Patriarch Fulk of Jerusalem

Who was Patriarch Fulk of Jerusalem?

Fulk or Fulcher of Angoulême was the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1146 to his death in 1157.

Fulk came from Angoulême. According to William of Tyre, he was "religious and God-fearing, possessed of little learning, but a faithful man and a lover of discipline." In France he had been abbot of Celles-sur-Belle, and came to Jerusalem during the schism between Pope Innocent II and Antipope Anacletus II in 1131, as the Bishop of Angoulême favoured Anacletus and Fulk favoured Innocent. In Jerusalem he served as a canon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and in 1134 he succeeded William of Malines as Archbishop of Tyre.

He was consecrated by William of Malines, who had become Patriarch of Jerusalem, but travelled to Rome to be given the pallium by Innocent II; Patriarch William was offended and treated Fulk poorly after he returned. Innocent II rebuked William, and threatened to place Tyre directly under the authority of Rome, or transfer it to the Latin Patriarch of Antioch. This was part of the ongoing controversy over which Patriarchate Tyre should be subject to; prior to the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land, Tyre had been subject to Antioch, but when was Tyre was recaptured by the crusaders in 1124, it became a suffragan of Jerusalem, which was more politically dominant than Antioch. The dispute was resolved with Tyre remaining under the jurisdiction of Jerusalem.