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  Hugh and his remaining associates were sentenced to three years’ exile. After this, they could return without reproach, although in the interim the revenues from the count’s estates would be used to pay his ongoing debts and borrowings. In the circumstances this was an astounding result. Hugh had been accused of plotting to murder the king and found guilty by the High Court. He had made a treaty with Muslims, exposed the kingdom of Jerusalem to danger and loss, and openly defied the king at the gates of Jaffa. The death sentence seemed the only logical outcome—yet he had escaped with a ludicrously light punishment and, even more remarkably, he had not even been stripped of his lands. In three years he could come home to Jaffa and resume control of the most powerful lordship in the kingdom. Here—surely—we can discern the influence of Melisende. As Hugh’s most prominent ally and in her theoretical position as coruler, she must have told Fulk that to execute the count would humiliate her and create a deep and permanent division in the kingdom, starting in the royal household. The magnanimous sentence may also show that Hugh’s grievances against Fulk had some substance; such a penalty implicitly acknowledges that his case had merit. Hugh may have regarded himself as innocent, but given the way in which events had played out, he could still feel relieved at the outcome.

  The matter was far from over, however. Hugh decided to pass his exile in his childhood home of Sicily. The conflict had ended in late 1134 and he now needed to wait until the New Year for passage to the West. Ships of the time were so primitive that the commercial fleets of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice only sailed the seas between March and October for fear of the treacherous winter storms of the Mediterranean.22 Hugh was passing time at a shop in the Street of the Furriers in the heart of Jerusalem. The cold winters of the Levant meant the production of such warm clothing was essential and this was one of many small, localized industries in this crowded district of the old city.23 Hugh was obviously familiar with one of the merchants named Alfanus and he had settled down to play dice—a very common pastime among medieval people. Hugh was enjoying himself and a crowd gathered around to watch and to cheer at the players’ changing fortunes. As he hunched over the table to roll the bones the count had no sense of danger at all. Suddenly, a knight from Brittany drew his sword and launched a frenzied attack, stabbing and slashing at Hugh again and again. The spectators screamed in horror, some drew their own weapons and, as the count fell bleeding to the floor, rushed forward to defend him. They jumped on the would-be assassin and captured him.

  News of the assault ran through the city like wildfire; people huddled together to exchange stories and information. Who was the assailant? How badly wounded was Hugh? Gradually a dark and insistent consensus emerged: King Fulk’s hand must lie behind the deed. In his anger against the man who may have sullied his marriage bed, the man who had openly defied him, and whom he had been compelled to treat so easily, people said that the king had commissioned the unnamed Breton to murder his rival. Hugh’s cause attracted a wave of sympathy; no longer was he a treacherous outlaw. To the people of Jerusalem the atrocity showed that he was more sinned against than sinning and that their king was malicious and vindictive.

  If he really was behind the plot Fulk cannot have anticipated such a public backlash in favor of the rebel. The king presumably wanted to eliminate the political and personal threat posed by Hugh; his demise would also send a message that in spite of the compromise judgment, Fulk would punish any opponents, if necessary by means outside the due process of law. He knew that Melisende would be furious, but, given the poor state of their relationship at this time, he calculated that he could weather any storm from her and, deprived of her closest ally, that she would submit.

  The king needed to act to quell the outcry. Fulk ordered the captive to be brought before the High Court, the body responsible for judging capital offenses. Wisely, however, the monarch stayed away from the meeting. Given the plentiful number of witnesses there was no need for any formal hearing and the assailant did not deny the charge. By unanimous agreement the court sentenced the Breton to the mutilation of his members. Such a harsh punishment was intended to deter others from such foul acts. It meant the hacking off of the hands, the feet, and the tongue. If the guilty party survived the blood loss and the likely infection he would be condemned to a life of utter misery, crawling around, begging outside churches, eating from the floor, and facing almost certain death from exposure or starvation.

  The court’s decision was relayed to the king, who asked that the man be permitted to keep his tongue. We shall never know whether Fulk engineered the plot, but if he erred in doing so he was astute enough to realize that if the man’s tongue was severed it might look as though he were trying to silence him. The Breton was tortured to reveal whether he was acting at the king’s behest, but even after the mutilation he maintained that he had been working on his own initiative and only anticipated a reward from Fulk thereafter. This confession did much to mollify the mood of the crowd and open hostility toward the king abated.24

  Hugh slowly recovered from his injuries. We do not know where he was treated. Given the location of the attack it is probable that he was taken to the leading medical center of the day, the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, just two hundred meters to the west of the Street of the Furriers and directly south of the Holy Sepulchre itself. There had been a hospice in Jerusalem since the days of Muslim rule when a group of Amalfitan merchants ran some form of charitable foundation. After the Christian conquest the kings of Jerusalem eagerly supported the institution and the hospital acquired a Frankish character. In 1113 it secured papal recognition as a religious order and soon grew rapidly. It was open to everyone, regardless of status, race, or religion, although the majority of its patients were the thousands of pilgrims who came to the Holy Land each year.

  Hugh must have needed his wounds to be cleaned and stitched, after which he was looked after with a mixture of prayer—a vital component of medieval health provision—and close care. Each patient in the hospital had their own bed, sheets, a cloak, a woolen hat, and boots for going to the latrines. A staff of four doctors did daily ward rounds, took the pulse and examined urine. Much of the treatment centered around good basic nourishment with sugar-based drinks (from sugarcane sent down from the county of Tripoli) and meat three times a week. Some medical practices seem strange to us: for example, the meat of female cows was banned because it was deemed to promote mental instability; some patients were treated by the use of hot stones—known as lapidary—to bring out fevers. As a man of wealth Hugh may have been moved to the house of one of his supporters but the basic principles of health care would have remained the same.25

  Once he had convalesced the count sailed to Apulia and began to serve out his exile. It seems that a combination of his failed revolt, the legacy of his injuries, and his separation from Melisende broke Hugh’s spirit. He was received with every sympathy by Roger II of Sicily, who generously gave him the county of Gargano, but months later he died without ever returning to the Holy Land.26

  It was in the royal palace that the effects of the attempted murder were felt most profoundly: the botched assassination tipped the balance of power to the queen. Melisende felt outraged by the entire episode. The combination of her assertive personality and a sense of moral right precipitated a sea change in the running of both the household and the government of the kingdom. Whether the stories of her relationship with Hugh were true or not, she was incandescent at the damage to her integrity. Allies of the king, such as Rohard, lord of Nablus, who had spread rumors about Melisende’s behavior, were forced to remove themselves from the household—it was said, for their own safety. Fear of her anger caused these men to stay away from bigger assemblies, such as feast days or processions. Most pointedly, Fulk himself was completely shunned by Melisende, her kindred, and her supporters. The royal marriage was, for the time being, dead. Melisende knew that her good name had been damaged by the public nature of the dispute and she was furious with the king for giving
credence to such stories. Whether Hugh was her lover or not she cared deeply for him and when he was cast into exile she was grief-stricken for her absent companion. Interestingly, the Old French edition of William of Tyre’s chronicle, written later in the twelfth century, stated that Hugh had died “por li” (for her), giving the count’s actions a chivalric aspect. He had sacrificed his life for his lady.27

  THE TRIUMPH OF MELISENDE

  As time went on the open hostility between the king and queen caused increasing concern. Close friends of the couple tried to mediate between the two camps, but Melisende was immovable; Fulk had to offer major compromises to restore a semblance of normality. In the end he managed to persuade her to forsake the open antipathy toward his friends and to permit them to attend public gatherings. William of Tyre tells us of the most crucial concessions made by the king: “From that day forward, the king became so uxorious that, whereas he had formerly aroused her wrath, he now calmed it, and not even in unimportant cases did he take any measures without her knowledge and assistance.”28

  Herein lies the heart of the matter. Running in tandem with the queen’s close relationship with Count Hugh was the fundamental dispute over Fulk’s governance of the kingdom. He had refused to accept King Baldwin II’s deathbed deviation from the original agreement that he should rule in his own right—instead he had tried to forge a path of his own. Rather than exercising joint power with Melisende, he had ignored her. Furthermore, as Baldwin II anticipated, Fulk started to introduce his Angevin henchmen into positions of authority at the expense of the native nobility. He dismissed the royal chancellor and a royal viscount and replaced them with his own men.29 In other words, a central aspect of the revolt of Hugh of Jaffa was the survival of the native nobility of Jerusalem, represented most dramatically in the person of Melisende herself. The contemporary Anglo-Norman writer Orderic Vitalis made this telling observation about Fulk’s behavior after his coronation:

  To begin with he acted without the foresight and shrewdness he should have shown, and changed governors and other dignitaries too quickly and thoughtlessly. As a new ruler he banished from his counsels the leading magnates who from the first had fought resolutely against the Turks and helped Godfrey and the two Baldwins to bring towns and fortresses under their rule, and replaced them with Angevin strangers and other raw newcomers to whom he gave his ear; turning out the veteran defenders, he gave the chief places in the counsels of the realm and the proprietorship of castles to new flatterers. Consequently great disaffection spread, and the stubbornness of the magnates was damnably roused against the man who changed officials so gauchely. For a long time, under the influence of the powers of evil, they turned their warlike skills, which they should have united to exercise against the heathen, to rend themselves. They even allied on both sides with the pagans against each other, with the result that they lost many thousands of men and a certain number of fortresses.30

  Although Orderic wrote in northern Europe, his sources had, in outline, given a political narrative—excluding the details of any relationship between Hugh and Melisende—of the 1134 civil war, and provided a concise explanation as to why the uprising had taken place. In Damascus, Ibn al-Qalanisi also understood the problem: “After Baldwin [II] there was none left amongst the Franks possessed of sound judgement and capacity to govern. The new king-count [Fulk] who came to them by sea from their country was not sound in his judgement, nor was he successful in his administration.”31

  Fulk had tried to sideline his queen, but through her indomitable will and the resistance led by Count Hugh, Melisende preserved her rightful inheritance and the power of the nobility of Jerusalem. The way in which she gained the ascendancy and forced Fulk to make such huge concessions showed the authority of a woman with strong personality and true bloodline. Fulk had not suspected that Melisende would challenge him with such determination; to his mind a woman should follow the Church orthodoxy and submit to her husband. In dealing with the unknown he had been caught off guard and had behaved ponderously until brought to recognize the wider political reality. As William of Tyre stated, from that time onward the king and the queen acted together—as Baldwin II had decreed. Charters that date from the period after the civil war demonstrate this. A gift to the Hospitallers in late 1136 was confirmed by Fulk “with the assent of his wife Melisende,” and another described an agreement made with “the consent of Queen Melisende.”32

  It was not just in the kingdom of Jerusalem that the effects of Fulk’s loss of power were felt. Almost as soon as the situation in the south began to resolve itself, Princess Alice of Antioch rose in rebellion. The death of Prince Bohemond II in 1130 had brought turmoil to northern Syria. In 1134, for the third time in six years, Melisende’s younger sister threw off the direction imposed by the king of Jerusalem and asserted her desire to rule the principality as regent for her little daughter, Constance. In 1130, King Baldwin II had traveled north to impose order; two years later, Fulk did the same. On this latest occasion, however, Melisende continued to flex her political muscles. The king was prepared to remove Alice again, but Melisende countered him. She told him not to interfere in her sister’s governance of Antioch and, constrained by his promises to the queen, Fulk meekly agreed. For a brief period in 1135–36, Alice—who remained unmarried—ruled as sovereign in the principality of Antioch while her sister seems to have been the dominant partner in the kingdom of Jerusalem—a time of genuine female ascendancy. King Baldwin II’s eldest daughters were clearly a remarkable pair of women. To rule (or dominate) two territories at the same time in the macho, violent eastern Mediterranean was a spectacular achievement.33

  THE MELISENDE PSALTER: ART, POLITICS, AND RECONCILIATION

  There is a touching footnote to the dispute in Jerusalem because it seems that Fulk genuinely hoped to restore close personal relations with his wife. As well as making good his political failings, the king commissioned a lavish and carefully chosen gift for her. Melisende’s piety was well known and she was also recognized as a patroness of books.34 Fulk thought hard about the most appropriate present he could give his wife and, to modern eyes at least, he certainly came up with a magnificent peace offering. The Melisende Psalter is an extraordinarily beautiful little book that survives today in the British Museum. It is only twenty-two centimeters tall and fourteen centimeters wide—roughly the size of a modern paperback—but it has a multicolored silk spine and a dozen roundels, studded with turquoise, ruby, and emerald stones that decorate the intricate ivory covers. Inside, it contains twenty-four full-page hand-colored illuminations of scenes from the New Testament, a calendar of saints’ days and observances, as well as prayers, many of which have highly decorated initial letters. The book is not explicitly addressed to the queen, but its contents and decorative themes make such an identification almost certain. The Latin text, for example, is written for a secular woman, rather than an abbess (such as her sister Yveta). There is a special focus on the veneration of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen, suggestive of a connection to the nearby abbey of Saint Mary Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem, a house patronized by the queen and later her burial place. More obviously the calendar has two especially personalized entries amid the daily list of general ecclesiastical commemorations. The twenty-first of August is highlighted as the date of King Baldwin II’s death and October 1 as the passing of Queen Morphia. No other rulers of Jerusalem are mentioned, although the capture of the holy city on July 15 is noted. The inclusion of Melisende’s parents is surely the most obvious sign that the book was for her. A more subtle indication that the gift came from Fulk—apart from the fact that it must have cost an enormous sum of money, perhaps only affordable by a king—is in the carving of a bird at the top of the back cover. It is labeled “Herodius”—also known as “fulica” in medieval bestiaries; in other words the bird is a falcon, and the name is a pun on Fulk.

  The illustrations were produced in a workshop connected to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and four different illuminators paint
ed the pictures. Their work reflects a mixture of influences: English, French, Byzantine, Arab, and Levantine, and they created a genuinely unique synthesis of styles. The ivory covers are particularly striking and their images are a clear indication of the message Fulk wished to convey. The front cover shows stories of King David from the Old Testament in which he proves his strength and fitness to rule, his humility, and his interest in harmony. In between the roundels is a battle between Virtues and Vices, the latter depicted as women with long, disheveled hair, defeated by women with neat head coverings. The monarch on the back cover, placed under the falcon, and dressed in the manner of a king of Jerusalem—the Byzantine-style regalia of a crown and chlamys—is probably meant to represent Fulk. He carries out the six acts of mercy as specified in the book of Matthew, giving out food and drink, clothing, help to the sick, visiting prisoners, and sheltering strangers. In between these roundels, Islamic-style birds and beasts fight. In essence, the covers show the restoration of a state of equilibrium and reveal a penitent king making good his misdeeds. The gift was meant to mark an end to the hostilities; it was a truly sumptuous book and the trouble taken over its subject matter and its production shows Fulk’s desire to apologize to his wife. We do not know of Melisende’s reaction when she was presented with the psalter; but we can judge some return to normality for the royal couple because in 1136 a second son, named Amalric, was born.

  As the product of a mixed Frankish-Armenian marriage, Melisende represented a combination of different strands of Christianity, and she displayed this broad cultural background in her enthusiastic support of the Catholic and Eastern Christian Churches. Women had played a crucial role in spiritual matters since the early days of Christianity and the patronage of religious institutions was a familiar way for medieval queens to exercise power. There is a neat contradiction here because in spite of the Church’s portrayal of women as following the fallen Eve figure, many religious houses and senior churchmen looked to women in authority for advancement and often formed close relations with them. A deeply pious woman, Melisende gave many gifts to monasteries, encouraged the building and improvement of churches such as the Templum Domini or the Armenian cathedral of Saint James, and was known to welcome pilgrim visitors.35 The queen also commissioned the huge fortified convent of Saint Lazarus at Bethany, east of Jerusalem, for her youngest sister, Yveta, to take charge of. She then donated to it a huge collection of gold, silver, and jeweled religious objects.36 Most importantly, perhaps, she oversaw the reconstruction of the spiritual heart of Christianity, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Melisende’s patronage went beyond religious buildings and she created a school of book-makers and miniature-painters, the style of which again reflected her mixed heritage. She also organized the construction of a vaulted complex of shops in Jerusalem, including the legendary (and still surviving) Street of Bad Cooking.37