Aimery of Cyprus
Aimery of Lusignan, erroneously referred to as Amalric in earlier scholarship, was the first king of Cyprus from 1196 and the king of Jerusalem as the husband of Queen Isabella I from 1198 to his death. He was a capable ruler whose reign was a period of peace and stability in both kingdoms, and the progenitor of the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus.
Aimery was a younger son of Hugh VIII of Lusignan, a nobleman from Poitou. After participating in a rebellion against King Henry II of England in 1168, Aimery went to the Latin East and settled in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Aimery's marriage to Eschiva of the influential Ibelin family strengthened his position in the kingdom. His younger brother Guy married Sibylla, the sister and heir presumptive of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. Baldwin made Aimery constable of Jerusalem around 1180. Guy and Sibylla became king and queen in 1186. Aimery was one of the commanders of the Christian army at the Battle of Hattin, which ended with a decisive defeat of Christians by the Muslim Ayyubids in 1187 and the subsequent near destruction of the kingdom.
Aimery supported King Guy when the latter besieged Acre and remained loyal to him after Queen Sibylla's death in 1190, when most barons insisted that the throne had passed to Sibylla's half-sister, Isabella I. Amid insurmountable unpopularity, Guy left for Cyprus in 1192 while Aimery remained in the kingdom as constable. Isabella married Count Henry II of Champagne, who arrested Aimery after discovering a plot to deliver the city of Tyre to Guy. Upon his release, Aimery joined Guy on Cyprus. When Guy died in 1194, the Cypriot nobles elected Aimery as their new lord. Aimery immediately sought to raise Cyprus to the status of a kingdom, with a government and institutions modelled after those of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He acknowledged the suzerainty of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, who authorized Aimery's coronation as king of Cyprus in 1197.
Soon after they were both widowed, the barons of Jerusalem offered Aimery to marry Isabella and become king of Jerusalem too; he accepted and was crowned at her side. He kept the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem separate, but sent Cypriot troops to fight on the mainland, where he spent most of his reign. He sought to codify the laws of Jerusalem, resulting in the compilation of the Livre au roi. After surviving an assassination attempt in 1198, Aimery attempted to circumvent the law to banish Isabella's seneschal, Ralph of Saint-Omer, whom he thought responsible. He signed two consecutive truces with al-Adil I, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, the latter of which secured the Christian possession of the coastline from Acre to Antioch. The personal union of the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem ended when Aimery died of food poisoning; Cyprus passed to his only surviving son, Hugh I, while Isabella retained the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Early career
Aimery was born before 1155. He was the son of Hugh VIII of Lusignan, a lord from Poitou, and his wife, Burgundia of Rancon. The House of Lusignan was noted for generations of crusaders who had fought for the Holy Land in the Levant. His great-grandfather, Hugh VI of Lusignan, died in the Battle of Ramla in 1102; Aimery's grandfather, Hugh VII of Lusignan, took part in the Second Crusade. Aimery's father departed for the Levant in 1163, leaving his lands to be governed by Aimery's eldest brother, Hugh Brunus. The elder Hugh was captured by Muslims at the Battle of Harim and died in captivity in the 1160s.In 1168 Aimery joined a rebellion against his family's suzerain, King Henry II of England. The Lusignan brothers ambushed Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, as she travelled to Poitiers and killed the leader of her guard, Patrick, earl of Salisbury. Shortly after the rebellion, Aimery left Poitou for the Levant and settled in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was captured in battle by Muslims and held in Damascus. According to a 13th-century tradition, King Amalric of Jerusalem ransomed Aimery; people were fascinated by the similarity of their names and the story entered the folklore of the Latin East.
Aimery secured his position in the Latin East by marrying Eschiva of Ibelin, the elder daughter of the lord of Ramla, Baldwin of Ibelin, one of the most powerful noblemen in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. According to Ernoul, whose reliability in this instance is questionable, Aimery became a lover of King Amalric's former wife, Agnes of Courtenay. Ernoul consistently portrays Agnes unfavorably; his information about her probably came from her rival Maria Komnene, Amalric's second wife. King Amalric died on 11 July 1174 and was succeeded by his and Agnes's thirteen-year-old son, Baldwin IV. Aimery became a member of the royal court with his father-in-law's support. He may have been appointed chamberlain, which would indicate a close relationship with the royal family.
Aimery's youngest brother, Guy, married Baldwin IV's widowed sister, Sibylla, in April 1180. Ernoul writes that Sibylla had promised herself to Aimery's father-in-law, Baldwin of Ibelin, but Aimery had described Guy as a handsome and charming young man to her and her mother, Agnes, and then travelled to Poitou in the winter of 1179/1180 and brought Guy to Jerusalem. Another source, William of Tyre, does not accord to Aimery any role in Guy and Sibylla's marriage. The historian Bernard Hamilton dismisses this account and argues that King Baldwin arranged the match. Because the young king had lepromatous leprosy, Sibylla was his heir presumptive and Guy's marriage to her put him in line to become the next king, much to the dismay of the Ibelins and their allies.
Constableship
Baronial division
By 24 February 1182, Aimery had become constable of Jerusalem, the highest military authority in the kingdom after the King. He may have been granted the office shortly after his predecessor, Humphrey II of Toron, died in April 1179; alternatively, his appointment may have only come around 1181, as the consequence of the growing influence of his brother Guy. Aimery's legal ability may have developed during his long tenure in public office.In 1183 King Baldwin IV appointed Guy regent. As regent, Guy was also the commander-in-chief of the royal army. Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, launched a campaign against the kingdom on 29 September. Aimery defeated Saladin's troops in a minor skirmish with the support of his father-in-law, Baldwin, and Baldwin's brother Balian of Ibelin. After the victory, the crusaders' main army could advance as far as a spring near Saladin's camp, forcing him to retreat nine days later. Both William of Tyre and Ernoul were disappointed that the Christian army did not engage the Muslims. During the campaign, it became apparent that other military leaders were unwilling to cooperate with Guy. The ailing king dismissed Guy from regency and had his five-year-old nephew Baldwin V, Sibylla's son from her first marriage, crowned co-king on 20 November 1183.
In early 1185, Baldwin IV decreed that the pope, the Holy Roman emperor and the kings of France and England were to choose between his sister, Sibylla, and half-sister, Isabella, if Baldwin V died before reaching the age of majority. Baldwin IV died in 1185, followed by Baldwin V in mid-1186. Ignoring Baldwin IV's decree and the protests of Guy's opponents, led by Aimery's Ibelin in-laws, Sibylla's partisans proclaimed her queen and she crowned Guy king. Aimery was among Sibylla's supporters. Aimery's father-in-law, Baldwin of Ibelin, left the kingdom rather than pay homage to Guy.
Hattin and the Third Crusade
As constable, Aimery organised the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem into units before the Battle of Hattin, which ended with the decisive victory of Saladin on 4 July 1187. Along with most commanders of the Christian army, Aimery was captured on the battlefield. The victory enabled Saladin to conquer almost all of the Latin East; the only city in the kingdom that remained in Christian hands was Tyre. During the siege of Ascalon, Saladin promised the defenders that he would set free ten persons whom they named if they surrendered. Aimery and Guy were among those whom the defenders named before surrendering on 4 September, but Saladin postponed their release until early 1188. In response to the Christian losses, kings Richard I of England and Philip II of France led the Third Crusade to the Levant. Geoffrey of Lusignan, brother of Aimery and Guy, arrived with this crusade.In 1189 Guy gathered a force and laid a siege to Acre. Aimery and Geoffrey supported him during the siege. Most barons held that Guy lost his claim to kingship when Sibylla and their daughters died in late 1190, but Aimery remained loyal to his brother. The Ibelins supported Marquis Conrad of Montferrat, the defender of Tyre, who married Sibylla's half-sister, Isabella, in late November. King Richard supported the Lusignans, and made Geoffrey count of Jaffa in 1191. An assembly of the noblemen unanimously declared Conrad the lawful king on 16 April 1192. Conrad was murdered twelve days later, and Isabella hastily married Count Henry II of Champagne, whom the barons had selected to rule the kingdom. To compensate him for the loss of the kingdom, Richard I authorized Guy to purchase the island of Cyprus-which Richard I had conquered from its Byzantine governor, Isaac Komnenos, in May 1191-from the Knights Templar. Guy was to pay 40,000 bezants to Richard, who granted the right to collect the sum to Henry. Guy settled in Cyprus in early May.
Aimery remained in the Kingdom of Jerusalem as constable. When Geoffrey returned to France, Aimery claimed Jaffa. He paid homage to Isabella, but apparently not to her new husband, Henry, who doubted his loyalty. In May 1192 Henry discovered that the Pisan merchants had been plotting to deliver Tyre to Guy and clamped down on them. Aimery intervened on behalf of the Pisans and Henry had him imprisoned in the citadel of Acre. Aimery insisted that Henry had no right to imprison a vassal and constable, while Henry refused to recognize Aimery's constableship and denied that Aimery was his vassal. In exchange for Aimery's freedom, Henry demanded that Guy surrender Cyprus. Despite his long association with his unpopular brother, Aimery was well-liked by the barons, who-together with the grand masters of the Templars and the Hospitallers-prevailed on Henry to release him. After regaining his freedom, Aimery followed the example of the other Lusignan partisans and left for the kingdom for Cyprus, abandoning both his office and the fief of Jaffa. Henry then granted the constableship to Isabella's half-brother, John of Ibelin. The Third Crusade ended in September with the Kingdom of Jerusalem regaining a narrow strip of land along the coast of Palestine from Jaffa to Tyre. Saladin, the crusaders' greatest enemy, died in 1193.