Urban II had originally intended the Pisan ships to be used to help the crusaders at Antioch, but in these new circumstances they provided an ambitious prelate like Daibert with the leverage he needed to establish his own position within a state in which the institutional structure had by no means been properly formed. He proceeded to translate this into his own election as patriarch, when he was crowned on Christmas Day.40 It was not difficult to find reasons for the removal of Arnulf of Chocques, whose clash with Tancred even Ralph of Caen had been unable to present as a high-minded issue of principle, although in this case Ralph describes Arnulf as acceding with grace, because ‘he hoped that the other would be more successful in spreading Christianity than he might be’.41 Indeed, there is good reason to think that Daibert did not believe that Arnulf was patriarch in the first place, since his election had not been confirmed, which may explain why Fulcher of Chartres, Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre all present Daibert as the first Latin patriarch. In 1102, with Daibert out of office, Arnulf reappears as archdeacon of Jerusalem, a not insignificant role despite his demotion.42
According to William of Tyre's later account, Daibert now established his authority over the secular leaders when ‘both Duke Godfrey and Prince Bohemond humbly received from his hand, the former the investiture of the kingdom, and the latter that of the principality, thus showing honour to him whose viceregent on earth they believed the patriarch to be’.43 This was evidently the work of Bohemond, whose Christmas pilgrimage to Jerusalem cannot have been a coincidence, whatever the degree of personal piety involved, since it gave him sanction for his seizure of Antioch, made in clear contravention of his oath to Alexius.44 Daibert had originally landed at Latakia, still in Greek hands, and was in the process of helping Bohemond attack the city when they had both been stopped by Raymond of Toulouse, Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders returning north after the battle of Ascalon.45 Daibert's common front with Bohemond must have been formed at this time, leading to the archbishop's Christmas election and Bohemond's investiture. Daibert followed this up by appointing three Latin archbishops and one bishop within the patriarchate of Antioch, ignoring the authority of the Greek patriarch, John IV. This had evidently been planned in advance, as Ralph of Caen says that the four, ‘namely Roger of Tarsus, Bartholomew of Mamistra, Bernard of Artah and Benedict of Edessa, had come with Bohemond and Baldwin after being elevated to the priestly office’.46 As subsequent events demonstrate, Godfrey was a good deal less enthusiastic, since he had no need of such confirmation, but without Daibert's co-operation he would not have had access to the Pisan fleet and his recent failure to take Arsuf, directly attributable to his naval weakness, must have been fresh in his mind.
Neither Bohemond nor Baldwin could afford to linger long in the south. On the eve of Epiphany (5 January), they met Godfrey and Daibert at the Jordan, ‘in which,’ says Albert of Aachen, ‘they bathed and enjoyed themselves’. After this, ‘Baldwin and Bohemond rejoiced with the duke in all happiness and in shared friendship, and there in the region of Jordan they kissed with tears and took their leave of each other’.47 Daibert was now in a dominant position. At the time of his election he had received the ‘patriarch's quarter’ in Jerusalem, together with new revenues, but he was evidently not satisfied. In William of Tyre's words: ‘The patriarch demanded that the duke give over to him the Holy City of God with its citadel and likewise the city of Jaffa with its appurtenances.’ Although presented in an emollient form by William, this clearly provoked a furious dispute, but by stages Godfrey made the required concessions, granting the fourth part of Jaffa on 2 February 1100, followed by the city of Jerusalem and its citadel on Easter Day (1 April). Jerusalem, however, would not actually be handed over until Godfrey had gained control of what William describes vaguely as ‘one or two other cities’, but which Daibert himself calls ‘Babylon and other cities’. If he died without a legitimate heir, all these possessions would pass under the control of the patriarch.48
When these events took place, neither Fulcher of Chartres nor Albert of Aachen was present, while William of Tyre was writing more than seventy years later. Even so, this was no passing reference by William, who had researched the subject with some intensity, perhaps at least partly because he had ambitions to be patriarch himself. He could find no evidence that Godfrey had been appointed by the leaders of the crusade on these conditions, but instead traces the origin of ‘the patriarch's quarter’ to the period of Egyptian rule under Caliph al-Mustansir in 1063. The Christian inhabitants had been assigned a fourth part of Jerusalem to rebuild but lacked the resources to do so. They therefore appealed to the Byzantine emperor, Constantine X (1059–67), for help, which he granted on condition that the quarter concerned be assigned exclusively to the Christians, a condition to which the caliph agreed. ‘From that day, then, and in the manner just described, this quarter of the city had had no other judge or lord than the patriarch, and the church therefore laid claim to that section as its own in perpetuity.’49
However, although William goes on to describe the exact extent of the patriarch's quarter – which he was able to do from direct personal experience – he offers no explanation for the additional, very sweeping concessions in Jerusalem and Jaffa. William clearly derived his information from a letter written by Daibert himself to Bohemond after the death of Godfrey on 18 July. Probably William has not reproduced the text verbatim, but he was at least recording the main elements of a letter that had really existed, for reference is made to it by Albert of Aachen.50 Since it must be assumed that, ultimately, Godfrey's main concern was not ‘fear of the rebuke of the Lord’, as William asserts, but the deployment of the Pisan fleet against the Muslim ports, then the most convincing explanation is that the concession of the quarter in Jaffa was aimed at satisfying the Pisans in a manner that was to become familiar in future agreements with the Italian maritime cities.51 Moreover, the city of Jerusalem and its citadel, the latter the subject of such bitter dispute with Raymond of Toulouse, would not be handed over until Godfrey had captured other cities, a condition that surely obliged the Pisans to act if they wanted the terms of the agreement carried out. William, however, is not helpful in identifying these cities. His version of Daibert's letter refers to Babylon, which, if it means Cairo, is so unlikely as to negate the concession entirely, given that Godfrey had not even been able to take Arsuf.52 Much closer to the time than William is a compilation of an anonymous scholar known as the Work on Geography, which can be dated to between the years 1128 and 1137. Godfrey, it says, vowed ‘that if the Divine Piety allowed him to capture Ascalon, he would give the whole revenue of Jerusalem into the hands of the Soldiers of God in the Holy Sepulchre and to the authority of the Patriarch’.53
In this light the settlement between Godfrey and Daibert looks much less one-sided than it first appears. Daibert's acquisition of Jerusalem would have had to be balanced by the acquisition of other, more strategically important cities, which, if on the coast, would have been more lucrative as well. Nor does the agreement demand that Godfrey marry and produce male heirs, which was an unlikely circumstance, but only that he should be succeeded by a legitimate male heir, which would have meant either of his brothers, Eustace or Baldwin.54 Presumably Baldwin was well aware of this when he helped make Daibert patriarch at Christmas 1099.
In fact, nobody knows what instructions Urban II gave Daibert but, in any case, like the crusaders, to some extent he was obliged to react to the situation as he found it.55 On the face of it, he was apparently exploiting the shortages of men and money to further his own personal ambition. Yet such a view distorts contemporary perceptions, for he had been sent by a reforming pope, whose central tenets were that fornicating priests be removed and that secular appointment to ecclesiastical office was a sin punishable by excommunication. Daibert would have been very conscious of the importance of the unresolved conflict over investitures. Moreover, the apparent attempt to build a patriarchal patrimony was little different from the papacy's own ef
forts to create a territorial base in central Italy, a policy vigorously pursued from the mid-eleventh century and continued into the thirteenth century.56 Indeed, it was not in his interest to weaken the new state and, after Easter 1100, he sent an appeal to the clergy and people of the Teutonic regions, to whom ‘God has given riches beyond all other peoples’. Jerusalem, he said, was under attack from all sides, but after its capture many had returned home. Others followed after celebrating Easter on 1 April, taking advantage of the presence of Pisan and English ships. It was costly to keep those who remained, and without German help they could not continue to pay the promised wages.57 Whatever may have been Urban's specific instructions, he surely must have told Daibert to strengthen the Latin Church in the East as far as he was able.
However, if reform ideas lay behind his actions in dealing with others, there is little to indicate that Daibert thought they applied to himself. His election to the patriarchate was blatantly the result of secular influence. Fulcher of Chartres, who was there at the time, says that the pilgrimage of the leaders to the Jordan was ‘after the Duke and the other chief men had chosen the above-mentioned Lord Daimbert to be Patriarch in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher’, while Daibert himself, as quoted by William of Tyre, reminded Bohemond that he had brought about his election, and that Baldwin had supported him ‘in choosing me as a patriarch and rector of the church at Jerusalem’.58 Put in place by three seculars, two of whom had been hostile to church reform, accepting an office that made him ‘a pluralist on a grand scale’,59 and completely disregarding Greek rights and claims in both Latakia and Antioch hardly made Daibert a shining example of the new prelacy that the reformers had sought to create. In the end it is difficult to see these events as an attempt to found a theocratic state or indeed as an example of the application of Gregorian principles; instead, they look much more like a power struggle between Godfrey and Daibert in which each attempted to exploit whatever advantages came to hand. Such factional conflicts became common-place in the crusader states during the twelfth century. Not surprisingly, therefore, Albert of Aachen presents Daibert as ingratiating, treacherous and venal, while William of Tyre saw him as a ‘man of God’, who was the Lord's earthly representative.60 Ironically, all this political manoeuvring eventually proved fruitless, as the Pisan fleet does not seem to have been used in any systematic attack on the coastal emirates, although the sailors did help in the rebuilding of Jaffa in the middle of January. Then, immediately after Easter, in early April, the Pisans sailed for home, soon to be replaced by an even larger fleet of 200 Venetian ships under the doge, Vitale Michiel, and Enrico Contarini, bishop of Castello (Venice), which, having overwintered at Rhodes, arrived on about 10 June.
Warner of Grez and Tancred now negotiated a treaty with the Venetians, the terms of which set the pattern of future agreements with the maritime cities and, in that sense, began the process of establishing the Italian communes in the East, whose inhabitants became a characteristic element in the social structure of the Frankish littoral in the course of the twelfth century. In any cities which the Franks captured then or in the future, whether on the coast or inland, the Venetians should have a church and a square suitable for a market. Booty would be divided one-third to the Venetians and two-thirds to the Franks, except in the case of Tripoli, when the division should be in equal parts. The city of Tripoli itself, if captured, would be granted to the Venetians in its entirety, except for an annual payment to Jerusalem as a mark of reverence to the holy places. The Venetians evidently regarded the allowance of two-thirds of the booty to the Franks elsewhere as a concession ‘because they [the Franks] were not wealthy’. Beyond this, they were to have security against claims of right of wreck for all their merchandise. Godfrey, though still incapacitated, was nevertheless able to confirm these terms.61
As the departure of the Pisans shows, the use of fleets was constrained by sailing conditions, so the agreement covered the period between 24 June and 15 August, evidently based on the hope that success could be achieved during a summer campaign before the arrival of the autumn made it imperative to leave.62 Around 2 July, they chose Acre as the target and, two weeks later, the army left Jaffa. At some point, however, they decided to besiege Haifa first, perhaps influenced by news of the deaths of Godfrey and Warner of Grez, which effectively gave Tancred and Daibert a free hand.63 Albert of Aachen says that initially Tancred was unenthusiastic ‘on account of envy’, but was encouraged by Daibert, who effectively promised him possession of the city if he could take it. In the face of what now became a ferocious attack, the city, isolated by the Venetian blockade, fell on around 20 August, and the Franks massacred the population and seized large quantities of plunder. Tancred, supported by Daibert, then forced out Geldemar Carpenel, to whom Godfrey had granted the city if it should be taken, thus adding a vital component to the territories he already held by gaining an outlet to the sea.64
On the face of it, the fall of Haifa presaged the triumph of the faction led by Daibert and Tancred, but in the twelfth century thrones could be won by speed of thought and action, as well as by the chance of proximity to the seat of power. Their preoccupation with the siege of Haifa meant that, when Godfrey died, Jerusalem itself was open to seizure by Godfrey's vassals, led by Warner of Grez, and the Lotharingians and other members of Godfrey's domus at once occupied the Tower of David which, as Godfrey, Raymond and Daibert had all demonstrated in the previous months, was the key to control of the city. Although Warner survived Godfrey by less than a week, a delegation led by Robert of Rouen, bishop of Lydda-Ramla, and sent by Geldemar Carpenel and Arnulf of Chocques, at once set out for Edessa, inviting Baldwin to ‘take over the kingdom in your brother's place and sit on his throne’.65 Daibert and Tancred were slower to react. Daibert's appeal to Bohemond, as presented in William of Tyre's version of his letter, was sent after the news had reached them of the seizure of the Tower of David and the departure of the delegation to Baldwin, and therefore was probably not dispatched before the beginning of August. Daibert belatedly realised the danger and his letter to Bohemond is couched in apocalyptic terms. The coming of Baldwin, he said, would ‘bring about the downfall of the church and the destruction of Christianity itself,’ and he asked Bohemond to prevent Baldwin from attempting to take the throne, by force if necessary.66
Looking back on these events, William of Tyre clearly believed that Daibert had right on his side, calling Warner of Grez the leader of ‘a troublesome faction’ and pointing out that he had died within five days of his seizure of the citadel. ‘This was regarded as a miracle, and it was ascribed to the merits of the patriarch that the enemy and persecutor of the church had met a sudden death.’67 However, even Daibert's letter says only that Jerusalem and Jaffa should be restored to the Church if Godfrey died ‘without a male heir’.68 In contrast to William, Albert of Aachen described Daibert's letter as ‘sent in deceit and against the oath which that same patriarch had made with Tancred to the duke, that if he happened to die they would not confer the throne on anyone except his brothers or one of his blood’.69 Moreover, Warner of Grez was the most senior of Godfrey's men, a kinsman who acted as his deputy, who must have known what Godfrey expected. Indeed, when Godfrey had been preparing to depart on crusade, before Baldwin had decided to take part, he had quite explicitly made him his heir in a series of charters that Warner himself had witnessed.70
In the event, legal arguments proved irrelevant, for circumstances favoured Baldwin. Around 12 August, Morellus, the patriarch's secretary, who was carrying the letter to Bohemond, was intercepted by men of Raymond of Toulouse and the message never reached its destination, while in about mid-August Bohemond himself was captured by the Danishmend Turks during a campaign in the region of Melitene.71 After a fruitless attempt to find and rescue Bohemond, Baldwin returned to Edessa at about the same time as the messengers arrived from Jerusalem.72 As presented by Fulcher of Chartres, Baldwin himself had no doubts: ‘When it was announced to the Lord Baldwin that all of the
people of Jerusalem expected him to succeed as hereditary prince in the kingdom, he grieved somewhat over the death of his brother but rejoiced more over his inheritance.’73 He then conferred Edessa on Baldwin of Bourcq, a kinsman who was the son of Hugh of Rethel in the Ile-de-France, whom he summoned from Antioch, and, on 2 October, set out for Jerusalem with a force of nearly 200 knights and 700 foot soldiers.74 Such an expedition needed money and, before his departure, Baldwin subjected the population of Edessa to ‘all sorts of extortions’, including seizing ‘a goodly amount of gold and silver’, according to the contemporary Armenian chronicler Matthew of Edessa.75
The journey took about five weeks, which was about the same length of time as his return to Edessa the previous January after bathing in the Jordan, although on that occasion he had followed a route via the Jordan valley, Tiberias, Banyas and Baalbek.76 This time he went first to Antioch, which he reached very quickly, covering the 160 miles in six days. All his actions thereafter suggest that he had complete confidence in his succession. At this point he sent his wife and her household, together with the heavy baggage, to Jaffa by sea, evidently expecting some opposition on the forthcoming march, but apparently not fearing that they would encounter any problems when they arrived in the south.77 He stayed four days at Antioch, where, according to Albert of Aachen, he declined an offer of the rulership, before moving to Latakia, where he stopped for another two days.78 Here he met Maurice, cardinal-bishop of Porto, who had been appointed legate by Paschal II and had arrived at the port the previous month with a Genoese fleet. This reinforced his already strong position, for he received the backing of both the legate and the Genoese.79
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