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The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374
The island of Cyprus was conquered from its Byzantine ruler by Richard I of England in 1191 during the Third Crusade, and remained under western rule until the Ottoman conquest of 1570–1. From the 1190s until the 1470s the island was a kingdom governed by the members of the Lusignan family. The Lusignans, who hailed from Poitou in western France, imposed a new European landowning class and a Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy upon the indigenous Greek population. Nevertheless, their regime provided long periods of political stability and, until the late fourteenth century, a considerable period of prosperity. In the thirteenth century the island was closely linked to the Latin states in Syria and the Holy Land by political, social and economic ties and, with the fall of the last Christian strongholds to the Muslims in 1291, it became the most easterly outpost of Latin Christendom in the Mediterranean. This new study, which is based on original research, traces the fortunes of Cyprus under its royal dynasty and its role in the Crusades and in the confrontation of Christian and Muslim in the Near East until the 1370s. It is both a major contribution to the history of the Crusades in the Levant and the only scholarly study of medieval Cyprus currently available.
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
65 people want to read
About the author
Peter W. Edbury
25 books6 followersA specialist on the history of the Crusades and the crusader regimes in Syria, Cyprus and the Holy Land, author of John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Boydell, 1997) and The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374 (C.U.P., 1991) and joint author of William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East (C.U.P., 1988).
His edition of Le Livre des Assises by John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa and Ascalon, was published by Brill in September 2003, and his edition of Philip of Novara’s Livre de Forme de Plait is expected at the end of 2009. He is curently engaged on an ARHC-funded project to re-edit the Old French Continuations William of Tyre.
His edition of Le Livre des Assises by John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa and Ascalon, was published by Brill in September 2003, and his edition of Philip of Novara’s Livre de Forme de Plait is expected at the end of 2009. He is curently engaged on an ARHC-funded project to re-edit the Old French Continuations William of Tyre.
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October 8, 2024I was reminded to reread this book by watching the Ridley Scott film "Kingdom of Heaven", and I particularly want to mention this because I heard that the historian Adam Tooze went to see Scott's Napoleon film with another historian only for both of them to walk out in disgust after a while, furious with it's inaccuracies. "Kingdom of Heaven" likewise I guess is spectacular, but more of a fantasia inspired by history than a reasonable representation of events, well any how, some of the people, such as the dastardly in the film, Guy of Lusignan got to have a second (or umpteenth) part of their lives in Cyprus, in his case as king, and so appear in this book.
I read this book before, one summer sitting in the back garden of my parents house. This is evidenced by the jasmine flowers that were pressed and dried between its pages.
Edbury closes his concise study with the words: although the last century of royal government was marked by political crisis and economic and military frailty, the period of almost 200 years before 1373 witnessed a remarkable degree of stability and prosperity, sufficient to make the kingdom of Cyprus stand out as one of the most successful western regimes established by the crusaders either in the Levant or in the former Byzantine lands around the Aegean. (p.211)
Judging by his own text this is both true (or truish) and misleading. It maybe be fairer (or harsher) to point out that the regime was the beneficiary of circumstances which it was too weak by itself to determine, namely that the powerful Mamluk regime based in Egypt never managed to develop a fleet , while the Ottoman dynasty was at this time first consolidating its position in Anatolia, then expanding into the Balkans, and would only later develop it's power at sea. This left Cyprus free from assault - although it's rulers feared such attack either from Byzantines or later Muslims, and in a position to benefit from partially enforcing the embargo on Christian states trading with Muslims in the aftermath of the fall of Acre in 1291 - meaning they enforced the ban on other states as best they could, while permitting Cyprus based merchants and ships to trade freely with neighbouring Muslim controlled ports. This created a period of commercial flourishing, somewhat marred by troubled politics and imbalanced relations with the powerful City states Venice and Genoa, that seems to have come to an end with the Black death.
The kind of medieval history that can be written, very broadly speaking, is shaped by the kind of evidence that is available. Edbury has written a smooth, fast moving narrative history that draws on chronicles, with later the occasional royal biography, and some correspondence between kings and Popes. So of the ten chapters in the book, one deals with Cypriot kingship and government in abstract, while the rest are a political narrative, one chapter focusing in on the Ibelin noble family, the rest on the royal family.
It is important to warn potential readers that while there is an observation about fashion - that the women wore black in mourning for the capture of Jerusalem by the Muslims, there is nothing in this book about cookery or cuisine, despite Cyprus' important position in trade which would have meant that pepper and other far-eastern spices were being brought in from Muslim ports to be re-exported to Christian controlled states.
Of interest; Cyprus was seized by the famous plantagenet warlord Richard the Lionheart from the Byzantine Greek Isaac Comenus who had established his own separatist regime over the island, Richard swiftly sold the island on. Such Greek aristocrats and major landowners as presumably there were on the island seem to have disappeared - one source wrote that they (all?) fled.
One wonders about the complexities of daily life with a French speaking western Christian elite ruling over a Greek speaking, Greek Orthodox population. The ruling house of Cyprus married into the royal family of the kingdom of Lesser Armenia, which was on the southern coast of modern Turkey. But how far these various populations mixed or remained separate is not something that emerges. The Latin Christians continued to use the legal system that had developed in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The leading families of that Kingdom seem to have mostly moved to Cyprus as the Mamluks nibbled away at the few towns and cities remaining in the thirteen century. The impression is very much of a settle or colonial regime, it became fairly isolated diplomatically from western Europe due to the title of King of Jerusalem which was claimed by several royal houses, including that of Cyprus. The kingdom was further destabilised by the habit of it's king's dying while their heir was a young child - this kind of thing made a big difference in medieval politics.
Eventually the Venetians took over the island, but that is outside the scope of this book, which mostly deals with the kingdom both struggling to establish itself and to find a role in the region.
I read this book before, one summer sitting in the back garden of my parents house. This is evidenced by the jasmine flowers that were pressed and dried between its pages.
Edbury closes his concise study with the words: although the last century of royal government was marked by political crisis and economic and military frailty, the period of almost 200 years before 1373 witnessed a remarkable degree of stability and prosperity, sufficient to make the kingdom of Cyprus stand out as one of the most successful western regimes established by the crusaders either in the Levant or in the former Byzantine lands around the Aegean. (p.211)
Judging by his own text this is both true (or truish) and misleading. It maybe be fairer (or harsher) to point out that the regime was the beneficiary of circumstances which it was too weak by itself to determine, namely that the powerful Mamluk regime based in Egypt never managed to develop a fleet , while the Ottoman dynasty was at this time first consolidating its position in Anatolia, then expanding into the Balkans, and would only later develop it's power at sea. This left Cyprus free from assault - although it's rulers feared such attack either from Byzantines or later Muslims, and in a position to benefit from partially enforcing the embargo on Christian states trading with Muslims in the aftermath of the fall of Acre in 1291 - meaning they enforced the ban on other states as best they could, while permitting Cyprus based merchants and ships to trade freely with neighbouring Muslim controlled ports. This created a period of commercial flourishing, somewhat marred by troubled politics and imbalanced relations with the powerful City states Venice and Genoa, that seems to have come to an end with the Black death.
The kind of medieval history that can be written, very broadly speaking, is shaped by the kind of evidence that is available. Edbury has written a smooth, fast moving narrative history that draws on chronicles, with later the occasional royal biography, and some correspondence between kings and Popes. So of the ten chapters in the book, one deals with Cypriot kingship and government in abstract, while the rest are a political narrative, one chapter focusing in on the Ibelin noble family, the rest on the royal family.
It is important to warn potential readers that while there is an observation about fashion - that the women wore black in mourning for the capture of Jerusalem by the Muslims, there is nothing in this book about cookery or cuisine, despite Cyprus' important position in trade which would have meant that pepper and other far-eastern spices were being brought in from Muslim ports to be re-exported to Christian controlled states.
Of interest; Cyprus was seized by the famous plantagenet warlord Richard the Lionheart from the Byzantine Greek Isaac Comenus who had established his own separatist regime over the island, Richard swiftly sold the island on. Such Greek aristocrats and major landowners as presumably there were on the island seem to have disappeared - one source wrote that they (all?) fled.
One wonders about the complexities of daily life with a French speaking western Christian elite ruling over a Greek speaking, Greek Orthodox population. The ruling house of Cyprus married into the royal family of the kingdom of Lesser Armenia, which was on the southern coast of modern Turkey. But how far these various populations mixed or remained separate is not something that emerges. The Latin Christians continued to use the legal system that had developed in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The leading families of that Kingdom seem to have mostly moved to Cyprus as the Mamluks nibbled away at the few towns and cities remaining in the thirteen century. The impression is very much of a settle or colonial regime, it became fairly isolated diplomatically from western Europe due to the title of King of Jerusalem which was claimed by several royal houses, including that of Cyprus. The kingdom was further destabilised by the habit of it's king's dying while their heir was a young child - this kind of thing made a big difference in medieval politics.
Eventually the Venetians took over the island, but that is outside the scope of this book, which mostly deals with the kingdom both struggling to establish itself and to find a role in the region.
July 22, 2017
This is the "definitive" modern history of the crusader kingdom of Cyprus by the leading scholar, Peter W. Edbury. Professor Edbury is the author of numerous books on the crusader kingdoms, their history, architecture, legal code and some of the leading figures in the kingdoms. This book is a concise, chronological history of roughly the first two hundred years of the crusader kingdom, starting with the conquest of the island by Richard I of England in 1191 and ending with the war with Genoa in 1373-1374. The latter triggered the economic decline of the island, and saw the slaughter of many of the noblemen descended from the Syrian nobility, among them the last Ibelin. It is an absolutely essential source for anyone interested in medieval Cyprus, and an excellent introduction to the last but most enduring of the crusader states.
Edbury writes in an easy, straight-forward style, avoiding the excessive use of footnotes and not overloading the text with his evidence. Indeed, unlike many academic works, he is clearly concerned with telling the story of Lusignan Cyprus rather than debating with his fellow scholars about sources and interpretation thereof -- perhaps because his subject matter has not been as heavily researched as, say, the Kingdom of Jerusalem or the various crusades. The result is a book that intrigues and inspires greater curiosity, rather than bludgeoning the reader with details or debates about arcane topics.
The only weakness of the book is in its admirable (but inhibiting) goal of covering two hundred years of complex history in just over 200 pages. Inevitably, some events are condensed and simplified, perhaps, in some places too much so. For example, he follows the conventional (but patently absurd) version of Guy de Lusignan's arrival on Cyprus, suggesting Guy de Lusignan arrived on a depopulated island whose remaining population was happy to receive him -- despite that same population of 100,000 having just driven the Knights Templar from the island by an armed insurrection. Ultimately, however, occasional oversights such as this are a small price to pay for getting such a great deal of fascinating history in a few hundred pages. The greater frustration is that after Edbury creates an appetite for more in-depth study of the crusader Cyprus, one discovers there are far too few books that look more closely at individual aspects of the history available on the market today.
Edbury writes in an easy, straight-forward style, avoiding the excessive use of footnotes and not overloading the text with his evidence. Indeed, unlike many academic works, he is clearly concerned with telling the story of Lusignan Cyprus rather than debating with his fellow scholars about sources and interpretation thereof -- perhaps because his subject matter has not been as heavily researched as, say, the Kingdom of Jerusalem or the various crusades. The result is a book that intrigues and inspires greater curiosity, rather than bludgeoning the reader with details or debates about arcane topics.
The only weakness of the book is in its admirable (but inhibiting) goal of covering two hundred years of complex history in just over 200 pages. Inevitably, some events are condensed and simplified, perhaps, in some places too much so. For example, he follows the conventional (but patently absurd) version of Guy de Lusignan's arrival on Cyprus, suggesting Guy de Lusignan arrived on a depopulated island whose remaining population was happy to receive him -- despite that same population of 100,000 having just driven the Knights Templar from the island by an armed insurrection. Ultimately, however, occasional oversights such as this are a small price to pay for getting such a great deal of fascinating history in a few hundred pages. The greater frustration is that after Edbury creates an appetite for more in-depth study of the crusader Cyprus, one discovers there are far too few books that look more closely at individual aspects of the history available on the market today.
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