BALDWIN III and Melisende were crowned by the patriarch, William of Messines, in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Christmas 1143 in the presence of the nobles and prelates. As Baldwin II had intended, they were co-rulers, but necessarily the dominant presence in government was the queen, since as a thirteen-year-old Baldwin had not reached his majority, while his mother was a seasoned politician who, even as a young woman, had obliged her much older and more experienced husband to recognise her importance. When she died, in September 1161, she had, as William of Tyre recorded, ruled the kingdom for thirty years during the reigns of both her husband and her son. To William, she had been ‘wise and judicious beyond what is normal for a woman’.1 This was the final verdict in the archbishop's highly favourable account of her life and career, given extra potency because he was not usually appreciative of female intervention in public affairs.2
William must therefore be seen as ‘a partisan of Melisende’, an attitude he adopted partly because she was an important benefactor of the Church, and partly because William's own patron was her younger son, Amalric, who took her side in the conflict that eventually arose between her and Baldwin III in 1151–2.3 William may too have remembered her when he himself was at an impressionable age, since he was a direct contemporary of Baldwin, but left the kingdom two or three years later to begin his studies in France and Italy, not returning until mid-1165, when she had been dead nearly four years. William also favoured her because of her ‘symbolic importance’, as the link in the succession from Baldwin II down to the 1180s, a succession that ultimately derived from the heroic age of the first crusaders whom he so admired.4
Not everybody has seen Melisende in the same way as William of Tyre. Two of the greatest disasters suffered by the Latins in the East took place during the period of her direct rule – the fall of Edessa to Zengi in 1144 and the failure of the Second Crusade to take Damascus in 1148 – although the extent of her personal culpability for either of these events is arguable. In contrast, in 1153, the year after Baldwin III had forced her to relinquish much of her power, the Latins took Ascalon which, for more than half a century, had presented a direct threat to the south of the kingdom and had held out for nineteen years since the fall of Tyre in 1124.
Some sense of contemporary unease can be seen in the letters of Bernard of Clairvaux, by this time the outstanding monastic figure in the Latin world and head of the Cistercians, the most dynamic of the reformed orders of the first half of the twelfth century. His information came from Andrew of Montbard, seneschal of the Temple, and the abbot's uncle, who had sent a favourable view of the queen to Clairvaux. In 1144–5, Bernard responded in a similar way to that of Anselm when he heard of the accession of Baldwin I, giving advice on just rule. ‘The king, your husband, being dead, and the young king still unfit to discharge the affairs of a kingdom and fulfil the duties of a king, the eyes of all will be upon you, and on you alone the whole burden of the kingdom will rest. You must set your hand to great things and, although a woman, you must act as a man by doing all you have to “in a spirit prudent and strong”.?’5 However, in a later letter, he adopts a more ambivalent tone, perhaps partly because he has not heard from her for some time.
I have heard certain evil reports of you, and although I do not completely believe them I am nevertheless sorry that your good name should be tarnished either by truth or falsehood. But my dear uncle Andrew has intervened with a letter signifying better things of you, and I cannot disbelieve anything he says. He tells me that you are behaving peacefully and kindly; that you are ruling yourself and the kingdom wisely with the advice of wise men; that you love the Brothers of the Temple and are on friendly terms with them; and that, according to the wisdom given you by God, you are providently and wisely meeting the dangers which threaten the Holy Land with sound counsels and help.6
Bernard may have picked up the ‘evil reports’ through the monastic grapevine. One very hostile source was an anonymous Premonstratensian continuator of the Chronica of Sigebert of Gembloux (who died in c.1112), probably written in the diocese of Laon or Reims and covering the period 1114 to 1155. He may have derived his information from returning pilgrims or even from someone in the Premonstratensian abbey established at Mountjoy, the site of the tomb of the Prophet Samuel, in c.1130. According to him, in 1148 Melisende was responsible for the poisoning of Alfonso-Jordan, count of Toulouse and son of Raymond IV, who had been born in the East in 1102, as well as for engineering the capture of his son and daughter by Saracens.7 Her motive, he claimed, was to remove a possible rival for the possession of Tripoli, held by Raymond II and Hodierna, the queen's sister. As ever, unexpected deaths were attributed to poisoning; William of Tyre says that such a rumour was in circulation, but that the perpetrator had never been discovered.8 In fact, Melisende was on good terms with the Premonstratensians, to whom she made donations and in whose Obituary both she and Baldwin III are later recorded.9 The source of this particular author's hostility is therefore difficult to locate, but inevitably the endemic misogyny of the monastic world found its way into the works of some chroniclers.10
The first action of any new ruler in the twelfth century was to appoint supporters to positions of power, just as Fulk of Anjou had done in the early 1130s. As a woman, Melisende particularly needed a military commander, and for this role she chose her cousin, Manasses of Hierges, as royal constable. He was the son of Hodierna of Rethel, Baldwin II's sister. It is not known whether he was a direct replacement for the long-serving William of Bures, who had been constable since 1123 under both Baldwin II and Fulk and a leading noble in the kingdom for a decade before that, but there is no evidence of anybody else holding the post between these two.11 Manasses had come to the East very recently, since he could not have left earlier than the spring sailing of 1142 and had therefore been in the kingdom for less than two years before he was promoted to the most powerful position in the realm beneath the queen.12 In these circumstances his appointment was bound to cause resentment, but he did not make his acceptance any easier by, in the archbishop's judgement, adopting ‘an insolent attitude of superiority toward the elders of the realm’, causing intense hatred of him among some of the nobles, from which he was protected only by the queen's favour.13 This may explain why the queen was unable to procure an advantageous marriage for him until 1150, even though he was a bachelor throughout the 1140s. The queen's choice provoked further animosity, for he was married to Helvis of Ramla, widow of Barisan of Ibelin, who died that year. Although Barisan had been one of the queen's supporters, his three sons, Hugh, Baldwin and Barisan, were alienated because by this marriage they lost the family's lands in Ramla.14
Manasses was the most prominent member of an inner group by which the queen maintained her power, a group that included Philip of Nablus, Elinand of Tiberias, prince of Galilee, and Rohard the Elder, viscount of Jerusalem. When he was old enough, this circle also included her younger son, Amalric, whom she made count of Jaffa in 1151. Philip of Nablus was the son of Guy of Milly, a Norman who had been a prominent landholder in the kingdom since at least 1108, and had been a close confidant of Baldwin I. Philip inherited Guy's lands in Samaria and from 1144 is described as Philippus Neapolitanus.15 His family may well have been adversely affected by Fulk's anti-Norman policy a decade before, which could explain his adherence to Melisende. Elinand of Tiberias was the second son of William of Bures and, in 1144, judging by the knight service owed, the holder of the most important lordship in the kingdom. Rohard the Elder was viscount of Jerusalem between 1135 and 1147 and had previously been an enemy of the queen – indeed, she had apparently victimised him because of his support for King Fulk in 1134 – but he was a key figure in the city of Jerusalem itself and it seems that neither party saw much advantage in allowing the feud to fester. The support of these three individuals meant the queen was able to retain a dominant position through control of Jerusalem, Samaria and Galilee, in all of which there were important areas of royal demesne.16
As well
as a military commander the queen needed a new chancellor to head her administration and, in 1145, she filled this post with another newcomer, Ralph, whom William of Tyre describes as English by birth, although he may have originated in the county of Boulogne. His predecessor, Elias, is not recorded in office after 1142, and by 1144 he was bishop of Tiberias, clearing the way for the queen to appoint a replacement.17 Ralph is almost certainly the same man who, between 1137 and 1141, served as chancellor to Queen Matilda of England, wife of King Stephen, a role in which he had become highly skilled. Since Matilda was related to the first three rulers of Jerusalem through both the Boulogne and Rethel families, he must have seemed an appropriate choice to Melisende, who had learned a great deal from her experiences in the 1130s about the importance of appointing one's own men if the principal levers of government were to be successfully manipulated.18
Melisende had an equally tight grip on the Church. Indeed, her influence here had deeper roots since her increased role in government after 1134 expressed itself most strongly in ecclesiastical affairs in which she was intensely interested. The foundation of Bethany represents her most spectacular monastic achievement, but it is clear that from the late 1130s she oversaw the expansion of other religious institutions in the kingdom. Among these was the Temple of the Lord, which she endowed with large estates in Samaria, and she was perhaps influential in the promotion of the new prior, Geoffrey, to abbot within months of his appointment in 1137.19 Geoffrey completed the conversion of the Dome of the Rock into a church and in 1141 had the satisfaction of seeing its consecration by Alberic of Ostia, the papal legate. This was one of the focal points of the city, around which had been created a monastic precinct, encompassing not only the canons’ buildings but also houses and baths. Thereafter, Geoffrey was regarded as one of the leading ecclesiastics of the kingdom, appearing regularly on royal and patriarchal charters, and twice participating in important diplomatic missions to the Byzantine emperors, John II (in 1142–3) and Manuel I (in 1158–9), having been chosen at least partly because he was one of the few Greek-speakers among the Latins of the East.20
At the same time, Melisende's support for the Jacobite Church in Jerusalem was consistent between 1138 and 1148, when she ensured that the Jacobites regained villages they had lost since the Frankish conquest. Given her own religious background, it is evident the Jacobites expected a sympathetic hearing. According to a contemporary Syrian monk called Mar Simon, in 1148, when Ignatius III, the head of the convent of St Mary Magdalene and the metropolitan for Palestine, wanted to obtain a village called Dayr Dakakiya, once held by the convent but now in Latin hands, she and Baldwin intervened on his behalf and he was able to repurchase it. ‘Because they were moved by God and because they had great respect for and trust in Ignatius, they gave him much assistance.’21
However, her ability to extract Elias of Narbonne from his position as abbot of Palmaria, near Tiberias, in the late 1130s, is perhaps more typical of her more routine interventions. Elias was a former precentor of grammar in the region of Narbonne, who had a penchant for self-sacrifice and the deprivations of the eremitical life, tastes not shared by his monks, who, among other customs, objected to the imposition of heavy cowls of the Cistercian type in the heat of the Palestinian summer. Although the archbishop of Nazareth later persuaded him to return, it is significant that Elias appealed to Melisende for help in the face of the community's opposition.22
More controversially, her insistence that Ralph, the chancellor, should be appointed to the archbishopric of Tyre after Fulcher, the incumbent, had become patriarch in January 1146 may have been one of the sources of the ‘evil reports’ that had come to the ears of Bernard of Clairvaux. Although Fulcher could not have become patriarch without Melisende's support, he nevertheless led the opposition to Ralph, who, as William of Tyre saw it, ‘obtained the church and its goods by violence’. William's view may well have been influenced by John the Pisan, archdeacon of Tyre, who was the most vocal opponent of Ralph's election, for William was a former pupil of his at the cathedral school of the Holy Sepulchre in the 1130s. There is a parallel here with the case of Manasses of Hierges, for Ralph had held no previous ecclesiastical position in the kingdom, and his insertion into the most important see in the kingdom after the patriarchate seems to have engendered similar resentment. The queen was well aware of this and ensured that Ralph was elected in February 1146, as quickly as possible after the choice of the patriarch the previous month. However, the move did not succeed, for the dispute dragged on until 1151, when Peter, former prior of the Holy Sepulchre, is recorded as archbishop.23
The first major crisis faced by Melisende and Manasses occurred barely a year after Fulk's death. In the course of November 1144, Zengi, atabeg of Mosul, seized the opportunity to launch a full-scale attack upon the city of Edessa. The sources agree that he was taking advantage of the absence of Joscelin II who, according to William of Tyre, was living in Turbessel, west of the Euphrates: ‘He was far from the disturbance caused by his enemies, he had time for luxurious pleasures of every kind, and he felt no responsibility, as he should have done, for the noble city.’ William clearly despised Joscelin, contrasting his behaviour with that of his predecessors, Baldwin of Bourcq and Joscelin I, who lived in the city and did not rely on mercenaries for its defence.24
Zengi gathered a formidable army of Turcomans, mainly from the Jazira between the Upper Euphrates and the Upper Tigris, a region that, Ibn al-Athir claims, had been badly affected by Frankish raids in the past.25 Although Edessa had strong defences with a large perimeter wall and as many as forty-five towers, as well as a citadel defended by an internal wall, it had no proper defenders nor organised leadership. After battering the walls with siege engines and using miners to tunnel beneath, Zengi opened up a large breach through which his forces poured into the city. Mass panic ensued and, according to Gregory the Priest, as many as 2,000 died from suffocation as the inhabitants fought to gain access to the citadel.26 Among the dead was Hugh, archbishop of Edessa, a man whom William of Tyre implies deserved his fate because he had failed to use his riches to pay for soldiers to defend the city. He had apparently forbidden the defenders of the citadel to allow anyone entry until they saw him in person, but when he arrived the way was blocked by the mass of bodies outside. As he tried to get through he fell into the middle of the corpses, where he was struck down and killed by a Turk.27
Zengi's troops, says Ibn al-Qalanisi, ‘set to pillaging, slaying, capturing, ravishing and looting, and their hands were filled with such quantities of money, furnishings, animals, booty and captives as rejoiced their spirits and gladdened their hearts.’ In his graphic account of the scenes within the city, Michael the Syrian describes how aged priests, still holding relics of the martyrs, continued praying in the midst of all this until ‘the sword rendered them silent’. Finally, Zengi, seeing such carnage, ordered the massacre to stop and a herald was sent out to announce that all those who had escaped death could return to their homes. Two days later Zengi promised the defenders of the citadel that their lives would be spared and they handed it over to him. The city fell on 23 December 1144, after a siege of twenty-eight days.28
In the course of this, Zengi encountered an elderly man, naked, his beard shaven, who was being dragged along on a rope. He turned out to be Basil bar Soumana, the Jacobite bishop of Edessa, and Zengi had him dressed and brought to his tent. He was impressed not only by his courage, but also by his ability to speak Arabic, and together they discussed the reconstruction of the city. ‘As long as Zengi ruled in Edessa,’ says Michael the Syrian, ‘that is to say until his assassination, this venerable bishop was very influential,’ and he was given responsibility for repopulating the city. It was not, however, intended that this should include the Franks. ‘The Turks preserved the lives of all our people, the Armenians and the Greeks who had survived, but they killed the Franks wherever they could.’29
News of the siege soon spread to Antioch and Jerusalem. Joscelin at last rea
lised the danger and asked for help from Raymond of Antioch, but William of Tyre says that he deliberately delayed because of his hatred of Joscelin. Indeed, the Armenian bishop Nerses Snorhali complained bitterly that Antioch had allowed Edessa to be delivered into the hands of the infidel ‘out of envy’.30 In Jerusalem, Melisende called a council and it was decided to send a relief army led by Manasses of Hierges, Philip of Nablus and Elinand of Tiberias. This did not include King Baldwin, even though, earlier in the year, he had led a successful expedition to put down a revolt at Wadi Musa in the Transjordan.31 However, Baldwin was only fourteen in 1144 and the crisis in Edessa was so grave it might be expected that Melisende would want an army led by experienced adults rather than by Baldwin, whose presence would nonetheless have acted as a focal point for the troops, even if the constable had actually been in command. In fact, the army did not have time to reach Edessa before its fall since, even if it had marched directly to the city, it is unlikely to have completed the journey in less than the five weeks it took Baldwin of Boulogne to travel there from just north of the Dead Sea in January 1100.32 Given that Zengi's forces occupied Baalbek, it was, in any case, unlikely that this route was practical. The Jerusalem army therefore probably met Raymond at Antioch, and must then have been part of the force driven back by Zengi in February or March 1145.33
Viewed in a longer perspective, Zengi's capture of Edessa was of great strategic importance, enabling him to seize the rest of the Frankish lands east of the Euphrates, except for al-Bira, which was only just beyond the river.34 It made Antioch, with which Edessa had been closely linked since 1098, much more vulnerable and this, in turn, meant that when the kings of Jerusalem wished to invade Egypt, a policy pursued by both Baldwin III and (much more vigorously) by Amalric, his successor, they could never be sure that the northern crusader states were secure. Ibn al-Athir, writing in the light of subsequent victories by Nur al-Din, Zengi's son, and by Saladin, and relying on information from his father, describes how a pious man, after Zengi's death, had seen ‘the Martyr’ in a dream and had been told that God had forgiven him his sins ‘because of the conquest of Edessa’.35 Perhaps predictably, modern historiography sees Zengi as the first of three great Islamic leaders of the twelfth century, whose jihadist actions ultimately led to Saladin's capture of Jerusalem in 1187.
The Crusader States Page 25
