The Fathers of The Baronial Movement

Abstract

ON 11 July 1174 King Amalric died of dysentery, leaving a son Baldwin who was to prove himself to be intelligent and brave, but was at this time barely thirteen years old and already stricken with leprosy. It was during Baldwin’s reign, punctuated by periods in which the king was prostrated by illness, that there appeared a party of nobles expressing for the first time ideas which were to dominate the politics of the kingdom for over a century. We are fortunate in having an account of the reign which, although it was prejudiced in favour of this group of barons, was written by an eyewitness closely involved in the events he described. The chronicler William of Tyre had been Baldwin’s tutor — it was he who had first noticed his leprosy¹ — and after 1174 was chancellor, remaining near the centre of the stage until 1182 or 1183 when he was forced to retire to Rome.