The heirs of the leper king

Politics and the Crown in the Kingdom of Jerusalem 1099–1187

“…His defeat of Saladin at Montgisard in 1177, for example, has been held up as a model of kingly conduct, and the general consensus on Baldwin has been that he did what he could to defend the kingdom against an increasing military threat from Saladin while at the same time trying to preserve unity among a baronial aristocracy that had grown more powerful than in previous generations. 24 Notwithstanding the physical weakness brought about by his worsening medical condition, Baldwin's policy was, when possible, one of aggression towards Saladin; for example, in 1183, after having been forced to give up personal rule in favour of his brother-in-law Guy of Lusignan, he sacked Guy from the regency in consequence of what he saw as dithering in the face of Saladin's attempted invasion of the kingdom. The reigns of Baldwin IV (1174-85), of his nephew Baldwin V (1185) and his sister and brother-in-law Guy and Sybil from 1186 onward are the most vivid in the kingdom's history, largely because of the immediacy of the contemporary sources.…”

“…Rather than factionalism, the politics of the 1170s and 1180s should be understood as a struggle for succession to the throne between the female relatives of the king (the Courtenays) and the male (Raymond of Tripoli, who was the grandson of Baldwin II). 31 A focus on the political personalities of the kingdom also obscures the legal and constitutional developments that were taking place. The Assise sur la ligece, promulgated in the 1170s, proved to have more lasting effect than Amalric I can have foreseen.…”