Jerusalem. The Biography

self-inflicted wounds caused by the feuding of Jerusalem’s leaders. But Jerusalem was secure – if empty.
    The Dukes of Normandy and Flanders and many of the Crusaders now returned home, leaving Godfrey with a putrid, devastated city peopled by just 300 knights and 2,000 infantry, and scarcely enough citizens to fill a quarter. Raymond of Toulouse recovered from his sulk and set aboutreducing the Lebanese coast, finally founding his own dynasty as Count of Tripoli. There were four Crusader states – the Principality of Antioch, the Counties of Edessa and Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This idiosyncratic patchwork of interrelated fiefdoms became known as the land of Outremer, ‘Across the Sea’.
    Yet the reaction of the Islamic world – divided between the weakened caliphs of Sunni Baghdad and Shiite Cairo – was surprisingly muted. Only a few preachers called for jihad to liberate Jerusalem, and there was little reaction among the all-powerful Turkish amirs, who remained preoccupied with their personal feuds.
    On 21 December, Baldwin, Godfrey’s brother, who was Count of Edessa, and the flaxen-haired Prince Bohemond of Antioch arrived to spend Christmas in Jerusalem. But Godfrey struggled to defend himself against the Church. The pope’s representative, an overweening Pisan named Daimbert, was now appointed patriarch (to replace the sinful Arnulf). Determined to establish a theocracy to be ruled by himself, he forced Godfrey to cede the city and Jaffa to the Church. In June 1100, Godfrey collapsed in Jaffa, probably with typhoid. Borne home to Jerusalem, he died on 18 July and was buried five days later, like all his successors, at the foot of Calvary in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 1
    Daimbert took control of the city, but Godfrey’s knights refused to surrender the Citadel, and instead summoned the late advocate’s brother, Baldwin. The Count of Edessa was fighting to defend northern Syria, however, and received no message until late August. On 2 October Baldwin set out with 200 knights and 700 troops, and found that he had to fight all the way to Jerusalem, facing repeated Islamic ambushes. On 9 November, with less than half his original force, he at last entered the Holy City.

1100–1131
     
    BALDWIN THE BIG: THE F IRST KING
     
    Two days later, Baldwin was acclaimed king and Daimbert was forced to recognize his accession. Almost at once Baldwin set off to raid Egypt. On his return, he was crowned ‘King of the Latins in Jerusalem’ in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem by Patriarch Daimbert.
    The first King of Jerusalem was not as saintly as his brother but he was far more able. Baldwin had an aquiline nose, light skin, dark beard and hair, a prominent upper lip and a slightly receding chin. He had studied for holy orders as a boy and never lost the contemplative air of a clergyman, always wearing a clerical cloak around his shoulders. He married out of political necessity, risking bigamy for the sake of expediency, left no children and may not have consummated any of his marriages. However, he ‘struggled in vain against the lustful sins of the flesh yet so circumspectly did he conduct himself in the indulgence of these vices’ that he offended no one. Some have claimed he was gay, but the nature of his peccadilloes remains mysterious.
    Relentless war was his urgent duty and true passion. His chaplain called him ‘the arm of his people, the terror of his enemies’. This wily warrior of almost superhuman energy devoted himself to securing and expanding the kingdom, repeatedly fighting the Egyptians outside Ramallah. Once they defeated him, but he escaped on his horse, Gazala, to the coast and, hitching a lift with a passing English pirate, sailed to Jaffa where he landed, mustered his knights and vanquished the Egyptians again. His forces were so small, probably no more than 1,000 knights and 5,000 infantry, that he recruited local auxiliaries (some possibly Muslim) who were known as Turcopoles. A flexible diplomat, he played on the rivalries of the Muslim chieftains, and allied himself with Genoese, Venetian and English fleets to conquer the Palestinian coast from Caesarea to Acre and Beirut.
    In Jerusalem, Baldwin managed to depose the overmighty Daimbert as patriarch, defeating the main challenge to his authority. TheCrusaders had destroyed the people of Jerusalem but mercifully they commandeered the sacred places of al-Quds rather than razing them – probably because