General Notes

Fulk V, Count of Anjou, was born 1092, and was Count 1109-1142. Hemarried 1st Ermengarde, daughter of Helias, Count of Maine, and had byher his heir, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, Helias, who became Count of Maineor Mayenne, and two daughters, Sybilla and Matilda. He married 2ndMelesenda, daughter of Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, and became King ofJerusalem at the death of his father-in-law Sept. 4, 1131. Fulk V was sonof Bertrada de Montford, who eventually deserted her husband and becamethe mistress of Philip I of France. Fulk became Count of Anjou in 1109,and showed himself a doughty opponent to Henry I, King of England,against whom he continually supported Louis VI of France until, in 1127,Henry I won him over by betrothing his daughter Matilda to Fulk's sonGeoffrey Plantagenet. Already in 1120 Fulk V had visited the Holy Landand became a close friend of the Templars. On his return he assigned tothe Order of the Templars an annual subsidy, while he also maintained twoknights in the Holy Land for a year. In 1128 he was preparing to returnto the East when he received an embassy from Baldwin II, King ofJerusalem, who had no male heir to succeed him, offering his daughterMelisinda in marriage, with the right of eventual succession to thekingdom. Fulk accepted the offer, and in 1129 he came and marriedMelisinda, receiving the towns of Acre and Tyre as her dower. In 1131,when Baldwin died, he became King of Jerusalem. His reign is not markedby any considerable events; the kingdom which had reached its zenithunder Baldwin II, and did not begin to decline till the capture of Edessain the reign of Baldwin III, was quietly prosperous under his rule. Inthe beginning of his reign he had to act as Regent of Antioch, andprovide a husband, Raymond of Poitou, for the infant heiress Constance,daughter of Bohemund. (Her 2nd husband was Raymond of Chatillion). Twicein Fulk's reign the Eastern Emperor John Comnenus appeared in northernSyria, in 1137 and 1142, but his coming did not affect the King, who wasable to decline politely a visit which the Emperor proposed to make toJerusalem. In 1143 he died, leaving two sons by Melisande, who bothbecame Kings of Jerusalem, as Baldwin III and Almaric I. Fulk hadcontinued the tradition of good statesmanship and sound churchmanshipwhich Melisande's father and grandfather, Baldwin I and II had begun. Hisson by his first wife succeeded him as Count of Anjou.