Baldwin I and II: The Kings Who Built Jerusalem's Kingdom

Written by Simon Williams

Baldwin I and Baldwin II were the first two kings of Jerusalem, ruling from 1100 to 1131. Between them they founded the Knights Templar, survived multiple captivities, and built the administrative kingdom that would outlast them both by nearly two centuries.

• Baldwin I: King of Jerusalem, 1100 to 1118; first Count of Edessa, 1098 to 1100
• Baldwin II: King of Jerusalem, 1118 to 1131; second Count of Edessa, 1100 to 1118
• Relationship: Cousins, both veterans of the First Crusade
• Shared achievement: Establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem's administrative and territorial foundations
• Defining moment of Baldwin II's reign: Granting the Knights Templar their founding charter, 1119
• Succession: Baldwin II arranged for his daughter Melisende to inherit jointly with her husband Fulk

Godfrey of Bouillon refused to be crowned king of Jerusalem. His successor felt no such hesitation. Within days of Godfrey's death in 1100, Baldwin, his younger brother and the man who had already carved out the crusading movement's first territorial state at Edessa, marched south and accepted the crown Godfrey had turned down, taking the title of king outright.

Baldwin I and his cousin and successor, Baldwin II, spent the next three decades building something Godfrey's single triumphant year had never had time to create: an actual functioning kingdom, with borders, administration, and institutions built to outlast any one ruler's lifetime. Between them, the two Baldwins survived multiple captures by their Muslim neighbours, one deeply awkward bigamy scandal, and a catastrophic military disaster in Antioch, and still managed to found the Knights Templar and secure a stable royal succession before either of them died.

This is the story of the two kings who turned a single conquered city into a kingdom.

From Boulogne to Edessa

Baldwin was born the youngest son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, with little expectation of inheriting significant lands of his own, and he joined the First Crusade as part of his brother Godfrey of Bouillon's contingent rather than as an independent commander in his own right. During the crusade's long march across Asia Minor in 1097, Baldwin broke away from the main army with the Norman commander Tancred to campaign independently in Cilicia, a decision that would define the rest of his career.

Exploiting a local uprising against the Armenian ruler of Edessa, Baldwin seized control of the city on 10 March 1098, establishing the County of Edessa as the very first Crusader state, well before Jerusalem itself had even been reached by the main army. He secured his new rule through marriage to Arda, the daughter of a local Armenian lord, a political alliance rather than a personal romance, though one that would later cause him real difficulty.

Jerusalem's First King

When Godfrey of Bouillon died in July 1100, having ruled Jerusalem for less than a year under the deliberately modest title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre, Godfrey's own retainers in the city moved quickly to secure the succession for Baldwin rather than the rival candidates being proposed by others, including the city's own Latin patriarch, who favoured a different claimant entirely.

Baldwin marched south from Edessa and, encountering little serious resistance along the way, was crowned king in Bethlehem on 25 December 1100, deliberately accepting the royal title his brother had refused only a year earlier. Where Godfrey had framed his authority around protecting the holy places, Baldwin I established the kingdom as a conventional monarchy from the very outset of his reign, a choice with lasting consequences for how Jerusalem would be governed afterward for the next two centuries of crusader rule.

Building a Kingdom, and a Marriage Scandal

Baldwin I spent much of his eighteen-year reign expanding and consolidating the young kingdom's territory, capturing key coastal cities including Acre, Beirut, and Sidon with the assistance of Italian naval support, and constructing a chain of fortresses in Oultrejordain, the territory east of the Jordan River, to control the vital caravan routes linking Syria and Egypt.

His personal life proved considerably messier than his political achievements. Having effectively abandoned his first wife Arda by 1108, Baldwin married the wealthy Sicilian noblewoman Adelaide del Vasto in 1113, a union that was technically bigamous since Arda remained alive in a Jerusalem monastery. When Baldwin fell seriously ill in 1117, he came to believe the sickness was divine punishment for the illegitimate marriage, and he repudiated Adelaide, sending her back to Sicily in disgrace to avoid further accusations of bigamy. Baldwin I died the following year, in 1118, while campaigning in Egypt, leaving no surviving heir of his own.

Baldwin of Bourcq: Edessa's Second Count

With Baldwin I's death leaving no direct heir, the kingdom's nobility turned to his cousin, Baldwin of Bourcq, a French nobleman from the County of Rethel who had also fought in the First Crusade and had succeeded Baldwin I as Count of Edessa back in 1100, ruling the northern frontier state in his own right for nearly two decades before his own eventual promotion to the throne of Jerusalem itself.

Baldwin of Bourcq's rule over Edessa was far from untroubled. He was captured by Seljuk forces in 1104 during fighting near the county's borders, and although he eventually secured his release through ransom and alliance-building with fellow crusader leaders, the experience gave him direct, personal knowledge of captivity that would recur, in considerably worse form, later in his career as king of Jerusalem itself.

King Baldwin II

Baldwin of Bourcq was crowned King Baldwin II of Jerusalem on Easter Sunday, 14 April 1118, inheriting a kingdom considerably more established than the one his predecessor had first won, but still facing serious and ongoing military pressure from its Muslim neighbours on every side of its borders.

That pressure produced two of the defining crises of his reign. In 1119, the Principality of Antioch's army was annihilated at the Battle of the Field of Blood, and Baldwin II personally stepped in as regent to stabilise the principality in the absence of its own ruler at a genuinely critical moment for the wider Crusader states. Then in 1123, he was captured a second time, taken prisoner near the castle of Gargar and held for roughly a year before securing his release in 1124 through a heavy ransom and the surrender of his young daughter Yveta as a hostage.

Founding the Templars, and a Daughter's Throne

Despite these repeated crises, Baldwin II's reign produced one of the crusading era's most consequential institutional legacies. In 1119, he granted the knight Hugh de Payens and his small band of companions quarters within the royal palace on the Temple Mount, formally sanctioning what would become the Knights Templar, the military order that would go on to shape crusading warfare and European finance for the next two centuries.

With no surviving sons of his own, Baldwin II also made a deliberate and unusual decision about his succession. Rather than leaving the kingdom to his daughter Melisende's husband Fulk of Anjou alone, he arranged before his death in 1131 for Melisende, Fulk, and their infant son to inherit the throne jointly, ensuring his daughter's own hereditary claim survived intact into the next generation. Readers wanting to explore what Melisende did with that inheritance will find further reading in the Histories and Castles Crusades collection, alongside a free illustrated guide to Richard the Lionheart.

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This article is part of the Crusades series. Read all articles at https://historiesandcastles.com/blogs/the-crusades.

Deepen Your Understanding

→ The History of the Crusades: the full sweep of the crusading era, from Urban II's call at Clermont to the fall of Acre in 1291

→ Godfrey of Bouillon: The Crusader Who Refused a Crown: Baldwin I's own brother, whose refusal of the crown Baldwin declined to imitate

→ Queen Melisende: The Woman Who Ruled Jerusalem Alone: Baldwin II's daughter, whose joint succession he personally arranged before his death

→ Who Were the Knights Templar?: the military order Baldwin II personally sanctioned in 1119, granting them quarters on the Temple Mount

People Also Ask

Who was Baldwin I of Jerusalem?

Baldwin I was the first King of Jerusalem, ruling from 1100 to 1118. The younger brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, he had already founded the County of Edessa, the first Crusader state, in 1098, before succeeding Godfrey and becoming the first ruler of Jerusalem to accept the royal title outright, rather than the more modest title Godfrey himself had chosen for his own rule. He spent his reign expanding the kingdom's coastal and eastern territories considerably.

Who was Baldwin II of Jerusalem?

Baldwin II, also known as Baldwin of Bourcq, was King of Jerusalem from 1118 to 1131, succeeding his cousin Baldwin I after the first king died without a surviving heir of his own. Baldwin II had previously ruled as the second Count of Edessa for nearly two decades, survived two separate periods of captivity at the hands of his Muslim neighbours, and granted the Knights Templar their founding charter in 1119, before his own death in 1131.

How was Baldwin I of Jerusalem related to Godfrey of Bouillon?

Baldwin I was Godfrey of Bouillon's younger brother. When Godfrey died in 1100 after ruling Jerusalem for less than a year under the modest title Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre, Godfrey's own supporters in the city moved quickly to secure the succession for Baldwin, who was crowned king in Bethlehem on 25 December 1100, deliberately accepting the royal title his own brother had pointedly refused to take for himself the previous year.

Why did Baldwin I of Jerusalem's marriage to Adelaide of Sicily cause a scandal?

Baldwin I married the wealthy Sicilian noblewoman Adelaide del Vasto in 1113, but the marriage was technically bigamous, since his first wife Arda remained alive in a Jerusalem monastery at the time of the wedding. When Baldwin fell seriously ill in 1117, he came to believe the sickness was divine punishment for the illegitimate marriage, and he repudiated Adelaide, sending her back to Sicily in disgrace to avoid further accusations of bigamy against him.

How did Baldwin II of Jerusalem help found the Knights Templar?

In 1119, Baldwin II granted the knight Hugh de Payens and his small band of companions quarters within the royal palace on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, formally sanctioning the military order that would become the Knights Templar. This royal endorsement gave the fledgling order the standing and location it needed to grow into one of the most powerful and enduring institutions of the entire crusading era over the two centuries that followed.

Primary Sources and Further Reading

• Fulcher of Chartres: Historia Hierosolymitana, an eyewitness chronicle by a chaplain who served both Baldwin I and Baldwin II directly, offering the single most detailed contemporary account of both reigns.
• William of Tyre: A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. Emily Atwater Babcock and A.C. Krey, Columbia University Press, 1943. A later but essential chronicle covering both kings' reigns within the kingdom's wider political history.
• Murray, Alan V. (2000): The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History, 1099–1125, Prosopographica et Genealogica. A detailed modern academic study of the kingdom's early royal succession, including both Baldwins' reigns.

Note: some specific details of Baldwin I's marriages, including the precise chronology of his relationship with Arda before her repudiation, are not fully settled in the surviving sources and are presented here as the widely accepted modern scholarly reconstruction rather than an uncontested certainty.

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