Baldwin's wife Arda had not immediately accompanied…
1105 CE
Baldwin's wife Arda had not immediately accompanied him south after he succeeded his brother as King of Jerusalem in 1100; she had traveled by sea, arriving probably in 1101.
Baldwin has the marriage annulled in 1105, supposedly because Arda had been unfaithful, or, according to Guibert of Nogent, because she had been raped by pirates on the way to Jerusalem.
In reality, her father Thoros has paid very little of the dowry, Arda has produced no children, and an Armenian wife is less useful in Jerusalem than in Edessa.
Fulcher of Chartres, the chronicler closest to Baldwin, does not mention the matter at all, which likely means that Baldwin had no legitimate reason to annul the marriage.
Instead, he simply forces Arda to enter the monastery of Saint Anne.
Arda later demands to be released and goes to Constantinople, where her father had fled when his lands were taken over by the County of Edessa.
