On 15 May 1174 Nur ad-Din, the greatest ruler of western Islam, died at Damascus leaving an eleven-year-old heir, and his dominions were torn by faction as his kinsmen and generals fought for control. Two months later, on 11 July, King Amalric of Jerusalem died of dysentery at the age of thirty-eight. He was succeeded by his thirteen-year-old son, who was crowned king as Baldwin IV four days later. Although Baldwin suffered from leprosy, he remained king until his death in 1185, during which time Saladin, ruler of Egypt, made himself master of all Nur ad-Din's former territories until he ruled an empire stretching from the frontier of Libya to northern Iraq. It was like a giant Islamic nutcracker pivoted round the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1187 Saladin sprang the mechanism: he invaded Galilee, defeated the Franks at Hattin on 4 July and the first Crusader Kingdom came to an end.

The classic description of the internal history of the Latin Kingdom 1174–87 is that of Sir Steven Runciman:

This colourful story gathers momentum as the leper king's reign continues and fresh actors line up on either side. On the ‘good’ side, that of Raymond of Tripoli, are the historian, William archbishop of Tyre, chancellor of the Kingdom, and the Ibelin brothers, Baldwin, who aspired to marry the leper king's sister and heiress, Sibyl, and his brother Balian, who did marry King Amalric's widow, the Byzantine princess Maria Comnena, and thereby become the stepfather of the leper king's half-sister Isabel.