Baldwin II of Jerusalem
Baldwin of Bourcq ( * before 1080 † August 21, 1131 ) was Lord of Bourcq, 1100-1118 Count of Edessa and as Baldwin II of 1118 until his death King of Jerusalem.
Life
He was a son of Hugh I, Count of Rethel.
1096 to 1099 he participated in the First Crusade to the Holy Land in part. His cousin Baldwin of Boulogne, where he left 1101, the County of Edessa, was as this king of Jerusalem. When Baldwin of Boulogne in 1118 died childless, he followed him on the throne of Jerusalem. The County of Edessa, he left his cousin ( their mothers were sisters ) Joscelin of Courtenay.
When Count Baldwin of Edessa was captured in 1104 by the Seljuk Turks following the Battle of Harran in 1108 and only released.
Almost immediately after his accession to the throne in Jerusalem, the kingdom was attacked simultaneously ago from Syria by the Seljuks and of Egypt by the Fatimids. Baldwin II was able to push back both opponents. 1119, the Principality of Antioch was attacked, the Crusaders were subject at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis; Despite this heavy defeat succeeded Baldwin in the same year to drive the Seljuk Turks from the Principality.
In 1123 he was captured at a border patrol in the county of Edessa again by the Seljuk Turks (of Balak ibn Bahram ), but this time released in the following year. In the meantime, the Crusaders had besieged by a Venetian fleet Tyre and conquered. This assistance led to the establishment of trade colonies of the Italian republics, not only of Venice, in the coastal cities of the kingdom, which were autonomous and free of tax burdens and military duties.
In the reign of Baldwin II, the founding of the first two orders of knights falls. Founded in 1118 by Hugo Payns in Jerusalem the Knights Templar, which owes its name to the fact that Baldwin asked him his former palace on the Temple Mount as the headquarters available. Also, the Order of St. John soon entered on a military order and the charitable goals he had originally moved into the background.
1125 Baldwin gathered the Knights of all the Crusader states around, and slammed the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Azaz, although their army was much larger. As a result of battle succeeded the crusaders to restore much of the influence they had lost after the " Ager Sanguinis ". Had Antioch and Edessa after the victory not begun to fight among themselves, it might be Baldwin succeeded in conquering Aleppo. Instead, Aleppo and Mosul were united in 1128 under Zengi. Baldwin turned against Damascus, but its conquest failed.
Baldwin II had married in 1101 Morphia of Melitene, the daughter of the Armenian prince Gabriel of Melitene. Baldwin had no sons, but four daughters, Melisende, Alice, Hodierna and Ioveta. He married Melisende 1129 with Count Fulk V of Anjou; Fulk and Melisande reigned together after Baldwin's death in 1131. Alice married Bohemund II of Antioch, Hodierna Raymond II, Count of Tripoli; Ioveta was abbess of Bethany.
Ancestors of Baldwin II
For relationship with Baldwin I
The question of the relationship between the kings Baldwin I and Baldwin II of Jerusalem is disputed by historians for a long time. It is first mentioned by William of Tyre, Chancellor of Jerusalem under Baldwin IV, who called Baldwin II as consanguineus (blood relatives ) of Baldwin I.. Several solutions have been proposed to explain this statement:
- Mélisende de Montlhery, wife of Hugh I of Rethel and mother of Baldwin II, the sister of Eustace II of Boulogne was. However, this is certainly not the case, the parents of Baldwin I. and Baldwin II are known.
- Yvette (or Judith ), wife of Manasses II of Rethel and mother of Hugo I, was a daughter of Eustace I of Boulogne. From Yvette, however, we know that she was a sister of the Eble de Roucy. The fact that a widow of Count of Roucy married a Count of Boulogne, or vice versa, in contemporary sources, however, is not mentioned.
Alan V. Murray has a new hypothesis presented: the first known Count of Rethel is the 1026 occupied Manasses I, great-grandfather of Baldwin II and married to a Dada. This first name is similar to the name Doda, wife of Godfrey II of Lower Lorraine and maternal grandmother to that of Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I. If Doda was the daughter of Manasses and Dada, this would be the relationship between Baldwin I. and Baldwin II as second cousins explain:
Other approaches result in the genealogy of the two over seven or eight generations back, to find a common ancestor, but it is not clear whether this was still referred to in the early Middle Ages as consanguineus.