Amalric is seen as the result of that reconciliation.
Fulk died in 1143, and Melisende became co-ruler with her son, the 15-year-old Baldwin. Years later, when she and Baldwin continued to be at odds, she named the 15-year-old Amalric the Count of Jaffa, making him beholden to her.
A year later, in 1152, Baldwin took the bold move of besieging his mother and her most loyal advisors in the Tower of David. Baldwin was successful. He managed to depose his mother and return Jaffa to Baldwin's own control. Two years later, in 1154, Baldwin gave his younger brother Jaffa and Ascalon.
Melisende was retired to Nablus, 30 miles north of Jerusalem: sufficient territory to give her an income, but no fortifications that she could hide behind if she tried to foment trouble for Baldwin.
Amalric married Agnes of Courtenay in 1157. She was the daughter of Melisende's second cousin. William of Tyre wrote that Patriarch of Jerusalem Fulcher of Angoulême objected because the couple were too closely related. A later chronicle of the lineages of the Crusader families states that the marriage was inappropriate in another way: Agnes, recently widowed, had been about to marry another, Hugh of Ibelin, but Amalric married her instead. A more recent historian claims Agnes was already married to Hugh, and Amalric kidnapped her to marry her, making them bigamous.
Amalric, like Baldwin, kept good relations with the Byzantine Empire, especially through Manuel I Comnenos (Baldwin was married to Manuel's niece, Theodora). They had no children, and so when Baldwin was nearing death, he named Amalric as his heir.
Tomorrow I want to take a look at Agnes of Courtenay, her life, her marriage to Amalric, and what happened when Amalric wanted to be King of Jerusalem.
