Hodierna of Jerusalem

Hodierna was born c. 1115-17.^[1] She was the third daughter of Baldwin of Bourcq, a Frankish crusader, and Morphia of Melitene, an Armenian noblewoman. Hodierna and her older sisters, Melisende and Alice, were born while their father was the count of Edessa.^[2] The County of Edessa was, along with the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli, one of the states established in 1099 following the crusaders' victory over Muslims.^[3]

In 1118 Baldwin was elected king of Jerusalem.^[4] The following year he installed his cousin Joscelin of Courtenay as the new count of Edessa and brought his family to Jerusalem.^[5] Hodierna gained another sister, Ioveta, after her parents were crowned king and queen in 1119.^[2]

In 1122 Count Pons of Tripoli rebelled against King Baldwin. Historian Kevin Lewis considers it "very possible" that Hodierna's betrothal to Raymond was first brought in the aftermath of this dispute up as a way to reconcile the two ruling families.^[1] Queen Morphia died probably in 1126 or 1127. Since he no longer expected to have a son, King Baldwin started providing for his daughters and settling his succession.^[6] Melisende, the eldest daughter, was to be his heir;^[7] in 1129 she was married to Count Fulk V of Anjou.^[8] Alice, the second eldest, was married to Prince Bohemond II of Antioch in 1126.^[7] Hodierna, the third daughter, may have been betrothed to Raymond, son of Count Pons of Tripoli, already at this time.^[1][7] Ioveta, the youngest, was sent to the Convent of Saint Anne.^[7] Hodierna's father died in 1131, and was succeeded by Melisende and Fulk.^[9]

Count Pons was defeated by Muslims and killed in 1137.^[10] He was succeeded by his son, Raymond II.^[11] Lewis presumes that Hodierna's marriage to Raymond was delayed until c. 1132^[12] because she was far too young in 1127.^[1] Historian Malcolm Barber believes the union to have been arranged by Queen Melisende, who was concerned to provide for her youngest sisters, Hodierna and Ioveta, and to link the ruling houses of all the crusader states. Ioveta, on the other hand, was made an abbess.^[2] Hodierna, already called the countess of Tripoli but not accompanied by her husband, attended the court of King Fulk and Queen Melisende in Acre in December 1138.^[12] Hodierna and Raymond II had their first child, Raymond III, in 1140.^[1]

In 1144 the County of Edessa was conquered by Muslim leader Imad al-Din Zengi, which in 1148 led to the Second Crusade.^[13] Raymond's granduncle Count Alfonso Jordan of Toulouse arrived in the Levant with the crusade.^[14] Historian Jean Richard proposed that Alfonso intended to claim Tripoli.^[15] He died suddenly soon after his arrival; poisoning was widely suspected.^[14] An anonymous monk wrote that Alfonso was poisoned was on the orders of Queen Melisende,^[16] who allegedly wished to safeguard Raymond and Hodierna's position in Tripoli.^[17] Lewis believes that Alfonso died of natural causes.^[18]

Alfonso's son Bertrand stayed in the Levant after the crusade. He entered the County of Tripoli and seized the fortress of Urayma; contemporary Arabs thought this to be the first step to seizing the county.^[19] Raymond could not dislodge his cousin, and enlisted the help of Nūr al-Dīn and Mu'in ad-Din Unur, who seized Urayma and captured Bertrand. Raymond's alliance with Muslims outraged other Franks.^[20] The anonymous monk accused Melisende of complicity. Historians have traditionally read the monk's account as saying that Bertrand was captured with his sister, but Lewis interprets it as saying that the queen had an accomplice, her sister Hodierna, whose motive was to preserve her husband's domain,^[21] and accepts it as true.^[12]

A 13th-century biography of the Provencal troubadour Jaufre Rudel claims that he fell in love with Countess Hodierna without ever having seen her; he then sailed to Tripoli, only to die in her arms. Lewis believes that Rudel might have arrived with the Second Crusade.^[19] According to a "fanciful Occitan tale", as Lewis describes it, Hodierna had Rudel buried in the house of the Knights Templar in Tripoli.^[22] Lewis observes that this detail might hint that Hodierna was the first to introduce the Templars in Tripoli,^[22] after her father-in-law spurned them.^[23]

By 1152 Hodierna and Raymond's marriage was in a crisis. Lewis speculates that Raymond envied her higher social status.^[24] According to the legend involving Rudel, pilgrims returning from the Levant spread stories of Hodierna's beauty in Europe, and there were rumours that her daughter Melisende of Tripoli was born from an extramarital love affair,^[25] which Lewis believes may have led to Raymond's jealousy.^[26] Lewis speculates that, in the light of Hodierna's sister Melisende struggle for power with her husband, Fulk, and Hodierna's own alleged initiative in disposing of Bertrand of Toulouse, Raymond may have feared that Hodierna might threaten his authority; or that, at the time of growing tensions between Latin Christians and native Christians, Hodierna's mixed Latin-Armenian heritage posed a concern to Raymond.^[27]

In 1152 Hodierna's nephew King Baldwin III of Jerusalem summoned a meeting of the crusader states' nobility in Tripoli. His main objective was to force his cousin Princess Constance of Antioch to choose a husband. Hodierna and Melisende, Constance's aunts, also attended, but all attempts failed.^[28] Melisende had arrived not just to see Constance, however, but also to mediate between Hodierna and Raymond.^[24] She was not successful, and decided to take Hodierna back to Jerusalem.^[26] Barber writes that Raymond accompanied the queen and the countess on a part of their journey south from Tripoli,^[29] while Lewis writes that he instead accompanied the princess on her way back to Antioch.^[27] Either way, while he was returning to Tripoli, Raymond was ambushed and killed by Assassins.^[27] King Baldwin immediately recalled his mother and aunt to Tripoli to attend the count's funeral, after which all the nobles of the county paid homage to the countess, her son, and her daughter on the king's orders.^[30]

Because Raymond III was underage when the assassination of his father made him count, Hodierna found herself ruling on his behalf as regent.^[31] Lewis believes she was a good fit because she had demonstrated initiative and political skill, and because she was loyal to her Jerusalemite family. The appointment of Hodierna contravened Raymond II's instruction that the county should be ruled by the "master of the county", an otherwise unknown functionary, if it should pass to a minor.^[12] Soon after Raymond II's death, Raymond III was sent to live at the court of his cousin Baldwin III. Hodierna administered the county probably until 1155, when her son reached the age of majority upon his fifteenth birthday.^[32] Historian Bernard Hamilton suggests that it was Hodierna who initiated the establishment of Belmont, the first Cistercian monastery in the crusader states.^[33] In 1157 Queen Melisende, her stepdaughter Countess Sibylla of Flanders, and Countess Hodierna intervened, against the Gregorian laws, to secure the election of the queen's chaplain Amalric of Nesle as the new Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.^[21]

In 1160 Emperor Manuel I Komnenos asked King Baldwin to select a new wife for the widowed emperor among the noblewomen of the crusader states. The emperor expressed particular interest in Baldwin's cousins Melisende of Tripoli and Maria of Antioch. Baldwin chose Melisende, and Manuel accepted. Hodierna and her sister Queen Melisende spent a year preparing the girl's dowry at a great expense to the royal treasury.^[34] In July 1161 Countess Hodierna and her children arrived in Nazareth. Lewis and Richard agree that they came to discuss with Baldwin the plans for the imminent marriage of Hodierna's daughter, to whom they referred to in a charter as "the future empress of the throne of Constantinople". Throughout 1161 Emperor Manuel prevaricated, however,^[35] and when pressed by Baldwin in mid-1162 finally revealed that he was not going to marry Melisende.^[36] The family were shocked and humiliated, and soon learned that the emperor had secretly chosen Maria of Antioch instead.^[36]

Queen Melisende had a stroke in 1161.^[37] Countess Hodierna and her surviving sister, Abbess Ioveta, cared for the queen until her death on 11 September.^[35] Hodierna herself died on 21 December. The year and cause of her death are not recorded.^[38] She last appears in the written record in 1161.^[39]

Lewis believes that Archbishop William of Tyre refrained from inviting any criticism of Hodierna because of his support for her son in the politics of Jerusalem. Hence, he argues, he had motive to supress information about her involvement, if any, in the capture of Bertrand of Toulouse by the Muslims.^[40] Raymond III, in Lewis's opinion, followed the "somewhat disappointing example set by his father rather than the more promising precedent of his mother",^[41] though she had a greater influence.^[42]

Lewis concludes that Hodierna has been overlooked by historians in favor of her "more famous and better documented" older sisters, Melisende and Alice,^[21] despite being just as willing to engage in politics.^[40] Whereas most countesses of Tripoli are relatively obscure figures, Lewis finds that Hodierna eclipsed her husband, but was in the posterity reduced to being the princesse lointaine, a "beautiful yet voiceless target of a distant stranger’s affections". Rudel's infatuation with Hodierna remained a topic of popular interest into the modern period, becoming the subject of the 19th-century operetta La Princesse lointaine by Edmond Rostand and a joke in one of P. G. Wodehouse’s novellas in the 20th century. Thus, Lewis notes, the legacy of Tripoli under Raymond II and Hodierna were not political or military achievements but "lustful, exotic and even farcical fantasies".^[43]

• Barber, Malcolm (2012). The Crusader States. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300189315.
• Hamilton, Bernard (1978). "Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem". In Derek Baker (ed.). Medieval Women. Ecclesiastical History Society.
• Lewis, Kevin James (2017). The Counts of Tripoli and Lebanon in the Twelfth Century: Sons of Saint-Gilles. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-4724-5890-2.
• Lewis, Kevin James (2013). "Countess Hodierna of Tripoli: From Crusader Politician to "Princesse Lointaine"" (PDF). Assuming Gender. 3 (1). Cardiff University Press.
• Mayer, Hans Eberhard (1985). "The Succession to Baldwin II of Jerusalem: English Impact on the East". Dumbarton Oak Papers. Dumbarton Oaks.
• Runciman, Steven (1952). A History of the Crusades: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0241298768.