The kings and queens of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1100–1291) were invested with royal powers in coronation ceremonies. The first coronation of a king or queen normally encompassed consecration and anointing, which were constitutionally more important than the act of crowning.

Coronations were usually held on feast days or Sundays. The prerogative to perform the rite belonged to the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem; another prelate could perform it if the patriarchate was vacant or the patriarch was unavailable. The coronation site shifted in 1131 from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and, after the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, was relocated in the thirteenth century to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Tyre.

At least two crowns existed in the twelfth century: one for the king and one for the queen. Other regalia included the orb and the sceptre. The royal insignia were kept in a treasure vault that had to be unlocked by at least two keys, belonging to the masters of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller; a third key may have belonged to the patriarch. The Pontifical of Tyre preserves the order of service for the thirteenth-century coronations, showing the various roles played by the royal officers. After the coronation, the king offered his crown to the Temple of the Lord, then redeemed it for a lower price, and proceeded to a banquet at the Temple of Solomon; in the thirteenth century the coronation was followed by a banquet at the royal palace in Tyre. The last territories of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were lost in 1291, after which three kings and two queens of Cyprus were crowned on Cyprus as kings and queens of Jerusalem.

Twelfth century Place

The first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon (), did not take the royal title, but his successor, Baldwin I (), did. Baldwin was involved in a dispute with the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Daimbert of Pisa, over the possession of the city of Jerusalem. While Baldwin took the city for himself, he was crowned at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem; the historian Hans E. Mayer presumes that Baldwin did not wish to further irritate Daimbert by being crowned in Jerusalem. This was also a solution to the complaint of the clergy that it was inappropriate for anyone to wear a crown of gold in the city where, according to the Bible, Jesus wore a crown of thorns.

Baldwin II () and his wife, Morphia, were likewise crowned in the Bethlehem church. This practice came to end with Fulk () and Melisende (), who were crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the kingdom's main church. The Holy Sepulchre remained the coronation church until the loss of Jerusalem in 1187. Kings Baldwin III (), Amalric (), Baldwin IV (), and Baldwin V () were all crowned there. Theodora Komnene was crowned in Jerusalem, presumably also at the Holy Sepulchre. Exceptionally, Maria Komnene was crowned in Tyre immediately upon landing in the kingdom; her husband, Amalric, presumably wished to hasten the ceremony because he feared that his recent admission of the disgraced Andronikos Komnenos would offend Maria's granduncle and Amalric's new ally Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.

Date In the Middle Ages, coronations were normally performed on Sundays. These were also often feast days. Baldwin I was crowned on Christmas. Baldwin II was consecrated and anointed on Easter Sunday 1118, but was only crowned on Christmas 1119. He may have delayed the coronation so that his wife, Morphia of Melitene, could come from Edessa and be crowned alongside him. Fulk and Melisende were crowned on 14 September 1131, the Feast of the Cross. Baldwin III was crowned on Christmas 1143; his second coronation, planned for Easter 1152, probably never took place. Amalric was crowned on 18 February 1163, the feast of Saint Simeon of Jerusalem. The coronation of Amalric's wife Maria on 29 August 1167 fell on the feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist; because John the Baptist was beheaded at the request of Herodias, the historian Hans E. Mayer concludes that this feast day was not appropriate for the coronation of a queen and that the ceremony must have been rushed. The date of Baldwin IV's coronation, 15 July 1174, was the 75th anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade. Baldwin V's coronation on 20 November 1183 was held on a Sunday, which–coincidentally or not–fell on the feast of Saint Edmund the Martyr, who appears in the Melisende Psalter's calendar of saints. The coronation of Sibylla and Guy in 1186 took place on a Friday, which displeased the contemporary chronicler; on Fridays, only Lenten food could be served at the coronation banquet.

Officiant

The right to crown kings and queens of Jerusalem belonged to the Latin patriarchs of Jerusalem. Ekkehard of Aura records that Baldwin I was crowned by the papal legate, Bishop Maurice of Porto, but Mayer concludes that this refers to a festive coronation at Easter 1101. The details of Baldwin II's coronation are sketchy, but he too was presumably crowned by the patriarch, then Warmund of Picquigny.

When the patriarch's right to office was challenged, the king had the right to request the coronation from another prelate. In this way, the king would prevent doubts about his own legitimacy. Queen Theodora was thus crowned and anointed in 1158 by Aimery of Limoges, the exiled Latin patriarch of Antioch, because the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Amalric of Nesle, had not yet been consecrated. At the highly irregular coronation of Sibylla and Guy in 1186, it was Patriarch Heraclius who crowned the queen and invited her to choose a king; she then crowned her husband with the crown handed to her by the patriarch.

The coronator had the right to refuse to officiate and to impose conditions if canon law was concerned. Patriarch Amalric thus refused to crown King Amalric until the latter agreed to separate from his first wife, Agnes of Courtenay, to whom he was too closely related.

Consort

The wives of Baldwin I, Arda of Armenia and Adelaide of Sicily, were apparently not crowned; Baldwin I had married Adelaide while Arda was still alive, and the marriage was condemned as bigamous. The first recorded coronation of a queen consort of Jerusalem is that of Morphia of Melitene, who was crowned alongside her husband, Baldwin II, on Christmas 1119. In contrast to the Western practice, Theodora and Maria Komnene were crowned before their weddings. This may have been demanded in their native Byzantine Empire during marriage negotiations.

Customs Coronation customs of the twelfth-century Kingdom of Jerusalem are not well-preserved, but the chronicler William of Tyre says that they existed when he mentions the coronations of Theodora and Maria Komnene. The coronation was normally associated with consecration and anointment. Anointment was not yet widespread in Christendom, but it was already employed in the kingdoms of France, England, and Germany; the first of these had a considerable influence on the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Upon consecration, the ruler took an oath. The chartulary of the Holy Sepulchre contains the only such oath from the twelfth century, that of a King Baldwin. In this oath the king declares that he wishes to enforce the law and provide the Church and people of Jerusalem with justice and peace, to honor the patriarch and the princes of the Church, and to confirm the Church in its possessions granted by emperors, kings, and princes.

The acclamation of the ruler by the people was an important part of the ruler's investiture. The coronation was to be open to the nobility, clergy, and people; William's continuator complained that the city of Jerusalem was closed on the occasion of the coronation of Sibylla and Guy, who were opposed by a large section of the nobility. Liturgical enthronement is only explicitly mentioned in the account of Amalric's coronation.

According to William's continuators, it was customary for the newly crowned king to go in a procession to the Temple of the Lord and offer his crown to the canons; he would then redeem the crown for a monetary gift. The continuator notes that the people of Jerusalem, following and , offered their eldest sons to the Temple after birth and then redeemed them with a lamb, two pigeons, or two turtledoves. After this offering, the king went in a procession to the Temple of Solomon, which was once the seat of the curia regis and then the headquarters of the Order of the Temple. A banquet was held there for the king and the barons. The privilege and duty to serve the table belonged to the Frankish commoners.

In the Kingdom of Jerusalem, coronation did not make a king. It was the election by the barons, confirmed by the popular acclamation, and the anointment that gave the king the right to rule. The coronation, however, invested the king with dignity required to remain on the throne and thus could not be entirely dispensed with. A ruler could be anointed only once, but could be crowned multiple times. Baldwin III was crowned together with his mother, Melisende, but only he was anointed and consecrated on that occasion because Melisende had already been anointed and consecrated when she was crowned with her husband, Fulk. Amalric underwent a similar co-coronation on the occasion of the coronation of his second wife, Maria Komnene, in 1167.

Festive coronations may have taken place in the Kingdom of Jerusalem too. This ritual was merely celebratory, without any constitutional significance. The chronicler Albert of Aachen reports that Baldwin I had three festive coronations in Bethlehem: at Epiphany 1107, at Easter 1107, and at Easter 1112. Baldwin's court chaplain, the chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, does not mention any of these, and it is possible that Albert mistook other celebrations for the ritual familiar to him in Germany. Yet the festive coronation was known in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. When Baldwin III–who had been crowned alongside his mother, Melisende, and reigned with her–intended to undergo a solo confirmatory coronation in 1152, the patriarch, Fulcher of Angoulême, wished to avoid a rupture with Melisende and proposed to instead hold a festive coronation for both king and queen.

Regalia At least two royal crowns existed in the Kingdom of Jerusalem: one for the king and one for the queen. The king donated his crown to the Temple of the Lord after coronation, but this was not meant to be permanent and the king could not afford to commission new crowns for each coronation; instead, the crown was redeemed for a lower price. That the crowns were passed from one ruler to another may be inferred from William of Tyre's comment that King Amalric was crowned in 1167 with the "ancestral diadem".

The crown was made of gold and is occasionally referred to as a diadem in the chronicles of Fulcher of Chartres and William of Tyre. The royal lead seals consistently depict a rigid crown band open at the top, in a Western design, with several attached upright points. What made it resemble a diadem–at least in the sense of the Byzantine kamelaukion, sometimes called a diadem– were the two pendilia attached to its sides, as seen in the seals.