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| Uta von Naumburg |
In late 1177
Maria Comnena, the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, made a surprise second marriage
to Balian d’Ibelin, the younger brother of the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel.
Although it is recorded that Maria had the explicit consent of the king for
this marriage, there is no reason to suppose this marriage was imposed on her.
The very fact that the candidate was the younger brother of a local baron from
a parvenu family makes it all the more likely that he was her choice; otherwise
she would have rejected him as far beneath her dignity — with the full backing
of the Byzantine Emperor in saying ‘no.’ No one, much less the weakened Baldwin
IV, would have risked a break with the Byzantine Emperor over a marriage that
brought no apparent advantages to the crown.
In short, we can
assume that Maria’s marriage to Balian d’Ibelin was a love-match — at least on
her side. While Balian’s motives may have been more venal, what followed
provides ample evidence that Balian and Maria became close and were viewed by
others as a pair, a team, a partnership. Altogether, Maria was to give Balian
four children, two sons and two daughters, all born between 1178 and 1183.
Meanwhile, Maria
faced the first serious crisis of her life.
In 1180, her daughter by Amalric, the 8 year-old Princess of Isabella
was taken from her (and Balian) and betrothed to Humphrey de Toron IV, the grandson
of the formidable and much-admired Humphrey de Toron II. By this time, however, the old Constable was
dead as was his son and the fourth Humphrey de Toron was still a minor, living
with his widowed mother and her third husband, the infamous Reynald de
Chatillon. The marriage between Humphrey and the child Princess Isabella was
allegedly idea of the Queen Mother, Agnes de Courtenay, who had been set aside
by King Amalric and replaced by Maria. It can be assumed that Agnes had no kind
feelings toward Maria. The timing of the marriage is also significant. Agnes
had just engineered the marriage of her own daughter to Guy de Lusignan —
thereby earning the bitter enmity of Baldwin d’Ibelin, Baron of Ramla and
Mirabel, who apparently had had hopes of marrying Sibylla himself. Certainly,
from 1180 onwards, Ramla and his younger brother Balian were staunch opponents
of Guy de Lusignan. Under the circumstances, King Baldwin apparently felt
compelled — or more likely was compelled by the poisonous advice of his mother —
to remove his half-sister Isabella from Balian’s control out of fear that if he
did not the Ibelin’s would use her to challenge Sibylla and Guy’s claim to the
throne.
The historical
record amply demonstrates, however, that King Baldwin was unjustified in
imputing treasonous intentions to the Ibelins; both brothers were staunchly
loyal to both him and his nephew Baldwin V. Indeed, although Baldwin refused to
do homage to Guy after he usurped the crown, preferring to leave the kingdom,
Balian honorably served Guy de Lusignan right up until the death of Sibylla in
1190. Furthermore, there is no objective
way to portray this removal of a small child from her mother and the only
father she had known as benign. The fact that she was not only taken from her
parents but sent to a border fortress controlled by a notoriously brutal man was
a cruel, vindictive act that undoubtedly acerbated the hostility between Maria
and Agnes and between the Ibelins and Lusignans, in both cases to the detriment
of the kingdom.
For three years,
Isabella was denied the right to even visit her mother in Nablus, and it was
not until 1183 that Maria saw her daughter again — on the occasion of her
daughter’s marriage to Humphrey when Isabella was still only 11 years old. No
sooner had Maria, Agnes and other wedding guests arrived at the bleak castle of
Kerak, set atop a mountain overlooking the desert, than Salah-ad-Din laid siege
to the castle. Maria was trapped inside
with her daughter, her new son-in-law and hundreds of other guests. The bulk of
the barons of Jerusalem, including Balian, on the other hand were still in
Jerusalem at a meeting of the High Court. It was a stormy session in which the
barons unanimously refused to accept Guy de Lusignan as regent — not even to go
to the relief of their wives, the Dowager Queen, the Queen Mother and the
Princesses of Jerusalem. That is quite a resounding vote of “non-confidence” in
the incompetent but arrogant Guy de Lusignan. Baldwin IV, now completely lamed
and going blind with leprosy, had to take up the reins of government himself
and lead the royal army to the relief of Kerak. Salah-ad-Din retreated before
King; Maria — and Isabella — were reunited with Balian.
One year later,
Maria found herself under siege a second time, and this time it was at home in
Nablus. Salah-ad-Din had set-out on a
second attempt to capture Kerak, but was again thwarted by the timely arrival
of the feudal host of Jerusalem. He withdrew, but plundered and burned his way
north to Damascus. Nablus, an unwalled
town, was in his path, and Maria commanded in the city since Balian with his knights,
sergeants and other feudal levees was with the army. Remarkably, although the
city was unwalled and so virtually indefensible, there were no Frankish
casualties because Maria provided refuge to the entire civilian population in
the citadel. This was in marked contrast to neighboring towns and cities. The
citadel of Nablus was not a major castle and it has completely disappeared over
the centuries — nothing like the almost impregnable Kerak. The over-crowding
must have been appalling and the risks enormous, but the Christian army was hot
on Salah-ah-Din’s heels and came to Maria’s relief — at least that portion
under her husband did.
Such an action
was unthinkable the next time Saracen forces threatened to overrun Nablus. That
was in July 1187 and Salah-ad-Din had just destroyed almost the entire
Christian army, killing or enslaving roughly 17,000 men, and taking the King of
Jerusalem, most of his barons, and the Grand Masters of both militant orders
captive. In short, like every other city and castle in the crusader kingdom,
Nablus had no hope of relief because there was no longer an army left to come
to its aid. Furthermore, unlike the port cities from Ascalon to Beirut, there
was also no hope of relief by sea from the kingdoms in the West. Maria was a
realist. She abandoned Nablus and with her children (and probably with the
majority of the other inhabitants) fled to Jerusalem.
The choice of
Jerusalem was probably dictated more by sentiment than logic: it was not the
closest defensible city. Arsuf, Jaffa
and Caesarea were all geographically closer, and they were seaports with both
hope of relief or routes of escape. But Jerusalem was the heart of the crusader kingdom
and it was a walled city. Furthermore, the Ibelins had a residence there so
Maria and her children had someplace to go. In the first moment of shock, as
word of the disaster of Hattin reached Nablus when Maria probably did not know
if Balian had been killed or captured, it probably seemed like the best place
to go. Maria may, however, have come to regret her decision.
Jerusalem was
soon flooded with refugees from the surrounding countryside. While the regular
population was probably no more than 20,000, a number that swelled to perhaps
30,000 during the pilgrim season, as many as 30,000 or 40,000 Franks sought
refuge in Jerusalem after Hattin, bringing the population to over 60,000. (Some
estimates put the city's population at this time as high as 100,000.) Most of those refuges
were women, children, churchmen and old people because the able-bodied men had
been called-up to the army and were now dead or enslaved. Yet despite the lack
of fighting men (there is said to have been not a single knight in the city)
the leaders chosen (by what means we do not know) to represent the city to
Salah-ad-Din refused to surrender the city on generous terms. The Franks in
Jerusalem may have been commoners with little experience of combat but they
felt the weight of responsibility keenly. As they told Salah-ad-Din, they could
not surrender Jerusalem because it would disgrace them for all eternity. They
did not expect to defend the city successfully, they simply preferred martyrdom
to shame.
It is unknown how
Maria Comnena felt about this stand. She was certainly not part of the
delegation, although as Dowager Queen and one of the most prominent people in
the city she was probably involved in both selecting the delegation that met
with Salah-ad-Din and determining what answer they would give him. It is likely
that, although she understood the sentiments expressed to Salah-ad-Din, she was
less than enthusiastic about sacrificing her four children, all of whom were
under the age of 10. She was in all
probability greatly relieved, not to say ecstatic, when against all odds her
husband appeared in Jerusalem to escort her to safety.
The arrival of
Balian d’Ibelin in Jerusalem sometime after obliteration of the Frankish army at Hattin struck the
Christians in Jerusalem as miraculous. It was all but miraculous that Ibelin had escaped
from the debacle at Hattin, but even more amazing that, having gained the safety
of Tyre or Tripoli, he would return — unarmed — for the sake of bringing his wife and
children to freedom. This act more than any other suggests the depth of feeling
Balian had for his wife. Other lords, notably Raymond of Tripoli, abandoned
their wives to their fate, trusting to Salah-ad-Din’s sense of honor not to
humiliate them. Ibelin took the unprecedented — and risky — step of seeking a
safe-conduct from Salah-ad-Din. To obtain the safe-conduct, he gave his word to go to the city unarmed
(and presumably unescorted) remain there only a single night, and then then
return to Tyre/Tripoli.
The arrival of a
respected and experienced battle-commander in the militarily leaderless city
sparked popular jubilation — until the people learned of Ibelin’s intention to
rescue his family and withdraw. They then begged Ibelin to remain and take
command of the city’s defenses and resistance. The Patriarch graciously
absolved Ibelin of his oath to Salah-ad-Din, and Ibelin decided it was his duty
to remain.
Did he decide
alone? That is hardly conceivable. He had been married to Maria Comnena for
almost 10 years at this point in time, but she remained his social superior by
many orders of magnitude. They had been equally impoverished by the loss of
Nablus no less than Ibelin, but the habits of ten years are not washed away in
an afternoon. Balian would not have been in the habit of dictating to his
wealthier, better connected and higher-born wife, and at this critical moment
he would not have abruptly changed his behavior or tried to do so. Maria
Comnena must have shared his decision and very likely contributed to it — without knowing that Salah-ad-Din had
another surprise for both of them.
When Ibelin sent
word to the Sultan that he was compelled by the appeals of his countrymen to
remain in Jerusalem, Salah-ad-Din was not angry or offended. On the contrary,
respecting Ibelin’s decision, he sent fifty of his own personal guard to
Jerusalem to escort Maria Comnena and her children to safety. Why? The romantic
answer is that he was chivalrous and respected Ibelin. The more realistic
answer is that Maria Comnena was first cousin of the Byzantine Emperor and
Salah-ad-Din had signed a truce with the Byzantines; he had no desire to muddy
the waters by having a Byzantine Princess caught in a city he had vowed to take
by storm. The risks of something happening
to her and a diplomatic incident resulting were simply too high.
Maria must have
been relieved for the sake of her children to get that escort to safety. She
was probably equally distressed to have to leave her husband behind to almost
certain death. She could not have known as she rode out of Jerusalem sometime
in early September 1187 that Balian would pull off yet another miracle: the
ransom of tens of thousands of Christian lives even after the walls had been
breached.
After the fall of
Jerusalem, Maria and Balian were reunited, but they now had no income and were
nobody in a kingdom that no longer existed. It is unclear how they survived,
but it is notable that at this moment when the Kingdom of Jerusalem had been
reduced to the city of Tyre and that was a city under siege and frequent
attack, Maria did not choose to return “home.” To be sure, her great-uncle was
dead and the new Emperor was a tyrant hostile to the Latin west, but she was a
Byzantine Princess, a Comnena, and she had many powerful relatives in the
Eastern Empire. That she remained in the pitiable remnants of the crusader
states was a tribute to her loyalty to her second husband and her daughter.
Balian, probably
with considerable misgivings and inner revulsion, joined the army that Guy de
Lusignan raised after his release in 1188 and took part in the Christian siege
of Muslim Acre. Many women were in the Christian camp, including Queen Sibylla
and her two daughters by Guy. Whether Maria Comnena and her children were there
went unrecorded. Very likely, she was not. We know only that in 1190 she was in
Tyre.
In 1190, Sibylla
of Jerusalem and both her daughters died of fever in the Christian camp outside
of Acre. With her death, Guy de Lusignan’s right to the throne of Jerusalem was
extinguished. To be sure, he had been anointed king, but without the consent of
the High Court of Jerusalem, and in Ibelin’s eyes that made him a usurper,
tolerated only so long as the rightful heir to Jerusalem, his wife, reigned
jointly with him. With her death,
everything changed for Ibelin.
The next in line
to the throne was Maria’s daughter, Isabella. Isabella was now 18 years old and
still married to the man imposed on her by her half-brother Baldwin IV,
Humphrey of Toron. The problem with Humphrey in the eyes of Ibelin and most of
the surviving barons, knights and burghers of Jerusalem was that he was weak
(some say effeminate) and was not credited with the ability to play a
constructive role in regaining the lost kingdom. In
contrast, Conrad de Montferrat, who had saved the city of Tyre at the critical
juncture, when it too had been on the brink of collapse, was widely viewed as
having the personality and skill to recapture the kingdom. Ibelin and the only
other baron to escape Hattin and still be alive, Reginald de Sidon, decided
that Isabella must marry Conrad de Montferrat and that the pair should rule the kingdom jointly. There
was no question that Isabella had been too young to consent at the time of her
marriage to Humphrey and this provided legal grounds for the annulment of her
marriage. Unfortunately, Isabella had grown attached to Humphrey and the
chronicles agree that her mother had to “browbeat” her into agreeing to the
divorce.
While this is
usually interpreted as an unscrupulous and ambitious woman (Maria) heartlessly
pressuring a sweet young girl into betraying the man she loved, the record is
not really quite so unambiguous. First, the sources we have are all hostile to
Conrad de Montferrat and should therefore be treated with caution. Second, the
divorce was undoubtedly in the best interests of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and
Maria should be given credit — not blame — for putting the interests of the
kingdom ahead of the affections of her teenage daughter. Third, there is no
indication that Maria’s stand resulted in lasting tensions between her and her
daughter. Maria and Balian both played roles in Isabella’s court long after
Conrad de Montferrat was dead. Fourth, when Conrad de Montferrat was murdered, Isabella did not try to remarry Humphrey de Toron
and make him king, but rather accepted the King of England’s choice for her third husband.
Later, she would accept the High Court’s choice for her fourth husband as well.
Isabella, I believe, wanted to be Queen and was willing to sacrifice Humphrey
de Toron, if reluctantly at first, for that goal.
But back to
Maria. Isabella’s elevation to the throne opened the gates for Maria to play a
role similar to Agnes de Courtenay’s — but she did not. Rather, she appears to
have retired with Balian and their children to the much reduced estates now at
their disposal. (The truce between Richard of England and Salah-ad-Din did not
include the restoration of Nablus or any of the Ibelin lordships to Frankish control, but Balian was explicitly granted the smaller lordship of Caymont
northeast of Caesarea.) Ibelin, as
step-father of the queen, initially took precedence over all other lords, but
fades from the historical record after 1193, presumably he became ill, died, or left the kingdom for Cyprus or Europe
at about this time.
Maria, however,
appears to have been instrumental in reconciling Isabella’s third husband,
Henri of Champagne, with the House of Lusignan, now established as kings of
Cyprus, by negotiating marriages between Henri and Isabella’s daughters with
Aimery de Lusignan’s sons. She was still alive when Aimery de Lusignan married
Isabella in 1197, and when Lusignan appointed Maria’s son by Balian — Isabella’s
half-brother — to the position of
Constable of Jerusalem. She also lived to see this son, John, enfeoffed with the Lordship
of Beirut, and she would have personally enjoyed the palace he built there with its
lifelike mosaics, polychrome marble and views to the sea.
When Maria
Comnena died in 1217, her five-year-old great-granddaughter Yolanda (sometimes
also referred to as Isabella II) was Queen of Jerusalem. Her children by
Balian had all married into noble families. Her sons John and Philip would both
serve as regents, in Jerusalem and Cyprus respectively, and in the centuries to
follow, Ibelins frequently married into the royal houses of the Christian East
including Jerusalem, Antioch, Cyprus and Armenia.
Maria is a the female protagonist in all three of the Balian d'Ibelin books.
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