Outremer
Fall of Edessa
Fulk's unexpected death, and the minority that followed, helps explain why Jerusalem was so conspicuously absent when Zengi finally made his move against Edessa. The city fell to him on December 24, 1144. Melisende had sent an army north under Constable Manasses, but it came too late to be of any help. Its arrival in January managed to discourage Zengi from a siege, but now as so many other times, events in the Muslim world distracted the Muslim leader and he returned to Mosul.
The city of Edessa had fallen, but Joscelin II kept his title and tried to rule from Turbessel. A Crusade was being preached in the West and armies were forming. The Christians in the Holy Land could not hope to prevail against Zengi by themselves. Fortunately for them, Zengi decided to turn his attention now to Damascus, and so the shreds of the County of Edessa yet remained. By an even greater fortune for the Christians, Zengi was murdered in his sleep on September 14, 1146, by one of his eunuchs whom he had angered.
All the Christians tried to profit from the death of Zengi, though none succeeded. In the north, Nuradin was able to rescue the Muslim position, though the Franks very nearly recovered Edessa and even attacked Aleppo. In Jerusalem, the young king (now sixteen years old) led an expedition in the Hauran that failed and nearly resulted in a rupture of the alliance with Damascus. But in general, Nuradin and his brother Safadin moved so quickly to restore the situation that Christians north and south gained little or nothing out of Zengi's death; indeed, by 1147 Nuradin was successfully invading Antiochene lands.