Godfrey of Bouillon was a medieval
Frankish knight who was one of the
leaders of the First Crusade from 1096
until his death. He was the Lord of
Bouillon, from which he took his byname,
from 1076 and the Duke of Lower Lorraine
from 1087. After the successful siege of
Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey became the
first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
although he refused the title "King"; as
he believed that the true King of
Jerusalem was Christ; preferring the
title of "Advocate of the Holy
Sepulchre".
Early life
Godfrey of Bouillon was born around 1060
as the second son of Eustace II Count of
Boulogne and Ida, daughter of Godfrey,
Duke of Lower Lorraine and his wife,
Doda). His birthplace was probably
Boulogne-sur-Mer, although one
13th-century chronicler cites Baisy, a
town in Lower Lorraine. As second son,
he had fewer opportunities than his
older brother and seemed destined to
become just one more minor knight in
service to a rich landed nobleman.
However, his uncle on his mother's side,
Godfrey the Hunchback, Duke of Lower
Lorraine, died childless and named his
nephew, Godfrey of Bouillon, as his heir
and next in line to his duchy of Lower
Lorraine. This duchy was an important
one at the time, serving as a buffer
between the kingdom of France and the
German lands.
In fact, Lower Lorraine was so important
to the German kingdom and the Holy Roman
Empire that Henry IV, the German king
and future emperor, decided in 1076 that
he would place it in the hands of his
own son and give Godfrey only Bouillon
and the Margraviate of Antwerp as a test
of Godfrey's abilities and loyalty.
Godfrey served Henry IV loyally,
supporting him even when Pope Gregory
VII was battling the German king in the
Investiture Controversy. Godfrey fought
alongside Henry and his forces against
the rival forces of Rudolf of Swabia and
also took part in battles in Italy when
Henry IV actually took Rome away from
the pope.
At the same time, Godfrey was struggling
to maintain control over the lands that
Henry IV had not taken away from him, as
his uncle's widow, Matilda of Tuscany,
was claiming them. Another enemy outside
the family also tried to take away other
bits of his land, and Godfrey's
brothers, Eustace and Baldwin, both came
to his aid. Following long struggles,
and after proving that he was a loyal
subject to Henry IV, Godfrey finally won
back his duchy of Lower Lorraine in
1087. Still, Godfrey would never have
had much power in the German kingdom or
in Europe if it had not been for the
coming of the Crusades.
First Crusade
In 1095 Urban II, the new Pope, called
for a Crusade to liberate Jerusalem from
Muslim forces and also to aid the
Byzantine Empire which was under Muslim
attack. Godfrey took out loans on most
of his lands, or sold them, to the
bishop of Liège and the bishop of
Verdun. With this money he gathered
thousands of knights to fight in the
Holy Land. In this he was joined by his
older brother, Eustace, and his younger
brother, Baldwin, who had no lands in
Europe. He was not the only major
nobleman to gather such an army. Raymond
of Saint-Gilles, also known as Raymond
of Toulouse, created the largest army.
At age fifty-five Raymond was also the
oldest and perhaps the best known of the
Crusader nobles. Because of his age and
fame, Raymond expected to be the leader
of the entire First Crusade. Adhemar,
the papal legate and bishop of Le Puy,
travelled with him. There was also the
fiery Bohemond, a Norman knight from
southern Italy, and a fourth group under
Robert II, Count of Flandria.
Each of these armies traveled
separately, some going southeast across
Europe through Hungary and others
sailing across the Adriatic Sea from
southern Italy. Godfrey, along with his
two brothers, started in August 1096 at
the head of an army from Lorraine along
"Charlemagne's road", as Urban II seems
to have called it—the road to Jerusalem.
After some difficulties in Hungary, he
arrived in Constantinople, capital of
the Byzantine Empire, in November. The
Pope had, in fact, called the Crusade in
order to help the Byzantine emperor
Alexius I fight the Islamic Turks who
were invading his lands from Central
Asia and Persia.
Godfrey and his troops were the second
to arrive in Constantinople. During the
next several months the other Crusader
armies arrived. Suddenly the Byzantine
emperor had an army of about 4000 to
8000 mounted knights and 25,000 to
55,000 infantry camped on his doorstep.
But Godfrey and Alexius I had different
goals. The Byzantine emperor wanted the
help of the Crusader soldiers to
recapture lands that the Seljuk Turks
had taken. The Crusaders however had the
main aim of liberating the Holy Land in
Palestine from the Muslims and
reinstating Christian rule there. For
them, Alexius I and his Turks were only
a sideshow. Worse, the Byzantine emperor
expected the Crusaders to take an oath
of loyalty to him. Godfrey and the other
knights agreed to a modified version of
this oath, promising to help return some
lands to Alexius I. By the spring of
1097 the Crusaders were ready to march
into battle.
Their first major victory, with
Byzantine soldiers at their side, was at
the city of Nicaea, close to
Constantinople, which the Seljuk Turks
had taken in 1085. Godfrey and his
knights of Lorraine played a minor role
in the siege of Nicaea, with Bohemond
successfully commanding much of the
action. Just as the Crusaders were about
to storm the city, they suddenly noticed
the Byzantine flag flying from atop the
city walls. Alexius I had made a
separate peace with the Turks and now
claimed the city for the Byzantine
Empire. These secret dealings were a
sign of things to come in terms of
relations between Crusaders and
Byzantines.
Godfrey continued to play a minor but
important role in the battles against
the Muslims until the Crusaders finally
reached Jerusalem in 1099. Before that
time, he helped to relieve the vanguard
at the Battle of Dorylaeum after it had
been pinned down by the Seljuk Turks
under Kilij Arslan I, with the help of
the other crusader princes in the main
force and went on to sack the Seljuk
camp. After this battle and during the
trek through Asia Minor some sources
suggest that Godfrey was attacked by a
bear and received a serious wound which
incapacitated him for a time. In 1098
Godfrey took part in the capture of
Antioch, which fell in June of that year
after long and bitter fighting. During
the siege some of the Crusaders felt
that the battle was hopeless and left
the Crusade to return to Europe. Alexius
I, hearing of the desperate situation,
thought that all was lost at Antioch and
did not come to help the Crusaders as
promised. When the Crusaders finally
took the city, they decided that their
oaths to Alexius had been breached and
were no longer in effect. Bohemond, the
first to enter the city gates, claimed
the prize for himself. A Muslim force
under Kerbogha, from the city of Mosul,
arrived and battled the Crusaders, but
the Christians finally defeated these
Islamic troops.
After this victory, the Crusaders were
divided over their next course of
action. The bishop of Le Puy had died at
Antioch. Bohemond decided to remain
behind in order to secure his new
principality and Godfrey's younger
brother, Baldwin, also decided to stay
in the north at the Crusader state he
had established at Edessa. Most of the
foot soldiers wanted to continue south
to Jerusalem, but Raymond IV of
Toulouse, by this time the most powerful
of the princes, having taken others into
his employ, such as Tancred, hesitated
to continue the march. After months of
waiting, the common people on the
crusade forced Raymond to march on to
Jerusalem, and Godfrey quickly joined
him. As they traveled south into
Palestine, the Crusaders faced a new
enemy. No longer were the Seljuk Turks
the rulers of these lands. Now the
Christian army had to deal with armies
of North African Muslims called
Fatimids, who had adopted the name of
the ruling family in Cairo, Egypt. The
Fatimids had taken Jerusalem in August
1098. The Crusaders would be battling
them for the final prize of the First
Crusade in the siege of Jerusalem.
It was in Jerusalem that the legend of
Godfrey of Bouillon was born. The army
reached the city in June 1099 and built
a wooden siege tower to get over the
walls. The major attack took place on
July 14 and 15, 1099. Godfrey and some
of his knights were the first to take
the walls and enter the city. It was an
end to three years of fighting by the
Crusaders, but they had finally done
what they had set out to do in
1096—namely, to recapture the Holy Land
and, in particular, the city of
Jerusalem and its holy sites, such as
the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb of Jesus
Christ. He endowed the hospital in the
Muristan after the First Crusade.
Once the city was returned to Christian
rule, some form of government had to be
set up. On July 22, a council was held
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Raymond of Toulouse refused to become
king. Godfrey did no damage to his own
piety by accepting the position, but
only as secular leader, and not as King,
instead claiming an unknown or
ill-defined title.
Kingdom of Jerusalem
As was typical of Godfrey's Christian
ethics he refused to be crowned king
"upon the plea that he would never wear
a crown of gold where his Saviour had
worn a crown of thorns". The exact
nature and meaning of his title is thus
somewhat of a controversy. Although it
is widely claimed that he took the title
Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, this title
is only used in a letter which was not
written by Godfrey. Instead, Godfrey
himself seems to have used the more
ambiguous term Princeps, or simply
retained his title of dux from back home
in Lower Lorraine. Robert the Monk is
the only chronicler of the crusade to
report that Godfrey took the title
"king". During his short reign, Godfrey
had to defend the new Kingdom of
Jerusalem against Fatimids of Egypt, who
were defeated at the Battle of Ascalon
in August. He also faced opposition from
Dagobert of Pisa, the Patriarch of
Jerusalem, who was allied with Tancred.
Although the Latins came close to
capturing Ascalon, Godfrey's attempts to
prevent Raymond of St. Gilles from
securing the city for himself meant that
the town remained in Muslim hands,
destined to be a thorn in the new
kingdom's side for years to come.
In 1100 Godfrey was unable to directly
expand his new territories through
conquest. However, his impressive
victory in 1099 and his subsequent
campaigning in 1100 meant that he was
able to force Acre, Ascalon, Arsuf,
Jaffa, and Caesarea to become
tributaries. Meanwhile, the struggle
with Dagobert continued; although the
terms of the conflict are difficult to
trace. Dagobert may well have envisaged
turning Jerusalem into a fiefdom of the
pope, however his full intentions are
not clear. Much of the evidence for this
comes from William of Tyre, whose
account of these events is troublesome;
it is only William who tells us that
Dagobert forced Godfrey to concede
Jerusalem and Jaffa, while other writers
such as Albert of Aachen and Ralph of
Caen suggest that both Dagobert and his
ally Tancred had sworn an oath to
Godfrey to accept only one of his
brothers or blood relations as his
successor. Whatever Dagobert's schemes,
they were destined to come to naught.
Being at Haifa at the time of Godfrey's
death, he could do nothing to stop
Godfrey's supporters, led by Warner of
Grez, from seizing Jerusalem and
demanding that Godfrey's brother Baldwin
should succeed to the rule. Dagobert was
subsequently forced to crown Baldwin as
the first Latin king of Jerusalem on
December 25, 1100.
Death
"While he was besieging the city of
Acre, Godfrey, the ruler of Jerusalem,
was struck by an arrow, which killed
him", reports the Arab chronicler Ibn
al-Qalanisi. Christian chronicles make
no mention of this; instead, Albert of
Aix and Ekkehard of Aura report that
Godfrey contracted an illness in
Caesarea in June, 1100. It was later
believed that the emir of Caesarea had
poisoned him, but there seems to be no
basis for this rumour; William of Tyre
does not mention it. It is also said
that he died after eating a poisoned
apple. In any event, he died in
Jerusalem after suffering from a
prolonged illness.
Godfrey never married.
Legacy
According to William of Tyre, the later
12th-century chronicler of the Kingdom
of Jerusalem, Godfrey was "tall of
stature, not extremely so, but still
taller than the average man. He was
strong beyond compare, with
solidly-built limbs and a stalwart
chest. His features were pleasing, his
beard and hair of medium blond."
Because he had been the first ruler in
Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon was
idealized in later accounts. He was
depicted as the leader of the crusades,
the king of Jerusalem, and the
legislator who laid down the assizes of
Jerusalem, and he was included among the
ideal knights known as the Nine
Worthies. In reality, Godfrey was only
one of several leaders of the crusade,
which also included Raymond IV of
Toulouse, Bohemund of Taranto, Robert of
Flanders, Stephen of Blois and Baldwin
of Boulogne to name a few, along with
papal legate Adhémar of Montiel, Bishop
of Le Puy. Baldwin I of Jerusalem,
Godfrey's younger brother, became the
first titled king when he succeeded
Godfrey in 1100. The assizes were the
result of a gradual development.
Godfrey's role in the crusade was
described by Albert of Aix, the
anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum,
and Raymond of Aguilers amongst others.
In fictional literature, Godfrey was the
hero of numerous French chansons de
geste dealing with the crusade, the
"Crusade cycle". This cycle connected
his ancestors to the legend of the
Knight of the Swan, most famous today as
the storyline of Wagner's opera
Lohengrin.
By William of Tyre's time later in the
12th century, Godfrey was already a
legend among the descendants of the
original crusaders. Godfrey was believed
to have possessed immense physical
strength; it was said that in Cilicia he
wrestled a bear and won, and that he
once beheaded a camel with one blow of
his sword.
Since the mid-19th century, an
equestrian statue of Godfrey of Bouillon
has stood in the center of the Royal
Square in Brussels, Belgium. The statue
was made by Eugène Simonis, and
inaugurated on August 24, 1848.
Godfrey is a key figure in the
pseudohistorical theories put forth in
the books The Holy Blood and the Holy
Grail and The Da Vinci Code.
In 2005 Godfrey came in 17th place in
the French language Le plus grand Belge,
a public vote of national heroes in
Belgium. He did not make the 100
greatest Belgians, as voted by the Dutch
speakers in De Grootste Belg.
= Literature and music=
Torquato Tasso made Godfrey the hero of
his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata.
A Spanish play entitled La conquista de
Jerusalén por Godofre de Bullón was
written in the mid 1580s and known to
have been performed in 1586. The play
was discovered in the late 1980s by
Stefano Arata. It is attributed to and
is now widely accepted to have been
written by Miguel de Cervantes. It is an
adaptation of Tasso's poem and features
Godfrey as an ideal of Christian
kingship, possibly as a critical
parallel to King Philip II of Spain.
In The Divine Comedy Dante sees the
spirit of Godfrey in the Heaven of Mars
with the other "warriors of the faith."
Godfrey is depicted in Handel's opera
Rinaldo as Goffredo.
Godfrey also plays key roles in the
following novels:
The Blue Gonfalon by Margaret Ann
Hubbard, which follows Godfrey and his
men on their journey to the Holy Land.
It is told through the eyes of Bennet,
Godfrey's squire.
The Iron Lance by Stephen R. Lawhead
Godfrey de Bouillon, Defender of the
Holy Sepulchre, by Tom Tozer.
Godfrey's sword is given satirical
mention in Mark Twain's The Innocents
Abroad.
Ancestry
Godfrey of Bouillon is directly
descended from Charlemagne over nine
generations, through the marriage of
Charlemagne's great-granddaughter Judith
of Flanders to Baldwin I of Flanders.
References
Sources
This article incorporates text from a
publication now in the public domain:
Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. Encyclopædia
Britannica. Cambridge University Press. 
Maalouf, Amin. The Crusades Through Arab
Eyes. 1984.
Andressohn, John Carl. The Ancestry and
Life of Godfrey of Bouillon. Indiana
University Publications, Social Science
Series 5. 1947.
"Godfrey of Bouillon". New Advent
Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved
2007-04-29. 
"Godfrey of Bouillon". Internet Medieval
Sourcebook: The Crusaders at
Constantinople: Collected Accounts.
Retrieved 2014-05-18. 
Holböck, Ferdinand. Married Saints and
Blesseds. Michael J. Miller, translator.
Ignatius Press. p. 147. ISBN
0-89870-843-5. 
Further reading
= Primary sources=
Albert of Aix, Historia Ierosolimitana,
ed. and tr. Susan B. Edgington, Albert
of Aachen: Historia Ierosolimitana,
History of the Journey to Jerusalem.
Oxford: Oxford Medieval Texts, 2007. The
principal source for Godfrey's march to
Jerusalem.
Gesta Francorum, ed. and tr. Rosalind
Hill, Gesta Francorum et aliorum
Hierosolimitanorum. Oxford, 1967.
Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi, ed.
Bernard S. Bachrach and David S.
Bachrach, The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of
Caen: A History of the Normans on the
First Crusade. Ashgate Publishing, 2005.
Fulcher of Chartres, Chronicle, ed.
Harold S. Fink and tr. Francis Rita
Ryan, Fulcher of Chartres, A History of
the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127.
Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessy Press,
1969.
Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum
qui ceperunt Iherusalem, tr. John Hugh
Hill and Laurita L. Hill. Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, 1968.
Ekkehard of Aura, tr. W. Pflüger, Die
Chronik des Ekkehard von Aura. Leipzig,
1893.
William of Tyre, Historia, ed. R. B. C.
Huygens, Willemi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi
Chronicon. Corpus Christianorum
Continuatio Medievalis 38. Turnholt:
Brepols, 1986; tr. E. A. Babcock and A.
C. Krey, William of Tyre, A History of
Deeds Done Beyond the Sea. Columbia
University Press, 1943.
Zimmern Chronicle, 16th-century
chronicle which includes some legendary
material.
External links
