Fulk V was Count of Anjou from 1109 to 1129. In 1120 he went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

In 1128, a delegation from King Baudouin II of Jerusalem arrived in France asking King Louis VII to choose one of the French nobility to marry his daughter, Melisande, and become heir to the throne of Jerusalem. Fulk, by then a widower, was chosen. He married Melisande in 1129 and succeeded as King of Jerusalem in 1131.

To defend the Holy city from the Moslem champion, Zengi, Fulk allied with the Emir of Damascus and the Emperor of Constantinople during the early 1130’s. Turkish raiders took him prisoner in 1137, but then freed him.