Baldwin IV ruled the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1174 to 1185 while suffering from leprosy. Despite worsening illness, he led armies against Saladin and won a striking victory at Montgisard in 1177.
His reign was increasingly dominated by the succession because he could not produce an heir, and rival court factions formed around his sister Sibylla, her husband Guy of Lusignan and the claims of the young Baldwin V.
Cecelia Holland’s Jerusalem places Baldwin IV at the centre of a kingdom held together by military skill but weakened by his illness and the succession question, moving from Montgisard towards the disasters that follow his death. Sharon Kay Penman’s The Land Beyond the Sea makes that problem still more explicit, following Baldwin’s attempts to govern despite leprosy while factions form around Sibylla, Guy of Lusignan, Raymond of Tripoli and Balian of Ibelin. K. M. Ashman’s Templar Steel uses Baldwin’s decision to confront Saladin in 1177 to frame the victory at Montgisard, while Templar Blood returns to the dying king and the increasingly dangerous succession struggle of 1185. Elizabeth Chadwick’s Templar Silks brings William Marshal into Baldwin’s court in 1183, where service, pilgrimage and private loyalties are inseparable from the kingdom’s political fragility.
