A Diversion About a Marriage

(I said we would get back to Amalric, but I've discovered a side story that I would rather not put off.)

King of Jerusalem Amalric I did not want to give up on his dream of bringing Egypt under Christian control, but he could not persuade the king of France to work with him. He needed to find powerful allies, and he chose to create one through marriage. In 1165, he sent envoys, including his royal butler Odo of Saint-Amand and Archbishop Ernesius of Caesarea, to Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenos to find a bride in the imperial family.

Amalric had been married to Agnes of Courtenay, but when he was ready to succeed his brother Baldwin III as king he was told he would have to get rid of her. In 1167 he married Maria Comnena, the grand-niece of the emperor. Her cousin Theodora (pictured, with attendants) had been Queen of Jerusalem as the wife of Amalric's older brother and predecessor, Baldwin III.

What happened to Theodora?

Theodora became the Kingdom of Jerusalem's first dowager queen upon Baldwin's death. She retired to Acre. Why Acre? Emperor Manuel made it part of the marriage contract, that Theodora be given Acre as her dower (a provision made by a husband to his intended wife). Theodora came to Jerusalem with over 100,000 gold coins and goods worth thousands more, so this seemed like a good deal to all. 

Life in Acre may have been fine for her, but for the young woman, it was quite boring. She was born c.1145, so with Baldwin's death in 1162 she was still very young and, in situations like this, she might have been used to make a marriage that would connect some other powerful ally to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This was not to be the case, however. 

She was not allowed to remarry without Amalric's permission, which he was not about to give. Acre was in her possession, and if she remarried and had children they would stand to inherit Acre. Amalric wanted her childless so that Acre would revert to possession by the king.

Although the Kingdom of Jerusalem was ruled by Franks, the majority of the Christian population was Greek Orthodox, like Theodora. She would not have been completely "out of her element" among strangers, but life would have been dull. Into this situation came Andronikos Comnenos, a first cousin of Emperor Manuel. According to William of Tyre, Andronikos behaved more muris in pera, "like a mouse in a wallet."

What that means, and what it meant to the kingdom and for Theodora, I'll explain tomorrow.

Amalric

Queen Melisende and Fulk of Anjou had a second son, Amalric, born in 1136. When his grandfather, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, was on his deathbed in 1131, he conferred the kingdom on Melisende, Fulk, and the elder son, Baldwin III. Fulk tried to cut Melisende out of authority, but she had enough regard from the local nobles that he had to offer peace and cooperation. It is possible that she, in turn, accepted reconciliation because she only had one son, whereas Fulk had adult children from an earlier marriage and might have tried to put them in the line of succession.

Amalric is seen as the result of that reconciliation, a "spare" to follow the "heir."

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, giving him power and 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 stir up trouble for Baldwin.

Amalric married Agnes of Courtenay in 1157, the daughter of Melisende's second cousin. William of Tyre wrote that the 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. It didn't work out in Agnes' favor.

Baldwin in Bosra

The decision to go to Bosra (pictured) and help Altuntash become ruler of the Hauran against the wishes of Damascene ruler Mu'in ad-Din Unur was taken by Baldwin III of Jerusalem for reasons that had more to do with saving face in front of the army rather than making a sound military decision.

Baldwin and the army had to go east into territory that was unfamiliar, finding provisions along the way. Once they arrived on a plain in southwestern Syria, they found themselves surrounded and outnumbered by Turkish forces they did not anticipate.

They should have anticipated this, however. The Bosra expedition had put them in opposition to Unur, who was an ally of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. By communicating their intent to him, they gave him time to alert others to the incursion. Unur had summoned an ally to keep an eye on the Franks. No battle took place, but the Frankish army had to move slowly, and by the time they reached Bosra, they were in for a disappointment.

While Altuntash was away from home seeking help, his wife had handed Bosra over to the Turks. Caught as strangers in a strange land with no allies and a failed quest, they chose to retreat. The Turks hampered their survival by setting fire to crops, giving the Franks dangers to overcome and a scarcity of food to find.

According to one report, in the midst of the fires, the soldiers offered Baldwin the swiftest horse to allow him to try to reach safety—he was, after all, their king. Baldwin, however, wisely refused, since from such a cowardly act he would  never be able to regain the confidence and respect of the army—he was, after all, their king.

William of Tyre claimed the Franks owed their survival to divine intervention. Archbishop of Nazareth Robert I had a piece of the True Cross; he raised it high, and the wind changed direction, blowing the flames away from the Franks. There was also a story of a knight on a white horse with a red banner miraculously appearing and leading the army to safety.

A contemporary Arab chronicler of Damascus, writing a little later from eyewitness accounts, informs us that Unur held back his army, allowing the Franks to leave without incident to avoid a larger military retaliation later.

Melisende (rightly) ascribed the failure of this campaign to Baldwin, and used it to exclude him from future decisions.

But it was 1147, and Europe was already planning what would become known as the Second Crusade. As King of Jerusalem, Baldwin would of course become involved. This would lead to another military failure with lots of finger pointing, and some of the fingers would point at Baldwin, but that's a story for tomorrow.

Melisende and Fulk, Part 2

After a rocky start to their life as King and Queen of Jerusalem, Fulk of Anjou and Melisende started to work together.

Melisende was particularly angry, however, at Rohard the Elder, a one-time retainer of her cousin Hugh of Jaffa who abandoned Hugh when Hugh rebelled against Fulk and who (Melisende believed) was instrumental in helping Fulk against Hugh. Rohard (and others) who had supported Fulk against Hugh's rebellion were careful to stay out of the queen's sight. It took mediation and time to get Melisende to forgive those allied with Fulk, and to forgive Fulk himself.

William of Tyre wrote that, once king and queen were reconciled, Fulk "did not attempt to take the initiative, even in trivial matters, without her knowledge." Any charters issued from the throne in Jerusalem were done with Melisende's consent from then on.

Fulk may be responsible for the Melisende Psalter (see Christ flanked by Mary and John the Baptist above), created c. 1135 and believed to have been commissioned by Fulk himself as a gift to placate her. The reason we believe it was specifically made for her is because the calendar inside it contains only two dates of a personal nature: the deaths of Baldwin II and Morphia, Melisende's parents. Also, the psalter contains a blend of Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox elements, in a nod to her upbringing: her father was catholic and her Armenian mother was Greek Orthodox.

Another sign of Fulk and Melisende's reconciliation is that they conceived another child in 1136, a son named Amalric.

Melisende tried to arrange careers for her sisters. Alice had lost her regency in Antioch when Raymond of Poitiers married her daughter Constance (only eight years old). Alice managed to live as a princess of Latakia until her death in 1150. Sister Hodierna married Raymond II of Tripoli. Ioveta was made abbess of an abbey founded for her by Melisende. Was it a kind gesture because Ioveta wanted to live a monastic life, or a calculated move to keep Ioveta or any future children away from a potential claim to the throne?

Speaking of religion, Fulk and Melisende had a lot of interaction with the Church in their territory, which I'll talk about tomorrow.

Uncle and Nephew, Part 2

After Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a long statement endorsing the new order at the request of his uncle André de Montbard, the Knights Templar began to thrive. André was seneschal, second-in-command to the Grand Master.

Even when there was no official Crusade, battles in the Holy Land between Christian forces and Muslims still took place. Between the Second and Third Crusades, at the Siege of Ascalon (pictured here; 25 January to 22 August 1153), the Fatimid defenders set fire to a siege tower set up by the Christians. Unfortunately for the defenders, wind was blowing in the wrong direction and directed the flames back against the defenses, causing part of the wall to collapse.

Templars were first to enter the breach, aiding in the capture of Ascalon, the last coastal city in Palestine that was not yet controlled by the Crusaders. In the fighting, the fourth Templar Grand Master, Bernard de Tremelay, was killed. According to William of Tyre, the Templars—who had a "first in and last out" philosophy of battle that was admirable to civilians but looked like grandstanding to other soldiers—rushed in so as not to share spoils with the rest of the army (Templars were still looking for financial support).

André de Montbard was elected the fifth Grand Master. Despite his increased duties to the order and to activities in the Holy Land, he maintained a relationship with his nephew in Burgundy who had helped him out. They wrote several letters to each other over the years.

While the Siege of Ascalon was going on, Bernard was dying (he was in his early 60s then). He wrote to André, asking that the knight visit him:

…I wish even more strongly to see you. I find the same wish in your letters, but also your fears for the land that Our Lord honoured with His presence and consecrated with His blood…

But let us mount above the sun, and may our conversation continue in the heavens. There, my Andre, will be the fruits of your labours, and there your reward…

By the time André received this, Bernard was gone.

Interestingly, Bernard's death was attended by a Templar Grand Master: the third Grand Master of the Templars, Everard des Barres, had given up war, tonsured his head, and joined Clairvaux to live out his remaining years in contemplation, despite André's entreaties to return to the fray alongside his former comrades.

André himself died on 17 January 1156; he was the last of the original nine founders of the Templars. He was replaced by Bertrand de Blanchefort, whose story we will take up tomorrow

Replacing Baldwin

I've written many times before about the importance of marriages in noble families, forging alliances with other powerful families through marriage. In the case of Baldwin IV, King of Jerusalem, finding a husband for his sister was even more crucial, because he needed to secure the succession, and he wasn't going to get an heir himself.

Baldwin had leprosy, which did not stop him from trying to be an effective king, but it meant marriage and procreation was out of the question. The best route was his sister, Sibylla. She had already been married, to William of Montferrat, and had a son named Baldwin, but William died from malaria. Sibylla herself was in the line of succession, but they wanted to make sure it would last beyond her.

Baldwin himself had become ill when visiting William, and although he survived for several more years, it became important to make sure Sibylla had a husband who could help raise her son to be the next king, and who could be trusted to perform as regent for that son so that Baldwin could safely abdicate, since he was becoming increasingly unable to perform his duties.

The High Court wanted her to marry Duke Hugh III of Burgundy, who was now a vassal of King Philip II of France after Philip invaded Burgundy. Baldwin was so desperate to get Sibylla married that he sent a message to Philip, empowering him to choose another suitor if Hugh refused. Hugh accepted, and intended to sail to Jerusalem in early 1180 for an Easter wedding. Unfortunately, internal strife in France prevented Hugh from leaving.

William of Tyre, who had helped raise Baldwin IV and wrote a history of the lands controlled by the Crusades, recorded that Count Raymond III of Tripoli and Prince Bohemond III of Antioch set out for Jerusalem, sensing Baldwin's weakness and looking to usurp his throne. There is a belief that Raymond's intent was to force Baldwin to marry Sibylla to Baldwin of Ibelin, an important noble and close friend of Raymond, then force Baldwin to abdicate.

Their plan was foiled when Sibylla hastily married Guy of Lusignan, a French knight from Poitou, in 1180. (The illustration is of their marriage.) (His older brother, Aimery of Lusignan, had married the daughter of Baldwin of Ibelin, which would have made family gatherings awkward.) Guy became, by marriage, Count of Jaffa and Ascalon and bailiff of Jerusalem.

In 1182, with his health declining, King Baldwin declared Guy regent, but doubts about how Guy and Raynald of Châtillon provoked Saladin with whom Baldwin had a truce disillusioned Baldwin, and he tried to have the marriage annulled. Baldwin died in 1185, having become blind and lame in his final years. Sibylla's son became Baldwin V, but died within the year.

The High Court agreed that she should be queen, but only on the condition that she would annul the marriage to Guy. Sibylla agreed, on the condition that she be allowed to choose her next husband. The marriage was annulled, Sibylla was crowned Queen of Jerusalem in Summer 1186, and she chose as her husband ... Guy of Lusignan, who was crowned King of Jerusalem in September 1186.

Guy has been mentioned a few times before, and I'd like to tell you a little more about his life before and after becoming King of Jerusalem.

The Leper King

When William of Tyre was asked by King Amalric of Jerusalem to raise and tutor his son, Baldwin (1161 - 1185), he noticed something unusual, and ultimately disturbing. When he played with the other children, and the rough-and-tumble of kids involved pinching each other, Baldwin did not cry like the other children did. His right arm seemed impervious to the pain. (The illustration is from a French translation in the 1250s of a history by William of Tyre.)

Baldwin's riding teacher realized he did not have sensation in his right hand, and so learning to ride a horse was more difficult; Baldwin learned to control the horse with his knees. An obvious source of this problem was leprosy, but without any of the physical signs, they were reluctant to declare leprosy, since that would stigmatize the prince.

According to William, Baldwin had an excellent memory and was a quick learner, though he stuttered. His father was concerned about the boy's future and the succession. He wanted to marry Baldwin's sister, Sibylla, to Count Stephen I of Sancerre, who was chosen to be regent if Amalric died before Baldwin had attained his majority. The couple might have been also considered by Amalric to be a suitable heir to the throne of Jerusalem instead of Baldwin. Unfortunately, the match did not take place, and then Amalric died from dysentery on 11 July 1174.

The High Court met to consider the succession. Baldwin's limitation was known, but with no visible sign yet of leprosy, he was by default the heir and was crowned a few days after his father's death, on the 15th, which happened to be the 75th anniversary of the seizing of Jerusalem by the First Crusade.

Raymond III of Tripoli, a cousin of Amalric, was chosen as regent (after the man who wanted to be regent, the seneschal Miles of Plancy, was murdered in October having failed to get the cooperation of the military). Raymond made William of Tyre Chancellor, but did not replace the seneschal. When Baldwin turned 15 in 1176, Raymond returned to Tripoli.

By that time it was clear that Baldwin had leprosy. The condition advanced rapidly, affecting his limbs and his face, turning his once-good looks into a demeanor difficult to look at. As a confirmed leper, he was not allowed to marry or have children. Lepers were often segregated, but he remained on the throne. Marrying Sibylla to ensure a dynastic succession became a priority, but that becomes a long story in its own right.

Despite the leprosy, Baldwin still fought when necessary. Tomorrow I'll tell you about when Baldwin went to war.

William of Tyre

The First Crusade founded several Christian territories in the East. In order of their founding, they were the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the County of Tripoli.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem's first ruler was Godfrey of Bouillon. He and his successors expanded the borders of their kingdom, covering approximately where Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon are today.

This included the city of Tyre, the birthplace of William II of Tyre c.1130. Though growing up in Jerusalem, he went back to Europe to study Liberal Arts and canon law in the universities (where he knew a man named Hilary who studied Classical literature while William was there). He studied theology in Paris under Peter Lombard (whose writings became the standard for theological education) and Bologna (probably around the same time as Peter of Blois, who was the same age).

William came back to Jerusalem in 1165, where King Amalric I appointed him ambassador to the Byzantine Empire, and sent Amalric's son, the future king Baldwin IV, to live with and be tutored by William. Baldwin had been born in 1161, so was quite young. Over time, William was to notice something very different about the boy (but more on that later).

When Amalric died in 1174, William became Chancellor to the still-very-young Baldwin, appointed by the regent, Raymond III of Tripoli. William was also made Archbishop of Tyre. In 1179, William led the Jerusalem delegation to the Third Lateran Council, called by Pope Alexander, that declared education should be made free to those who could not afford it, and that expanded the Truce of God.

William also wrote. His account of the Third Lateran and a history of the Islamic states have not survived, but his Latin work called alternately Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum ("History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea") or Historia Ierosolimitana ("History of Jerusalem") was translated into French soon after his death and then into other languages, so has survived.

William's status was connected to his relationship with the king. There had been a brief regency after Amalric died, and Baldwin did not become king in his own right until 1176. There was some debate about his accession to the throne, but he was the only appropriate option at the time. What was the cause of the concern? It had been clear since his childhood that there was something different about him, something wrong, actually, and it would not necessarily prevent him from being king, but it would prevent him from extending the dynasty.

Tomorrow we'll look at Baldwin IV and the sad case of his illness that William noticed even when Baldwin was a child—especially when he was a child.

The Poet Hilarius

In yesterday's post on Eve of Wilton I mentioned that much of what we learn about her comes from the writing of Hilary the Englishman. He studied under Peter Abelard c. 1125 in the Champagne area of France. He also seems to have traveled around, at least to Angers in Anjou because of a poem entitled "To a Boy of Anjou."

A single manuscript of verses exists in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Hilary wrote three rhyming miracle plays in mixed Latin and French. One, "The Play of the Image of St Nicholas," tells of a Muslim invasion that slaughters everyone they find but cannot harm a single man praying before an image of St. Nicholas.

Most of the poems included in the manuscript are addressed to young boys, possibly erstwhile pupils of Hilary. In "To a Boy of Anjou," Hilary begins:

Beautiful and singular boy,

Kindly inspect, I implore you,

These writings which are sent by your admirer;

Look at them, read them, and profit by what you read.

Prostrate at your knees,

On bended knee, with clasped hands,

As one of your suppliants,

I spare neither tears nor prayers.

I am afraid to speak face to face;

Speech escapes me, I am held speechless,

So I admit my sickness in writing,

Confident that I shall merit healing.

Enough, wretch! I barely bore it

When I tried to hide my love;

Now that I can no longer dissemble,

I finally extend my hands, bound together.

As a patient I demand a doctor,

Holding out my hands in supplication.

You alone have the only medication;

Therefore save me, your clerk.

Since they all profess the beauty of their subjects and his longing for them, Hilary became popular in modern scholarly LGBT circles.

William of Tyre mentioned a Hilary at Orléans c.1150 with whom William was reading Classical literature. This Hilary often gets offered as a possible additional appearance of Hilary the Englishman. This seems unlikely, because what little we know of this other Hilary is that he was connected to northern Italy and wrote in Latin and Italian. I've made one mention of William of Tyre before, but there is a lot more to say about the man who was an archbishop, a chronicler, and a European born in Jerusalem. See you next time.

Glass and Recycling

In 1977-79, a shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey was investigated. It was determined to have sunk about 1025. The ship's hold contained three tons of broken glass and chunks of glass. (This amount of glass would make about 12,000 Coke bottles.)

Jesse Tree at York Minster (1150-70); some of the oldest
stained glass of the Middle Ages

Glass requires extreme heat applied to a mixture of silica, soda, and lime. Silica was derived from sand; soda happens to reduce the temperature at which glass can form; lime makes the glass "chemically stable." Impurities—by accident or design—added color to the glass.

We know little about how glass-making came about; records do not explain the technique, but anecdotal mentions tell us a little. Pliny's Natural History tells us that the best sand for glass comes from the mouth of the Belus River near Akko, Israel. The shells in that sand provide the lime needed to make the glass stable. William of Tyre (1130-1186) and Jacques de Vitry (1170-1240) around 1200 both mention the same source. It is thought that the ancients did not understand why that source was the best, chemically, that they did not understand that the shells contained necessary lime.

In England, the Glastonbury Abbey Project has discovered evidence of a stone structure on the site of Glastonbury Abbey dating to c.700. They have also found evidence of early Roman and Saxon activity from before the Abbey's founding. Remains of glass-making furnaces have been uncovered, showing archaeologists that Saxons were recycling Roman glass brought from Europe. The Glastonbury site was possibly the first Saxon glass-making factory in England.

The remarkable thing about glass is that it is recyclable, like metals. Although it took a lot of energy to process, every bit of broken material (unlike wood or stone or pottery) could be re-smelted and re-cast. It is possible that the glass in windows like the example above was even older than our estimates, having been re-used from earlier glass objects that broke or had outlived their usefulness.