Baldwin of Marash (died 1146) was a Crusader baron in northern Syria, the lord of Marash from at least 1136.
The chronicler Gregory the Priest says that Baldwin was the brother of Prince Raymond of Antioch and therefore the son of Duke William IX of Aquitaine. Baldwin was the chief vassal of Joscelin II, Count of Edessa. He controlled the city of Marash (modern Kahramanmaraş) and the strategic fortress of Kaysun. Baldwin’s fiefdom was in the northern border region of the Crusader states where the population was largely Armenian Christians.
In 1135, Leo I, Prince of Armenia seized Sarventikar from Baldwin of Marash. Sarventikar was a fortress on the slopes of the Amanus Mountains. In 1136 Raymond of Antioch attacked Leo I’s Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia. Baldwin of Marash marched with the Antiochenes. However Baldwin’s overlord, Count Joscelin II of Edessa, Leo’s nephew, helped the Armenians defeat the Antiochene army. After the battle, Baldwin convinced Leo to meet him. At the meeting Baldwin seized him and sent him off to Antioch as a prisoner.[1]
That same year the Turkoman Danishmends briefly captured Marash but the city was retaken by Crusader forces the following year.
In October 1146, Baldwin accompanied Joscelin on an expedition attempting to recapture the city of Edessa from the Muslims who had conquered the city two years earlier. They entered the city but could not take the citadel before Nur ad-Din, atabeg of Aleppo surrounded Edessa with a large force. In a desperate situation Baldwin and Joscelin undertook a sortie at night. The following day Nur ad-Din caught up with them and a battle ensued in which the Christians were defeated. Count Joscelin managed to escape, however Baldwin of Marash died on the field of battle.[2] His body was not recovered.[3]
Baldwin's Armenian confessor, Barsegh, has left us a funeral oration in honour of Baldwin which praises him for his military skill, bravery and charm but criticises him for his “innumerable, endless and merciless injuries and blasphemies”.[4] The troubadour Marcabru may refer to Baldwin in the final stanza of his Vers del lavador, when he asks God to "conduct the count to His washing-place and lay his soul to rest".[3]
^A History of the Crusades: Part 2 The Kingdom of Jerusalem - Steven Runciman (Penguin) - pages 201-202
^A History of the Crusades: Part 2 The Kingdom of Jerusalem - Steven Runciman (Penguin) - page 240
^ abLinda Paterson, "Syria, Poitou and the Reconquista (or Tales of the Undead): Who Was the Count in Marcabru's Vers de lavador?", in Jonathan Phillips and Martin Hoch, The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences (Manchester University Press, 2001), pp. 133–149.
^The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance - Christopher MacEvitt - University of Pennsylvania Press - pages 94-97
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injured or captured on both sides, Baldwin and Tancred made peace and Baldwin left Mamistra. He joined the main army at Marash, but Bagrat persuaded him to...
Joscelin II to take the city.: 531 Sometime in October, Joscelin II and BaldwinofMarash came and laid siege to the city.: 531 This second siege proved far...
[citation needed] In 1136, Leo I (Thoros's father) was made prisoner by BaldwinofMarash who sent him off to captivity in Antioch. In his absence, his three...
Joscelin II to take the city.: 531 Sometime in October, Joscelin II and BaldwinofMarash came and laid siege to the city.: 531 This second siege proved far...
the crusaders on 2 April 1123. Baldwin recaptured Birejik and made Geoffrey, Lord ofMarash, regent of Edessa. Baldwin made a raid towards Kharput where...
in dower as the widow of William of Zardana. Agnes's first marriage, to Reynald ofMarash, ended in his death at the Battle of Inab in 1149. They had...
Crusade to be accompanied by songs, none of which survive, was the Crusade of 1101, of which William IX of Aquitaine wrote, according to Orderic Vitalis...
Parsegh of Cilicia, Armenian Catholicos of Cilicia from 1105 to 1113 Barsegh or Basil the Doctor (fl. 1146), poet and chaplain ofBaldwinofMarash Parsegh...
married Armenians. Count Baldwin's wife had died in Marash in 1097, and after he succeeded to Edessa he married Arda, a granddaughter of the Armenian Roupenid...
was the daughter of a minor Armenian noble named Thathoul (or Thoros), lord ofMarash. Baldwin married her in 1097 after the death of his first wife, Godehilde...
Thoros of Edessa and possibly Thoros ofMarash, Gabriel was a former officer of Philaretos Brachamios. Philaretos had installed Gabriel as the ruler of Melitene...
known as Barsegh, was the Armenian chaplin ofBaldwinofMarash. After Baldwin's death at the siege of Edessa of 1146, Basil wrote the eulogy entitled Oraison...
firstly to Reginald ofMarash, who left her a widow; secondly (possibly bigamously) to Amalric, count of Jaffa and Ascalon and future king of Jerusalem, with...
was the untitiled royal consort of Amalric I from her husband's accession to their marriage annulment. After Baldwin III's death, the Haute Cour refused...
of the lordship ofMarash from the 1140s names a certain Guiscard as "dapifer of the count", which would seem to indicate the steward of the count of...
accompanied Baldwin and Godfrey on the crusade. Eustace was uninterested, and instead the crown passed to Baldwin's relative, probably a cousin, Baldwinof Le...
and "most of the Crusaders were killed." Bohemond was captured along with Richard of Salerno. Among the dead were the Armenian bishops ofMarash and Antioch...
example, 60 cavalrymen and 100 footmen accompanied Richard of Salerno, then lord ofMarash, during a joint Antiochene–Edessene campaign against Mawdud...
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