Latin archbishop of Tyre (1135-1145) and patriarch of Jerusalem (1145-1157).
A Frenchman by origin, Fulcher started his career in Outremer when he fell out with his bishop in Angouleme over the disputed papal election of 1130. Fulcher became a canon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre before his appointment as archbishop of Tyre (mod. Sour, Lebanon).
As archbishop, Fulcher worked tirelessly to assert his independence, even to the point of securing papal injunctions against Patriarch William. Ultimately Fulcher succeeded: the archbishop of Tyre became second only to the patriarch of Jerusalem in the hierarchy of the kingdom. After his election as patriarch in 1145, Fulcher continued to champion ecclesiastical privileges, which brought him into various conflicts with Queen Melisende, King Baldwin III, and the Order of the Hospital.
When Baldwin III finally decided to rule alone and began a civil war, Fulcher quietly backed the queen. Ultimately Melisende lost her official role in government, but Fulcher may have influenced the settlement that Baldwin III offered her in 1152. He himself seems not to have been reconciled with the king.
-Deborah Gerish
Bibliography
Hamilton, Bernard, The Latin Church in the Crusader States: The Secular Church (London: Variorum, 1980).
Mayer, Hans Eberhard, “Studies in the History of Queen Melisende,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 26 (1972), 95-182.
-. Bistumer, Kloster und Stifte in Konigreich Jerusalem
(Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1977).
World History
