Godfrey of Bouillon

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Gottfried and Ademar, the Bishop of Puy , in an illustration made at the end of the 13th century, Boulogne-sur-Mer Bibliothèque Municipale, mss 142, fol. 16

Godfrey of Bouillon ( French Godefroy de Bouillon; also Godefroid de Bouillon; * around 1060 ; † July 18, 1100 in Jerusalem ) was a military leader in the First Crusade ; after the conquest of Jerusalem he became the first ruler of the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem , but refused the royal dignity.

Depiction of Godfrey of Bouillon with the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem ( Book of arms Livro do Armeiro-Mor , 1509)

Early years

Godfrey of Bouillon on a fresco in Manta Castle , around 1420

Gottfried was the second son of Count Eustach II of Boulogne and his wife Ida , daughter of Duke Gottfried III. of Lower Lorraine . His future prospects as the second son were inherently limited, but his childless uncle, Duke Gottfried IV of Lower Lorraine , appointed him his successor when he died in 1076 . However, King Henry IV transferred the duchy, which was important due to its intermediate position between France and the German kingdom, to his son Conrad and only left the margraviate of Antwerp and the rule of Bouillon to Gottfried to test his abilities and loyalty.

Gottfried had to defend his territories against the claims of his uncle's widow, Mathilde von Tuszien , as well as against attacks from outside. With the help of his brothers Eustach III. and Baldwin , however, was able to repel all attacks. Gottfried owes his surname to the siege of Bouillon Castle in 1077.

Gottfried proved to be loyal to the king and remained loyal to him during the investiture dispute . He fought on the royal side against the anti-king Rudolf von Rheinfelden and was involved in the capture of Rome in 1084. In 1089 he finally received the duchy of Lower Lorraine as a fief.

The first crusade

Lorraine was heavily influenced by the Cluniac reform , and although he had sided with the Pope in the investiture controversy, Gottfried was a pious man. After the Synod of Clermont in 1095, he sold all of his property and joined the First Crusade.

Godfrey of Bouillon leads the First Crusade. Miniature from the 13th century

Together with his brothers Eustach III. and Baldwin , from August 1096, he led an army of about 20,000 men from Lorraine along the Rhine and Danube to the Balkans. After some fighting in Hungary , where he was unable to prevent his men from pillaging the Christian land, he was the first crusader to reach Constantinople in November . Very soon he came into conflict with the Byzantine emperor Alexios I , who viewed the knights appearing at the gates of his city with extreme suspicion and asked Gottfried to take a feudal oath in order to win the territories that the Crusaders had recaptured from the Muslims for Constantinople. Gottfried probably took the oath in January 1097, as did most of the other commanders of the Crusades on their way through Constantinople.

With the meeting of the crusaders in Constantinople, Gottfried became a minor figure in the crusade, since from then on Bohemond of Taranto and Raimund of Toulouse determined the course of events. Gottfried's only notable achievement during this period was his contribution to the liberation of Bohemund's army in the Battle of Dorylaeum on July 1, 1097, where it from the Seljuks under Kılıç Arslan I was surrounded. Gottfried's army was also surrounded until another group of crusaders under the papal legate Adhemar von Le Puy attacked the Seljuk camp.

In 1099, after the eight-month siege and eventual capture of Antioch , the crusaders disagreed about how to proceed. Most of the foot soldiers wanted to go further south, to Jerusalem , but Raimund, who was the leader of the crusade as the highest-ranking nobleman after the death of Adhemar, hesitated to march on in an argument with Bohemond. Gottfried used the time to visit his brother Balduin, who had come into Edessa's possession in the meantime , in his capital. He only rejoined the main army at Maara shortly before leaving for Jerusalem (January 1099) .

In February 1099 Gottfried took part in the siege of Arqa Castle near Tripoli . Meanwhile, Tankred von Taranto , who had fallen out with Raimund, joined him and entered into a special loyalty and service relationship with him. This greatly benefited Gottfried's position. Giving in to the murmuring of the army pushing toward Jerusalem, it was finally Gottfried who, contrary to Raimund's will, arranged for the siege of Arqa to be lifted on May 15, 1099.

During the siege of Jerusalem , Gottfried found the opportunity to show himself off. On the afternoon of July 15, 1099, he and his family were the first to enter the city.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem

Sword of Godfrey of Bouillon in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

After Raymond of Toulouse rejected the royal crown of Jerusalem because he did not want to be crowned king in the city where Jesus Christ had worn the crown of thorns , Gottfried also rejected the royal dignity, but took over the rule of the new Kingdom of Jerusalem . With the title of the advocatus sancti sepulchri (“Protector of the Holy Sepulcher ”), both his position as a secular ruler and the religious character of the place were taken into account.

During his short reign of one year, Gottfried had to defend the new kingdom against the previous masters, the Fatimids from Egypt , who were defeated on August 12 at the Battle of Ascalon . After the Battle of Ascalon, the crusade participants considered their crusade vows fulfilled and most of them returned to their homeland. Gottfried expanded his power in 1100, for example fortifying the port city of Jaffa and planning further conquests.

With Gottfried's support, Arnulf von Chocques was elected Patriarch of Jerusalem , but the election was soon annulled as non-canonical and Dagobert of Pisa was made patriarch instead . With this Gottfried came into conflict, since Dagobert emphasized the Pope's (and thus also his) rights over the holy city of Jerusalem and saw Gottfried merely as the executive arm. At Dagobert's urging, Gottfried promised to hand over Jerusalem and the as yet unconquered Jaffa to the Pope as soon as the Crusaders had conquered Egypt , which Gottfried would receive as a replacement. The invasion of Egypt never took place, and Gottfried died a little later in July 1100.

Death and succession

There are various statements about Gottfried's death in July 1100: According to the report of the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi , he is said to have been killed by an arrow during the siege of Acre . Christian sources do not mention this, however, while Albert von Aachen and Ekkehard von Aura write that he fell ill in Caesarea and died of this disease in Jerusalem. There were also rumors of poisoning, but these could not be confirmed. Gottfried was buried in the tomb of the Crusader Kings in Jerusalem.

After Gottfried's death, the question of who should rule Jerusalem was initially open. The nobility used the absence of Dagobert, who was staying with the troops besieging Jaffa , to proclaim Gottfried's younger brother Baldwin to be king. The returned Dagobert initially refused to crown Baldwin who had rushed from Edessa, but it was finally agreed on a coronation in Bethlehem on December 25, 1100.

Gottfried in history and legend

Bronze figure of Gottfried von Bouillon in the Hofkirche (Innsbruck)

Since Gottfried was the first ruler over Jerusalem, he was later idealized and mythicized in a Christian way: he was referred to as the leader of the crusade, king of Jerusalem and as the lawgiver who introduced the jury in Jerusalem. Since the 14th century he has been counted among the ideal knights known as the Nine Good Heroes . As part of this, he was depicted around 1390 on the facade of the summer house at Runkelstein Castle together with King Arthur and Charlemagne. Indeed, all of this was legendary. Adhemar, Raimund and Bohemund led the crusade, Baldwin was the first “king”, and the jury courts were the result of a gradual development.

Gottfried's role in the crusade was first described by Albert von Aachen , the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum , and by Raimund von Aguilers . In fiction, Gottfried was the hero of two French chansons de geste dealing with the crusade, the Chanson d'Antioche and the Chanson de Jerusalem . His family and life before the Crusade also became the subject of legends. His grandfather, had been Helias, Knight of the Swan, one of the brothers whose adventures in the Swan Knight legend , a modification of the Lohengrin be -Legende says. Torquato Tasso celebrated it in his great epic Gerusalemme liberata (1575).

In a widespread Jewish legend, Godfried von Bouillon is ascribed a threatening character: Godfrey has Rashi (Rabbi Schlomo ben Jizchak) called to have him predict the outcome of the crusade. When Rashi did not appear to the prince, the latter went to see him in the house of instruction, accompanied by his troops. Raschi prophesied an unfortunate outcome of the crusade in details, the last detail of which was fulfilled when the returning Gottfried Raschi's hometown entered.

Pierre Plantard called Gottfried von Bouillon the founder of a "Brotherhood of Mount Zion" ( Prieuré de Sion ). The alleged sources have been exposed as forgeries, but the subject has repeatedly been taken up in conspiracy theories in literature and popular culture, for example in the novel The Da Vinci Code .

swell

literature

Biographical classifications

Older representations

  • Georges Despy, Jonathan Riley-Smith , Heinz Bergner: Gottfried v. Bouillon (Gottfried V.), Hzg. V. Lower Lorraine . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 4, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-7608-8904-2 , Sp. 1598–1600.
  • Pierre Aubé: Godefroy de Bouillon , Fayard, Paris 1985.
  • John C. Andressohn: The Ancestry and Life of Godfrey of Bouillon , Bloomington 1947
  • Gilbert Klaperman, Libby Klaperman: The History of the Jewish People. Volume 1: From the Construction of the Second Temple to the End of the Gaonean Age. Neumann, Zurich 1976, (textbook on a traditional Jewish basis with lots of cards, pictures and questions).
  • Heinrich Graetz : Popular history of the Jews. Volume 2: From the second destruction of Jerusalem under Emperor Vespasian to the mass baptisms of Jews in Spain. 5th edition. Leiner, Leipzig 1914, digitized .
  • Diederich von dem Werder : Gottfried von Bulljon, Oder: Das Erlösete Jerusalem , Aubri et al., Frankfurt am Main 1626, (reprint: (= German new prints , series Barock Vol. 24), published by Gerhard Dünnhaupt , Niemeyer, Tübingen 1974, ISBN 3 -484-16020-9 ). ( Digitized version of the original edition )

Movies

  • Fritz, Nathalie / Martin, Jacques: 'God wants it!'. Godfrey of Bouillon and the first crusade. B / F 2010. Arte / RTBF. HD.

Pictures of Gottfried

Web links

Commons : Gottfried von Bouillon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Jacques Collin de Plancy: La chronique de Godefroid de Bouillon et du Royaume de Jérusalem. Première et deuxième croisades (1080-1187). Avec l'histoire de Charles-Le-Bon récit contemporain (1119–1154). Troisième édition, review, corrigée et ornée de 4 grandes gravures. Librairie des livres liturgiques illustrés, Paris 1848, digitized .
  2. ^ Arnold Bühler et alii: The Middle Ages. Theiss, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1857-9 , p. 248.
  3. Amin Maalouf : The Holy War of the Barbarians. The Crusades from the perspective of the Arabs. 3. Edition. Hugendubel, Kreuzlingen et al. 2001, ISBN 3-89631-420-3 .
predecessor Office successor
Konrad Duke of Lower Lorraine
1089–1100
Heinrich
- King of Jerusalem
as " Advocatus sancti sepulchri "
1099–1100
Balduin I.