Baldwin IV: The Rotting Crown of Jerusalem on Mosher Mag

“He is my king. The Leper King. He does not feel. He does not fear.”

The words ring hollow, even in the sacred halls of Jerusalem. They are the whispers of those who followed him, compelled not by the boy’s strength, but by the sheer grotesque horror of his existence. Baldwin IV, the Leper King, was not born of glory.

History, if it remembers Baldwin IV at all, remembers a sick boy clutching at power while disease gnawed his flesh. A child crowned in a kingdom of vultures. A king who bled from within his own skin, every moment a slow confession that power, even divine power, can fester.

Baldwin IV of Jerusalem’s life was condemned from the moment he was conceived. Born into blood, dust, and crusading zeal in 1161 — a son of Jerusalem’s royal house, just another pawn in the chessboard of Christendom.

By nine years old, he was marked. His tutor, the future Bishop William of Tyre, noticed something unnatural: the boy felt nothing when he was savaged during rough play.

The disease came like a shadow. The child, pale and weak, had grown disinterested in life, his limbs stiffening as his skin began to lose its sensitivity. A minor injury, the skin easily torn by a careless hand, remained raw, unnaturally painful. Baldwin was a boy, and yet his body betrayed him, as if the Earth itself had turned against him. Leprosy.

In the 12th century, this was a sentence worse than death.

It was exile from the human race. It was God's judgment made flesh.

Doctors said he’d be blind by 20, dead by 25. A walking ghost.

A boy born with destiny, only to find that his flesh would disintegrate before his reign began. By the age of 13, Baldwin was crowned King of Jerusalem, a kingdom surrounded by enemies eager to see the Christians expelled from the Holy Land. The boy was fragile, his body a decaying prison, but his crown remained a symbol of power. Power that he could not afford to lose.

The Holy City stood as a fragile jewel, encircled by Muslim empires sharpening their swords. Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, was rising like a storm beyond the desert. The Christians needed a figurehead. Baldwin, disintegrating from within, became a symbol of their own doomed piety.

As Baldwin grew older, his body morphed into a grotesque reflection of his kingdom: fragile, cracked, and eternally on the brink of collapse.

His appearance grew increasingly disfigured, his face covered with lesions, his fingers withered like the bones of a forgotten saint. His skin, once smooth, now hung from his bones in sickening patches. His body smelled of rot. His court tried to conceal it behind veils, gloves, incense — but decay speaks louder than silk. Whispers filled the palace corridors: could a corpse lead an army?

But Baldwin did not retreat. He did not run from his disease. He did not allow the plague inside him to destroy his spirit. In fact, it seemed to fuel him. He became a king who could not feel. And it was this terrifying indifference to pain that made him feared.

But Baldwin was not merely a puppet. Against all odds, he fought. Led armies from horseback even when he could no longer wield a sword. Baldwin had no feeling in his hands and feet, and still led cavalry charges. Imagine trying to swing a sword without knowing if you’re even gripping it.

He outwitted Saladin at Montgisard in 1177, routing a vastly superior force with nothing but desperation and a knack for tactics. Baldwin was so stricken by leprosy he had to be tied to his horse — but he still charged ahead with just a few hundred knights and wrecked a force several times their size.

Saladin barely escaped with his life. For a brief, shuddering moment, the boy king made the deserts bloom with Muslim blood. He was no holy relic. He was a warrior king, rotting but undefeated.

Baldwin’s body crumbled fast after Montgisard. His kingdom began to slip through his fingers, as his own health continued to deteriorate. His limbs, once capable of leading armies, became useless. His voice slurred. His sight, once keen and sharp, grew dim. And still, Baldwin fought.

His enemies circled: greedy nobles, scheming regents, power-hungry barons — all eager to profit from a dying boy’s breath. He appointed his sister Sibylla’s young son as co-king in a desperate attempt to preserve stability, but it was already too late. Factionalism was a rot deeper than leprosy.

The court of Baldwin IV was not a place of glittering jewels and flowing wine. It was a place of shadows. Of whispers. Of betrayal. His very flesh was a reminder to the nobles of the court that power is fleeting — and that the kingdom they served could be lost at any moment. They knew, deep in their hearts, that Baldwin’s reign was one built on the delicate threads of survival.

The king’s decrepit form caused a mix of revulsion and fear among the court. His presence commanded no awe. He was a symbol of decay, not of the eternal glory of kingship. And yet, he ruled with the iron will of someone who could afford nothing but victory. Every day spent on the throne was a day he defied death. But it was a rebellion that would ultimately betray him.

In Baldwin’s court, his disease was a constant reminder of his frailty. The power structure was as fragile as the king himself. His nobles, always calculating, schemed in the shadows, waiting for the day when the Leper King would finally succumb to the rot within.

Baldwin’s own family was no less treacherous. His sister, Sibylla, was an ambitious woman who saw the throne as her birthright. She was married off to William of Montferrat, but Baldwin knew the dangerous game she played.

He had to balance the power struggle in the kingdom with the reality that his body could fail at any moment. It was a fine line, one that history would remember as a kingdom teetering on the edge of ruin.

Baldwin wasn’t stupid. He knew the moment he died, the jackals would start tearing the kingdom apart. He handpicked successors, forged alliances, and kept the kingdom alive long enough for the next generation to have a fighting chance.

He didn't just want to win battles — he wanted to outlive chaos. Even half-dead, Baldwin IV fought with every breath, every scrap of strength left in his broken body, just to buy a little more time for his people.

In his final years, Baldwin became a prisoner inside his own carcass. He was carried on a litter when he could no longer ride. His face, eaten away, forced courtiers to avert their eyes. He tried to abdicate — but in Jerusalem, power clung to its corpses. Only death could dislodge a king.

He died at twenty-four, not in battle, but in a slow collapse of flesh and dignity. His kingdom followed soon after: Jerusalem fell to Saladin a few years later, swallowed by the tide Baldwin had held at bay.

The Holy City wept not just for its saviour, but for its own reflection in him — a beautiful corpse, too stubborn to accept decay.

Baldwin IV's reign is not a tragedy of weakness, but of strength wasted in a world already damned. His body decayed — and so did the kingdom he fought to save. The Leper King wore his crown like a crown of thorns, ruling a city of ghosts.

In the end, he was not defeated by armies.

He was defeated by time.

And time devours everything.

For the freaks, by the freaks.

Thanks for reading. Stay strange.

✦ moshermag.com