Crusader ruler from 1163 to 1174
Amalric (; 1136 – 11 July 1174), formerly known in historiography as Amalric I, was the king of Jerusalem from 1163 until his death. He was, in the opinion of his Muslim adversaries, the bravest and cleverest of the crusader kings.
Amalric was the younger son of King Fulk and Queen Melisende and brother of King Baldwin III. Baldwin was crowned with Melisende after Fulk's death in 1143. Melisende made Amalric the count of Jaffa, and he took her side in her conflict with Baldwin until Baldwin deposed her in 1152. From 1154 Amalric was fully reconciled with his brother and made count of both Jaffa and Ascalon. In 1157 he married Agnes of Courtenay despite the misgivings of the Church and had two children with her, Sibylla and Baldwin. When his brother died in 1163, Amalric was obliged to leave Agnes in order to be recognized as king. He was crowned on 18 February.
Amalric's reign was marked by a ceaseless struggle with the Muslim atabeg of Damascus and Aleppo, Nur al-Din Zengi, and persistent attempts to subjugate Egypt. In his first invasion he induced the vizier, Dirgham, to pay tribute, and in the following two he supported the rival vizier, Shawar, against Dirgham and Nur al-Din's general Shirkuh. Nur al-Din took advantage of the king's expeditions to Egypt to wreck havoc on the kingdom and the northern crusader states, Antioch and Tripoli, and Amalric had to intervene in the north as well. Throughout his reign Amalric sought support of Western European rulers in his struggle against the Muslims of Syria and Egypt, but concluded the most concrete alliance with the Byzantine emperor, Manuel I Komnenos, whose grandniece Maria became Amalric's second wife. They had a daughter, Isabella.
In 1167 Amalric again prevented Shirkuh from seizing Egypt and took Alexandria. Without waiting for the Byzantines, and in contravention of his treaty with Shawar, he invaded Egypt in 1167-68 with the intention to conquer it, but it fell to Shirkuh instead. Shirkuh died in 1169, and Amalric launched an invasion in concert with Manuel, but the two armies cooperated poorly and failed in their attempt. Shirkuh's successor, Saladin, emerged as a major threat. Amalric's only son, Baldwin, started exhibiting symptoms of leprosy during Amalric's lifetime. Amalric sought a husband for his daughter, Sibylla, but her suitor, Count Stephen I of Sancerre, declined and left the kingdom. While trying to take advantage of the confusion in Syria following the death of Nur al-Din in 1174, Amalric caught dysentery and died on 11 July. He was succeeded by his son, Baldwin IV.
Youth.
Childhood.
On his deathbed in 1131 King Baldwin II conferred the Kingdom of Jerusalem–one of the crusader states established by the Latin Christians who invaded the Levant and defeated its Muslim rulers–on his eldest daughter, Melisende; her husband, Fulk of Anjou; and their infant son, Baldwin III. Fulk was considerably older than Melisende and had adult children in Europe from his first marriage, including Count Geoffrey V of Anjou and Countess Sibylla of Flanders. He excluded Melisende from power until she and the barons forced him to acknowledge her as a co-ruler in 1135. Fulk was eager to be reconciled, and historian Malcolm Barber suggests that Melisende agreed because the succession of her family rested on only one son. The couple consequently conceived Amalric in late 1135 or early 1136. To the north of the kingdom were three more crusader states: the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa. Antioch and Tripoli were ruled by the families of Melisende's sisters Alice and Hodierna.
Amalric's father, King Fulk, was fatally injured in a horse-riding accident on a family outing near Acre in 1143. He died on 10 November. Queen Melisende seized power and was crowned again on 25 December, this time alongside 13-year-old King Baldwin III. In 1144 the Turkic Muslim atabeg of Mosul, Imad al-Din Zengi captured Edessa. This prompted the Second Crusade, which failed in its objective to conquer Damascus, one of the greatest Muslim-held cities. Melisende continued to withhold power from Baldwin after he reached the age of majority, and by 1151 their relationship had broken down. In 1151 Melisende bestowed on Amalric the County of Jaffa, which was part of her endeavor to consolidate her position against Baldwin. Amalric became his mother's most important partisan besides the Church.
Countship.
In 1152 Baldwin summoned the High Court and demanded that the kingdom be divided between him and Melisende. The queen retained the regions of Judaea and Samaria while Acre and Tyre remained under the young king's rule. Baldwin soon invaded his mother's lands, defeated and exiled her constable, Manasses of Hierges, and marched on Jerusalem. Melisende's lords deserted her as Baldwin advanced, and she took refuge in the Tower of David with her most loyal men, including Amalric, Viscount Rohard the Elder, and Philip of Milly. Baldwin besieged them, but they put up a defense until the negotiations of a settlement that saw Melisende deposed and restricted to ruling the city of Nablus. By the end of April 1152 Baldwin was the sole ruler of the kingdom. Based on charter evidence, Mayer concludes that Baldwin punished Amalric for siding with their mother by depriving him of the County of Jaffa in 1152. The king conquered Ascalon from Fatimid Egypt in 1153 and forced the Egyptians to pay a tribute. He granted both Ascalon and Jaffa to Amalric. Historian Hans E. Mayer dates Amalric's acquisition of the double county to shortly after July 1154. 
In 1157 Amalric married Agnes of Courtenay. Agnes was the daughter of the dispossessed Count Joscelin II of Edessa, a second cousin of Queen Melisende, and a widow since the death in battle of her first husband, Reynald of Marash. The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Fulcher of Angoulême, objected to Amalric's marriage with Agnes. According to contemporary chronicler William of Tyre, Fulcher disapproved because of the couples's kinship; but the late-13th-century "Lignages d'Outremer" states that Agnes had been betrothed to the lord of Ramla, Hugh of Ibelin, and that Amalric married her when she came to marry Hugh, which the patriarch deemed uncanonical. Mayer argues that Agnes had already been married to Hugh in 1157, making her marriage to Amalric bigamous and, in Barber's opinion, possibly the result of an abduction. Historian Bernard Hamilton rejects this interpretation and states that a bigamous marriage would have resulted in the excommunication of both Amalric and Agnes. Fulcher died in November 1157, possibly before the couple married.
In 1159 Count Amalric accompanied King Baldwin to Antioch, where they welcomed Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. Baldwin and Manuel were allied through Baldwin's marriage with Manuel's niece Theodora. Both Baldwin and Amalric placed a great value on good relations with the Byzantine Empire, a Greek Orthodox state that claimed suzerainty over the Christian states in the Levant. Amalric and Agnes had a daughter, Sibylla, between 1157 and 1161. In 1161 a son, Baldwin, was born. The children were named after Amalric's siblings.
Accession.
Amalric's mother, Queen Melisende, died on 11 September 1161. His brother, King Baldwin, barely outlived her. He came down with dysentery while visiting Antioch in late 1162 and died in Beirut on 10 February 1163. Baldwin and Theodora had had no children, and Amalric was thus his heir. The chronicler Ernoul relates that Baldwin named Amalric as his heir.
Having convened to discuss the succession, the High Court refused to recognize Amalric as king unless he repudiated his wife, Agnes. Their spokesman was the patriarch, Amalric of Nesle. According to William of Tyre, the patriarch objected because of the couple's kinship. Barber describes this story as "so unlikely that historians have been unwilling to accept it at
face value". Hamilton notes that such an objection to an established marriage was "extremely unusual", and argues that there was a "deep-seated animosity" towards Agnes behind it. Amalric accepted the High Court's demand, and his marriage to Agnes was annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. Cardinal John of Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio, the legate of Pope Alexander III, was present. Amalric obtained papal confirmation of the legitimacy of his children, Sibylla and Baldwin, and exoneration of Agnes from any moral censure. On 18 February, the day of Baldwin III's funeral, the patriarch crowned Amalric in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Early in his reign Amalric strengthened his position against his most powerful vassals (tenants-in-chief) by passing the "Assise sur la ligece". This legislation enabled the vassals of the powerful vassals to appeal directly to the king if their lord did them injustice. 13th-century jurists John of Ibelin and Philip of Novara believed that the "assise" resulted from Amalric's war with the lord of Sidon, Gerard Grenier, who had unjustly seized a fief from one of his vassals, but contemporary chroniclers Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir say that it was Baldwin III who defeated Gerard.
Reign.
Vizierate of Shawar.
Intervention in Egypt.
Amalric's chief aim as king was to conquer Egypt. Its government was in disarray: Dirgham and Shawar, rival viziers, fought for power while the Fatimid caliph was sidelined. Zengi's son Nur ad-Din unified the Muslim principalities of Syria by bringing the great cities of Damascus and Aleppo under his rule; if he were to conquer Egypt as well, the crusader states would be encircled. Although his lords were preoccupied with extending their own holdings, Amalric could not ignore Egypt, and in this had the support of the masters of the military orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar.
In 1163 the Egyptian government failed to pay the tribute. In response Amalric came with a large force within of the capital, Cairo, and besieged Bilbais. Dirgham, who had driven out Shawar, desperately attempted to fend off the invaders by opening the floodbanks on the Nile, but ended up agreeing to pay an even larger tribute and surrendered hostages as guarantees. After returning to Jerusalem, Amalric wrote to King Louis VIII of France that it was only the annual flooding of the Nile that prevented him from taking Bilbais.
Shawar appealed to Nur ad-Din for help against Dirgham. Nur ad-Din dispatched Asad al-Din Shirkuh, one of his most able generals, who helped Shawar defeat Dirgham and seize power. Shirkuh then decided to conquer Egypt for himself, forcing Shawar to request help from Amalric. After Shawar offered a once again increased tribute, the king undertook his second Egyptian expedition, fully financed by Shawar, in July 1164. The invasion ended in Shirkuh's defeat and Amalric's restoration of Shawar to power.
Turkic threat.
Nur ad-Din could not afford to allow Amalric to control Egypt. The king's southern expedition left the kingdom and the northern crusader states undefended, which allowed Nur ad-Din to act. In the battle of Artah on 10 August 1164 he destroyed a large Christian army and captured Prince Bohemond III of Antioch, Count Raymond III of Tripoli, Joscelin III of Edessa, and the Byzantine governor of Cilicia, Constantine Coloman. On 12 August he captured Harim. Amalric's brother-in-law Count Thierry of Flanders arrived with numerous knights, but this failed to deter Nur ad-Din. Amalric returned to Jerusalem in October, and immediately hurried north with Thierry. Raymond declared that, during his captivity, Amalric should rule Tripoli. The king thus stopped at Tripoli to establish his rule, and then proceeded further north to install governors in the cities of Bohemond's principality.
On 18 October 1164 Nur ad-Din captured Banias, described by Patriarch Amalric as "the gateway to the whole kingdom". The king and the master of the Knights Templar, Bertrand of Blancfort, declared that Banias had been sold by traitors. In mid-1165 King Amalric secured the release of Prince Bohemond. Amalric and Bertrand's attempts to entice the king of France to assist in their planned conquest of Egypt proved fruitless, and so the Christian leaders continued to court the Byzantines. In late 1165 the king sent an embassy led by the royal butler, Odo of Saint-Amand, and the archbishop of Caesarea, Ernesius, to arrange a royal marriage with a member of Emperor Manuel's family.
In late 1165 Philip of Milly resigned the lordship of Oultrejordain to join the Templars. His sole heir was his elder daughter, Helena, who was married to the lord of Beirut, Walter III Brisebarre. When Walter and his brothers, Guy and Bernard, were captured by the Muslims, Amalric forbade anybody to lend money to them for their ransom. By