Early life

Baldwin spent his childhood in his father’s court in Jerusalem, having little contact with his mother, Agnes of Courtenay, Countess of Jaffa and Ascalon, and later Lady of Sidon, whom his father had been forced to divorce.  Baldwin IV was educated by the historian William of Tyre (later Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the kingdom), who made a disturbing discovery about the prince: he and his friends were playing one day, attempting to injure each other by driving their fingernails into each other’s arms, but Baldwin felt no pain. William immediately recognized this as a sign of serious illness, but it was not conclusively identified as leprosy until a few years later; the onset of puberty accelerated his disease, in its most serious lepromatous form.

Baldwin’s father died in 1174 and the boy was crowned at the age of 13, on 15 July that year. In his minority the kingdom was ruled by two successive regents, first Miles of Plancy, though unofficially, and then Raymond III of Tripoli, his father’s cousin. In 1175, Raymond III, the acting king of Jerusalem, made a treaty with Saladin.

As a leper, Baldwin was not expected to reign long or produce an heir, and courtiers and lords positioned themselves for influence over Baldwin’s heirs, his sister Sibylla and his half-sister Isabella. Sibylla was being raised by her great-aunt Ioveta in the convent of Bethany, while Isabella was at the court of her mother, the dowager queen Maria Comnena, in Nablus.

Baldwin’s rule

Raymond’s regency ended on the second anniversary of Baldwin’s coronation: the young king was now of age. He did not ratify Raymond’s treaty with Saladin, but instead went raiding towards Damascus and around the Beqaa Valley. He appointed his maternal uncle, Joscelin III, the titular count of Edessa, seneschal after he was ransomed. Joscelin was his closest male relative who did not have a claim to the throne, so he was judged a reliable supporter: indeed, he proved his loyalty.[5]

In his capacity as regent, Raymond of Tripoli had begun negotiations for the marriage of princess Sibylla to William of Montferrat, a first cousin of Louis VII of France and of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. William arrived in early October and became Count of Jaffa and Ascalon upon his marriage.

In 1174, at the young age of 13, Baldwin successfully attacked Damascus in order to draw the Muslim Sultan Saladin away from Aleppo. In 1176 he was leading men in the front in similar attacks at Damascus and Andujar to repel Muslim attacks.  Baldwin also planned an attack on Saladin’s power-base in Egypt. He sent Raynald of Châtillon (the former prince of Antioch through marriage to Amalric I’s cousin Constance of Antioch) to Constantinople as envoy to Manuel I Comnenus, to obtain Byzantine naval support. Raynald had recently been released from captivity in Aleppo: Manuel paid his ransom, since he was the stepfather of the Empress Maria of Antioch. Manuel sought the restoration of the Orthodox patriarchate in the kingdom, and arranged the marriage of Bohemond III of Antioch to his great-niece Theodora Comnena, sister of the queen-dowager Maria. Reynald returned early in 1177, and was rewarded with marriage to Stephanie of Milly, a widowed heiress. This made him lord of Kerak and Oultrejourdain. Baldwin tried to ensure that Reynald and William of Montferrat co-operated on the defence of the South. However, in June, William died at Ascalon after several weeks’ illness, leaving the widowed Sibylla pregnant with the future Baldwin V.

In August the king’s first cousin, Philip of Flanders, came to Jerusalem on crusade. Philip demanded to wed Baldwin’s sisters to his vassals. Philip, as Baldwin’s closest male kin on his paternal side (he was Fulk’s grandson and thus Baldwin’s first cousin; Raymond was Melisende’s nephew and thus first cousin of Baldwin’s father), claimed authority superseding Raymond’s regency. The Haute Cour refused to agree to this, with Baldwin of Ibelin publicly insulting Philip. Offended, Philip left the kingdom, campaigning instead for the Principality of Antioch. The Ibelin family were patrons of the dowager queen Maria, and it is possible that Baldwin of Ibelin acted this way in hopes of marrying one of Baldwin’s sisters himself.

In November, Baldwin and Raynald of Châtillon defeated Saladin with the help of the Knights Templar at the celebrated Battle of Montgisard. That same year, Baldwin allowed his stepmother the dowager-queen to marry Balian of Ibelin, a conciliatory move to both, but it carried risks, given the Ibelins’ ambitions. With Maria’s patronage, the Ibelins tried to have the princesses Sibylla and Isabella married into their family as well.

In 1179, the king met with some military setbacks in the north. On 10 April, he led a cattle-raid on Banias, but was surprised by Saladin’s nephew Farrukh Shah. Baldwin’s horse bolted, and in saving him, the much-respected constable of the kingdom Humphrey II of Toron, was mortally wounded. On 10 June, in response to cavalry raids near Sidon, Baldwin took a force, with Raymond of Tripoli and the Grand Master of the Templars, Odo of St Amand, to Marj Uyun. They defeated the raiders fording the Litani River, but were caught by Saladin’s main force. The king (unable to remount unaided) was unhorsed, and had to be carried off the field on the back of another knight as his guard cut their way out. Count Raymond fled to Tyre, and the king’s stepfather Reginald of Sidon rescued a number of the fugitives, but the prisoners included the Grand Master, Baldwin of Ibelin, and Hugh of Tiberias, one of Raymond of Tripoli’s stepsons. In August, the unfinished castle at Jacob’s Ford fell to Saladin after a brief siege, with the slaughter of half its Templar garrison.[9]

Baldwin and Guy of Lusignan

In the summer of 1180, Baldwin IV married Sibylla to Guy of Lusignan, brother of the constable Amalric of Lusignan. Earlier historians claimed that Sibylla’s second marriage was entirely due to the influence of the King’s mother; however, Hamilton argues that this is to reflect uncritically the personal grievances of William of Tyre and of the Ibelins. A plan to marry Sibylla to Hugh III of Burgundy had broken down; Raymond of Tripoli seems to have been attempting to marry her to Baldwin of Ibelin to bolster his power-base. A foreign match was essential to the kingdom, bringing the possibility of external aid. With the new French king Philip II a minor, Guy’s status as a vassal of the King’s cousin Henry II of England – who owed the Pope a penitential pilgrimage – was useful in this respect. Baldwin also betrothed his 8-year-old half-sister Isabella to Humphrey IV of Toron, repaying a debt of honour to Humphrey’s grandfather, who had given his life for him at Banias, and removing Isabella from the control of her mother and the Ibelin faction (her betrothed was Raynald of Châtillon’s stepson).[10]

Guy had previously allied himself with Raynald, who was by now taking advantage of his position at Kerak to harass the trading caravans travelling between Egypt and Damascus. After Saladin retaliated for these attacks in the campaign and Battle of Belvoir Castle in 1182, Baldwin, now blind and unable to walk, appointed Guy regent of the kingdom.[11] By June 1183 however, Saladin had captured Aleppo and completed his encirclement of Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, Baldwin had become offended by Guy’s actions as regent. Guy attended the wedding festivities for Isabella (now about 11) and Humphrey, held in Karak; however, the festivities were interrupted by Saladin, who besieged the fortress with the wedding guests inside. Baldwin marshalled what strength he had and lifted the siege, but Guy refused to fight Saladin and Saladin’s troops managed to escape. Baldwin could not tolerate this and deposed Guy as regent. In disgrace, Guy retired to Ascalon, taking his wife the princess Sibylla with him.[11] Although Baldwin was almost beyond his prime, due to his victories in Belvoir castle, Beirut and at Kerak castle, Saladin’s campaigns in the Holy Land were delayed until the remainder of Baldwin’s reign.[6][13]

Joint kingship with Baldwin V, and death

Although Baldwin seems to have held no ill-will towards his sister, Baldwin appointed his 5-year-old nephew Baldwin of Montferrat as his heir and successor, with the support of Agnes and her husband Reginald of Sidon, Raymond, and many of the other barons, excluding Sibylla from the succession. Raymond was to act as guardian of the infant heir, and later as regent if Baldwin IV was to expire, but Baldwin IV himself would continue to rule. The child was crowned co-king as Baldwin V on November 20, 1183.[14]

In the early months of 1184, Baldwin attempted to have the marriage between Sibylla and Guy annulled. This was foiled by their holding fast in Ascalon, Guy refusing to attend the annulment proceedings. The military expedition to relieve Karak and the dynastic struggle had weakened Baldwin considerably. He died in Jerusalem in spring 1185, a few months after the death of his mother Agnes in Acre late in 1184. Though often suffering from the effects of leprosy and ruling with regency governments, Baldwin was able to maintain himself as king for much longer than otherwise might have been expected. As had been decided, Baldwin V succeeded his uncle, with Raymond of Tripoli as regent.

Baldwin in art, fiction, and film

Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscript illustrations to the histories of William of Tyre and Ernoul give little indication of Baldwin’s illness. He figures in a Romantic depiction of the battle of Montgisard by Charles-Philippe Larivière in the Salles des Croisades at Versailles. This work, which dates from c. 1842, depicts him being carried into battle on a litter, his face uncovered and unscarred, his sword in his right hand. In fact, at the Battle of Montgisard, he was still able to fight on horseback, and he used his sword with his left hand, since his right hand and arm had been the first affected by his illness.[15]

Baldwin appears, with varying degrees of historical fidelity, in a number of novels. These include Zofia Kossak-Szczucka’s Król trędowaty (The Leper King), Manuel Mujica Láinez’s fantasy El unicornio (The Wandering Unicorn), Cecelia Holland’s Jerusalem, Judith Tarr’s historical fantasies Alamut and The Dagger and the Cross, The Knights of Dark Renown by Graham Shelby (1969), Nikos Kazantzakis’s Saint Francis and The Crusader King by Susan Peek. In addition, Texan author Serafia Cross is currently writing a series of historical fiction novels centered around Baldwin, titled The Last King of Legends, the first two books of which were published in 2011 and 2012. Baldwin is generally depicted as a sympathetic character. Baldwin has also featured in bandes dessinées: Serge Dalens’s L’Étoile de Pourpre (“The Purple Star”) (also published as Baudouin IV de Jérusalem) and Michel Bom and Thierry Cayman’s Sylvain de Rochefort series. Dalens’s work was originally illustrated by Pierre Joubert, whose pictures of Baldwin are associated with his image as a role-model in the French Scout movement.
A fictionalized version of Baldwin IV is played by Edward Norton in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven.

He appears to have inspired ‘The Leper’ in the Darkest Dungeon series, as in the introductory comic, he is shown to be adored and mourned by many as he heads to his self-imposed exile.

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Dynasty

She was born into the Frankish noble family of the House of Anjou (descending from Ingelger). Sibylla was raised by her great-aunt, the Abbess Ioveta of Bethany, sister of former Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, who founded the convent of St. Lazarus in Bethany for her sister in 1128, and died there in 1163. In the convent Sibylla was taught scripture and other church traditions.

In 1174, her father sent Frederick de la Roche, archbishop of Tyre, on a diplomatic legation to Europe to drum up support (martial and financial) for the Crusader states, and to arrange a suitable marriage for Sibylla. As her only brother Baldwin suffered from an illness later confirmed as leprosy, Sibylla’s marriage was of paramount concern. Frederick convinced Stephen I of Sancerre, a well-connected young nobleman, to come east and marry the princess. Shortly after his arrival in Jerusalem, however, Stephen changed his mind (the reason is not known) and he returned to France.

Baldwin IV’s reign

On their father Amalric’s death, Baldwin IV became king in 1174. First Miles of Plancy, then Raymond III of Tripoli became regent during his minority (although Miles was never regent in title, merely function). In 1176, Baldwin and Raymond arranged for Sibylla to marry William Longsword of Montferrat, eldest son of the Marquess William V of Montferrat and his wife Judith or Ita von Babenberg, and a cousin of Louis VII of France and of Frederick Barbarossa. Sibylla was created Countess of Jaffa and Ascalon (previously held by her mother Agnes), the title increasingly associated with the heir to the throne. In autumn they were married. William died by June the following year, leaving Sibylla pregnant. In the tradition of the dynasty, Sibylla named her son Baldwin.

The widowed princess remained a prize for ambitious nobles and adventurers seeking to advance themselves and take control of Jerusalem. Philip of Flanders, a first cousin of Sibylla (his mother, Sibylla of Anjou, was her father’s half-sister), arrived in 1177 and demanded to have the princess married to one of his own vassals. By marrying Sibylla to his vassal, Philip could control the kingship of Jerusalem. The Haute Cour of Jerusalem, led by Baldwin of Ibelin, rebuffed Philip’s advances. Affronted, Philip left Jerusalem to campaign in Antioch.
Sibylla did not remarry until 1180. For a long time, popular narrative histories favoured an account from the 13th century, Old French Continuation of William Tyre, partly attributed to Ernoul, and associated with the Ibelin family. It claims that Sibylla was in love with Baldwin of Ibelin, a widower over twice her age, but he was captured and imprisoned in 1179 by Saladin. She wrote to Baldwin, suggesting they wed when he was released. Saladin demanded a large ransom: Baldwin himself could not pay the ransom, but was released with the promise to pay Saladin later. Once free, Baldwin went to the Byzantine court, where he received a grant from Emperor Manuel, the emperor previously receiving confirmation from his niece, Maria Comnena, the dowager queen, of the likelihood of the Sibylla-Baldwin match. However, Agnes of Courtenay advised her son to have Sibylla married to the newly arrived Frankish knight Guy of Lusignan, brother of her personal constable, Amalric of Lusignan, who Ernoul claims was her lover. By this — so this narrative alleges — Agnes hoped to foil any attempt by Raymond III of Tripoli (the former regent) from marrying her daughter into the rival court faction, led by the Ibelins. It claims that Baldwin of Ibelin was still in Constantinople and unable to wed Sibylla. With pressure mounting to have the Heir Presumptive wed, the marriage was hastily arranged, and Sibylla — whom the author depicts as fickle — easily transferred her affections to the younger man. This account strongly favours the Ibelins, and shows influence from romance.

However, this is not supported by the more contemporaneous and less fanciful accounts of William of Tyre and others. A plan to marry Sibylla to Hugh III of Burgundy had broken down. At Easter 1180, Raymond of Tripoli and Bohemund III of Antioch entered the kingdom in force, with the intent of imposing a husband of their own choice, probably Baldwin of Ibelin, on Sibylla. However, a foreign match was essential to the kingdom, bringing the possibility of external military aid. Baldwin IV himself arranged the marriage to Guy, whose brother Amalric, well-regarded and able, had first come to court as Baldwin of Ibelin’s son-in-law and was now constable of Jerusalem. With the new French king Philip II a minor, Guy’s status as a vassal of the King and Sibylla’s first cousin Henry II of England – who owed the Pope a penitential pilgrimage — was useful in terms of offering a source of external help. Baldwin of Ibelin was in Jerusalem at the time of Sibylla’s marriage, and did not go to Constantinople until later in the year — contradicting the claims in the Old French Continuation. Also in 1180, Baldwin IV further curtailed the ambitions of the Ibelins by betrothing the eight-year-old Isabella to Humphrey IV of Toron, removing her from the control of her mother and the Ibelins, and placing her in the hands of her betrothed’s family – Raynald of Châtillon and his wife Stephanie of Milly.

Sibylla bore Guy two daughters, Alice and Maria (their years of birth are unknown). Initially Baldwin IV vested much authority in Guy, appointing him his regent during times of his own incapacitation. But within a year the king was offended and enraged by Guy’s behaviour as regent. Guy overlooked Raynald of Châtillon’s harassment of trade caravans between Egypt and Syria, threatening the stop-gap accord between Jerusalem and Egypt. Baldwin IV deposed Guy as regent in 1183 and had Sibylla’s son crowned as co-king as Baldwin V, thereby passing over her and Guy in the succession. He also attempted to have Sibylla’s marriage annulled throughout 1184. Her son was to succeed with Raymond III of Tripoli as regent. If Baldwin V were to expire during his minority, his “most rightful heirs” would succeed to the regency until his maternal kinsman the King of England and paternal kinsmen the King of France and the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Pope should adjudicate between the claims of Sibylla and Isabella. Though her husband was in disgrace for his behaviour as regent, it does not seem that Sibylla herself was held in disfavour.
Throughout these internal political conflicts, an even greater external threat was on the horizon: Saladin, the sultan of Egypt and Syria, who was steadily building up his power-base in preparation for invasion. Meanwhile, Agnes died in Acre, sometime in 1184.

Baldwin V and the succession

Baldwin IV died in spring 1185, leaving Sibylla’s son as sole king, Raymond as regent and the boy’s great-uncle Count Joscelin III of Edessa as guardian. Baldwin V’s grandfather, Marquess William V of Montferrat, had also now arrived in the kingdom to give his support. However, the young king, never a healthy child, died in Acre in the summer of 1186. Neither Sibylla’s nor Isabella’s party seems to have been prepared to accept the terms of Baldwin IV’s will, to install a regent and wait for a decision by Baldwin V’s relatives in England, France and Germany.
Baldwin V died at Acre in the autumn of 1186, his solo reign lasting just over a year. Joscelin and the Marquess William escorted the king’s coffin to Jerusalem. Sibylla attended her son’s funeral, arranged by Joscelin. For security an armed escort garrisoned Jerusalem. Raymond III, who wanted to protect his own influence and his political allies, the dowager queen Maria Comnena and the Ibelins, went to Nablus — Maria and Balian’s home — where he summoned those members of the Haute Cour who supported Isabella. Meanwhile, Sibylla was crowned queen by Patriarch Eraclius. Raynald of Châtillon gained popular support for Sibylla by affirming that she was “li plus apareissanz et plus dreis heis dou roiaume” (“the most evident and rightful heir of the kingdom”). Sibylla’s detractors resurrected the claim that Sibylla was illegitimate and intended to hold a rival coronation for Isabella. However, in 1163 the Latin Church of Jerusalem had ruled Sibylla was a legal heir and successor to her father. Either way, Sibylla’s claim held strong as the Haute Cour negotiated to recognize her as queen. Sibylla’s position was further strengthened when Isabella’s husband, Humphrey IV of Toron, Raynald of Châtillon’s stepson, left Nablus to swear fealty to Sibylla and Guy.
Sibylla was crowned alone, as sole Queen. Before her crowning Sibylla agreed with oppositional court members that she would annul her own marriage to please them, as long as she would be given free rein to choose her next husband. (This followed the precedent of her own parents.) The leaders of the Haute Cour agreed, and Sibylla was crowned forthwith. To their astonishment, Sibylla immediately announced that she chose Guy as her husband, and crowned him.

Of Queen Sibylla’s right to rule, Bernard Hamilton wrote “there is no real doubt, following the precedent of Melisende, that Sibylla, as the elder daughter of King Amalric, had the best claim to the throne; equally, there could be no doubt after the ceremony that Guy only held the crown matrimonial.”

Sibylla’s reign

Sibylla had shown great cunning and political prowess in her dealings with the members of the opposition faction. She had some support from her maternal relations, the Courtenay family (the former dynasty of the County of Edessa) and their allies and vassals, while her rivals were led by Raymond of Tripoli, who had a claim to the throne in his own right, the Ibelin family and the dowager queen in Nablus on behalf of Isabella.

Queen Sibylla’s chief concern was to check the progress of Saladin’s armies as they advanced into the kingdom. Guy and Raymond were dispatched to the front with the entire fighting strength of the kingdom, but their inability to cooperate was fatal, and Saladin routed them at the Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187. Guy was among the prisoners. The dowager queen joined her stepdaughter in Jerusalem as Saladin’s army advanced. By September 1187, Saladin was besieging the Holy City, and Sibylla personally led the defence, along with Patriarch Eraclius and Balian of Ibelin, who had survived Hattin. Jerusalem capitulated on October 2, and Sibylla was permitted to escape to Tripoli with her daughters.

Death

Guy was released from his imprisonment in Damascus in 1188, when Saladin realized that returning him would cause strife in the crusader camp and that Guy was a less capable leader than certain others who now held sway. The queen joined him when they marched on Tyre in 1189, the only city in the kingdom that had not fallen. Conrad of Montferrat, brother of Sibylla’s first husband William, had taken charge of the city’s defences. However, he denied them entrance, refusing to recognise Guy’s claim to the remnant of the kingdom, and asserting his own claim to hold it until the arrival of the kings from Europe (in accordance with Baldwin IV’s will). After about a month spent outside the city’s walls, the queen followed Guy when he led a vanguard of the newly arrived Third Crusade against Muslim-held Acre, desiring to make that town the seat of the kingdom. Guy besieged the town for two years (see Siege of Acre).
There, during the stalemate in July or August, possibly July 25, 1190, Sibylla died in an epidemic which was sweeping through the military camp. Her two young daughters had also died some days earlier. (Acre was afterwards conquered in July 1191, mostly by troops brought by Philip II of France and Richard I of England).
Bernard Hamilton wrote “had Sibylla lived in more peaceful times she would have exercised a great deal of power since her husband’s authority patently derived from her”, and that only the conquest by Saladin brought her rule to a speedy end. Her legal successor was her half-sister Isabella, who was forced to end her marriage to Humphrey of Toron and instead to marry Conrad, but Guy refused to relinquish his crown until an election in 1192.

In fiction

Sibylla has appeared in several novels, notably Zofia Kossak-Szczucka’s Król trędowaty (The Leper King), Graham Shelby’s The Knights of Dark Renown, and Cecelia Holland’s Jerusalem. Holland makes her the heroine of her novel, but ignores her known devotion to Guy to invent a doomed romance for her with a Templar Knight.

A fictionalized version of Sibylla is played by Eva Green in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven. In this, she is depicted as unhappily married, and has an affair with an equally fictionalized version of Balian of Ibelin. In the movie, she does not want Guy to take the throne and participates in a failed plot for his murder. In the Director’s Cut, it is suggested that she poisons her son, Baldwin V, to spare him from suffering from leprosy. Instead of rejoining her husband after his release, she leaves for France with Balian.

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