Page 406

406 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES I 
beyond the limits of our story. In i i i8 the results of Dãnith still
stood. Roger's brief rule of Antioch was, states Cahen, "the moment of greatest
prestige in its history."42 
 Let us now turn and see what king Baldwin of Jerusalem was able to do with
his own dominions after the lapse of the Turkish peril in i i 15. In the
fall of that year he built in the Transjordan the castle of ash-Shaubak,
or Krak de Montréal, as it was called in his honor. This was on a
commanding height south of the Dead Sea eighty-five miles from Jerusalem
and eighty miles north of the Red Sea. Its fine strategic position enabled
the Franks not only to protect the kingdom in that quarter, but to levy tribute
upon the Moslem caravans passing between Damascus and Egypt and also between
Damascus and the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. 
 The next year Baldwin extended his influence still farther south by leading
a military force to Ailah at the head of the gulf now called Aqaba, on the
Red Sea. This town, one hundred and fifty miles south of Jerusalem, became
the southernmost point in his kingdom. According to Albert of Aix, Baldwin
now visited the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, which is ninety miles to
the southwest,, but made no claim upon the territory in this area.43 
 Late in i i i6 Baldwin put away his queen, Adelaide of Sicily. He had put
aside Arda, his Armenian queen, in 1113, in order to marry Adelaide. He wanted
to secure a rich dowry and the friendship of Adelaide's son, count Roger
II of Sicily. It was agreed that Roger should inherit the kingdom if the
royal pair should be childless. It is presumable that this political marriage
had the approval of Baldwin's close friend and adviser, patriarch Arnuif.
Arnulf, a royal partisan during the patriarchates of Daimbert (1099--I 102),
Evremar (11o2—I1o8), and Gibelin (iio8—iiiz), and privy to the
removal of the first two, became patriarch in 1112. But there was enough
of clerical opposition to his policy of subordinating the church to the interests
of a strong monarchy, and of personal opposition to Arnuif himself, to secure
his deposition in a papal legatine court in 1115. Arnuif promptly went to
Rome and was reinstated in i i i6. At this time he agreed to urge Baldwin
to give up his bigamous union with Adelaide. King Baldwin, becoming very
sick late in i i i6, and still childless, fell in with this idea. It is probable,
as Kuhn suggests, that both Baldwin and 
 42 Cahen, op. cit., p. z66. For the events around Aleppo see especially
Kamãl-ad-Din (RHC, Or., III), pp. 6i i—6i8. For Roger's death
and the ager sanguinis see below, chapter XIII, p. 413. 
 ~ Albert of Aix, p. 703.