BALDWIN III., king of Jerusalem (1143-1162), was the eldest son of
Fulk of Jerusalem by his wife Melisinda. He was born in 1130, and became
king in 1143, under the regency of his mother, which lasted till 1152.
He came to the throne at a time when the attacks of the Greeks in
Cilicia, and of Zengi on Edessa, were fatally weakening the position of
the Franks in northern Syria; and from the beginning of his reign the
power of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem may be said to be slowly
declining, though as yet there is little outward trace of its decay to
be seen. Edessa was lost, however, in the year after Baldwin's
accession, and the conquest by Zengi of this farthest and most important
outpost in northern Syria was already a serious blow to the kingdom.
Upon it in 1147 there followed the second crusade; and in that crusade
Baldwin III., now some eighteen years of age, played his part by the
side of Conrad III. and Louis VII. He received them in Jerusalem in
1148; with them he planned the attack on Damascus and with them he
signally failed in the attack. In 1149, after the failure of the
crusade, Baldwin III. appeared in Antioch, where the fall of Raymund,
the husband of the princess Constance, made his presence necessary. He
regulated affairs in Antioch, and tried to strengthen the north of
Palestine generally against the arm of Zengi's successor, Nureddin, by
renewing the old and politic alliance with Damascus interrupted since
1147, and by ceding Tellbashir, the one remnant of the county of Edessa,
to Manuel of Constantinople. In 1152 came the inevitable struggle
between the young king and his mother, who had ruled with wisdom and
vigour during the regency and was unwilling to lay down the reins of
power. Baldwin originally planned a solemn coronation, as the signal of
his emancipation. Dissuaded from that course, he nevertheless wore his
crown publicly in the church of the Sepulchre. A struggle followed: in
the issue, Baldwin agreed to leave his mother in possession of Jerusalem
and Nablus, while he retained Acre and Tyre for himself. But he repented
of the bargain; and a new struggle began, in which Baldwin recovered,
after some fighting, the possession of his capital. From these internal
dissensions Baldwin was now summoned to the north, to regulate anew the
affairs of Antioch and also those of Tripoli, where the death of Count
Raymund had thrown on his shoulders the cares of a second regency. On
his return to Jerusalem he was successful in repelling an attack by an
army of Turcomans; and his success encouraged him to attempt the siege
of Ascalon in the spring of 1153. He was successful: the " bride of
Syria," which had all but become the property of the crusaders in 1099,
but had since defied the arms of the Franks for half a century, became
part of the kingdom of Jerusalem. From 1156 to 1158 Baldwin was occupied
in hostilities with Nureddin. In 1156 he had to submit to a treaty which
cut short his territories; in the winter of 1157-1158 he besieged and
captured Harim, in the territory once belonging to Antioch: in 1158 he
defeated Nureddin himself. In the same.year Baldwin married Theodora, a
near relative of the East Roman emperor Manuel; while in 1159 he
received a visit from Manuel himself at Antioch. The Latin king rode
behind the Greek emperor, without any of the insignia of his dignity, at
the entry into Antioch; but their relations were of the friendliest, and
Manuel - as great a physician as he was a hunter - personally attended
to Baldwin when the king was thrown from his horse in attempting to
equal the emperor's feats of horsemanship. In the same year Baldwin had
to undertake the regency in Antioch once more, Raynald of Chatillon, the
second husband of Constance, being captured in battle. Three years later
he died (1162), without male issue, and was succeeded by his brother
Amalric I.
Continued on page two.
This article is from the 1911 edition of an
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