Hodierna of Tripoli, 1137

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Ruth

Hodierna, Baldwin’s third daughter, didn’t marry until she was about 25 (in 1137). It’s not clear why she stayed home so long when her sister Alice was married off at 16. It may have just been a lack of opportunity; no Prince Bohemund was on the horizon, and they didn’t want her to “marry down.” Hodierna’s husband Raymond II of Tripoli, who was in some ways the boy next door, was only 20.

Raymond II didn’t know what to do with the strong-willed, independent wife he had taken on. They say he tried keeping her in seclusion, but rumors still spread that her first baby was not fathered by Raymond. There were no serious questions raised when a boy was born, since he was a badly-needed heir, but the rumors about little Melisende (the first baby) persisted for years.

There’s an odd assassination episode during the Second Crusade, with Hodierna’s name mixed in. The youngest son of First Crusader Raymond of Toulouse came as a commander, but he died suddenly at Caesarea.  The circumstances of the young Count’s death in 1148 must have been highly suspicious. At the time, people said he had been poisoned. It’s interesting that when Baldwin I died at Muslim-held Caesarea, they didn’t take seriously the notion that he’d been poisoned. But this time, rumors spread that a woman had been behind the poisoning. Some said Queen Melisende of Jerusalem had arranged it at the request of Hodierna.

The Tripoli marriage seems to have been difficult straight through. By 1152, the couple had separated. Hodierna’s sister Queen Melisende came to Tripoli as mediator, but in the end, everyone agreed that it would be best if Hodierna and her daughter just went to Jerusalem for a while. After they were gone, assassins killed Raymond II. Historians seem to think that they were probably Nizari Ismaili agents who targeted a Christian ruler (not their usual) because he had given so much land and money to the Order of the Hospital knights, including the Krak des Chevaliers. Okay, fine, it totally wasn’t done by Hodierna. hm.

Hodierna went back to Tripoli to help her young son Raymond III rule until he was declared an adult at age 15, a few years later. Unlike her sister Alice, she didn’t try to wrest power from him. But in 1160, she suffered a great humiliation. The Byzantine Emperor made a tentative plan to marry Hodierna’s daughter Melisende, and Tripoli began taxing and gathering to give her a good dowry. While they were doing this, however, those old rumors about Hodierna’s lovers came to the Emperor’s ears. He began stalling until a year had passed, and next thing they knew, he had quietly married Alice’s granddaughter Maria, instead.

Raymond III took revenge for the insult to his sister by plundering Cyprus, then a Byzantine stronghold. But there was no real way to fix what had just happened. Young Melisende quietly entered a convent. Hodierna lived long enough to sit at her sister Queen Melisende’s deathbed, then she too passed away in 1164. It doesn’t look like she had any grandchildren, so her line ended.

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Melisende and Fulk, 1129-43

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Ruth

Melisende was named after the Countess of Rethel, Baldwin II’s mother; it’s a variant of Millicent, an old Germanic compound name. Now it has become the name of a fairy-tale heroine of an opera, so it sounds fanciful, but when Melisende was named, it was probably just a family name.

The difficulty of finding a husband for Melisende lay in the family’s need for a strong war leader who would be loyal to her interests. Nothing could really stop a powerful man from marrying her, being crowned, and then setting her aside, maybe off into a convent. There was no clear choice among the local lords whose characters and alliances were known; young Bohemund II was allied to Jerusalem via Alice, perhaps because he wasn’t obviously strong enough to handle Jerusalem. The King of France chose the Count of Anjou.

Fulk had been Count of Anjou since he was something like 18, and he had raised a family already. His son Geoffrey of Anjou married the the Princess Matilda of England; together they founded the Plantagenet Dynasty. Fulk’s daughter, another Matilda, married England’s Crown Prince (who died young, so he never became king). Fulk had already made a long pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was an important funding source for the Knights of the Temple. We have to presume that during his pilgrimage, he spent time with all of the Crusader ruling structure—so they knew him. He knew them. He had met the daughter.

Fulk was strong enough to hold Jerusalem against enemies and make wise decisions about internal plots and diplomacy. But was he actually too strong? His marriage was pragmatic and it was soon clear that, in personal terms, it was a disaster. Melisende was no traditional French wife; she was used to attending council meetings. But Fulk expected to be King of Jerusalem outright, on his own.

When Melisende gave birth to a son in 1130, her father saw an opportunity to block Fulk from a possible coup against her. First, he decreed that Melisende had sole custody of the infant Baldwin. Second, kings could have their successors anointed and crowned during their own lifetimes. Baldwin II had Melisende, Fulk, and infant Baldwin III crowned as three joint monarchs.

Fulk took as little notice as possible and began acting as if he were sole king. After Baldwin II died in 1131, it only got worse. Fulk made it clear in public that he had little regard for his wife or her hereditary rights. In 1134, he took the first steps to do exactly what the father had feared: setting her aside, to make room for his family back in Anjou. He began with a splash, publicly accusing her of adultery.

Melisende had always been close to her cousin, the son of Baldwin II’s sister, who was now Count Hugh II of Jaffa. Fulk accused Hugh of treason, specifically of adultery with the Queen. Hugh was convicted by Fulk’s supporters in the council and, to defend himself, went into full military revolt. The Count of Jaffa allied with the Fatimid governor of Ascalon, and then Fulk besieged it. Jaffa held out, but in negotiation, Hugh lost.

Hugh was sent into exile for three years, but as he was waiting for a ship to take him away, he was suddenly knife-attacked by a French knight from a region that was suspiciously close to Anjou. Public opinion had never accepted the allegations against Hugh and Melisende; King Baldwin II had been a popular ruler who left behind much loyal sentiment. Everyone believed that the assault on Count Hugh was an attempted assassination, and in their eyes, the only reason to kill Hugh was to stop him from someday proving the queen’s innocence. Therefore, Fulk must know that she was innocent.

From that day forward, Fulk lost the power he had been trying to build up. Melisende’s supporters in the council enforced her presence and cooperation with all ruling decisions. Fulk was still needed as a war leader, but he had to become a king consort. He withdrew his allegations against Melisende and accepted living with her again. She had one more son, Amalric, before Fulk’s death in 1143.

By the time Fulk died, Melisende had become fond enough of him to seem genuinely grieved by his death. One record of Fulk says he was a cheerful, honest knight who just had difficulty remembering people’s names.

But after Fulk was gone, Melisende ruled for her son Baldwin III. But that’s another story. Melisende is most famous today for her ownership of a Psalter that survived into our times, beautifully decorated and preserved at the British Library.

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Alice, Princess of Antioch, 1126-36

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Ruth

Alice, King Baldwin’s second daughter, was married to the son of Prince Bohemund, the baby who had been born while he was back in Sicily. Bohemund II grew up in Europe. Around age 18, he came to Antioch to take over. Alice was about 16. She began her married life conventionally enough by bearing a daughter in the first two years. Then it was all derailed when her husband died in battle.

The Middle East at this time was a swirl of competing Turkish tribes. Some were more Persianized or had been converted to Islam longer than others. Just when I think I know the names of all of them — Cumans, Pechenegs, Khazars, Bulgars, Danishmends, Seljuks, Oghuz — I run into new names. In looking back, we generalize them to “Turks” and project unity onto them, a unity that came only later with the Ottoman kings. At that time, nobody could see which tribe was going to rise to the top, so they were all trying.

In this case, the Danishmends were coming to the aid of Christian Armenians. The same ruling family that had welcomed the first Crusaders now realized that they were just another invading force. Bohemund II was trying to take more territory, not from Muslims, but from King Baldwin’s brother-in-law. The Crusades were only sometimes stereotypical wars of religion.

Bohemund II and Alice had only been married about four years, and they had only this one child, Constance. The men around Alice wanted to appoint a male regent for the child Princess until she was old enough to be married to a man who could help reign. But Alice, having grown up watching Melisende being treated like an heir, did not see any reason why she could not be a reigning Princess on her own.

Her father, King Baldwin II, saw two very good reasons why not. First, this was a very dangerous neighborhood. He had already chosen to import a seasoned warrior to marry — and rule with — Melisende. Second, he had an opportunity to exert influence over Antioch, making his kingship more real. He had known Bohemund in the old days; suddenly, Bohemund’s legacy came down to this baby girl, and as baby Constance’s grandfather, he could step in and protect her with a regent. He must have known Alice well enough to feel sure that she would not rule the way he wished!

Alice attempted three coups, starting right away. She sent a secret message to the Turkish ruler of Aleppo, asking him to ally with her. Her toddler’s hand in marriage was held out as a reward. But Alice’s father had troops in the area. They caught and tortured her messenger. Then Alice ordered the gates barred against King Baldwin’s entry, but the nobles of Antioch saw no good in defying the King of Jerusalem. They opened the gates. Alice ran into the Citadel, the one that had originally held out against the Crusaders, but she couldn’t really hold out all on her own.

King Baldwin sent Alice away to live in Latakia. Almost certainly, baby Constance stayed in Antioch with her nurse and nanny staff. Medieval royal infants were often separated from their parents, partly as a guard against one good epidemic wiping them all out. Baldwin appointed his old friend Sir Joscelin, now Count of Edessa, to rule Antioch as regent, but the arrangement didn’t last long.

King Baldwin II died in 1131. As Melisende became Queen on her own, Sir Joscelin also died. Alice saw her chance; she came back from her city of Latakia, and seized Antioch again. Joscelin II of Edessa and Pons of Tripoli were willing to ally with her against the new Queen and King in Jerusalem. Only two generations out from the original Crusade, they were rebelling against Jerusalem! When King Fulk, Melisende’s husband, tried to go to Antioch to take control, he had to sail from Jaffa since Tripoli would not let him pass by land. But only one minor battle was fought, and the rebel Counts submitted to the new King. Alice was again out of luck, sent back to Latakia.

Alice tried one more time when Constance was about 7. She started negotiating to have the Byzantine Emperor marry the little girl! Remember that first Bohemund had positioned Antioch as Constantinople’s determined rival and adversary? The nobles of Antioch panicked. They told Alice that they were getting a prince from Europe, Raymond of Poitiers, to come marry her—not the daughter, but Alice herself. The Patriarch played along until Raymond arrived. Then the child was brought into the church and married off at age 7. Raymond, a son of the Duke of Aquitaine, was about 21, so it was assumed that he had time to wait for Constance to grow up. In the meanwhile, his legal marriage effectively blocked the very disappointed Alice.

Where was Alice’s maternal feeling all this time? She seems to have had little of it; perhaps her sisters would have said “oh that’s just Alice, you know how she is.” Perhaps it was a traumatic response to her husband’s sudden death; perhaps it was a projection of hidden dislike for her husband. We can speculate anything, but it’s clear that she wasn’t much like her mother, Morphia, who stayed close to her children. In any case, little Constance was important as a descendant of Bohemund in a way that Alice, the mother, was not. Once Constance had her own household staff and Alice was sent away, they apparently had limited contact.

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King Baldwin’s Feminist Daughters

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Ruth

I’ve described King Baldwin II as a family man, the fact that sets him apart from the other First Crusaders. Coming with the Boulogne brothers as a landless knight, he had inherited Edessa and immediately married Morphia, the heiress of Melitene. When Baldwin came back from his Mosul years as a hostage, their first daughter Melisende was about four years old. Morphia had two more daughters in Edessa, and one more in Jerusalem. Baldwin’s four girls became some of the most edgy women in medieval history.

Let’s start with the youngest, who was born in 1120. She was known as Ioveta (or Yvette) of Bethany, and she became a nun. That sounds dull enough, but wait, there’s more. When little Ioveta was three, she was sent to be a hostage in Shaizar, Syria in exchange for her father’s release after he lost a battle. She stayed there for two years! Can you imagine handing over a three-year-old as a hostage? When Ioveta was returned at age five, probably now speaking Arabic, her sisters must have doted on her; in spite of the fifteen years the four girls spanned, they were close all their lives. Melisende the oldest founded a convent at the Tomb of Lazarus in Bethany, and Ioveta became its abbess. She educated Melisende’s granddaughter, future Queen Sibylla, and she was at Melisende’s deathbed. And Ioveta is the boring one.

Alice and Hodierna were born in Edessa around 1110 and 1112, the only two close in age. They would have been about eight and six when their father became King of Jerusalem. It seems likely that one reason Queen Morphia sent little Ioveta to be the hostage was that the older girls were already in marriage negotiations, which could take several years and were usually planned well in advance. It’s possible that her hostage years ruined Ioveta’s marriage prospects, leading to her vocation as a nun.

We know almost nothing about Queen Morphia, except that her family followed Greek Orthodox tradition while being Armenian, and she adopted Roman Catholicism on marriage. It’s clear that her husband really loved her, since she was not set aside when she bore only girls. Historians of the time said that not only did he angrily reject suggestions of divorce, he delayed his coronation until Morphia could be crowned next to him. We don’t know what in her personality was so compelling, but we can see clues in what she gave her daughters.

Morphia instilled in each one the will to rule on her own, although only Melisende could expect to inherit Jerusalem. Alice and Hodierna would be sent away to be Countesses or Princesses bearing heirs; but that’s not the way they viewed themselves. All of the older girls were willful and wanted to rule alone. They often conspired with each other, even willing to call in hits on the men who were ruining a sister’s life. They never conspired against each other. I think we can give Morphia credit for their strength because if nannies or tutors had shaped them, they would probably have had less loyalty to each other.

In 1126, Alice was married off first, because King Baldwin II was having a hard time choosing a husband for Melisende. Alice went to Antioch, where Bohemund II had just arrived, taking over for the regents who had ruled since his father’s death. Bohemund was 18, Alice about 16.  King Baldwin really hoped it would lead to Antioch’s being pulled into Jerusalem’s direct orbit and tax base.

The King of France was asked to choose a powerful vassal lord to go marry Melisende, and he chose 40 year old Fulk, Count of Anjou. Fulk had himself married young to produce heirs for Anjou, so he had a first family. His grown son Geoffrey had just married Empress Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror. Geoffrey is considered the founder of the House of Plantagenet, one of England’s greatest dynasties. With two sons to rule Anjou for him, Fulk was free to leave, and the King of France may have wanted him to exit the dynastic power struggles of Europe. Melisende was about 24 and had been treated like a co-ruler with her father for a few years. They were married in 1129.

Hodierna wasn’t married off until 1137, when she became the Countess of Tripoli. Her husband was the son of the little 8 year old French Princess Cecilia who had been sent to marry Tancred! We talked about her just a few entries ago. How time flies when it’s all history to us.

The next three entries are about Baldwin’s daughters.

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Knights of Temple and Hospital, 1118

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Ruth

In the first year of King Baldwin II, a knight named Hugues (Hugh, Hugo) proposed the creation of a new monastic order. He had probably come to Jerusalem in 1114, on pilgrimage with the Count of Champagne. Hugues chose to stay and live out his life in the Holy City. He seems to have been part of a small band of unmarried knights from Champagne who all chose to stay.

A word about unmarried knights. It’s my impression that marriage and land went together. Heirs of land were obliged to marry as young as possible to produce more heirs. When a knight became the ruler of land, he was enabled to marry; we often see a knight gaining a title and marrying at the same time (as Baldwin II did). But knights without land often did not marry. The knight’s life expectancy was uncertain, and he had other opportunities for sex.

Unmarried knights were generally attached to a nobleman, the way Hugues and his friends had been followers of the Count of Champagne. Now, the small band of knights who stayed on were, in a sense, unemployed. Hugues’ Big Idea was to have the King create a monastic order for knights, which would give them jobs, a home, and a purpose. They were already poor; being monks made poverty respectable. Their new badge would show two men on one horse!

King Baldwin II granted them al-Aqsa Mosque as their living quarters; it was known as the Temple of Solomon, since it had been built on that foundation. The knights just called it The Temple. In a sense, they took on *policing* Jerusalem, especially with protecting foreign pilgrims in mind. Perhaps some of them had been robbed on arrival, so they knew the need.

In another part of the city, around the same time, another band of landless, unmarried knights gathered at the Order of St. John Hospital. This hospital had been established by merchants from Amalfi, Italy in 1023 when the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was rebuilt. It started as a hostel, but became an infirmary. Now, this small cluster of knights would have a foundation to support them, too, in their role of security guards to the pilgrims and monk-doctors.

Why was there suddenly this need for policing? It may be that when Baldwin I invited Syrian Christians to repopulate the city in 1115, the nature of city life changed dramatically. Underpopulated and barely functioning as an economy, Jerusalem had perhaps been fairly predictable. With new residents who had their boundaries and hierarchies to establish among themselves, crime may have skyrocketed.

Bernard of Clairvaux, the monk who was leading a reform movement at this time, publicly praised the monastic knight orders. Knights were usually wealthy; these knights voluntarily owned nothing and lived in austerity. Bernard’s praise led more knights to travel to the Holy Land and join up, and it also encouraged wealthy lay people to start leaving large donations to the orders. Both orders soon owned vast estates in France, although the individual knights supposedly owned nothing. In time, the Knights of the Temple (Knights Templars or just Templars) and the Knights of the Hospital became very wealthy, powerful organizations. The Hospital Order persists to this day, headquartered now in Rome.

But in the early years, we should picture them as they began: small groups of knights, often from the same region or families, who lived frugally in barracks near their stables. There’s no question that they were the embodiment of Cool in 1120. That’s why their orders grew so quickly: they were the hipsters of their day, and the lucky ones were able to say, “I was a Temple Knight before it went mainstream. Remember the old days when we slept in our stables? And only one horse for every two knights! That’s when it was best, now it’s sold out…”

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King Sigurd the Crusader

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Ruth

Norway decided to participate in the Crusade on its own schedule; it was at the outer rim of Christendom, so news of the First Crusade’s call arrived there slowly. Pilgrimages appealed to Scandinavians very much, since long voyages were part of their culture. At the time of the Pope’s call, King Magnus Barefoot was too busy conquering portions of Sweden, Scotland and Ireland to respond. But he died in 1103, leaving three sons to rule jointly. A group of scattered would-be Crusaders came back to Norway around this time, telling stories of the great lands to the south and the wonderful victories of the Crusade. There was a lot of popular enthusiasm in Oslo for mounting their own armed pilgrimage.

The three kings were all young, two teenagers and a little child. But they appear to have ruled harmoniously, perhaps because Magnus had left such a sprawling northern empire that there was room for all. Eystein, the oldest, seems always to have been an administrator at home. Sigurd, the second son, campaigned with his father as a teenager and was married to the Princess of Ireland. They decided that Sigurd was the obvious choice to lead a Crusade. It took some more time to build enough spare ships and recruit the men who would go.

Sigurd set out with sixty ships in 1107. They wintered over in England, with Henry I (son of William the Conqueror). In spring of 1108, they sailed south along France’s Atlantic coast, but it was slow going; they had to winter again in Santiago de Compostela—a whole year and they weren’t even into the Mediterranean yet! In spring 1109, they set out again, and it got a bit more interesting. First, they battled pirates. Next, they passed along the coast of Portugal, fighting Muslim rulers as far north as Lisbon.

When the Norwegian ships entered the Mediterranean Sea, they were in the territory of the Taifa (city-state) of Majorca, made up of the rich Balearic Islands. They fought several battles, though they considered the fortress at Majorca too tough to attack. Norwegian epics recount huge victories at the islands of Formentera, Ibiza, and Minorca.

The Norwegian stories tell how the Moors of Formentera hid with their treasure in a cave that was halfway up a precipice. Sigurd attacked it by lowering two ships with ropes until they were level with the cave. The ships’ men attacked the cave with rocks, while more Norsemen climbed up to the cave from below. Then they set a bonfire in the cave’s mouth.

It’s not clear to me to whom the conquered islands and fortresses in Andalusia went. Perhaps Sigurd had found local Christians to place in power, or it may be that he considered it sufficient to kill, plunder, and move on. In 1109, the Norwegians arrived in Sicily, where Count Roger II, a boy of 12, welcomed them. At a feast, say the sagas, Sigurd proclaimed the Count to be a King, establishing the Kingdom of Sicily.

By 1110, they finally arrived in Jaffa or Acre and rode to Jerusalem.  In Old Norse, the city’s name was Jorsala, and the region was Jorsalaland. Sigurd’s nickname became “Jorsalafarer.” King Baldwin welcomed Sigurd and honored him with feasts and an honorary trip to the Jordan River. Baldwin even gave Sigurd a relic splinter of the True Cross to take back to Oslo, with the condition that Sigurd should invest the city with its own Archbishop.

It happened that there was a siege the Norwegians could help with, so they joined the other Crusaders at Sidon. To the Norwegians, the whole thing was a walk in the park; they won every battle they started, and their participation quickly reduced Sidon to surrender. The grueling First Crusade experiences of near disaster seem to have skipped Sigurd entirely. It was more like spring break.

The Norwegians returned by way of Cyprus, where they spent some time, and then Constantinople. Sigurd made a point of waiting to arrive in Constantinople until the right sort of wind would make his ships look most impressive. They were welcomed by the Emperor, who held a sort of Olympic Games in their honor. A lot of Norsemen chose to stay on at this magical city, joining the Emperor’s special Varangian Guard. “Varangian” was the Greek name for Scandinavians or Rus. Unlike Byzantine conscripts, the Varangian Guard had a very high standard of loyalty to the Emperor as they applied the Norse custom of fealty.

Sigurd left his ships in the Mediterranean and traveled overland through Bulgaria, Hungary, and Germany. He arrived home to great fame. His Crusade is most notable for being so easy and successful. He left no impression on the Holy Land apart from the fall of Sidon. His story seems to come from a different book from the rest of the First Crusade hardships and disasters.

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Baldwin I is Dead, Long Live Baldwin II

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Ruth

In 1115, King Baldwin I sent a general invitation to Syrian Christians to come resettle in Jerusalem. The city’s economy was very thin, since the Crusaders had killed so many of the residents in their original assault. The ensuing years of wars and threats had not made it seem an inviting neighborhood, to say the least. The city’s tax base had collapsed. Now, it looked like the Fatimids had given up on recapture; they no longer set out with a field army every spring. The Muslims to the east and north were still very much occupied with their civil wars. Life could go back to something like normal.

In that cluster of years, it looked like Baldwin I had found a good solution to his childless state. He put his wife, Queen Arda, in a convent. Then he married a woman who already had children. She was the widowed Countess of Sicily. In the marriage contract, her young son Roger II of Sicily was established as Baldwin’s heir, although he remained in Sicily. However, after two years of marriage, Baldwin I became ill and he believed that God was striking him down for his sin of bigamy. He annulled the marriage contract, with its inheritance clause, and sent the Countess home.

Baldwin I didn’t die from that illness, but he died soon after, in 1118. He had an old battle wound from his first months as king (1100), when a Turkish hunting party had speared him. He had lived for many years after, but apparently, sickness and internal injuries just caught up with him. He was probably about 60. The king was on campaign in Egypt, near El-Arish, when he died. He left instructions for his cook to bury his guts nearby, but to salt and spice his body thoroughly. The expedition carried him in this semi-mummified state back to Jerusalem. There, he was buried in state at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The sudden death of Baldwin I created a dangerous power vacuum. Bohemund and Tancred had predeceased him, but there were always ambitious Normans around. Would Roger II of Sicily try to press his claim? He was bitterly angry at his mother’s being sent home in shame. Someone sent for Baldwin’s older brother Eustace of Boulogne, who reluctantly agreed to take up the duty if he must, but he was well over 60 and far away, and someone needed to take immediate action. Not only was there danger from Norman rivals, there was also the very immediate danger that the king’s death signaled weakness to surrounding kingdoms. They had come to respect Baldwin I’s tenacity at survival and resistance.

Sir Joscelin of Tel Bashir, a follower of the younger Count Baldwin II, pressed for the Count to inherit from his cousin. After all, he had already been chosen to inherit Edessa, so in a way, he was already the legal heir. He was right there in Edessa, he was in good health, and he had a family. (Besides, then Sir Joscelin could become Count of Edessa.)

King Baldwin II was crowned on Easter Sunday in Jerusalem, with Morphia as Queen. Within days, the kingdom was invaded from the south by Fatimids, and from the east by Seljuk Turks! The new king and his allies scrambled as many knights onto the field as they could. Apparently, both invasions were more in the nature of probes. Had the city been easy to capture, they’d have fought. It’s also possible that both Muslim armies were dismayed by the presence of the other. They may have been racing to be the first one to invade, only to arrive simultaneously. As it happened, both invasion forces chose to leave.

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Life of Tancred, 1097-1112

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Ruth

Tancred was a young man of about 20 when Pope Urban preached the Crusade. His grandfather had conquered Sicily, so he was looking for a new frontier. The Crusade was perfect for him, since he already spoke some Arabic. He made his name first by rushing to help liberate Armenian towns in Cilicia, but at the same time, part of what made his name even then was his determination to own any town he helped to conquer—with resulting controversy.

Tancred really, really wanted to be King of Jerusalem. He believed he had been the first over the wall, and once he was in the urban fighting melee, he gave his banner to a group of frightened citizens on a rooftop. He believed it would protect them after he left, and they would be grateful to him, but someone slaughtered them anyway. Tancred was furious. “Prince of Galilee” definitely felt like a consolation prize, after that.

As the years went by, Tancred was always at the front of some battle; he was perhaps the hardest worker among them all, assiduously adding even small towns, overlooked ports and hilltops, in addition to the big city prizes where he assisted. But every time a title was being handed out or territory redivided, a tribunal of other Crusaders (led by one of the Boulogne brothers) would put him in the wrong and give him the short straw. He was always the Best Man, never the Groom. Literally too, he never married.

When Bohemund left him with an empty treasury, shrinking territory, and the joint regency of Antioch and Edessa, Tancred’s moment seemed to have come, but maybe not in the way he hoped. He was 29 and had vast tactical experience, but the momentum—or at least the funding—was at low ebb. What could he do? Tancred made a bold decision: he talked Antioch into supporting a deep round of taxation and he drew in the largest army he could create, leaving Edessa practically defenseless. He used the taxes to hire mercenaries, in addition to the local levy. It was time to expand.

Tancred picked a soft target: the town of Artah, in Aleppo’s zone. He set up a half-hearted siege of Artah, to provoke Radwan of Aleppo into coming out of his walled city. When the Aleppans came, Tancred pulled back as if fleeing. He chose his ground carefully, knowing that the Arabs and Turks preferred to fight on horseback with archery. He turned to battle where the ground was too broken and rocky for horses. The Aleppans could get no purchase in this setting and it was Radwan’s turn to flee. Tancred’s men occupied Artah, and now they had momentum. Each place they conquered could be plundered for ready cash. Town by town, hill by hill, they began to win back Antioch’s authority.

In 1106, little Cecilia of France (now about ten) arrived to marry Tancred. His titles had come and gone, so she’s recorded as Lady of Tarsus, not Princess of Galilee or Tiberias. But in practical terms, she was welcomed as the “Princess of Antioch”, without the formal title. Tancred was finally the real ruler of a small principality worth having: Antioch’s thick walls and Edessa’s rich farm fields, with authority expanding into Cilicia again. He refused to honor Bohemund’s humiliating Treaty of Devol, when the Emperor thoughtfully sent him a copy. He worked hard to make Antioch into a functioning small state.

Then, just when he was happy, in 1109 someone ransomed Count Baldwin II from Mosul. Tancred had to welcome Baldwin home, but he made it clear that “finders keepers, losers weepers” was going to be the rule. He did not turn over Edessa to its former count. By the following year, the Edessans (who supported Baldwin II’s return to governance) and the Antiochans under Tancred were drawing up lines for battle. This was just insane. Even more insane, the ruler of Mosul had released Baldwin II only after insisting on mutual vows of alliance, so Mosul sent archers against Tancred, too! How could this end well for anyone? The archbishop and King Baldwin I of Jerusalem used diplomacy to put Baldwin II and Tancred back into their original places.

In this second stint as Prince of Galilee, Tancred ruled for four years. During this time, he took the castle we know as Krak des Chevaliers. Muslims had built a fortress on the hilltop during the previous century. The Count of Tripoli held this fortress until, later, it was given to the Hospital order of knights. They rebuilt it into the massive pile it is today.

Raymond’s son Bertrand became the Count of Tripoli in 1109. Tancred became very fond of Bertrand’s teenage son Pons. In 1112, Tancred’s bride Cecilia was 15, old enough to actually be a wife, while Tancred was 36. But before they could marry, a typhoid epidemic came through and Tancred became terminally ill. He told Pons, who was about Cecilia’s age, to marry the “widow,” and he set aside land between Antioch and Tripoli to be her dowry. Almost certainly it was land he had recently conquered with his own heritage in mind. And then he died.

Tancred’s life feels more familiar than some of the others’ lives, because while he constantly strove for achievement, the outcome always fell short of expectations. It’s so human. After his death, a “Life of Tancred,” Gesta Tancredi, circulated in Europe. Later, the Italian poet Tasso wrote a romanticized version, which Voltaire made into a play, which Rossini made into an opera, “Tancredi.”

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Bohemund: Glory and Shame, 1104-11

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Ruth

Bohemund, son of the Norman who conquered Sicily, was described as a tiger by Anna Comnena, Emperor Alexios’s daughter. His ferocious assault on Albania in past years had advertised Norman strength, and when he set out as a leader in 1097, everyone expected him to be the star. His crafty mind had landed him the Princedom of the biggest city in the region, but ever since then, life had been rocky, including his three years as a hostage among nomads.

In Antioch, Bohemund explained to everyone that while he was in captivity, he frequently prayed to St. Leonard, and now that he was free, he was under oath to give a silver model of shackles to the Cathedral of the saint in France. He would recruit more Crusaders while in France and return in glory! To make sure he could travel and recruit in style, he emptied the treasuries of Antioch. He packed up the gold and silver in locked chests and just legally stole it. Tancred, the nephew who had been reluctant to welcome him back, was left with regencies of both Edessa and Antioch, but without funds to do anything in either.

Bohemund was an enemy of the Byzantines by now; his un-neighborly actions had made it very clear to them that he classed them with the Turks or lower. Unfortunately, he had to pass through a lot of Byzantine territory in order to get back to Italy and France. According to the Emperor’s daughter Anna, he sneaked through dangerous parts by lying in a coffin with a rotting dead chicken. No Byzantine guards wished to search that coffin! It was a clever ruse if he actually did this, but the fact that he had to sneak in such a shameful way was not his proudest resume point.

In Italy, Bohemund was welcomed as a hero. Taranto and Apulia could bask in his conquering glory. Someone in his retinue wrote a history of the Crusading years, and Bohemund used some of the Antiochan gold to fund its copying and distribution. Naturally, it centered on each of Bohemund’s heroic acts as well as on the shameful, sneaking, lying actions of the despicable Greeks, his new enemies.

Bohemund visited St. Leonard’s shrine as promised, and while in France, he also married a princess. You may recall that King Philip was having bigamy problems around this time and was under excommunication. As a result, he had two daughters to give away, an old one and a young one.

Bohemund’s bride was Constance, who was 28 and newly divorced. One perk of the feudal marriage system was that widows and divorcees who still brought dowries and estates did not lose market value. Constance had already given birth to a son who died, and she was still elegant and pretty. Her brother Louis would be king; it was a very good match.

Constance’s little half-sister Cecilia, on the other hand, was only about 8. Bohemund at 52 was clearly too old for Cecilia, but Tancred at 31 seemed appropriate. The point wasn’t that Cecilia was actually old enough to be married, but that her legal and financial affairs could be settled now. Tancred would be near 40 when she was actually old enough to have children, but they assumed he’d still be interested. She was sent to Antioch in a separate retinue, by ship. (Don’t worry, it will work out okay for Cecilia in the end.)

Bohemund and his wife raised a new army of foot soldiers and younger knights, and with Pope Paschal’s blessing, they set off eastward. Along the way, Bohemund II was born to Constance. But there’s a catch: Bohemund wasn’t going back to Antioch. His really burning grudge was against the Byzantines, not the Arabs or Turks, and he led his army straight across the Adriatic Sea to Christian Greece.

His assault on Thessaly was such a disaster that the Emperor forced Bohemund into one of the most humiliating treaties of all time. It was signed at the fortress of Diabolis (now Devol) in Albania. (the Treaty of the Devil!) The Emperor kindly granted to Bohemund the right to remain Duke (not prince) of Antioch, but with the feudal ties all reorganized. He was now a vassal of Constantinople, and his city would have a Greek Orthodox patriarch, not Roman Catholic. On his death, Antioch would revert to the Empire, though his heirs could keep Edessa as vassals.

The only way to keep the treaty from being enforced was for Bohemund just not to return to Antioch. The agreement was between him and Alexios, and if Alexios considered it binding on their heirs, Bohemund didn’t. Bohemund was now covered in shame. With Constance and their toddler, he drifted back to Italy. His army’s survivors probably straggled home, too. In 1111, Bohemund died a natural death and was buried in Taranto. Constance stayed there, as regent of Taranto and Apulia, raising little Bohemund II.

The treaty was really a brilliant move for Alexios. Had it been enforceable, it would have achieved what he hoped originally: the return of rich Antioch to his tax base and the strengthening of Greek naval power along the north Mediterranean.

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Hostages and Ransom, 1103

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Ruth

By 1103, Count Baldwin II of Edessa, his lieutenant Joscelin of Tel Bashir, and other Crusaders had finally raised the sum of gold to buy Bohemund’s freedom. A tenth of the gold was levied from a local Muslim who wanted an alliance, so that’s interesting. Equally interesting, his own nephew Tancred didn’t contribute. Tancred clearly wanted to continue being regent of Antioch and resented it when his uncle Bohemund came home.

Bohemund probably learned a lot about life with the Turks, but we’ll never know what it was since he was not a literary man. His first major action was to collect Count Baldwin II and Sir Joscelin and start getting revenge on the Turks. It worked out very badly: on the plains near Harran they met a combined Turkish force and the Edessans become isolated and surrounded. Many Edessan knights and soldiers died, and both Count Baldwin II and Sir Joscelin were captured! Hostages, again.

What I find the most interesting about this hostage-taking is that Count Baldwin II spent the next four years in Mosul. He’s an interesting guy, all around. He was a knight who came with the Boulogne brothers; I presume got his knight training in a little “school” with Eustace, Godfrey, and Baldwin, since that was a common way to form friendships and feudal bonds even among children. He was a little younger, about 25 years old when he joined the Crusade. We know little about Baldwin’s past but much about his adult lifetime.

Baldwin II married Morphia of Melitene, probably at the same time that he assumed the status of Count. Unlike most of the other Crusaders, he really turned into a family man. Morphia was pregnant when he was captured, and gave birth to a daughter, named Melisende. There’s a big gap between Melisende and the next baby, of course, but eventually they had four daughters. Four daughters is significant; when no boys were born, Baldwin II didn’t try to have the marriage annulled and start over.

By contrast, in 1105 the older Baldwin I King of Jerusalem (formerly Count of Edessa) was tired of his Armenian wife Arda. She had no children, and perhaps he felt time was running out. He put her in a convent; I don’t think he had any valid excuses to annul or divorce. He married the widowed Countess of Sicily who brought gold and a thousand archers as her dowry. Later, he set her aside, too.

The younger Baldwin II came from a monolingual French culture, unlike his age-peer Tancred who grew up in Arabic-fluent southern Italy. I like to think that Baldwin began learning basic Armenian in Edessa, to help with governing and then to talk to Morphia. There’s no doubt little Melisende spoke nothing but Armenian when her father came home from Mosul. Did he learn some Arabic or Turkish in Mosul? Four years is a long time to pass with nothing to do, and Baldwin seems to have been a very active man. He would have sought opportunities to observe the economy of Mosul, and perhaps he got some Arabic or Turkish martial arts training as well. We can only speculate, but it may have been a significant education for him.

The older Crusaders never really adjusted to the Levant; they were intruders, always. But Baldwin II went native in a way they didn’t. He had no interest in his hometown of Bourg (sometimes spelled Bourcq), apart from bringing his sister out to marry one of the younger lords. He and Morphia established the royal family of Jerusalem that we read about for the rest of the Crusades. He wasn’t royalty in Europe; but when he put down roots in Palestine, he became it. Baldwin II is my favorite First Crusader.

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