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00:00:06
The man known to history as King Baldwin IV
of Jerusalem was born at some point in the00:00:13
early summer of 1161.00:00:17
The exact date of his birth is not known,
nor is the location, though it is usually00:00:23
assumed that it was in the city of Jerusalem.00:00:28
His father was Amalric, Count of Jaffa and
Ascalon.00:00:33
As count he was one of the foremost lords
of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, hardly surprising00:00:39
given that he was a member of the royal family
and his brother was King Baldwin III of Jerusalem.00:00:47
The young Baldwin was named after his uncle,
the king, who also stood as godfather for00:00:53
the new-born when he was baptised in 1161.00:00:56
Baldwin, though, would never know the monarch
for whom he was named.00:01:02
In February 1163 Baldwin III died, most likely
from complications owing to dysentery, though00:01:11
suspicions arose that he was poisoned.00:01:15
Childless at just 33 years of age, his death
paved the way for his brother Amalric to succeed00:01:22
as King of Jerusalem.00:01:25
With this, Baldwin, who was still shy of his
second birthday, became the heir to the Kingdom00:01:31
of Jerusalem.00:01:32
Baldwin’s mother was Agnes of Courtenay,
a scion of the House of Courtenay which had00:01:39
branches back in Western Europe and in the
Holy Land, her father Joscelin having been00:01:45
Count of Edessa.00:01:47
She was also closely related to the royal
line of Jerusalem.00:01:52
She and Amalric had one other child beyond
Baldwin, a daughter named Sibylla who was00:02:00
born either in 1158 or 1159 and so was Baldwin’s
older sister.00:02:08
Sibylla would play a major role in Baldwin’s
life.00:02:12
His mother, though, would never be Queen of
Jerusalem.00:02:16
At the time of the death of Baldwin III in
the spring of 1163, as Amalric was preparing00:02:23
to succeed his brother, the religious authorities
of Jerusalem and other bishoprics of the Crusader00:02:30
States had objected to Agnes becoming queen,
claiming that she and Amalric were too closely00:02:37
related for their marriage back in 1157 to
have been given church approval.00:02:43
The pair were only related in the fourth degree,
a hardly unusual circumstance in the marriage00:02:50
of royals and nobles in medieval times, and
so the objection to Agnes becoming queen must00:02:56
have been the result of some unclear political
intrigue.00:03:01
Whatever the precise reasons were, Amalric
caved to the church’s demands.00:03:07
He declared his marriage to Agnes void and
became king, remarrying in 1167 to Maria Komnene,00:03:15
a grandniece of the Byzantine emperor, Manuel
I.00:03:21
This second marriage would result in just
one daughter and so Baldwin remained the undisputed00:03:28
heir to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.00:03:30
Meanwhile, even though he had been forced
to renounce her in 1163, Agnes remained a00:03:37
powerful figure at the royal court in Jerusalem
throughout the 1160s, 1170s and early 1180s00:03:46
during Baldwin’s later reign.00:03:50
Baldwin was born in the Crusader States of
the Holy Land.00:03:54
These had only existed for just over a half
a century.00:03:58
Back in the early days of Christianity in
late antiquity, the Eastern Mediterranean00:04:04
had been the heartland of the Christian church,
but in the middle of the seventh century the00:04:10
Levant, parts of Asia Minor and west into
North Africa had all been conquered by the00:04:17
Arabs and people there converted to Islam
for the most part in the seventh and eighth00:04:23
centuries.00:04:24
The Arab Muslims had been relatively tolerant
of Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem over00:04:30
the centuries, but the Turks who conquered
large parts of the region in the eleventh00:04:36
century were less so.00:04:39
It was in response to the expansion of Turkish
power in the second half of the eleventh century00:04:45
that the First Crusade was preached by Pope
Urban II in Western Europe in 1095.00:04:53
Tens of thousands took the cross and headed
east.00:04:57
Between 1097 and 1099 they succeeded in conquering
most of the Levant, finally entering Jerusalem00:05:06
in July 1099.00:05:09
With this, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County
of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch and00:05:15
the County of Edessa, were set up in the Holy
Land as Christian Crusader states.00:05:22
The most senior of these were the rulers of
the Kingdom of Jerusalem.00:05:27
The first of these was Godfrey of Bouillon,
one of the leaders of the First Crusade, who00:05:33
subsequently was acclaimed as King Godfrey
I of Jerusalem after the capture of the holy00:05:39
city in 1099.00:05:42
The Crusader region was referred to back in
Western Christendom over the next two centuries00:05:48
as Outremer, meaning ‘Overseas’, though
many historians today refer to the region00:05:55
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as
either the Crusader States or the Latin East,00:06:02
or even as the Frankish kingdoms in recognition
that many of the main Crusader lords came00:06:09
from what had been the Kingdom of the Franks
back in Western Europe.00:06:14
Indeed, the Muslims of the Levant came to
refer to them collectively as ‘the Franks’.00:06:22
In the early twelfth century the Crusader
States began to emerge as settled polities,00:06:29
with Italian merchants operating out of ports
such as Acre and connecting it with Western00:06:35
Christendom, with several orders of religious
knights such as the Knights Templar and the00:06:40
Knights Hospitallers emerging as powerful
orders of holy warriors.00:06:46
But the Muslim response was also quick in
coming.00:06:51
Muslim lords such as Imad al-Din, better known
as Zengi, and Nur ad-Din, operating out of00:07:00
Syria, Egypt and northern Mesopotamia, began
battling extensively with the Crusader states00:07:07
from the 1120s onwards.00:07:10
In 1144 the city of Edessa fell to the Muslims,
leading to a new crusade being preached back00:07:17
in Europe.00:07:19
The Second Crusade had been more extensive
than the First Crusade, bringing both King00:07:24
Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of
Germany to the Holy Land with tens of thousands00:07:31
of warriors.00:07:33
It was a sign of the stiff resistance which
the Christians now faced in the Levant that00:07:38
this Second Crusade was far less successful
than the First, with little new land brought00:07:45
under the control of the Crusader States,
though after the Second Crusade, in 1153,00:07:53
King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, young Baldwin’s
uncle, had succeeded in seizing Ascalon, one00:08:00
of the few urban centres in the Levant which
the Fatimid rulers of Egypt had managed to00:08:06
retain control of since the First Crusade.00:08:09
But when his brother, Baldwin’s father Almaric,
succeeded him in 1163, after Baldwin III died00:08:18
childless, he would face a major threat in
the shape of Nur ad-Din.00:08:24
This was the context in which Baldwin IV’s
life and reign would play out.00:08:32
Before exploring the life of Baldwin, it is00:08:35
worth pausing to briefly consider the nature
of the historical sources which are available00:08:41
for the Crusader Sates at this time.00:08:44
In general the High Middle Ages are a period
for which there is nothing like the abundant00:08:50
amount of bureaucratic, governmental and judicial
records which survive for more modern times,00:08:58
or even extensive correspondence.00:09:01
This is doubly the case for the Crusader states
of the Holy Land where what records were produced00:09:08
in the twelfth century were generally lost
and destroyed as the Crusader states collapsed00:09:14
in the course of the thirteenth century.00:09:18
Owing to this we are especially reliant on
a number of chronicles written by contemporary00:09:24
historians.00:09:25
Two of these were written by figures that
were present in Outremer during Baldwin’s00:09:31
times and who were eye-witnesses to much of
the events they describe.00:09:36
The Chronicle of William of Tyre, the archbishop
of Tyre between 1175 and his death in 1186,00:09:44
is especially valuable as William was a tutor
to Baldwin in his youth, played a role in00:09:51
diagnosing the future king with leprosy in
his childhood years and was central to the00:09:56
history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem throughout
Baldwin’s reign.00:10:01
Another valuable contemporary source is the
Chronicle of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer.00:10:09
This was written by Ernoul, a squire of Balian
of Ibelin, a Crusader lord of the 1170s and00:10:17
1180s.00:10:19
Ernoul’s Chronicle provides a history of
the Crusader states from 1100 to 1228 and00:10:26
is a valuable source for Baldwin’s life
from an individual who was a teenager there00:10:32
in the early 1180s.00:10:35
While these are the two most important sources
for Baldwin’s life, there are others which00:10:41
provide some ancillary details, notably a
number of Latin chronicles written by figures00:10:48
in Western Europe who related the news that
arrived in England, France and other regions00:10:54
from the Holy Land during Baldwin’s reign,
while the Libellus de Expugnatione Terrae00:11:01
Sanctae per Saladinum, meaning roughly The
book of the conquest of the Holy Land by Saladin,00:11:08
written by an anonymous knight who was present
in the Holy Land in the 1180s provides some00:11:14
important details on developments there in
the mid-1180s around the time of Baldwin’s00:11:20
death.00:11:21
There are also numerous Arabic and Byzantine
chronicles and histories of the late twelfth00:11:27
and thirteenth centuries that shed light on
Baldwin’s reign.00:11:32
As such, there are a good number of different
sources available for Baldwin’s life, but00:11:38
inevitably there are still considerable limitations
to what we can decipher about a monarch who00:11:45
lived over 800 years ago.00:11:49
From the sources which we have, we know a
good deal about how Baldwin was brought up00:11:55
and educated.00:11:56
He would have spent much of his early life
in Jerusalem, rarely venturing beyond the00:12:01
city in a land where the Christians held the
towns and cities, but where the countryside00:12:07
was prone to attacks by Muslim bands.00:12:11
In Jerusalem Baldwin would have grown up at
a court which had more of a military feel00:12:16
than even those back in medieval Europe, one
in which every ruler knew beyond a doubt that00:12:23
his primary role was to defend his state against
Muslim incursions and to try to reclaim further00:12:31
territories for the church, a land where even
monks wore armour and carried weapons.00:12:38
In 1170, William of Tyre, the man who would
later write a chronicle of Baldwin’s reign,00:12:46
returned from the capital of the Byzantine
Empire, Constantinople, where Amalric had00:12:52
dispatched him on a diplomatic mission.00:12:55
When he reached Jerusalem, the king appointed
him as tutor to his son, as William, who by00:13:01
then was an archdeacon, was widely recognised
as one of the most learned figures in Outremer.00:13:08
The dual nature of the Christian Crusader
States as polities in which Christians and00:13:13
Muslims often lived side by side was seen
in Baldwin’s education in other spheres.00:13:21
It was an Arab by the name of Abul’Khair
who taught Baldwin to ride a horse.00:13:29
Baldwin’s early years and education were00:13:32
highly significant in other respects.00:13:35
He was sent to live for lengthy periods of
time in the household of William of Tyre and00:13:41
it was while he was there that William first
noticed the symptoms of Baldwin’s leprosy.00:13:47
In later years he recounted his discovery
in the following way:00:13:52
“While he was staying with me…it happened
that, as he was playing with some boys of00:13:57
noble birth who were with him and they were
pinching each other on the arms and hands00:14:03
with their nails, as children often do when
playing together, the others cried out when00:14:09
they were hurt, whereas he bore it all with
great patience, like one who is used to pain,00:14:17
although his friends did not spare him in
any way.00:14:21
When this had happened several times, and
I was told about it, I thought it was a consequence00:14:27
of his patient disposition, not of his insensitivity
to pain, and calling him to me I began to00:14:34
ask him questions about it.00:14:37
And finally I came to realise that half of
his right arm and hand was dead, so that he00:14:44
could not feel the pinchings at all, or even
feel if he was bitten.00:14:49
Then I began to feel uncertain in my mind,
recalling the words of the wise man who said:00:14:56
‘It is a certainty that a limb which is
without feeling is not conducive to health00:15:02
and that a sick man who does not feel himself
to be so incurs great danger.’00:15:08
His father was told, and after the doctors
had been consulted, careful attempts were00:15:13
made to help him with poultices, ointments
and even charms, but all in vain.00:15:20
For with the passage of time we came to understand
more clearly that this marked the beginning00:15:26
of a more serious and totally incurable disease.00:15:30
It grieves me greatly to say this, but when
he became an adolescent, he was seen to be00:15:37
suffering from leprosy to a dangerous degree.”00:15:41
Another sign of the cultural tolerance which
existed in the Crusader States at this time00:15:47
was seen in the hiring of Arab doctors to
treat Baldwin, chief amongst them Abu Sulayman00:15:54
Dawud, but there was no cure for Baldwin’s
leprosy or even an effective treatment.00:16:02
His leprosy would come to define his life
in many ways, as will become clear.00:16:10
The disease that his son and heir was suffering
from was not King Amalric’s only concern.00:16:17
He had begun his reign by taking the offensive
against the Muslims that bordered on the Kingdom00:16:22
of Jerusalem.00:16:23
The main power at this time was the Fatimid
Caliphate which ruled Egypt and adjoining00:16:30
lands, a power which had been in decline for
some time, in part because of the expansion00:16:36
of the Turkic Muslim powers further to the
north who had controlled the Levant prior00:16:42
to the arrival of the First Crusade.00:16:45
The Fatimids experienced a period of intense
internal instability and famine throughout00:16:51
the 1160s and Amalric was able to campaign
effectively against them in the first year00:16:57
of his reign, consolidating the southern frontier
of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.00:17:03
But matters were very different to the north.00:17:07
In the early autumn of 1164, news arrived
in Jerusalem that Nur ad-Din, the Turkic Muslim00:17:14
ruler of Syria, had defeated a crusader force
of the County of Tripoli and the Principality00:17:21
of Antioch at the Battle of Harim, obliterating
or capturing thousands of Crusader knights00:17:28
and soldiers, a costly defeat which the Crusader
States could ill afford at a time when reinforcement00:17:36
from Western Europe was the only way of making
up for such losses on the battlefield.00:17:43
Defeat at Harim put the Crusaders on the defensive
for several years to come.00:17:49
It was at this juncture that Amalric entered
negotiations with the Byzantines that resulted00:17:55
in him marrying Maria Komnene in order to
acquire military aid from the Greeks.00:18:03
It was several years after the disaster at00:18:06
Harim when Amalric learned of his son’s
condition.00:18:10
It was most likely kept secret to begin with
and there may even have been some doubt as00:18:15
to whether the diagnosis was correct.00:18:19
Baldwin did not appear to have any visible
physical symptoms of leprosy during his youth00:18:25
and the diagnosis was made purely on the basis
of his lack of nerve sensation.00:18:30
The royal family would also have been reluctant
to publicise the illness of the king’s son.00:18:37
Leprosy carried an enormous social stigma
at the time, the belief being that the disease00:18:43
was something of an affliction visited on
individuals by god for some perceived wrongdoing.00:18:50
Consider the following passage on leprosy
from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament:00:18:56
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and00:19:03
we hid as it were our faces from him; he was
despised, and we esteemed him not.00:19:11
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken,00:19:19
smitten of God and afflicted.”00:19:24
Scholars have speculated that the Christians
of the Crusader States were more tolerant00:19:28
of leprosy than their brethren back in Western
Europe and indeed in the 1140s the Order of00:19:35
St Lazarus had been established in Jerusalem
for the care of lepers.00:19:40
However, there was still no doubt that Baldwin’s
condition would be enormously problematic,00:19:47
not least because lepers were largely expected
to segregate themselves away from wider society,00:19:54
the belief in the contagious nature of leprosy
being strong.00:19:59
Hansen’s Disease, to give it its modern
clinical name, is contagious, but it requires00:20:05
prolonged exposure to the bodily fluids of
those who carry it for someone to be infected.00:20:12
This was not known in pre-modern times, however.00:20:16
The expectation that someone like Baldwin
should shut himself away under the care of00:20:21
the Lazare house in Jerusalem was impractical
for a king in waiting whose primary duty was00:20:28
to lead armies, something which would become
nigh on impossible as his condition deteriorated00:20:35
in years to come but which Baldwin would still
rise to challenge of doing.00:20:42
Amalric was aware of all of this and was concerned
about the succession as a result, something00:20:49
which may have informed his decision to remarry
in 1167, but he would find no solution before00:20:56
his own premature death, the latest in a long
line of Kings of Jerusalem to die young.00:21:04
In 1174, after the death of Nur ad-Din, the
great nemesis of his reign, Amalric had laid00:21:12
siege to the town of Banias.00:21:16
Eventually he had to given up on this, realising
that the town was not worth the resources00:21:21
that would have required to maintain a long
siege.00:21:26
It was while heading back to Jerusalem from
Banias that he fell ill with dysentery.00:21:31
Though easily treatable in an age of antibiotics,
medicines and clean water, dysentery was often00:21:38
fatal in pre-modern times, and so it proved
to be in Amalric’s case.00:21:45
His condition deteriorated in the days that
followed and back in Jerusalem he began running00:21:51
a severe fever.00:21:53
Despite being attended by a range of Latin,
Greek and Arab doctors in the days that followed,00:22:00
nothing effective could be done and Amalric
died on the 11th of July 1174 at just 38 years00:22:09
of age.00:22:11
With that, Baldwin, who was approximately
13 years old at the time, succeeded as King00:22:18
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.00:22:19
Owing to this youth a regency government would
control affairs until he reached his majority,00:22:27
which was deemed to be at age 15.00:22:31
Initially Miles of Plancy, the seneschal of
Jerusalem, a senior magistrate in the city,00:22:38
assumed the position of regent, but within
a few weeks Raymond, Count of Tripoli, one00:22:44
of the senior-most nobles of Outremer, arrived
in Jerusalem and declared his intention to00:22:51
rule as regent during Baldwin’s minority.00:22:55
The two years of Baldwin’s minority rule00:22:59
were important in framing the circumstances
in which Baldwin would reign in his own right00:23:05
from 1176 onwards.00:23:08
The death of Nur ad-Din had left something
of a political vacuum in Syria.00:23:14
It was quickly filled by a noted warrior of
a scholarly disposition who had emerged in00:23:20
the 1160s under Nur ad-Din’s wing.00:23:24
This was Yusuf ibn Ayyub, a warlord who hailed
from Tikrit in what is now Iraq.00:23:32
He is better known by the Arabic laqab or
epithet which he acquired in later life, Salah00:23:40
ad-Din or Saladin, meaning the ‘Righteousness
of the Faith’.00:23:46
In the mid-1160s Saladin had gone to Egypt
with Nur ad-Din’s blessing to shore up the00:23:53
Muslim position there as the Fatimid Caliphate
was in crisis.00:23:58
In 1171, following the death of the last Fatimid
Caliph, Saladin effectively brought the Egyptian00:24:06
Caliphate to an end and realigned it with
the Islamic Caliphate in Baghdad.00:24:12
Then, in the mid-1170s following Nur ad-Din’s
death he seized power to a large extent in00:24:20
Syria as well.00:24:22
What this meant was that the Crusader States,
and Baldwin as the chief ruler amongst them,00:24:28
now faced a skilled Muslim warlord who could
strike at Outremer from both the north out00:24:35
of Syria and the south out of Egypt, while
also controlling much of the Arabian Peninsula.00:24:44
In Jerusalem, even as a teenager, Baldwin
knew that the threat posed by Saladin and00:24:50
the Ayyubids was a major issue that would
have implications for his reign.00:24:56
Our sources make it fairly clear that from
early on in his reign he was considering the00:25:02
succession already and his role as ruler of
Jerusalem.00:25:07
His leprosy precluded the possibility of marriage
and of siring children of his own.00:25:13
He did not have a brother to whom the throne
might easily descend, but unlike some Christian00:25:19
kingdoms back in the Latin West, women were
not precluded from the succession in Outremer.00:25:27
Indeed, Baldwin’s grandmother, Melisende,
had ruled as Queen of Jerusalem either on00:25:33
her own or as a co-ruler for much of the period
between the death of her father, King Baldwin00:25:39
II, in 1131 and when her own son, Baldwin
III, began to rule in his own stead in the00:25:47
1150s.00:25:49
As a result, it was clear to many in Jerusalem
that Baldwin IV’s sister, Sibylla, offered00:25:56
a clear line of succession within the kingdom.00:26:00
This was further cemented in the mid-1170s
when Sibylla married William of Montferrat,00:26:07
known by the epithet ‘Longsword’, an indication
of his military prowess.00:26:13
It seems that Baldwin may have been preparing
to abdicate in favour of William and Sibylla00:26:20
when William was well enough prepared for
the role.00:26:23
However, his plan was quickly scuppered.00:26:27
William died in 1177, most likely from malaria,
though not before Sibylla fell pregnant with00:26:35
a son who would subsequently be christened
Baldwin after his uncle the king.00:26:42
In response to the death of William in 1177,00:26:46
Baldwin moved to appoint Raynald of Chatillon
as the new regent.00:26:52
As a king who could not campaign for sustained
periods of time against Saladin and other00:26:58
Muslim warlords, Baldwin needed someone who
could do so on his behalf, especially so in00:27:05
regions far from Jerusalem.00:27:08
Raynald was an ideal candidate.00:27:10
He was born in France and had only arrived
in Outremer in the late 1140s as part of the00:27:17
Second Crusade, becoming a substantial force
for a time in the Principality of Antioch00:27:24
during the 1150s, but in more recent years
he had established himself as the most aggressive00:27:31
of the Crusaders nobles, though a ruthless
one who launched raids on Cyprus and the Byzantine00:27:38
Empire in an effort to aggrandize himself
at the expense of his neighbours, be they00:27:45
Christian or Muslim.00:27:48
Around the time of Baldwin’s birth in the
early 1160s Raynald had been captured by the00:27:54
Muslims of Syria and had spent many years
in captivity, but in 1176 he had been released00:28:02
on payment of a large ransom.00:28:05
With this he established himself as the Lord
of Oultrejordain, a principality to the southeast00:28:12
of the Dead Sea in what is now Jordan, by
marrying the lady of the territory, Stephanie00:28:18
of Milly.00:28:20
There Raynald quickly developed a reputation
for his aggressive attacks on the Ayyubid00:28:25
trade and caravan routes between Egypt and
their wider territories in Syria and Mesopotamia,00:28:33
sundering connections between the two parts
of Saladin’s growing sphere of control.00:28:39
Having proved himself in this capacity, Baldwin
and his advisors determined that Raynald was00:28:45
the best individual to appoint as regent and
military commander of the Kingdom of Jerusalem00:28:51
in 1177.00:28:53
His decision to do so was owing to deteriorating
health, Baldwin having seemingly become ill00:29:00
from whatever had killed William Longsword
around the same time.00:29:06
Raynald soon distinguished himself in one
of the most significant military encounters00:29:11
between the Christian Crusaders and the Muslim
lords of the Levant and Egypt during the twelfth00:29:17
century, the Battle of Montgisard.00:29:21
Baldwin was involved in this as well.00:29:24
The clash took place against diplomatic efforts
by Baldwin to form a new alliance with the00:29:30
Byzantine Empire, Manuel I Komnenos, with
the aim of launching a fresh expedition into00:29:37
Egypt.00:29:38
Baldwin’s efforts to do so were seemingly
aided by the arrival of Philip, Count of Flanders00:29:44
in the Low Countries, to the Holy Land in
August 1177 with extensive resources.00:29:52
Philip landed at the port of Acre and immediately
sent word to Jerusalem to Baldwin who was00:29:58
Philip’s cousin.00:29:59
Baldwin viewed Philip’s arrival as a potential
mechanism to allow him to withdraw from the00:30:05
kingship, offering Philip the regency, but
Philip refused and also balked at the idea00:30:12
of campaigning into Egypt.00:30:14
Instead he headed to Tripoli with his forces
to join up with Raymond III, Count of Tripoli,00:30:21
for an attack on the city of Harim in Saladin’s
territory in Syria.00:30:27
Alerted to the movement of hundreds of Crusader
knights and auxiliary forces towards Harim,00:30:33
Saladin now decided to strike into the Kingdom
of Jerusalem while the Crusader resources00:30:40
were deployed far to the north.00:30:42
Though his illness generally precluded Baldwin00:30:46
from sustained military campaigning himself,
in the military emergency which now developed00:30:53
he had no option but to oversee the gathering
of what resources and men could be mustered00:31:00
and to lead the defence of Jerusalem and the
surrounding region against Saladin’s incursion00:31:07
in November 1177.00:31:09
The figures for such military engagements
are notoriously unreliable.00:31:15
The Christian chroniclers, for instance, suggest
that Saladin led a host of upwards of 25,00000:31:23
men into the Kingdom that early winter, which
was surely an exaggeration, but the idea that00:31:29
Baldwin and Raynald only had a few hundred
knights and several thousand auxiliary soldiers00:31:36
to defend the Kingdom with was probably more
accurate.00:31:40
His initial goal was to protect the city of
Ascalon, but after learning of Saladin’s00:31:47
attacks on numerous Christian settlements
further inland, Baldwin moved eastwards away00:31:53
from the coastal region.00:31:55
His and Saladin’s forces would eventually
meet on the 25th of November 1177.00:32:03
The exact location of the Battle of Montgisard
is unclear, though scholars agree it took00:32:10
place somewhere in the Ramla region lying
to the south of what is now Tel Aviv-Yafo00:32:16
and northeast of Ashdod.00:32:18
Here Baldwin’s forces needed victory in
order to prevent Saladin capturing extensive00:32:25
territory, or potentially even marching on
Jerusalem itself.00:32:31
The arrival of Baldwin and his men around
Montgisard took Saladin by surprise.00:32:38
He had not expected the Crusaders to leave
the safety of Ascalon and other cities while00:32:43
so much of their forces were far away to the
north in Syria.00:32:48
Thus, on the 25th, at the Battle of Montgisard,
Baldwin and Raynald caught Saladin’s forces00:32:56
by surprise.00:32:58
Not all of his army was arraigned here and
Saladin had dispersed some of his units to00:33:03
scour the surrounding countryside.00:33:06
Hence the Muslim commander was taken by surprise
and cut off with only some of his men when00:33:12
the Crusaders charged at them near Montgisard.00:33:16
Raynald and Baldwin, the latter of whom despite
his leprosy was known to have been a skilful00:33:22
horse-rider in his youth, led a cavalry charge
straight towards the centre of Saladin’s00:33:29
lines with his heavy cavalry.00:33:32
The result was a complete rout as Saladin
tried to form up his battle lines properly00:33:38
and then ordered a retreat.00:33:41
This manoeuvre became chaotic, and as Raynald’s
and Baldwin’s units chased after the Muslim00:33:47
forces many of Saladin’s men, his great-nephew
included, were cut down.00:33:54
The slaughter was compounded by the fall of
darkness, which made the retreat even more00:34:00
disjointed.00:34:01
Then, to compound matters, in the two days
that followed Baldwin, Raynald and their men00:34:07
were able to identify pockets of Saladin’s
men in the surrounding countryside, cutting00:34:13
them off and taking many prisoners.00:34:16
The Battle of Montgisard was a consummate
victory for the Crusader cause, one which00:34:22
insured the safety of Jerusalem for several
years to come as Saladin regrouped.00:34:29
Despite his physical limitations, Baldwin
had won a major victory.00:34:36
The victory at Montgisard was a galvanizing
episode for Baldwin, one which shored up support00:34:43
for the monarchy in Jerusalem after years
of intrigue surrounding the king whose leprosy00:34:49
was viewed as a sign of god’s ill judgement.00:34:53
Now others thought differently.00:34:55
Rumours spread of St George having been seen
on the field of battle near Baldwin during00:35:01
the clash.00:35:02
To commemorate the victory and make the most
of it from a propaganda perspective it was00:35:07
determined that a Benedictine monastery would
be erected at the site of the clash in honour00:35:13
of St Catherine, on whose feast day the battle
had occurred.00:35:18
Meanwhile, to the north in Syria Philip of
Flanders and the other Crusader lords there00:35:24
reached an agreement whereby they would abandon
the siege of Harim in return for the ceding00:35:30
of some minor lands and villages to the Crusader
States from the Muslims.00:35:36
With that Philip left to return to Europe,
bringing to an end his own personal crusade.00:35:44
In Jerusalem Baldwin began to associate himself00:35:47
more closely in the late 1170s with his sister,
making it clear that if he was to die soon00:35:55
without a clear successor having emerged,
Sibylla would rule on behalf of her infant00:36:01
son who had just been born and christened
Baldwin in honour of the king.00:36:07
This was not a case of joint rule at this
juncture, though as his health declined further00:36:14
in years to come it would become something
akin to this.00:36:19
In the main he was able to begin stamping
his authority to a greater extent in the aftermath00:36:25
of Montgisard as he entered into his adult
years.00:36:30
Under Baldwin, Jerusalem continued as a city
of religious toleration, to a fair degree,00:36:37
with the young king inclined, much like both
his father and uncle had been as kings of00:36:43
Jerusalem, to allow Muslims access to the
city, the third holiest in Islam after Mecca00:36:50
and Medina, and to form a relatively cosmopolitan
polity in line with his upbringing with some00:36:57
Arab tutors and doctors.00:37:00
Baldwin, his father Amalric and his brother,
Baldwin III, were at heart largely scholar00:37:08
kings with an interest in the law and literature,
rather than being strictly warrior kings.00:37:15
Consequently, as limited in length as Baldwin’s
reign would be, there was a cerebral quality00:37:22
to it above and beyond the near incessant
clashes between Muslim and Christian across00:37:30
Outremer.00:37:32
With his newfound role as a substantial leader
in the aftermath of Montgisard, Baldwin became00:37:40
a more regular war leader in the years that
followed.00:37:44
But it proved nearly impossible to recreate
the success of the early winter of 1177.00:37:51
While the Battle of Montgisard had ended in
victory, it had also cost the Crusaders men00:37:58
and, in a region where reinforcements nearly
always had to arrive from the faraway Latin00:38:04
West, this backup was slow in coming.00:38:08
Broad based Crusades were only ever preached
in response to disasters in the Levant, such00:38:15
as the loss of Edessa which instigated the
Second Crusade in the mid-1140s.00:38:22
Successes like Montgisard did not.00:38:25
Instead, when matters were going well for
the Christian cause in the Levant, the rulers00:38:30
of Western Europe ignored it and continued
their own petty squabbles back in France,00:38:37
England and Germany.00:38:38
Thus, Baldwin’s armies were reduced in size
at the end of the 1170s.00:38:44
Saladin, who could acquire many reinforcements
when he needed them, realised this and so00:38:51
quickly recovered from the defeat at Montgisard
and in 1179 launched a new military incursion00:38:58
against the Crusader States.00:39:01
This was in response to a raid which Baldwin
led into Syria that spring.00:39:07
These movements culminated on the 10th of
June 1179, in the Battle of Marj Ayyun near00:39:14
Sidon.00:39:15
Here Baldwin and his allies, including the
master of the Knights Templar and Raymond00:39:20
of Tripoli, succeeded in defeating an initial
Muslim force, but in the aftermath Saladin’s00:39:28
main force arrived and inflicted a serious
defeat on the Christians.00:39:34
The defeat at the Battle of Marj Ayyun was
nearly fatal for Baldwin.00:39:40
In the midst of it he was unhorsed and while
he was still able to ride at this juncture,00:39:45
he could not remount his horse unaided.00:39:49
In the end the king had to be rushed from
the battlefield being carried on the back00:39:54
of a Crusader knight while his personal bodyguard
fought their way out of the Muslim forces00:40:00
that had surrounded Baldwin and his entourage.00:40:03
Hence, the King of Jerusalem barely escaped
with his life from the battlefield.00:40:11
Others were less fortunate.00:40:13
Many Christian knights and soldiers were killed
or taken prisoner.00:40:18
Amongst the prisoners was Odo of St Amand,
the grand master of the Knights Templar.00:40:24
He would die in captivity the following year.00:40:28
Count Raymond of Tripoli only barely escaped
from the fighting.00:40:33
Overall the Battle of Marj Ayyun was a disaster
for the Crusader cause, reversing the victory00:40:40
a year and a half earlier at Montgisard.00:40:43
Where Baldwin had hoped to follow up that
initial success by expanding his domain, in00:40:49
the aftermath of Marj Ayyun, as the 1180s
dawned, the Crusaders were now on the back00:40:56
foot, with a dwindling amount of military
resources and were forced to adopt a defensive00:41:03
posture.00:41:05
Saladin, by way of contrast, was buoyant.00:41:10
After the Battle of Marj Ayyun he immediately
moved to strike at the castle of Chastelet.00:41:17
Baldwin had ordered the construction of this
structure the previous year overlooking Jacob’s00:41:23
Ford, one of the larger fords of the upper
course of the Jordan River.00:41:28
The castle was virtually complete by the summer
of 1179 and now formed an important Crusader00:41:36
stronghold on the main route between the Galilee
region eastwards through the Golan Heights00:41:42
and into Syria.00:41:44
Unhappy with the new Christian construction,
Saladin decided to destroy it just weeks after00:41:51
Marj Ayyun, having previously attempted to
bribe Baldwin into ceasing construction at00:41:58
Jacob’s Ford.00:41:59
When that failed, and with Baldwin and the
other Crusader lords reeling from the defeat00:42:04
at Marj Ayyun, he initiated a siege on the
23rd of August which lasted for just over00:42:11
a week before a tunnel was successfully dug
under the walls and a fire lit, collapsing00:42:19
the walls through a siege method known as
sapping.00:42:24
With this, the Muslims burst into the fortress,
killing many of the Crusaders and taking several00:42:30
hundred prisoners in another major defeat
for Baldwin.00:42:34
The castle was left abandoned with the walls
semi-collapsed, though some of their ruins00:42:40
are still visible today eight and a half centuries
later.00:42:45
The victory was also not without cost for
Saladin as an outbreak of disease occurred00:42:51
amongst his men after seizing Chastelet, and
claimed many Muslim soldiers.00:42:59
Back in Jerusalem, as the full scale of the
military reverse which had occurred in the00:43:04
summer of 1179 became clear, political measures
were taken to try to acquire greater support00:43:12
from the Latin West for the Crusader cause
in the east and to shore up the government00:43:18
in Jerusalem itself.00:43:20
At the heart of this were the royal family
and a newcomer to the Holy Land, Guy of Lusignan.00:43:28
Guy was a French knight who arrived in the
Levant at some juncture in the second half00:43:34
of the 1170s.00:43:36
The exact time of his appearance remains a
matter of debate, but he was clearly in Jerusalem00:43:42
by 1179 when the disastrous Christian defeats
at Marj Ayyun and Jacob’s Ford occurred,00:43:50
or shortly thereafter.00:43:53
In the months that followed he and his supporters
gained the ear of Baldwin’s mother Agnes00:43:59
and she was soon promoting the idea that her
daughter, Baldwin’s sister, Sibylla, a widow00:44:06
since the death of William Longsword in 1177,
should marry Guy.00:44:12
These developments came to a head in Easter
week of 1180, when a marriage alliance between00:44:18
Guy and Sibylla was formed with Baldwin’s
blessing.00:44:22
William of Tyre informs us that the reason
for the marriage alliance was in order to00:44:28
gain Guy’s aid in forestalling a plot by
Count Raymond of Tripoli and Prince Bohemond00:44:35
of Antioch to overthrow Baldwin, though William
himself was absent from Jerusalem at this00:44:42
time and was not an eyewitness to these events.00:44:46
Whatever the truth of it may have been, the
result is reasonably clear.00:44:52
Guy married Sibylla, bringing fresh support
to Baldwin’s kingship in the shape of the00:44:58
Lusignan faction that shored up the king’s
position in the aftermath of the defeats of00:45:04
1179.00:45:07
It was not just Guy and the supporters of00:45:10
Lusignan that Baldwin was seeking to acquire
aid from in 1180.00:45:15
In the immediate aftermath of the marriage,
Baldwin dispatched one of his closest advisors00:45:21
and ministers and a near relative on his mother’s
side, Joscelin of Courtenay to Constantinople,00:45:29
the goal being to allay the concerns which
the emperor there may have had about the diplomatic00:45:36
reorientation in Jerusalem and to appeal for
fresh aid from the Byzantines.00:45:43
However, at Constantinople Joscelin’s mission
stalled as Emperor Manuel I died there in00:45:51
September 1180 and was succeeded by his eleven
year old son, Alexios II, initiating a regency00:46:01
government which was in little position to
offer immediate aid to the Crusader States.00:46:08
Envoys to Western Europe dispatched through
the Knights Templar, which had become a powerful00:46:13
institution in Western Christendom by that
time, initially held out the hope of a major00:46:19
new crusade in response to the defeats in
the Levant of 1179.00:46:26
Pope Alexander III responded by sending out
missives to many monarchs and lords in Europe,00:46:33
notably King Philip II of France and King
Henry II of England.00:46:38
These would fall on deaf ears for the most
part, though it is noteworthy that Alexander’s00:46:45
petitions included a searing attack on Baldwin,
claiming that Saladin’s victories in 117900:46:52
at Marj Ayyun and Jacob’s Ford were the
result of Baldwin’s leprosy, which in turn00:46:59
was portrayed as a symptom of god’s judgement
of the sins of the Crusaders.00:47:05
It is typically assumed that it was this Papal
condemnation of Baldwin’s illness that inspired00:47:11
William of Tyre to begin writing his chronicle
as a defence of Baldwin, his former pupil.00:47:20
While little material support was forthcoming
from the west to the Christians of the Levant00:47:25
in the early 1180s, circumstances were nevertheless
improving for Baldwin and the Crusader lords00:47:33
there during these years.00:47:35
A reconciliation of a kind was reached between
Baldwin and Guy of Lusignan on the one hand00:47:42
and Raymond of Tripoli on the other, the latter
of which had aspired to seize the throne of00:47:49
Jerusalem for a time.00:47:51
With this rapprochement the Crusaders assembled
their forces and were able to meet Saladin’s00:47:58
armies again in the field at La Fortelet in
the south of the Galilee region in July of00:48:04
1182.00:48:06
At this battle, where Baldwin was again present
in person to command the Crusader forces,00:48:12
the Christians won a notable victory, the
first sign of changing fortunes since the00:48:19
series of defeats in the summer of 1179.00:48:23
Saladin made a further effort to strike that
summer against Beirut, but Baldwin, Guy and00:48:30
Raymond, assisted by a small contingent of
reinforcements from Germany and Italy led00:48:36
by Duke Henry of Lotharingia and financed
by the merchants of the port city of Pisa00:48:42
in Italy, were able to fend off the attack.00:48:46
Thereafter Raynald of Chatillon recommenced
the attacks he had engaged in several years00:48:52
earlier against the Arab caravan routes passing
through Jordan and the Sinai Peninsula.00:48:58
He even managed to launch five Crusader warships
on the Red Sea near the Gulf of Aqaba, a feat00:49:06
never before accomplished by the Crusaders.00:49:10
These attacks on Muslim shipping ranged from
Yemen northwards to Saladin’s other territories.00:49:17
In 1183 a Christian force even penetrated
Arabia to within a day’s march of Medina.00:49:25
Thus, while 1179 had seen major reverses for
the Crusader States and while Pope Alexander00:49:32
might have criticised Baldwin to the rest
of Christendom in 1181, the two years that00:49:38
followed saw a resurgence of Christian power
in the Middle East.00:49:45
While 1182 and 1183 had seen some successes,00:49:50
Baldwin’s own personal circumstances were
not good.00:49:54
His health had begun to decline precipitously
in the early 1180s.00:49:59
By 1182 his leprosy had degenerated to the
point where he was largely blind and crippled.00:50:08
He could barely use his hands or feet unaided.00:50:12
William of Tyre presents the following description
of the degeneration of Baldwin’s health:00:50:19
“Day by day his condition became worse.00:50:23
The extremities and face were especially attacked,
so that his faithful followers were moved00:50:29
with compassion when they looked at him…In
addition, the leprosy which had begun to trouble00:50:35
him at the beginning of his reign — in fact,
in very early youth — became much worse00:50:42
than usual.00:50:43
His sight failed and his extremities were
covered with ulcerations so that he was unable00:50:50
to use either his hands or his feet.00:50:53
Yet up to this time he had declined to heed
the suggestion offered by some that he lay00:51:00
aside his kingly dignity and give up the administration
of the realm.”00:51:07
Despite these ailments, there was resilience
to Baldwin.00:51:13
A good horse-rider in his youth, when he lost
the ability to ride at the front of his armies00:51:18
he insisted on still campaigning, being carried
on a litter.00:51:23
In Jerusalem he attended councils of state
even when ill.00:51:28
These councils often focused on the problems
of continuing to finance the military campaigns00:51:34
and in February 1183 Baldwin was forced to
impose a tax known as the curia generalis,00:51:42
a general levy of 1% of the value of property
and 2% of all incomes.00:51:49
There is no evidence to suggest that Baldwin
would have attended these council meetings00:51:55
wearing a mask of any kind as some popular
modern depictions of him have suggested.00:52:02
Instead his advisors, the Crusader lords and
the heads of the religious orders, would have00:52:08
seen directly the deteriorating physical state
of their king, his face a growing mass of00:52:15
scabs and necrotic scars.00:52:18
Most would have known that he did not have
long left in the world.00:52:24
By 1184 Baldwin’s situation had declined
to the extent that he effectively established00:52:31
his nephew, Sibylla’s son Baldwin from her
first marriage to the deceased William of00:52:38
Montferrat, as his official co-ruler.00:52:42
Clearly the young Baldwin, who was only six
years of age, did not perform this role in00:52:47
any capacity himself, but what it did mean
was that power was being shared to an even00:52:54
greater extent with Sibylla and her second
husband, Guy of Lusignan.00:52:59
This arrangement was fractious.00:53:02
Guy was a heavy-handed figure, one who increasingly
treated the severely ill king with disdain,00:53:11
refusing to grant him the city of Tyre, part
of Guy’s territory, when Baldwin offered00:53:16
to leave Guy in charge of Jerusalem in exchange,
the king wishing to reside at Tyre on the00:53:23
coast in his final days where proximity to
the Mediterranean seemed to aid his condition,00:53:31
perhaps the additional moisture in the air
relieving the torment to his skin.00:53:36
Further agitation followed when Guy’s actions
nearly led to the loss of Kerak Castle in00:53:44
Jordan, while in 1184 Guy massacred a contingent
of Bedouin in the Negev region who had previously00:53:52
allied with the Crusaders, actions which Baldwin
strongly condemned.00:53:58
There was one last effort made by Baldwin00:54:03
to secure aid from the Latin West, though
unbeknownst to Guy and others in Outremer00:54:10
the mission was also launched with orders
from Baldwin to consult with the Christian00:54:16
lords back in Western Europe on the succession
to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.00:54:22
Ideally Baldwin was seeking a western prince
who would come to the Levant and rule in association00:54:29
with him, allowing him to live his last years
in peace while also circumventing the perennially00:54:36
feuding Crusader lords such as his brother-in-law,
Guy of Lusignan, Raynald of Chatillon and00:54:44
Count Raymond of Tripoli.00:54:46
The mission was led by Heraclius, the Latin
Patriarch of Jerusalem and Archbishop of Caesarea,00:54:53
the leading Christian religious figure in
the Levant.00:54:57
In 1184 he was dispatched across the Mediterranean
along with Roger de Moulins, the Grand Master00:55:04
of one of the major religious orders, the
Knights Hospitallers, and the new Grand Master00:55:10
of the Templars, Arnold of Torraja.00:55:13
The trio took with them several relics and
the keys of both the gates of Jerusalem and00:55:19
the doors of the Holy Sepulchre, the most
holy church in the Levant in the Christian00:55:25
Quarter of Jerusalem.00:55:27
In Europe Heraclius visited Italy, France
and England.00:55:31
Like many such envoys before and afterwards
he received grand promises from the monarchs00:55:38
and lords of Western Christendom about their
intentions to head on Crusade to Outremer,00:55:46
but they all proved lacklustre.00:55:49
In 1185 he returned to Jerusalem with a promise
from Henry II of England that he would soon00:55:57
follow with an army to reinforce Baldwin’s
position, but it never materialised.00:56:04
By the time Heraclius returned to Outremer,
the king who had sent him to Western Europe00:56:11
was dead.00:56:12
Baldwin’s rapid deterioration over the past
years came to a head in 1185.00:56:19
He died at some unknown date in the spring
of that year a few weeks short of his 24th00:56:27
birthday and certainly before the 16th of
May at which time his nephew was referred00:56:33
to as the sole King of Jerusalem.00:56:36
Sicardus of Cremona, a contemporary Italian
religious authority and historian who later00:56:43
ended up in the Levant himself as part of
the Fourth Crusade and who was involved in00:56:48
efforts to organise a new crusade in the 1180s
around the time Baldwin died, lauded Baldwin00:56:57
in an encomiastic passage in one of his writings,
declaring that although he had suffered greatly00:57:04
from leprosy from a young age, he had won
a notable victory over Saladin at Montgisard00:57:11
in 1177 and had preserved the Crusader States
during his reign.00:57:17
Baldwin was laid to rest in the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem at the foot00:57:22
of Mount Calvary near his father King Amalric’s
tomb and those of the other Latin kings who00:57:29
had ruled the Kingdom of Jerusalem since the
First Crusade.00:57:36
With Baldwin’s passing his nephew succeeded
as King Baldwin V of Jerusalem.00:57:42
A child nearing just eight years old, he was
unable to rule in his own right and a minority00:57:49
government headed by Raymond III, Count of
Tripoli, was set up to govern the Kingdom00:57:55
of Jerusalem until he came of age.00:57:59
That would never happen.00:58:01
He was dead himself a year later, the child
dying under murky circumstances in the early00:58:08
autumn of 1186, though many historians dispute
the inference of the chroniclers that Raymond00:58:15
had his charge poisoned in order to become
king himself.00:58:20
In any event, it was not Raymond who claimed
the throne after Baldwin V’s premature death,00:58:26
but instead Sibylla and her husband, Guy of
Lusignan, stepped into the breach.00:58:33
The accession of Guy as King of Jerusalem
in 1186 virtually guaranteed renewed war with00:58:41
the Muslims and Saladin.00:58:44
And so it proved.00:58:47
Clashes broke out in late 1186 and continued
into 1187.00:58:53
These culminated in July that year in the
Battle of Hattin to the west of the Sea of00:58:59
Galilee.00:59:00
In this, Saladin won a major victory and Guy
was captured along with Raynald of Chatillon00:59:08
who had caused Saladin such problems with
the caravan routes between Egypt and Syria00:59:14
for the better part of a decade.00:59:17
While Guy was kept prisoner, Saladin had Raynald
beheaded, proclaiming him to be nothing more00:59:25
than a bandit.00:59:27
With victory at Hattin and Guy imprisoned
in Damascus, Saladin now marched on Jerusalem00:59:34
and, after a short siege of two weeks in late
September and early October, the city fell00:59:41
to the Muslims after less than a century under
Christian Crusader control.00:59:48
With this calamitous development the call
went out to Western Europe for a new crusade.00:59:55
The Third Crusade is arguably the most famous
of them all, an engagement which pitted Richard01:00:01
the Lionheart, the King of England and lord
of extensive territories in France, against01:00:07
Saladin for several years in the early 1190s.01:00:12
The Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa,
was also involved, leading many to refer to01:00:19
the Third Crusade as the King’s Crusade.01:00:23
However, despite the fact that it drew both
Barbarossa and Richard the Lionheart to participate,01:00:29
the Third Crusade failed in its ultimate objective
of recapturing Jerusalem for the Christians.01:00:36
Though the holy city was so reclaimed forty
years later during the Sixth Crusade in 1229,01:00:45
this was only a brief hiatus.01:00:48
Ultimately, the Crusader cause was flagging
by then as the monarchs and lords of Europe01:00:55
continued to show a greater interest in fighting
each other than the Muslims of the Levant,01:01:01
while resources were also directed towards
failed expeditions to North Africa.01:01:08
Beginning in the 1250s the Crusader States
lost growing amounts of territory to new Muslim01:01:15
lords, concluding in 1291 with the fall of
Acre, the last Christian stronghold in the01:01:23
Holy Land.01:01:24
The Crusader States came to an end two centuries
after they were first established.01:01:32
Baldwin IV’s reign as King of Jerusalem
was highly complex.01:01:37
He succeeded as the ruler of the kingdom when
he was barely a teenager and with the added01:01:43
complication of suffering from leprosy.01:01:47
It was clear from early on that he would never
produce an heir and so a succession crisis01:01:53
always overshadowed his time as King of Jerusalem.01:01:57
But despite these limitations his time as
king was successful in some respects.01:02:04
In particular the Crusader victory at the
Battle of Montgisard stalled the Muslim advance01:02:11
against the Crusaders in the 1170s, as did
some further military successes in the years01:02:18
that followed.01:02:19
Baldwin earned the respect of his contemporaries
for overseeing these efforts, but there was01:02:24
never any doubt that his reign was going to
be a brief one.01:02:30
In the end he died at just 23 years of age.01:02:35
When he did a fresh series of crises struck
the Crusader states in quick succession, notably01:02:42
the death of Baldwin V, the defeat at Hattin,
the imprisonment of King Guy by Saladin and01:02:49
the loss of Jerusalem.01:02:52
It was only with the fall of Jerusalem that
Western Christendom awoke to the scale of01:02:57
the threat posed by Saladin in the Levant.01:03:01
Had they provided aid and launched a Third
Crusade earlier during Baldwin’s reign one01:03:08
wonders whether Jerusalem would have fallen
and how the history of the Crusader States01:03:14
might have been different.01:03:17
What do you think of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem?01:03:20
Do you think if he had not been ill and had
lived longer that he might have been able01:03:26
to galvanise the Crusader States and have
prevented the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin?01:03:32
Please let us know in the comment section,
and in the meantime, thank you very much for01:03:39
watching.Description:
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