BALDWIN I

born 1172 died 1205 count of Flanders (as Baldwin IX) and of Hainaut (as Baldwin VI), a leader of the Fourth Crusade, who became the first Latin emperor of Constantinople. The son of Baldwin V, count of Hainaut, and Margaret of Alsace, countess of Flanders, he was an ally of the English royal house of the Plantagenets, fighting at the side of Richard I against Philip II Augustus of France. During the Fourth Crusade, which was conceived by Pope Innocent III in 1198 and was fought not against the Muslims but against the Byzantine Christians, he took part in the capture of Constantinople and the installation of the pro-Latin Alexius IV Angelus as emperor in 1203; after Alexius and his father, Isaac II, were deposed in February 1204, the crusaders and their Venetian allies seized power, and Baldwin, with Venetian support, was chosen as ruler of a new Latin state. He was crowned emperor on May 16, 1204, in the church of the Hagia Sophia. The Pope, although initially shocked at the crusaders' pillage of Constantinople and disconcerted by their failure to consult him on the partition of the empire, quickly recognized the Latin emperor. Baldwin created a new government, based on the western European feudal model, to replace the traditional hierarchy of the Byzantine Empire. In October 1204 he enfeoffed 600 knights with lands formerly held by Greek nobles. A Byzantine revolt in Thrace provided the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan with a pretext for invasion. Baldwin led a small force to confront him at Adrianople in March 1205. Defeated, taken prisoner, and executed by the Bulgars, he was succeeded by his brother Henry. born 1058? died April 2, 1118, al-'Arish, Egypt byname Baldwin Of Boulogne, French Baudouin De Boulogne king of the crusader state of Jerusalem (110018), who expanded the kingdom and secured its territory, formulating an administrative apparatus that was to serve for 200 years as the basis for Frankish rule in Syria and Palestine. Son of Eustace II, count of Boulogne, and Ida d'Ardenne, Baldwin was the younger brother of Godfrey of Bouillon (q.v.), whom he accompanied on the First Crusade (109699). While Baldwin was campaigning against the Seljuq Turks in Anatolia, Toros, the Christian prince of Edessa (Urfa, Tur.), promised to make him his heir in return for military aid. Baldwin forced Toros to abdicate and took possession of Edessa in 1098. He consolidated his new principality and strengthened its ties with the native Armenians by marrying Arda, the daughter of an Armenian noble. In July 1100 his brother Godfrey died in Jerusalem, and Baldwin was summoned by the nobles to succeed him as Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (Defender of the Holy Sepulchre). After leading a campaign in the south to impress the Egyptian Fatimids with his strength, and after subduing the opposition of the crusader nobles, he was crowned king of Jerusalem in December. Once he had consolidated his strength at home, Baldwin seized the coastal cities of Arsuf (Tel Arshaf, Israel) and Caesarea (Horbat Qesari, Israel) in 1101; by 1112 he had captured all the coastal cities except Ascalon and Tyre. In 1115 he built the castle of Krak de Montral to protect the kingdom in the south. In 1113 Baldwin forced his wife to enter a convent and married Adelaide of Saona, countess dowager of Sicily. He died without an heir and was succeeded by Baldwin du Bourg, a cousin whom he had named count of Edessa in 1100. died 879 byname Baldwin Iron-arm, French Baudouin Bras-de-fer, Dutch Boudewijn De Ijzere Arm the first ruler of Flanders. A daring warrior under Charles II the Bald of France, he fell in love with the King's daughter Judith, the youthful widow of two English kings, married her (862), and fled with his bride to Lorraine. Charles, though at first angry, was at last conciliated, and made his son-in-law margrave (Marchio Flandriae) of Flanders (864), which he held as a hereditary fief. The Norsemen were at this time continually devastating the coastlands, and Baldwin was entrusted with this outlying borderland in order to defend it. He was the first of a line of strong rulers, who early in the 10th century exchanged the title of margrave for that of count.