Lord of Cyprus Consollidation Guy made Aimery
constable of Cyprus. He died in late 1194, having bequeathed Cyprus to Geoffrey. Richard had granted Cyprus to Guy for life, but neither the English king nor his nephew Henry of Champagne, to whom he had transferred his rights, claimed the reversion. 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. Henry demanded, as the ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, to be consulted about the succession in Cyprus, but was ignored. 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. Aimery continued Guy's work on the island's fortresses. 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.
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. To be recognized as a king, a ruler had to receive a crown from either an emperor or the Pope. At about the same the archdeacon of Laodicea left for Rome, Aimery dispatched his vassal Rainier of Gibelet to
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. Aimery's envoy Rainier of Gibelet swore loyalty to Henry VI on behalf of Aimery in
Gelnhausen in October 1195. The Emperor promised that he would personally crown Aimery and tasked the archbishops of
Brindisi and
Trani with delivering a golden
sceptre to Aimery. Henry VI's envoys landed in Cyprus in April or May 1196. Aimery may have adopted the title of king around that time, as Pope Celestine had styled him as king in a letter in December 1196. 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. Aimery's coronation was postponed to allow Henry VI to arrive.
Relations with neighbors In the mid-1190s, Aimery's wife, Eschiva, was at the coast recovering from an illness when she and their children were abducted by the pirate
Kanakes, whom Aimery had put a bounty on. They were taken to
Antiochetta and held as hostages. Their release was secured by the lord of
Armenian Cilicia,
Leo II. He housed them in the fortress of
Corycus, where Aimery soon came to retrieve them. The incident helped establish friendly relations between Aimery and Leo II. Leo II 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. Eschiva, having been in poor health, died shortly after her release. She and Aimery had had six children:
Burgundia, Alice,
Helvis, John, Guy, and
Hugh. 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 states. 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. 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. 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. The Ayyubids invaded during the negotiations, and Aimery promptly sent Reynald Barlais to take possession of Jaffa.
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. Henry VI died that month and the Holy Roman Empire was plunged into
a long succession war, leaving Aimery without the alliance he had desired. 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 of Champagne's death. This was the first instance of a king of Cyprus intervening militarily on behalf of the mainland kingdom. 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.The aristocratic-yet-impoverished
seneschal of Jerusalem,
Ralph of Saint-Omer, was a candidate, but the masters of the military orders opposed him vehemently. Archbishop
Conrad 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. Archbishop
Joscius of Tyre led the negotiations. Patriarch
Aymar of Jerusalem initially complained that the marriage would be
uncanonical. The marriage, or at least a betrothal, was celebrated in October. 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. Toron was besieged in November. The patriarch withdrew his objections to the marriage of Aimery and Isabella and crowned them in January 1198. 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. 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. Pope Celestine III's successor,
Innocent III, immediately began preaching a new crusade.
Governance and legislation King Aimery spent more time at Acre than in Nicosia. 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. 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. These institutions remained separate, as did the chanceries; the two kingdoms were
linked only by the King's person and he made no attempts to unite them. 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. 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. He thought highly of the senechal of Jerusalem, Ralph of Saint-Omer, but did not like him. According to a later tradition, Ralph was the only man who knew the laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem better than Aimery. The King sought to preserve and codify what was remembered of the laws 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. 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. While recovering, Aimery became convinced that Ralph of Saint-Omer, lately his rival for Isabella's hand and the throne, stood behind the attack. 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. The matter was only resolved when Ralph announced that he would leave the kingdom voluntarily because he had lost the King's goodwill. This incident may have precluded Ralph from participating in Aimery's compilation of the laws of the kingdom.
Foreign relations Aimery pursued an active and adaptable foreign policy, and maintained good relations with the
merchant republics of Europe to strengthen the economy. 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. He was dismayed by the struggle between Leo II of Armenia and Count
Bohemond of Tripoli for the succession to Prince
Bohemond III of Antioch, and he pressured Cardinal
Soffred to mediate. Aimery sympathised with the Armenians, but did not intervene. Aimery continued to fear that the Byzantines might attempt to reclaim Cyprus; his ambassadors at the papal court voiced this concern in early 1199. In the early 1200s the Byzantine emperor,
Alexios III Angelos, also turned to
Pope Innocent III. Alexios III feared that
Constantinople would become the target of the
Fourth Crusade and 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 III, arguing that the Byzantines had lost their right to Cyprus when Richard I of England conquered the island in 1191. Alexios III did not press the issue again, but Innocent III 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. 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. 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. Aimery launched one reprisal against the Muslims during the 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 on the
Nile Delta. 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. Aimery's reaction to the crusade's
sack of Constantinople and the subsequent establishment of the
Latin Empire is not known, but it provoked resentment and dismay in the Latin East. 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. 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.
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. Of the children Aimery had had with Eschiva, only Burgundia, Helvis, and Hugh survived their father; John and Guy died young, as did Alice, who had
leprosy. 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. The young Amalric, son of Aimery and Isabella, died on 2 February 1205. Amalric's death precluded the establishment of the Lusignan dynasty in the mainland kingdom. After eating an excess of
white mullet, King Aimery himself fell seriously ill. He died in Acre shortly after on 1 April. His body was taken to Cyprus and buried in the
Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Nicosia. 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. Of the three marriages Aimery had planned with Henry of Champagne, only one could be celebrated, that of King Hugh I to Henry's daughter Alice in 1210; it "bore its dynastic fruit in time to come". == Legacy ==