"The Queens of Jerusalem" - Claude Mutafian

Claude Mutafian's article is devoted to the history of three Armenian queens of Jerusalem — Arda, Morphia and Melisende — and to the role of Armenian prelates and monarchs in the politics of the Frankish states of the East during the era of the Crusades. The author reconstructs the biographies of these women on the basis of scattered, often contradictory Frankish, Armenian and Byzantine testimonies, critically assessing the reliability of the legends that have accumulated around them.

Introduction and methodology

Mutafian notes an initial difficulty of a source-critical nature: Armenian chronicles practically do not record the marriages of crusader rulers with Armenian princesses, while Frankish chronicles frequently omit their names or render them in distorted form. The researcher traces the historiographical debates over the identification of the kinship ties of Armenian ruling houses (the Rubenids, the lords of Samosata and Marash) in order to establish the true origin of the first queen.

Arda, first Queen of Jerusalem

The author reconstructs the circumstances of the marriage of Baldwin of Boulogne to the daughter of the Armenian lord Tafnuz (lord of Samosata), concluded out of political calculation during his rule in Edessa. The following are noted:

Arda's estrangement from the Jerusalemite court and her residence in Jaffa after her husband's coronation.

Baldwin's divorce, the motives for which the author connects both with the king's financial interests and with the hypothesis of his homosexual orientation (H. Mayer's hypothesis).

Arda's stay in the convent of Saint Anne and her subsequent departure for Constantinople.

The legal incompleteness of the divorce, which affected the fate of Baldwin I's third marriage.

Morphia, second Queen of Jerusalem

The marriage of Baldwin II to the daughter of Gabriel of Melitene is examined, along with her active role in the political and military life of the kingdom, including the episode of organizing the escape of prisoners from the fortress of Kharpert. The author emphasizes the almost complete absence of Armenian mentions of Morphia, explaining this by her integration into the Chalcedonian milieu.

Melisende, third Queen of Jerusalem

The final section is devoted to Melisende's struggle, as daughter of Morphia, for co-rule with her husband Fulk of Anjou and her son Baldwin III, as well as her conflict with her sister Yveta and court intrigues (the affair of Hugh of Puiset).

Key thesis and conclusions

Mutafian concludes that the Armenian presence on the throne of Jerusalem in the twelfth century was not a chance episode but a logical consequence of the political alliances of Frankish rulers with the influential Armenian houses of the Euphrates region and Cilicia. At the same time, the degree of political influence of each of the queens varied considerably — from Arda's almost complete passivity to the active participation of Morphia and Melisende in governance — which reflects the evolution of the status of the female ruler in the Kingdom of Jerusalem over the course of the first half of the twelfth century.