The man who refused to be king
Let's begin at the beginning, which is how these things are best understood.
On 22 July 1099, barely a week after the bloody capture of Jerusalem, the crusader leaders manage to reach an agreement and elect Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine and Lord of Bouillon, as ruler of the city. But Godfrey, a deeply devout man, from the very first minute refuses to gird a golden crown in the very place where Jesus Christ, eleven hundred years earlier, had been crowned with a crown of thorns and put to death on the cross by the Romans with the notorious complicity of the Jewish religious elites of that era. And here comes the semantic manoeuvre: instead of "king", he agrees to govern the city with the title of Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, "Advocate and Defender of the Holy Sepulchre".
A pious label, yes. But don't be fooled, because in practice Godfrey rules with almost absolute powers. He is king in everything but name, and the trick serves only to make the troops —fiercely religious and convinced that Jerusalem must be governed by the papacy— accept that a lay warrior, and not the Pope, should sit on that most holy throne.
The problem is that, in the eyes of those soldiers, a good part of the legitimacy of Godfrey, and of all the other nobles present, rested in the hands of the Church. And the Catholic Apostolic Church of Rome, at that moment, had a proper name in the Holy Land. And it was an Italian name.
Dagobert of Pisa, the mitred crow more twisted than the tower of his own city
At the end of the year 1099, owing to the premature death of the previous Papal Legate on the Crusades —the warrior bishop Adhemar of Le Puy, that is, the pope's ambassador and the man in charge of the entire crusade's religious affairs—, the new papal legate disembarks at the port of Jaffa: bishop Dagobert of Pisa, sent there, so it was said, to bury an unsavoury affair: the theft of several thousand silver coins destined for Rome, which had taken place under his scandalous and corrupt tenure as papal legate to King Alfonso VI of León, in Spain. (A story you'll find in The Dawn of the Templars, chapter 5.) Dagobert thus arrives in Jerusalem invested with the highest credentials, but with his name stained by the epithet of thief. And no, the Italian has not come to pray. He has come to rule in the name of Paschal II.
Step by step, the archbishop wrings ever greater concessions out of Godfrey: first control of Jaffa and its port, then control of the Tower of David and the citadel of Jerusalem, and finally —brace yourselves— the claim that all of Palestine be officially transferred to the patriarchate. That is, to him. Dagobert's dream is to turn Jerusalem into a fief of the Pope, with himself as plenipotentiary governor. In other words, a viceroy. And since His Holiness is nearly 5,000 kilometres away, is getting on in years and is in poor health, not in a thousand years will he come all the way down there to spoil his plans.
The tension between the clergy and the military finally erupts on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1100. Before a packed Church of the Holy Sepulchre —with the spies of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and Constantinople disguised among the crowd—, Godfrey climbs the pulpit to officially cede the city to the Pope. Dagobert licks the honey dripping from his lips, so to speak. But the duke, that old fox of politics, spreads out all his papers with an exasperating slowness, as if he were filming a movie in slow motion. Once he has them before him, he begins to read an endless list of names and noble titles to drive the Italian even more up the wall and, when he finally utters the magic word —"I DECLARE"— (with Dagobert plunged into an almost erotic climax, so to speak), he unleashes his masterpiece: yes, he cedes Jerusalem to the Church… but he will only do so on the day of his death, or when all the immense dangers surrounding the city —that is, the Muslims— have disappeared. Translation: never.
A bucket of cold water falls on Dagobert's tonsured head. And it is there, according to the fictional but probable reconstruction that I defend in The Dawn of the Templars, that a very dark idea lights up in the mind of the Italian archbishop, a worthy ancestor of Niccolò Machiavelli.
«In short, if I've understood correctly, that misbegotten son of a thousand fathers, that cunning bastard Godfrey would have to die suddenly so that I can inherit Jerusalem… But wait a moment. Die, did I say? Isn't there, over there in the high mountains of Persia, a sect of hired killers called the Assassins who do precisely this line of work for money? Hmmm!»
Dagobert springs into action and, when he decides to act, he doesn't order just one death. He orders two.
The faithful cousin: Count Warner of Grez
To understand the alleged crime (for I insist, once again, that this whole article is about hypotheses built on real facts) we need a second name, today almost forgotten: Count Warner of Grez-Doiceau —also recorded as Werner or Garnier of Gray—, right-hand man and cousin of Godfrey on his father's side, and one of the bravest soldiers of the entire First Crusade.
This man had given everything for the cause. To finance his participation in the crusading expedition, back in 1096, he sold the Church a good part of his fertile lands in Walloon Brabant in exchange for a hefty chalice of solid gold valued at some twenty thousand marks of the time: almost five kilos of gold. To give you an idea, today that would be about 650,000 dollars strolling around in that crusader's pocket. He negotiated the army's passage with the Hungarian king Coloman I, was at the battle of Nicaea, at the siege of Antioch against Kerbogha… an impeccable curriculum.
My thesis, dear readers, is this: Godfrey was not the pious, ultra-religious, will-less puppet in Dagobert's hands that a certain part of historiography has, at one point, tried to sell us. And that despite being the son of a genuine Saint, Saint Ida of Lorraine. In public he showed a condescending face; but in private he conspired with his cousin Warner to put a stop to «ces maudits Italiens», those damned Italians. And his secret plan was clear: when the moment came, to leave the crown to one of his own —like, for example, his brother Baldwin, count and lord of Edessa— and not to the meddling Church of Rome and that vice-ridden, drunken, womanising priest Dagobert. For it was said that the whole León scandal was due to the revenge of a Spanish mistress of his, gorgeous and hotter than a thermonuclear bomb, who denounced him for theft before King Alfonso VI, the Brave, causing him to be urgently summoned back to Rome to defend himself against the accusations.
The Venetian fleet and the journey to death
June 1100. A Venetian war fleet, enormous for the era, arrives by surprise at the port of Jaffa: some twenty ships, with dromons bristling with Greek-fire siphons. For Godfrey —who after the Easter trick has lost all support from Dagobert and the Pisans, the only ones with warships available at that moment— the arrival of that friendly Venetian fleet is a blessing fallen from heaven because, I don't know if you're aware, but between Pisa and Venice the rivalry for control of maritime trade in the Mediterranean was at its peak. Talk about luck.
The duke, who at that very moment is on campaign in Galilee alongside Prince Tancred of Hauteville, sets off at a gallop towards Jaffa with his retinue and his cousin Warner. But halfway there, on the coast, the emir of Caesarea Maritima —now his vassal and tributary— insists in every possible way on offering him a great banquet of honour. Godfrey, in a hurry and reluctantly, cannot refuse such a courtesy.
And there, at that protocol stop he didn't want to make, death awaited him. Disguised as hospitality.
The «faceless Moor»
For two months, a humble Arab peasant had been accompanying the duke's army. He said his name was Mohamed; he sold fruit and vegetables loaded on his donkey, had the smile of a simpleton and a face so utterly ordinary that it was impossible to memorise: the crusaders had mockingly nicknamed him «the faceless Moor». No one suspected him. They had seen him a thousand times laughing with Godfrey himself, who bought his apples, and with Warner, who bought his pears.
That wretched man was, in reality, Yusuf Abdel-Aziz: a professional poisoner, a hired killer of the fanatical sect of the Assassins —the Hashshashin, who star in another of our tales—. Like a patient spider, he had spent sixty days weaving his web and learning the tastes of his two prey. He knew, for instance, that Godfrey, a man of simple tastes, adored as dessert a plain fresh apple grated with a layer of honey and a slice of soft cheese; and that Warner went crazy for warm pears sprinkled with plenty of cinnamon.
Knowing those little details is what turns a killer into a good killer.
The king's last lunch
On 18 June 1100, Caesarea is celebrating. More than two hundred and fifty guests settle into the great parade ground of the palace built on the seashore, and today even the weather cooperates: everyone is rocked by a delicious sea breeze that drives off the great June heat. There are dozens of round tables under linen parasols, and a single rectangular table, the emir's, where Godfrey, his cousin and his commanders sit, facing the turquoise Mediterranean.
The feast is an apotheosis of a cuisine we might call «fusion» long before that word was ever applied to food: there is tzatziki and warm bread, salads with dates and pistachios, grilled sardines, arancini and mozzarellas in carrozza identical to those still made in Sicily today, a Genoese focaccia that is practically a medieval pizza, hummus, baba ghanoush, a Lebanese-Phoenician moussaka and some rolls of paper-thin bread that anyone, on seeing them, would swear were Turkish doner kebabs… And on the great grill, all kinds of meats roasting on a huge brick barbecue placed strategically in the centre of the square to send its delicious aromas into every corner of the castle. For there is nothing better in the world than a good steak and some ribs on the barbecue.
And then, at last, comes the hour of dessert.
In the kitchens, amid the hysterical shouting typical of any event or catering —with cooks looking for the cinnamon, fighting over the last jar of honey and royal jelly, mistakes in the orders and sweets burning in the oven—, Mohamed the fruit-seller grates the king's apples and takes the count's pears out of the oven. Hanging from his neck, hidden inside his traditional Arab robe, he carries a small lead bottle with a very fine white powder, tasteless and odourless: arsenic trioxide. Arsenic. The king of poisons.
With no one paying him the slightest attention —for everyone thinks Mohamed has come with the Frankish nobles and has more than enough permission to be there, in the kitchen—, he carefully sprinkles the deadly poison over the two dishes and, on top, adds a final layer of powdered sugar that completely disguises its colour. (Yes, I know that sugar did not reach Europe from the Americas until well into the 16th century, but, please, let me tell my story the way I like it.) After that, the faceless Moor called over a young waiter, a Lebanese lad of barely fourteen who suspected nothing, and knew even less that on that tray he was carrying death:
«Look, kid, these dishes are for King Godfrey and for the man on his right, Count Warner. The apples, to the king; the pears, to the count. Don't get it wrong, or they'll flog both our backsides… You've been warned.»
The lad, proud to serve such gods of war, carries out his task to perfection; but when he turns around, proud, for the «faceless Moor» to congratulate him… Yusuf Abdel-Aziz has already vanished without a trace. Hours later, in the night, an extremely elegant, perfumed and clean-shaven knight left Caesarea unhurriedly heading east, towards Persia. No one would have been capable of recognising in him the filthy fruit peasant. Polymorphism in its purest form.
But destiny, which is a right bastard, had already stuck its little hand into the matter: with their bellies full after so much banqueting, neither Godfrey nor Warner finished their desserts. They left them half-eaten. And for that reason —for that alone— they did not drop dead on the spot, but instead received a smaller dose. Deadly, yes. But much slower.
A month of agony
That very night, between the 18th and the 19th, both nobles begin to feel unwell. Very unwell. Godfrey wakes with ferocious gastrointestinal pains, high fever and cold sweats. Warner, who is of tougher fibre —or simply because he swallowed less poison—, at first confuses the symptoms with the hangover from the delicious Lebanese wine of the night before.
But Godfrey, who has seen poisonings before, understands at once. In the privacy of his chamber, he confides his suspicions to his cousin:
«Cousin, it's obvious that at that damned lunch today they've poisoned us both, and I think I know very well who the instigator is.»
And here, according to my reconstruction, the most fascinating thing happens: instead of surrendering, the two cousins mount a counterattack. Godfrey orders Warner that, if he dies, he is to immediately take control of the Citadel and the Tower of David with the troops and let no one in —«not even the devil»— until his brother Baldwin arrives from Edessa, where he is lord. They feign a relative recovery to better deceive Dagobert, they contrive a way to send him away with some excuse from Jerusalem, and they leave hidden in the city a brigade of their most loyal men, all people from Brabant and Lower Lorraine (present-day Belgium and thereabouts).
The arsenic in their bodies, meanwhile, does its work slowly but surely.
On 18 July 1100, a Wednesday, after almost a month of struggle, Godfrey of Bouillon dies, the first Christian lord of Jerusalem. His cousin Warner, consumed and gaunt but still standing, keeps his promise: he secures the city, keeps the Italians at bay and urgently summons Baldwin. And only then, with everything tied up, on 23 July, he too succumbs to the poison.
Two deaths. Two cousins. Five days apart. And a throne that, against all of Dagobert's plans, ended up finally in the hands of Count Baldwin of Boulogne, who would be crowned as King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.
Coincidence, some will say. I'm not so sure.
What do the real chronicles say? The truth behind the legend
And now, because this is a History blog and not just a blog of good semi-fictional stories, it's time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
What is documented is this: the chroniclers Albert of Aachen and Ekkehard of Aura recount that Godfrey fell ill while in Caesarea, in June 1100, and died in Jerusalem on 18 July. Some time later a rumour circulated that the emir of Caesarea had poisoned him with a fruit —there was even talk of a poisoned apple—. Curiously, William of Tyre, the great chronicler of the kingdom, does not even mention the poisoning. And on the Muslim side, the chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi offers a completely different version: that Godfrey fell to an arrow while besieging Acre.
What we don't know for sure is the real cause of his death. Most modern historians —including the great Steven Runciman— consider poisoning unlikely and lean towards an infectious disease, perhaps of the typhoid-fever kind which, in that summer and with the deficient hygiene in which they lived, was a most reasonable candidate.
And here enters my own gaze, that of the author: the possibilist, the uchronic one. Because there are details that the official version still leaves loose. Why did Warner of Grez die practically at the same time? Who benefited from the king's death more than the man who had spent months fighting to keep Jerusalem for himself? Dagobert's motive was textbook; the opportunity, perfect; and arsenic, transparent and tasteless, was the dreamed-of weapon for a crime that no coroner of the year 1100 could ever prove.
I owe you, that said, a kitchen confession: the supposed hired killer Mohamed/Yusuf Abdel-Aziz, the dialogues, the little lead bottle of poison and the accusing finger pointing straight at Dagobert are a reconstruction of mine in a novel, The Dawn of the Templars, woven over the skeleton of the possible.
The chronicles of that era give no names. But History, as I always say, often leaves us only the corpse and hides the murderer. And it falls to us to undertake the difficult task of reconstructing the crime and uncovering the culprit.
The official version tells us that the first king of Jerusalem died of fevers. It may be true. But sometimes fevers have a first and last name… and are served for dessert.
Per Aspera, Ad Astra.
✠ David S. Matrecano
Ibiza, 15 July 2026