Melisende

Also known as Queen regnant of Jerusalem

Eldest daughter of Baldwin II and his Armenian wife Morphia, Melisende was designated heir by her father in the absence of sons and married to Fulk V of Anjou in 1129 to bring western military weight to the kingdom. The couple were crowned jointly at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1131, but Fulk tried almost at once to exclude her from government, and the result was a political crisis.

In 1134 her cousin Hugh II of Jaffa rose in revolt against the king's autocracy. When an assassination attempt on Hugh was publicly blamed on Fulk, the queen's party used the outrage to force the king back to the bargaining table. William of Tyre preserved the settlement in a single sentence: “From that day forward, the king so changed that… he never attempted to take the initiative, even in trivial matters, without her consent.” From then on Melisende signed charters jointly with her husband and, after his death in 1143, ruled as regent for their thirteen-year-old son Baldwin III.

Her regency saw the County of Edessa fall to Zengi in 1144 — the disaster that summoned the Second Crusade — and she managed the fractious arrival of Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France at Acre, though their expedition against Damascus failed ignominiously. She commissioned the Melisende Psalter, among the masterpieces of Crusader art, and founded the convent of St Lazarus at Bethany for her sister Yvette. Even when Baldwin III finally drove her out of government in 1152, William of Tyre thought her a woman of “great wisdom” who “administered the government with such skillful care that she may be said to truly have equalled her ancestors.”

Preceded by Baldwin II. Succeeded by Baldwin III.

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