Writing Biographical Fiction: Agnes de Courtenay

 

Agnes de Courtenay was the power behind Baldwin IV’s throne and she was a viperous enemy of my leading female character, Maria Comnena. Because of both these roles in history, I had to cede her a place in my novels. Furthermore, despite an attempt by historian Bernard Hamilton to rehabilitate her, the commentary of contemporaries and indeed the naked record of her actions condemn Agnes as a singularly stupid woman whose influence on her son was almost entirely negative. Something which, admittedly, fit in with her being the arch-enemy of Maria and so a prime candidate for a negative character in my novels. All novels need some negative characters after all….

So who was Agnes de Courtenay?

Agnes was the daughter of Joceyln II, Count of Edessa, who lost his county to the Saracens, in large part due to neglect and poor leadership. The city of Edessa was lost to Zengi in November 1144, and by 1150 the last remnants of the once rich and powerful County were in Saracen hands. Joscelyn II himself was captured in the same year by Nur al-Din and tortured. He eventually died, still in captivity, in 1159.  As a result, Agnes de Courtenay did not have an easy childhood. She had been married, possibly at an early age, to Reynald of Marash, who was killed in battle in 1149. The following year, her father was captured and never seen again. In just six years, her family had fallen from one of the richest and most powerful in the crusader states, to the status “poor cousins” living on a few estates in Antioch that Agnes’ mother had from her first marriage. Agnes was a widow with no land and no dowry. She was also probably no more than 10 or 12 years old, as she would have had to be at least 8 at her marriage to Reynald.

According to historian Malcolm Barber, she was next betrothed to Hugh d’Ibelin (Balian’s oldest brother), but instead married Prince (later King) Amalric of Jerusalem. Whether she did this voluntarily is not recorded. She might have been seduced or abducted, but she might also have been very happy to give up the comparatively obscure and unimportant Hugh in favor of the heir apparent to the throne.  While historians can leave unanswered the question of her feelings, a novelist cannot. Agnes’ feelings toward Hugh d’Ibelin are critical to the character Agnes in any novel about the Ibelins.

The (historical) plot thickens, however, when at the death of Baldwin III, who was childless, the High Court of Jerusalem refused to acknowledge his next of kin, Baldwin’s younger brother Amalric, as King of Jerusalem unless he set Agnes aside. Why, we do not know. There was the issue of being married within the prohibited degrees on consanguinity, and the issue of the pre-contract with Hugh d’Ibelin, both of which were canonical grounds for divorce. However, the objections of the High Court are not likely to have been legalistic in view of the fact that the High Court explicitly recognized Amalric’s children by Agnes as legitimate.  This strongly suggests that the High Court was not uneasy about the legality of Amalric’s marriage but rather about the character of his wife. Regardless of their reasons, such action could only have infuriated and enraged Agnes herself. Rather than becoming Queen, she was repudiated and sent back to her former betrothed (or husband) Hugh d’Ibelin. 

While historians don’t particularly need to figure out why Agnes was so despised by the High Court (the fact that she was is enough), for a novelist there is a gold mine here. It appears that Agnes was considered a ‘bad woman.’ Some historians have suggested that meant nothing more than that she was a Courtenay and expected to favor her family, but that was quite normal in the Middle Ages and hardly seems to justify such an unyielding stance on the part of the High Court. To the novelist, the insinuations that she was a woman of “easy virtue” ― alleged to have had affairs with a bishop (the later Patriarch Heraclius) and with Aimery de Lusignan is far more intriguing―even if not proved.

Likewise, while Agnes’ feelings do not much interest historians, they are hugely important to a novelist. How would a woman, who undoubtedly felt she ought to be queen, feel about the man she is forced to (re)marry to after losing a crown? It hardly seems likely that she was fond of Hugh under the circumstances, and the fact that the marriage was childless suggests it may have been no more than nominal. Certainly she was credited with hating the woman who took her place in Amalric's bed and became -- what she could not be -- his queen: the Byzantine princess Maria Comnena. Maria was latter wife of Balian d’Ibelin. 

But before that happened, Agnes had a stroke of luck. In 1176 Baldwin IV took the reins of government for himself and he invited his  mother to his court. Within a few short years, Agnes had succeeded in foisting her candidates for Seneschal, Patriarch and Constable upon her young and dying son. These were respectively: 1) her utterly underwhelming brother, Jocelyn of Edessa, 2) the controversial figure Heraclius, who may not have been as bad as his rival William of Tyre claims and may not have been Agnes’ lover as the Chronicle of Ernoul claim, but hardly distinguished himself either, and finally 3) an obscure Frenchmen, also alleged to have been Agnes’ lover, Aimery de Lusignan. Not a terribly impressive record for “wise” appointments – even if Aimery de Lusignan eventually proved to be an able man.

Her next acts of influence, however, were little short of calamitous: she arranged the marriage of her son’s two sisters (and heirs), Sibylla and Isabella, to men of her choosing. We are talking here about Guy de Lusignan and Humphrey de Toron respectively. 

The latter was a man of “learning,” who distinguished himself by cravenly vowing allegiance to the former after Guy seized power in a coup d’etat that completely ignored the constitutional right of the High Court of Jerusalem to select the monarch. Toron then promptly got himself captured at Hattin. Although he lived a comparatively long life and held an important barony, he apparently never played a positive role in the history of the kingdom. Not exactly a brilliant match or a wise choice for the future Queen of Jerusalem. 

Agnes’ other choice, the man she chose for her own daughter according to historian Bernard Hamilton, was even more disastrous. At best, Guy de Lusignan was freshly come from France, young, inexperienced and utterly ignorant about the situation in the crusader kingdoms.  At worst he was not only ignorant but arrogant and a murderer as well. He certainly alienated his brother-in-law King Baldwin IV within a short space of time, and he never enjoyed the confidence of the barons of Jerusalem. The dying King Baldwin IV preferred to drag his decaying body around in a litter -- and his barons preferred to follow a leper –- than trust Guy de Lusignan with command of the army after 1183. 

Nor was this mistrust of the baronage in Lusignan misplaced. When Sibylla crowned her husband king and all the barons but Tripoli grudgingly accepted him, he led them to the avoidable disaster at Hattin. In short, Agnes de Courtney’s interference in the affairs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, led directly to the loss of the entire Kingdom. But by then she was already dead.

As a novelist, I had no particular need to alter any of these facts or to engage in any form of revisionism with respect to Agnes. On the other hand, writing about history through the eyes of the Ibelins presented me with a problem usually overlooked by historians and novelists focused on the history of the kingdom. Namely: Agnes was Balian d’Ibelin's sister-in-law. She must have known both he and his brother very well, and their hostility to her (and vice versa) may have had more personal than political reasons. 

Historians tend to simply dismiss Ibelin hostility to Agnes as “ambition” from a “notoriously” ambitious family. But Balian and his brother belong only to the second generation of Ibelins, and they didn’t yet have a track record of being particularly ambitious or successful for that matter. Indeed, the Ibelins were hardly any different from any of the baronial families at this point. 

Alternatively, historians and novelists point to Agnes’ “natural” hatred of Maria Comnena, who had replaced her in her first husband’s bed and been crowned queen in her place. Certainly, this may have been the root cause of the hostility between Agnes and Maria, and through Maria to Balian and Baldwin d’Ibelin. But the tension might also have been older and deeper. It might have gone back to Agnes’ abandonment of Hugh d’Ibelin when he was in Saracen captivity just so she could marry the Prince of Jerusalem. This is the thesis I chose to expound upon in my novels as it is both logical and adds dimensions to the characters and their relationships.

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Writing Biographical Fiction: King Baldwin IV

No biography of Balian d’Ibelin can ignore the man who was king for the eleven critical years 1174 – 1185, Baldwin IV. Baldwin has gone down in history as the “Leper King” simply because he suffered from this illness throughout his reign, although this moniker detracts from his significant accomplishments as king. Our image of him today is further distorted by Ridley Scott’s film “The Kingdom of Heaven” in which Baldwin IV is a leading character. So as with Balian himself, I found myself confronted with a popular image of a major character that did not necessarily conform to historical reality ― or suit my purposes as a novelist.

Baldwin IV’s modern biographer, Bernard Hamilton, for example, provides considerable evidence that challenges conventional depictions of Baldwin IV as either peace-loving (ala Ridley Scott) or helpless (ala Jeffrey Lee). Hamilton also makes the critical point that Baldwin IV’s leprosy was not initially debilitating. Baldwin, he points out, retained the use of his left hand/arm and both legs and did not suffer from noticeable disfigurement at the time he ascended the throne. At that time, he had no visible ulcers and was able to move normally. Indeed, the contemporary chronicler and Baldwin’s tutor, the later Archbishop of Tyre, claims that Baldwin was “a good-looking child … and more skilled than men who were older than himself in controlling horses and riding them at a gallop.” 

In the summer of 1176, Baldwin turned 15 and so attained his majority. He took the reins of government for himself. Unfortunately, this occurred at a time when the enemies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were getting stronger. The Kurdish general Salah-ad-Din had seized control in both Cairo and Damascus. Baldwin IV sought to counter the rise of Salah-ad-Din by following his father's policy of alliance with the Byzantine Empire and attacking Cairo. Unfortunately, internal differences between Frankish leaders delayed the campaign, the Byzantine fleet withdrew and the bulk of the crusader and local barons and knights of Jerusalem undertook a campaign in the north. Salah-ad-Din, who had assembled his forces to meet the expected invasion, recognized that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was practically defenseless, and invaded. As he approached Ascalon, a city that had been in Egyptian hands until 1153, he prepared to besiege the city.

In a dramatic move Baldwin IV rode to the rescue of Ascalon with just 367 knights, reaching the city shortly before the Sultan's army enveloped it. But now the King of Jerusalem was in Ascalon and Jerusalem was practically defenseless. Salah-ad-Din decided to strike for heart of the kingdom: Jerusalem. Furthermore, he had such overwhelming superiority of force and so little respect for a youth of 16 that he allowed his troops to continue plundering along the way rather than concentrating on his goal. (This is such a dramatic historical event that I simply had to include it in my novel, and the best way to do was to have Balian in Ascalon at the time.)

Furthermore, Saladin had miscalculated. King Baldwin sallied out of Ascalon, called up the feudal levies and fell on Salah-ad-Din from the rear, winning a stunning and complete victory at Montgisard on November 25, 1177. While Jeffrey Lee in his recent biography of Reynald de Châtillon tries to give all the credit for this victory to subject, his case is based on the false assumption that Baldwin IV was already an invalid in a litter. In fact, there is every indication that at Montgisard Baldwin IV led his own troops on horseback, still fit enough to ride and fight.

But the consequences of this victory for Baldwin personally were devastating. Based on the historical descriptions of Baldwin’s initial illness, modern medical experts believe that Baldwin IV suffered initially from polyneuritic tuberculoid leprosy, which is comparatively mild and not necessarily debilitating. However, according to Piers D. Mitchell ("An Evaluation of the Leprosy of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem in the Context of the Medieval World," in Bernard Hamilton's The Leper King and His Heirs, Cambridge University Press, 2000), Baldwin’s leprosy deteriorated into lepromatous leprosy during puberty. While puberty itself can induce such deterioration, so can untended wounds (that go unnoticed due to loss of feeling) which cause ulcers to break out. 

When Baldwin led his daring campaign against Salah-ad-Din that led to the surprise victory at Montgisard he was in puberty, just 16 years old. It is probable that it was in part because of this campaign — which required camping out in the field and going without the usual bathing of his feet and hands — that Baldwin's leprosy took a turn for the worse.

When in 1179, Salah-ad-Din invaded a second time, Baldwin was unhorsed in the engagement, a clear indication of his deteriorating condition, and when Salah-ad-Din invaded a third time in 1182, Baldwin could no longer ride at all and had to command his army from a litter -- but still fought the Saracens to a stand-still, forcing them to withdraw. The following year, however, he was seized with fever and believing he was on his death-bed made his brother-in-law Guy de Lusignan regent. Thus when Salah-ad-Din invaded a fourth time in 1183, it was Guy de Lusignan who led the Christian armies to face him.

The results were not good. While the Saracens eventually withdrew, they had managed to do considerable damage and the barons of Jerusalem flat-out refused to follow Guy de Lusignan anywhere again. Baldwin dismissed him as regent, and dragged his disintegrating body halfway across the kingdom at the head of his army to relieve a siege of the castle of Kerak. The mere approach of the Leper King, was enough to convince Salah-ad-Din to withdraw, but by now Baldwin IV knew he did not have much time left to him. He had his nephew, Sibylla's son by her first husband William de Montferrat crowned as a co-monarch, and asked his bishops to find a way to dissolve Sibylla's marriage to Guy in the hope that another husband, more congenial to his barons, could be found for her. In the latter he failed, and hence when he died just short of his 24th birthday in the spring of 1185, he was succeeded by his nephew Baldwin V, and -- at the latter's death a year later -- by Guy de Lusignan.

Baldwin IV ruled for less than ten years and throughout his reign he was handicapped by a progressively debilitating and disfiguring disease. Yet he retained the loyalty of his subjects to the very end and on no less than five occasions prevented Salah-ad-Din's vastly superior forces from over-running his fragile kingdom. For that he should be revered and respected rather than dismissed as “the leper king.”

As a novelist, the character Baldwin IV presents several challenges ― and opportunities. First and foremost, I was determined to depict the progress of his disease realistically rather than showing him as a worthless blob in a liter from the start, as so many other modern writers. In short, my Baldwin is a youth who is ill but not debilitated when he comes to the throne, but who over the succeeding decade must come to terms with his declining strength, mobility and life-expectancy.

Other issues I had to address were Baldwin’s relationship to his mother and step-mother. Because he was separated from his mother at a very young age he could hardly have formed very close ties to her as a child.  Instead, he was raised at court, primarily by nurses and tutors. Although it is usually assumed they would have had nothing to do with his step-mother Maria Comnena, it is just as possible that she took an interest in him. Indeed, in the inevitably small circle surrounding a ruling king and his heir, she might have been more like an older sister than a step-mother since she was only about seven years older than Baldwin. After becoming king, however, Baldwin welcomed his mother at his court and she rapidly gained inordinate influence over him. This suggests that although Baldwin had not known his mother well, he felt a gap or a need that Maria Comnena (either because of her age or temperament) had not be able to fill.

His relationship to his sisters appear to have been very different. First, Sibylla was only a year older than Baldwin, and although raised in a convent, she would have been present at major holidays and feasts as long as their father was alive. Given Baldwin’s later behavior to Sibylla (allowing her to marry a man totally unsuitable for example), it seems likely that they were close as children. Isabella, on the other hand, was only two years old at her father’s death and thereafter left court so that Baldwin is unlikely to have had strong bonds with her. This is borne out by the cold-hearted manner in which he ordered her taken from her mother at the age of eight and turned over to the “tender” care of a notoriously brutal man, Reynald de Châtillon.

As a novelist, these various actions suggest a youth who loved his mother and sister, but gradually came to see that they were only interested in their personal gain and so acting against the interests of his kingdom. In my novels, Baldwin suffers not only from the increasing ravages of leprosy, but also from a slow disillusionment with his mother and sister.

And then there is the issue of his relationship to Balian himself. Two historical facts suggest a close relationship. First, Baldwin explicitly consented to Balian’s scandalously advantageous marriage to the dowager queen (Baldwin’s step-mother Maria Comnena), and eight years later, when practically on his death-bed, King Baldwin selected Balian to carry his nephew in a crown-wearing ceremony; it would have been more appropriate for his nephew’s guardian (Edessa) or regent (Tripoli) to carry the young king, so this was very clearly a mark of favor quite exceptional for such an insignificant baron.

Based on these admittedly thin shreds of evidence but driven by the compelling duty of a novelist to produce a good story, I created a close and early friendship between Balian and the future king, based on Balian taking over the role of riding-master. (In addition to knowing that Baldwin rode exceptionally well, there are some indications he was taught to ride by the brother of one of his Syrian Christian doctors.) 

Based on the fact that after coming of age, Baldwin turned to his mother and she not only hated Balian’s wife Maria but also arranged for Maria’s daughter by King Amalric to been taken away from her, I postulated a break between Balian and King Baldwin― which is healed only shortly before the king’s death.  

Baldwin IV is an important character in the first two books of my Jerusalem Trilogy. 

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Knight of Jerusalem - An Excerpt

Today is the last day to buy Knight of Jerusalem for just $2.99. 

 Envoy of Jerusalem, the third book in my Balian d'Ibelin biography will be released later this summer. So, I'll be offering the first two books at a discount for a limited time only. Knight of Jerusalem is on sale now for $2.99. Below is an excerpt from the first chapter. Balian's elder brother, Hugh Baron of Ibelin, has had an accident. Balian is with him.

“I need a priest, Balian,” his brother’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“The nearest Latin priest is at Ibelin. I’ve sent Alexis for a litter—”

“There’s an Orthodox church in the next village,” Hugh cut him off. “Send for him!” That his devout brother would think of turning to an Orthodox priest made it even more certain that Hugh thought he was dying, but Balian still refused to believe it—even though he dutifully sent the squire for the Syrian priest. Balian reached for his brother’s hand; it was so cold it chilled him. “What happened, Hugh? Were you attacked?”

“No. Nothing so dramatic. My stallion shied. I fell badly. Iheard my bones crack. In my neck.”

“Can you move your legs?” Balian asked anxiously.

“No. Now you know why I want the priest.”

Balian crossed himself and started praying silently. “We’ll get you back to Ibelin—” he started to assure his brother, but his brother cut him off.

“No. Just—fetch me—a priest.”

“He’s on his way, Hugh,” Balian assured him, holding his hand. The cold hand flinched slightly and then closed around Balian’s with surprising strength. His brother clamped his teeth together, apparently fighting a wave of pain. As the pain eased somewhat, Hugh started speaking earnestly. “Balian, I’m sorry to leave you like this. I had hoped —” He broke off with a gasp and held his breath until the pain had eased again. “Never forget that our father was a younger son. He came to Outremer with nothing. Nothing but his sword and his courage.”

Balian nodded. He himself had grown up knowing that with two elder brothers, he would inherit nothing. Hugh was still speaking. “He won Ibelin with his service to the King and nothing else.”

Balian nodded again; he was intimately familiar with his father’s history even if he had never known the man. Hugh had fought alongside their father for a decade and had raised Balian on tales of his father’s strength, courage, and wisdom.

“Barry will inherit Ibelin now—since I have no issue.” The dying man’s regret was audible, and Balian’s heart went out to him. Hugh’s mind, however, was on the younger brother he had raised like a son. “You’ll always have a place in Barry’s household—but that will bring you little. Neither honor nor fortune.”

Balian had to agree with that. He was only two years younger than their father’s namesake and in consequence had always lived in his brother’s shadow. Barry was tall, blond, and powerfully built. He cast a big shadow.

“Better to seek honor and wealth elsewhere,” Hugh advised, grasping Balian’s hand firmly for emphasis. Hugh and Barry had become increasingly estranged ever since Barry came of age and took control of Ramla. Ramla had an income four times that of Ibelin—and Hugh, who’d held Ramla for almost ten years as guardian for his younger brother, naturally felt the loss of both income and prestige. It didn’t help that the loss of Ramla had coincided with the “return” of Hugh’s lost bride, Agnes de Courtenay. She had done much to poison the atmosphere between the brothers.

“Jerusalem,” continued the dying man, drawing Balian’s attention back to the present. “Go to Jerusalem.” Balian frowned. He had been at court often enough with his brothers as a child, even attending the coronation and later the marriage of King Amalric, but he had not been to Jerusalem since he was knighted two years earlier and came to live again at Ibelin with Hugh.

“Jerusalem owes me a favor,” Hugh remarked, his contorted face twisting into a kind of smile, “and since I cannot call it in, I want you to. Go to Jerusalem and tell him I sent you on my deathbed to collect the debt.”

Balian suspected this had to do with his sister-in-law, Agnes. Amalric’s succession had been controversial at the time and contingent on him setting aside Agnes de Courtenay. Balian speculated that it was only because Hugh had agreed to take Agnes back that it had been possible for Amalric to persuade her, the Patriarch, and her powerful family to accept the dissolution of her marriage to Amalric. Then again, it didn’t really matter what debt the King owed Hugh, as long as it helped Balian in a court overflowing with young men who had come to seek their fortunes from all over Christendom. Balian wasn’t convinced he had much of a chance of rising among such competition, but he supposed this was as good a place to start as any. “I’ll go,” he assured his brother.

The pain had its grip on the dying man, and he could only clutch his brother’s hand and grind his teeth in answer. When the painreceded, he asked again for the priest.

 

Cast of Characters 12: Baldwin of Ramla and Mirabel

Today I continue my series of short biographies featuring the historical figures who play a role in my biographical novels of Balian d'Ibelin. Today I focus on his older brother, Baldwin, Baron of Ramla and Mirabel.

In the Hollywood film "The Kingdom of Heaven," Balian d'Ibelin has an affair with Princess Sibylla, but historically it was his elder brother Baldwin who courted her -- with the hope of becoming king.

Baldwin was arguably the more colorful and (initially at least) more important character during the brothers' lifetime. He reached for a crown but ended up renouncing all his honors and titles. He abandoned his wife and children to disappear from the pages of history, yet the daughter of the wife he divorced became a queen and founder of a dynasty that lasted more than 300 years.

So who and what sort of man was Baldwin, Third Baron of Ibelin?

As with all the early Ibelins, we don’t know the date of his birth, only that it was after his father received the lordship of Ibelin and married Helvis of Ramla in the mid-1140s. Baldwin d’Ibelin himself married Richildis, the sister of a local baron (but not an heiress), in 1156, but this still gives us little indication of his age since marriage alliances were often made when both parties were still children. However, it is certain that Baldwin inherited the paternal estate of Ibelin when his elder brother Hugh died childless about 1171. He also inherited the maternal estate of the dual barony of Ramla and Mirabel at this time if not before. Thus by 1172, when he was probably in his mid-twenties, Baldwin of Ramla (as he was best known to his contemporaries) held the three baronies of Ibelin, Ramla and Mirabel.  This made Baldwin of Ramla an important baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, albeit in the second tier.

This was because all three of Baldwin’s baronies were fiefs of the County of Jaffa and Ascalon, making him a “rear baron” or vassal of a vassal rather than a crown vassal. However, at the time Baldwin assumed control of his lands, the Count of Jaffa and Ascalon had become King of Jerusalem, holding the County and Kingdom in personal union. This meant that Baldwin was de facto, but not de jure, a vassal of the crown. He owed 50 knights to the army of Jerusalem, a number that is respectable but only half of what Galilee, Sidon or Caesarea owed.

Baldwin first emerges as someone of note at the Battle of Montgisard, fought only a few miles from Ramla and Ibelin both. According to contemporary sources, he and his younger brother Balian played an important role in this decisive victory over Salah ad-Din and the near complete destruction of the Saracen army.

Shortly afterwards, his younger brother Balian married the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, Maria Comnena, and at about this time Baldwin bestowed the smallest of his baronies (Ibelin) on him. The move would appear to have been motivated by the need to make the younger Ibelin a more suitable match for the wealthy, royal widow. How willingly Baldwin gave up his paternal inheritance is not known, but as the alliance was very much in the interests of the Ibelin family as a whole, Baldwin may not have needed much persuasion.

What is clear is that Baldwin’s ambitions were increasing. Inspired (or provoked) by his brother’s brilliant match, Baldwin set aside the mother of his two daughters to make way for a more favorable marriage. He to wife a widowed heiress, Elizabeth Gotman, but she died in 1179. This freed Baldwin to look even higher. By this time king’s eldest sister, Sibylla, was a young widow with an infant son. She was also the heir apparent to the throne of Jerusalem. While the High Court of Jerusalem sent to France for a suitable husband, Baldwin courted Princess Sibylla directly.

According to the contemporary chronicle written by “Ernoul,” a client of the Ibelin family, Princess Sibylla was not disinclined to his suit. Unfortunately for Baldwin, however, he had the misfortune to be taken captive by the Saracens in the Battle on the Litani in June 1179. The fact that he was seen as a prospective King of Jerusalem is suggested by the outrageous ransom Salah ad-Din demanded for his release: 200,000 gold bezants, or more than had been paid for a crowned and ruling king (Baldwin II) in 1123. There is no way the prosperous but relatively small baronies of Ramla and Mirabel could have raised this enormous sum; Salah ad-Din could only have assumed that the entire kingdom would raise his ransom, as was customary for a captive king.

Furthermore, when Baldwin was released to collect his ransom, he turned to the Byzantine Emperor — and was successful. The fact that the Byzantine Emperor was the great-uncle of his brother’s wife does not explain such generosity. The fact that the Byzantine Emperor believed Baldwin was destined to be the next King of Jerusalem might.

The most convincing evidence for Baldwin’s aspirations to throne of Jerusalem via a marriage with Sibylla, however, is provided by the most reliable of all contemporary sources, William Archbishop of Tyre. The Archbishop was at this time also the chancellor of the kingdom and so a veritable “insider” without any bias in favor of the Ibelins. He records that shortly before Easter 1180 King Baldwin received news that Baldwin of Ramla was approaching Jerusalem in company with the Prince of Antioch and the Count of Tripoli, all accompanied by large retinues.  According to Tyre, the King (who was suffering from leprosy) feared that the two men ruling the other crusader states (the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli) had come to depose him by raising up Baldwin of Ramla in his place via a marriage to his sister Sibylla. As I have pointed out elsewhere, I find it unlikely that Tripoli was intent upon a coup d’etat at this point, but the fact that Tyre mentions the possibility of a marriage between Sibylla and Baldwin of Ramla underlines the fact that rumors to this effect were in circulation.

Ramla’s hopes were dashed by Sibylla’s hasty marriage to an adventurer from the west, Guy de Lusignan. Whether she had been seduced by Lusignan or forced into a hasty and demeaning marriage by her frightened brother is unimportant. Ramla’s hopes of gaining a crown through marriage to the heir were for the time being crushed. Ramla had every reason to be disappointed (not to say outraged) by these developments, particularly because Guy was in no way his equal in terms of status or experience. (Guy was a landless younger son and as a newcomer to the Holy Land had absolutely no experience in fighting the Saracens.) Ramla’s feelings would have been further complicated by the fact that Guy was the younger brother of his own son-in-law; Baldwin’s eldest daughter Eschiva had been married sometime prior to 1180 to Aimery de Lusignan. To add insult to injury, however, King Baldwin IV raised his new brother-in-law Guy to Count of Jaffa and Ascalon (to make him worthy of Princess Sibylla). That effectively demoted Baldwin from tenant-in-chief to “rear vassal” — a man holding a fief from a tenant-in-chief rather than the crown directly.  

There can be little doubt that this rankled and, indeed, embittered the proud Baldwin of Ramla, but it did not make him a rebel. He dutifully mustered with his knights when called upon to do so by King Baldwin IV on at least of three occasions between 1180 and Baldwin’s death in 1185. Indeed, he played a prominent role (with his brother Balian) in defeating the Saracen forces attempting to take the springs at Tubanie in 1183.  Notably, this action at the springs of Tubanie were in support of his son-in-law, the elder brother of his hated rival Guy de Lusignan, suggesting that Ramla may have retained good relations with his son-in-law despite his hostility of Guy. In any case, as long as King Baldwin IV was king, Ramla appears to have accepted his fate, even marrying again, this time Maria of Beirut.

Baldwin IV was succeeded by his nephew, Sibylla’s son by her first marriage, who ruled as Baldwin V. Since he was still a child of eight when he came to the throne, however, the welfare of the kingdom was placed in the hands of a regent, the Count of Tripoli. As we have seen, Baldwin was on good terms with Tripoli, and showed no signs of rebelliousness. The elevation of his hated rival, Guy de Lusignan, to King of Jerusalem in a coup d’etat, on the other hand, was too much.

I have described the constitutional crisis of 1186 elsewhere and will not go into the details here. Significant for this article is that two barons initially refused to do homage to Guy on the grounds that he was not legally king.  Tripoli withdrew to his own lands and made a separate peace with Salah ad-Din (which he later abrogated before eventually doing homage).  Ramla took the even more dramatic and unusual step of renouncing all his lands and titles in favor of his infant son! 

According to Ernoul, he did this is a public confrontation at Acre before the whole High Court. In whatever form, it was a dramatic and unprecedented act. Peter Edbury, author of a detailed biography of Baldwin’s great nephew, (John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Boydell Press, 1997) notes: “It was an extraordinary thing to do. It meant giving up his inheritance, jeopardizing the future of his heirs and abdicating the political and social standing that he, the senior member of his family, and his father and elder brother before him had nurtured for the past three quarters of a century.” (p. 12.)

A man who took such a dramatic step was clearly a man of strong emotions. His hatred and resentment of Guy de Lusignan must have been enormous. More baffling, however, is that his outraged pride was more important to him than the substance of power and wealth. Equally notable, if less obvious is that he was a singularly callous husband and father.  He’d discarded the mother of his two daughters for no better reason than a better marriage, and now he abandoned his latest wife and only son to the dubious mercy of Guy de Lusignan. To be sure, he claimed he was leaving his wife and son in the care of his younger brother Balian, but this was legally dubious. A vassal who refuses homage usually forfeits his fief to his overlord, in this case to none other than Guy de Lusignan as both Count of Jaffa and King of Jerusalem. It is a forgotten measure of Lusignan’s chivalry (or appreciation of his very precarious situation) that he took no action to seize Ramla and Mirabel from Balian d’Ibelin, but rather allowed him to control both until Hattin obliterated all the baronies of the kingdom.

Ironically, it was the daughter of Baldwin’s discarded wife Richildis who was to wear a crown. Seven years after Baldwin had abandoned a second wife and disappeared from history, Baldwin’s son-in-law, Aimery de Lusginan, became Lord of Cyprus. Aimery then offered to place Cyprus under the Holy Roman Empire in exchange for a crown. Roughly ten years after Baldwin of Ramla had turned his back on the Kingdom of Jerusalem, his daughter Eschiva was crowned Queen of Cyprus. For the next three hundred years, the Latin Kingdom of Cyprus was ruled by her descendants.

My three-part biographical novel is dedicated to bringing Balian, his age and society "back to life."

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