BALDWIN III, king of Jerusalem. — Son of Fulk of Anjou, born c. 1130, died 10 Feb 1162. He was under the guardianship of Queen Mother Melisende, who had him anointed and crowned king of Jerusalem at the age of 13 in the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre on 25 Dec 1143. Barely a year later (1144), the sultan of Mosul and Aleppo, ʿImād al-Dīn Zengī, took Edessa, the eastern keystone of the Crusaders’ dominion. The announcement of that dire loss provoked the Second Crusade (1147–48) in the West, which ended in complete failure. Baldwin launched an expedition in 1148 with Emperor Conrad III of Germany and King Louis VII of France against the Saracens holding Damascus, but failed to retake the city. More damaging than the military setbacks was the discord between the Crusaders and the individual Latin states in Palestine; Baldwin also clashed with Queen Mother Melisende in 1152 over matters of rule. The following year Baldwin achieved a notable military success by capturing the fortress of Ascalon, held by the Saracens. After a few years of calm, he had to resume the struggle against Nūr al-Dīn, who from Damascus threatened all the Latin states of the East, which had placed themselves under the ineffective protection of the Byzantine Empire. Baldwin did not live to see the end of that struggle, dying on 10 Feb 1162 at Beirut at the age of 32, without a son to succeed him.
Enciclopedia Cattolica