Everyone thought it was a great miracle that the First Crusade successfully captured Jerusalem. I don’t think the personal opinions of any monarchs were recorded, but all the (Christian) chronicles of the time were extremely enthusiastic. The actual act of going on crusade was a huge expense and risk though, which is why no monarchs participated in the first one. They were perfectly happy to observe from afar. Let some minor aristocrats govern a far-off kingdom that was surrounded by hostile enemies!

The first ruler of Jerusalem was Godfrey of Bouillon, who was actually the Duke of Lower Lorraine. His brothers Baldwin and Eustace (Eustace was the Count of Boulogne) went on crusade with him. Godfrey ended up as king because, basically, the other leaders either didn’t get as far as Jerusalem (Baldwin remained in the north to rule Edessa, Bohemond of Taranto ended up ruling Antioch), or they went home after they captured Jerusalem. By that point, in July 1099, Raymond of Toulouse was really the only other candidate. Raymond and Godfrey defeated an Egyptian counterattack at the Battle of Ascalon about a month after taking Jerusalem, but Godfrey was recognized as the victor of the battle, and the military and political leader of the crusade.

Godfrey did a couple of other things that were great for his reputation. First, he refused to be crowned king of Jerusalem, so he was seen as a great military hero but also very pious and humble. He also had the good sense to drop dead a year later, before he could do any damage to his legacy. There were lots of legends about him, like he chopped a Muslim soldier - right in half! Or he chopped a horse - right in half! Or he chopped a lion - right in half! Lots of chopping things right in half. He was also said to be descended from the legendary “swan knight”. There’s an epic poem about him in the “crusade cycle” of poetry from the 12th century. He may have been a relatively minor and obscure noble, but he became a legend almost immediately.

Before Godfrey died he said he wanted Baldwin or Eustace to succeed him. Baldwin ended up taking the throne because he was still relatively close by (Eustace was already back in Boulogne). But things were a bit uncertain - the new patriarch (Daimbert of Pisa) argued that the church should be in charge. Most people supported Baldwin though and he quickly arrived to assert his rights as Godfrey’s heir. Unlike Godfrey, though, he wasn’t opposed to being crowned king.

Baldwin ruled until 1118 and when he died, he wanted Eustace to come back and rule, which would have prolonged the Boulogne dynasty. Eustace took too long to get there though - he only made it to Italy before another relative, Baldwin of Bourcq, was chosen as the new king. Baldwin of Bourcq (now Baldwin II) was a “cousin” of some sort...no one really knows how they were related but he had succeeded Baldwin I up in Edessa, and everyone agreed that he was Baldwin I’s closest relative who was already in the east.

Eustace didn’t challenge this so it seems that he didn’t really want it - because again, who would really want to rule far-off Jerusalem? Certainly no one who was already a king in Europe. Some lesser nobles were interested. Fulk V of Anjou married Baldwin II’s daughter Melisende, so he became king, but really he was only the king-consort. The next time there was a reigning queen, Sibylla in the 1180s, another French aristocrat married her too, Guy of Lusignan.

By then Jerusalem was a well-established kingdom, but it’s possible that even the royal family of Jerusalem recognized that they were somewhat lesser in status than other kings in Europe. Supposedly when the patriarch Heraclius went to look for money and soldiers in Europe in 1185, he offered the kingdom to Henry II of England and Philip II of France, but they both said “ah, no thanks”.

No European monarch wanted to rule Jerusalem until Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and in that case apparently only because he was super ambitious, since he was already Emperor and also king of Sicily. He married Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem in 1225. After Frederick, and after Jerusalem became entirely irrelevant as a state and then ceased to exist entirely in 1291, the title of king of Jerusalem actually became extremely prestigious, and several people claimed it or tried to buy it. Even today it’s technically one of the titles of the King of Spain!

But it didn’t become prestigious until there was nothing left to rule, long after the initial Boulogne dynasty. In the 12th century, almost nobody from Europe wanted to rule there, and they were perfectly happy to let some otherwise obscure nobles from Boulogne have it.

Some further reading:

- Alan V. Murray, The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic History, 1099–1125. (Prosopographica et Geneologica, 2000).

- Simon John, Godfrey of Bouillon: Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c.1060-1100 (Routledge, 2017)

- Susan B. Edgington, Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100-1118 (Routledge, 2019)

- John France, "The Election and Title of Godfrey de Bouillon", in Canadian Journal of History 18:3 (1983)