CHAP. IV.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

247

mon sense. One of the greatest captains of hisage, “par sa rare valeur, des plus grands capitaines deson siecle , 1 as Raymond is represented, we have noright to impute to him anything of puerility; andto this veteran’s instructions, young Baldwinowes his beginning very early to distinguish him-self as a warrior. For the princely boy’s fatherhad been killed by a fall from his horse,when coursing on the thirteenth November,

1142 (which agrees ill with what is elsewhere saidof his having got blind, and probably meaning only alittle short-sighted), 2 and left two sons, Baldwin ofthirteen, and Almeric of seven. Their mother at firstassumed the regency, but in less than two yearsthe grand master and some other of the greatlords had the elder boy crowned by the ^title of Baldwin III., who instantly led outa body of Hospitallers and Templars on an excur-sion against the Saracens in the land of Moab, andcame back with the fame of bravery. 3

The Christian cause had just entered itsdecline by the fall of Edessa; 4 Joscelin

1 Yertot: i. 170.—Bosio: par. 1, lib. ii., anno 1159.

2 Cod. Dipl.Geros., i. 362.—Appendix, Hum. xxvi. It recon-ciles both passages to reckon from the coronation of Baldwin III.on Christmas day, 1144, and not from his father’s death.—Bosio:par. 1, lib. ii., anno 1142.

3 Michaud: Hist., ii. 99, 100.—Bosio: par. 1, lib. ii. anno 1142.

4 Yertot: i. 118, 119, 120.—Bosio: par. 1, lib. ii. anno 1143.