The Ardennes-Bouillon family that founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the First Crusade, from Godfrey of Bouillon to Baldwin II.
The family were counts of Boulogne and lords in the Ardennes, and Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, was one of the principal leaders of the First Crusade launched in 1096. After the bloody capture of Jerusalem in 1099, the crusaders chose Godfrey to rule.
Godfrey refused the title of king in the city where Christ had worn a crown of thorns, taking instead the style "Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre". His early death in 1100 left the new conquest without a settled monarchy.
Godfrey’s brother Baldwin, Count of Edessa, had no such scruples: he came south, was crowned in Bethlehem, and ruled as Baldwin I, the first King of Jerusalem. He expanded the kingdom by seizing the coastal cities with the help of the Italian fleets, giving it ports and revenue.
On his death in 1118 the crown passed to his cousin Baldwin of Bourcq, Count of Edessa, of the related Rethel family, who ruled as Baldwin II.
Baldwin II defended the kingdom against its Muslim neighbours, survived captivity, and presided over the early growth of the military orders — the Templars were founded in his reign. But he left only daughters.
To secure the succession he married his eldest daughter and heiress, Melisende, to Fulk V, Count of Anjou, so that on his death in 1131 the crown of Jerusalem passed to the Angevin House of Anjou-Rethel.
The House of Boulogne founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem and gave it its first institutions, its coastal cities, and its place at the head of the crusader states. Godfrey of Bouillon became a legend of Christian chivalry, remembered among the Nine Worthies.
Through Melisende’s marriage the dynasty’s achievement passed to the Angevin kings under whom the kingdom reached its height — and then its crisis.