rewind.
By the time Baldwin IV ascended the throne in 1174, the Latin East was already ensnared in a slow, irreversible decline. The Crusader states were marred by factionalism, ambiguous lines of succession, and increasing isolation from Western support. Externally, an increasingly unified Muslim front seemed to have sealed the Levant’s fate. The era of Muslim fragility and opportunistic expansion that had defined the First Crusade was over; what remained was a fragmented outpost society, surrounded by hostile powers and reliant on aid from a continent increasingly absorbed by its own rivalries. In the midst of this fragmentation, Baldwin IV emerged as a unifying figure whose authority seemed anachronistic: a leprosy-stricken teenager ruling failing Crusader states, facing military encirclement and ideological exhaustion.
The broader trajectory of Baldwin IV’s reign coincided with the consolidation of Muslim resistance, a process that began most notably with the fall of Edessa in 1144. The capture of this Crusader stronghold reflected not only a loss of territory but a shift in the balance of power, with Muslim attention now coalescing around jihad – a holy struggle to expel Christian forces and reclaim the sanctity of the Islamic world. The early divisions that had allowed Christian forces to march on Jerusalem were replaced by a unified vision of resistance, underpinned by religious purpose and sustained by leadership figures capable of transcending tribal and regional divisions. This vision took form through the unification of the Muslim world under Imad ad-Din Zengi and his successors, Nur al-Din and Saladin. The Crusader states – conceived through violence and sustained by intermittent waves of European piety – were increasingly struggling by comparison, both ideologically and militarily. Baldwin inherited not a kingdom on the edge of revival but one already in the process of unravelling. He would not reverse this trajectory, but through strategic acumen and physical resilience, he temporarily held together a fragmented Christian front in the face of its most formidable adversary in Saladin.
The fall of Edessa in 1144 did not merely signal a territorial loss but revealed deeper structural fragility embedded within the Crusader experiment. As the first Crusader state to collapse, its defeat indicated that the ideological foundation of the Crusader states could not indefinitely withstand the logistical and geopolitical realities of life in the Levant. Western Europe did respond with the Second Crusade, but its failure only underscored the limits of episodic and poorly coordinated military interventions in establishing a durable Latin presence in the region. By the time Baldwin IV ascended the throne, what remained was no longer a project of expansion, but a defensive enterprise in slow retreat.
In the face of intensifying military pressure and political uncertainty, the Battle of Montgisard in 1177 stands not as a turning point in Frankish fortunes, but as a brief and symbolic moment of resistance against an increasingly indomitable Saladin. Confronted by a force estimated at five times the size of his own, the teenage Baldwin, crippled by leprosy, refused to retreat. Instead, he led his outnumbered troops into direct engagement, despite being carried on a litter, with the relic of the True Cross borne before them. That Saladin’s army was routed by Baldwin’s strategic resolve and religious fervour remains historically extraordinary. Yet what Montgisard represented was not a reversal of Crusader decline, but a pause during which Frankish resilience could momentarily project the illusion of a challenge to Muslim power. It reinforced Baldwin’s legitimacy as a king who, though physically diminished, could still embody the spiritual and symbolic authority of his position. More than simply a tactical victory, Montgisard functioned as a political act, reaffirming faith in the possibility of divine favour amidst increasingly bleak circumstances.
However, this moment of reprieve did little to alter the deeper trajectory of the Latin Kingdom. Baldwin’s reign was defined less by military ambition than by acute awareness of the precarity of his position. His later years were dominated by attempts to establish a viable succession – efforts that exposed the inherent instability of a monarchy reliant on fragile alliances and disputed regencies. The installation of his nephew, Baldwin V, was intended to forestall factional conflict; instead, it created a vacuum of authority that Baldwin, increasingly blind and incapacitated, could not fill.
While strength of leadership waned among the Franks, it grew among the Muslims. Saladin was no longer a regional actor, but a geopolitical force. His consolidation of Egypt and Syria transformed him into the embodiment of jihadist unity. Where Baldwin struggled to maintain cohesion among rival lords, Saladin articulated a project that fused religious legitimacy with territorial ambition. When Baldwin finally died in 1185, he left behind a kingdom temporarily intact but practically hollow. His personal authority had sustained a careful balance that imploded immediately upon his absence. Within two years, the Christian army was annihilated at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, and the relic of the True Cross was lost. Furthermore, Jerusalem – the sacred heart of Christendom and the lodestar of Crusader longing for nearly a century – fell just months later. Baldwin’s death did not cause this collapse; it merely removed the final constraint holding it back.
Baldwin IV’s reign reads not as a story of triumph, but of endurance. He governed with the knowledge that salvation was unlikely and that leadership under such conditions meant managing a declining kingdom rather than reversing its fortunes. His significance lies not in the victories he achieved, but in the time he preserved. He was, in every sense, a dying king at the helm of a dying kingdom, holding back the collapse through conviction and resolve. Yet what his reign ultimately exposes is the burden placed on belief when it is asked to support more than it can bear. Religion may animate the will to power, inspire loyalty, and even legitimise empires, but when unaccompanied by stability, cohesion, and vision, it falters. In Baldwin’s story lies a quiet caution: that no faith, however fervent, can by itself secure the endurance of a world already falling away.
Bibliography
Hamilton, Bernard, The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Madden, Thomas F., ed., The Crusades: The Essential Readings (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
Phillips, Jonathan, The Crusades, 1095–1197 (London: Routledge, 2002).
Phillips, Jonathan, and Martin Hoch, eds, The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).
Runciman, Steven, A History of the Crusades, Vol. II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100–1187 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952).
Usāmah ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades, trans. Paul M. Cobb (London: Penguin, 2008).