Baldwin I

Baldwin I ( c. 1058 – 1118 )
King of Jerusalem ( 1100 – 18 ). On the death of his brother, Godfrey of Bouillon, he was crowned first King of Jerusalem. He foiled the ambitions of the Patriarch Daimbert and ensured that Jerusalem would become a secular kingdom with himself as its first monarch. His control of the Levantine ports secured vital sea communications with Europe, and by asserting his suzerainty over other Crusader principalities he consolidated the primacy of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.