Jerusalem: The Biography

A little earlier in 1113, Pope Paschal II granted the area just south of the Holy Sepulchre to another new order, the Hospitallers, who later became a holy army even richer than the Templars. At first they wore black tunics with white crosses; later the pope granted them the red surcoat with a white cross. They built their own quarter including a hostel with a thousand beds and the huge Hospital, where four doctors inspected the sick twice a day, checked their urine and let their blood. New mothers each received a cot. But there were limits to its comforts, so each patient received a sheepskin coat and boots to wear to the latrine. Jerusalem echoed with many languages including French, German and Italian – Baldwin granted the Venetians trading privileges – but it was still a Christian reserve: he allowed Muslim traders into the city, but they were not permitted to spend the night in Christ’s capital.

Soon afterwards, Il-Ghazi, once ruler of Jerusalem, now master of Aleppo, attacked Antioch and killed its prince. King Baldwin raced north, bearing the True Cross^* with his army, and defeated him. But in 1123 the king was captured by Il-Ghazi’s nephew Balak.

While Baldwin remained a prisoner of the Ortuq family and the Crusader armies besieged Tyre, the Egyptians advanced from Ashkelon hoping to seize a Jerusalem bereft of king and defenders.³

THE GOLDEN AGE OF OUTREMER

1131–42

MELISENDE AND FULK: A ROYAL WEDDING

The Jerusalemites, commanded by the constable, Eustace of Grenier, twice saw off the Egyptians. To universal joy, Baldwin was ransomed: on 2 April 1125, the entire city turned out to welcome the king home. Baldwin’s imprisonment had concentrated his mind on the succession. His heiress was his daughter Melisende, whom he now married to the capable and experienced Fulk, Count of Anjou, descendant of the depraved serial-pilgrim Fulk the Black and son of the delightfully named Fulk the Repulsive, and himself already a veteran Crusader.

In 1131, Baldwin fell ill in Jerusalem, and, withdrawing to die in the Patriarch’s Palace as a humble supplicant, he abdicated in favour of Fulk, Melisende and their baby son, the future Baldwin III. Jerusalem had evolved its own coronation ritual. Assembling at the Temple of Solomon, wearing embroidered dalmatics, stoles and the crown jewels, Fulk and Melisende mounted gorgeously caparisoned horses. Led by the chamberlain brandishing the king’s sword, followed by the seneschal with the sceptre and the constable with the royal standard, they rode through the cheering city – the first Jerusalemite monarchs to be crowned in the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre, already being rebuilt.

The patriarch administered the royal oath then asked the congregation thrice to confirm that these were the lawful heirs: Oill!

Yes! shouted the crowd.^* The two crowns were borne towards the altar. The royal couple were anointed from a horn of oil before Fulk was given the ring of loyalty, the orb of dominion and the sceptre for punishment of sinners, and girded with the sword of war and justice. They were then both crowned and kissed by the patriarch. Outside the Sepulchre, the marshal helped King Fulk mount his horse and they rode back to the Temple Mount. At the banquet in Templum Domini, the king offered to return the crown and then retrieved it, a tradition based on the story of Jesus’ circumcision when it was said that Mary brought him to the Temple, offered him to God and bought him back for a lamb or two pigeons. Finally the burgesses brought the food and wine, served to the royals by the seneschal and chamberlain as the marshal held the banner over them. After much singing, music and dancing, the constable escorted the king and queen to their suite.

Melisende was the queen regnant but at first Fulk expected to rule in his own name. He was a squat forty-year-old soldier with red hair, ‘like King David’ as William of Tyre put it, and a poor memory, always a flaw in kings. Accustomed to ruling his own realm, he found it hard to manage, let alone charm, his imperious queen. Melisende, slim, dark and intelligent, was soon spending too much time with her handsome cousin and childhood playmate Count Hugh of Jaffa, the richest magnate in Jerusalem. Fulk accused them of having an affair.

QUEEN MELISENDE: THE SCANDAL

Melisende’s flirtation started as gossip but rapidly became a political crisis. As queen she was unlikely to be punished; but, by Frankish law, if a couple were found guilty of adultery, the woman suffered rhinotomy (nose-slitting), the man castration. One way to prove innocence was single combat: now a knight challenged Count Hugh to prove his innocence by duel. But Hugh fled to Egyptian territory, where he stayed until the Church negotiated a compromise by which he would go into exile for three years.