Reign

A member of the House of Capet, Henry was born in Reims, the son of King Robert II (972–1031) and Constance of Arles (986–1034).[1] He was crowned King of France at the Cathedral of Reims on 14 May 1027,[2] in the Capetian tradition, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his father’s death.

The reign of Henry I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his brother Robert, with the support of their mother, in a revolt against his father (1025). His mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling.[3] In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy[3] which his father had given him in 1016.

In an early strategic move, Henry came to the rescue of his very young nephew-in-law, the newly appointed Duke William of Normandy (who would go on to become William the Conqueror), to suppress a revolt by William’s vassals. In 1047, Henry secured the dukedom for William in their decisive victory over the vassals at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes near Caen;[5] however, Henry would later support the barons against William until the former’s death in 1060.[6]

In 1051, William married Matilda, the daughter of the count of Flanders, which Henry saw as a threat to his throne.[7] In 1054, and again in 1057, Henry invaded Normandy, but on both occasions he was defeated.[7]

Henry had three meetings with Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor—all at Ivois. In early 1043, he met him to discuss the marriage of the emperor with Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of Henry’s vassal.[8] In October 1048, the two Henries met again and signed a treaty of friendship.[9] The final meeting took place in May 1056 and concerned disputes over Theobald III and County of Blois.[9] The debate over the duchy became so heated that Henry accused the emperor of breach of contract and subsequently left.[9] In 1058, Henry was selling bishoprics and abbacies, ignoring the accusations of simony and tyranny by the Papal legate Cardinal Humbert.[10] Despite his efforts, Henry I’s twenty-nine-year reign saw feudal power in France reach its pinnacle.
King Henry I died on 4 August 1060 in Vitry-en-Brie, France, and was interred in Basilica of St Denis. He was succeeded by his son, Philip I of France, who was 7 at the time of his death; for six years Henry’s queen Anne of Kiev ruled as regent. At the time of his death, he was besieging Thimert, which had been occupied by the Normans since 1058.[11]

Marriages

Henry I was betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, but she died prematurely in 1034.[12] Henry then married Matilda of Frisia, but she died in 1044,[13] following a Caesarean section.[citation needed] Casting further afield in search of a third wife, Henry married Anne of Kiev on 19 May 1051.[13] They had four children:

Philip I (23 May 1052 – 30 July 1108)
Emma (1054 – 1109?)
Robert (c. 1055 – c. 1060)
Hugh “the Great” of Vermandois (1057–1102)

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Biography

Philip was born 23 May 1052 at Champagne-et-Fontaine, the son of Henry I and his wife Anne of Kiev.[3] Unusually for the time in Western Europe, his name was of Greek origin, being bestowed upon him by his mother. Although he was crowned king at the age of seven,[4] until age fourteen (1066) his mother acted as regent, the first queen of France ever to do so. Baldwin V of Flanders also acted as co-regent.

Following the death of Baldwin VI of Flanders, Robert the Frisian seized Flanders. Baldwin’s wife, Richilda requested aid from Philip, who was defeated by Robert at the battle of Cassel in 1071.[2]

Philip first married Bertha in 1072.  Although the marriage produced the necessary heir, Philip fell in love with Bertrade de Montfort, the wife of Fulk IV, Count of Anjou. He repudiated Bertha (claiming she was too fat) and married Bertrade on 15 May 1092.[6] In 1094, he was excommunicated by Hugh of Die, for the first time;[6] after a long silence, Pope Urban II repeated the excommunication at the Council of Clermont in November 1095.[7] Several times the ban was lifted as Philip promised to part with Bertrade, but he always returned to her, but in 1104 Philip made a public penance and must have kept his involvement with Bertrade discreet.[8] In France, the king was opposed by Bishop Ivo of Chartres, a famous jurist.

Philip appointed Alberic first Constable of France in 1060. A great part of his reign, like his father’s, was spent putting down revolts by his power-hungry vassals. In 1077, he made peace with William the Conqueror, who gave up attempting the conquest of Brittany.[10] In 1082, Philip I expanded his demesne with the annexation of the Vexin. Then in 1100, he took control of Bourges.

It was at the aforementioned Council of Clermont that the First Crusade was launched. Philip at first did not personally support it because of his conflict with Urban II. Philip’s brother Hugh of Vermandois, however, was a major participant.

Philip died in the castle of Melun and was buried per his request at the monastery of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire[12] – and not in St Denis among his forefathers. He was succeeded by his son, Louis VI, whose succession was, however, not uncontested. According to Abbot Suger:

… King Philip daily grew feebler. For after he had abducted the Countess of Anjou, he could achieve nothing worthy of the royal dignity; consumed by desire for the lady he had seized, he gave himself up entirely to the satisfaction of his passion. So he lost interest in the affairs of state and, relaxing too much, took no care for his body, well-made and handsome though it was. The only thing that maintained the strength of the state was the fear and love felt for his son and successor. When he was almost sixty, he ceased to be king, breathing his last breath at the castle of Melun-sur-Seine, in the presence of the [future king] Louis… They carried the body in a great procession to the noble monastery of St-Benoît-sur-Loire, where King Philip wished to be buried; there are those who say they heard from his own mouth that he deliberately chose not to be buried among his royal ancestors in the church of St. Denis because he had not treated that church as well as they had, and because among those of so many noble kings, his own tomb would not have counted for much.

Issue

Philip‘s children with Bertha were:

Constance (1078 – 14 September 1126), married Hugh I of Champagne before 1097[13] and then, after her divorce, to Bohemund I of Antioch in 1106.[14] Louis VI of France (1 December 1081 – 1 August 1137).
Henry (1083 – died young).
Philip‘s children with Bertrade were:
Philip, Count of Mantes (1093 – fl. 1123),[15] married Elizabeth, daughter of Guy III of Montlhéry[16] Fleury, Seigneur of Nangis (1095 – July 1119)[17] Cecile (1097 – 1145), married Tancred, Prince of Galilee[18] and then, after his death, to Pons of Tripoli.[19]

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Louis VI

Louis was the first member of his house to make a lasting contribution to the centralizing institutions of royal power.[1] He spent almost all of his twenty-nine-year reign fighting either the “robber barons” who plagued Paris or the Norman kings of England for their continental possession of Normandy. Nonetheless, Louis VI managed to reinforce his power considerably and became one of the first strong kings of France since the death of Charlemagne in 814.

Louis was a warrior king but by his forties his weight had become so great that it was increasingly difficult for him to lead in the field. A biography – The Deeds of Louis the Fat, prepared by his loyal advisor Abbot Suger of Saint Denis – offers a fully developed portrait of his character, in contrast to what little historians know about most of his predecessors.

Early life

Louis was born around 1081 in Paris, the son of Philip I and Bertha of Holland.

Suger tells us: “In his youth, growing courage matured his spirit with youthful vigour, making him bored with hunting and the boyish games with which others of his age used to enjoy themselves and forget the pursuit of arms.” And…”How valiant he was in youth, and with what energy he repelled the king of the English, William Rufus, when he attacked Louis’ inherited kingdom.”[4] Louis married Lucienne de Rochefort, a French crown princess, in 1104, but repudiated her three years later. They had no children.

On 3 August 1115 Louis married Adelaide of Maurienne, daughter of Humbert II of Savoy and of Gisela of Burgundy, and niece of Pope Callixtus II. They had eight children. Adelaide was one of the most politically active of all France’s medieval queens. Her name appears on 45 royal charters from the reign of Louis VI. During her time as queen (1115-1137), royal charters were dated with both her regnal year and that of the king.
Suger became Louis’s adviser even before he succeeded his father as king at the age of 26 on 29 July 1108. Louis’s half-brother prevented him from reaching Rheims, and so Daimbert, Archbishop of Sens, crowned him in the cathedral of Orléans on 3 August.[5] Ralph the Green, Archbishop of Rheims, sent envoys to challenge the validity of the coronation and anointing, but to no avail.[5]

Challenges to royal authority

When Louis ascended the throne the Kingdom of France was a collection of feudal principalities. Beyond the Isle de France the French Kings had little authority over the great Dukes and Counts of the realm but slowly Louis began to change this and assert Capetian rights. This process would take two centuries to complete but began in the reign of Louis VI.
The second great challenge facing Louis was to counter the rising power of the Anglo-Normans under their capable new King, Henry I of England.

Struggles with the robber barons

From early in his reign (and during his father’s reign) Louis faced the problem of the robber barons who resisted the King’s authority and engaged in brigandry, making the area around Paris unsafe.

From their castles, such as Le Puiset, Chateaufort, and Montlhery, these barons would charge tolls, waylay merchants and pilgrims, terrorize the peasantry and loot churches and abbeys, the latter deeds drawing the ire of the writers of the day, who were mostly clerics.

In 1108, soon after he ascended the throne, Louis engaged in war with Hugh of Crecy, who was plaguing the countryside and had captured Eudes, Count of Corbeil, and imprisoned him at La Ferte-Alais. Louis besieged that fortress to free Eudes.[6]

In early 1109, Louis besieged his half-brother, Philip, the son of Bertrade de Montfort, who was involved in brigandry and conspiracies against the King, at Mantes-la-Jolie.[6] Philip’s plots included the lords of Montfort-l’Amaury. Amaury III of Montfort held many castles which, when linked together, formed a continuous barrier between Louis and vast swathes of his domains, threatening all communication south of Paris.[6]

In 1108-1109 a seigneur named Aymon Vaire-Vache seized the lordship of Bourbon from his nephew, Archambaud, a minor. Louis demanded the boy be restored to his rights but Aymon refused the summons. Louis raised his army and besieged Aymon at his castle at Germigny-sur-l’Aubois, forcing its surrender and enforcing the rights of Archambaud.[7] In 1121, Louis established the marchands de l’eau, to regulate trade along the Seine.[8]

In 1122, Aimeri, Bishop of Clermont, appealed to Louis after William VI, Count of Auvergne, had driven him from his episcopal town. When William refused Louis’ summons, Louis raised an army at Bourges, and marched into Auvergne, supported by some of his leading vassals, such as the Counts of Anjou, Brittany, and Nevers. Louis seized the fortress of Pont-du-Chateau on the Allier, then attacked Clermont, which William was forced to abandon. Aimeri was restored. Four years later William rebelled again and Louis, though his increasing weight made campaigning difficult, marched again. He burned Montferrand and seized Clermont a second time, captured William, and brought him before the court at Orleans to answer for his crimes.[7]

Some of the outlaws became notorious for their cruelty, the most notable being Thomas, Lord of Coucy, who was reputed to indulge in torture of his victims, including hanging men by their testicles, cutting out eyes, and chopping off feet. Guibert of Nogent noted of him, “No one can imagine the number of those who perished in his dungeons, from starvation, from torture, from filth.”[9]

Another notable brigand was Hugh, Lord of Le Puiset, who was ravaging the lands around Chartres. In March 1111,[10] Louis heard charges against Hugh at his court at Melun from Theobald II, Count of Champagne, the Archbishop of Sens, and also from bishops and abbots. Louis commanded Hugh to appear before him to answer these charges, but Hugh evaded the summons. Louis stripped him of his lands and titles and laid siege to Le Puiset. After a fierce struggle, Louis took the castle and burned it to the ground, taking Hugh prisoner.

Theobald II of Champagne

Rashly, Louis released Hugh, and while Louis was engaged in war with Henry I of England and Theobald, Hugh raised another band of brigands and began ravaging the country again. When Louis returned his attention to Hugh, he found Le Puiset rebuilt and Hugh receiving aid from Theobald. Hugh held out against the King until Theobald abandoned him. Once again Louis razed Le Puiset and Hugh, who had sworn never to return to his brigandage, rebuilt the castle and resumed terrorizing his neighbours. At the third attempt, Louis finally defeated Hugh and stripped him of his possessions for the last time. Hugh later died on an expiatory pilgrimage to the Holy Land.[11] These were just some of the recalcitrant nobles Louis was forced to contend with. There were many more, and Louis was in constant motion against them, leading his army from castle to castle, bringing law and order to his domains. The result was increased recognition of the King’s authority and the Crown’s ability to impose its will, so that all sectors of French society began to see the King as their protector.

War with Henry I over Gisors

After seizing the English Crown, Henry I of England deprived his brother, Robert Curthose, of the Duchy of Normandy and quickly took possession of the castle at Gisors, a fortress of strategic importance on the right bank of the Epte, commanding the road between Rouen and Paris. This violated an earlier agreement between Henry and the French King that Gisors should remain in the hands of a neutral castellan, or else be demolished.

This move threatened the Capetian domain and Louis was outraged, demanding Henry, as his vassal, appear before him to account for his actions. The two kings met, in force, in March 1109[12] at the borders of their respective territories at the bridge of Neauphle on the Epte.[12] Henry refused to relinquish Gisors. Louis challenged the English King to single combat to settle the issue. When Henry refused, war was inevitable, a war which would last, on and off, for twenty years.

The first years of the war went well for Louis until the influential Theobald II, Count of Champagne, switched to Henry’s side. By early 1112[12] Theobald had succeeded in bringing together a coalition of barons with grievances against Louis: Lancelin of Bulles,[12] Ralph of Beaugency,[12] Milo of Bray-sur-Seine,[12] Hugh of Crecy,[12] Guy of Rochfort,[12] Hugh of Le Puiset[12] and Hugh, Count of Troyes.[12]

Louis defeated Theobald’s coalition but the additional effort meant he could not defeat the English monarch as well or force him to abandon Gisors, and in March 1113[12] Louis was forced to sign a treaty recognizing Henry I as suzerain of Brittany and Maine. Peace of sorts lasted three years until April 1116[12] when hostilities renewed in the French and Norman Vexins, with each king making gains from his rival.

By 1119, buoyed by several successes and the capture (through treachery) of Les Andelys, Louis felt ready for a final encounter to end the war. In the fierce Battle of Bremule, in August 1119,[12] Louis’s troops broke and were routed, abandoning the royal banner and sweeping the King along with them in retreat to Les Andelys. A counterattack through Évreux to seize Breteuil failed, and Louis, his health failing, looked for peace.

He appealed to Pope Calixtus II, who agreed to help and met with Henry at Gisors in November 1120.[12] The terms of the peace included Henry’s heir, William Adelin, doing homage to Louis for Normandy, a return of all territories captured by both kings with the painful exception of Gisors itself, which Louis was forced to concede to Henry.

Intervention in Flanders

On 2 March 1127, the Count of Flanders, Charles the Good, was assassinated in St. Donatian’s Cathedral at Bruges. It was a scandal in itself but made worse because Charles had no heir.
Soon a variety of claimants were abroad, including William of Ypres, son of Charles’s uncle and popularly thought to be complicit in the murder, Thierry of Alsace, the son of Gertrude of Flanders, Duchess of Lorraine, Arnold of Denmark, nephew of Charles the Good, who seized Saint-Omer. Baldwin, Count of Hainault, who seized Oudenarde, and Godfrey I, Count of Louvain and Duke of Brabant.[13]

Louis had his own candidate in mind and marched into Flanders with an army and urged the barons to elect William Clito, son of Robert Curthose, who had been disinherited of Normandy by his uncle Henry I of England, as their new Count. He had no better claim to Flanders than being the King’s candidate but on 23 March 1127 he was elected Count by the Flemings.[13] Louis then moved decisively to secure Flanders, apprehending the murderers of Charles the Good and ousting the rival claimants. On 2 April he took Ghent, on 5 April Bruges, on 26 April he took Ypres, capturing William of Ypres and imprisoning him at Lille. He then quickly took Aire, Cassel and all the towns still loyal to William of Ypres.[13] Louis’s final act before leaving for France was to witness the execution of Charles the Good’s murderers. They were hurled from the roof of the church of Saint Donatian where they had committed their crime.[13]

It was a triumph for Louis and demonstrated how far the Crown had come under his leadership, but it was a brief triumph. The new young Count William Clito fared badly, relying on heavy handed feudal ways not suited to the more socially advanced and mercantile Flemings. William’s knights ran amok and the Flemings rebelled against Louis’s candidate. Ghent and Bruge appealed to Thierry of Alsace and Saint-Omer to Arnold of Denmark.[13] Louis attempted to intervene again but the moment was gone. The people of Bruge rejected him and recognized Thierry of Alsace as their Count, and he quickly moved to enforce his claim. Louis called a great assembly at Arras and had Thierry excommunicated but it was a gesture. Louis abandoned William of Clito, who died during a siege at Alost on 27 July 1128, and after the whole country finally submitted to Thierry, Louis was obliged to confirm his claim.[13]

Invasion of Henry V

Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, with Ruthard, Archbishop of Mainz. Paint on vellum. Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
On 25 November 1120, Louis’ fortunes against Henry I of England were raised when Henry’s heir, William Ætheling, drunkenly perished aboard the White Ship en route from Normandy to England, putting the future of Henry’s dynasty and his position in doubt.

By 1123 Louis was involved with a coalition of Norman and French seigneurs opposed to Henry. The plan was to drive the English King from Normandy and replace him with William Clito. Henry, however, easily defeated this coalition then instigated his son-in-law, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, to invade France.[14] Henry V had married the Empress Matilda, the English King’s daughter and the future mother of Henry II of England, 9 years earlier, in hopes of creating an Anglo-German empire, though the couple remained childless. Like Louis, Henry V had designs on the Low Countries and an invasion of Northern France would enable him to strengthen his ambitions in Flanders, as well as support his father-in-law.

Thus in 1124, Henry V assembled an army to march on Rheims.[14] It never arrived. In testament to how far Louis had risen as national protector, all of France rose to his appeal against the threat. Henry V was unwilling to see the French barons united behind their King, who now identified himself as the vassal of St Denis, the patron saint of Paris, whose banner he now carried,[15] and the proposed invasion was abandoned.

Alliance of the Anglo-Normans and Anjou

In 1128 Henry I married his sole surviving legitimate child, the dowager Empress Matilda, to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou. This was a very dangerous alliance for Louis and would prove so during the reign of his successor, Louis VII of France.

Final years[edit]

As Louis VI approached his end, there seemed to be reasons for optimism. Henry I of England had died on 1 December 1135 and Stephen of Blois had seized the English crown, reneging on the oath he had sworn to Henry I to support Matilda. Stephen was thus in no position to bring the combined Anglo-Norman might against the French crown.
Louis had also made great strides in exercising his royal authority over his barons, and even Theobald II had finally rallied to the Capetian cause.

Finally, on 9 April 1137, a dying William X, Duke of Aquitaine appointed Louis VI guardian of his fifteen-year-old daughter and heiress, Eleanor of Aquitaine.[16] Eleanor was suddenly the most eligible heiress in Europe, and Louis wasted no time in marrying her to his own heir, the future Louis VII, at the Cathedral of Saint-André in Bordeaux on 25 July 1137.[16] At a stroke Louis had added one of the most powerful duchies in France to the Capetian domains.

Louis died of dysentry 7 days later, on 1 August 1137. Despite his achievements, it would be the growing power of the soon to be Angevin Empire that would come to overshadow his successor, its seeds sown in the marriage between the Empress Matilda and Geoffrey Plantagenet and realised through their son, Henry II of England.
Louis VI was interred in the Basilica of St Denis in Paris.

Marriages and children

Epitaph of Louis VI, after 1137, Eglise Abbatiale de Saint Denis, today at Cluny Museum.
He married in 1104: 1) Lucienne de Rochefort — the marriage was annulled on 23 May 1107 at the Council of Troyes by Pope Paschal II.[17] He married in 1115: 2) Adélaide de Maurienne (1092–1154)[17] Their children:
Philip (29 August 1116 – 13 October 1131), King of France (1129–31), not to be confused with his brother of the same name; he died as a result of a fall from a horse.
Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), King of France.
Henry (1121 – 13 November 1175), Archbishop of Reims.[18] Hugues (ca 1122 – died young).
Robert (ca 1123 – 11 October 1188), count of Dreux.[19] Peter[20] (September 1126 – 10 April 1183), married Elizabeth, Lady of Courtenay.[21] Constance (ca 1128 – 16 August 1176), married first Eustace IV, count of Boulogne, and then Raymond V of Toulouse.
Philip (c.1132 -1160), Archdeacon of Paris[22] With Marie de Breuillet, daughter of Renaud de Breuillet de Dourdan,[23] Louis VI was the father of a daughter:
Isabelle (ca 1105 – before 1175), married (ca. 1119) Guillaume I of Chaumont in 1117.[24]

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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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