Godfrey of Bouillon

Godfrey of Bouillon (c. 1060 – July 18, 1100, Jerusalem), (Godefroy de Bouillon in French) was a leader of the First Crusade. He was either the eldest or the second son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Ida, daughter of Godfrey III, Duke of Lower Lorraine.

Early life

He was designated by his uncle, Godfrey the Hunchback, as his successor in Lower Lorraine, but in 1076 Emperor Henry IV gave him only the Mark of Antwerp, taking back the fief of Lower Lorraine, as his uncle had neither direct descendants nor male heirs. Nevertheless, Godfrey of Bouillon fought for Henry both on the Elster and in the siege of Rome, and in 1082 was finally given the duchy of Lower Lotharingia.

Lower Lorraine was heavily influenced by Cluniac reformers, and Godfrey seems to have been a pious man. "As the bishops, after the triumph of the Cluniac Reform and the struggle over investitures, ceased to support the German emperors, the province soon resolved itself into small feudal estates." (Catholic Encyclopedia, "Lorraine"). Although he had remained loyal to Henry IV in the conflict with Pope Gregory VII, Godfrey almost literally sold all that he had and joined the crusade preached by Gregory's successor Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

First Crusade

Along with his brothers Eustace and Baldwin of Boulogne (the future Baldwin I of Jerusalem) he started in August, 1096 at the head of an army from Lorraine, some 40,000 strong, along "Charlemagne's road," as Urban II seems to have called it (according to the chronicler Robert the Monk)—the road to Jerusalem. After some difficulties in Hungary, where he was unable to stop his men from pillaging fellow Christians, he arrived in Constantinople in November. He was the first of the crusaders to arrive, and came into conflict with Byzantine emperor Alexius I, who wanted Godfrey to swear an oath of loyalty to the Byzantine Empire. Godfrey eventually swore the oath in January, 1097, as did most of the other leaders when they arrived.

Godfrey was the first to arrive at the siege of Nicaea, and was in the main contingent of the crusade after they split, possibly for foraging reasons, after Nicaea. He helped to relieve the vanguard at the Battle of Dorylaeum after it had been pinned down by the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan I, with the help of the other crusader princes in the main force and went on to sack the Seljuk camp.

In 1099, after the capture of Antioch following a long siege, the crusaders were divided over their next course of action. Most of the foot soldiers wanted to continue south to Jerusalem, but Raymond of St. Gilles, by this time the most powerful of the princes, having taken others into his employ, such as Tancred, hesitated to continue the march. After months of waiting, the common people on the crusade forced Raymond to march on to Jerusalem, and Godfrey quickly joined him. Godfrey was active in the siege of the city, and on July 15 he was one of the first to enter the city, which was the scene of a general massacre of Muslim and Jewish residents. On July 22, when Raymond refused to be named king of Jerusalem, Godfrey was elected in his place.

Kingdom of Jerusalem

However, perhaps considering the controversy which had surrounded Tancred's seizue of Bethlehem, Godfrey refused to be crowned "king" in the city where Christ had died. The exact nature and meaning of his title is thus somewhat of a controversy. Although it is widely claimed that he took the title Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, "advocate" or "defender" of the Holy Sepulchre, this title is only used in a letter which was not written by the Duke. Instead, Godfrey himself seems to have used the more ambiguous term 'Princeps'. During his short reign of a year Godfrey had to defend the new Kingdom of Jerusalem against Fatimids of Egypt, who were defeated at the Battle of Ascalon in August. He also faced opposition from Dagobert of Pisa, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who had allied with Tancred. Although the Latins came close to capturing Ascalon, Godfrey's attempts to prevent Raymond of St Gilles from securing the city for himself meant that the town remained in Muslim hands, destined to be a thorn in the new kingdom's side for years to come.

In 1100 Godfrey was unable to directly expand his new territories through conquest. However, his impressive victory in 1099 and his subsequent campaigning in 1100 meant that he was able to force Acre, Ascalon, Arsuf, Jaffa, and Caesarea, to become tributaries. Meanwhile, the struggle with Dagobert continued; although the terms of the conflict are difficult to trace. Dagobert may well have visualised turning Jerusalem into a fiefdom of the pope, however his full intentions are not clear. Much of the evidence for this comes from William of Tyre, whose account of these events is troublesome - It is only William who tells us that Dagobert forced Godfrey to concede Jerusalem and Jaffa, while other writers such as Albert of Aachen and Ralph of Caen suggest that both Dagobert and his ally Tancred had sworn an oath to Godfrey to accept only one of his brothers or blood relations as his successor. Whatever Dagobert's schemes, they were destined to come to nought. Being at Haifa at the time of the Duke's death, he could do nothing to stop Godfrey's supporters from seizing Jerusalem and requesting that the Duke's brother Baldwin take up the reigns of power. Dagobert was subsequently forced to crown Baldwin as the first Latin king of Jerusalem on December 25, 1100.

Death

"While he was besieging the city of Acre, Godfrey, the ruler of Jerusalem, was struck by an arrow, which killed him," reports the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi. Christian chronicles make no mention of this; instead, Albert of Aix and Ekkehard of Aura report that Godfrey contracted an illness in Caesarea in June, 1100. It was later believed that the emir of Caesarea had poisoned him, but there seems to be no basis for this rumour; William of Tyre does not mention it. He died in Jerusalem after suffering from a prolonged illness.

Godfrey in history and legend

According to William of Tyre, the later 12th-century chronicler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Godfrey was "tall of stature, not extremely so, but still taller than the average man. He was strong beyond compare, with solidly-built limbs and a stalwart chest. His features were pleasing, his beard and hair of medium blond."

Because he had been the first ruler in Jerusalem Godfrey was idealized in later stories. He was depicted as the leader of the crusades, the king of Jerusalem, and the legislator who laid down the assizes of Jerusalem, and he was included among the ideal knights known as the Nine Worthies. In reality he was none of these things. He was only one of several leaders of the crusade, which also included Raymond IV of Toulouse, Bohemund of Taranto, Robert of Flanders, Stephen of Blois and Baldwin of Boulogne to name a few, along with papal legate Adhémar of Montiel, Bishop of Le Puy. Baldwin, Godfrey's younger brother, became the first titled king when he succeeded Godfrey in 1100. The assizes were the result of a gradual development.

Godfrey's role in the crusade was described by Albert of Aix, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum, and Raymond of Aguilers amongst others. In fictional literature, Godfrey was the hero of numerous French chansons de geste dealing with the crusade, the "Crusade cycle". This cycle connected his ancestors to the legend of the Knight of the Swan, most famous today as the storyline of Wagner's opera Lohengrin.

By William of Tyre's time later in the twelfth century, Godfrey was already a legend among the descendents of the original crusaders. Godfrey was believed to have possessed immense physical strength; it was said that in Cilicia he wrestled a bear and won, and that he once beheaded a camel with one blow of his sword.

Torquato Tasso made Godfrey the hero of his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata.

In the Divine Comedy Dante sees the spirit of Godfrey in the Heaven of Mars with the other "warriors of the faith."

Godfrey is depicted in Handel's first opera "Rinaldo" (1711) as Goffredo.

Since the mid-19th century, an equestrian statue of Godfrey of Bouillon has stood in the center of the Royal Square in Brussels, Belgium. The statue was made by Eugène Simonis, and inaugurated on August 24, 1848.

Godfrey plays a key figure in the pseudohistorical theories put forth in the books The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and The DaVinci Code.

References

William of Tyre
Maalouf, Amin. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, 1984.
Andressohn, John C. The Ancestry and Life of Godfrey of Bouillon, 1947.