volume one

HISTORY or THE CRUSADES. 311
twice, and remained seven years in the cTiains of the infidels.
He had neither the faults nor the high qualities of his predecessor.
His reign was rendered illustrious by conquests
and victories in which he bore no part ; but he was not the
less regretted by the Christians, who loved to contemplate
in him the last of the companions of Godfrey.
Under his reign the public manners began to decline : by
his directions a council was assembled at Naplouse to check
licentiousness, and punish offenders against order and morality.
But the decrees of this council,* deposited in the
churches, only served to prove the existence of disorders
among the Christians, and did not, in any way, stop the progress
of corruption, which rapidly increased under the following
reigns. Baldwin was more happy in the measures which
he undertook to increase the number of his subjects and enrich
his capital. An edict suppressed all duties upon grain and
vegetables brought into the holy city by the Syrians. Baldwin,
by this means, improved the trade and popiilation of Jerusalem,
and revived agriculture in the neighbouring provinces.
Foulque, count of Anjou, was crowned king of Jerusalem
after the death of Baldwin. At his accession to the throne,
discord disturbed the Christian states, and even threatened
with speedy ruin the principality of Antioch. The son of
Bohemond, who had recently assumed the reins of government,
had been killed in a battle against the Turks of Asia
Minor, and a daughter, whom he had had by Alise, sister of
Melisende, was called to the inheritance of her father's
throne ; but the weakness of her sex and age did not permit
her to make good her claim. AHse, her mother, wished to
get possession of the royal seat, and in the prosecution of
her projects did not scruple to avail herself of the aid
of the Saracens. Another candidate appeared in E-oger,
king of Sicily, who, as a member of the family of Bohemond
and Tancred, had pretensions to the principality of Antioch.
The people, the clergy, and the nobility were divided into
several factions.
* We will relate in full the decrees of the council of Naplouse, which
form a precious monument of the history of these distant times ; but the
greater part of the crimes and offences against which the fathers of this
council raised their voices, do not. permit us to give these statutes in
French or English, or present the most curious details of them.