Geldemar Carpenel (Waldemar) (died 7 September 1101), of unknown parentage. Lord of
Dargoire
Dargoire () is a commune in the Loire department in central France.
Population
See also
*Communes of the Loire department
The following is a list of the 323 communes of the Loire department of France.
The communes cooperate in the follow ...
, Lord of
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
(Calphas).
Geldemar took the cross during the
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ru ...
and joined the
army of Raymond of Saint-Gilles
The army of Raymond of Saint-Gilles was one of the first to be formed after Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade. Raymond formed a Provençal army and left his County of Toulouse in October 1096, traveling over the land route. He was the ...
. After the conquest of Jerusalem in which Geldemar's forces were aided by
Raymond Pilet d'Alès Raymond Pilet (Raymond de Narbonnne-Pelet) (1075–1120), the only child of Bernard I Pilet of Narbonne and his wife, whose name is unknown. Seigneur of Alès. Bernard was the son of Raymond II, Viscounts of Narbonne, Viscount of Narbone from 1066 ...
, Raymond IV first sent him to Jaffa and then
Godfrey of Bouillon
Godfrey of Bouillon (, , , ; 18 September 1060 – 18 July 1100) was a French nobleman and pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade. First ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100, he avoided the title of king, preferring that of princ ...
entrusted him, as his friend, with the rule of Haifa. Haifa had been recently liberated by
Tancred
Tancred or Tankred is a masculine given name of Germanic origin that comes from ''thank-'' (thought) and ''-rath'' (counsel), meaning "well-thought advice". It was used in the High Middle Ages mainly by the Normans (see French Tancrède) and espe ...
and, angered by Godfrey’s action, expelled Geldemar from the city after Godfrey’s death in 1100. Geldemar retired to St. Abraham’s Castle in
Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East J ...
.
Appealing to the new King of Jerusalem,
Baldwin I, Geldemar was reinstated as Lord of Haifa, under the condition that it be restored to Tancred after 15 months. Geldemar was one of many barons who supported the appointment of
as Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and yet upon Godfrey's death he seized the Tower of David along with the previous patriarch Arnulf of Chocques in order to ensure Baldwin I's succession and thereby denying Daimbert's vision of a theocracy in Jerusalem.
In September 1101, Geldemar was killed in the
First Battle of Ramla against the
Fatimid Caliphate
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Isma'ilism, Ismaili Shia Islam, Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the ea ...
, while fighting in the Crusader vanguard.
With his death, Haifa formally fell back to Tancred, but no later than 1103, the lordship was given to Rohard I, allegedly a relative of Geldemar’s.
Sources
A Database of Crusaders to the Holy Land, 1095-114
(on-line)
Runciman, Steven, ''A History of the Crusades, Volume One: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem'', Cambridge University Press, London, 1951
Barber, Malcolm, ''The Crusader States'', Yale University Press, New Haven, 2012 (available o
Google Books
References
Year of birth missing
1101 deaths
Christians of the First Crusade
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