CRUSADER OVERLORD
“THOROS ADOPTED BALDWIN AS HIS SON IN A FORMAL CEREMONY, AND HE ARRANGED FOR HIS NEW CO-RULER TO INHERIT THE WALLED CITY UPON HIS DEATH”
In August 1096 Godfrey of Boulogne, the duke of Lower Lorraine, set out on the First Crusade with his two brothers, Eustace and Baldwin, at the head of an army of pilgrim crusaders from his territories. His older brother Eustace was Count of Boulogne, and his younger brother Baldwin was a trained cleric who held benefices in several French dioceses. Baldwin, though, had decided to abandon the cloth and take up the sword. Godfrey eagerly welcomed his brothers’ assistance leading the soldiers of Lorraine and Burgundy. The army embarked on the long overland trek that would take it to Constantinople, where it would join forces with armies from France and southern Italy, recruited by prominent regional princes. The crusader army would then fight its way through Muslim-held territory in Anatolia and the Levant to Jerusalem.
As a landless younger son, Baldwin was eager to find his fortune in the East. He yearned for an opportunity whereby he might find plunder and conquer territory. Baldwin saw action at Dorylaeum in eastern
