Baldwin I s β 2 April was the first count of Edessa from to and king of Jerusalem from to his death in He received the County of Verdun in , but he soon joined the crusader army of his brother Godfrey of Bouillon and became one of the most successful commanders of the First Crusade. While the main crusader army was marching across Asia Minor in , Baldwin and the Norman Tancred launched a separate expedition against Cilicia.
Tancred tried to capture Tarsus in September, but Baldwin forced him to leave it, which gave rise to an enduring conflict between them. Baldwin seized important fortresses in the lands to the west of the Euphrates with the assistance of local Armenians. Thoros of Edessa invited him to come to Edessa to fight against the Seljuks. Taking advantage of a riot against Thoros, Baldwin seized the town and established the first Crusader state on 10 March To strengthen his rule, the widowed Baldwin married an Armenian ruler's daughter who is now known as Arda.
He supplied the main crusader army with food during the siege of Antioch. He defended Edessa against Kerbogha , the governor of Mosul , for three weeks, preventing him from reaching Antioch before the crusaders captured it. Godfrey of Bouillon, whom the crusaders had elected their first ruler in Jerusalem, died in Godfrey's retainers took possession of the town and urged Baldwin to claim Godfrey's inheritance.
Since a Muslim ruler had captured Bohemond, Baldwin marched to Jerusalem meeting little resistance. The Patriarch crowned him king in Bethlehem on 25 December. He captured Arsuf and Caesarea in , Acre in , Beirut in , and Sidon in , with the assistance of Genoese and Venetian fleets and of several smaller crusader groups, but all his attempts to capture Ascalon and Tyre failed.
After his victory at the third battle of Ramla in , the Egyptians launched no further major campaigns against the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Baldwin helped Bertrand, Count of Toulouse , to capture Tripoli in Being the only crowned monarch in the Latin East , Baldwin claimed suzerainty over other crusader rulers.
