GODEFROI DE BOUILLON
(ca. 1061–1100). Duke of Lower Lorraine, leader of the First Crusade, and first Latin
ruler of Jerusalem, Godefroi was the second son of Count Eustache II of Boulogne and of
Ide, daughter of Duke Godefroi II of Lower Lorraine. In 1076, the emperor Henry IV
refused him the succession to his grandfather’s duchy, but Godefroi finally acceded in
1089.
He participated in the First Crusade in 1096 along with his brothers Eustache III of
Boulogne and Baudouin, choosing the land route via Hungary. On arriving at
Constantinople, he at first refused the requested oath to the emperor Alexios I Comnenos
but consented finally after an attack on the suburbs of the city when the emperor cut off
provisions for his forces. Though he did not figure as prominently as the other crusading
leaders prior to their arrival at Jerusalem, his forces were the first to break in, and he
became the compromise candidate for ruler of the Holy City. Refusing the title king, he
became the Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher and secured the Latin position in Palestine
by defeating an invading relief army from Fatimid Egypt at Ascalon.
Godefroi’s rule was brief and made difficult by the ambitions of the other crusading
leaders. He also had to deal with the pretensions to rule of Daimbert of Pisa, the first
Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. On his death (July 18, 1100), he was succeeded by his
younger brother, Baudouin, who had founded the first of the Crusading States at Edessa
and who took the title king of Jerusalem.
Godefroi’s life almost immediately became the stuff of legends. He was one of the
three medieval members, with Charlemagne and Arthur, of the Nine Worthies and is the
principal hero of the Crusade epics, including the 35,000-line Chevalier au cygne et
Godefroid de Bouillon (1356), the final reworking of the cycle.
R.Thomas McDonald
[See also: CRUSADE CYCLE; CRUSADES; LORRAINE]
Andressohn, John Carl. The Ancestry and Life of Godfrey of Bouillon. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1947.
GODEFROI DE CLAIR
(Godefroi de Huy; d. 1175). A renowned metalworker active in the Meuse Valley during
the third quarter of the 12th century, Godefroi de Clair is reputed to have worked for the
emperors Lothair II and Conrad III. Although many works have been attributed to him,
such as the base of the Cross of Saint-Omer (Saint-Omer, Musée) no documented pieces
survive. He may be the goldsmith addressed in a famous exchange of letters between
Abbot Willibald of Stavelot and a “Dear Son G,” in which the abbot requests objects be
delivered that were long overdue and the artist requests payment. Godefroi was a canon
in Huy when he died in 1175.
Robert G.Calkins
The Encyclopedia 759