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1100. JERUSALEM. IN THE PALACE OF THE NEW KING . . .

Just as the sultry days in the holy city were replaced by the cooler climes of November, so the deceased Godefroi de Bouillon was succeeded by his colder and tougher Burgundian brother, Baudoin. The new king was described as “very tall and much larger than his brother . . . of rather light complexion, with dark-brown hair and beard. His nose was aquiline and his upper lip somewhat prominent. The lower jaw slightly receded, although not so much that it could be considered a defect. He was dignified in carriage and serious in dress and speech. He always wore a mantle hanging from his shoulders. . . . [He] was neither stout nor unduly thin, but rather of a medium habit of body. Expert in the use of arms, agile on horseback, he was active and diligent whenever the affairs of the realm called him.”¹

From the start, Baudoin I’s attention was focused more on logistical problems of state that on ecclesiastical pursuits. He inherited a kingdom more isolated than before, cut off from the north and the sea by minor Moslem emirates and by the failure to establish a permanent overland route from Europe. The fortress towns remained scattered among a countryside made more hostile by brigands, arrogant Crusaders, and local mercenaries.²

Throughout his reign Baudoin I would deal with countless attempts by small Muslim armies to retake Jerusalem while chipping away at outlying settlements suffering from a lack of trained men to adequately garrison castles and towns. There was the problem of depopulation after the conquest, and many Crusaders returned to their homelands now that their vows were fulfilled, leaving too few remaining citizens to adequately defend the entire city.³ To add to the king’s civic woes, the city’s treasury was bankrupt.

Meanwhile, the perils of the pilgrim trail did not diminish, and various firsthand accounts describe the insecurity of walking the 33-mile route from the port of Jaffa to Jerusalem. The Norse pilgrim Saewulf, who attempted the journey in 1102, described corpses of attacked victims rotting by the side of the road due to the soil being too hard to dig and the people willing to bury them being wise not to linger lest they too should be attacked.⁴ Ambushes were frequent, by Saracens, by brigands, sometimes by mountain lions; survivors would then have to contend with sunstroke and restricted access to well water.

Still, behind all the drama, Baudoin played an important role in nurturing the seed of the future Knights Templar that had been planted in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher by his late brother Godefroi. At some point there came the need for this brotherhood, set up by Hugues de Payns, to leave the church. Perhaps there was a gulf dividing the ethics of the knights following Hugues’s moral example, and the others who grew bored from lack of fighting and got drunk. Such misconduct was sufficient for Hugues, along with his colleague Godefroi de Saint-Omer and a small band of knights, to go visit Baudoin and ask the king for assistance.⁵