Godfrey of Bouillon (1060-1100)

Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the leaders of the First Crusade (1096–1099), and subsequently the first Frankish ruler of Jerusalem (1099–1100) after its capture from the Fatimids.

Godfrey was born in the third quarter of the eleventh century, the second son of Eustace II, count of Boulogne, and decades following his accession, Godfrey was engaged in a relentless struggle to defend his inheritance, and although he was finally made duke of Lower Lotharingia by Henry IV in 1087, he was never able to exercise effective ducal authority.

Godfrey’s decision to take part in the First Crusade was the occasion for the dissolution of his inheritance, since the disposal of his landed territories offered the most effective means of raising funds for the forthcoming expedition, as well as presenting an opportunity to resolve outstanding disputes with his enemies. By the summer of 1096, he had sold his rights in the county of Verdun to the bishop of Verdun and mortgaged the territory of Bouillon to the bishop of Liège, while smaller domains were sold off or donated to the church. Godfrey was accepted as leader by a large number of crusaders from Lower and Upper Lotharingia and northeastern France, including his younger brother, Baldwin, and many other kinsmen and allies. This army left Lotharingia in the middle of August 1096, marching up the Rhine and along the Danube, then through Hungary and the Balkans, arriving at Constantinople in December 1096. There, like most of the other crusade leaders, Godfrey took an oath to the Emperor Alexios I Comnenos, promising to restore to him any former Byzantine territories recaptured by the crusade, and receiving in return a cash subsidy from the imperial treasury (spring 1097).

On 22 July Godfrey was chosen as ruler of Jerusalem by the leading members of the crusade in preference to Raymond of Saint-Gilles, count of Toulouse. To forestall objections by Raymond and others that it was sacrilegious for a king to be crowned in the city where Christ had worn a Crown of Thorns, Godfrey declined to adopt a royal title, taking that of prince (Lat. princeps) and defender of the Holy Sepulchre. The territory under his control consisted of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, and environs, and the coast between Jaffa and Lydda.

Godfrey was the most prominent figure. The chivalric spirit of the middle ages enrolled him among the nine greatest heroes of mankind — Joshua, David, Judas Maccabaeus, Hector, Alexander, Caesar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey. He was of noblest lineage. His father was brother-in-law to Edward the Confessor of England, and through his mother, the beautiful and saintly Ida of Lorraine, he inherited the blood of Charlemagne. He was short of stature, but of such prodigious strength that he is reputed to have divided an opponent from helmet to saddle with one blow of his sword.
He was equally endowed with courage and sagacity. In his war against the rival emperor, Rudolph, Henry IV. committed the imperial standard to Godfrey, who, though but a youth of eighteen, honored this charge by penetrating to the presence of Rudolph in the thick of the battle, plunging the spear of the standard through his heart, and bearing it aloft with the blood of victory.

Yet such a deed in that age did not lessen his repute for gentleness and piety. Two ancestral spirits alternated their control of him, if we are to credit the praise given him by an old chronicle of the time : " For zeal in war, behold his father; for serving God, behold his mother." When Rome was besieged by his imperial patron, Godfrey signalized his prowess by being the first to mount the walls. This exploit, however, troubled his tender conscience as a devout Catholic, and when the crusade was proclaimed he sold his lands and devoted himself to the holy war, in attempted expiation of what he had come to regard as his former impious deeds. At the head of ten thousand horse and seventy thousand foot, he set out for the Holy Land. He was accompanied by his two brothers, Baldwin and Eustace.