Kingdom of Jerusalem

Who rules

Name

Aimery of Lusignan (as king, Amalric II) and Queen Isabella I

Title

King and queen of Jerusalem

Since

Isabella has been the recognised queen since April 1192, when the barons set aside Guy of Lusignan for her husband Conrad of Montferrat; after Conrad's murder (28 April 1192) she married Henry of Champagne within days, and Henry never took the royal title. Aimery married her in October 1197 (wedding or at least betrothal) and the patriarch Aymar crowned them together at Acre in January 1198.

Born

Aimery about 1145 (not pinned; he was an adult knight by the 1160s); Isabella in 1172, so 27 or 28 on 1 January 1200.

Family

Aimery is the elder brother of the late King Guy of Lusignan (died 1194), a Poitevin who came East about 1168, constable of the kingdom from 1179-1181 to 1194, lord of Cyprus from 1194 and its crowned king since September 1197. His first wife Eschiva of Ibelin, daughter of Baldwin of Ramla, died in 1196 or early 1197. Isabella is the daughter of King Amalric I and the Byzantine princess Maria Komnene; her half-brothers by her mother's second marriage to Balian of Ibelin are John (the constable) and Philip of Ibelin.

Confidence

high

Marriage and coronation: Wikipedia (Edbury, Runciman) puts the wedding or betrothal in October 1197 and the coronation by the patriarch in January 1198; Isabella's page and fmg place the coronation at Acre; fmg quotes a charter of October 1198 in which he styles himself 'Aymericus ... Jerusalem Latinorum rex nonus et rex Cypri'. Aimery's birth year is not pinned.

Overlord

None for Jerusalem. Aimery holds Cyprus as a vassal of the western emperor (crowned at Nicosia in September 1197 by the imperial chancellor Conrad of Hildesheim), but the kingdom of Jerusalem owes homage to no one. The western empire has been disputed since 1198 between Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick, so the imperial tie gives Aimery no help. The pope claims the direction of the crusade.

The realm that morning

At first light on 1 January 1200 Aimery and Isabella hold the coast from the Dog River north of Beirut to the Jaffa plain south of Arsuf, broken at Sidon, which is shared with al-Adil. The hills behind (the Gharb and the Shuf above Beirut and Sidon, Beaufort, Toron and the Galilee hills behind Tyre and Acre, the Nablus hills behind Caesarea) and Jaffa are Ayyubid (dam records). To the north, between the Dog River and the Nahr Ibrahim, lies the Kisrawan coast round the bay of Jounieh, whose attachment in 1200 (to Beirut or to Gibelet) is not pinned; the Embriaci's Gibelet and the county of Tripoli lie beyond (tri records).

The truce of 1198 holds. The king's own hand is on Acre, Tyre and Beirut; the barons hold Sidon (half), Caesarea, Arsuf, Haifa, Caymont and Scandelion; the orders and the communes hold their quarters, houses and villages under their own rule.

Threats

• The truce ends about March 1204; al-Adil, if he wins Egypt in 1200, will face the Franks as master of Damascus and Cairo together.
• A crusading army that breaks the truce early, or small crusading bands that provoke the Ayyubids.
• The succession: the king is about 55, the heiress is seven; if Isabella dies the crown passes to Maria and the High Court must choose a guardian, and the Ibelins and Lusignans would compete.
• Baronial opposition: the Tiberias brothers, and the Ibelins' growing weight (John the constable wants a great fief).
• Fighting between the communes in the ports; the Pisan-Genoese rivalry.
• The Antiochene succession war drawing in the orders and Leo of Armenia.
• Famine in Egypt (the low Nile of 1200 onwards: egy records), which may raise grain prices in the ports and unsettle the Ayyubid side.

Heirs

• Maria of Montferrat ('la Marquise'), born in the summer of 1192, after the murder of her father Conrad of Montferrat (28 April 1192; 27 April in some accounts): aged 7, heiress of the kingdom after her mother. Through her father she is niece of Boniface, marquis of Montferrat since 1192; she has no claim on Montferrat itself.
• Alice of Champagne, daughter of Henry of Champagne (died 10 September 1197): born about 1193 (Wikipedia) or 1195/1196 (fmg), so aged between 3 and 6. Henry promised his eldest surviving daughter to Aimery's eldest surviving son with the county of Jaffa as her dowry (the son is not named in the sources used; Alice eventually marries Hugh of Cyprus about 1210); Jaffa has since been lost.
• Philippa of Champagne, the younger daughter of Henry, born about 1197 (Wikipedia), aged 2 or 3. A further daughter of Henry (named Margaret in some accounts, Marie in fmg) died young; whether she is alive on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.
• Sibylla, daughter of Aimery and Isabella, born in 1198 (Wikipedia; fmg estimates 1199/1200): an infant on 1 January 1200.
• Not yet born on the usual estimates: Melisende (born around 1200, Wikipedia; after 1200/1201, fmg) and Amalric (born about 1200 or 1201, died 2 February 1205).
• Aimery's children by Eschiva of Ibelin (Hugh, born 1193/1194, and his brothers Guy and John, and their sisters Burgundia, Helvis and Alice) are heirs to Cyprus, not to Jerusalem (cyp records).

Claims through the queen

The crown passes through Isabella. Maria of Montferrat comes first; the Montferrat interest is her uncle Boniface's family and the memory of her father Conrad, who saved Tyre in 1187 and was chosen king in April 1192 days before his murder, so Tyre and the Genoese remember him well. Alice and Philippa of Champagne come next for Jerusalem; their father's county of Champagne passed in 1197 to his brother Theobald III, so their claim to Champagne is dormant and would wake only if Theobald's line failed.

Their legitimacy, and Maria's, can be attacked through Isabella's annulment from her first husband Humphrey IV of Toron in 1190, which many thought irregular. In 1197 Henry and Aimery agreed marriages between Henry's daughters and Aimery's sons by Eschiva: Henry promised his eldest surviving daughter (Alice) to Aimery's eldest surviving son, with the county of Jaffa, now lost, as dowry. This binds the Champagne girls to the Lusignan house of Cyprus.

Aimery reigns as the queen's husband: if Isabella died first, the barons would hold, as they did against Guy of Lusignan in 1190, that the crown passes to her heir Maria and not to her widower, and the High Court would settle the guardianship.

Officers

• Constable: John of Ibelin, the queen's half-brother, appointed by Henry of Champagne in 1194 when Aimery was deprived of the office; still constable on 1 January 1200 (Wikipedia: 'by 1198 he had become constable'). He later gives up the office in exchange for Beirut: the date is given as c. 1200 (German list), c. 1202 (Wikipedia, Aimery), 1204 (French Wikipedia) and 1205 (fmg, English list).
• Seneschal: Ralph of Tiberias (of Saint-Omer), seneschal since 1194; banished in 1198 after the assault on Aimery at Tyre and living at Tripoli. Whether the office is treated as vacant is not pinned.
• Marshal: a John, listed as marshal 1194-1200 (identity not pinned).
• Chamberlain: not pinned for 1 January 1200 (a Thomas is listed 1190-1197; Rohard of Haifa from 1201).
• Chancellor: Joscius, archbishop of Tyre since 1186, chancellor since about 1192; the modern list closes his chancellorship in 1200 (why is not pinned) and he probably died in 1202 (Wikipedia).
• Butler: not pinned.
• The viscounts of Acre and of Tyre, the king's officers who preside over the burgess courts and keep order in the two royal cities: names not pinned.

High court

The High Court (Haute Cour) of the king's liegemen meets at Acre: the barons, the knights of the money fiefs and, under the assize on liege homage (assise sur la ligece, of Amalric I, about 1166), the rear-vassals too, who owe liege homage to the king and may act together against a lord who disseizes one of them without judgment. In March 1198 four German horsemen attacked Aimery at Tyre; Aimery blamed Ralph of Tiberias, the seneschal, and banished him. Ralph demanded judgment by his peers and claimed the protection of the assize against the king himself; Aimery would not be bound, and Ralph went into exile at Tripoli rather than force a breach.

The case became a leading precedent in the later lawbooks. The written assizes said to have been kept in the Holy Sepulchre were lost in 1187; Aimery set out to record what was remembered of the law, and the 'Livre au Roi', which sets out the rights of the king and of a queen regnant and her husband, belongs to his reign (1198-1205).

Lordships in 1200

• Royal domain: Acre and Tyre, and Beirut in the king's hand since its recovery in October 1197 (no lord is recorded before the grant to John of Ibelin, between 1200 and 1205). The county of Jaffa and Ascalon, held by Aimery from 1193, merged in the crown in 1198 and is lost to al-Adil.
• Sidon: Reginald (Renaud Grenier), restored in 1197 to the ruined town; the truce of 1198 shares Sidon with al-Adil.
• Caesarea: Lady Juliana and her husband Aymar of Lairon (charters of 24 October 1197 and February 1201).
• Arsuf: Lady Melisende and her husband Thierry d'Orca ('Orguenes' in the Lignages), a knight of Henry of Champagne who married her after 1192 and dies in 1207.
• Haifa: Pagan of Haifa or his son Rohard (not pinned).
• Caymont: granted with five other places near Acre to Balian of Ibelin under the settlement of 1192; Balian died in 1193; holder on 1 January 1200 not pinned (perhaps his son John).
• Scandelion: a lord Raymond about 1200 in one modern list (low confidence).
• Lost lordships whose heirs live at Acre or in exile: Galilee (Hugh of Tiberias, titular prince, and his brothers), Ibelin and Nablus (the Ibelins and the dowager queen Maria Komnene), Ramla and Mirabel (the heirs of Baldwin of Ibelin, among them Aimery's children by Eschiva), Blanchegarde and the old Brisebarre claim to Beirut (Juliana's son Walter), Toron and Oultrejordain (after Humphrey IV, the claim runs through his sister's daughters by Ruben III of Armenia, who live in Cilicia), Bethsan, Hebron, Montreal and Banyas.

Great families

The Ibelins (the dowager queen Maria Komnene, widow of Balian, died 1193; her sons John the constable, born 1178 or 1179, and Philip; her daughters Helvis, wife of Reginald of Sidon, and Margaret, wife of Hugh of Tiberias) are the queen's own kin and the strongest baronial house. The Saint-Omer brothers of Tiberias (Hugh, Ralph, William, Otto) lost Galilee and are estranged from the king since 1198. The Grenier kin hold Sidon and Caesarea.

The Lusignans and their Poitevin and Cypriot following form the king's party. Aymar of Lairon (Caesarea), Thierry d'Orca (Arsuf) and the lord of Haifa are the other resident barons.

Military orders

The three military orders are powers of their own, answerable to their masters and to Rome: the Templars and the Hospitallers, with their headquarters in Acre since 1191, and the German Hospital of St Mary, founded at the siege of Acre (1190), made a military order at Acre in March 1198 and confirmed by Innocent III in February 1199. They hold houses, towers, mills (Doc for the Temple, Recordane for the Hospital, on the Na'aman river near Acre), the Templar tower of Le Destroit on the coast road near Atlit, and village rents near Acre and Caesarea (Juliana of Caesarea gave property to the Hospital in October 1197). They are Church map records (Temple, Acre, Hospital, Acre, Teutonic house, Acre); their great castles lie in Tripoli and Antioch.

Their brethren and money are the backbone of any campaign, and they will judge whether the truce should be kept: the Templar master Gilbert Erail (master since 1193) is said to have favoured keeping faith with the Muslims under the treaties, for which some accused the Temple, and Innocent III later held the Temple's dealings with al-Adil against it in its quarrels with the Hospital (Wikipedia, thin).

Communes

Venice, Genoa and Pisa hold self-governing quarters in Acre and Tyre, each with its church, market, oven, bath and its own court for its own people, under consuls or viscounts sent from home; Marseille and other Provencal and Catalan towns have smaller grants. Venice's rights rest on the Pactum Warmundi (1124): a quarter in Acre and a third of Tyre and of Tyre's villages, freedom from tolls, and its own law. Conrad of Montferrat, who held Tyre in 1187-1192, weakened the Venetian position there and rewarded Genoa and Pisa, whose ships had helped him, with new quarters and exemptions.

Henry of Champagne uncovered a Pisan plot to give Tyre to Guy of Lusignan in May 1193, cut the Pisan colony at Tyre and expelled the Pisans from Acre; Aimery, then constable, was arrested for taking their side. As king, Aimery is the Pisans' old patron and is said to have kept good relations with the merchant republics; his own charters for them before 1200 are not pinned. The communes' ships carry the pilgrims, the crusaders and the trade; their quarrels with one another are a standing danger in the ports.

Castles and towns

Acre (capital, double harbour, royal castle, the orders' headquarters, the communes' quarters), Tyre (the strongest city, walled across its isthmus, royal), Beirut (recovered October 1197, royal), Sidon (ruined, shared with al-Adil), Caesarea, Arsuf and Haifa (small ports whose walls were slighted in 1191), the castle of Scandelion and the casal of Casal Imbert on the road between Tyre and Acre, Caymont at the edge of the Jezreel valley, the Templar tower of Le Destroit. Chateau Pelerin at Atlit does not exist: it is built in 1218.

Mints tolls markets

The crown lives on the tolls and dues of Acre and Tyre: the harbour dues and customs of the Chain (Catena) at Acre, the market dues of the Fonde (the court and market of the land trade), the dues on pilgrims and on the caravans that come down from Damascus under the truce, and the rents of the royal villages (casalia) of the two plains. Much of it is paid out again as money fiefs (fief-rentes) to knights. Acre struck gold bezants of the 'saracenate' type, imitations of Fatimid dinars, for the Levant trade (the type is well known; the output in 1200 is not pinned).

Whether Aimery struck silver in his own name as king of Jerusalem is not pinned.

Coinage

Gold 'saracen bezants' (imitation dinars) of Acre; silver deniers of the twelfth-century kings; Egyptian and Syrian dinars and dirhams circulate in the trade. Details for 1200 are thin.

Treaties

• The truce of 1198 with al-Adil: concluded about 1 July 1198 (other accounts June 1198; either date falls in the Hijri year 594, which runs from 13 November 1197 to 2 November 1198, if an Arabic source is checked) for five years and eight months, so to about March 1204. The Franks keep Beirut and the coast they held; al-Adil keeps Jaffa; Sidon and its district are divided. Some modern accounts say it covered the Frankish coast as far as Antioch. In September 1204 a new truce gave the Franks the Ayyubid shares of Sidon and Ramla, which suggests Ramla too had a shared status before; that is not pinned for 1198-1200.
• The settlement of 1192 (treaty of Jaffa, 2 September 1192), on which the coastal kingdom rests: the coast from Tyre to Jaffa to the Franks, free pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Ramla and Lydda shared, Caymont granted to Balian of Ibelin.
• The understanding of 1194 with the Nizari chief, who apologised to Henry of Champagne for Conrad's murder (Henry page); whether Aimery renewed it is not pinned.

Wars and feuds

• No war with the Ayyubids: the truce of 1198 holds that winter, so there is no raiding belt on the kingdom's land frontier.
• The king against the Tiberias brothers: Ralph, the seneschal, is in exile at Tripoli since 1198; his brother Hugh, titular prince of Galilee, is married to an Ibelin; where Hugh lives that winter is not pinned.
• The old feud of the Pisans against Genoa and against the Champagne party (1193) lies behind every quarrel in the ports; it is quiet that winter as far as the sources show.
• The succession war of Antioch (Bohemond III, Bohemond IV, Raymond-Roupen and Leo of Armenia) to the north: the military orders are drawn in; Aimery's own position is not pinned (tri records).

Relations

Cyprus: same king, separate kingdom, Aimery's base, refuge and treasury; the heirs differ (Hugh for Cyprus, Maria for Jerusalem). Tripoli and Antioch: Bohemond IV of Tripoli shelters the banished Ralph of Tiberias; Bohemond III and the Antiochene succession are tri's records. Cilician Armenia: Leo was crowned king in January 1198 by Conrad of Mainz, who had also proposed Aimery as Isabella's husband (campaign notes); Leo's kin carry claims into the kingdom (the Toron claim through Ruben III's daughters).

The Ayyubids: the truce with al-Adil; al-Afdal and al-Zahir raised their siege of Damascus around December 1199 and al-Adil has turned on Egypt (dam and egy records). Byzantium: Isabella's mother is a Komnene; Cyprus was taken from the Byzantine usurper Isaac Komnenos in 1191, and Constantinople has not given up its claim to the island. The papacy: Innocent III has preached the new crusade since August 1198; the patriarch Aymar the Monk crowned the king and queen.

The Nizaris: the 1194 understanding.

Churches

Latin: the patriarch of Jerusalem, Aymar the Monk (patriarch since 1194, formerly archbishop of Caesarea; he dies in October 1202), residing at Acre; the archbishop of Tyre (Joscius, also chancellor), the archbishop of Caesarea, the archbishop of Nazareth in exile, the bishops of Acre and Sidon, and of Beirut once restored (not pinned for 1200), and the exiled chapters of the Holy Sepulchre and the shrines. Eastern: Greek Orthodox (Melkite) Christians, the majority of the local Christians in the ports and villages, with their own clergy; Syriac Orthodox (Jacobites), Armenians, Nestorians; the Maronites of the Lebanon, in union with Rome since about 1182. Jews in Acre and Tyre (Benjamin of Tudela, in the 1170s, counted about 200 families at Acre and about 500 Jews at Tyre); Samaritans in small numbers; Muslim peasants on many villages of the plains of Acre and Tyre.

The Latin Church is not on this record: see the Church map.

The host

The king's own knights and sergeants, paid from the money fiefs of Acre and Tyre; the service of the barons of Sidon, Caesarea, Arsuf, Haifa and the rest; Turcopoles (light horse raised from local Christians and converts); the burgess militia of the cities; the brethren and paid men of the three military orders; the ships and crews of the communes; Cypriot knights at the king's call. No figures are given in the sources used. Aimery is a veteran: constable from about 1180 to 1194, captured at Hattin (1187), at the siege of Acre, and in the field with the Germans at Beirut in 1197.

Crusade

Innocent III called a new crusade in August 1198 and ordered the clergy to pay a fortieth of their income at the end of December 1199 (campaign notes). Fulk of Neuilly is preaching it in France. The barons who took the cross at the tournament of Ecry on 28 November 1199 chose Theobald III of Champagne as leader there (GM canon; Theobald is the brother of the late Henry of Champagne and so uncle of the queen's daughters Alice and Philippa).

No crusading army is in the East on 1 January 1200: most of the Germans of 1197 had gone home by July 1198, leaving some knights with the new German order. Aimery's crusade policy, as his later conduct shows (1202-1204), is to keep the truce until it expires or until an army large enough to win arrives, and not to let small bands break it; this is an inference for 1200 from his later acts.

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.

1. January to February 1200Al-Adil pursues al-Afdal into Egypt, defeats him at Bilbeis and takes Cairo; on 17 February 1200 (Wikipedia; other accounts date his deposition of al-Mansur later in 596 AH) he proclaims himself sultan. The Franks' truce partner becomes master of Egypt and Damascus.Depends on: Al-Adil beating al-Afdal; the Egyptian regiments going over to him. Stopped by: A victory of al-Afdal and al-Zahir; a Frankish attack on al-Adil's rear, which would break the truce.
2. During 1200 (not pinned)Queen Isabella bears Aimery a daughter, Melisende, and a son, Amalric (both born about 1200 or 1201; Amalric dies 2 February 1205). A son of Isabella would probably have outranked his half-sisters under the custom that prefers males of the same degree, which would change the succession; the lawbooks do not settle it for this case.Depends on: Natural course; the queen's health. Stopped by: Death or miscarriage; the king's death.
3. Between 1200 and 1205 (not pinned)Aimery grants Beirut to John of Ibelin in exchange for the constableship. John rebuilds the city and its castle and makes Beirut the Ibelin seat.Depends on: Aimery wanting the constableship for his own man (later Walter of Montbeliard) and John accepting a ruined frontier town for an office. Stopped by: A breach between the king and the Ibelins; renewed war at Beirut.
4. 1200The crusade barons meet at Soissons and Compiegne and decide to seek ships; their envoys reach Venice in February 1201 (Villehardouin). No crusading army reaches Acre in 1200.Depends on: Theobald's leadership and the barons' agreement. Stopped by: Theobald's death (May 1201, later) or a decision to go by land.
5. During 1200 (not pinned)Joscius, archbishop of Tyre, ceases to be chancellor (the modern list ends his term in 1200; he probably dies in 1202); the seal passes to a successor not pinned (Ralph of Merencourt is chancellor from 1206).Depends on: Joscius's age or a royal decision. Stopped by: Nothing in play.
6. 25 or 27 October 1200Death of Conrad of Wittelsbach, archbishop of Mainz (campaign notes), who chose Aimery as Isabella's husband in 1197 and crowned Leo of Armenia.Depends on: Natural course. Stopped by: Change in his circumstances.
7. December 1200Death of the master of the Temple, Gilbert Erail (date as usually given; see Temple, Acre); a new master is chosen at Acre.Depends on: Natural course. Stopped by: Nothing in play.

Places of note

• Acre, royal capital: Royal castle, the patriarch, the orders' headquarters, the communes' quarters, the High Court.
• Tyre, royal city: The strongest walls of the kingdom; the Venetian third; the archbishop.
• Beirut, in the king's hand: Recovered in October 1197; not yet granted to John of Ibelin.

Where the sources disagree

• The brief and some accounts call the banished seneschal Ralph of Tiberias; current Wikipedia calls him Ralph of Saint-Omer. They are the same man (son of Walter of Saint-Omer and Eschiva of Bures, princess of Galilee).
• The date of John of Ibelin's grant of Beirut is given as c. 1200 (German Wikipedia constable list, 1194-1200), c. 1202 (English Wikipedia, Aimery), 1204 (French Wikipedia) and 1205 (fmg and the English constable list). All place it after 1 January 1200 or at the earliest during 1200, so Beirut is treated as royal on 1 January 1200.
• Henry of Champagne's daughters: Wikipedia names three (Alice, Margaret who died young, Philippa); fmg names Marie (died before 1205, the eldest), Alix and Philippa.
• Sibylla's birth: 1198 (Wikipedia) or 1199/1200 (fmg estimate). Alice of Champagne's birth: about 1193 (Wikipedia) or 1195/1196 (fmg).
• The campaign notes make Theobald III leader of the crusade from Ecry (28 November 1199). Villehardouin tells of the barons taking the cross at Ecry and then holding parliaments at Soissons and Compiegne in 1200 at which the plans and leadership were settled; the campaign ruling is followed here.
• The truce: 1 July 1198 (Wikipedia, Aimery) or June 1198 (Wikipedia, Crusade of 1197).

Evidence: The king, queen, coronation, truce and officers are well recorded in the Old French continuations of William of Tyre and in charters (Edbury, Riley-Smith, La Monte, fmg). Thin points: the exact births of the queen's younger children, the chamberlain and marshal, the holders of Haifa, Caymont and Scandelion, and the communes' charters under Aimery.

On the map: The inland limits are drawn from the terrain (the foot of the hills) and from the known Ayyubid castles and towns behind them; the treaties of 1192 and 1198 give no surveyed line. The Sidon district is drawn whole although it is shared. The quarters of the communes and the orders inside the cities are not separate ground.

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 Book of the Two Gardens, on the Reigns of Nur al-Din and Saladin, and its Sequel, Abu Shama (Shihab al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi) (about 1240 to 1267, at Damascus). The Rawdatayn ends with Saladin's death in 1193 and matters for 1200 as the store of Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's lost al-Barq al-Shami and of al-Qadi al-Fadil's letters, quoted at length, which describe the Ayyubid princes, the Jazira and the frontier a few years earlier. Read online
• 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
• Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
• The Chronicle of Smbat Sparapet (Sempad the Constable), Smbat Sparapet, brother of King Hetum I of Cilicia (about 1270 to 1276). The Cilician court chronicle, drawing on Matthew of Edessa for its early part and on family memory later. Read online
• The Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem, Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (al-Katib) (about 1192 to 1193). Saladin's secretary's ornate account of the conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, ending with Saladin's death in 1193. Read online
• The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad (after 1193, probably between about 1198 and 1228, at Aleppo). Ends with Saladin's death in March 1193 and so gives no event of 1200, but it is the formative portrait of the Ayyubid house of 1200: al-Adil, al-Afdal, al-Aziz and al-Zahir Ghazi as Saladin's lieutenants, the Mosul and Jazira campaigns, the war of Acre and the treaty of Jaffa of 1192. 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
• Charters of the Teutonic Order, Various, edited by Ernst Strehlke (documents 1190 to about 1300; published Berlin, 1869). Prints the earliest documents of the German hospital at Acre founded in 1190 and turned into a military order in 1198: the papal bulls of 1196 to 1199, including Innocent III's confirmation of February 1199, the grants in Acre, Tyre and Cilicia, and the first European endowments. 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

3 more in the sources library for The Latin East and the Ayyubids.