Page "Kingdom of Jerusalem" Paragraph 51

John did accompany Frederick to the mainland, but Frederick was not well-received there ; one of his few supporters was Balian, Lord of Sidon, who had welcomed the crusaders the year before and now acted as an ambassador to the Ayyubids.

The death of al-Mu ' azzam negated the proposed alliance with al-Kamil, who along with his brother al-Ashraf had taken possession of Damascus ( as well as Jerusalem ) from their nephew, al-Mu ' azzam's son an-Nasir Dawud.

However, al-Kamil presumably did not know of the small size of Frederick's army, nor the divisions within it caused by his excommunication, and wished to avoid defending his territories against another crusade.

Frederick's presence alone was sufficient to regain Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and a number of surrounding castles without a fight: these were recovered in February 1229, in return for a ten-year truce with the Ayyubids and freedom of worship for Jerusalem's Muslim inhabitants.

The terms of the treaty were unacceptable to the Patriarch of Jerusalem Gerald of Lausanne, who placed the city under interdict.

In March, Frederick crowned himself in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but because of his excommunication and the interdict Jerusalem was never truly reincorporated into the kingdom, which continued to be ruled from Acre.