Amalric and the Assassins

In 1173 King of Jerusalem Amalric I tried to make an alliance with the Order of Assassins. They were a sect of Shi'ite Islam whose goals were political as well as religious: they went after the Abbasid Caliphate as well as Christians. They had been subdued by the Templars and were forced into an annual tribute.

Amalric made them a deal: convert to Christianity, and you won't have to pay tribute to the Templars anymore. An envoy from the Order of Assassins to Amalric's court agreed to this. (Yes, hard to believe that this was a serious agreement on the part of the Order, since their entire identity was being faithful to their Shi'ite leader, the "Old Man of the Mountain" Rashid al-Din Sinan.)

Anyway, the envoy was returning from the negotiations when he was discovered by a patrol of Templars led by Walter of Mesnil. Despite being granted safe conduct by Amalric, the Templars killed him. William of Tyre and Walter Map both wrote about the incident, claiming it was a great loss of the chance to convert more Muslims to Christianity. (Walter Map suggested that the Templars did not want the Assassins to convert because it would make the Templars superfluous, but this imagines (quite wrongly) that there weren't plenty of non-Christians for the Templars to guard against and take tribute from.

Amalric was furious and demanded from the Templar master, Odo of Saint Armand, that Walter be turned over to him for punishment. Odo refused, saying that he had already given Walter penance to do and that Walter was being sent to the pope.

Amalric would have none of it. He went to where Walter was staying before heading to the pope and captured him, imprisoning him in Tyre.

On 15 May in 1174, Amalric's rival Nur ad-Din died. Amalric felt this was the best chance to (again) try to conquer Egypt. His first attack on a city there failed, but he accepted money to retreat. Heading back to Jerusalem, he fell ill. By the time he got to Jerusalem, it seemed clear that he had contracted dysentery. No treatment helped, and he died on 11 July. He left behind two daughters and a son, Baldwin, a sickly boy of 13 years. The illustration shows Amalric dying and the boy being crowned.

There were concerns about the young Baldwin IV. He did not seem to feel pain, which meant he was likely suffering from leprosy. In fact, I've talked about him as The Leper King, and that he was the only viable candidate, but he was fairly soon replaced by Baldwin V, his nephew through Sibylla of Jerusalem.

Since all that has been covered before, I want to turn to the mother of Baldwin V and sister of Baldwin IV, Sibylla of Jerusalem.