"Knight Templar" Fulk
(Foulques V
le Jeune)
Compiled by D. A. Sharpe
"Knight Templar" Fulk (1090 Š 1143), also
seen written as Foulques V le Jeune, is the 16th great grandfather of
Sir Edward Southworth, the first husband of Alice Carpenter, my 7th great
grandmother. He also is known
as Fulk the Younger.
Southworth is the 14th great
grandnephew of Count of Nantes, Geoffrey, who is the 7th great
grandson of English King Alfred the Great.
He was the Count of Anjou (as Fulk V) from 1109 to 1129 and
the King of Jerusalem from 1131 to his death
in 1143 in a hunting accident, falling from his horse. During his reign,
the Kingdom of
Jerusalem reached its largest territorial extent.
Fulk was born at Angers, France, between 1089 and 1092, the
son of Count Fulk IV of Anjou and Bertrade de
Montfort. In 1092, Bertrade deserted her husband and bigamously
married King Philip I of France.
He became count of Anjou upon his father's death in 1109. In
the next year, he married Ermengarde of Maine, cementing Angevin
control over the County of Maine.
According to William, Fulk was "a ruddy man, like
David... faithful and gentle, affable and kind... an experienced warrior full
of patience and wisdom in military affairs." (an obvious nomenclature of the BibleÕs King David). His chief fault was an inability to
remember names and faces.
William of Tyre described Fulk as a capable soldier and able
politician, but observed that Fulk did not adequately attend to the defense of
the crusader states to the north. Ibn
al-Qalanisi (who calls him al-Kund Anjur, an Arabic rendering of
"Count of Anjou") says that "he was not sound in his judgment
nor was he successful in his administration." The Zengids continued their march on the crusader
states, culminating in the fall of the County
of Edessa in 1144, which led to
the Second
Crusade (see Siege
of Edessa).
He was originally an opponent of King Henry I of England and a supporter of
King Louis VI of France, but in 1118 or 1119 he
had allied with Henry when he arranged for his daughter Matilda to marry
Henry's son and heir, William Adelin. Fulk went on crusade in 1119 or 1120, and became
attached to the Knights Templar (Orderic Vitalis). He returned,
late in 1121, after which he began to subsidize the Templars, maintaining two
knights in the Holy Land for a year.
Much later, Henry arranged for his daughter Matilda to marry Fulk's son Geoffrey of Anjou, which she did in 1127
or 1128.
By 1127 Fulk was preparing to return to Anjou when he received
an embassy from King Baldwin
II of Jerusalem. Baldwin II had no male heirs but had already designated his
daughter Melisende to succeed him. Baldwin II wanted
to safeguard his daughter's inheritance by marrying her to a powerful lord.
Fulk was a wealthy crusader and experienced military commander, and a widower.
His experience in the field would prove invaluable in a frontier state always
in the grip of war.
However, Fulk held out
for better terms than mere consort of the Queen; he wanted to be king alongside
Melisende. Baldwin II, reflecting on Fulk's fortune and military exploits,
acquiesced. Fulk abdicated his county seat of Anjou to his son Geoffrey and
left for Jerusalem, where he married Melisende on 2 June 1129.
Later Baldwin II bolstered Melisende's position in the kingdom by making her
sole guardian of her son by Fulk, Baldwin III, born in 1130.
Fulk and Melisende became joint rulers of Jerusalem in 1131
with Baldwin II's death. From the start Fulk assumed sole control of the
government, excluding Melisende altogether. He favored fellow countrymen from
Anjou to the native nobility. The other crusader states to the north feared
that Fulk would attempt to impose the suzerainty of Jerusalem over them, as
Baldwin II had done; but as Fulk was far less powerful than his deceased
father-in-law, the northern states rejected his authority.
Melisende's sister Alice of Antioch, exiled from the Principality by Baldwin
II, took control of Antioch once more after the death of her father. She allied
with Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin II of
Edessa to prevent Fulk from marching north in 1132; Fulk and
Pons fought a brief battle before peace was made and Alice was exiled again.
In Jerusalem as well, Fulk was resented
by the second generation of Jerusalem Christians who had grown up there since the First Crusade (1095-1099). These
"natives" focused on Melisende's cousin, the popular Hugh II of Le Puiset, count of Jaffa, who was devotedly loyal to the Queen.
Fulk saw Hugh as a rival, and it did not help matters when Hugh's own stepson
accused him of disloyalty. In 1134, to expose Hugh, Fulk accused him of
infidelity with Melisende. Hugh rebelled in protest. Hugh secured himself to
Jaffa, and allied himself with the Muslims of Ascalon. He defeated the army set against him by
Fulk, but this situation could not hold. The Patriarch interceded in the
conflict, perhaps at the behest of Melisende. Fulk agreed to peace and Hugh was
exiled from the kingdom for three years, a lenient sentence.
However, an assassination attempt was made against Hugh.
Fulk, or his supporters, were commonly believed responsible, though direct
proof never surfaced. The scandal was all that was needed for the queen's party
to take over the government in what amounted to a palace coup. Author and
historian Bernard Hamilton wrote that Fulk's supporters "went in terror of
their lives" in the palace. Contemporary author and historian William of Tyre wrote of Fulk "he never
attempted to take the initiative, even in trivial matters, without
(Melisende's) consent". The result was that Melisende held direct and
unquestioned control over the government from 1136 onwards. Sometime before
1136 Fulk reconciled with his wife, and a second son, Amalric was born.
Jerusalem's northern border was of great concern. Fulk had
been appointed regent of the Principality of Antioch by Baldwin II. As regent
he had Raymund of Poitou marry the
infant Constance of
Antioch, daughter of Bohemund II and Alice of Antioch, and niece to Melisende. However, the
greatest concern during Fulk's reign was the rise of Atabeg Zengi of Mosul.
In 1137 Fulk was defeated in battle near Baarin but allied with Mu'in ad-Din Unur, the vizier of Damascus. Damascus was also threatened by Zengi.
Fulk captured the fort of Banias, to the north of Lake Tiberias and thus secured the northern
frontier.
Fulk also strengthened the kingdom's southern border. His
butler Paganus built the fortress
of Kerak to the east of the Dead Sea, and to help give the kingdom access to
the Red Sea, Fulk had Blanchegarde, Ibelin, and other forts built in the south-west to
overpower the Egyptian fortress at Ascalon. This city was a base from which the
Egyptian Fatimids launched frequent
raids on the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Fulk sought to neutralize this threat.
In 1137 and 1142, Byzantine emperor John II Comnenus arrived in Syria attempting to
impose Byzantine control over
the crusader states. John's intention of
making a pilgrimage, accompanied by his impressive army, to Jerusalem alarmed
Fulk, who wrote to John pointing out that his kingdom was poor and could not
support the passage of a large army. This lukewarm response dissuaded John from
carrying through his intention, and he postponed his pilgrimage. John died
before he could make good his proposed journey to Jerusalem.
In 1143, while the king and queen were in Acre, Fulk was killed in a
hunting accident. His horse stumbled, fell, and Fulk's skull was crushed by the
saddle, "and his brains gushed forth from both ears and nostrils",
as William of Tyre describes. He was
carried back to Acre, where he lay unconscious for three days before he died.
He was buried in the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Though their marriage started in
conflict, Melisende mourned for him privately as well as publicly. Fulk was
survived by his son Geoffrey of Anjou by his first wife, and Baldwin III and
Amalric I by Melisende.
This 1143 date of FulkÕs hunting accident death was prior to
the Second Crusade, which was 1147 Š
1149.
ItÕs interesting to know that a French-born ancestor in our
family lines found occasions to gravitate into the Jerusalem area in military
pursuit, and to become King of Jerusalem.
His death there meant he never had connections back in his French
homeland.
Another interesting observation is to see FulkÕs
genealogical descendants include three Kings whose fame is
connected with their three generations of issuing 17 versions of
governance known as the Magna Carta.
They were John of Lackland, Henry III and Edward I (Longshanks), appearing in the 4th,
5th, and 6th generations later after Fulk. The descendants from Fulk shown in this 323-page report go down to the 32nd
generation of my Westmoreland grandchildren.
History Compilation by
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