The Last Crusader Kingdom
The Last Crusader Kingdom: Dawn of a Dynasty in Twelfth-Century Cyprus
Copyright © 2017 Helena P. Schrader. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978-1-62787-517-2 (paperback)
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Contents
Cast of Characters
Genealogical Charts
House of Jerusalem
House of Lusignan
House of Ibelin
Maps
Map of Cyprus
Map of Outremer at the Start of the 13th Century
Introduction and Acknowledgments
The Last Crusader Kingdom
Prologue: Lusignan’s Wolves
1 Arrest of a Constable
2 The Great Negotiator
3 Encounters in Seaside Taverns
4 The Ineffective Despot
5 Of Beggars and Kings
6 Interlude in a Precarious Peace
7 Rebels Against the Hospital
8 Disinherited
9 Staking a Claim
10 Call of Kin
11 Faltering Dynasty
13 An Eye for an Eye . . .
14 A Lawless Land
15 The Saint in the Cave
16 The Light at Dawn
17 The Old Kingdom
18 Pirates of the Mediterranean
19 Leo of Armenia
20 A Crown for Cyprus
21 One Wrong Step
22 The Last Kingdom
Dear Reader
Historical Notes
Glossary
Also by Helena P. Schrader
Cast of Characters
Historical figures are in bold; characters who appear twice are marked by an *; dates in italics are estimates.
House of Jerusalem
Isabella, Queen of Jerusalem, b. 1172, reigned 1190-1205
Henri de Champagne, consort of Isabella 1192-1197
Marie de Montferrat, daughter of Isabella by her second husband, Conrad de Montferrat, b. 1192, reigned 1205–1211
Marguerite, daughter of Isabella and Champagne, b. 1194, died before 1205
Alice, daughter of Isabella and Champagne, b. 1195, m. King Hugh I of Cyprus 1210, died 1246
Philippa, daughter of Isabella and Champagne, b. 1196
House of Lusignan
Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem 1186–1190, widower of Queen Sibylla
Aimery de Lusignan, his elder brother, King of Cyprus, 1196–1205, King of Jerusalem 1197–1205
Eschiva d’Ibelin, b. 1165, Aimery’s first wife from ca. 1173
Guy, their eldest son, b. 1182, died before 1205
Burgundia, their eldest daughter, b. 1184
Helvis, their second daughter, b. 1186
John (called “Aimery” to avoid confusion with John d’Ibelin), their second son, b. 1189, died before 1205
Hugh, youngest son of Aimery and Eschiva, b. 1195, King of Cyprus 1205–1218
House of Ibelin
Balian d’Ibelin, b. 1149, Baron of Ibelin 1177–1187, Baron of Caymont 1192–1199
Maria Comnena, his wife, b.1154, Queen of Jerusalem 1167–1174, mother of Queen Isabella,* d. 1217
Helvis, their eldest daughter, b. 1178, m. Reginald de Sidon ca 1192
John, their eldest son, b. 1179, Constable of Jerusalem 1198, Lord of Beirut from 1202, d. 1236
Margaret, Balian and Maria’s second daughter, b. 1181
Philip, Balian and Maria’s second son, b. 1182
Eschiva*, Balian’s niece
Henri de Brie, Balian’s nephew, son of his half-sister Ermengard, b. 1166
Heloise, his wife
Anseau, their eldest son, b. 1184 (Note: Although we know Anseau de Brie was a grandson of Balian’s half-sister—either Ermengard or Stephanie—we do not know his father’s name. His grandfather was Anseau.)
Conan, their second son, b. 1185
Other Barons of Outremer
Richard of Camville, appointed baillie of Cyprus by Richard I
His son Richard, “Dick,” squire to Guy de Lusignan
Robert of Thornham, appointed baillie of Cyprus by Richard I
Humphrey de Toron, formerly a baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, first husband of Isabella of Jerusalem (the marriage was annulled by a Church court headed by the Papal Legate in November 1190)
Galganus de Cheneché, adherent of King Guy at the latest from the siege of Acre 1189 onwards
His son, Gauvain
Reynald Barlais, a Poitevin supporter of the Lusignans
Aimery de Rivet, seneschal of Cyprus in 1197
Walter de Bethsan
Ibelin Household
Georgios, Balian’s squire
Beatrice d’Auber, Maria’s widowed waiting woman, a former Saracen captive
Bart, Amalric, and Joscelyn, her sons
Anne, Beatrice’s niece, lady to Eschiva de Lusignan
Sir Galvin, a Scottish knight
Sir Sebastian, a Syrian Christian knight
Sir Constantine, an Edessan knight with Armenian blood
Father Angelus, Maria Zoë’s confessor, tutor to the children
Greeks
Abbot Eustathios, Abbot of Antiphonitis
Brother Zotikos, a monk of Antiphonitis
Andreas Katzouroubis, an apothecary
Father Andronikos, a priest
Captain Kanakes, a pirate
Italians
Carlo di Rossi, a caravansary/khan owner
Mario, his brother
Francesco Pasquali, bailli of the Pisan commune on Cyprus
Armenians
Leo, Prince (later King) of Armenia
Simon, Lord of Corycos
Ravon, his son
Map of Cyprus
Map of Outremer at the Start of the 13th Century
Introduction and Acknowledgments
IN CONTRAST TO MY JERUSALEM TRILOGY,** the historical basis for this novel is very thin. The early history of the Kingdom of Cyprus is largely lost in the mists of time, and much of what we think we know—or what is currently accepted in academic circles—is dubious. There are grounds for questioning some of the common assumptions—such as the year of Balian d’Ibelin’s death, the uncompromising nature of Ibelin hostility to Aimery de Lusignan, the “late” arrival of the Ibelins on Cyprus, and more. I hope to publish a history of the Ibelins, in which I will raise a number of these issues in a nonfictional format in order to invite scholarly discussion.
Meanwhile, however, this novel offers a fictional depiction of events as I believe they could have happened, including the usual advantages historical fiction offers with respect to exploring human nature and relationships. As a novel, this book looks at the founding of the Kingdom of Cyprus in the years 1193-1198—but also at the ever-recurring need to pacify countries or regions that have been torn apart by wars, invasions, and tyrannical government. This is a novel of medieval Cyprus—and of post-conflict reconstruction around the world in any age.
But first a few words about the period and characters in this novel, and about the major revisionist thesis incorporated in the novel and why.
We know that Richard I of England, having conquered Cyprus in May 1191, sold it to the Knights Templar for one hundred thousand bezants in July of the same year. Acco
rding to Peter Edbury, the leading modern historian of medieval Cyprus, Templar rule was “rapacious and unpopular,” resulting in a revolt in April 1192. Although a Templar sortie temporarily scattered the rebels, the causes of the revolt were hardly addressed, and the latent threat of continued and renewed violence was clear. In the circumstances, the Grand Master of the Templars recognized that his Order would have to invest considerable manpower to regain control of the island. He also recognized that he did not have the resources to fight in both Cyprus and Syria. In consequence, he gave precedence (as he must) to the struggle on the mainland, the Holy Land itself, against the Saracens. The Templars duly returned the island to Richard of England.
Richard promptly sold the island a second time, this time to Guy de Lusignan. Guy de Lusignan had been crowned and anointed King of Jerusalem in 1186 in a coup d’état engineered by his wife, Sibylla. Although Guy de Lusignan was widely viewed as a usurper, the bulk of the barons submitted to his rule in order to fight united against the much superior forces of Saladin that threatened the Kingdom. Guy, however, proceeded to prove the low opinion of his barons correct by promptly leading the entire Christian army to an avoidable defeat on the Horns of Hattin on July 4, 1187. He spent roughly a year in Saracen captivity, while his Kingdom fell city by city and castle by castle to Saladin, until only the city of Tyre remained. Needless to say, this further discredited him with the surviving barons, prelates, and burghers of his kingdom. His claim to the crown of Jerusalem was undermined fatally when his wife, through whom he had gained it, died in November 1190. Although Guy continued to style himself “King of Jerusalem,” a fiction at first bolstered by King Richard of England’s support, by April 1192 King Richard had given up on him. Bowing to the High Court of Jerusalem, Richard abandoned Guy and acknowledged Conrad de Montferrat as King of Jerusalem. The sale of Cyprus to Guy was, therefore, a means of compensating him for the loss of his kingdom of Jerusalem.
Guy may have left for Cyprus at once, in which case he would have arrived in April 1192. However, this is far from certain. At that time the Third Crusade was ongoing, and it is unlikely that Guy would have been able to convince many knights to accompany him as long as Richard the Lionheart was fighting for Jerusalem and Jaffa. A more likely date for Guy’s arrival on Cyprus is therefore October 1192, after Richard’s departure for the West.
Guy was apparently accompanied by a small group of Frankish lords and knights whose lands had been lost to Saladin in 1187 and 1188 and had not been recaptured in the course of the Third Crusade. The names of only a few are known. These include Humphrey de Toron, Renier de Jubail, Reynald Barlais, Walter de Bethsan, and Galganus de Cheneché. (Guy’s older brother Aimery de Lusignan was notably absent.) Guy would have arrived on an island that was either still in a state of open rebellion or completely lawless.
Admittedly, historian George Hill (who was actually an expert in ancient history, coins, and iconography rather than a medievalist), tries to explain how Guy arrived on an island eagerly awaiting him by inventing (that is the only word one can use, since he cites no source) the story that the Templars “slew the Greeks indiscriminately like sheep; a number of Greeks who sought asylum in a church were massacred; the mounted Templars rode through [Nicosia] spitting on their lances everyone they could reach; the streets ran with blood . . . The Templars rode through the land, sacking villages and spreading desolation, for the population of both cities and villages fled to the mountains.” (George Hill, A History of Cyprus, Volume 2: The Frankish Period 1192 – 1432,” Cambridge University Press, 1948, p. 37.)
There’s a serious problem with this lurid tale. As Hill himself admits, the Templars had just fourteen knights on Cyprus and twenty-nine sergeants, while Edbury calculates that the Greek population of the island was roughly one hundred thousand. Yes, in a surprise sortie to fight their way out of Nicosia and flee to Acre (as we know they did) the Templars probably killed many civilians, including innocent ones. It is unlikely that the fleeing Templars would have taken the time to stop and slaughter people collected in a church, however, because that would have given the armed insurgents (who had forced them to seek refuge in their commandery in the first place) an opportunity to rally. They certainly did not have the time and resources to massacre people in other cities scattered over nearly ten thousand square kilometers of island. In short, we can be sure the Templars killed enough people to be remembered with hatred, but not enough to break the resistance to Latin rule, much less to denude the island of its population. If nothing else, if they had broken the resistance, they would not have fled to Acre, admitted defeat, and urged the Grand Chapter to return Cyprus to Richard of England!
Despite the absurdity of the notion that Guy arrived on a peaceful island willing to receive him without resistance, most histories today repeat a charming story that as soon as Guy arrived on Cyprus, he sent to his arch-enemy Saladin for advice on how to rule it. What is more, the ever-chivalrous and wise Sultan graciously responded that “if he wants the island to be secure, he must give it all away.” (See Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191 – 1374, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 16.) Allegedly, based on this advice, Guy invited settlers from all the Christian countries of the eastern Mediterranean to settle on Cyprus, offering everyone rich rewards and making them marry the local women. According to this fairy tale, the dispossessed people of Syria, both high and low, flooded to Cyprus and were rewarded with rich fiefs, until Guy had only enough land to support just twenty household knights—but after that everyone lived happily ever after.
History isn’t like that, although—often—there is a kernel of truth in such legends. I think it is fair to assume that many of the men and women who had lost their lands and livelihoods to the Saracens after Hattin did eventually come to settle on Cyprus, but I question that they arrived in the first two years after Guy acquired the island. The reason I doubt this is simple. The Knights Templar had just abandoned the island because it would be too costly, time-consuming, and difficult to pacify. In short, whoever came to Cyprus with Guy in early or late 1192 would not have found an empty island—much less one full of happy natives waiting to welcome them with song and flowers. On the contrary, the natives were already in active rebellion against the Templars and ready to resist further attempts by the Latins to control and dominate them. Perhaps the one sentence about making the settlers marry local women is a hint to a more chilling reality: that years of resistance to Latin rule left the local population with few young men, but many widows, by the time the settlers finally flooded in.
Furthermore, we know that at no time in his life did Guy de Lusignan distinguish himself by wisdom or common sense. He alienated his brother-in-law King Baldwin IV and nearly the entire High Court of Jerusalem within just three years of his marriage to Sibylla. He lost his entire kingdom in a disastrous and unnecessary campaign less than a year after he was crowned king. He started a strategically nonsensical siege of Acre that consumed crusader lives and resources for three years. He did nothing of note the entire time Richard the Lionheart was in the Holy Land. Is it really credible that he then took control of a rebellious island (that the Templars thought beyond their capacity to pacify) and set everything right in less than two years?
I think not. And Guy had only two years, because he died in 1194, either in April/May or toward the end of the year, depending on which source one consults. That is too little time even for a more competent leader to be the architect of Cyprus’ success. That honor belongs, I believe, to Guy’s older brother, the ever-competent Aimery de Lusignan, who was Lord of Cyprus not two years, but eleven.
It was certainly Aimery who obtained a crown by submitting the island to the Holy Roman Emperor, and it was Aimery who established a Latin Church hierarchy on the island. Indeed, there is ample evidence of Aimery’s able administration of Cyprus and, from 1197 to 1205, of the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well. It was Aimery de Lusignan who collected the oral tradition for the laws of Jerusalem (which had wor
ked so well) and had them written down in a legal codex known as The Book of the King. Thus it was Aimery who not only founded the dynasty that would last three hundred years, but also laid the legal and institutional foundations that would serve Cyprus so well into the fifteenth century. It is therefore far more likely that it was Aimery, not Guy, who brought settlers in—after first pacifying the Greek population and institutionalizing tolerance for all natives irrespective of religion or language that mirrored the customs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It is this thesis that forms the basis of this novel.
There is, however, another “mystery” that I seek to explain in this novel—namely, the roots of Ibelin influence on Cyprus. Historians such as Edbury posit that the Ibelins were inveterate opponents of the Lusignans until the early thirteenth century. They note that there is no record of Ibelins setting foot on the island of Cyprus before 1210, and insist that it is “certain” they were not among the early settlers—while admitting that it is impossible to draw up a complete list of the early settlers. Edbury, furthermore, admits that “it is not possible to trace [the Ibelins’] rise in detail,” yet argues it was based on close ties to King Hugh I. Close? Hugh was the son of a cousin, which in my opinion does not constitute terribly “close” kinship.
Even more difficult to understand in the conventional version of events is that the Ibelins became so powerful and entrenched within just eight years of their supposed “first appearance” on Cyprus, when an Ibelin, presumably with the consent of the Cypriot High Court (that is, the barons and bishops of the island, who had supposedly been on the island far longer), was appointed regent of Cyprus. A decade later, these alleged “latecomers” to Cyprus led a successful baronial rebellion against the most powerful monarch in Christendom—the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II—and all without, allegedly, holding fiefs on Cyprus. I don’t think that’s credible.