Negara-negara_Tentara_Salib
Penyelenggaraan dan lembaga negara
Peran utama Raja Yerusalem adalah sebagai panglima angkatan perang feodal dalam peperangan yang nyaris tak berkesudahan pada dasawarsa-dasawarsa awal abad ke-12. Raja jarang mengaruniakan tanah maupun wewenang kepala daerah. Tanah maupun wewenang kepala daerah yang dianugerahkan raja pun sering kali menjadi tak bertuan dan kembali ke tangan raja akibat tingginya angka kematian. Their followers' loyalty was rewarded with city incomes. Through this, the domain of the first five rulers was larger than the combined holdings of the nobility. These kings of Jerusalem had greater internal power than comparative western monarchs, but they lacked the personnel and administrative systems necessary to govern such a large realm. In the second quarter of the century, magnates like Raynald of Châtillon, Lord of Oultrejordain, and Raymond III, Count of Tripoli, Pangeran Galilea, established baronial dynasties and often acted as autonomous rulers. Royal powers were done away with, and governance was undertaken within the feudatories. The remaining central control was exercised at the High Court or Haute Cour, which was also known in Latin as Curia generalis and Curia regis, or in vernacular French as parlement. These meetings were between king and tenants in chief. The duty of the vassal to give counsel developed into a privilege and then the monarch's legitimacy depended on the court's agreement. The High Court was the great barons' and the king's direct vassals. It had a quorum of the king and three tenants-in-chief. Pada tahun 1162, the assise sur la ligece (roughly, 'Assize on liege-homage') expanded the court's membership to all 600 or more fief-holders. Those paying direct homage to the king became members of the Haute Cour. By the end of the 12thcentury, they were joined by the leaders of the military orders and in the 13thcentury the Italian communes. The leaders of the Third Crusade ignored the monarchy. The kings of England and France agreed on the division of future conquests, as if there was no need to consider the local nobility. Prawer felt the weakness of the crown of Jerusalem was demonstrated by the rapid offering of the throne to Conrad of Montferrat in 1190 and then Henry II, Count of Champagne, in 1192 although this was given legal effect by Baldwin IV's will stipulating if Baldwin V died a minor, the pope, the kings of England and France, and the Holy Roman Emperor would decide the succession. Prior to the 1187 defeat at Hattin, laws developed by the court were recorded as assises in Letters of the Holy Sepulchre. All written law was lost in the fall of Jerusalem. The legal system was now largely based on custom and the memory of the lost legislation. The renowned jurist Philip of Novara lamented, 'We know [the laws] rather poorly, for they are known by hearsay and usage...and we think an assize is something we have seen as an assize...in the kingdom of Jerusalem [the barons] made much better use of the laws and acted on them more surely before the land was lost.' An idyllic view of the early 12thcentury legal system was created. The barons reinterpreted the assise sur la ligece—which Almalric I intended to strengthen the crown—to constrain the monarch instead, particularly regarding the monarch's right to confiscate feudal fiefs without trial. The loss of the vast majority of rural fiefs led the baronage to evolve into an urban mercantile class where knowledge of the law was a valuable, well-regarded skill and a career path to higher status. After Hattin, the Franks lost their cities, lands, and churches. Barons fled to Cyprus and intermarried with leading new emigres from the Lusignan, Montbéliard, Brienne and Montfort families. This created a separate class—the remnants of the old nobility with a limited understanding of the Latin East. This included the king-consorts Guy, Conrad, Henry, Aimery, John, and the absent Hohenstaufen dynasty that followed. The barons of Jerusalem in the 13thcentury have been poorly regarded by both contemporary and modern commentators: their superficial rhetoric disgusted Jacques de Vitry; Riley-Smith writes of their pedantry and the use of spurious legal justification for political action. The barons valued this ability to articulate the law. This is evidenced by the elaborate and impressive treatises of the baronial jurists from the second half of the 13thcentury. From May 1229, when Frederick II left the Holy Land to defend his Italian and German lands, monarchs were absent. Conrad was titular king from 1225 until 1254, and his son Conradin until 1268 when Charles of Anjou executed him. The monarchy of Jerusalem had limited power in comparison with the West, where rulers developed bureaucratic machinery for administration, jurisdiction, and legislation through which they exercised control. In 1242 the Barons prevailed and appointed a succession of Ibelin and Cypriot regents. Centralised government collapsed in the face of independence exercised by the nobility, military orders, and Italian communes. The three Cypriot Lusignan kings who succeeded lacked the resources to recover the lost territory. One claimant sold the title of king to Charles of Anjou. He gained power for a short while but never visited the kingdom. -->