01 - Murder in the Holy City (39 page)

The Advocate continually needed more supplies and men to maintain his tenuous hold on the Kingdom, and he was forced to make a number of debilitating agreements in order to do so. In June 1100, he initiated contact with the Venetian fleet—an enormously powerful organisation from both a merchant and military standpoint—which had put into Jaffa. He attempted to gain military support and supplies from the Venetians in return for trading rights and part tribute from every town they helped to capture.

On July 18, 1100, while in a second round of negotiations for these treaties in Jaffa, the Advocate died of a fever. As soon as the news was received in Jerusalem, Warner de Gray, himself a dying man, occupied the Tower of David and manned it with Lorrainers and the other men who were most loyal to the Advocate. He then sent messages to Baldwin to come and assume his inheritance. Exhausted by his efforts, Warner died on July 23, but the citadel, the military key to Jerusalem, was held for Baldwin until he arrived in November.

At the time when the Advocate died, Daimbert was with Tancred, besieging Haifa, which fell on July 25. Daimbert had been named in the Advocate’s will to succeed him as secular leader in Jerusalem, and Daimbert did not think that the Advocate’s followers had any strong leaders remaining. So, despite knowing that he would need help to realize his claims, he did not feel obliged to hurry back to the city. When Daimbert returned to find troops loyal to the Advocate in command of the citadel, he sent a message to Bohemond—at that time far north in his Principality of Antioch—inviting him to come take the throne—under the fatherly eye of Daimbert, of course. At the same time, Daimbert restrained Baldwin from coming to Jerusalem. The message never reached Bohemond, because in the interim he had been captured by Turks while on an expedition to the upper Euphrates; he was held prisoner by them until the spring of 1103.

Thus, when Baldwin arrived in Jerusalem, and Tancred withdrew to his lands in Galilee, Daimbert had no powerful backers, and had little choice but to accept Baldwin as the Advocate’s successor. On Christmas Day in 1100, Daimbert crowned Baldwin King of Jerusalem, a title he held until his death in 1118. In the long run, Baldwin proved himself the ablest and soundest of the Crusade leaders, and never again did Daimbert—who died in 1107—come close to making Jerusalem a theocracy under the control of the Church.