The age of the crusades

by James M. Ludlow

A month later King Baldwin II. secured his liberation. In 1129 he strengthened his throne by the marriage of his daughter, Melisende, to Foulque of Anjou, son of the notorious Bertrade, who had deserted her legitimate husband for the embrace of King Philip of France. This monarch had put away his wife Bertha for this new union. Thus was brought upon Philip the famous excommunication of the Pope. Two years later (August 13, 1131) Baldwin II. died and was buried with Godfrey and Baldwin I. in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Foulque ascended the throne. His first work was to settle a dispute for the lordship of Antioch, which was accomplished only after bloodshed between brethren. Next he baffled the Greek emperor, John Comnenus, who attempted to gain for himself the kingdom of Jerusalem. Later he made alliance with the Mussulman Prince of Damascus and fought against Zenghi, Prince of Mosul. His queen, Melisende, by her rumored amours brought him additional perplexity. King Foulque died from an injury while hunting (November 13, 1143), leaving two children, Baldwin and Amalric.

Baldwin III. succeeded his father at the age of thirteen, with Melisende as regent. Effeminacy not only marked the government, but infected the spirit of the people. The heroism of the founders of the kingdom seemed to die in the blood of their successors, or, if danger fired the ancient valor, it was without the light of discretion.

Young Baldwin III. inaugurated his reign by a foolish expedition to take Bozrah, which had been offered in surrender by its traitorous commandant. To accomplish this it was necessary to break a fair and useful alliance which the Christians had made with the Sultan of Damascus, the rightful lord of Bozrah. On reaching Bozrah, instead of the keys of the city, there was placed in the hands of the king an announcement from the wife of the treacherous governor that she herself would defend the walls. The perplexity of the king and his equally callow advisers was followed by an ignoble retreat. The enemy pursued not only with sword, but with fire. The wind, which seemed to the retreating army to be the breath of God’s wrath, covered them with smoke and cinders, while the flames of the burning grass chased their fleeing feet. The Christians would have perished had not, say the chronicles, the wood of the True Cross, raised with prayer, changed the direction of the breeze and beaten back the pursuers.

At this time there was felt the need of an astute mind at the head of the kingdom. Christian progress had been arrested, and events of evil omen were thickening.

The star of Zenghi, the ruler of Mosul, the father of Nourredin, and the forerunner of Saladin, had arisen. This redoubtable warrior had conquered all his Moslem rivals on the Euphrates; he had swept with resistless fury westward, capturing Aleppo (1128), Hamah (1129), and Athareb (1130). Though the Moslems had been assisted by Baldwin II., yet the Oriental writers sang of how the “swords of Allah found their scabbards in the neck of His foes.” In 1144, one year from young Baldwin’s coronation, Zenghi appeared before the walls of Edessa, which since the early days of the crusades had been in the possession of the Christians. This city was the bulwark of the Christian kingdom in the East; it is thus described in the florid language of the place and time: “I was as a queen in the midst of her court; sixty towns standing around me formed my train; my altars, loaded with treasure, shed their splendor afar and appeared to be the abode of angels. I surpassed in magnificence the proudest cities of Asia, and I was as a celestial ornament raised upon the bosom of the earth.”

Had old Josselin de Courtenay been living, Edessa would have given a stubborn and possibly a successful defence, for the terror of his name had long held the Moslems at bay. Once, while lying on what he thought to be his death-bed, this veteran heard that the enemy had laid siege to one of his strong towers, and commanded his son to go to its rescue. The younger Josselin delayed on account of the few troops he could take with him. Old Josselin ordered the soldiers to carry him to the front on his litter. The news of his approach was sufficient to cause the quick withdrawal of the Moslems; but an invincible foe was upon the warrior, for, with hand raised in gratitude to Heaven, he expired.

Josselin II. of Edessa was unworthy of such a sire. His weakness being known, he inspired neither terror in his foes nor respect among his own people. Zenghi surprised Edessa with a host of Kurds and Turkomans. To Oriental daring he added the careful engineering learned from his Western antagonists. Quickly the walls were surrounded by movable towers higher than the ramparts; battering-rams beat against the foundation, and storms of stones, javelins, and combustibles swept away the defenders. In vain the city held out for a while in expectancy of aid from Jerusalem. On the twenty-eighth day (December 14, 1144) it fell. The news spread a dismay which could have been surpassed only by the capture of Jerusalem itself.

The report of Zenghi’s death two years later gave to the Christians a ray of hope for at least fewer disasters. That hope was quickly extinguished by the exploits of Nourredin, his son, whose deeds stirred the prophetic spirit of Moslem imams to foretell the speedy fall of the Holy City. At the same time they excited the superstitious fears of the Christians, who saw in comets, as well as in the flash of Nourredin’s cimeters, the signs of Heaven’s displeasure, and interpreted the very thunders of the sky as the celestial echo of his tramping squadrons.

The tidings of the fall of Edessa was the immediate occasion of the second crusade.