Aimery of Cyprus

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Aimery of Lusignan (Template:Langx, Template:Langx, Amorí;Template:Sfn before 1155Template:Snd1 April 1205), erroneously referred to as Amalric (Template:Langx) in earlier scholarship,Template:Efn 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 in 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 Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI as his suzerain, and Henry VI 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.Template:Sfn He was the son of Hugh VIII of Lusignan, a lord from Poitou, and his wife, Burgundia of Rancon.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

In 1168 Aimery joined a rebellion against his family's suzerain, King Henry II of England.Template:Sfn The Lusignan brothers ambushed Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, as the queen travelled to Poitiers and killed the leader of her guard, Patrick, earl of Salisbury.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Efn

Aimery secured his position in the Latin East by marrying Eschiva of Ibelin, the elder daughter of the lord of Ramla, Baldwin of Ibelin, who was one of the most powerful noblemen in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn King Amalric died on 11 July 1174 and was succeeded by his and Agnes's thirteen-year-old son, Baldwin IV.Template:Sfn Aimery became a member of the royal court with his father-in-law's support.Template:Sfn He may have been appointed chamberlain, which would indicate a close relationship with the royal family.Template:Sfn

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 1179/80 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.Template:Sfn

Constableship

Baronial division

By 24 February 1182, Aimery had become constable of Jerusalem,Template:Sfn the highest military authority in the kingdom after the king.Template:Sfn He may have been granted the office shortly after his predecessor, Humphrey II of Toron, died in April 1179;Template:Sfn Template:Sfn alternatively, his appointment may have only come around 1181, as the consequence of the growing influence of his brother Guy.Template:Sfn Aimery's legal ability may have developed during his long tenure in public office.Template:Sfn

In 1183 King Baldwin IV appointed Guy regent. As regent, Guy was also the commander-in-chief of the royal army.Template:Sfn Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, launched a campaign against the kingdom on 29 September. Aimery defeated the sultan'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.Template:Sfn The ailing king dismissed Guy from regency and had his five-year-old nephew, Baldwin of Montferrat, crowned co-king on 20 November 1183.Template:Sfn The boy king, known as Baldwin V, was Sibylla's son and Guy's stepson.Template:Sfn

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, Sybilla, and half-sister, Isabella, if Baldwin V died before reaching the age of majority.Template:Sfn Baldwin IV died in 1185, followed by his nephew in mid-1186.Template:Sfn Ignoring Baldwin IV's decree and the protests of Guy's opponents, led by Aimery's Ibelin in-laws, Sybilla's partisans proclaimed her queen and she crowned Guy king.Template:Sfn Aimery was among Sibylla's supporters.Template:Sfn Aimery's father-in-law, Baldwin of Ibelin, left the kingdom rather than pay homage to Guy.Template:Sfn

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 in the battlefield.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn During the siege of Ascalon, Saladin promised the defenders that he would set free ten persons whom they named if they surrendered.Template:Sfn Aimery and Guy were among those whom the defenders named before surrendering on 4 September, but Saladin postponed their release until early 1188.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

In 1189 Guy gathered a force and laid a siege to Acre. Aimery and Geoffrey supported him during the siege.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Most barons held that Guy lost his claim to kingship when Sybilla and their daughters died in late 1190, but Aimery remained loyal to his brother.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Ibelins supported Marquis Conrad of Montferrat, the defender of Tyre, who married Sybilla's half-sister, Isabella, in late November.Template:Sfn King Richard supported the Lusignans,Template:Sfn and made Geoffrey count of Jaffa in 1191.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn An assembly of the noblemen unanimously declared Conrad the lawful king on 16 April 1192.Template:Sfn Conrad was murdered twelve days later, and Isabella hastily married Count Henry II of Champagne, whom the barons had selected to rule the kingdom.Template:Sfn To compensate him for the loss of the kingdom, Richard authorized Guy to purchase the island of Cyprus–which the English king had conquered from its Byzantine governor, Isaac Komnenos, in May 1191–from the Knights Templar.Template:Sfn Guy was to pay 40,000 bezants to Richard, who granted the right to collect the sum to Henry.Template:Sfn Guy settled in Cyprus in early May.Template:Sfn

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 of Champagne, 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 Guy, 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn After regaining his freedom, Aimery followed the example of the other Lusignan partisans and left the kingdom for Cyprus, abandoning both his office and the fief of Jaffa.Template:Sfn Henry then granted the constableship to Isabella's half-brother, John of Ibelin.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Saladin, the crusaders' greatest enemy, died in 1193.Template:Sfn

Reign

Lord of Cyprus

Consollidation

Guy made Aimery constable of Cyprus.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn He died in late 1194, having bequeathed Cyprus to Geoffrey.Template:Sfn Richard had granted Cyprus to Guy for life, but neither the English king nor his nephew Henry II of Champagne, to whom he had transferred his rights, claimed the reversion.Template:Sfn Geoffrey showed no interest in ruling in the Latin East and had already returned to Poitou. Guy's vassals elected Aimery to be their new lord.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Henry of Champagne demanded, as the ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, to be consulted about the succession in Cyprus, but he was ignored.Template:Sfn

Upon succeeding his brother, Aimery realized that the treasury was almost empty because Guy had granted most landed property on the island to his supporters. He summoned his vassals to an assembly. After pointing out that each of them was richer than him, he persuaded them one by one "either by force, or by friendship, or by agreement" to surrender some of their rents and lands. By the end of his reign, the revenues of Cyprus had increased to at least 200,000 bezants.Template:Sfn Aimery continued Guy's work on the island's fortresses.Template:Sfn Guy's entourage, including Rainier of Gibelet, became part of Aimery's court in Cyprus. They were joined by new arrivals, many of whom were Aimery's fellow Poitevins, including Aimery of Rivet, who became seneschal, and Reynald Barlais.Template:Sfn

Church and crown

When Aimery assumed the rule over Cyprus, the island only had Greek Orthodox bishops. In 1195 Aimery dispatched the archdeacon of Laodicea, known only by the initial B., to Pope Celestine III, to request the establishment of a Latin Church hierarchy on Cyprus. This was probably seen as a condition for raising Cyprus to the status of a kingdom.Template:Sfn In order to be recognized as a king, a ruler had to receive a crown from either an emperor or the pope.Template:Sfn At about the same the archdeacon of Laodicea left for Rome, Aimery dispatched his vassal Rainier of Gibelet to the Holy Roman emperor, Henry VI, who was preparing to lead a new crusade. Aimery proposed acknowledging the emperor's suzerainty if the emperor recognized him as king. He was prompted by the concern that the Byzantines would attempt to recover Cyprus; additionally, obtaining a crown would enhance his prestige, secure Cyprus for his descendants, and quash any suggestions that the island should be considered dependent on the Kingdom of Jerusalem.Template:Sfn

Aimery's envoy Rainier of Gibelet swore loyalty to Henry VI on behalf of Aimery in Gelnhausen in October 1195.Template:Sfn The emperor promised that he would personally crown Aimery and tasked the archbishops of Brindisi and Trani with delivering a golden sceptre to Aimery.Template:Sfn Henry VI's envoys landed in Cyprus in April or May 1196. Aimery may have adopted the title of king around that time, because Pope Celestine styled him as king already in a letter in December 1196.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn At that time the pope set up the archbishopric of Nicosia, of which the first incumbent was Aimery's chancellor, Alan, and the suffragan dioceses of Paphos, Limassol, and Famagusta.Template:Sfn Aimery's coronation was postponed to allow Henry VI to arrive.Template:Sfn

Relations with neighbors

In the mid-1190s,Template:Sfn Aimery's wife, Eschiva, was at the coast recovering from an illness when she and their children were abducted by the pirate Kanakes, on whom Aimery had put a bounty. They were taken to Antiochetta and held as hostages. Their release was procured by the lord of Armenian Cilicia, Leo II. Leo housed them in the fortress of Corycus, where Aimery soon came to retrieve them. The incident helped establish friendly relations between Aimery and Leo.Template:Sfn Leo invited Aimery, his family, and his men to stay for a feast, but they had to leave when the weather started to change; a storm at sea followed, and William of Tyre's continuator believes that they would have died if they had been caught in it.<ref>The Old French Continuation, pp. 127-128.</ref> Eschiva, having been in poor health, died shortly after her release.Template:Sfn She and Aimery had had six children: Burgundia, Alice, Helvis, John, Guy, and Hugh.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn<ref>The Colbert-Fontainebleu Continuation, p. 205</ref>

A truce between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Ayyubid Sultanate expired in 1196 and the kingdom, already a rump state, was in danger of renewed attacks. Its barons and merchants felt that the rivalry between Henry of Champagne and Aimery was detrimental to both kingdoms. Some, such as the Bethsan family, held land and privileges in Cyprus as well, while many of the most prominent figures were related to Aimery's wife. The Bethsan family were among those who urged Henry to reconcile with Aimery.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Henry thus visited Aimery on Cyprus in 1197. The two rulers made peace and even forged an alliance, whereby the three sons of Aimery and Eschiva were betrothed to the three daughters of Henry and Isabella.Template:Sfn It is possible that Aimery was restored to the office of constable of Jerusalem at this point because he used the title again in November. As part of the settlement, Isabella and Henry promised that Jaffa would be restored to the Lusignans as dowry and Aimery's debt to Henry for the purchase of Cyprus was remitted.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Muslims invaded during the negotiations, and Aimery promptly sent Reynald Barlais to take possession of Jaffa.Template:Sfn

Kingship

Crusade and coronations

A rebellion in Sicily and a subsequent illness prevented Emperor Henry VI's departure to the Latin East. His chancellor, Conrad of Querfurt, bishop of Hildesheim, set sail ahead of him. Conrad crowned Aimery in Nicosia in September 1197 and received homage from the newly made king. The emperor died that month and the Holy Roman Empire was plunged into a long succession war, leaving Aimery without the alliance he had desired.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Henry of Champagne also died in September, having fallen from a window of his palace in Acre, only weeks after reconciling with Aimery. Aimery's garrison at Jaffa was not able to resist the Ayyubid attack and Jaffa was lost again shortly after Henry's death. Although it was not successful, this was the first instance of a king of Cyprus intervening militarily on behalf of the mainland kingdom.Template:Sfn

Immediately after the death of Henry of Champagne, the barons of Jerusalem demanded that his widow, Isabella, seek a fourth husband, who would rule the kingdom.Template:Sfn The aristocratic-yet-impoverished seneschal of Jerusalem, Ralph of Saint Omer, was a candidate, but the masters of the military orders opposed him vehemently.Template:Sfn Conrad of Wittelsbach, archbishop of Mainz, arrived in Acre on 20 September and proposed that the throne should be offered to Aimery. Aimery would have been an attractive candidate because of his Cypriot resources, and the Germans likely appreciated that he was an imperial vassal. Since Aimery's first wife, Eschiva, had recently died, he was free to marry Isabella. Joscius, archbishop of Tyre, led the negotiations. The patriarch of Jerusalem, Aymar the Monk, initially complained that the marriage would be uncanonical. The marriage, or at least a betrothal, was celebrated in October.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Sensing an opportunity while the Ayyubids were preoccupied with Jaffa, Aimery assisted the German and Brabancon crusaders commanded by Duke Henry I of Brabant in recovering Beirut and Sidon in October 1197. Sidon had been destroyed by the time they arrived, and they captured Beirut on 21 October after forcing the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus, al-Adil I, to withdraw.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Toron was besieged in November.Template:Sfn The patriarch withdrew his objections to the marriage of Aimery and Isabella and crowned them in January 1198.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn When news of Emperor Henry VI's death reached the Levant, the Germans decided to return home, and the siege of Toron was abandoned on 2 February.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Germans left behind a new military order, the Teutonic Knights, to whom Aimery granted the Gate of St Nicholas in Acre on the condition that they return it at the king's request.Template:Sfn Pope Celestine III's successor, Innocent III, immediately began preaching a new crusade.Template:Sfn

Governance and legislation

King Aimery spent more time at Acre than in Nicosia.Template:Sfn He did not hesitate to send Cypriot troops to fight on the mainland, but declared that he could not maintain the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his own treasury.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The government and laws of Cyprus were modelled after those of Jerusalem, and a High Court of Cyprus was established as an equivalent to the High Court of Jerusalem.Template:Sfn These institutions remained separate, as did the chanceries; the two kingdoms were linked only by the king's person Template:Sfn and he made no attempts to unite them.Template:Sfn Cyprus was Aimery's and was to pass to his heirs, while in Jerusalem he owed his kingship to Queen Isabella. Isabella already had an heir, her eldest daughter, Maria of Montferrat, and three more daughters, Maria, Alice, and Philippa of Champagne.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Aimery was in no haste to make significant changes to his wife's advisors, nor did he try to curtail the influence of the men who had served her previous husband, Henry. He relied much on Baldwin of Bethsan, constable of Cyprus, who often accompanied him on the mainland.Template:Sfn He thought highly of the senechal of Jerusalem, Ralph of Saint Omer, but did not like him.Template:Sfn According to a later tradition, Ralph was the only man who knew the laws of Jerusalem better than Aimery. The king sought to preserve and codify what was remembered of the laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and he wanted to delegate the task to a commission under his presidency. He requested Ralph's assistance, but Ralph took no part in the endeavor. The resulting Livre au roi dealt with, among other things, the rights and obligations of the queen regnant and her husband, the succession rights of her children, and the question of regency in case of her death–issues which were of particular concern at the time.Template:Sfn

In March 1198, Aimery and his court were travelling from Acre and riding through the orchards of Tyre when four German horsemen galloped up to the king and attacked him. His retainers rescued him, but the attackers refused to say who had hired them.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn While recovering, the king became convinced that Ralph of Saint Omer, lately his rival for Isabella's hand and the throne, stood behind the attack.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Aimery convoked a full session of the High Court of Jerusalem, at which he sentenced Ralph to banishment, apparently referencing an assise of King Baldwin III that allowed the king to punish a treacherous vassal without trial. Ralph insisted that the Assise sur la ligece entitled him to be tried by his peers. The High Court tried to persuade Aimery to grant a trial and threatened to withdraw their knights from his service if he refused, which they did when Aimery proved obdurate. The matter was only resolved when Ralph announced that he would leave the kingdom voluntarily because he had lost the king's goodwill.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn This incident may have precluded Ralph from participating in Aimery's compilation of the laws of the kingdom.Template:Sfn

Foreign relations

Aimery pursued an active and adaptable foreign policy,Template:Sfn and maintained good relations with the merchant republics of Europe to strengthen the economy.Template:Sfn He signed a truce with al-Adil on 1 July 1198, securing the possession of the coast from Acre as far as to Antioch for the crusaders for five years and eight months. Aimery was left with Beirut, al-Adil with Jaffa, and Sidon was divided between them. Al-Adil took control of Egypt in November and, with a succession war brewing in Antioch, Aimery became all the more eager to keep the peace.Template:Sfn The king was dismayed by the struggle between Leo of Armenia and Count Bohemond of Tripoli for the succession to Prince Bohemond III of Antioch, and he pressured Cardinal Soffred to mediate.Template:Sfn Aimery's sympathies lay with the Armenians, but he never intervened.Template:Sfn

Aimery continued to fear that the Byzantines might attempt to reclaim Cyprus; his ambassadors at the papal court voiced this concern in early 1199.Template:Sfn In the early 1200s the Byzantine emperor, Alexios III Angelos, also turned to Pope Innocent III.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn He feared that Constantinople would become the target of the Fourth Crusade.Template:Sfn Alexios promised that he would help the crusaders fight in the Holy Land if the pope forced Aimery to hand the island to the Byzantines under the pain of excommunication. The pope was anxious that Aimery's efforts to secure the Holy Land not be disturbed and refused Alexios, arguing that the Byzantines had lost their right to Cyprus when Richard I of England conquered the island in 1191.Template:Sfn Alexios did not press the issue again, but Innocent mentioned his designs to Kings John of England and Philip II of France and urged them to send help to Cyprus and the Holy Land.Template:Sfn

In 1202, groups of men split off from the Fourth Crusade arrived in Acre. Reynald II of Dampierre, who arrived at the head of 300 French crusaders, demanded that Aimery break off the treaties with the Muslims and launch a campaign. Aimery told him that more than 300 soldiers were needed to wage war against the Ayyubids and that he would wait for the rest of the crusaders. Reynald called him a coward to his face and left to join Bohemond of Tripoli.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In 1203 another crusader, Thierry of Flanders, landed in Cyprus and came before Aimery. He demanded that Cyprus be turned over to him in right of his wife, a daughter of the island's former ruler, Isaac Komnenos. He was brusquely ordered to leave.Template:Sfn

Aimery launched one reprisal against the Muslims during the period of truce. An Egyptian emir seized a fortress near Sidon and plundered the neighbouring Christian territory. As al-Adil failed to force the emir to respect the truce, Aimery sent a retaliatory fleet that seized 20 Egyptian ships; afterwards he led the barons, the Temmplars, and the Hospitallers on raids into the Ayyubid land of Galilee. In response, al-Adil's son al-Mu'azzam Isa plundered the region of Acre. Each side took care to avoid a clash: Aimery held back awaiting the crusade's arrival, while al-Adil sought not to provoke it. In May 1204, Aimery exhibited further naval strength when his fleet sacked Fuwwah, a small Ayyubid town in the Nile Delta.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

When the Fourth Crusade targeted Constantinople instead of assisting him, Aimery negotiated another truce with the Muslims.

The Fourth Crusade ended up diverted to Constantinople, bringing no benefit to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.Template:Sfn Aimery's reaction to the crusade's sack of Constantinople and the subsequent establishment of the Latin Empire in its ruins is not known, but it provoked resentment and dismay in the Latin East.Template:Sfn As no new armies would arrive to support him, Aimery proposed a peace, which al-Adil gladly accepted. A new truce for six years was signed in September 1204. Under the terms of the treaty, al-Adil ceded Jaffa and the Ayyubid portions of Sidon and Ramla to the Kingdom of Jerusalem and simplified the Christian pilgrims' visits to Jerusalem and Nazareth.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Aimery arranged for the widowed lady of Sidon, Helvis of Ibelin, to marry the crusader Guy of Montfort, who thus took up rule over the newly conquered town in the name of Helvis's son, Balian.Template:Sfn

Family, death, and succession

Aimery and Isabella's marriage produced two more daughters, Sibylla and Melisende, and a son, Amalric, who stood to succeed to the throne of Jerusalem. While the children of his first marriage were given typical Lusignan names, Aimery's children with Isabella were named after her relatives. This, as well as the consistent references to Isabella as the daughter of King Amalric in Aimery's charters, suggests that Aimery strove to position himself and their children as part of her dynasty.Template:Sfn Of the children Aimery had had with Eschiva, only Burgundia, Helvis, and Hugh survived their father; John and Guy died young, as did Alice,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn<ref>The Colbert-Fontainebleu Continuation, p. 205</ref> who had leprosy.Template:Sfn Around 1202 Aimery gave Burgundia in marriage to the crusader Walter of Montbéliard. Aimery wished to name his new son-in-law and favourite to the office of constable of Jerusalem so that he could command the army in his absence. To do this, he granted Beirut to John of Ibelin in return for John's resignation from constableship.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

The young Amalric, son of Aimery and Isabella, died on 2 February 1205.Template:Sfn Amalric's death precluded the establishment of the Lusignan dynasty in the mainland kingdom.Template:Sfn After eating an excess of white mullet, King Aimery himself fell seriously ill. He died in Acre shortly after on 1 April.Template:Sfn His body was taken to Cyprus and buried in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Nicosia.Template:Sfn Aimery was succeeded in Cyprus by his only surviving son, 9-year-old Hugh I. Queen Isabella died shortly after, and her kingdom passed to her eldest daughter, Maria of Montferrat.Template:Sfn Of the three marriages Aimery had planned with Henry of Champagne, only one could be celebrated, that of King Hugh to Henry's daughter Alice in 1210; it "bore its dynastic fruit in time to come".Template:Sfn Template:Chart top Template:Tree chart/start Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart Template:Tree chart/end Template:Chart bottom

Legacy

The historian Mary Nickerson Hardwicke describes Aimery as a "self-assured, politically astute, sometimes hard, seldom sentimentally indulgent" ruler.Template:Sfn His reign was a period of peace and consolidation,Template:Sfn and he laid the foundations for the prosperity that Cyprus enjoyed under his successors.Template:Sfn For the historian Steven Runciman, Aimery was "not a great king", but "had a political wisdom that was very valuable". Runciman underlines that Aimery succeeded in preserving the mainland kingdom's monarchy;Template:Sfn Hardwicke notes that he failed to strengthen it, although "it was not his fault".Template:Sfn

Among those who knew him, Aimery inspired little affection but commanded respect.Template:Sfn The lawyers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem held him in high esteem.Template:Sfn One of them, John of Ibelin, emphasized that Aimery had governed both Cyprus and Jerusalem "well and wisely" until his death.Template:Sfn

Notes

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References

Citations

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Bibliography

Primary sources

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Secondary sources

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External links

Letters from Aimery

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Aimery of Cyprus

Contents

Early career