What if an Ivaylo-like peasant king rose up in the Kingdom of Jerusalem?

[Alligator]

What if, during or shortly after the First Crusade, the Greek and Aramaic peasants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem appointed a native king (similar to Bulgarian king Ivaylo), who demanded that the eastern Christians of Jerusalem be the primary class of rulers, merchants, soldiers, and administrators, rather than marginalized by the foreign Latins?

The Latin Crusaders are allowed to build, own, and tax fortresses, and all Christian pilgrims are allowed to visit freely, but they must swear fealty (at least temporarily) to the Greek/Syriac former-peasant king. The king himself promises allegiance to the Byzantine Emperor, but only does this to receive military aid and also to keep the Latin Crusaders at bay.

Druze, Muslims, Jews, and Samaritans are largely tolerated like in the original KOJ. However, Turcopoles might be used infrequently and cautiously.

Is this a possible scenario, and if so, how does this affect the progression and survival of the Kingdom of Jerusalem?

 

[darthfanta]

What if, during or shortly after the First Crusade, the Greek and Aramaic peasants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem appointed a native king (similar to Bulgarian king Ivaylo), who demanded that the eastern Christians of Jerusalem be the primary class of rulers, merchants, soldiers, and administrators, rather than marginalized by the foreign Latins?

The Latin Crusaders are allowed to build, own, and tax fortresses, and all Christian pilgrims are allowed to visit freely, but they must swear fealty (at least temporarily) to the Greek/Syriac former-peasant king. The king himself promises allegiance to the Byzantine Emperor, but only does this to receive military aid and also to keep the Latin Crusaders at bay.

Druze, Muslims, Jews, and Samaritans are largely tolerated like in the original KOJ. However, Turcopoles might be used infrequently and cautiously.

Is this a possible scenario, and if so, how does this affect the progression and survival of the Kingdom of Jerusalem?

The Western European nobles laugh while they butcher the peasants.It's highly unlikely that untrained peasants can beat the highly experienced army that just beat both the Egyptians and the Turks.

 

[Alligator]

The Western European nobles laugh while they butcher the peasants.It's highly unlikely that untrained peasants can beat the highly experienced army that just beat both the Egyptians and the Turks.

What if it occurs during a later time when the Byzantines have significant influence in the Crusader States, such as the 1130s and 1140s?

 

[LSCatilina]

Is this a possible scenario, and if so, how does this affect the progression and survival of the Kingdom of Jerusalem?

Probably not : remaining Crusader elite would be really convinced of their legitimacy to rule the land by right of conquest against Turks and Fatimids, when Eastern Christians were merely auxiliaries at best.
If they didn't kept their vow of fealty to Constantinople*, there is really little chance they do so for a peasant revolt.

Furthermore, you didn't have a real Eastern Christian political structure at this point : even without mentioning the deep divisions between melkites and non-chalcedonian Christians, centuries of Arabo-Islamic ruling didn't allowed these communauties to form something bigger, when Bulgarian imperial and nobiliar structures were more developed during Ivajlo's revolt.

Your best chance at having a deeper Eastern Christian presence in the Latin States would be changes with Armenian states : Cilicia, Edessa, Keysun.
Either trough successful crusades of 1101 (instead of being defeated by Turks), or a weakened Antioch being "Armenianized", it could have an interesting impact.

That said, it would more likely touch the north of Latin States rather than Jerusalem, even if it's going to bear a lot of changes for Yerosolemite policy.

*For various reasons, coming from outright distrust to what most saw as a break of the oath from the basileus after Antioch.

 

[LSCatilina]

What if it occurs during a later time when the Byzantines have significant influence in the Crusader States, such as the 1130s and 1140s?

(I assume you're talking of Manuel I's suzerainty over Latin States, even if it's more centered on the 1160's)

Manuel Kommenos overlordship over Latin States was real, but limited and existed only because he went trough Latin feudal structures. Would have he asked such changes out of nowhere, not only it would have been flat-out refused but likely be a decisive blow to his oriental policies.

At this point Latin States are established polities : discarding political reality in favor of a peasant rebellion would simply not have made sense.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Wait, weren't these places also about half Arab (maybe a bit less) at this time? What are the local Arabs and other Muslims doing during all of this?

 

[darthfanta]

What if it occurs during a later time when the Byzantines have significant influence in the Crusader States, such as the 1130s and 1140s?

By then the Frankish nobility's control over the Crusader States' well and established.The army's still top notch because of the constant fighting.There's also the fact that a royal family of sorts has been there for quite a while already.The royal family ain't gonna hand over their rule easily.What might have happened however would be a union between Antioch,Cyprus Cilicia and Atteleia.IOTL,there was a plan by John II to impose Manuel(OTL Emperor Manuel) as the ruler of a semi-independent state consisting of those territories with the latter marrying Constance of Antioch.This plan was dashed because the Antiochian nobles got uppity and wanted to remain fully independent of the ERE.