“My sister is due any day now, and the Count of Flanders wants to impose his own candidate as her next husband.” Balian was not surprised. The Count of Flanders had come out to Outremer with several hundred knights and the blessings of the Kings of France and England. When he discovered that the Marquis de Montferrat had died unexpectedly, he immediately started scheming to put someone “suitable” into Princess Sibylla’s bed—and onto the throne of Jerusalem. “What does Princess Sibylla say?” Balian asked cautiously. Baldwin shrugged eloquently, adding, “She does not like Flanders.”
Philippe, count of Flanders didn’t have a snow cone’s chance in hell of marrying Sibylle because she was his half-cousin (they shared a common grandfather in Foulques V, count of Anjou) and canon law at the time forbade marriage between people that closely related. He was also already married at the time to Élisabeth, countess of Vermandois, and bigamy was also forbidden under canon law.
