Godfrey returned to the Holy City in early December only to be confronted by a new danger–civil war. Given the contested nature of his elevation and his apparent decision to forgo a regal title, Godfrey’s authority over the Frankish territories in Palestine was open to challenge. Tancred’s continued presence already posed something of a problem, but the real possibility of internal overthrow solidified on 21 December 1099 with the advent of a powerful delegation of Latin ‘pilgrims’. Bohemond of Taranto and Baldwin of Boulogne had travelled south from Antioch and Edessa to fulfil their crusading vows by venerating the Holy Places. They were accompanied by the new papal legate to the Levant, Archbishop Daimbert of Pisa, a man driven by personal ambition and an unflinching belief in the power of the Church. Each of these potentates harboured hopes of ruling Jerusalem, as either a secular or an ecclesiastical realm, and their appearance presented an obvious, if unspoken, threat. And yet, through political pragmatism, Godfrey managed to turn their arrival to his advantage. After celebrating the Feast of the Nativity at Bethlehem, he elected to turn on Arnulf of Chocques and side with Daimbert. By backing the archbishop’s candidacy for the patriarchal seat, Godfrey stemmed the immediate threat from Bohemond and Baldwin and secured the much-needed naval support from the Pisan fleet of 120 ships that had accompanied Daimbert to the Near East. This new pact was not without its price–the donation of a section of the Holy City to the patriarch and the promise of a Pisan quarter in the port of Jaffa.

Baldwin and Bohemond returned to their northern lordships in January 1100, and over the next six months the latter bolstered Frankish authority over Syria at the expense of Byzantium by expelling the Greek patriarch of Antioch and installing a Latin in his place. However, in the course of a rather rash campaign beyond his principality’s northern frontier in July 1100, Bohemond was set upon by a force of Anatolian Turks and taken prisoner. The great crusader general would spend the next three years in captivity, dividing his time, rumour later had it, between courting a glamorous Muslim princess named Melaz and praying for the intervention of St Leonard, the Christian patron saint of prisoners.

In Palestine, Godfrey enjoyed a modicum of success deploying the Pisan fleet to intimidate Muslim-held Arsuf, Acre, Caesarea and Ascalon in early 1100, with each coastal settlement agreeing to make tribute payments to the Franks. Tancred, meanwhile, was busy carving out his own semi-independent lordship in Galilee, capturing Tiberias from the Muslims with relative ease. Upon the departure of the Pisan fleet in spring and the arrival of a new Venetian naval force in the Holy Land in mid-June, Godfrey’s reliance upon Patriarch Daimbert lessened. But before he could capitalise upon this new opportunity to exercise sovereign authority, the duke was taken ill, apparently after feasting upon oranges while being entertained by the Muslim emir of Caesarea. There was some suspicion of poisoning, but in all likelihood Godfrey contracted a disease akin to typhoid during what was, even by Levantine standards, a scorching hot summer. On 18 July he undertook the rituals of confession and communion for one last time and then, in the words of one Latin contemporary, ‘secured and protected by a spiritual shield’ the crusading conqueror of Jerusalem, still little more than forty years of age, ‘was taken from this light’. Five days later, in reverence of his status and achievements, Godfrey’s body was buried within the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre.⁵¹

GOD’S KINGDOM

Godfrey of Bouillon’s death in July 1100 left the newborn Frankish realm of Jerusalem in a state of turmoil. Godfrey’s wish seems to have been that lordship of the Holy City pass to his younger brother, Baldwin of Boulogne, the first Latin count of Edessa. But Patriarch Daimbert continued to harbour his own vision for Jerusalem; one in which the city would become the physical embodiment of God’s kingdom on Earth, capital of an ecclesiastical state with the patriarch at its head. Had he been present at the moment of Godfrey’s demise this dream might have found some purchase in reality. But Daimbert just then was engaged, alongside Tancred, besieging the port of Haifa. Supporters of Godfrey’s bloodline, including Arnulf of Chocques and Geldemar Carpinel, seized this chance to act, occupying the Tower of David (the strategic key to dominion over Jerusalem) and dispatching messengers north to summon Baldwin.

The news reached Edessa around mid-September. The count, now in his mid-thirties, was said to be ‘very tall [and] quite fair of complexion, with dark brown hair and beard, [and an] aquiline nose’, his regal bearing only faintly marred by a prominent upper lip and slightly receding chin. Given Baldwin’s quality and nature–his voracious appetite for power and advancement, his genius for hard-hearted enterprise–the invitation from Palestine represented a stunning opportunity. Even his chaplain, the First Crusade veteran Fulcher of Chartres, was forced to admit that Baldwin ‘grieved somewhat at the death of his brother, but rejoiced more over his inheritance’. In the weeks that followed, Baldwin quickly settled the county’s affairs. To ensure that this, his first Levantine lordship, would remain in Frankish hands and subject to his own authority, Baldwin installed his cousin and namesake, Baldwin of Bourcq (a little-known First Crusader), as the new count of Edessa. He seems to have recognised Baldwin of Boulogne as his overlord at this point.⁵²

Setting out from the northern reaches of Syria with just 200 knights and 700 infantrymen in early October, Baldwin travelled via Antioch and then repelled a sizeable intercepting Muslim force led by Duqaq of Damascus near the Dog River in Lebanon. Once in Palestine, Baldwin moved quickly to outmanoeuvre Tancred and Daimbert, sending ahead one of his most trusted knights, Hugh of Falchenberg, to make contact with Godfrey’s supporters in the Tower of David and to orchestrate a fitting welcome to the Holy City. When Baldwin at last reached Jerusalem on 9 November, he was greeted by jubilant and, most likely, stage-managed celebrations, replete with cheering crowds of Latin, Greek and Syrian Christians. In the face of this apparent outpouring of popular support, Daimbert could do little to intercede. Skulking in the small Mount Zion monastery just outside the city walls, the patriarch absented himself on 11 November when Baldwin was formally declared Jerusalem’s new ruler.

As yet, however, Baldwin was unable to claim the title of king; first he would have to undergo a coronation. This centuries-old rite usually involved a crown wearing, but this was not, as might be imagined, the centrepiece of the ceremony. That honour fell to the ritual of anointment, the moment when holy chrism (oil) was poured upon a ruler’s head by one of God’s representatives on Earth, such as an archbishop, patriarch or pope. It was this act that set a king apart from other men; that imbued him with the numinous power of divine sanction. To achieve this elevation, Baldwin needed to reach some form of accommodation with the Church.

His rule began with a show of forceful intent: a month-long raiding campaign along the realm’s southern and eastern frontiers, securing pilgrim routes and harassing the Egyptian garrison at Ascalon. To his subjects and neighbours alike it was obvious that Baldwin brought a new sense of purpose and power to the Latin kingdom. Daimbert duly recognised that he was better off holding on to office under this new regime than risking deposition from the patriarchal throne. On 25 December 1100, in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem–a date and place steeped in symbolism–the patriarch crowned and anointed Baldwin of Boulogne as the first Frankish king of Jerusalem. By this act Daimbert effectively ended any notion that the crusader realm might live on as a theocracy. His submission also averted a potentially catastrophic civil war.