Crisis in Jerusalem, 1100

Early in February 1100 Baldwin arrived back in Edessa after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He could be satisfied that he had established the Frankish county of Edessa, as Monique Amouroux-Mourad observed, ‘practically without conquest’. ¹ Rule in the city of Edessa itself had been ceded to him by its governing elite, and his position was consolidated first by his marriage into the Armenian nobility and second by the deposition of Thoros in a coup that probably had Baldwin’s tacit approval if not his outright collusion. He had extended his authority over surrounding fortresses by a combination of purchase, trickery, intimidation and sheer ruthlessness. All of this had been achieved with, probably, fewer than 100 knights, for when more arrived during the siege of Antioch in 1098 their presence was a provocation to the Armenians. Even though Baldwin was therefore the Frankish governor of an Armenian state, as Claude Cahen wrote, and this was a potentially precarious state of affairs, he felt secure enough to travel to Jerusalem for Christmas 1099. ² The pilgrimage also marked a rapprochement with Bohemond, now the ruler of Antioch, that led indirectly to an opportunity for Baldwin to extend his authority north of Edessa.