The Byzantine Brides
The Beautiful Queen Theodora
Having pushed his mother from centre stage, Baldwin III embarked on an ambitious policy to expand his kingdom. His first target was the last remaining Muslim enclave on the coast of the Levant, Ascalon. Baldwin’s army laid siege to Ascalon for eight months, accepting its surrender in August 1153. They spared the population, who were allowed to withdraw with their portable possessions. Yet Baldwin suffered two setbacks when he lost the border fortress of Ba’albek to the Sultan Nur al-Din in 1155 and when the latter surprised his field army near Jacob’s Ford in 1157. The latter skirmish resulted in the capture of a number of Frankish noblemen and several Templar officers.
Possibly these defeats, or genuine horror at the rapacious behaviour of the new Prince of Antioch, Reynaud de Châtillon, led Baldwin to make overtures to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenus I. Baldwin sought greater cooperation between the two Christian states in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the powerful Comnenus Emperor Manuel I was receptive. For the first time since the Byzantine Emperor had failed to aid the crusaders in the liberation of Antioch, an era of cooperation between Constantinople and Jerusalem dawned. This was symbolised and sanctified by the marriage of Baldwin III, now 27 years old, to a niece of Manuel I, Theodora Comnena. In addition, Manuel married Maria, the daughter of the late Prince of Antioch, Raymond of Poitiers.
Theodora departed Constantinople in the summer of 1158 and arrived with a dowry of 100,000 gold pieces and an additional 24,000 gold byzants to defray the costs of her entourage and wardrobe. Although she was only 12 years old, she was reputedly a great beauty. Since Baldwin III was 28, he evidently felt he had time to wait for her to grow up before getting down to the business of founding a dynasty. Meanwhile, Manuel I sent an army to help Baldwin fight Sultan Nur ad-Din. In return, Baldwin pledged to bring the current Prince of Antioch (the infamous Reynaud de Châtillon) to heel and induce him to acknowledge Byzantine suzerainty over Antioch. Châtillon indeed submitted to the emperor, and shortly afterwards he was captured by Nur ad-Din and disappeared into captivity for the next fifteen years.
Alongside these military and diplomatic undertakings, Baldwin presided over a period of prosperity and massive public building. In 1149, the modernised and expanded church of the Holy Sepulchre was re-consecrated. In addition, a royal palace was built south of the Tower of David and numerous other projects across the kingdom were undertaken, such as the construction of a huge church on the site of the Annunciation. The Kingdom of Jerusalem enjoyed a period of agricultural, industrial and trade expansion. Irrigation projects enabled the cultivation of marginalised land. Roads connected the more remote rural areas to markets. Sugar plantations and factories were multiplying across the fertile plains, and industries such as glass and silk manufacturing were taking root and flourishing.
Yet Baldwin had made one serious miscalculation; he did not have as much time as he had assumed. In early 1163, while visiting Antioch, he suddenly became ill. Despite allegations of poison, there was no plausible candidate for the assassin nor motive for an assassination; certainly, no one attempted to exploit the situation. Knowing he was dying, Baldwin asked to be carried back to Jerusalem but did not make it. He died in Beirut on 10 February. He was just 33 years old, and his 18-year-old bride had not yet given him an heir.
Baldwin’s most obvious successor was his younger brother Amalric, Count of Jaffa. Amalric was in the prime of life at 26 and was a vigorous and competent fighting man, just what the High Court wanted for its king. Amalric would have been proclaimed king immediately if Jerusalem had been a traditional hereditary monarchy. But Jerusalem’s kings were elected by the High Court, and the High Court had a problem with Amalric, or rather, his wife.
Amalric was married to Agnes de Courtenay, the daughter of Joscelyn II of Edessa, the Count who had lost the county to the Muslims in 1146 and died in a Saracen prison six years later. Agnes’ brother still titled himself ‘Count of Edessa’, but the county no longer existed, making the title nominal and its holder impoverished. Agnes had been married to Reynald of Marash, who had been killed in battle in 1149. She was next betrothed to Hugh d’Ibelin, but the marriage had not been celebrated before he fell into Saracen hands. While he was still trying to raise his ransom, Agnes married Hugh’s feudal lord, the Count of Jaffa, Amalric of Jerusalem.
Later chronicles concocted a story of abduction that is not mentioned in any serious history. Nor is there any evidence of bad blood between Hugh and Amalric, which surely would have been the case had Hugh’s intended bride been taken from him by force. A far more reasonable explanation of what happened is that Agnes preferred a wealthy and present bridegroom over one in captivity, who would soon be impoverished by ransom payments. Amalric may even have agreed to contribute to that ransom to appease any anger on Hugh’s part at the loss of his bride.
In any case, by the time of Baldwin III’s death, Agnes was Amalric’s wife and the mother of his two children, Sibylla (then aged 3 or 4) and Baldwin (who was not yet 2). The High Court flatly refused to recognise Amalric as king unless he set Agnes aside. This was an astonishing demand, given that Amalric was otherwise an ideal candidate and unquestionably the closest legitimate relative of the dead king. The fact that the High Court prevailed conclusively demonstrates its power at this juncture and provides irrefutable evidence that it was not a mere rubber stamp for hereditary succession.
What is unclear, however, are the reasons for the court’s objection to Agnes. Officially, it was discovered that Amalric and Agnes were related within the prohibited degrees. This is not credible as many marriages of more closely related couples were recognised, provided they obtained a dispensation from the pope or his representative. Historians speculate that the lords of Jerusalem feared Agnes would favour her impoverished relatives and clients from Edessa over the locals. Yet, the Edessans had already been welcomed to the Court of Jerusalem on at least two previous occasions. Others suggested that the lords of Jerusalem feared a powerful woman. This is equally ridiculous, given how loyal these very lords had been to Melisende. Accounts bitterly hostile to Agnes claim she had a sullied reputation and was not deemed virtuous enough to wear the crown of Jerusalem, which sounds like the usual slander trotted out to discredit any inconvenient woman. The most likely explanation is that, in canonical law, betrothals were treated as the equivalent of marriage. If so, Agnes’ relationship with Amalric was bigamous due to her pre-contract with Hugh d’Ibelin, which a papal dispensation could not rectify. This later interpretation appears corroborated by the fact that Agnes was said to ‘return’ to Hugh after Amalric set her aside. The fact that Baldwin I’s marriage with Adelaide of Sicily had also been dissolved because of bigamy set a precedent that was probably followed here.
Strikingly, Amalric showed neither scruples nor reluctance about choosing the crown over his wife. He set Agnes aside in less than a week and was crowned king only eight days after his brother’s death. The only concession he wrung from the High Court was that his two children by Agnes be deemed legitimate. They were promptly removed from their mother’s keeping and provided with nurses and tutors selected by the crown.
Meanwhile, the dowager Queen Theodora retired to Acre, which had been ceded to her as a very generous dower. Acre was the busiest port in the entire kingdom, although not yet as important as it would be in the following century. (By the mid-thirteenth century, contemporary sources claimed that the taxes generated in Acre alone exceeded the royal income of all of England.) In short, 18-year-old Theodora did not lack money. Furthermore, she was not obligated to marry and could rule in her domain indefinitely. In fact, it suited the crown better if she did not remarry since marriage would have put the military and material resources of Acre into the hands of her husband. For this reason, Theodora needed the king’s permission to remarry since the crown reserved the right to veto any marriage that would transform the prospective bridegroom into one of the most powerful lords of the kingdom.
For four years, Theodora appears to have been content, but in 1166, she was visited in Acre by an uncle, Andronicus Comnenus, who has been described as an adventurer. Allegedly, ‘[h]is early life had been a series of political and amorous scandals, but in 1166, the emperor had appointed him governor of Cilicia’.21 His nature had not, however, fundamentally changed, and he soon incurred imperial wrath by seducing Princess Philippa of Antioch, Manuel I’s sister-in-law. Fleeing Antioch, Andronicus visited Acre, where he promptly seduced Theodora. The emperor decided it was time to teach Andronicus a lesson, so he ordered his agents to seize and blind Andronicus.
Somehow, Theodora got wind of the emperor’s plans and warned Andronicus. He, in turn, persuaded her to elope with him to Damascus. The arrival of the emperor of Constantinople’s cousin in the company of the dowager queen of Jerusalem was a delight to the entire Islamic world. They now had a source of endless gossip and a new justification for disparaging, ridiculing and belittling the morals of Christian women. But there was no going back. Andronicus and Theodora had burned their bridges. In Damascus, Theodora gave birth to a son, Alexis, and a daughter Irene, but she died there before reaching the age of 28 in 1182.
Aside from some embarrassment, her elopement had no negative consequences for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Acre and its rich revenues simply reverted to the crown.
The Wise Queen Maria
When King Amalric ascended the throne in 1163, he already had two small children and was in no particular hurry to remarry. It was three years before Amalric began negotiations with Constantinople for a new bride. At the time he was actively pursuing a policy of cooperation with the Byzantines in an effort to expand the influence and control of both Christian states into Egypt. Jerusalem’s Egyptian policy, conceived and carried out in alliance with Muslim factions inside Egypt, was complex and fluctuating; a detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this work.22 Suffice it to say that Amalric’s ambitions in Egypt were strictly geopolitical, without religious, racial or ideological overtones. Furthermore, in five incursions into Egypt, Amalric acted with the passive or active support of Constantinople. It is against this background that his second marriage must be considered.
After two years at the Imperial Court, Amalric’s ambassadors returned to Jerusalem with a bride selected in consultation with Emperor Manuel I. The girl chosen (for reasons we know not) was Maria Comnena, the granddaughter of Emperor Manuel’s brother, John the Protasebastos. Since no account refers to her beauty, historians generally assume she was not particularly attractive – although it is difficult to picture ambassadors spending two years selecting an unattractive bride for their king. There is also no reference to her age but given Theodora’s age at the time of her marriage to Baldwin III and considering that Maria came from the next generation down, she was probably most likely also 12, the minimum age for consent.
In August 1167, Maria arrived in Tyre in grand style, accompanied by a sizeable imperial entourage and was met with due pomp by the king of Jerusalem. She was crowned and anointed queen prior to her marriage, both ceremonies taking place in Tyre and presided over by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Unsurprisingly for a child, there is no evidence that Maria exercised exceptional influence in the kingdom during her early years as queen-consort.
However, it was after his marriage to Maria that Amalric undertook a trip to Constantinople in which Byzantine sources allege he paid homage to the emperor as his liege. It was also during Maria’s tenure as queen-consort that the magnificent Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was completed. Distinctive elements of the Byzantine style are particularly noticeable in this architectural monument, believed to have been built partly by craftsmen from Constantinople. Lastly, Maria gave birth to one infant girl who died young and to a second daughter in 1172, Isabella, who survived. Throughout Amalric’s reign, the Kingdom of Jerusalem enjoyed widespread economic prosperity and booming trade.
Then, unexpectedly, Amalric died of dysentery while returning from an unsuccessful siege against the city of Banyas. It was 1174, and he was only 38 years old. Yet again, the High Court had to decide the succession. It had two possible candidates: Amalric’s 13-year-old son Baldwin, from his first marriage to Agnes, or his 2-year-old daughter Isabella by Maria. Baldwin’s legitimacy was besmirched by the annulment of his parent’s wedding, and his candidacy was further weakened by the fact that he was suffering from an illness that proved to be leprosy. Isabella’s bloodlines were impeccable, and her ties to Constantinople in this period were particularly valuable. Yet, at age 2, ten years would pass before she could marry and give Jerusalem a king-consort capable of leading the feudal armies. In the meantime, a foreign princess (Maria Comnena) would have been regent. That did not sit well with the barons of Jerusalem, so they decided to take their chances with Baldwin. For the two years until Baldwin reached maturity at 15, his nearest male relative, the Count of Tripoli (rather than his disgraced mother Agnes), was named his regent. Not one source suggests that Maria, later so scurrilously accused of ‘intrigue’, made any effort to influence much less contravene the High Court’s decision.
At 19, Maria retired to her dower, the powerful barony of Nablus. Note that Nablus had been Melisende’s dower as well. It was located on the border with the Sultanate of Damascus and owed eighty-five knights to the feudal levee. As such, it was one of the most critical baronies in the realm, more powerful than, for example, Transjordan or Acre, although it was less wealthy than the latter. Maria’s conditions of retirement were identical to Theodora’s. No one could compel her to marry; if she did not, she commanded the resources and men of Nablus unimpeded. If she wished to remarry, however, she would need the king’s consent.
Notably, during the Count of Flanders’ sojourn in the Holy Land in 1177, he travelled to Nablus to seek out the dowager queen of Jerusalem. The reasons for this visit are obscure, yet appear connected to the impending campaign against Egypt, then planned by Baldwin IV. Flanders probably sought Maria Comnena’s opinion about probable Byzantine reactions to his demands and intentions regarding that expedition. The fact that he would seek out the dowager queen strongly suggests that Maria was viewed as capable of providing advice and insight. This indicates she was perceived as intelligent and reasonable.
Her choice of a second husband bears out such an assessment. Rather than eloping with a man old enough to be her father and ending her days as a virtual prisoner in Damascus as her cousin Theodora had, Maria selected the highly respected younger brother of one of Jerusalem’s leading barons, Balian d’Ibelin. She did so with the king’s explicit consent at roughly the same time as Baldwin IV’s spectacular victory over Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard in November 1177. The king’s consent may have been given as a reward for Ibelin’s exceptional contribution to that victory. Certainly, this marriage elevated the younger Ibelin to a position of significant power since he thereby gained control of the revenues and knights of Nablus.23 Maria’s choice proved wise, and she continued to play an indirect role in the fate of the kingdom almost until she died in 1217. (Details are provided below and in the full biography of Maria.)
The Queen Mother: Agnes de Courtenay
When Baldwin IV ascended the throne, he had already lost the use of his right arm. Although he could ride extraordinarily well and bore no marks of disfigurement at that time, it soon became apparent he was suffering from leprosy. The Latin East followed the Byzantine tradition of treating leprosy not as a sign of sin but as an indication of divine grace. It was called the ‘Holy Disease’, and legends abounded about Christ taking the form of a leper. Thus, Baldwin IV was not isolated or ostracised; he ruled with his subjects’ full consent – and with the active and undivided support of his vassals – for as long as he was physically able.
However, it was equally clear that he could not marry and beget heirs of his body. Thus, his full sister Sibylla and half-sister Isabella became his heirs apparent, and finding suitable husbands for them became one of the High Court’s primary concerns. It was the issue of succession, not support for Baldwin IV himself, which ultimately divided and weakened the kingdom.
Meanwhile, in the absence of a queen consort, Baldwin’s mother, Agnes de Courtenay, became the first lady of the land. One can well imagine Agnes’ satisfaction in returning to the court. She had been discarded by her husband, denied a crown and separated from her two children thirteen years earlier. Now she was back with a vengeance.
Hostile chronicles allege scandalous sexual behaviour to the queen mother. She was accused of carrying on affairs with both Heraclius, the Archbishop of Caesarea and with the French adventurer Aimery de Lusignan, the younger son of Hugh VIII, Lord de la Marche. While such allegations are probably fabricated, she was married four times (Reynald de Marash, Amalric of Jerusalem, Hugh d’Ibelin and Reynald de Sidon) and never demonstrated any inclination towards modesty, chastity or piety.
A more serious criticism of Agnes is that she misused her influence on her son for personal and dynastic enrichment rather than the benefit of the kingdom, something that will be discussed in more detail in the chapter on political power. Suffice it to say that had Baldwin IV favoured other advisors over his mother, he might have left his kingdom in competent hands at his death. Instead, on Agnes’ advice, he allowed his sister Sibylla to marry the unpopular and incompetent Guy de Lusignan. As a result, his significant accomplishments have been overshadowed by the collapse of his kingdom little more than two years after his death.
Yet to Baldwin’s great credit, despite the ravages of leprosy and the rise of a powerful opponent in the form of Saladin, he was a surprisingly strong king. Saladin had seized power first in Cairo and then in Damascus the same year King Amalric died. Saladin then spent years fighting his Muslim rivals in Aleppo and Mosul while beating the drum of jihad either from conviction or, as a usurper and a Kurd, to rally his disgruntled and divided subjects around him.
If one includes the two sieges of Kerak (1183 and 1184) and the siege of Beirut (1182), Saladin invaded the Kingdom of Jerusalem no less than six times during Baldwin IV’s reign. All his incursions were effectively repelled. Indeed, the so-called ‘Leper King’ Baldwin IV dramatically destroyed Saladin’s army in 1177 at the Battle of Montgisard, soundly defeated the sultan’s army at the Battle of Le Fobelet in 1182, broke the three sieges mentioned earlier and suffered only two significant setbacks. The first was at the Battle on the Litani/Marj Ayun (1179), where he allowed his army to become dispersed following the rout of Saladin’s advance guard. The second, in the same year, was the destruction of a new castle Baldwin IV had attempted to build on disputed border lands near Jacob’s Ford.
Baldwin commanded his forces from horseback in the early years of his reign, starting with raids into Saracen territory shortly after obtaining his majority in 1176, again at Montgisard in 1177, and fatefully at Marj Ayun in 1179, where he was unhorsed and unable to remount because, by then, the paralysis had spread to both arms. After that, however, his physical condition deteriorated. He was forced to command his armies from a litter at Le Fobelet in 1182, and in the following year, he temporarily surrendered command of his army to his brother-in-law Guy de Lusignan. The latter’s performance was so disastrous that Baldwin dismissed him and resumed the burden of governance and command. He had himself dragged in a litter to the edge of the Dead Sea to lift Saladin’s siege of Kerak, and the sultan retreated at the mere approach of the ‘Leper King’.
In the last year of his life and reign, Baldwin tried frantically to reverse the disastrous decision he had made by allowing his sister Sibylla to marry Guy de Lusignan. He sought a pretext to prevent Lusignan’s ascension to the throne of Jerusalem. Baldwin first crowned his nephew, Sibylla’s son by her first husband William de Montferrat, co-king as Baldwin V and the barons swore oaths of fealty to the little boy. He next asked the Church to find grounds for the annulment of Sibylla’s marriage to Guy. When that failed due to Sibylla’s intransigence and clerical reluctance, Baldwin IV and the High Court took the more radical step of offering the crown of Jerusalem to a completely new dynasty. A delegation composed of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Masters of both the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller offered the keys to the Tower of David (symbol of secular power) and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (sacred power) to the Holy Roman Emperor, the king of France and the king of England, one after another. Yet none of these monarchs were willing to abdicate their power in the West for the honour of ruling in the Holy Land. Nor did they send their sons or other candidates to the East. The delegation returned only with promises of funds and men, not a new king.
In the end, Baldwin could do no more than make his barons swear that if Baldwin V died before he could sire an heir, the barons would seek the advice of the Holy Roman Emperor, the kings of England and France and the pope in deciding who should succeed Baldwin V. It was an unsatisfactory solution. Given the acute threat posed by Saladin’s repeated aggression, Jerusalem needed a vigorous and competent king, not a lengthy and politically fraught appeal to Western powers with conflicting interests and little understanding of the situation in Outremer. Unfortunately, Baldwin IV could achieve no more.
In April 1185, Baldwin IV died, leaving his 8-year-old co-king Baldwin V the sole ruler of Jerusalem. The able and experienced Raymond of Tripoli was elected by the High Court to assume the duties of regent, just as he had for Baldwin IV eleven years earlier. Tripoli’s first act as regent was to sign a four-year truce with Saladin to give the kingdom breathing space and his young king time to grow up. But Baldwin V was not well. He died sixteen months later, in August 1186. Baldwin IV’s worst nightmare was about to come true.
Jerusalem’s Most Disastrous Queen: Sibylla
By the rules of primogeniture, Baldwin V’s successor was his mother, Princess Sibylla. However, the Kingdom of Jerusalem did not strictly follow the laws of primogeniture, instead endowing the High Court with the authority to select a suitable successor to a dead monarch from various candidates. In this case, the barons had already sworn to seek the advice of the pope, the Holy Roman Emperor and the kings of England and France before crowning a successor.
