Boniface I, Marquess of Montferrat the independent city communes of the Lombard League. Boniface's eldest brother, William, had died in 1177, soon after marrying Sibylla, the heiress presumptive to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1179, the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus offered his daughter Maria Porphyrogenita as a bride to one of the sons of William V. Since Boniface, like his older brother Conrad, was already married, and Frederick was a priest, the youngest brother, Renier, married her instead, only to be murdered along with her during the usurpation of Andronicus. In 1183, Boniface's nephew Baldwin V was crowned co-king of Jerusalem. William V went
Baldwin I of Jerusalem his adoptive father, but he did nothing when the rioters broke into the citadel on 9March. Thoros and his wife were captured and murdered. On the following day, the townspeople acknowledged Baldwin as their ruler (or "doux"). He assumed the title of count and established the first crusader state. The Seljuqs had captured Edessa from the Byzantines in 1087, but Alexios I Komnenos did not demand that Baldwin hand over the town. MacEvitt argues that the local population did not regard Baldwin's ascension as "a change in regime, but the replacement of one strongman with vague Byzantine ties with another