Joscelin I, Count of Edessa Prince of Galilee. In 1118, Baldwin II succeeded Baldwin I as king of Jerusalem. Despite their former hostility, Joscelin fully endorsed Baldwin II, over the candidacy of Baldwin I's brother Eustace III of Boulogne. Joscelin was rewarded with the County of Edessa. As count, he was taken prisoner along with Galeran, lord of Bira, in 1122 near Saruj by Belek Ghazi. Later he was joined in captivity at Kharput, by Baldwin II, king of Jerusalem, who had been captured in April 1123. They were rescued by fifty Armenian soldiers, who disguised themselves as merchants and infiltrated the fortress where the
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