Baldwin z Boulogne w opinii Anny Komneny na kartach "Aleksjady"
Baldwin of Boulogne in the Anna Komnene's opinion on the pages of "Alexiad"

Summary/Abstract: The article takes up the issue of Anna Komnene’s opinion of Baldwin of Boulogne in her Alexiad. The daughter of Alexius I represents the Byzantine view of the world, in which the Latins began to play an increasingly greater and more visible role at the end of the 11th c., especially in connection with the crusade movement that began to emerge from 1095. It turned out to be important to involve the Frankish states established in Outremer into the orbit of imperial politics. Baldwin of Boulogne, Count of Edessa from 1097, who in 1100 was crowned the first Latin king of Jerusalem, did not escape Byzantine attention. Baldwin of Boulogne appears four times in Alexiad, giving the opportunity to formulate the opinion about him on the pages of the work. The article presents the thesis that Anna Komnene does not present him as a leading figure in her work. Baldwin of Boulogne plays a rather modest and marginal role, whether related to narrative needs or in connection with the Byzantine political efforts to regain Antioch from the hands of the Normans. This suggests that from the point of view of Constantinople, he was not a particularly important player on the political scene, both during the First Crusade and even after his election as king of Jerusalem. Baldwin emerges from the pages of Alexiad as a character with two faces: on the one hand, he is a confident, energetic commander, characterized by cunning and broader strategic thinking, and on the other hand, he is a greedy barbarian, suffering military defeats. Therefore, Baldwin’s presentation does not differ significantly from the general image of Latins in the Byzantine Empire in the 12th c.

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