Baldwin of Boulogne was born the youngest of three sons and marked out for a clerical career, yet in turn he became a First Crusader, first Latin count of Edessa and the founder of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, remarkably, he has never been the subject of a full-length biography. This study examines in detail the stages of Baldwin’s career, returning to the contemporary evidence to discover the qualities that enabled him not only to succeed his brother as ruler in 1100 but to maintain and expand the new kingdom of Jerusalem through the next eighteen years in the face of aggression from Muslim enemies and rivalry from fellow crusaders.
List of maps
List of abbreviations
Preface
Note on translations
- First Crusader
Baldwin the Younger Son
The First Crusade
The Journey to Constantinople
Contacts with Byzantium
Constantinople
The Oath to Alexios
The Evidence - Nicaea to Edessa
The Siege of Nicaea
The Battle of Dorylaeum
Cilician Adventure or Cilician Campaign?
Tarsus
Mamistra
Coming of Age
Turbessel - Count of Edessa
Why Edessa?
The Invitation from Edessa
The Coup
Ruler of Edessa
The Armenian Marriage
Rebellion
Support for the Crusade
Pilgrimage to Jerusalem - Crisis in Jerusalem, 1100
Bohemond’s Capture
Godfrey’s Rule in Jerusalem
Godfrey’s Title
Godfrey’s Death
The Succession Dispute
Baldwin’s Journey to Jerusalem - King of Jerusalem
A Royal Progress
Coronation
Tancred
Bohemond’s Captivity and Release
Raymond of Saint-Gilles
Daibert of Pisa
The Failure of the Holy Fire, 1101
Six Years Later - Ecclesiastical Affairs
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Daibert of Pisa
Baldwin’s Accession
Patriarch Evremar (1102-1108)
Patriarch Gibelin (1108-1112)
Patriarch Arnulf (1112-1118) - The Conquest of the Littoral
Introduction
The Situation at Baldwin’s Accession
The Capture of Arsuf, 1101
The Siege and Capture of Caesarea, 1101
The Siege and Capture of Acre, 1104
The Capture of Tripoli (1109) and Beirut (1110)
The Capture of Sidon, 1110
Conclusion - Fighting the Saracens
The First Battle of Ramla, 1101
Arrival of the ‘Crusade of 1101’
The Second Battle of Ramla, 1102
A Saracen Ambush, 1103
The Third Battle of Ramla, 1105
Ambushes and Raids - The Army, Administration, and Allies
Introduction
The Army
Administration
The Crusader States
Edessa and Antioch
Tripoli
Attacks by Mawdūd of Mosul, 1110-1113
The Turkish Invasion of 1115
Byzantium
Sicily - Last Years and Legacy
Introduction
Into Arabia
The Last Campaign
The Funeral Procession
Tomb and Epitaph
Twelfth-Century Assessments of Baldwin
William of Tyre
Baldwin’s Marriages
The Succession
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Susan B. Edgington is a teaching and research fellow at Queen Mary University of London. She has written extensively on many aspects of the crusades, but it is her close familiarity with the Latin sources for the period in question, 1095-1118, that uniquely qualifies her to write this biography. She is the editor and translator of Albert of Aachen’s Historia Ierosolimitana (Oxford, 2007); translator (with Thomas S. Asbridge) of Walter the Chancellor’s The Antiochene Wars (Aldershot, 1999); (with Carol Sweetenham) of The Chanson d’Antioche (Farnham, 2011); and (with Steven Biddlecombe) of Badric of Bourgueil’s History of the Jerusalemites (Woodbridge, forthcoming). Her critical comparison of the relationship of Bartolf of Nangis’ Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium with the chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres (Crusades 13, 2014) will lead to a new edition and translation of this important source.
"Susan Edington has written a tremendously useful and welcome study of Baldwin and the history surrounding his tenure as Count of Edessa and subsequent accession to the royal title. Paying due attention both to the context of Baldwin's leadership and what the sources reveal about his character, Edgington presents new insights into the world of the First Crusade and its aftermath. The complex network of primary sources that describe the progress and memorialisation of the First Crusade and the creation of the Latin states of Outremer are dealt with deftly throughout."- Megan Cassidy-Welch, Sehepunkte
"Edgington presents Baldwin I not as a good man, but rather a man who was good at being a king. Baldwin was the right man at the right time, and was exactly what the Kingdom of Jerusalem needed during its formative years. Similarly, this excellent biography, which brings together and expands upon many of the strands of the current research on Baldwin I, is exactly what scholars of the Latin East have needed."
- Stephen Donnachie, University of Swansea
