far as the Dead Sea, where they were conceded valuable rights over the extraction of bitumen and salt.56

  The new structures took shape over the next six years. The original church, by this time over six centuries old, was remodelled and, in the longer term, a second church to the west was built above the actual tomb of St Lazarus, which was therefore now contained in a crypt chapel below. The place was popular with pilgrims both because of the New Testament associations and because it was on the road to the Jordan, so it seems that access to the desired sites was provided from a courtyard on the north side from which visitors could visit the church of SS. Mary and Martha to the east and the tomb of St Lazarus in the rock-cut crypt to the west. This was especially desirable since it was widely believed that Mary was Mary Magdalene.57 The new abbey church of the sisters was above the crypt and quite separate from the pilgrims.58 To the south of the church were a cloister, chapter house, dormitory and other conventual buildings. The whole site was heavily fortified with a wall and towers as, although it was close to Jerusalem, it stood on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives and could not be seen from the city.59

  This may have been a double monastery of men as well as women, modelled upon the pattern of the great house of Fontevrault, founded in 1100 by Robert of Arbrissel about 8 miles to the south-east of Saumur in the county of Maine. This, like Bethany, was under the rule of an abbess. Indeed, it is possible that one of the functions of what later charters describe as ‘brothers’ of the house was to cope with pilgrim visitors, a role that would have been incompatible with the secluded lifestyle of the nuns. If, indeed, Bethany was created as a double monastery, it suggests that the king's interest in it was greater than William of Tyre admits, for Fulk was familiar with Fontevrault and may have conceived Bethany in those terms.60

  William of Tyre says that Melisende endowed the house with estates that made it richer th
an any other monastery or church in the kingdom. These included Jericho, to which Bethany was connected by road, ironically confiscated by Fulk when Hugh of Le Puiset was exiled, even though it had originally belonged to the patriarchate.61 At the same time she made sure that Bethany was lavishly equipped with sacred vessels made of gold and silver and decorated with precious stones, silks and ecclesiastical vestments. Initially she placed it under the control of ‘a venerable woman full of years and of ripe religious experience’, named in a confirmation of 1144 as Matilda, but when she died the queen ‘put her original intention into effect’ and Iveta became abbess, which was the occasion of further gifts of chalices, books and ornaments.62 The sisters over whom she presided were exclusively aristocratic, again in keeping with Melisende's perception of Iveta's status, although there would have been insufficient such women among the native Franks and their numbers were supplemented by pilgrims who decided to end their days in the East. These included, most famously, Sibylla, wife of Thierry, count of Flanders, Fulk's daughter by his marriage to Eremburge, who, against the wishes of her husband, entered the convent after their pilgrimage of 1157–8.63

  The new house at Bethany was not the only tangible result of Fulk's reconciliation with Melisende. Around 1135, he commissioned for her a luxurious psalter, bound in ivory covers joined by a spine of embroidered silk.64 This was possible because, by the 1120s, following the completion of the cloister, the canons of the Holy Sepulchre had established both a scriptorium and a school. William of Tyre, born in 1130, went to the cathedral school there as a child and adolescent, where he was taught by John the Pisan, later archdeacon of Tyre, and eventually cardinal under Eugenius III.65 The scriptorium may have been founded by an Englishman, William, prior of the Holy Sepulchre, who became archbishop of Tyre in 1127, and, indeed, the liturgical calendar in the book does contain a high proportion of English saints.66 The scriptorium must have been producing liturgical books on a regular basis, but the earliest surviving decorated codex can be dated to between 1128 and 1130. This was a sacramentary, used by the celebrant of the Mass for the recited and chanted text. It originally contained full-page miniature paintings, but now only the ornamental initials remain (see plate 6).67