Jerusalem

Also known as al-Quds, Hierusalem, Yerushalayim, Royal Domain of Jerusalem

Jerusalem was the spiritual and political heart of the Crusader Kingdom from its bloody capture by Godfrey of Bouillon's army on 15 July 1099 until its surrender to Saladin in early October 1187, three months after the Frankish defeat at the Horns of Hattin on 4 July. The garrison, swollen by refugees, held out for about twelve days before Balian of Ibelin negotiated the city's surrender. Godfrey refused the title of king, styling himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri — Defender of the Holy Sepulchre; his brother Baldwin I was crowned first King of Jerusalem on Christmas Day 1100, though at Bethlehem rather than in Jerusalem itself. Over the next nine decades the city was ruled by a succession of eight kings and three queens, who expanded its defences and endowed the Crusader rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, reconsecrated on 15 July 1149 — exactly fifty years after the city's capture. After Hattin, Saladin allowed ransom and orderly evacuation for Christians who could pay; the High Court and chancery retreated to Tyre and then Acre. In February 1229, Emperor Frederick II negotiated the Treaty of Jaffa with the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil — the diplomatic coup depicted in the illumination above — restoring Jerusalem to the Christians as an undefended, demilitarised city while Muslim control of the Haram al-Sharif was respected. Because Frederick had recently been excommunicated, the Patriarch of Jerusalem placed the Holy City under interdict and no clergy would officiate a coronation; on 18 March 1229 the emperor walked unescorted into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, lifted the crown from the altar, and placed it on his own head, while Hermann of Salza, grand master of the Teutonic Order, read out the imperial declaration on his behalf. This second Latin tenure lasted only fifteen years: in the summer of 1244 a Khwarezmian army, hired by the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt as-Salih Ayyub, stormed the city and massacred or enslaved its Christian inhabitants, ending Frankish rule in Jerusalem forever. The kingdom's political life continued from Acre until 1291, but its capital was never again at the Holy Sepulchre.

Coordinates: 31.7783°, 35.2356°

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