The reign of King Baldwin I (1100-1118) has thus far received little noteworthy attention by historians as the important pivotal period following the First Crusade conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. The two decades of his rule marked the extension of Latin conquests in the east, most notably by the conquest of the important coastal cities of Arsulf, Acre, Caesarea, Beirut and Sidon. These vital ports for the early Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem provided outlets to the sea for commerce, as well as safe harbors for incoming assistance from the west. Further, Baldwin led in the establishment of strong secular control over ecclesiastical authorities, and provided a model of administration for subsequent monarchs to follow until the loss of the kingdom in 1187. Baldwin's contributions to these developments are presented here in a bibliographical framework to illustrate both his important place in crusader historiography, as well as to gauge the significance of his memory in contemporary literature as a second Joshua archetype. The conquest of Jerusalem and the decades that followed were extraordinarily perilous for the western "colonial" transplants, and thus a Biblical precedent was sought as an explanation to the success of the crusaders. This thesis argues that Fulcher of Chartres, the chaplain and primary contemporary biographer of Baldwin I, saw a parallel with the Biblical figure of Joshua as beneficial to posterity. By the establishment of Baldwin's memory in such a context, Fulcher of Chartres encouraged further western support for the Latin Kingdom, and reveals the important trials that faced Jerusalem's first Latin king.

Despite ruling over arguably the most powerful Christian nation in the period, in a time when European and middle-eastern history entered a new phase of interaction due to the Crusades, John's reign has received little scholarly attention. The only major monograph is Chalandon's Les Comnènes from 1912, since which a number of new sources have come to light, together with numerous studies on his contemporaries. Despite the impression that sources are lacking for his reign, in fact there are over 50,000 words of court letters and poetry that allow us to take the political pulse of the Komnenian court. When incorporated with the extra information found in Syriac, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian and many other texts, archaeological remains, sigillographic and numismatic evidence, John's reign is in fact very well covered, and ripe for analysis. Between fieldwork in Turkey, Serbia and Kosovo and translations of these previously unused texts, this thesis contains new material on top of over a century of updated methodologies and research since Chalandon. As such, this thesis will reevaluate assumptions concerning John and his reign, including rewriting the narrative itself, which has previously been distorted due to the agendas of the few sources used. Through the reconstruction of this narrative John's empire can be reexamined, and how it operated in the changed world of the twelfth century determined. The empire found itself in a more multi-polar power dynamic, and tackled this by operating more as an empire than it had as a larger polity as in the previous century: incorporating other peoples as clients and emphasing the rhetoric of imperial piety and legitimacy of the Roman empire. Equally, all of John's actions on the frontiers were fuel for the political theatre that was Constantinople, and this dynamic shaped his actions and resulted in the empire that Manuel inherited.