Portal:Crusades/Bio Archive
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Baldwin of Exeter (c. 1125 – November 19, 1190) was Archbishop of Canterbury between 1185 and 1190. Son of a clergyman, he studied both canon law and theology at Bologna and was tutor to Pope Eugenius III's nephew before returning to England to serve successive bishops of Exeter. After becoming a Cistercian monk, he was named abbot of his monastery before being elected to the episcopate at Worcester. Before becoming a bishop, he wrote theological works and sermons, some of which survive.
He impressed King Henry II of England while bishop, and the king insisted that Baldwin become archbishop. While archbishop, Baldwin quarrelled with his cathedral clergy over the founding of a church, which led to the imprisonment of the clergy in their cloister for over a year. He also spent some time in Wales with Gerald of Wales, preaching and raising money for the Third Crusade. After the coronation of King Richard the Lionheart of England, Baldwin was sent ahead by the king to the Holy Land, and became embroiled in the politics of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Baldwin died in the Holy Land while participating in the Crusade. His dispute with his clergy led some chroniclers to characterize him as worse for Christianity than Saladin.
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Joshua Prawer November 22, 1917–April 30, 1990) was a notable Israeli historian and a scholar of the Crusades and Kingdom of Jerusalem. Prawer was part of a cadre of historians, including Claude Cahen and Jean Richard, who freed crusader studies from the old conception of crusader society as an exemplar of pure, unchanging feudalism that spontaneously emerged from the conquest. This view, which originated with feudal jurists in the thirteenth century, was held to by modern historians since the early thirties. Through the work of Prawer, particularly his two papers from the fifties, and his colleagues, crusader society began to be seen as dynamic, with the nobility gradually putting checks on the monarchy. The combined efforts of these historians led to a surge of new research into crusader society. Prawer's research extended to a wide variety of other aspects of the crusader states. Among the topics he addressed were land development projects and urban settlement, agriculture, the Italian quarters of port cities, the types of landed property, and legal issues in the Assises des Bourgeois.
One of Prawer's best known works is the Histoire du Royaume Latin de Jérusalem, which won him the Prix Gustave Schlumberger of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. The two-volume work presents the crusader states as a working immigrant society, and shows the importance of immigration and labor shortages. Another book by Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, which was intended for a larger audience, was more controversial. The 1980 book Crusader Institutions collected a number of his earlier publications and expanded upon them with revisions and new chapters. In his last years, he published a book on a topic of especial interest to him, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which examined the tightly-knit isolated Jewish communities of the Levant, the Jewish philosophical feuds they engaged in, and their dreams of restoring Israel.
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Hubert Walter (died July 13, 1205) was chief justiciar of England and archbishop of Canterbury in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. He owed his early advancement to his uncle Ranulf de Glanvill, who helped him become a clerk in the Exchequer. Walter served King Henry II of England in many different ways, not only in the financial administration. After an unsuccessful candidacy to the see of York, Walter was elected bishop of Salisbury shortly after the ascension of King Henry's son Richard I to the throne of England.
Walter accompanied King Richard on the Third Crusade, and was one of the principal persons involved in raising Richard's ransom after the king had been captured in Germany while returning home from Crusade. As a reward for his faithful service, Walter was selected to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury in 1193. Walter also served as justiciar for Richard until 1198. While justiciar, Walter was responsible for raising the money that Richard needed to prosecute his wars in France. He also set up a system of justice that involved the selection of four knights in each hundred to administer justice, a system that was the beginnings of justices of the peace. He also revived the dispute of his predecessor to set up a church in rivalry to Christ Church Priory in Canterbury, that was eventually settled by the pope ordering him to quit the plan.
With Richard's death in 1199 and the elevation of Richard's brother John to the throne, Hubert was named Lord Chancellor of England, an office he held until his death in 1205. Hubert had been instrumental in ensuring that John became king, and it was Hubert that crowned John. While chancellor, Hubert began the keeping of the Charter Roll, a record of all charters issued by the chancery. Walter also served John as a diplomat, undertaking a number of missions to France. Walter was not noted for holiness in life or learning, but historians have judged him one of the most outstanding governmental ministers in English History.
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Manuel I Komnenos, or Comnenus 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180) was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic and ambitious foreign policy. In the process he made alliances with the Pope and the resurgent west, invaded Italy, successfully handled the passage of the dangerous Second Crusade through his empire, and established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader kingdoms of Outremer. Facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt. Manuel reshaped the political maps of the Balkans and the east Mediterranean, placing the kingdoms of Hungary and Outremer under Byzantine hegemony and campaigning aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and in the east. However, towards the end of his reign Manuel's achievements in the east were compromised by a serious defeat at Myriokephalon, which in large part resulted from his arrogance in attacking a well-defended Seljuk position.
Called Megas, translated as "the Great", by the Greeks, Manuel is known to have inspired intense loyalty in those who served him. He also appears as the hero of a history written by his secretary, John Kinnamos, in which every virtue is attributed to him. Manuel, who was influenced by his contact with western Crusaders, enjoyed the reputation of "the most blessed emperor of Constantinople" in parts of the Latin world as well. Modern historians, however, have been less enthusiastic about him. Some of them assert that the great power he wielded was not his own personal achievement, but that of the dynasty he represented; they also argue Byzantine imperial power declined so rapidly after Manuel's death that it is only natural to look for the causes of this decline in his reign.
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