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M.Besant E.Walter
Jerusalem, the city of Herod and Saladin

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M.Besant E.Walter
Jerusalem, the city of Herod and Saladin
page 260



by the marriage deeds, of Laodicea and Gebail. But she was going to cause more trouble yet. Another son-in-law of the king was Fulke, who succeeded him. He 'came to Palestine as a pilgrim, bewailing the death of his wife Ermentrade. Here he maintained in his pay a hundred men-at-arms for a whole year, in the king's service. Baldwin, who had no sons, offered him his daughter Milicent, and the succession to the crown. Fulke, then thirty-eight years of age, gratefully accepted the offer, and consoled himself for his bereavement. Baldwin the Second died in the year 1131. He had ruled Edessa for eighteen years, and Jerusalem for twelve, during which time be had spent seven years in captivity. He was lamented by his subjects, though his reign had not been fortunate or successful. Still, by dint of sheer courage, the boundaries of the realm had not been contracted. What was really the fatal thing about his reign was that the Mohammedans knew now by repeated trials that the Christians were not invincible. It was a knowledge which every year deepened, and every petty victory strengthened. The prestige of their arms once gone, the power of the Christians was sure to follow. Religious as Baldwin was, his piety did not prevent him from asserting the rights of the crown over those claimed by every successive patriarch, and many quarrels happened between him and the prelates, who tried perpetually to extend their temporal power. During one of these, the patriarch fell ill. Baldwin went to see him. " I am," said the revengeful priest, "as you would wish to see me, Sir King," implying that Baldwin wished his death, even if he had not compassed it. William of Tyre, a priest to the backbone, relates this incident without a word of comment. It must be remembered that the position of the Latin clergy in Palestine was not by any means so good as that which they enjoyed in Europe. Their lands were not so large in proportion, and their


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