In Our Time - Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem

Episode Date: November 21, 2019

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most powerful woman in the Crusader states in the century after the First Crusade. Melisende (1105-61) was born and raised after the mainly Frankish crusaders had taken Jerusalem from the Fatimids, and her father was King of Jerusalem. She was married to Fulk from Anjou, on the understanding they would rule together, and for 30 years she vied with him and then their son as they struggled to consolidate their Frankish state in the Holy Land. The image above is of the coronation of Fulk with Melisende, from Livre d'Eracles, Guillaume de Tyr (1130?-1186) Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France With Natasha Hodgson Senior Lecturer in Medieval History and Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Nottingham Trent UniversityKatherine Lewis Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Huddersfieldand Danielle Park Visiting Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoy the programs. Hello, Melisande was Queen of Jerusalem in the 12th century AD and held power there alongside three different kings, her father, her husband and her son, and sometimes against them.

The Crusader states were a new Frankish project, begun as they captured Jerusalem in 1099, and vitally, she balanced the interests of the First Crusader settlers and the new arrivals from France as the states were threatened by infighting as well as by their Islamic neighbours. With me to discuss Melisand, Queen of Jerusalem are Natasha Hodgson, senior lecturer in medieval history, and director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict and Nottingham Trent University. Daniel Park, visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway University of London and Catherine Lewis, Senior Lecture in History at the University of Huddersfield. Catherine Lewis, what brought the Franks to the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the 11th century?

The Franks were in the Eastern Mediterranean behest of Pope Urban II, who inspired this huge military campaign which we now call the First Crusade. And it was essentially aimed at recapturing Jerusalem from Islamic rule. It had been under Islamic rule since the 7th century. And Urban essentially wanted Jerusalem to become a Christian power again. and for the surrounding area to become Christian as well. So they achieved this, as you've said, in July 1099. They captured the city of Jerusalem. But then, of course, the next step was to consolidate this capture.

If you want to maintain Christian power in the area, you need to establish territorial power bases. So we have a process of several years of consolidation, during which time we have the development of four distinct crusader states, as they're now known. So the most important of these is at Jerusalem. We have a kingdom at Jerusalem. Then we have a principality at Antioch.

And we have two counties, one at Tripoli and one at Edessa. How was Jerusalem organized? How big was it for a start? What sort of place was it? Originally it was literally just the city of Jerusalem. But then during the reign of Baldwin I, who's the first king of Jerusalem, the territory really expands up to the Mediterranean and takes in a lot of the seaboard. Have we any idea of population or anything like that?

I don't know precise numbers of population off the top of my head, although I think one of the things to say is that the numbers of Frank, so the ruling class, is very small. What did they try to create when they came the Crusaders? Did they set out to create a kingdom, or what did they set out to do? It's not clear that they really set out with any absolute objective in mind, but what they did set up was what they were familiar with, essentially. So they import Western forms of gender,

jurisdiction, law, custom and so on from their own areas in what we would now call France. So you have a system whereby the chief man in each of these areas, king, prince and count, he has a load of vassals underneath him who hold land, who have obligations and loyalty to him. And they also perform a very important role in advising him. I suppose they form what we would now call a government essentially. What was a reaction? I mean, these comparatively few crusaders compared to the rest of the population, how did they manage to impose their will and their system on Jerusalem and on the other states?

Well, by military might in the first instance, through just to sheer force, I think. But then, I suppose, the various, the kinds of institutions that they set up. For example, they import a minorial system into the countryside. And it's difficult to know, I suppose, for a lot of local population, how much things would have changed just because there was a change in lordship at the top. But evidently, over a period of about 10, 15 years, it is very successful and they have established themselves.

Is it a replica of the feudal system in any way? It is, except we don't really like the term feudal system. I don't we? No, I'm afraid. Oh, well. It's a bit too neat. It makes it look as though there's one universal rule that applies across Europe, which there wasn't.

But it is feudal, in inverted commas, in the sense of being all about landholding. And that's what's absolutely crucial. Natasha Hodgson, Melisand was born after the First Crusade, which was 10th, 99. Who was her mother, and why was that important? Melisand's mother is a woman called Morphia. She's the daughter of Gabriel of Melitin. She's Armenian by birth, but Greek Orthodox by religion.

And this means she's kind of slightly closer to the Frankish religion in some respect. Morphia is significant. She's the wife of Baldwin of Bork, so she marries the Count of Edessa, who ruled there until 1118, when he follows his previous liege lord Baldwin of Boulogne onto the throne of Jerusalem, and becomes Queen of Jerusalem. Morphia does. And so where do we go from there? Well, we think from the sources, they suggest that they had a reasonably happy marriage, so they had four children together, four daughters, the eldest, eldest Melisond, we think, was probably born after 1109, followed fairly closely by Alice.

There's a long time after 11.09, how new to 11.10 or the 15? Anyway, that'll do. We're normally kind of judging these things by a canonical age of marriage, so they have to be at least 12 before they can get married. But yeah, we think Alice may be around 1111 and then Hodea, possibly 1115 to 1117. and finally Evater, the youngest, was born around 11, 19, 20. And it's sort of at that time, they move, so Baldwin becomes King of Jerusalem. They all move down together.

He waits for more fear to arrive before he gets crowned, so she's present for the coronation. Is it unusual that you have, first of all, that you have a coronation there? And certainly that it's a Frankish Christian and an Armenian Christian together. Is that regarded, there's anything that says, well, this is unusual, and it's good or bad or what?

She's a Greek Orthodox by religion, and that kind of means she's a bit closer to the Latin faith. And we know very little about her own kind of involvement and sort of personal devotions. A lot of what we think we know about comes from Melisone's later preference for certain patronage and those kind of things. So I don't think so. There were quite a few people who married into established Christian families, whether Armenian or Greek Orthodox. They brought with them impressive dowries, Morphia's dad. was 50,000 golden besants, which obviously sort of helped. Golden wood, basins.

Yeah. Which then helped the crusaders to establish themselves as they were going through this ongoing process of warfare. So the money that they brought was important, but the links to the established nobility and potential Christian allies were also really important. What united the Christians and the crusader Christians and what divided them? There is a lot of rivalry between the Franks during this process of settlement. You know, people are seeking to establish their own territories and develop themselves. There's also rivalry with Indigenous Christian populations over the important sites of pilgrimage that the Crusaders want access to. And certainly, you know, in some cases other groups of Christians might be treated more as second-class citizens in some people.

of the crusader held areas. Can I bring in the religious element in this? They came for a Christian purpose. Did they achieve that Christian purpose? What was it? Did they achieve it? Most historians nowadays accept that Jerusalem was the goal of the first crusade. It comes across in the Crusader charters and all of those other things. But the first crusaders, when they set out, couldn't possibly know that they would have been successful in doing that.

I mean, they achieved more than they could possibly have thought, you know, imagine. So what did they achieve, which was more then? the return of the Holy City. I mean, that is the big success of the First Crusade. The Holy City was brought back into Christian. Yes, and a Latin patriarch is established, Arnold of Shock, is put in place that the first Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. He doesn't actually last very long because the Pope doesn't approve of that candidate,

but that's another story. This is what's written about time and time again in Western Chronicles as the sort of major success. But the problem is then how to hold it with this very small minority. of Latins who remain behind because a lot of people go home. They see themselves as having fulfilled their duty. It was a very hard-fought campaign

and very many of them have responsibilities in the West that they have to return home for. And we'll come back to what happens then. In a moment, I want to go on now to Danielle. Let's turn to Melisone. Let's bring her to the pictures, the programme's about her. She's the eldest daughter. How does she develop?

What sources are available for you to tell us about? her? Well, the main sources that we have that tell us about her and what she's doing as the Queen of Jerusalem are the charters. So these are essentially the governmental records of donations, of new buildings being established, of land grants. And they tell us who is involved at a governmental level, what they're doing this for, and who the witnesses are. So they tell us who are the key players around the King and Queen at a given time. And they're always sealed with an image of the king usually on horseback and the queen usually with either a flower, an orb or a bird of prey, usually a hawk, as signs of their secular authority. So really this is about impressing on a

permanent record. This is a decision that the ruler has made. This is why it's been made and that it's going to last in perpetuity. So that's one of our main governmental records. And there are quite a lot of these? There's quite a few of them that exist from Falcon Melisond's reign. And anything else in the sources? We also have quite a question. few letters, there's at least four letters that survive from Abbott Bernard of Clevo, so one of the foremost churchmen of his age. Very famous, Asterian abbot, responsible for a significant amount of preaching on the Second Crusade, and he writes at least four letters to her. Some of them are quite simple. Here are some pilgrims I would like you to take care of. Here are some

Primon Cotentian brothers. I would like you to look after them. But two others were written at quite crucial points within her reign. One just after the death of her husband, Fulco van Jew, and that one tells her that essentially if she should be the queen, but in order to be a successful queen of Jerusalem without her husband,

she should really act as a man because then nobody will have any cause to ask, where is the king of Jerusalem? Because the queen is being the king of Jerusalem. Before we need sources, we've got to go to William of Tyo. Is he probably the most important source? He's certainly the most important narrative source that we have.

have. So he's a key individual, especially by the 1170s, he's really coming into his own. By 1170, he is the tutor to King Amalric's son, the future King Baldwin the 4th. By 1174, he's the chancellor of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, so that gives him access to all of those charters and the laws of the kingdom. And by 1175, he's reached the pinnacle of his ecclesiastical career. So he never quite gets the top job that he really wants. He never gets to be the patriarch of Jerusalem, but in 1175, he becomes the Archbishop of Tyre. So he is in a significant ecclesiastical role. So by 1170 onwards, when he's writing his history from, we think, around 1167, he's extremely well placed to know exactly what's going on within the kingdom. He seems to be quite close to King Amaric. They have quite a few

conversations about history. But for Melisone's reign, while he tells us that this is the point where he is an eyewitness to the kingdom of Jerusalem and its events, he is probably not actually situated in the east. He's probably in the West pursuing his university education. So he is the best we've got. The West being the west of Europe. The West of Europe. Yeah. So he's the best that we've got, but we have to accept that he comes with a lot of caveats that a lot of what he's working with would essentially be court gossip, the memory of people that were there at the time. But he doesn't necessarily have firsthand knowledge. How far do you think is

banishing those he writes about? I think it's definitely a concern because Melisand is really a key component of the dynasty. All of the kings that he's writing about are descended from her. She is unusual in that she's a woman in Jerusalem carrying on that line. Previously it's always gone through the male line so this is the first time it goes through the female line

and his patron as an author is her second son a Malric. So there is a possibility that he wouldn't want to offend his patron by telling too many accounts of the misdeeds of his mother or painting Amauric's mother Melisond in anything less than this paragon of queenship. We've gone slightly before a horse to market really, but Catherine, can we tell people how Melisone came to be the queen? What happened that this woman became Queen of Jerusalem and on we go from there? Well, the basic answer to that is that Baldwin the second doesn't have any sons. So as we've heard, he has four daughters. And there are attempts, I think, to get him to remarry when he first becomes king. And maybe there's a suggestion

that he could remarry and father a son, but he doesn't. So by the time we get to the later 1120, so Melisone's about 20 herself at this point. Clearly, she is now being identified as his heir. And in the charters that Danielle mentions, we start to have her name associated with Baldwin's. And the law permits her to be queen. Yes, it does, yeah. And the crucial thing is that the, Baldwin the Second obviously wants the monarchy to go to his descendants. He wants his bloodline to stay on the throne.

And that's the really crucial thing. So Melisond, as his elder daughter, will inherit. And obviously then the identity of our husband becomes very important. And so is there any objection when he, does he name her? So when I die, she will be my heir? He names her as his heir in some of the charters, yes. and this is before she's married. And is there any evidence that people then educate her for the job?

There's no evidence for that, but I would argue, given what else we know about women's role in politics, that it's entirely conceivable that actually not just she, but all of her sisters, would have been educated. Women needed to know how politics worked. Queens, for example, had their own households, their own estates and revenue that they were expected to manage in support of their husband. and sometimes women would find themselves in sort of political caretaker roles if their husbands were royal military campaign or if they had minor sons. Do we know anything straightforward about her at this time? I mean, what does she look like?

No. It's better if we say something. Well, William Rite and I never describes her, does he? I think he just says she's very thin. And that Baldwin III looks like her. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah. And we know that Baldwin the 3rd was blonde.

Yes. And he said that, you know, he was good looking as well and said that, So he looked like his mother in that respect, but that she was rather spare. Not spout it. But the problem was, I mean, she was a queen, so that she was designated to be the queen. But the queen, one of the things that the queen,

maybe the most important thing, is that she could not lead an army into battle. And they needed a man for that, of that time, and they went looking for one. And how did it look and what did they find? At the time that Baldwin was thinking about, a suitable husband for Melisond, It was around 11, 26, 27.

He lost his own wife, Morphia, we think, around that time. He was also arranging marriages for another of his daughters, Alice of Antioch. At that time, she gets married to the new Air Beaumont second. But they wanted someone from the West because this would bring over potential new recruits for a new crusade, resources, wealth, money. And having had a chat with the nobles of Jerusalem, they settled on full. Fulk the 5th of Anjou. And why Falk? Well, he'd already been out to the Holy Land in the first place. He came out in 1120. He had kept knights there, a hundred knights there, in the service on Crusade for a year, so they knew he was rich. And he'd made quite a lot of good friends over there. And I think that the nobility thought, yes, this would be a great candidate. He was a very experienced ruler. He'd been ruling Anjou since 1109. children? Was his wife dead? He had children already. He had Geoffrey of Anjou, who then, obviously, later went on to become the father of Henry.

Was his wife dead, or did he just desert her and get to high him to Jerusalem? I believe she died in 1126, conveniently. He was available. He was available. They heard that he was available. Yeah, his wife, Aaron Berger suddenly had passed away, so yes, he was kind of an ideal candidate, a bit older than Melisand. Possibly about 20 years older. when William of Tyre writes about him he says oh he was practically ancient but the suggestion is that William was maybe had met him in later life

and was actually probably when he was about 60 which is why he was saying so so he's probably in his 40s when he gets married so Paul comes over to be the husband of Melisande and he thinks as I understand it Daniel you're going to put me right here that he's going to be king of Jerusalem

and that's that and she's going to be his wife who doesn't do much but she didn't think it was going to be like that at all So what happened? Well, they seem to have very different expectations of what this marriage means for both of them. So Manasond has been introduced, as Catherine said, in the charters as the heiress to the kingdom. So she has every expectation that she is going to continue to fulfill that role within government, that she'll be at the side of her husband and carry on as she has being at the side of her father.

She will be the queen to Fulke's king. Falk seems to have been given the impression that he is coming over to Jerusalem he has to marry the woman to get to the throne and then he is going to be king in his own right so he is expecting to be king sole ruler without having to pay much attention to his wife more or less as he had been counter Vanjou

without having to pay too much deference to his wife there he is expecting to be the sole ruler and we can see this in some of the chronicles from Andrew So these are written from 1107 onwards. They're added to in the 12th century. And they tell us quite simply that Falk married the daughter of the king and became king. And that's pretty much the last time Melisond gets a look in that chronicle. Audric Fitalis, who's writing a little bit later in France.

In the 1130s, he tells us more or less the same story. The Count married the king's daughter and became king. What do we know about Melisand's reaction to this? Catherine. We don't know anything at all about her own personal reaction to it. All we know is that she effectively gets excluded from government and fault with this understanding that he's king. He takes the business of the realm into his own hands. Only his name appears on charters to start with. So he just assumes it is going to be a conventional arrangement. But even though we don't know her reaction, I think we can assume that she clearly has other ideas about it and that this is not what she had been. led to expect. She'd been led to expect that it would be more like a co-rulorship, essentially. So we know about her absence but not her presence? Yes. We don't. But how many years is there nothing in the documents? Four or five years? 1136 when she really starts to come back into her own in the charters as the queen and that's where, well, we suddenly see that she's there

where she hasn't been before. Previously, it's been Falk, who his father-in-law, Baldwin the second made king, and that's the only illusion there is to the fact that he's there through marriage. Whereas once you get into 1136, you see them together. So it is, I, Fork, the King of Jerusalem, together with my wife, Melisond, the Queen of Jerusalem. And the way that it's phrased, the verbs all become floral. Whereas before 1136, it was, I folk, do this. It becomes, we assign, we give, we grant, we concede. And that goes all the way through the charter with that construction. That was obviously a big change. What happened? There's quite a lot of reaction. to Folk's assumption of power,

especially on the death of Melisone's father, Baldwin II, in 1131. By that stage, they have a young son already, so they've provided an heir for the kingdom in the form of the young Baldwin III. But he seems to be, as Daniel said, ruling in his own right, not really paying attention to the established nobility, putting in his new Angevin cronies, and this causes a lot of upset, and it actually results in a rebellion. So he's bringing his palace from France?

to run the place. Essentially, yeah. And what we have is a state of rebellion. He's also acting as Regent for Antioch at this stage and kind of running backwards and forwards trying to keep the nobles happy there and the nobles in Jerusalem. But they're not impressed with his exclusion of Melisond from power

and they rally around her. But there seems to be a key incidence or a secession of two or three incidents which made the change. That's what I've read. Can you tell us authoritatively what those were? Matt has really come to a head with the involvement of a chap called Hugh Count of Jaffer. Now, Hugh is someone who comes across from the West to take up his inheritance,

but his father had been Count of Jaffer. He's also a cousin of Melisond and very close to her. This allows people to start fanning flames of jealousy, according to William of Tyre, and saying, oh, there's something a bit more going on here. Too close. Too close. And it didn't help perhaps that Hugh. He was also very handsome and had a great reputation for military prowess.

He knows. And he was the same age as Melisande, roughly. So perhaps they were close. And they went off together now and then to do things. Not I don't, I'm not being so. There really isn't any innuendo there. They worked on stuff together. He was one of her partisans.

And he was actually married himself. He had a good marriage, but the marriage put out a couple of the established nobles. And this maybe then led. to accusations of treason as well. But what really spurred it, it seems to me, because there's a lot going on, and you've been very clear about that, is that someone who could have been an agent of Fulke

stabbed him, wounded him very, very badly. And that switched the sympathy back to Mellison, and away from Hugh as being the dastardly chap trying to take her way, and to Mellison being the heroic queen, much better than this man Fulke, and all the other things gathered around that he was an ingenu, who's bringing his cronies in, and the former cronies didn't like it, and so on. So that was the change.

Yeah, it's a real swing of popular opinion. Fulk makes a terrible faux par, basically, in his campaign against Hugh. He does try to get one of his men to fight him in a duel. That doesn't work. Hugh runs away to Jaffa and allies with Ascalon. He allies with the Muslim enemy. And that also really lowers his esteem in people's eyes and his vassals turn him over to the king.

Hugh is exiled, but while he's waiting in Jerusalem, dicing for his ship, yes, someone tries to stab him and it seems almost unbelievable that it wasn't Fulk who ordered this hit but it's not successful and the Queen is furious and people say the king isn't safe around Melisonde

Daniel so from then on Melis are in the records as you've read in your documentary she reasserts herself she's there all the time it's we all the time so what she's doing all the time now well from that point

William of Tyre tells us that Melisson's wrath is, as Natasha has said, is so dramatic that it's not safe even for the king to be in her presence. So William of Tyre says that they come to a reconciliation. Really? I mean, you get the, what are there? How is that put? He says that even the king feared for his safety, as did his supporters. So that's just that Manison did she have her own private guard or did she have a particularly bad temper with her own private guard? No, it just says quite a lot more about it than just. So what was going on there?

Well, it seems the way that William of Tyre describes it, that it is essentially a performative display of her righteous anger. And by putting it in that way, this is not the anger of somebody who's had an affair been caught out. This is the anger of somebody who has had something terrible done to them and has every right to be this angry about it. So by making her presence felt in that way, it becomes very clear to folk over time that he's only going to be able to be the king

in any meaningful sense if he works cooperatively with his wife. And William of Tire has the line he becomes so luxurious that he doesn't even dare to do anything trivial without the Queen's consent. And that's where we really start to see after 1136 that they are working together in every single charter. And apart from Antioch, which is a different case, because there he's a regent, not the ruler,

you don't see them apart. You see them joined at the hip in all of these charters. Can you give us one of two instances where they are doing this together or that together, building a castle, passing a law, whatever it is? Yeah. So they build the castle of Beth Giblin together, so about 12 kilometres outside of Ascalon. They also are closely involved together in the building of the convent of Bethany. So this eventually goes on to be where Melison's younger sister, Evetta, is set up as Abbas.

But in its earliest incarnation, this is the two of them working together to extend an existing site of interest for pilgrims. They have two churches constructed there, one for pilgrims, one for the community of nuns. And Winnie Wattaya tells us that Melisand has this fortified with a tower, because this couple have clearly realized that that's something that needs to be done for the safety of the community. Catherine, Catherine knows, can we just develop this presence of Melisand now? Because we don't know quite enough about her. Does her Armenian half, as it were, help in the way she is Queen? I think it could well have done. I think that sense, my feeling that she's probably been prepared for the role in combination with her background would certainly be helpful. And I think

one of the things to say here, so we've heard that Fulke has to go off to Antioch quite a lot. And the fact that Melisand and other queens can't exercise a warrior skills or they can't lead armies has sometimes been held to hinder their exercise of authority. But we could say that actually it functions in quite the reverse way because Fulke can go away to Antioch and deal with the problems there, safe in the knowledge that the day-to-day running of Jerusalem, so politics and law and the economy and so on is under Melisone's rule, and she can ensure continuity and security. So we could say that actually that kind of traditional caretaker role that women often have allows her to be more politically active precisely because her husband and then later her son are the ones that are

going off and involving themselves in military activities. Do you say casually money, she was allowed to run the estates? We don't know specifically. We don't know specifically. but I think we assume so just because of the way that she appears in the charters. I think there's no reason to think that she wasn't the one governing in his absence. And we certainly know from other comparable examples in Western Europe that that definitely is the case, that women are running these systems in the absence of husbands or sons. Catherine, there's an hunting incident that Fulk has in 11.43. It doesn't seem to have been murdered.

It seems to be in a horrible accident. That's one of the descriptions you give. How did she hold onto power after that? Yes, Fulke is killed very. suddenly out hunting a hare or a rabbit or something with a lance apparently, which seems a bit overkill. But he falls off, or he falls and the horse falls on him and there's this terrible accident. He dies. Melisand is absolutely distraught. And it leaves Baldwin the Third is 13 at this time. That's their son. That's right, their son and their eldest son. And William of Tyre, well,

he tells us two things. So he says that Royal Power passed to Melisonde by hereditary right. He says that Baldwin the 3rd is crowned along with Melisond, but he also says that Melisond is ruling because Baldwin is not yet of age. Yes, exactly. So one way of looking at this is to say that she's functioning as a kind of regent. However, when Baldwin III gets to the age of 15, she doesn't step down. And some modern historians have been quite negative about her at this point and have said that her actions in the later 1140s and early 1150s are essentially her holding Baldwin back

from power that was rightfully his and they talk about her being ambitious and scheming and that she should have stepped down. And they talk about her holding onto him, and there's a very... Oh, the tentacles. Yes, there's one description of her extending her tentacles to try and hinder Baldwin's power,

which is sort of amusing, but it also gives the sense of a kind of monstrous, unnatural authority. But the other way of looking at it is to say that actually she's not his regent. She's a co-ruler with him. And that there's actually no evidence that people were clamoring for Baldwin to be given the throne. William of Tyre, albeit that we have to handle him carefully, does tell us that Baldwin III was rather a badly behaved young man quite promiscuous.

He liked gaming and women and so on. And it may be that there genuinely was a feeling that Baldwin wasn't quite ready to take power. Melisand has a lot of support among the barons and among churchmen and so on. And so this idea that she should have stepped down, I think we need to be careful. of perhaps importing backwards some more modern views about where we think women belong in politics. Maybe she didn't think it was all that good. You never know?

I mean, Natasha. Natasha, but he did assert himself when he's about 23. How did he do that? They rule together for a while. And the situation really begins to unravel, I think, around 1149 when a lot of other disasters start to happen in the other Crusader states. and the big point of conflict sort of flares up between Baldwin and Melisond in 1151 to 2 and it revolves essentially around this kind of group of people who are inflaming the king against his mother

and saying, you know, you're old enough to rule now, they use a rather crude phrase in the Latin but essentially meaning hanging off his mother's teat and you ought to be, you know, kind of ruling in your own right. some of these people, William of Tire doesn't quite tell us who those people are but we know that Melisand's constable Manassez of Heerge seems to have ruffled a few feathers

especially with the Ibelin family so there's a question of whether those might have been the ones who were involved in doing this but Melisand was relying on this constable to lead the army and you know Baldwin kind of was thinking this should be my role

So what did Baldwin do? So he first of all challenges his mum and he says, you know, look, I want to be crowned in my own right. And I'm going to set the date for Easter and I want to do it on my own. The patriarch actually kind of refuses and then tries to talk him out of it. He then says he sort of tries to change the date and then basically just appears in Jerusalem wearing the laurel as if he has been crowned in his own right when he hasn't. So it's a bit of a trick and a bit of a sort of show. But how does he convince? We haven't got to the point.

Then all of a sudden, he seems to gather some sort of force together, you'll tell me how big it is, and take half of the kingdom. Which half and when does he do that? Well, first of all, he calls the High Court. He gets the nobles in and he says, right, I'm going to divide the kingdom. She gets Jerusalem and Nablus, and he gets tyre and acre, I think. But then he, once that's sorted, he sets up his own constable, and then he invades Melisone's half.

so he turns up at Jerusalem with an armed force he besieges Melisone's constable Manas says and yeah basically turns up and and the people of Jerusalem don't feel that they can keep him out of the city so they let him in and he bombards his mother in the citadel for a few days bombards are you talking about with siege engines and all the rest of it yes

so it went business yes but peace is finally negotiated possibly through the auspices of the church and after that stage Melisand agrees to step down she cedes Jerusalem to Baldwin and she then goes into retirement at Nablus. Yes and castellates that.

Danielle but how much Jerusalem let's go to take a bit of an overview. How did she changed Jerusalem or how had Jerusalem changed while she was queen? She does quite a lot to improve the landscape of the city both spiritually and also

strategically. So with something like the Holy Sepulch, that becomes a massive project in 1131. And the start of it is really marked by Her and Fulch choosing that as the location of their coronation. Previously, other kings of Jerusalem had been crowned king in the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. So this is a marked departure from what's gone before. And it seems that they felt that for liturgical purposes, the Holy Sepulchre, as it stood in a Byzantine restoration, was too small for their purposes. So what Melisond decides to do is essentially to make it quite a Western-style Romanesque building, bringing in the holy places of the Tomb of Christ, Calvary, all into one structure.

But it actually ends up being that mix of eastern and western styles that we would expect from what we know of Melisond at this point. So the Byzantine-style rotunda is kept, so are the mosaics, so are the domes. So it ends up being this hybrid construction. And that's a long-term project. So it is dedicated on the 15th of July 1149 to mark the 50th anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem. But details like the Bell Tower, that would still have been an ongoing process much later. So that's her big prestige project.

There's also the castles being built around Beth Gibilin, Blanchegard, Ibelin, all essentially around a frontier with Ascalon. So against... We know she was involved in those. We know she's involved in those from the charters. William Fyre gives us this very gendered portrayal that Melisond does the church and folk does the castles. But when you look at the charters, both of them are equally involved in both.

Catherine Lewis, she died in 1160. Did she go quietly to Nubles? I mean, it says he came, he went into Jerusalem, he was acclaimed she left. Did she leave? Oh, he bombarded it, of course, didn't they? Yes. So did she go quietly? Did she threaten to come back? What happened to her?

Well, I don't think we, again, we don't really know anything about how she felt. And I suppose one thing to say about it is it's interesting. It's one of those situations where from the same evidence, historians have drawn some quite different conclusions. So some have said that she basically completely capitulates and that she has no power and that the only reason Baldwin puts her in his charters afterwards is so that she doesn't feel humiliated. Whereas others have said that actually the fact that she appears in the charters

is an indication that he is still consulting her and that he's still taking her advice. And William Matai gives a number of examples afterwards of situations where she does still seem to be involved. So after he takes Ascalon, isn't it? He takes her advice about what to do with the booty and sort of distributing land. Some people have even argued that she's actually even more active after she's so-called retires than she is beforehand. So it's one of those situations that is a matter of interpretation to some extent. What's your view? It's difficult to say.

I think that certainly the way that William of Tyre frames it is that it's a way of actually showing that Baldwin is prudent because William of Tyre emphasises over and over again the accomplishment of Melisone's rule and especially her wisdom and the fact that she equals her ancestors in the accomplishment of her rule. And so I think the fact that Baldwin is getting her consent to his acts is a way of actually demonstrating that his rule is good because it's a property of ideal kingship to take advice.

and there's no one better to take advice from than Melisand. Natasha, Nash-Otson, Saladin over ran Jerusalem in 1187, was the kingdom already in decline? I mean, that's a question off debated by historians as well. Obviously, Melisand also, her reign coincides with the Second Crusade, which was a major event. And, you know, we have kings from the West present in the East. Which kings?

So we have Louis the 7th, the 4th. France. We have Conrad of Germany. They meet together at the Council of Parmerea and they make a decision to attack Damascus, which goes disastrously wrong, unfortunately. Unfortunately, if you're in Damascus. Well, indeed, yes. And the legacy of that is that help from the West, that the argument has been that help from the West isn't so forthcoming, that crusaders are not so interested. This big crusade with kings on it was a failure. And this means that those in the Latin East have to look elsewhere for support, i.e. Byzantium. Some people have poked hold in that argument to say that actually there is still quite a lot of crusading activity just because kings didn't go.

It doesn't mean that there wasn't crusading activity. Certainly, Thierry of Flanders, Philip of Flanders put together some very big expeditions. But was the kingdom in decline? They are facing a stronger enemy. They are facing a more united enemy under Nuruddin. And where does Saladin come in? So Saladin is essentially, sets himself up as the successor to Nurudin.

But this kind of later period, all about the race for Egypt and controlling the power and money that comes out of Egypt in order to shore up the holy city. And there is quite a lot of offensive actions by some of the settler kings. Melisand's son, Amalric,

five times tries to capture Egypt before Miridin's general, Shurku, manages to do it. But he's not successful. And at that stage, we have then a period of decline as Syria and Egypt are united in trying to push the Latin Christians out of the Holy Land. So it then goes back to the intricacies of alliances and misalliances and complications beyond this programme at the moment. Danielle Park, what does Melissa's life tell us

about queenship in her time? Well, it tells us that it's something of a balancing act. So I mentioned earlier with the discussion of the sources that Bernard of Claervot tells her that she should act essentially as a man. But the lesson of Matilda in England is that you can take that too far along the spectrum and then the sources will go against you for being deprived of any femininity at all and being far too masculine. So there's something of a balancing act there. I think what she does that's quite successful is her patronage is not just directed at Frankish Christians but also Armenians, so her support of something like the rebuilding of the Cathedral of St. James, which is an Armenian church, gives that sense that this is a woman who has an eye on the new Frankish settlers

and also the indigenous Christian population. What she does with the covered market in Jerusalem is to think about the pilgrims, so people who don't have a fixed abode while they're on a pilgrimage in Jerusalem, and covering the market, which includes two side streets and the street of bad cooking gives these pilgrims a place of security, a bit of stability, somewhere where they can eat. And the fact that that has a vaulted ceiling with slants on it means that the smells are going to have somewhere to escape. So it's not going to be quite as unwelcoming a place as the street of bad cooking might suggest it might be. But it also gives people shelter from the rain. So she has that balance between being somebody who can be very masculine when she has to be, but also someone

shown as taking care of the general population. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Danielle Park, Catherine Lewis and Natasha Hodg. Next week, it's the King of Chinese naturalists, Li Shu Yun, who aimed to heal the sick in the time of the Ming dynasty in the 16th century. Thank you very much for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now

with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. I was going to raise the point about elective kingship because I don't think we discussed the nature of the kingship of Jerusalem. So just decide, you know, the fact that when the First Crusaders arrived, they have to decide who's going to rule. So they have an election. And Godfrey of Buen is the one who is chosen to rule. And there's this constant tension about,

is it an inherited kingship or is it elective? You know, they still need to get the assent of the nobles every time that they have a new king. And particularly Melisone's father, Baldwin the second, his accession to the throne was a bit dodgy. Why is that? Well, because Baldwin I had followed his brother, Godfrey-Buyon. But there was another brother, Eustace, who was also a first crusader, and he was back in the West.

And the Crown was actually offered to Eustace to come over from the West and take up the throne. So Baldwin the Second kind of gets it in a bit of a coup. You know, he kind of dives in there first because he's present and gets the support of some of the important nobles in order to become king of Jerusalem. But I think perhaps that's why he's quite obsessed with making sure his line stays on the throne and in particular designating Melisande's heir is an important step for him. Did he take people by surprise, I should have asked this in the programme, that he insisted that his daughter should be the heir.

People say, hold on a minute, or words to that effect. I don't think so. I mean, there is precedent for it we have earlier in, well, almost overlapping. at the same time actually, Castile's being ruled by a woman, Araka, who's her father's heir. And obviously, that's exactly what Fulke's daughter-in-law, Matilda, in England. That's what happens to her as well. Henry I gets the barons to agree that she is his heir. And there is the point, of course, that in the Crusader states, given rates of male mortality, either through campaigning or disease related to campaigning, we actually have situations quite

frequently where women do end up inheriting from their fathers. So I think in that circumstance, people would be even more used to it than they might otherwise have been. But there's certainly no evidence that anybody questions that. Although I think it's interesting because you have this system then where you're sort of having your cake and eating it because Melisand has Baldwin's bloodline, but they still get to choose the king as well. And then of course we have that happening later in the 12th century as well, because then we have the succession going back through the female line a number of times in a row. And so the same things happen again, that the women are passing the claim and they'll be the queens. So then the barons get to choose who is going to be

the king. As long as they agree. Obviously, yes. I think the 12th century though, is, you know, as we move into the 13th century after Saladin takes Jerusalem and the kingdom is much depleted. I don't think that those later female, out as get to have the same kind of level of control as somebody like Melisonde, who is this such a key, important figure. I mean, we know less about them, unfortunately. We are very fortunate. For all of his faults, William of Tyre, you know, does tell us a lot more about her

than you might otherwise, you know, expect of a medieval chronicler. One thing we haven't touched on is the relationship with her sisters as well. Oh, yes. Well, there you go. Alice, surely. We can't. You can't choose a sister. There's three other sisters.

We probably all want Alice, don't they? I don't mind. You do Alice. Okay. Well, Alice is really where William of Tyre draws his most distinctions between the two sisters. So we have Melisond, who is this paragon of queenship. She's wise. She emulates her ancestors. She does the impossible, almost, for a woman, and that she succeeds in emulating her ancestors.

Whereas her younger sister Alice, who is the princess of Antioch, is a wily and malicious woman. Oh, she's just awful. She is. What makes her awful? That's interesting. She wants to be the regent of Antioch for her young daughter Constance. And her father doesn't want her to do it.

Her father doesn't want her to do it. You know, so she's trying to take on this position of regency after the death of Bowman II. But yeah, she's, but it's causing, you know, it's also involved potentially with some of the fallout from, you know, the disgruntlement caused by Fulk from excluding Melisond from power. I mean, we don't know that they were in cahoots. There's no evidence to say that.

There's that one charter, isn't there, where Hugh of Jaffer is at Alice's court. He's a witness to one of her charters. So there has been a suggestion that she's this magnet for disaffected nobles, and they're all in support of her sister, Queen Melisone. So they all go to Alice, who has reasons to be against Falk herself because he's stopped her taking control of Antioch. But Fult kind of neutralises her quite effectively by bringing over a new Prince of Antioch

and marrying this new prince off to her daughter. What about the other two daughters then? Catherine? I'll do I'll do Evetta, who's the youngest then. So she's the youngest daughter, she's the only one who's born after Baldwin becomes king. And when she's only about, what, five or six, Baldwin is actually taken prisoner, he's captured.

And as part of the terms of his release, a group of noble children are given as hostages in his place, and one of them includes his daughter, which was fairly normal at the time, actually. Now, when she comes back, she's the only one of the three who doesn't get married. And as we've heard, Melisand founds at Bethany a monastery for her, and it is founded for Yvette, essentially,

and the plan is always that she will become abbess of this convent. Now, in a later chronicle, there is a suggestion that she'd been raped, she was captive. And some people have argued that this may be the reason why she didn't get married. But it is a much later source. And actually, even within that chronicle, Baldwin is then trying to arrange a marriage for her. And Iveta says, I don't want to get married. I want to become a nun.

And it may be just as possible that, yes, she did have a vocation. It was also very normal, especially in a family with a lot of daughters. So he makes these marriages for his other daughters. Melisond is the queen. Alice goes to Antioch. Hodeona goes to Tripoli. And it makes sense then that the fourth daughter, you'd put her in a religious house. That's also a very prestigious position.

The house is set up with huge endowments that she will then manage. And it's essentially another way of furthering the family's power in the area. So I get Hodgianna. She goes to Tripoli. And I think she possibly has a lower profile, I think, than the other two. But there's still quite a lot of interest to be. So what was the advantage of marrying her out to Tripoli? Well, again, so it gives a connection to the county,

Tripoli, which is one of the other main crusader states. She, I mean, we don't know a huge amount about her marriage with Raymond, apart from, as we move towards, again, this crucial kind of second crusade period. So in late 1140s, first of all, we have in a Western source, an accusation that Mellifon poisons someone, is it? Alphonse of Toulouse, who's trying to take over Tripoli, so thereby protecting her sister. and then we find from William of Tyre that Raymond and Hodgiano have had some kind of falling out.

He says about jealousy, but we don't know precisely what it was. And Melisond has kind of been wheeled in to do some matrimonial politics. The upshot of which is that Hodgiena goes off with Melisand. Raymond comes to see them some of the way, goes back to Tripoli and then is murdered by assassins and leaves again a minor on the heir to the county of Tripoli so this is the young Raymond III who also has a role in the later

at Hatim. What about this beautiful salt at? Many sounds salter, Catherine. Oh no, that's one for Daniel, definitely, yes. It is a beautiful book. So it's about the size of a modern paperback, really, but the covers are all ivory. And as far as we can tell, I think the general consensus

is this is Falk's heartfelt apology. Temeleason. I'm sorry I cut you out of all the charters and the government. Please have this beautiful ivory salter. What does it show this on? What does it reveal? It's very ornately decorated. So the covers are all carved ivory with precious gems marking out the eyes of individuals

and the eyes of the birds and the beasts. So the front cover is King David as the exemplar king or crusader kings really have David as the archetype of what a king should be. And in between those rondels you have the battle between the virtues and the vices who are all portrayed as well.

women. And the back cover is... The vices are all projuries, well. Yes, they are. Are the virtues all men? No, virtues are all women as well. Oh, I see. Is they good... Yes. Well, there you go. Yeah, quite bloodblet thirsty. There's quite a lot of lances being thrust through different individuals. And the back cover is a crusader king who possibly is modelled after folk.

He's dressed in quite a Byzantine style. And he's performing acts of mercy. So he's visiting prisoners in prison, feeding the hungry, caring for the soup. So the two covers actors, if you are going to be a ruler of Jerusalem, if you're going to be the ideal king. These are your prototypes. This is what you should follow. It's held together with silk binding. So there is an Islamic influence there in terms of the geometric patterns that are being used. And the inside is quite Byzantine. There's an awful lot of gold use.

The images that are chosen are all from the New Testament, but they're very Byzantine in how they're construct. We think the artist is Basil because on one of the images it's signed near the foot saying Basil. Do we know for certain it was Melisone's? We don't know for certain, but there is a calendar and there are three significant dates that suggest this is at least one of the four daughters, if not Melisone. So one of the first dates is the 15th of July,

so the date that the city of Jerusalem is taken. One is the death of Morphea, not the year, have the date and the other is... Melisson's mother. And the other is Melisone's father, so his death date. So we don't have the death of folk in there in November of 1143, which would suggest it was produced before that date. And the other likely candidate for it is probably Evetta, but it's not the type of book that we would expect a nun. The prayers are directed for a laywoman. It's laywoman. I think the producer who's jumping at a bit to come in.

Is anyone want to your coffee? Tea, coffee? Tea, please. Tea, please. Tea, please. In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson. Hi, everybody. I'm Caitlin Jenner, and I am a guest on Simon Mondays Don't Tell Me the Score Podcast.

We talked about everything. The Olympics, trans issues, and all the lessons that I have learned along the way. I really enjoyed recording the podcast, and I hope you enjoy listening to it. You can hear it on BBC Sounds. Just search for Don't Tell Me the score.