Kingdom of Cyprus

Who rules

Name

Aimery of Lusignan (Amalric, Amaury, Haimeri in the Old French chronicles)

Title

King of Cyprus (rex Cypri), crowned as a vassal of the Western emperor; also king of Jerusalem since January 1198 by his marriage to Queen Isabella I. The two crowns are held in his person only.

Since

Lord of Cyprus from late 1194, elected by his brother Guy's vassals; styled king by December 1196 (Pope Celestine III calls him king in a letter of that month); crowned at Nicosia in September 1197.

Born

About 1145 (FMG). About 55 on 1 January 1200.

Family

A younger son of Hugh VIII of Lusignan, of the Poitevin house of Lusignan. Constable of Jerusalem from 1181 and constable of Cyprus under Guy. First wife Eschiva of Ibelin (married before 29 October 1175; died 1196 or 1197), daughter of Baldwin of Ibelin, lord of Ramla, and Richilde of Bethsan. Second wife Isabella I, queen of Jerusalem (born 1172), his since a marriage or betrothal in October 1197 (Edbury) or a wedding at Acre in January 1198 (FMG), crowned with him in January 1198; he is her fourth husband. Children and heirs: see kin_and_heirs.

Confidence

high

Wikipedia (Aimery of Cyprus, citing Edbury 1994, Runciman, Hamilton 1997, Furber 1969); FMG Medieval Lands, Cyprus; La Monte, Feudal Monarchy (1932), appendix of officers, pp. 286-289; the chronicle of Ernoul (Mas Latrie ed. 1871), pp. 342-344; Mas Latrie, Histoire de l'ile de Chypre, vol. 1 (1861).

Overlord

In law the Western emperor: Aimery did homage for Cyprus to Henry VI's chancellor at his coronation in September 1197. Henry VI died at Messina later that month, and the Empire has since been split between two crowned kings, Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick. Neither has exercised any lordship over Cyprus, so in practice Aimery answers to no one. The tie is real in law: Frederick II will invoke it in 1228, and Innocent IV releases Cyprus from homage to the Empire only in 1247 (later).

Byzantium never gave up its claim to the island.

What the realm holds

• The whole island of Cyprus as king, with the royal castles of Kyrenia, St Hilarion (the Franks' Dieu d'Amour), Buffavento and Kantara, all Byzantine works taken by Richard in 1191
• The capital, Nicosia (unwalled: a visitor of 1211 says it was not yet a walled city), with the royal court and the High Court of Cyprus
• The ports and towns of Limassol, Paphos (with the new castle of Saranda Kolones above the harbour, built in the first years of Lusignan rule), Famagusta (still small) and Kyrenia
• A royal domain of villages and rents, rebuilt by Aimery after Guy's lavish grants; its extent on 1 January 1200 is not pinned
• The Byzantine fiscal system the Franks took over: the poll tax and dues of the dependent Greek peasants (paroikoi) and the services of the free peasants; later records show them collected by a royal financial office (the secrete) staffed largely by Greeks, whose form in 1200 is not pinned
• The patronage of the new Latin Church of Cyprus (archbishop of Nicosia, bishops of Paphos, Limassol and Famagusta), endowed with lands and tithes

How it was acquired

Richard I conquered Cyprus from Isaac Komnenos in May 1191 (he married Berengaria at Limassol on 12 May 1191; Isaac was taken near Cape St Andreas, held by the Hospitallers at Margat, freed with his daughter into the care of Leopold of Austria under the terms of Richard's ransom, and died, perhaps poisoned, in the sultanate of Rum in 1195 or 1196). Richard sold the island to the Templars; after the Greek rising against them at Nicosia at Easter 1192 they handed it back, keeping a few holdings. Richard then gave or sold it to Guy of Lusignan, who had lost the crown of Jerusalem to Conrad of Montferrat at the assembly of 16 April 1192; Guy was on the island by early May 1192.

Guy died in the second half of 1194 (the last charter showing him alive is of 18 August, per Furber; Wikipedia's Kingdom of Cyprus page gives 18 July 1194) and left Cyprus to his brother Geoffrey, who had gone home to Poitou. Guy's vassals instead chose Aimery, then constable, ignoring Henry of Champagne's claim to be consulted. Aimery sought a crown from the emperor to give his rule a lord above it: his envoy swore fealty to Henry VI at Gelnhausen in October 1195, imperial envoys (the archbishops of Brindisi and Trani) landed with a golden sceptre in April or May 1196, and Conrad of Querfurt crowned him at Nicosia in September 1197 and took his homage.

Allies and rivals

Allies: the kingdom of Jerusalem, his own other crown; Leo of Armenia (Cilicia), who secured the release of Aimery's first wife and children from the pirate Kanakes in the mid-1190s and whose own crown, like Aimery's, came by the German crusade (campaign notes: Conrad of Mainz crowned him in 1198; his marriage to Aimery's daughter Sibylla comes in 1210, later); the Ibelins, his first wife's kin; the papacy, which created his Latin church. Rivals and claimants: Byzantium (Alexios III), which never accepted the loss of the island; the line of Isaac Komnenos, whose daughter, the 'Damsel of Cyprus', freed with her father into Leopold of Austria's care in 1194, is in the West; Greek corsairs; and the Ayyubids, though the truce Aimery made with al-Adil on 1 July 1198, for five years and eight months, keeps the mainland at peace (whether its terms covered Cyprus is not pinned).

The realm that morning

Aimery holds the whole island. No part of Cyprus is in revolt or occupied on 1 January 1200, and no enemy force is on it. The king is most likely on the mainland, at Acre, that winter (he spends more time there than in Nicosia; his exact whereabouts on 1 January 1200 are not pinned). The government of Cyprus in his absence runs through its own officers, the seneschal Aimery of Rivet and the chancellor-archbishop Alan at Nicosia, while the constable Baldwin of Bethsan often attends the king on the mainland; no regent or bailli of Cyprus is recorded before Walter of Montbéliard in 1205.

The Templars hold some property kept since 1192 and the Hospitallers hold houses and lands granted since the kingdom's foundation, both under the king. Venice, Genoa and Pisa hold no privileged quarter here: their merchants trade as individuals. The Empire's overlordship is dormant.

Wealth

Grain, wine, oil and carobs from the Mesaoria plain, the Kyrenia range and the southern valleys; salt from the lagoons near the ruins of Kition (the later Salines, Larnaca); timber of the Troodos; sugar cane on royal estates such as Kouklia is recorded later (Mas Latrie, via Wikipedia, Kouklia), and its scale in 1200 is not pinned. The Byzantine taxes taken over by the Franks (the poll tax and peasant dues) and the rents of the royal domain. Ernoul says Aimery's rents from Cyprus were worth a great deal (p.

344); the figure given for the kingdom's revenues at the end of his reign is a money sum and is left out here. The ports of Limassol and Paphos trade with Acre, Tyre and Cilicia: Cyprus is the mainland's granary and the safe rear of the Latin East. Aimery said he could not pay for Jerusalem's army from his own treasury (Edbury, Hill).

Military

The royal castles: Kyrenia on the north coast; St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara on the Kyrenia range, Byzantine works that served as watchtowers against corsairs, prisons and refuges and saw little fighting before 1228; Saranda Kolones at Paphos, a castle of the first Lusignan years, destroyed by the earthquake of 1222; the Byzantine fort of Limassol; a weak Byzantine fort and the castle where the Templars held out in 1192 at Nicosia. The host is the king's liegemen, the knights and mounted sergeants whom Guy and Aimery enfeoffed with land or money: Ernoul says Guy enfeoffed a great many knights and sergeants on horseback besides burgesses (p. 343; the numerals are garbled in the online scan; French Wikipedia gives 300 knights and 200 squires, without a source).

Aimery takes Cypriot knights to serve on the mainland. No royal fleet is recorded for 1200.

Threats

• Byzantium's unextinguished claim, and the claim of Isaac Komnenos's daughter, which Thierry of Flanders will press in person in 1202-1203 (later)
• Greek resentment of Latin rule: the risings against Richard's officers in 1191 and against the Templars in 1192 are recent memory, and Neophytos's tract of 1196 speaks for the monks
• Corsairs: Kanakes seized the king's first wife and children in the mid-1190s
• The drain of the mainland: Aimery's second kingdom draws on Cypriot men while he keeps the treasuries apart
• The succession: a king about 55 with young sons; Cyprus will pass to a nine-year-old in 1205 (later)
• The dormant imperial overlordship, which a strong emperor could revive (Frederick II in 1228, later)

Kin and heirs

Children by Eschiva of Ibelin (FMG; Edbury 1994, p. 30): Guy and John, both promised in marriage to daughters of Henry of Champagne and Queen Isabella (FMG dates the betrothals to 1194; Wikipedia's Hugh I article puts the agreement in 1197, with Jaffa as dowry for the girl who married the eldest), both dead young, before April 1205; whether either is alive on 1 January 1200 is not pinned, and so the heir apparent that morning is not pinned. Hugh, born 1194 or 1195 (FMG [1193/94]; Wikipedia 1195), about five, the only son alive by April 1205 and the future Hugh I; he is promised to Alice of Champagne.

Burgundia, unmarried that morning (she marries Walter of Montbéliard about 1202, before 1205). Helvis, born between 1185 and 1193 (FMG), unmarried (she marries Odo of Dampierre between 1202 and 1207, later Raymond-Roupen). Alice, who died young (of plague, FMG; of leprosy, Edbury). Children by Isabella: Sibylla, born about 1198 by most accounts but [1199/1200] by FMG, so not pinned whether born by 1 January 1200 (she marries Leo of Armenia in 1210); Amalric, born [1200] (FMG), died 2 February 1205, probably not yet born; Melisende, born after [1200/01] (FMG), not yet born.

Stepchildren in Acre: Maria of Montferrat (born 1192), heiress of Jerusalem, and Alice and Philippa of Champagne. Brothers and kin: Geoffrey of Lusignan, once count of Jaffa, back in Poitou, to whom Guy had left Cyprus; the Lusignans of Poitou, among them Aimery's nephew Hugh IX le Brun, whose betrothed Isabella of Angoulême King John will marry on 24 August 1200 (likely course, Angevin sheet). The Ibelins (Eschiva's cousins, John of Ibelin, now lord of Beirut on the mainland, and his brother Philip) are kin to Aimery's children; Philip is recorded settled in Cyprus only before September 1217 (FMG).

Court and officers

The two kingdoms have separate officers (Edbury, Hamilton). Officers of Cyprus that winter: seneschal, Aimery of Rivet (attested 1197-1210, La Monte p. 288; high confidence that he holds it on 1 January 1200); constable, Baldwin of Bethsan (attested 1195, La Monte p. 288; Hamilton says he often accompanied Aimery on the mainland; the next known constable is Walter of Caesarea in 1206, FMG), probably still in office, medium confidence; marshal, not pinned (Hugh Martin is marshal of Cyprus in 1194-1196, La Monte p.

288; Aymar of Lairon is called marshal of Cyprus in 1206, FMG); chamberlain, not pinned (the first known, Amaury of Bethsan, is attested 1218-1220); chancellor, Alan, archdeacon of Lydda, archbishop of Nicosia since about December 1196, chancellor 1195-1201 (La Monte p. 289; Mas Latrie vol. 1, p. 147: he remained chancellor after his election); the butler is a creation of 1328. Other men of Aimery's circle (Hamilton 1997): Rainier of Gibelet, his envoy to Henry VI in 1195, and Reynald Barlais, called bailli of Jaffa for Aimery in 1197 (Wikipedia, Amalric Barlais, unsourced).

The High Court (Haute Cour) of Cyprus is the assembly of the king's liegemen, the Frankish knights who hold fiefs of him; it chose Aimery in 1194, and it follows the customs of the kingdom of Jerusalem (the Assises). The towns' Frankish burgesses answer to a royal viscount in a court of burgesses on the Jerusalem model; for Cyprus the first viscounts are not pinned for 1200.

Church

Latin: the archbishopric of Nicosia with three suffragans at Paphos, Limassol and Famagusta, created by Celestine III about December 1196 at Aimery's request (his envoy to the pope in 1195 was the archdeacon of Laodicea, known only as 'B.'); the pope gave the archdeacons of Laodicea and Lydda joint charge of settling the new church's hierarchy and endowment, and each see received lands and tithes for its bishop, while monks and canons were given lands instead of tithes (Mas Latrie vol. 1, pp. 146-147).

Archbishop: Alan, also chancellor. The Latin bishops of Paphos, Limassol and Famagusta on 1 January 1200 are not pinned. The cathedral of St Sophia at Nicosia is begun only in 1209 (later). Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, refugees from Jerusalem, are settling at Bellapais, where Aimery founded a house whose first buildings date between 1198 and 1205; the Premonstratensians replace them in 1206 (later). Greek: the autocephalous Church of Cyprus, under its own archbishop and subject to no patriarch, keeps its bishops and its monasteries; the Greek archbishop on 1 January 1200 is not pinned (Sophronios is listed for 1191 and Isaias for 1209).

Its fourteen sees are cut to four (Soli, Arsinoe, Lefkara and Karpasia) only from 1222, and the Bulla Cypria of 1260 completes the subjection of the Greek bishops to the Latin ones (later). Greek monks: Neophytos the Recluse (1134-1214), at his Enkleistra above Paphos since 1159, wrote his bitter tract 'On the calamities of the land of Cyprus' in 1196 against Richard and the Latins; other great houses are Kykkos and Machairas in the Troodos and St John Chrysostomos at Koutsovendis. Others: Armenian, Syrian (Melkite and Jacobite), Maronite and Nestorian Christians, and Jews.

Coinage

Not pinned for Aimery's reign in this research. The kingdom's later coin, the 'white bezant', was modelled on the Byzantine concave trachy (Wikipedia, Bezant); Byzantine coins certainly still circulated in 1200.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 1200 (month not pinned)Raymond VI of Toulouse marries the daughter of Isaac Komnenos, the 'Damsel of Cyprus' (Wikipedia, Raymond VI); they part in late 1202 and she marries Thierry of Flanders by early 1203, who then lands in Cyprus to claim the island and is ordered off by Aimery (1203, later).Depends on: Raymond's choice of a fifth wife after Joan of England's death on 4 September 1199, and the Damsel being free in the West. Stopped by: Another match for Raymond (he marries Eleanor of Aragon in 1204), or the Damsel's death.
2. through 1200The crusade preached in France under Theobald III of Champagne, chosen leader at Ecry on 28 November 1199 (campaign notes), prepares; no crusaders reach Cyprus in 1200. Their later choice of Egypt as a goal (treaty with Venice, 1201, later) makes Cyprus a natural staging post.Depends on: The crusade going ahead and sailing east by sea. Stopped by: The crusade's collapse or diversion; Theobald dies by May 1201 (project notes).

Later, on the likely course

1. 1198-1205Building of Aimery's foundation at Bellapais for the canons of the Holy Sepulchre continues.Depends on: Royal funding and peace on the island. Stopped by: War or the king's death.
2. 1 April 1205 (later)Aimery dies at Acre; Cyprus passes to Hugh I under the regency of Walter of Montbéliard, chosen by the High Court; Jerusalem passes to Maria of Montferrat, and the two crowns part.Depends on: A natural death, which play could change. Stopped by: Any change to Aimery's circumstances.

Places of note

• Kyrenia castle: Byzantine harbour castle, royal; small in 1200, enlarged from 1208 (later)
• St Hilarion (Dieu d'Amour): Byzantine mountain castle on the Kyrenia range, royal
• Buffavento: Byzantine mountain castle, watchtower and prison, royal
• Kantara: Byzantine castle at the root of the Karpas peninsula, royal; Richard took it in 1191
• Saranda Kolones, Paphos: Early Lusignan castle above Paphos harbour, destroyed by the earthquake of 1222
• Bellapais: Aimery's foundation for the canons of the Holy Sepulchre, first buildings 1198-1205
• Enkleistra of St Neophytos: Neophytos the Recluse's cave monastery above Paphos, founded 1159
• Kykkos monastery: Greek monastery in the western Troodos
• Machairas monastery: Greek monastery in the eastern Troodos (founded in the 1140s; typikon of 1210)
• Stavrovouni: Greek monastery on its peak above the Larnaca plain

Where the sources disagree

• Guy's death: Wikipedia's Kingdom of Cyprus page gives 18 July 1194; Furber (via Wikipedia, Guy of Lusignan) has a charter of 18 August showing him alive, and Edbury puts his death about the end of 1194. Either way Aimery has ruled since late 1194.
• Aimery's title: French Wikipedia says Henry VI granted him the royal title in 1195; Edbury (via English Wikipedia) has the oath at Gelnhausen in October 1195, the envoys with the sceptre in 1196, the royal style by December 1196 and the coronation in September 1197. This record follows Edbury.
• The brief calls the crowning prelate Conrad of Hildesheim. He is Conrad of Querfurt, bishop of Hildesheim from 1194, who on 1 January 1200 is bishop of Wurzburg and Philip of Swabia's chancellor, excommunicated for keeping Hildesheim too: the same man as the campaign notes' Wurzburg entry (Part 6 D). English Wikipedia says he sided with Otto in the throne dispute; that refers to his reconciliation with Innocent III in 1201 and does not contradict the campaign notes for 1 January 1200.
• Burgundia of Lusignan: older accounts marry her to Raymond VI of Toulouse in 1193 and have her repudiated in 1196; English Wikipedia (Raymond VI) now says they never married. Either way she is unmarried on 1 January 1200.
• Sibylla's birth: FMG brackets it [1199/1200]; most accounts give about 1198. Whether she is born by 1 January 1200 is not pinned.
• Leo of Armenia's coronation: English Wikipedia gives 6 January 1198 or 1199; the campaign notes (Part 6 D) say 1198. This record follows the campaign notes; it does not touch Cyprus except as context.
• The numbers of Guy's settlers (300 knights and 200 squires in French Wikipedia) are not legible in the online scan of Ernoul (p. 343); they should be quoted only as the chronicle's figures.

Evidence: The rulers, the coronation, the imperial tie and the Latin church are well recorded (Western chronicles, papal letters, Edbury's synthesis). The officers rest on a handful of charters (La Monte's lists). Fief-holders below the officers, the extent of the royal domain, the Greek hierarchy in 1200 and the Italian presence are thinly recorded: Cypriot charters of the 1190s are few, and the Greek sources (Neophytos) are polemical.

On the map: The island is drawn whole, as it was held: the sea is the frontier. The six modern districts and the outline polygon are used only to cover the island; they are not medieval units.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Chronicle of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer, Ernoul, squire of Balian of Ibelin, and later compilers (the 1187 core soon after the event; the whole in its present form 1227 to 1232). The Ibelin household's version of events in Outremer. Read online
• The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (Eracles), Anonymous continuators, the earliest drawing on Ernoul (about 1220 to 1277; the first continuation (1184 to 1197, the Lyon Eracles) compiled about 1230 from material of the 1190s). For the Latin East at 1200 it narrates the aftermath of the Third Crusade: the truce of 1192, the succession to Jerusalem through Queen Isabella's marriages to Henry of Champagne (died September 1197) and Aimery of Lusignan, Aimery's rule as king of Jerusalem from 1198 while king of Cyprus, the German crusade of 1197 to 1198 and the recovery of Beirut and Sidon, the truce with al-Adil of 1198, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond IV and Leo of Armenia, and the Pisan plot against Aimery. Read online
• Calendar of the Acts of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Various, calendared by Reinhold Rohricht (documents 1097 to 1291; calendar published 1893, Additamentum 1904). A chronological calendar of every charter, letter and treaty of the Latin East then known, with date, parties, witnesses and the edition where each is printed. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III (pontifical years 1 to 3, 1198 to 1201), Innocent III (Lotario dei Conti di Segni) and the papal chancery (1198 onwards, year by year). The register for the second and third pontifical years (February 1199 to February 1201) holds the letters that set the eastern stage for 1200: the exchange with Kaloyan of Bulgaria opened in December 1199 and continued through 1200 over union with Rome and a crown, letters to Vukan of Zeta and to Stefan of Serbia, letters to Alexios III and the patriarch John Kamateros pressing for church union and help for the crusade, the preaching commissions and the legation of Peter Capuano, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond and Leo of Armenia, letters to Aimery of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and the French interdict over Ingeborg. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online
• General Cartulary of the Order of the Hospital, Various, edited by Joseph Delaville Le Roulx (documents 1100 to 1310; published in 4 vols, Paris, 1894 to 1906). Volume 1 (1100 to 1200) and volume 2 (1201 to 1260) print in full the Hospital's charters: royal and baronial grants in Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch and Cilicia, papal bulls, the order's European priories and its agreements with the Temple and the Italians. Read online
• The Rule of the Templars: the Latin Rule, the French Rule and the hierarchical statutes, Anonymous (the Council of Troyes and the order's chapter) (Latin rule 1129; French translation about 1140; hierarchical statutes (retrais) about 1165; further statutes to about 1260). Not a chronicle but the constitution of the Temple as it stood in 1200: the hierarchical statutes describe the master, seneschal, marshal and the commanders of Jerusalem, Tripoli and Antioch, the drawing up of the line of battle, the convent's discipline and the horses, squires and tents allowed to each rank. Read online
• Excerpta Cypria, Various, translated by Claude Delaval Cobham (texts from antiquity to the 19th century, translated and published 1908). Collects in English the passages on Cyprus from Greek, Latin, Arabic and other writers. Read online