John d'Ibelin, Lord of Beirut, "successfully defied the
might of the western empire and emerged from the struggle strengthened,"
according to leading modern scholar Peter Edbury* Yet he did so in the name of
good governance not self-interest, and rather than placing himself in power he
consistently defended the rights of the boy-king Henry I of Lusignan.
So just who was John of Beirut and what made him the man he was?
Dr. Schrader continues his story.
Having served as regent of the Kingdom ofJerusalem to the satisfaction of his queen and her subjects from
April 1205 until October 1210, John d'Ibelin stepped down in Oct.
1210. The business of government was turned over to Marie de
Montferrat, now 18, and her consort, King John de Brienne. (For details
see: The Remarkable Career of John de Brienne, Part II.)
John
then all but disappears from the witness lists of the kingdom. The
assumption of historians is that there was some kind of a breach between
the former regent and the new king consort, but this is by no means
certain. John had been married early to a certain Helvis of Nephin. We
know nothing about the lady -- except that she bore John five sons, who
all died in infancy. We also know that John remarried the widow,
Melisende of Arsur, sometime during his regency, because his eldest sons
were old enough to be knighted in 1224. In addition, John's mother
died in 1217. In short, it is possible that John chose to retire from
court for personal reasons.
Nevertheless,
both John and his younger brother Philip took part in the Fifth
Crusade, notably under the banner of the King of Cyprus rather than the
King of Jerusalem. Again, this may be indicative of strained relations
between the Ibelins and Brienne -- or simply a reflection of more
cordial relations between them and the young Lusignan King Hugh, now
married to another of the Ibelin's nieces, Alice of Champagne.
Certainly, King Hugh commended his kingdom to the keeping of Philip
d'Ibelin on his deathbed in 1218. His unexpected death while still a
vigorous man in his early twenties took everyone by surprise and left an
18-month-old infant, Henry, as his heir. Philip was duly elected by the
High Court to rule until Henry came of age (May 1232), but himself died
in 1227. At his death, the High Court of Cyprus chose his brother,
John, the Lord of Beirut, to step into his shoes. It was this election that put John on a collision course with the Holy Roman Emperor.
Two
years earlier, in 1225 the Holy Roman Emperor had married Yolanda of
Jerusalem, the daughter of John de Brienne and Marie of Jerusalem. She
was just 13 years old, and no sooner had she landed in Brindisi that her
new bridegroom dismissed her father like a superfluous servant and
announced the he (the Emperor) was henceforth "King of Jerusalem." All the barons of
Outremer who had escorted her to her marriage duly took the oath of
fealty to Frederick Hohenstaufen.
John
of Beirut was conspicuously absent from Queen Yolanda's escort.
Presumably, he was still out of favor with Brienne, or simply too busy on
Cyprus or in Beirut. There is no reason to presume he would have
refused to take the oath, however, since there was a clear precedent for
the consort of a ruling queen to take precedence over the widower (even
if crowned and anointed) of a deceased queen: this was precisely the
precedent set -- with the full and hearty support of John's parents --
when Queen Isabella and Conrad de Montferrat had been preferred over Guy
de Lusignan in 1190.
Unfortunately
for all, however, by the time Emperor Frederick finally landed on
Cyprus on his way to the Holy Land, his fifteen-year-old empress was
dead, leaving behind an infant son, Conrad. This boy was now legally the
King of Jerusalem in his own right, and while Frederick was within his
rights to claim the regency, he had lost the right to call
himself King -- something Frederick either never understood or never
admitted. Curiously, he also arrived -- for reasons that remain
completely obscure -- determined to "break" the Lord of Beirut.
The
basis for the Emperor's hostility to the Lord of Beirut can only be
conjectured. Since the Emperor dismissed Brienne discourteously, making
him a permanent enemy, it can hardly have been Beirut's less than ardent
support for Brienne. However, Beirut's brother had crowned Henry de
Lusignan King of Cyprus without awaiting imperial permission.
Furthermore, in light of his personal experience with regents plundering
his treasury, perhaps it was natural for the Hohenstaufen to assume the
Ibelins had enriched themselves illegally at the expense of young King
Henry. Edbury suggests it was primarily greed for revenue on the eve of
an expensive undertaking that motivated the Emperor. Yet it remains a
mystery why the Emperor believed the Lordship of Beirut, which had been
given to John d'Ibelin with the appropriate royal charters by his own
sister, did not legally belong to him.
As
we have seen, after fair words to lure Beirut, his sons, friends and
vassals to a banquet, the Emperor sprang a trap and attempted to bully
Beirut into surrendering both revenues and his lordship of Beirut. (See:
The Emperor's Banquet.)
Beirut must have had some indication that the Emperor was hostile, or
his council would not have advised against him attending the banquet, yet
it is hard to believe the Beirut truly expected what happened -- and
still walked into the trap.
Tellingly,
although Beirut angrily rejected an offer to murder the Emperor by
over-zealous supporters, he withdrew to the mountain fortresses of
Cyprus and readied them to withstand a siege. While this was clearly an act of defiance, it was not an act of treason.
Beirut explicitly held the castles for young King Henry of Lusignan, a
promise that may sound disingenuous but which later actions proved
honest. His response was rather a proportionate response to the
treachery of the Emperor, who had promised honors yet demanded bribes
instead. Furthermore, his action which involved no violence,
nevertheless check-mated the Emperor, who did not
have the time (Sicily was under attack from his father-in-law and the
pope) or resources for an all-out war.
The Emperor was forced to seek terms. In exchange for the return of the castles to royal officers, the Emperor promised to release the hostages. In addition, Beirut promised to take part in the Emperor's crusade, along with all his vassals, while the Emperor agreed, in writing 1) to take no action against Beirut or his supporters without the judgment of the appropriate court (i.e. the High Courts of Cyprus and Jerusalem respectively), and 2) to bear no malice for all that had passed between them in the preceding months.
The value of the Emperor's sworn and signed word was soon demonstrated when, as soon as he had Beirut and all his men on the mainland, he sent imperial mercenaries to Cyprus to attack, harass and intimidate the wives and children of these very men now serving in his army. He entrusted one of his Sicilian noblemen, the Count of Cotron, with this task. The degree of their success can be measured by the fact that Beirut's his sister-in-law, the widow of his brother Philip, was in sufficient fear for her life to risk a winter crossing to Syria in a small craft with her young children; all nearly drowned.
The Emperor was forced to seek terms. In exchange for the return of the castles to royal officers, the Emperor promised to release the hostages. In addition, Beirut promised to take part in the Emperor's crusade, along with all his vassals, while the Emperor agreed, in writing 1) to take no action against Beirut or his supporters without the judgment of the appropriate court (i.e. the High Courts of Cyprus and Jerusalem respectively), and 2) to bear no malice for all that had passed between them in the preceding months.
The value of the Emperor's sworn and signed word was soon demonstrated when, as soon as he had Beirut and all his men on the mainland, he sent imperial mercenaries to Cyprus to attack, harass and intimidate the wives and children of these very men now serving in his army. He entrusted one of his Sicilian noblemen, the Count of Cotron, with this task. The degree of their success can be measured by the fact that Beirut's his sister-in-law, the widow of his brother Philip, was in sufficient fear for her life to risk a winter crossing to Syria in a small craft with her young children; all nearly drowned.
After
concluding his secret peace with al-Kamil and parading around in the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher in his Imperial crown, Frederick II had had
enough of his Kingdom of Jerusalem. After briefly laying siege to
Templar headquarters in Acre, threatening the Patriarch, ordering the
harassment of the mendicant orders, and being pelted by offal by the
common people, Frederick sailed away from Acre never to return --
although he continued to call himself "King of Jerusalem" for the next
25 years.
* Edbury, Peter. John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Boydell Press, 1997, p. 56
** William of Oldenberg, cited in Edbury, p. 57.
***
"...there is a marked resemblance between Ibelin and St. Louis of
France, for while both were personally deeply religious neither
permitted the Church to dictate to him against the mandates of his own
conscience and better judgement." La Monte, John. The Wars of Frederick
II against the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus by Philip de Novare. Columbia
University Press, 1936, p. 49.The story of John d'Ibelin continues next week. Meanwhile, John d'Ibelin is a leading character in Dr. Schrader's series on the civil war in Outremer starting with:
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