Jerusalem. The Biography

that now, observed William of Tyre, ‘there came down from the mountains a multitude of infidels who followed the cortège with wailing’. Even Nur al-Din said that the ‘Franks have lost such a prince that the world has not known his like’. 7
    AMAURY AND AGNES: ‘NO QUEEN FOR A CITY AS HOLY AS JERUSALEM’
     
    The disreputable reputation of a woman now almost derailed the succession of Jerusalem. Baldwin’s brother Amaury, Count of Jaffa and Ashkelon, was the heir, but the patriarch refused to crown him unless he annulled his marriage to Agnes, claiming that they were too closely related – even though they already had a son together. The real problem was that ‘she was no queen for a city as holy as Jerusalem’, noted one prissy chronicler. Agnes had a bad reputation for promiscuity, but it is impossible to know if she deserved it since the historians were all so prejudiced against her. Nonetheless, she was clearly a much-desired trophy and, at various times, her lovers were said to include the seneschal, the patriarch and four husbands.
    Amaury dutifully divorced her and was crowned at the age of twenty-seven. Already awkward in manner – he stammered and had a gurgling laugh – he soon became ‘excessively fat with breasts like those of a woman hanging down to his waist’. Jerusalemites mocked him in the streets, which he ignored ‘as if he had not heard the things said’. Despite the man-breasts, he was both an intellectual and a warrior who now faced the most daunting strategic challenge since the founding of the kingdom. Syria was lost to Nur al-Din, but Baldwin III’s conquest of Ashkelon had opened the gateway to Egypt. Amaury would need all his energy and manpower to fight Nur al-Din for that supreme prize.
    This was one reason why he welcomed to Jerusalem the most notorious rogue of the day, Andronikos Komnenos, a Byzantine prince ‘attended by a large retinue of knights’, useful reinforcements. At first his knights were ‘a source of much comfort’ in Jerusalem. A cousin of the Emperor Manuel, Andronikos had seduced the emperor’s niece, was almost murdered by her furious brothers and spent twelve years in jail before being forgiven and appointed Governor of Cilicia. He was then sacked for incompetence and disloyalty, and fled to Antioch where he seduced Philippa, the daughter of the ruling prince, and had to flee again – to Jerusalem. ‘But like a snake in the bosom or a mouse in the wardrobe,’ recalled Amaury’s courtier, William of Tyre, ‘he proved the truth of the saying, “I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts.”’
    Amaury gave him Beirut as his lordship, but Andronikos, now almost sixty, dumped Princess Philippa and seduced Baldwin III’s lissom widow, Theodora, the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, who was only twenty-three. Jerusalem was outraged: Andronikos had to escape yet again. Abducting Theodora, he defected with her to Nur al-Din in Damascus. * No one was sorry to see this ‘snake’ go, least of all Amaury’s favourite clergyman, William of Tyre, who had been born in Jerusalem. After studying in Paris, Orleans and Bologna, William returned to become Amaury’s most trusted adviser. Over twenty years, as Archbishop of Tyre and later Chancellor, William was the intimate witness of the unbearable royal tragedy that now coincided with Jerusalem’s most grievous crisis. 8
    WILLIAM OF TYRE: THE BATTLE FOR EGYPT
     
    King Amaury commissioned William to write the histories of the Crusader and the Islamic kingdoms, quite a project. William had no problem writing the history of Outremer but, though he knew some Arabic, how was he to write about Islam?
    By now, Fatimid Egypt was falling apart. There were rich pickings for the sharp opportunist – so naturally Usamah bin Munqidh was in Cairo. There, the power games were lethal but lucrative. Usamah made his fortune and built up a library; inevitably, however, it went wrong and he had to flee for his life. But he sent his family, his gold and his cherished library by ship. When it was shipwrecked off Acre, his treasure was lost and his library confiscated by the King of Jerusalem: ‘The news that my children and our women were safe made it easier to take the news about all the wealth lost. Except the books: 4,000 volumes. A heartache that lasted all my life.’ Usamah’s loss proved to be William’s gain for he inherited Usamah’s books and made good use of them to write his Islamic history.
    Meanwhile Amaury