General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> King Of Jerusalem
FULK (1092-1143), king of Jerusalem, was the son of Fulk IV, count of Anjou, and his wife Bertrada (who ultimately deserted her husband and became the mistress of Philip I of France). As Fulk V, he became count of Anjou in 1109. Within his country he was active in asserting and recovering his powers over his vassals; outside it he played a part in the conflicts between Henry I of England and Louis VI of France, supporting each side in turn. But his ties with Henry became closer when his son Geoffrey Plantagenet married Henry's daughter Matilda. Already in 1120 Fulk had visited the Holy Land and become a close friend of the Templars. On his return he assigned to the order of the Templars an annual subsidy, while he also maintained two knights in the Holy Land for a year. In 1128 he was preparing to return to the east when he received an embassy from Baldwin II, king of Jerusalem, who had no male heir to succeed him, offering his daughter Melisinda in marriage with the right of eventual succession to the kingdom. Fulk accepted the offer; and in 1129 he was married to Melisinda, receiving the towns of Acre and Tyre as her dower. In 1131 he became king of Jerusalem.
His reign was not marked by any considerable events. The kingdom, which had reached its zenith under Baldwin II, was quietly prosperous under Fulk's rule. In the beginning of his reign he had to act as regent of Antioch and to provide a husband, Raymund of Poitou, for the infant heiress Constance. But the great problem with which he had to deal was the progress of the atabeg Zengi of Mosul. In 1137 he was beaten near Barin and, escaping into the fort, was surrounded and forced to capitulate. A little later, however, he greatly improved his position by strengthening his alliance with the vizier of Damascus, who also feared the progress of Zengi (1140); and in this way he was able to capture the fort of Banias, to the north of Lake Tiberias. Like his predecessors in Anjou, Fulk was a great builder of castles. In southern Palestine he constructed Ibelin, Blanche Garde and Gibelin as a means of checking the Mohammedan garrison of Askalon. Belvoir was founded to survey the Jordan valley south of the Sea of Galilee, while in Trans-Jordan, Kerak was fortified by a royal vassal. Twice in Fulk's reign the eastern emperor, John Comnenus, appeared in northern Syria (1137 and 1142); but his coming did not affect the king, who was able to decline politely a visit which the emperor proposed to make to Jerusalem.
Fulk died in 1143 leaving two sons who both became kings and reigned as Baldwin III and Amalric I.
Fulk continued the tradition of good statemanship and sound churchmanship which Baldwin I and Baldwin II had begun. Unfortunately he was unable to head a combined resistance to the rising power of Zengi of Mosul