Adelaide del Vasto

Roger in 1089 arranges the marriage of his son Jordan to to a daughter of Boniface del Vasto, margrave of Western Liguria, who has several daughters and sons by his first wife Alice, the daughter of Peter of Savoy, and his second wife Agnes, daughter of Prince Hugh de Capet of France, Count of Vermandois.

To another of Boniface’s daughters, he arranges the marriage of another son from a previous relationship, Geoffrey, Count of Ragusa (who may have died before the marriage actually took place).

At the same time, Roger marries Adelaide, a daughter of Manfred del Vasto, Boniface’s brother.

Jordan, who had been present at the siege of Noto in February 1091, has been made lord of Noto and count of Syracuse and here he dies, of fever, probably in 1092.

Despite having inherited all the Hauteville attributes which had made their rule in the Mezzogiorno all but inevitable, Jordan had not been in line for the succession on account of his illegitimacy until his brother Geoffrey became a leper, then he had been designated heir apparent.

A stone recording his death can still be seen in the church of Santa Maria in Mili San Pietro, near Messina.

Roger's consort Adelaide brings settlers from the valley of the Po River to colonize eastern Sicily.

Roger as a secular ruler seems a reliable ally, since he is merely a vassal of his kinsman the Count of Apulia, himself a vassal of Rome, so it seems safe at the time for Urban to give him these extraordinary powers, which are later to lead to bitter confrontations with Roger I's Hohenstaufen heirs.

…has turned the archbishopric of Palermo into a Catholic see.

He practices general toleration towards Arabs and Greeks.

In the cities, the Muslims, who had generally secured such rights in their terms of surrender, retain their mosques, their kadis, and freedom of trade; in the country, however, they have become serfs.

When Roger I dies in 1101, his young son, Simon of Hauteville, becomes Count, with his mother Adelaide del Vasto as regent.

Baldwin marries Adelaide del Vasto in 1113; he had abandoned his Armenian wife Arda in 1108, on the pretext that she had been unfaithful, or, according to Guibert of Nogent, because she had been raped by pirates on the way to Jerusalem.

It is more likely however that she was simply politically useless in Jerusalem, which has no Armenian population.

Under the marriage agreement, if Baldwin and Adelaide have no children, the heir to the kingdom will be Roger II of Sicily, Adelaide's son by her first husband Roger I. Technically the marriage to Adelaide is bigamous because Arda is still alive in a monastery in Jerusalem, and it will later cause many problems both for Baldwin and Patriarch Arnulf, who has sanctioned it.

Arnulf of Chocques, archdeacon of Jerusalem, had officially became Patriarch in 1112, although many of the other clerics distrust him and find him unnecessarily harsh.

He is especially unpopular with the Orthodox and Syrian Christians when he prohibits non-Latin masses at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

He is accused of various crimes: sexual relations with a Muslim woman, simony, and most importantly condoning the bigamous marriage of King Baldwin I to Adelaide del Vasto while his first wife Arda of Armenia was still alive.

He had been briefly deposed in 1115 by a papal legate, but had appealed to Pope Paschal II and in 1116 is reinstated, provided that he annul Baldwin and Adelaide's marriage.

Baldwin had fallen ill in 1117.

Convinced that the sickness was due to his bigamous marriage to Adelaide, he had sent Adelaide back to Sicily, much to her disgust.

Baldwin had recovered, however, and in 1118 he marches into Egypt and plunders Pelusium.

Afterward, he catches and eats many fish, and falls ill once again.

Baldwin is carried back to Jerusalem on a litter but dies on the way on April 2 at the village of Al-Arish.

The crown is offered to the king's elder brother Eustace III, but Joscelin of Courtenay insists that the crown pass to Baldwin of Bourcq, despite Count Baldwin having exiled Joscelin from Edessa in 1113.

Baldwin of Edessa accepts and on Easter Sunday, April 14, 1118, is crowned king of Jerusalem as Baldwin II.

Almost immediately, the kingdom is simultaneously invaded by the Seljuqs from Syria and the Fatimids from Egypt, although by showing himself ready and willing to defend his territory, Baldwin forces the Muslim army to back down without a battle.

The crusaders actually control only a few strongholds in Palestine, and pilgrims to the Christian holy places are often endangered by marauding Muslim bands.

Pitying the plight of such pilgrims, eight or nine French knights, led by Hugues de Payens and Geoffrey of Saint-Omer, have vowed to devote themselves to their protection and to form a religious community for that purpose.

They request of Warmund, the new Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem permission to elect a master to lead them to defend the kingdom.

Hugues de Payens is elected their master and Warmund charges them with the duty of keeping the roads safe from thieves and others who are routinely robbing and killing pilgrims en route to Jerusalem.

King Baldwin II gives them quarters in a wing of the royal palace in the area of the former Jewish Temple, and from this they derive their name: the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or Knights Templar.