Outremer
King Fulk
When Zengi again turned his attention to Damascus, its vizier, Unur, proposed an alliance with the Franks against the Kurd. King Fulk accepted. So, in the summer of 1139, while Zengi was laying siege to Damascus, a Christian army marched to its relief. The Frankish army was just threatening enough that Zengi could not risk being trapped between it and the Damascenes; he withdrew to Baalbeck to await a better moment. As Unur and Fulk continued to cooperate, Zengi finally gave up and went back north again.
This was the sort of Christian cooperation with Muslims that completely baffled the Crusaders who arrived from the West. To their eyes, Muslims were Muslims. They were the enemy they had come to fight. The subtleties of choosing to ally with this emir in order to defeat that emir not only were lost on the new-comers, the tactic seemed downright blasphemous. The First Crusaders had not needed political alliances; they had trusted in God and had been victorious. By now, a whole cycle of legends was growing up around Godfrey and Raymond, Bohemond and the first Baldwin, and in none of them were the Christians allies of the Muslims. It was a tension that was never resolved, but renewed itself with every new generation of Crusaders.
Fulk's reign in the 1140s was comparatively stable. Zengi was occupied in the north. Damascus was an ally, if not a friend. And Egypt was busy with its own endless internal squabbles. Ascalon was still a danger, for as long as it stood, Egypt could send armies north. Unable to take the city, Fulk built three fortresses, partly to hem it in and partly to control the roads north. These fortresses were Ibelin, Blanchegarde, and Bethgibelin. Fulk gave Ibelin to Balian the Old, a comrade in arms. This family eventually became one of the most powerful and influential in all Outremer.
Fulk was at the height of his power and popularity,well-respected and obeyed. On November 7, 1143, the king was out hunting when his horse stumbled and threw him. He struck his head, and three days later, King Fulk died.
He was survived by his wife, Melisende, and two sons: Baldwin, aged thirteen, and Amalric, aged seven. Both would eventually be king, but right now their mother was regent. She had Baldwin crowned king and she ruled with him. She then chose Manasses of Hierga, lord of Ramleh, as her Constable.
Even during Fulk's reign, the fiction of a single Kingdom of Jerusalem in which Antioch and Edessa and Tripoli were vassal states, had been steadily eroding. In fact, the Prince of Antioch had in 1139 actually recognized the Byzantine Emperor as his overlord, and at one point or another Tripoli had openly claimed indepence, while Edessa had done so implicitly. With no strong king at Jerusalem, these changing relationships accelerated. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was really only the southern kingdom. The other Crusader states might be allies, but they were not under royal control. The Christians had proved no more able to unite into a single state than had the Muslims.