Baldwin IV of Jerusalem

• 1. The Leper King

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  Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was still remembered by his enemies' people long after he died. After the disastrous Seventh Crusade, an old man in Damascus told a crusader what he had seen: "I have seen a time when King Baldwin of Jerusalem, the one who was a leper, beat Saladin although he only had 300 armed men against Saladin's 3,000." The king he described lived from 1161 to 1185 and reigned in Jerusalem from 1174. He took the throne at thirteen, though he had leprosy, and history calls him the Leper King. Three questions run through his story. How does a ruler hold a frontier kingdom together when his own body is failing? Why did so much of his reign go to quarrels among his own nobles? And what was he trying to secure for the years after his death?

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• 2. A Boyhood Without Pain

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  At the christening of the baby born in mid-1161, his godfather and uncle, King Baldwin III, joked that his gift to the child was the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The birthplace was probably Ascalon, though no official record confirms it. The boy's parents were Amalric, then count of Jaffa and Ascalon, and Agnes of Courtenay. He was the first prince whose parents had both been born in the crusader states. Those states were ruled by Franks, French-speaking Catholics who had come from Western Europe and stayed Western in culture, even though Arab Muslim states surrounded them.

  The joke seemed harmless, since Baldwin III was young and recently married. Yet he died childless in 1163, and Amalric became the heir. The kingdom's nobles strongly opposed Amalric's wife, Agnes. The historian Bernard Hamilton suggests they feared the influence she would gain. The High Court forced Amalric to accept an annulment of his marriage, on grounds of consanguinity, before it would accept him as king. Amalric still managed to have his two children by Agnes, Sibylla and Baldwin, declared legitimate.

  Agnes soon remarried, first to Hugh of Ibelin and then to Reynald of Sidon. Her son grew up without a mother, and Hamilton surmises she saw him only at public occasions. His sister Sibylla was raised in the Convent of Saint Lazarus by their grand-aunt Ioveta, so the two rarely met. When the boy was six, Amalric married Maria Komnene. She was not close to Baldwin, and Hamilton thinks the ambitious queen saw him as an obstacle to her own children.

  William of Tyre, a well-traveled cleric famed for his learning, took in the nine-year-old prince as his pupil. William noticed that Baldwin never cried when other noble children pinched him in the playground. After several such reports, William realized the boy could feel no pain in his right arm, and he grew worried. Amalric hired the Arab physician Abu Sulayman Dawud to treat his son. He also had a relative of the physician, Abul'Khair, teach the boy to ride, an essential skill for a Frankish nobleman. With feeling in only one hand, Baldwin learned to steer his horse with his knees and mastered riding anyway.

  Leprosy was suspected, but the boy showed no visible symptoms, and the physicians hesitated to name it because of the stigma. A diagnosis in childhood might have required him by law to join the Order of St Lazarus, a military order of knights and serjeants who had the disease. William described the adolescent as precocious, determined and optimistic despite his illness. Baldwin inherited his father's good looks, build and manner of walking and speaking. He learned quickly, though he stuttered. He loved stories and history lessons, and his memory was excellent. He forgot neither kindness nor slights.

  In 1169, Amalric began looking for a mature husband for Sibylla, so that a capable regent could rule if he died while his son was still a child. Count Stephen I of Sancerre accepted. Once Baldwin's symptoms developed, attention turned to Sibylla and Stephen as the likely heirs, but their match fell through. Amalric fell ill with dysentery in June 1174 and died on the 11th of July 1174, leaving exactly the underage heir he had feared.

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• 3. Crown and Regents

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  Three days of deliberation by the High Court ended with Baldwin IV chosen unanimously. Hamilton believed the court must have known about the royal physicians' suspicions, though no diagnosis had been made. The alternatives were poor. Amalric's second marriage had produced two daughters, and only Isabella had survived infancy; she was two years old. Female succession was expressly allowed, but Sibylla was an unmarried adolescent. The male candidates were Amalric's cousins. Prince Bohemond III of Antioch was bound to distant Antioch, and Baldwin of Antioch served the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. Count Raymond III of Tripoli had spent nine years in Muslim captivity and was almost a stranger to the barons. If Baldwin proved to be ill, the court expected to find a husband for Sibylla to succeed him.

  The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Amalric of Nesle, crowned the young king in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Medieval rulers were usually crowned on Sundays, but the date chosen was the 15th of July 1174. It marked the 75th anniversary of the First Crusade's capture of Jerusalem after its siege.

  Until he reached the age of majority, which was fifteen in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Baldwin needed a regent. The seneschal, Miles of Plancy, took over the government first. Soon afterward Count Raymond III of Tripoli arrived in Jerusalem and claimed the regency as the king's closest kinsman. Miles was murdered in October 1174 while trying to widen his hold on power. After a two-day debate presided over by the young king, Raymond was named regent with the unanimous support of the bishops and most noblemen. No new seneschal was appointed for two years, so the sickly king chaired the burdensome High Court sessions whenever Raymond was away on military duty or in Tripoli.

  Baldwin's mother, Agnes, returned to court when Raymond became regent. Historians often accuse her of exploiting her son's condition for her own gain. Hamilton notes, however, that contemporary sources, including William of Tyre, were strongly biased against her. He believes Baldwin had no memories of his mother, since he had grown up without her from the age of two. She became devotedly kind to him, and he developed a strong attachment to her.

  At the start of 1175, Saladin, the founder of the Ayyubid Sultanate, besieged the Zengid-held city of Aleppo. Its people wanted the crusaders to create a diversion, which gave Baldwin his first chance to lead a campaign. At the end of spring he left Jerusalem and crossed Samaria and Galilee toward Damascus, whose countryside the crusaders pillaged and burned. According to the historian Pierre Aubé, Baldwin and Raymond defeated a Damascene army under Saladin's brother Turan-Shah at Ain Anjar.

  During Raymond's regency, Baldwin's leprosy was confirmed. It is unclear who infected him. The medical historian Piers Mitchell concludes it was someone close to him in early life, such as a relative, a wet nurse or a servant, who showed no obvious symptoms. Puberty may have sped the lepromatous form of the illness, and his condition worsened rapidly. His extremities and face were hit hardest, and his subjects felt uneasy as they approached him. Yet, to the surprise of Muslim observers, he was never segregated, as custom would have demanded. A leper could not marry or expect children, so a marriage for his sister and heir presumptive, Sibylla, became urgent. Raymond chose William of Montferrat, a cousin of both the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and King Louis VII of France.

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• 4. Dreams of Egypt

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  On the 15th of July 1176, the second anniversary of his coronation, Baldwin reached the age of majority. Raymond's regency lapsed, and he promptly returned to Tripoli. At his mother's suggestion, Baldwin made her brother Joscelin seneschal and arranged for him to marry a rich heiress, Agnes of Milly. Joscelin was his closest kinsman with no claim to the throne, which made him trustworthy. The change signaled a harder line toward Saladin. During Raymond's regency, Saladin had surrounded the crusader states by conquering Muslim principalities in Syria. Baldwin refused to ratify Raymond's peace treaty with him, and Joscelin agreed that Saladin's power had to be curbed.

  As soon as he took charge, Baldwin began planning a full-scale attack on Egypt with his advisers. He used Saladin's Aleppo campaign as cover for a raid around Damascus. He also decided to intervene in Saladin's war against the Order of Assassins. Although he had feeling in only one hand, he refused to hand off his military duties and fought in person. On the 1st of August 1176, Baldwin and Raymond led the armies of Jerusalem and Tripoli into the Beqaa Valley, in modern-day Lebanon. They defeated the garrison of Damascus and forced Saladin to give up his campaign.

  In November 1176, William of Montferrat married Sibylla and was made count of Jaffa and Ascalon. The nobles, however, no longer trusted that his cousin the emperor could help the kingdom. According to Sicard of Cremona, Baldwin offered to resign the throne to William. If so, William declined, knowing he lacked the nobility's backing.

  An attack on Egypt required ships. In the winter of 1176-77, Raynald of Châtillon traveled to Constantinople for Baldwin, to see his stepson-in-law, Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. Manuel agreed to join the invasion in return for a Byzantine protectorate over the kingdom and the restoration of the Orthodox patriarch, Leontius II, in Jerusalem. Raynald's mission succeeded, and Baldwin approved his marriage to Stephanie of Milly, the lady of Transjordan.

  Then the plan began to unravel. In April 1177, William of Montferrat fell sick in Ascalon, and Baldwin, visiting him, became gravely ill as well. William died in June, leaving Sibylla pregnant and the king incapacitated just before a major offensive. Baldwin handed government and military command to Raynald, which snubbed the count of Tripoli. In September, Count Philip I of Flanders, Baldwin's first cousin, arrived in the East with financial aid from another cousin, King Henry II of England. Henry helped because both men belonged to the Angevin family. Still bedridden in Ascalon, Baldwin had himself carried to Jerusalem in a litter and called a general council. On its advice he offered Philip the regency, but Philip declined, and Raynald kept the post.

  The Byzantines sent a war fleet to prepare for the Egyptian invasion, but it withdrew, to Baldwin's regret. Philip of Flanders, Bohemond of Antioch, Raymond of Tripoli and Roger de Moulins, grand master of the Knights Hospitaller, all proved uncooperative. Saladin's power stayed unchecked, and the Byzantine alliance collapsed. Baldwin kept courting the Greek patriarch Leontius, hoping the Byzantines would stay committed, even though the Latin patriarch Amalric of Nesle was hostile.

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• 5. Battles With Saladin

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  On the 18th of November 1177, Saladin invaded the kingdom while the Frankish army was away in northern Syria. Philip of Flanders had left in late October to help Raymond of Tripoli attack the Muslim-held city of Hama. Baldwin, still recovering from malaria, rode out with Raynald of Châtillon, while the Knights Templar hurried to defend Gaza. At Ascalon he issued an arrière-ban, calling up every able-bodied man. His uncle Joscelin, his stepfather Reynald of Sidon, Raynald, and Balian and Baldwin of Ibelin joined him.

  Saladin reached Ascalon on the 22nd of November 1177. Baldwin led his troops out, saw how badly he was outnumbered, and withdrew into the city. William of Tyre put Saladin's strength at 26,000 men, though this was most likely a great exaggeration. Saladin concluded that Baldwin's army was no threat and marched confidently toward Jerusalem. Meanwhile Baldwin ordered the Templars to abandon Gaza and join him. He slipped out of Ascalon with Raynald and met them along the coast. Saladin never expected this and posted no watchers on the city.

  On the 25th of November, Baldwin and Raynald struck Saladin's scattered army at Montgisard. The young king fought at the front while Raynald directed much of the cavalry. Saladin barely escaped alive, and only a tenth of his army made it back to Egypt. One of his great-nephews was killed. His men were chased for twelve miles, and Baldwin fought until nightfall, when the Muslims retreated. He returned to Jerusalem to a triumphant welcome. The Christian world saw the unexpected victory as a sign from God.

  Baldwin lacked the men to pursue, so he chose to fortify the Damascene frontier. The Templars pressed him to build a castle called Chastellet on the upper Jordan River. Baldwin hesitated, because the Franks had promised not to mark that stretch of border. Local Muslims protested, and Saladin offered Baldwin 60,000 dinars to abandon the construction. Baldwin refused. Saladin then offered 100,000 dinars, and Baldwin refused again. In 1178 the king hosted Michael the Syrian, patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, in Jerusalem and won his lasting loyalty to the Frankish cause.

  In April 1179, Baldwin set out to round up sheep passing from Damascus to Banias. Saladin's nephew Farrukh Shah, sent to investigate, ran straight into him, and a skirmish followed. The constable Humphrey II of Toron, elderly but exceptionally able, was fatally wounded protecting the king. Baldwin was deeply saddened by the loss.

  A few weeks later, in June, Baldwin rode out to intercept Bedouin raids on Beirut and Sidon. He marched to the hills of Marj Ayyun with Raymond of Tripoli and Odo of St Amand, Grand Master of the Templars. The crusaders routed Saladin's army with ease, believed the fight won, and let their guard down. Raymond and Odo took their knights to an area between Marj Ayyun and the Litani River. Saladin's raiding party then hit them by surprise and defeated them soundly. Baldwin was unhorsed, and because he could not remount alone, a knight carried him to safety on his back. Many crusaders were captured, including Odo, Baldwin of Ibelin and Raymond's stepson Hugh of Saint Omer. Raymond escaped to Tyre, which William of Tyre called "disgraceful" because he left his men behind.

  On the 24th of August 1179, Saladin besieged the Templars at Le Chastellet. His most trusted officers advised a fast, violent assault, and the Muslims stormed the outer defences at once. Baldwin summoned a host to Tiberias, but the attackers breached the inner walls and took the castle on the 29th of August. The relic of the True Cross had not yet been fetched from Jerusalem. The crusaders had seen no reason to hurry, since the fortress was built to withstand a long siege. Saladin stayed a fortnight, demolished the building and executed the Christian soldiers who had survived the fighting.

  In mid-1181, Raynald of Châtillon seized a merchant caravan traveling from Egypt to Damascus and broke the truce. He ignored Baldwin's request to make restitution to Saladin. Saladin was then preparing to annex Zengid-ruled Aleppo, and the king consistently opposed his attempts to expand into northern Syria. A recent anti-Catholic coup in Constantinople gave Saladin the confidence to attack. In July 1182, Baldwin marched out to relieve Bethsan and his outnumbered army won the Battle of Le Forbelet. Hamilton credits the victory to the respect and loyalty Baldwin commanded, since he stayed on the field despite his illness and the intense heat. William of Tyre reported that as many men died of sunstroke as by the sword.

  Saladin then besieged Beirut, while another army from Egypt attacked the south of the kingdom. In August, Baldwin went to Tyre and ordered ships requisitioned there to form a fleet that could beat the Egyptian navy. He won help from the Italian maritime republics, and thirty-three galleys, mostly from Genoa, Pisa and Venice, sailed north to break the naval blockade of Beirut. Baldwin sent a messenger to Beirut announcing that he would arrive in three days. Saladin intercepted the message and abandoned the siege but refused a truce, which worried Baldwin and his advisers.

  Saladin went north to fight the Zengids and expand his realm. Baldwin attacked Saladin's Damascene territory, then Bosra, and finally besieged and captured Cave de Sueth. In the winter of 1182-83, after agreeing on a strategy with his council, he attacked Damascus again. At Darayya he threatened to destroy a mosque, but local Christians talked him out of it, fearing the loss of their own churches in retaliation.

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• 6. Factions and Marriages

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  In the winter of 1177-78, Sibylla gave birth to a son and named him Baldwin after the king. A year of official mourning for her husband William ended in June, and the search for another husband began. Baldwin of Ibelin's suit was well known, but the king did not entertain it. His brother Balian of Ibelin married Queen Maria in late 1177, and Hamilton believes Baldwin allowed the match to avoid antagonizing the Ibelins. In July 1178 the king began associating Sibylla with him in some public acts, which acknowledged her as next in line. He considered marrying her to Duke Hugh III of Burgundy and wrote to the king of France: "To be deprived of the use of one's limbs is of little help to one in carrying out the work of government... It is not fitting that a hand so weak as mine should hold power when fear of Arab aggression daily presses upon the Holy City and when my sickness increases the enemy's daring... I therefore beg you that, having called together the barons of the kingdom of France, you immediately choose one of them to take charge of this Holy Kingdom."

  During Holy Week in 1180, Raymond III of Tripoli and Bohemond III of Antioch marched on Jerusalem with their armies. Hamilton thinks they meant to force Baldwin to marry Sibylla to Baldwin of Ibelin and then abdicate. That would have removed the Courtenays from power and put a local noble's family on the throne instead of a foreign husband. The king had never approved of Baldwin of Ibelin's ambition, and though he wished to abdicate, he did not want terms forced on him. Before the armies arrived, he married Sibylla to a Poitevin knight, Guy of Lusignan, even though she had been promised to Hugh III of Burgundy. Raymond and Bohemond had to accept the fait accompli, and the coup was foiled.

  Baldwin still hoped to abdicate, but a deep rift in his court prevented it. The historian Steven Runciman describes a division present from the start of the reign. On one side, he places the diplomatic native barons and the Hospitallers. On the other, he places the "aggressive, militantly Christian" newcomers from Western Europe and the Templars. Older histories commonly accepted this view, but modern authors such as Hamilton and Peter Edbury reject it. Hamilton argues the factions arose only after Sibylla married Guy. One camp formed around the king's paternal relatives: his cousins Raymond and Bohemond, his stepmother Maria, and her new family, the Ibelins. The other formed around his maternal relatives: his mother Agnes, his stepfather Reynald, his sister Sibylla, his brother-in-law Guy, his uncle Joscelin and Raynald of Châtillon. Baldwin sided with the maternal camp.

  In May 1180, in light of these problems, Baldwin proposed a two-year truce with Saladin. Saladin gladly accepted, since it left him free to campaign in northern Syria. The truce did not cover Tripoli, which had not joined the negotiations, so Saladin could raid it. Baldwin sent Joscelin to reassure the Byzantine court that Jerusalem still needed its protection. But Emperor Manuel died during the talks, and Joscelin had to spend the whole winter in Constantinople to finish them. From mid-1180 to mid-1181 the full weight of government fell on the sickly king, who leaned chiefly on his mother.

  In October 1180, to secure Guy's position and block any rival claimant, Baldwin betrothed his eight-year-old half-sister Isabella, Maria Komnene's daughter, to Humphrey IV, the teenage lord of Toron. Isabella was sent to live at Kerak Castle with Humphrey's mother, Stephanie of Milly, as far as possible from her own maternal kin and any plotters. In the marriage contract Humphrey ceded Toron to Baldwin. That kept two great fiefs from uniting under one vassal and strengthened the king against the count of Tripoli.

  Baldwin used the truce to strengthen his maternal kin. He granted Maron and Chastel Neuf to Joscelin and property rights over Toron to Agnes, and he kept associating Guy and Sibylla with him in public acts. He stayed unreconciled with Raymond and, suspecting another conspiracy, forbade him to enter the kingdom in early 1182. The king probably planned to charge Raymond with treason and strip him of the Principality of Galilee, a fief Raymond held through his marriage to Eschiva of Bures. The law barred the king from seizing a fief without the High Court's assent. Its members urged him to make peace with Raymond, and Baldwin reluctantly took their advice.

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• 7. A King in a Litter

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  From 1183, Baldwin could not walk without support or use his hands. He could not blink, so his corneas dried out and he went blind. Even so, he had to summon his troops when Saladin marched south after the Egyptian conquest of Aleppo in June. Baldwin then developed a severe fever and seemed unlikely to survive. His mother and the new patriarch, Heraclius, attended him at nearby Nazareth. He called the High Court to his bedside and entrusted the government to his brother-in-law Guy, who stood next in line. The appointment was meant to be permanent. Baldwin kept only the royal title and authority over the city of Jerusalem, and he made Guy swear not to crown himself or give away royal lands while Baldwin lived.

  Fearing his barons' discontent, Baldwin had never given Guy any experience of military command. Bohemond III of Antioch, Raymond III of Tripoli and the grand masters of the military orders refused to cooperate with the new regent. Baldwin recovered unexpectedly and returned to Jerusalem. He found that the coastal climate suited his health, so he offered Guy Jerusalem in exchange for Tyre. Guy refused abruptly, possibly because Tyre was more lucrative, and Baldwin felt gravely insulted.

  In late 1183, the wedding of Isabella and Humphrey IV of Toron was celebrated at Kerak. Saladin attacked during the festivities and besieged the castle, hoping to seize the king's half-sister and her husband. News of the siege reached Baldwin while he was in Jerusalem, meeting a council to keep him informed. Such a vital fortress, and Isabella inside it, could not be left to Guy, who had shown he could not command troops. Heraclius and the grand masters of the Templars and Hospitallers tried to speak for Guy, but Raymond, Bohemond and Reynald easily persuaded Baldwin to remove him. Despite his illness, he dismissed Guy from the regency at once and took power back. This amounted to disinheriting Guy, and at the council's insistence, talks on the succession followed. The council accepted Agnes's proposal to crown Sibylla's five-year-old son, Baldwin, as co-king, and the boy was crowned on the 20th of November 1183.

  In late November, Baldwin ordered a beacon lit on the Tower of David. It may have been the first in a chain of beacons meant to hearten Kerak's defenders under heavy bombardment. Now blind and unable to stand, the king traveled with his troops in a litter slung between two horses. His presence was essential to unite the quarrelsome barons, and even his humiliated brother-in-law led his men. Baldwin was too ill to fight, so he named Raymond of Tripoli field commander. Warned of the king's approach, and worried about leaving Egypt unguarded, Saladin abandoned the siege on the 4th of December. Baldwin entered Kerak in triumph and stayed several days, inspecting the fortifications, helping with repairs and restocking the food supply.

  The question of regency for his nephew kept troubling him. The only way to bar Guy from it was to annul Guy's marriage to Sibylla. Baldwin discussed it with Heraclius, planning to claim he had forced his sister into the match and that it was therefore unlawful. Sibylla's unwavering loyalty to Guy defeated the plan, and the couple refused to appear at court.

  Early in 1184, Baldwin ordered Guy to attend him in Jerusalem as a vassal. Guy declined several times, citing poor health. So Baldwin had himself carried to Ascalon with the High Court, but Guy would not let him into the city. The townspeople watched from battlements and towers as the king solemnly raised his hand to knock and demand entry, and the gates stayed shut. Baldwin was welcomed in Jaffa, where he installed a governor and so took half of Guy's county from him. At Acre he called his council, probably to win support for seizing Guy's fief over the ignored summons. The patriarch and the grand masters begged him to forgive Guy and avoid civil war. A king of that age could not accept this, and the patriarch and grand masters stormed out, swaying the assembly to refuse support.

  By June, Baldwin had reconciled with them, and he sent them to Europe to seek help for the kingdom. He informed them by letter that Saladin was besieging Kerak once more. Once again Saladin abandoned the siege when the litter-bound king approached with his army. Baldwin then ordered and paid for the repair of the damaged castle.

  In late 1184, Baldwin learned with shock that Guy had massacred the Bedouin of the royal fief of Darum. They lived under royal protection and supplied information on Egyptian movements. Around then he developed another fever. Back in Jerusalem in late 1184 or early 1185, he named Raymond of Tripoli regent. He had never trusted Raymond but could find no better choice. Baldwin expected to recover, as he had twice before, but within weeks it was clear he would not. On his deathbed he called the High Court to appoint a permanent regent for his nephew, Baldwin V, and chose Raymond again. He ordered homage paid to the boy as king and to Raymond as regent, to be followed by a solemn crown-wearing ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

  Baldwin IV died with his vassals around him, in March 1185 or at the latest before the 16th of May 1185, when Baldwin V is recorded as sole king. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, near his father, King Amalric.

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• 8. Assessment and Legacy

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  Baldwin V, the boy co-king, died in 1186. His mother and successor, Sibylla, then made Guy king. In 1187 Saladin destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem with a decisive victory over Guy at the Horns of Hattin. Sibylla and her daughters died in 1190, leaving Isabella I as heir to the defeated kingdom. The defeat at Hattin, two years after Baldwin IV's death, damaged his reputation, and historians traced the instability to his reign. Yet while he sat on the throne, the kingdom lost no territory and flourished both economically and spiritually.

  Baldwin understood why Saladin had to be curbed, and his choice of ministers showed it. He did not shape strategy or diplomacy alone. He left Church patronage to his mother Agnes and finances to his uncle Joscelin. His chief contribution was his determination not to abdicate until he found a suitable successor, although leprosy made government an unbearable burden. His reign, and especially its disastrous aftermath, showed that he alone kept the kingdom united. Long after his death he was hailed as the last Christian leader to defend Jerusalem successfully.

  Pope Alexander III showed little sympathy, calling Baldwin's leprosy a "just judgement of God". Another school of thought urged the faithful to see Christ in those affected by the disease. Baldwin's reign may have lessened the stigma of leprosy in the thirteenth-century Kingdom of Jerusalem. His subjects' acceptance of their ill king confounded some Muslims. The Muslim historian Imad al-Din al-Isfahani wrote: "In spite of illness the Franks were loyal to him, they gave him every encouragement... being satisfied to have him as their ruler; they exalted him... they were anxious to keep him in office, but they paid no attention to his leprosy." The Andalusian pilgrim Ibn Jubayr, who visited the kingdom in 1184, formed a harsher impression: "The pig, the lord of Acre whom they call king, lives secluded and is not seen, for God has afflicted him with leprosy..."

  Baldwin's chastity may have helped his public image. His contemporaries believed lepers were extremely lustful, so his restraint was taken as evidence of extraordinary sanctity. Despite that reputation, he was not remarkably pious. He openly wished to abdicate, but he had no plan to lead a monastic life. He was a knight first, in character and upbringing, and to his contemporaries his most distinctive traits were courage and honour.

  In 2005, the epic historical drama film Kingdom of Heaven made Baldwin IV one of its main characters, played by the actor Edward Norton, whose performance one commentator described as "phenomenal".

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