ABSTRACT
Most historians of the crusader states have tended to assume that the nobility of the early Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was essentially Lotharingian in character, being drawn predominantly from the followers or vassals of the first two monarchs: Godfrey of Bouillon, who before the First Crusade was duke of Lower Lotharingia, and his brother and successor Baldwin I. The nobility constituted only a minority of the Frankish population of the kingdom, itself a minority among native Christians of various rites, Muslims, Jews, and Samaritans. The most logical area of origin to consider first is Lotharingia, since scholarship has repeatedly stressed the importance of the Lotharingian element in the early Jerusalem nobility. Men of the Norman race made up two of the major contingents on the crusade: those from Normandy and England under Duke Robert, and those from southern Italy under Bohemund and Tancred.
