Henry I of Cyprus - Part I - the Child King

He was called a “colorless personality” by historian George Hill[1], while the leading scholar on medieval Cyprus, Peter Edbury, says he “ruled Cyprus without ever… holding the limelight in the politics of the Latin East of his day.”[2] Yet he was king for 35 years, and it was during his reign that Cyprus came to replace the Kingdom of Jerusalem as the “focus of Western culture in the Near East.”[3] Furthermore, he threw off the yoke of the Holy Roman Emperor, establishing Cyprus as an independent kingdom. He undertook significant legal reforms, was a staunch supporter of his Greek subjects against encroachments by the Latin clergy, and maintained excellent relations with his own barons.

In short, Henry I of Cyprus may deserve a reassessment.

Henry was born May 3, 1217, the third child but the first son of King Hugh I of Cyprus and his queen Alice de Champagne. (Alice was the daughter of Isabella I of Jerusalem and her third husband Henri de Champagne.) When Henry was just eight months old, his father died suddenly, while absent from the kingdom on the Fifth Crusade.

According to the constitution of the kingdom, a minor king’s regent was his nearest relative resident in the Latin East, in this case, Henry’s mother Alice de Champagne. However, Alice showed remarkably little interest in wielding political power. Instead, she willingly ceded the power of government to a “Baillie” (a deputy) elected by the High Court of Cyprus, while retaining for herself the revenues of the kingdom.  The High Court, allegedly unanimously, elected in accordance with the dying wishes of King Hugh Philip d’Ibelin.  Philip was the younger son of Balian d’Ibelin and his wife the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, Maria Comnena. He was, therefore, the maternal uncle of the ruling Queen of Jerusalem Maria, and also the brother of the Lord of Beirut, John d’Ibelin.

The new baillie’s first task was to ward off an attempt by the Duke of Austria to disinherit his young king altogether. The Duke of Austria presumably claimed Cyprus as spoils of the Third Crusade that his erstwhile prisoner Richard the Lionheart owed him in some way. The challenge was rebuffed by the barons of Cyprus led by Ibelin.

The next challenge was no less dangerous. In an effort to reduce the pressure on Egypt posed by the Fifth Crusade, the Ayyubids mounted a raid on Cyprus’ principal southern port, Limassol. Ships were burnt in the harbor and allegedly 13,000 Cypriots were killed or captured. This was the first Arab attack on Cyprus in roughly two hundred years and must have terrified the population and shaken the government under Ibelin, who very likely pulled troops out of the crusade to defend Cyprus.

Two years later, Cyprus was devastated by a severe earthquake which did damage to all three major cities, Nicosia, Limassol and Paphos. The latter was particularly impacted, with the castle and much of the city leveled. The extent to which Henry, a child of less than five, was aware of any of these events is questionable, but it is likely that he was aware of unease among his household.

The next crisis, however, impacted him directly. In 1223, Henry’s mother and his regent clashed so severely that his mother left Cyprus altogether, abandoning Henry and his two sisters to go to Antioch. From 1224 onwards, Henry was no longer in his mother’s care, but that of his baillie, Philip d’Ibelin. Henry was, however, by now seven years old. In the 13^th century, this was the age at which boys often went to live with more distant relatives to begin their education and training as future knights and nobles. Henry, therefore, may not have found the transfer of guardianship and control particularly alarming. After all, he remained in the royal palace in Nicosia with his sisters, and his education and tutelage were in the hands of a man he already knew, his great-uncle, Philip.

Tellingly, the trigger for the dispute between Philip d’Ibelin and Alice of Champagne were tithes that had up to that time been paid to the Greek Church. Alice wanted these transferred to the Latin Church. Ibelin (the son of a Byzantine princess) argued before the High Court of Cyprus that “Greek priests should not be fleeced to satisfy the greed of Latin priests.” He further claimed that the Latin clergy was detested by the population, seditious and corrupt.[4] To the day he died, King Henry was to be a champion of the Greek Orthodox Church against encroachments by the Latin clergy. Indeed, he died in the midst of a dispute with the Latin Archbishop of Nicosia related to this issue.

In 1224, however, Henry is more likely to have focused on the fact that his mother re-married, taking as her husband the eldest son of the Prince of Antioch. She then tried to convince the High Court of Cyprus to recognize her new husband as her regent. She ran into stiff and unanimous opposition. The barons of Cyprus suspected Bohemond of Antioch of wanting to establish his own dynasty on the island of Cyprus, something that would require eliminating young King Henry and replacing him with a child he sired.

It is before this threat, perhaps, that one should see the surprise decision taken by the Cypriot High Court to crown Henry king in 1225 when Henry was only eight years old. There are other precedents of children being crowned at this age or younger (e.g. Baldwin V), but the circumstances differed. While most historians — with the benefit of hindsight — suspect Philip d’Ibelin of trying to check-mate expected attempts by the Holy Roman Emperor to take control of the island kingdom, it is just as possible he countering continued maneuvering from Alice of Champagne.  

In 1227, Alice of Champagne made a second attempt to replace Philip d’Ibelin with a man of her choosing. This time she nominated a certain Amaury Barlais, one of the barons of Cyprus. Although Barlais had opposed Bohemond of Antioch, he readily accepted the Dowager Queen’s offer to take the reins of government himself. However,  the majority of the High Court of Cyprus again balked and refused to recognize Barlais’ claim to rule for Queen Alice. Although King Henry at age ten had nothing to say in these affairs, Philip d’Ibelin was the closest thing to a father that he had ever known. It is therefore unlikely that he wanted to see him replaced by a stranger.

Yet in December 1227, Henry had no choice but to accept a change of regent: Philip d’Ibelin died after a long and debilitating (but undefined) illness. The High Court of Cyprus turned Henry’s fate and government over to Philip’s elder brother John. The reasons for choosing him are not recorded, but they were probably two-fold. On the one hand, Beirut was the closest male relative of the young king resident in Outremer, and on the other hand, he had experience in ruling a kingdom. From 1205 to 1210, he had been regent of Jerusalem for the then immature Marie de Champagne, the sister of Alice of Champagne. His rule was widely viewed as prudent and wise.

To what extent Henry knew John d’Ibelin before he assumed the role of Baillie in Cyprus is uncertain. Even after surrendering the regency to Marie de Champagne’s husband John de Brienne at her marriage, John held the rich and important Syrian barony of Beirut that he had built from ruins. This would have demanded the bulk of his time, and probably precluded him from spending much time in Cyprus prior to assuming the role of Baillie.

Nor did the Lord of Beirut have much time to develop a strong rapport with King Henry before a political whirlwind descended on the island in the form of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Henry’s grandfather, Aimery de Lusignan, had done homage to the Frederick II’s father for the island of Cyprus in exchange for a crown. As a result, Henry I was technically a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor — and he was about to learn what that meant.

Next week I look at the Sixth Crusade and its impact on Henry de Lusignan and his kingdom.

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[1] Hill, George, A History of Cyprus Volume 2: The Frankish Period, 1192 – 1432 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; 1st ed. 1948) 148.

[2] Edbury, Peter, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191 – 1374 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 35.

[3] Hill, A History of Cyprus, 137.

[4] Hill, History of Cyprus, 88.

Henry I is a major character in: 

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is an award-winning novelist and author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction. Her three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin won a total of 14 literary accolades. Her most recent release is a novel about the founding of the crusader Kingdom of Cyprus. You can find out more at: http://crusaderkingdoms.com

The Generosity of the Sultan

 The Sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, more commonly known in the West as Saladin, had gone down in history as an exceptionally generous lord. Indeed, not only his contemporary biographers eulogized (and sometimes criticized) him for his generosity, the descendants of his opponents transformed him into a “perfect, gentle knight” to fit their own concepts of chivalry. By the 19^th Century, Saladin had been turned into a parody, a character better suited to an opera than the cut-throat politics of the 12^th century Middle East. Yet despite serious scholarship that puts Saladin more in perspective, some of his actions still stand out as exceptionally generous — particularly against the backdrop of Saladin’s ruthless rise to power. One of those acts of generosity was his treatment of Balian d’Ibelin and his lady during the siege of Jerusalem in 1187.

Today Dr. Schrader looks more closely at that incident.

At the Battle of Hattin on July 3/4, 1187, Saladin succeeded in delivering a devastating defeat to the Frankish army. An estimated 17,000 Christian fighting men were either killed or captured in the course of the two-day battle. The King of Jerusalem, the Masters of the Temple and Hospital and effectively the entire nobility of the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell into Saracen hands. Only four barons escaped death or capture: Tripoli, Sidon, Edessa, and Ibelin.

The castles and towns of the kingdom had been denuded of troops in order to meet the invasion; those troops were now dead or captured. Furthermore, with the entire feudal army obliterated, no town or castle could hope for relief in the foreseeable future. Because -- according to the laws of war -- a city that fell to assault would be put to the sword, city after city capitulated on terms rather than engage in a futile resistance that could only end in butchery or slavery. Nablus, Nazareth, Haifa, Hebron, Bethlehem, Caesarea, Arsur, Lydda, Sidon, Beirut, Gibelet, Ramla and Ibelin all fell bloodlessly to the Saracens in the months immediately following the Battle of Hattin. Only at Jaffa and Ascalon do we hear of "fierce" resistance. 

By September 5 -- just two months after the Battle of Hattin -- only two cities in the entire Kingdom remained in Christian hands along with a handful of isolated castles. The city of Tyre, located on an island off the coast, had prospects holding out until reinforcements could come from the West. It refused capitulation and withstood two sieges by Saladin’s forces, eventually becoming an important bridgehead for the Third Crusade.

The other exception was Jerusalem. Saladin had offered Jerusalem extremely generous terms because Saladin did not want to bombard the Holy City and risk damage to the sacred sites of his own religion. He offered a delegation of burgesses (note there were no nobles or knights in the city to negotiate on its behalf) to give them one year to see if aid came from the West. During this time he guaranteed access to food-stuffs and freedom of movement, but at the end of the year, if no relieving force had come, the citizens were to surrender the Jerusalem without further resistance and withdraw with all their moveable property.  The burgesses of Jerusalem refused, greatly angering Saladin, who then vowed to take the city by force.

It was after this exchange that Balian d’Ibelin came to Saladin and requested a safe-conduct to enable him to remove his wife and children from Jerusalem. One presumes he had heard about the above and did not want to see his wife and children subjected to either the siege nor the inevitable bloodbath that would follow when the city fell — as it must — to assault by the Sultan’s forces. Notably, all four of Balian’s children were under the age of ten at this time.

Before describing what happened next it is important to remember just who Balian d’Ibelin was. Ibelin itself was a small barony, owing only ten knights to the feudal levee and the Baron of Ibelin was a “rear-vassal” holding his title from the Count of Jaffa rather than directly from the crown. However, through his marriage to the Dowager Queen of Jerusalem Balian had assumed control of the large and wealthy crown barony of Nablus, and through his brother’s self-imposed exile also controlled the barony of Ramla and Mirabel. Thus, at Hattin Ibelin had commanded the troops of three baronies or well over 135 knights — possibly the third largest secular contingent after the King and the Count of Tripoli. 

After the Battle of Hattin, Ibelin’s position became even more prominent. First, the King, the Constable, and nearly all the other nobles were in captivity. Ibelin, Tripoli, Sidon, and Edessa were the only barons left in the Kingdom. Of these, Tripoli together with Sidon had broken through the Saracen lines in a cavalry charge early in the battle. Despite accusations of treason from the anonymous chronicler of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, there is no evidence (or motive!) for treason on the part of Tripoli at this point. A cavalry charge was the Frank’s best tactic and — had it been successful — Hattin would probably be remembered as a great Frankish victory with Tripoli as the hero. Tragically, however, the force of the charge was insufficient to rout the Saracens. Tripoli and Sidon at the front of the charge survived, but only a handful of knights and no infantry managed to escape with them. Tripoli and Sidon rode all the way back to their own baronies far to the north, where Tripoli died within weeks and Sidon dug in to defend his castle of Beaufort — unsuccessfully as things turned out.

Yet some 3,000 troops including several hundred knights managed to escape the Battle of Hattin and turned up in Tyre. There they were to provide the backbone of the tenacious defense that ultimately proved successful. Although we have no account of how these 3,000 men escaped the pincers of Saladin’s army on the Horns of Hattin, we do know that the two barons listed with the rearguard also survived the battle as free men, suggesting that the rearguard (or what was left of it) fought its way off the battlefield successfully. Possibly, the rear-guard under Ibelin made one of the two charges that nearly reached Saladin himself. Neither Christian nor Muslim sources describe the fate of the rearguard, but both Ibelin and Edessa escaped the debacle to remain free men. 

Edessa promptly discredited himself by surrendering Acre without a fight in the very first days following the Battle of Hattin. Notoriously greedy, Edessa was evidently only concerned with removing his personal fortune — which he speedily did, fleeing all the way to Antioch to never again play a role in the history of Outremer. Although the citizens of Acre rioted in protest against the surrender, in the absence of leadership they too accepted the Sultan’s terms.

And Ibelin? Ibelin was now, as Ibn al-Athir wrote, “almost equal in rank to the King.”[1] He was, more accurately, the only baron still at large in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. But rather than defiantly rallying the remaining troops of Christendom for the relief of Jerusalem or taking command of the city of Tyre, Ibelin went to Muslim leader who had just shattered the Christian army and overrun the Kingdom of Jerusalem to ask a personal favor.

To be sure, Tyre already had a vigorous and defiant commander in Conrad de Montferrat. Ibelin was as welcome in Tyre as a second captain on a ship. Yet one can only imagine Sultan Salah ad-Din’s amazement and puzzlement when this man who was “almost like a king” came to ask a favor for one wife and two sons. Saladin, of course, had four wives and an unnamed number of concubines. He had seventeen sons. It must have seemed very odd that this powerful Frankish lord would humble himself for just one woman and two small boys. It is not hard to imagine that he felt a degree of pity bordering on contempt for a once proud baron now reduced to worrying about a wife and four small children.

The Sultan was gracious to his defeated foe. According to Christian sources, Saladin was happy to give Ibelin an escort and a safe-conduct to go to Jerusalem to remove his wife, children, and household. Yet significantly, Saladin insisted on a condition: that Ibelin go unarmed and remain only a single night. Furthermore, he made Ibelin swear on Christian Gospels that he would abide by these conditions. These conditions suggest that Saladin did not entirely believe a fighting man of Ibelin’s reputation (Ibelin had played a prominent role at Montgisard and fought in every major battle since) would want to go to the Holy City only to rescue his wife and young children. In the Sultan’s eyes, the latter must have seemed imminently replaceable, while the alternative of taking command in Jerusalem must have appeared more honorable. In short, he suspected Ibelin’s true motives for seeking a safe-conduct to Jerusalem.

Indeed, no sooner had Ibelin reached Jerusalem than he was beseeched to remain and take command of the defense by the civilians trapped inside the city. Remember, there were no knights left in the city, and most of the sergeants of the Military Orders had likewise been lost at Hattin. Instead of fighting men, Jerusalem was flooded with refugees from as far away as Nablus and Hebron. There were allegedly 50 women and children for every man in the city. There were also disproportionate numbers of clerics because the city was the home of many religious institutions. The Continuation of William of Tyre puts it this way:

The citizens went to the patriarch and asked him for God’s sake to keep Balian in the city as they had no captain or governor who could help them. The patriarch … asked him to stay. Balian replied that he had sworn an oath to Saladin and could remain no longer. The patriarch said that he could absolve him from his oath for it would be to the benefit of Christendom. He accepted the patriarch’s arguments and … stayed in Jerusalem. He gave such advice as he could to the best of his ability, and he remained there right up to the time Jerusalem was evacuated.[2]

And his wife and children?

We know Ibelin sent a message to Saladin explaining his decision. In some versions, he asked the Sultan to absolve him of his oath, rather than informing him of a fait accompli, but this seems unlikely. As a devout Christian, the absolution of the patriarch was more important to Ibelin than that of the Sultan. Possibly, Balian asked yet another favor of the Sultan by requesting a Mamluk escort to bring his wife and children to safety, but it would have been the pinnacle of impudence to ask a favor of the man he had just betrayed. It is more likely that Ibelin informed the Sultan of his decision and his reasons for doing so, inwardly convinced that by his action he thereby condemned his wife and children to martyrdom alongside the rest of the Christian population of Jerusalem. It was a courageous decision that should not be disparaged.

The Sultan, however, now showed true generosity and nobility. He sent his own Mamluks to escort the Lady and children of Ibelin to safety. This gesture of kindness for a man who had just broken his word stands out as a genuine act of chivalry. It is only moderately mitigated by the fact that Saladin had just signed a treaty with the Byzantine Emperor, and probably did not want any diplomatic embarrassment should the Emperor’s cousin (the Lady of Ibelin) come to harm during an assault on the city.

Which raises the question of why would Saladin show such mercy to an enemy who had just broken his word in such a flagrant fashion. Was he truly just being chivalrous to women and children? Or did this gesture signal something else, something deeper and more innate to Saladin’s nature — namely, respect for Ibelin’s decision.

As a devout Muslim, Salah ad-Din had more respect for a man willing to fight and die for his faith, than for a man worried about a wife and children. In short, it was perhaps precisely because Ibelin had broken his word and chose to remain in Jerusalem that Salah ad-din — Righteousness of the Faith — looked on him with (new?) respect.

This thesis is borne out by the fact that Salah ad-Din continued to demonstrate respect for Ibelin after the latter mounted a highly professional defense of Jerusalem — but that is material for a separate entry.

The interplay between Ibelin and Saladin with respect to Ibelin’s safe-conduct and the negotiations for the surrender of Jerusalem are described in detail in Defender of Jerusalem.

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[1] Ibn al-Athir, XI, 361-6, quoted in Gabrieli, Francesco (trans.) Arab Historians of the Crusades. Univ. of California Press, 1957, p.139.

[2] Edbury, Peter (trans). The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade. (The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre) Ashgate, 1998, p. 49-50.

The Finest Crusader Castle - Crac de Chevaliers

Crac (also Krak) de Chevaliers is arguably the most famous and most iconic of all remaining crusader castles. It is a World Heritage Site and one of the most impressive medieval castles still visible today, despite recent damage in the Syrian civil war. It seemed the fitting end to my short series on crusader castles.

 Copyright: Creative Commons by 2.0

Crac de Chevaliers is located in what is now Syria near the Lebanese border. It sits at an elevation of 650 meters or 2,100 feet, atop a hill in the so-called “Homs Gap.” The latter is the most accessible route between the crusader city of Tripoli and the then important Muslim city of Homs, just 54 miles away. It dominates a fertile valley with abundant rainfall (for the region), which gave it double importance as a bulkwark against invasion and a defensive structure to protect the local farmers.

The first fortification on this site was constructed in 1131 by the Kurdish Emir of Homs  as a defense against the Shiite Fatamids. It was known as Hosn al-Akrad, the Castle of the Kurds. During the first crusade, Raymond of Toulouse’s foragers came under attack from the garrison of fortress. The next day Raymond’s main force drove the attacks off and briefly occupied the castle itself before continuing south toward Jerusalem.

The crusaders did not attempt to establish their own fortification here until 1110, when Tancred, Prince of Galilee, took control of the site. Although we know a castle of some sort was constructed at this time, nothing remains of it. The castle passed at from Tancred to the Count of Tripoli at an unrecorded date.

 Copyright Stephan Reinsch

In 1144, the Count of Tripoli, recognizing his vulnerability to Saracen attack and the limits of his own purse, made the strategic decision to what we would now call “out-source” a large part of the defense of his county to the Knights Hospitallers. He transferred to them four castles on the borders of his county, Felicium, Castellum Bochee, Lacum, and Crac de Cheveliers. The Hospitallers were in a far better position to construct, maintain and man these castles because they could draw on immense resources donated to them from across Christendom as opposed to being dependent on the revenues of a single, vulnerable county in the Holy Land.

The Hospitallers made Crac de Chevaliers their principle base for the defense of the north of the crusader states, and construction began at once on a much more extensive castle. Unfortunately, serious earthquakes in 1157 and again in 1170 badly damaged these early structures. Nevertheless, they were each time able to rebuild successfully. By 1187, when disaster struct at the Battle of Hattin, the Hospitallers had a castle so strong that Salah ad-Din by-passed it altogether, making no attempt to even besiege it. Yet this castle was not yet the castle as we see it today.

 Copyright Stephan Reinsch

The Hospitallers continued to expand Crac de Chevalier’s defenses and its interior throughout the 13^th century. At its height it a garrison of 2,000 men including 60 knights, and one of the towers was designed as the residence of the Hospitaller Master. It had a aqueduct filled reservoir. Particularly impressive are the chapel and the Hall of the Knights. Both are beautiful examples of crusader architecture. In addition, fragments of wall paintings highlight the degree to which its interior was decorated and the high quality of the workmanship.

Copyright: Stephan Reinsch                                                     Copyright: CC BY-SA 3.0

 Hall of the Knights. Copyright: CC by 3.0 DE

Yet it was less the beautiful finishing of the interior than the power of the defenses and harmonious and effective lay-out of the castle that has impressed tourists, archeaologists and historians alike. Even Thomas Edward Lawrence (more famous as “Lawrence of Arabia”) who was highly critical of crusader castles generally loved Crac de Cheveliers. He claimed it was the “most wholly admirable castle in the world.”[i] Hugh Nigel Kennedy, the modern British medieval historian, concluded that Crac was "the most elaborate and developed anywhere in the Latin east ... the whole structure is a brilliantly designed and superbly built fighting machine.”[ii]

Plan of Crac des Chevaliers from Guillaume Rey Étude sur les monuments de l'architecture militaire des croisés en Syrie et dans l'île de Chypre (1871). North is on the right.

Copyright: CC by 3.0 DE

Crak represented the incorporated the very best military architecture of its day. On the one hand it made the most use of the natural topography by being sited atop a hill. But it added man-made defenses to those given it by nature to an extraordinary extent. These included two complete and concentric walls reinforced by towers that provided overlapping fields of fire to any salient of the wall. The use of round towers is particularly noteworthy as they were a comparatively new “invention,” first employed by Richard the Lionheart in his innovative castle Chateau Galliard, which was built between 1196 and 1198. The entire castle was surrounded by a moat up to 27 meters wide.

The outer wall was 16 meters high and 6.5 meters thick. There were two firing levels inside the wall as well as on the top, giving a total of three levels from which defenders could hurl missiles at attackers.  The outer wall was situated somewhat higher up the hill and was over 30 meters high and 12 meters thick. Defenders on this wall could shoot over their own colleagues to reach the enemy. The distance between the two walls was furthermore small enough so that should any enemy manage to breach the outer wall, they would come under fire from remaining defenders on both the inner and outer walls simultaneously. Interior walkways enabled the reinforcement of any sector under attack.

After the failure of Louis IX’s ill-fated Seventh Crusade and the rise of the Mamlukes, the situation around Crac began to deteriorate. The resurgent Saracens made frequent raids that caused the bulk of the peasants to abandon their land, leaving the countryside around the castle largely deserted. In 1270, the Mamluke Sultan Baybars brought a large force to reduce Crac but abandoned the siege on receiving word that King Louis IX was again on his way to attack Egypt. However, Louis died while still in Tunis, and in March 1271 Baybars returned. The Hospitallers had too few defenders for the dimensions of their great castle. The siege began March 3 and by March 29 the Mamlukes had succeeded in undermining the corner tower in the southwest and breaching the outer wall.  The garrison retreated into the inner ward and a lull of ten days followed, after which the Sultan conveyed a letter to the garrison allegedly from the Hospitaller Master authorizing the surrender of the garrison at their discretion. Understanding that no relief was on the way, the garrison negotiated a surrender of the Hospitaller’s proudest castle and abandoned it without a real fight. The letter was a forgery. 

Discover the crusader states in Dr. Schrader's novels set in the Holy Land during the crusader period:

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is an award-winning novelist and author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction. Her three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin won a total of 14 literary accolades. Her most recent release is a novel about the founding of the crusader Kingdom of Cyprus. You can find out more at: http://crusaderkingdoms.com

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[i] T.E. Lawrence quoted in Boas, Adrian. Crusader Archaeology. Routledge, 1999, p. 112.

[ii] Kennedy, Hugh. Crusader Castles.  Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 153

Women's Rights in Outremer

It is a common misconception that women in the Middle Ages lacked fundamental rights and were nothing but “chattels.” I’ve written about this in various forums in the past. Today I want to take a closer look at the rights Frankish women enjoyed (or didn’t) before the High Courts of Jerusalem and Cyprus based on the writings of two of the most important 13th-century jurists, Philip de Novare, and John d’Ibelin of Jaffa.

First, let me explain what the "High Court" was. The High Court of both Jerusalem and Cyprus was composed of all the vassals — from 1162 including “rear-vassals,” i.e. men who owed their fief to another vassal — of the king. It ruled on all matters pertaining to relations between the King and his vassals and between members of this feudal upper class. A series of other courts (e.g. the Court of the Bourgeois, the Court of the Chain, canonical courts, manorial courts) regulated the affairs of the merchant class, commercial disputes, matters governed by canon law and disputes involving the clergy, tenants and more respectively. (For more on these other courts see: See: http://www.crusaderkingdoms.com/judiciary.html) These courts also covered cases between a member of the feudal elite and someone from a different strata of society, as the courts followed the fundamental principle of trying a case before the peers of the lower-ranking of the parties to the dispute. Critically, as John La Monte points out in his seminal work Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1100 to 1291:

All members of the High Court were peers, and trial by peers being the fundamental formula of Outremer law, the king as well as any of the barons was subject to the decisions of the court.[1]

The High Court was first and foremost responsible for matters pertaining to the attainment, retainment, and loss of fiefs — including the kingdom itself. In other words, all issues of inheritance — including succession to the crown.  No fief, no matter how small, could change hands without the approval of the High Court.[2] The corollary thereto being that no vassal could lose his fief without a judgment of the High Court.

The High Court also ruled on taxes, treaties, and truces with the enemy, as well as on the marriage of heiresses. It ruled on the duties of vassals to the king — and those duties that the king could not impose.  It ruled on cases involving wardship, debt, even the sale of horses. Last but not least, the High Court sat in judgment on any vassal (member of the feudal class) accused of a capital offense, such as murder, rape or assault, and, of course, in all cases of alleged treason.  

It was because women in the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus could be vassals of the King that they had any business with the High Court — and the importance of this can hardly be overstated. In Outremer, women could inherit even the kingdom itself, and so women were viewed as part of the ruling class and peers. Nothing can be farther from being a chattel!

Which does not mean that they were not in some significant ways disadvantaged, as we shall see. First, however, allow me to focus on the significant rights women enjoyed.

The right to inherit and hold fiefs took several forms. Women could be outright heiresses (in which case all daughters inherited equally, rather than the eldest alone as for men). They could be widows holding 50% of their husband’s former fief as their dower (for more on dowers see: Of Dowers, Dowries, and Dowagers), they could be guardians for minor heirs, not yet come into their inheritance, or they could be wives representing husbands in enemy captivity. However, because fiefs entailed a military obligation and the need to keep the feudal army of the Kingdom Jerusalem was so pressing, heiresses over the age of 12 were obliged to marry.

While the principle is clear, the practice if much murkier. The legal theorists say that the heiresses lord had to “summon her” — which lords did not always do, as the court records show.  If they did summon the heiress, they were required to offer the heiress a choice between “three candidates of comparable social standing.[3] Failure on the part of the heiress to comply with a summons was theoretically punishable by the loss of the fief for one year and a day, after which the fief was returned and the heiress summoned again. Aside from the fact that this gave the heiress (and or her relatives) a great deal of leverage in ensuring a suitable candidate was presented, we know of not one single case where this procedure was put into effect. The only similar incident was the case of the widowed Constance, Princess of Antioch, who — as William of Tyre laments — refused to follow the advice of King Baldwin III. He describes the situation as follows:

Great was the anxiety of King Baldwin of Jerusalem at this time on behalf of Antioch and the lands adjacent to it. He feared lest, deprived as it was of the protection of its prince, it might fall into the hand of the enemy and suffer the pitiable fate of Edessa… He therefore repeatedly advised the princess to choose one of the nobles as a husband… The princess, however, dreaded the yoke of marriage and preferred a free and independent life. She paid little heed to the needs of her people….

There is no talk here of her losing her fief — perhaps because Antioch was not a vassal state of Jerusalem and there was absolutely nothing King Baldwin could do. In the end, she married exactly who she pleased, in this case, the infamous Reynald de Châtillon.

Widows in Outremer, like widows in the west, enjoyed even greater freedom as they were under no compulsion to remarry — unless they were heiresses, in which case the above rule applied to them as well. Furthermore, they were financially better protected than their sisters in the West, as the dower in the Latin East was recognized as one half of their husband’s property, compared to one third in England, for example. They could also purchase new fiefs — provided they could do knight’s service, which meant effectively only if they had a younger son who did not own service for the paternal fief, or if they were prepared to re-marry. If they were inclined to re-marry for whatever reason, however, they needed the permission of their feudal overlord. (An her new husband, presumably faced sanctions.) 

Before the law, women were also recognized as peers in that they could both initiate and be the defendants in court proceedings. In capital cases, i.e. cases that could be referred to judicial combat or trial-by-combat, female litigants were allowed to employ “champions.” In effect, these were witnesses, willing to demonstrate the veracity of their testimony (in favor of the lady litigant) by facing combat.

This is a critical point. If a peer (male or female) brought charges against another peer, they would testify in court by swearing on scripture. The defendant had to challenge them as a perjurer, and if no out-of-court settlement could be reached, a judicial duel would be organized. The loser of this judicial combat was deemed a perjurer. Since a woman was not capable of fighting a knight in judicial combat (presumably mounted and with lance, sword or mace), she needed a champion to testify on her behalf and fight the duel for her. Whoever lost the combat (if he survived) was hanged; if the man had been the witness for a woman litigant, she too lost her life. She was burned at the stake.

However, because it was the witnesses to a case that had to stand the trial-by-combat, women were excluded from bearing witness in the High Court — except in matters (e.g. inheritance, lesser crimes) that did not carry capital punishment for the guilty party and so the possibility of judicial combat. While this may seem like a “misogynous” provision, it had nothing to do with sex at all. The Latin clergy — hardly an otherwise oppressed or disadvantaged class — was also excluded from bearing witness at trials involving capital offenses for the same reason.

Likewise, non-Latins, serfs and children were excluded from bearing witness too, since none were deemed able — or entitled — to face a knight in mortal combat. Here the principle of trial by one’s peers was the operable issue. Members of other strata of society, much less serfs, were not the peers of a knight and so could not have a role in determining his guilt or innocence.

The capital crime of greatest relevance to women was probably rape. Here another anomaly crops up. Unmarried women (maidens, nuns) and widows could initiate court proceedings for rape on their own. They would, of course, still need two witnesses willing to swear on the scripture and face a recalcitrant defendant in combat if necessary. Married women, however, could not initiate proceedings at all; their husband had to do it for them. Their husband was expected to face judicial combat for them. The implication was that if the husband was not, i.e. if he had doubts that his wife had been an unwilling partner, then no one else would believe her.

In another way too, married women were disadvantaged before the law: there was no legal recourse in the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus for domestic violence. While it was unchivalrous and the church condemned violence against the weak — including wives and children, a man could legally employ violence against his wife, his children and his slaves with impunity.

Unclear based on the evidence we have is whether women could plea before the High Court (i.e. make arguments), but this seems on the whole very unlikely. Most men chose legal counsel over arguing their own cases as well, and a woman would have had even more reason to want the benefit of a highly respected and experienced lawyer in order to compensate for any latent prejudice against women.

It is also unrecorded whether women holding fiefs in their own right but without husbands due to death (i.e. widows) or imprisonment could take part in the deliberations of the High Court. In the case, the fact that it was not explicitly prohibited suggests rather that it was allowed since in feudal society — and especially in the crusader kingdoms — class was always more important than sex. From the time of Queen Melisende, women had been involved in government of Jerusalem, and the heiresses of the great baronies such as Galilee and Oultrejourdain were also prominent. Most important, we know that Queen Melisende attended meetings of the High Court after she had abdicated power and in her capacity as a “baron.”

As in all societies, practice will have been far more diverse — both for better and for worse in individual cases — than theory. Certainly, Edbury notes, the recorded cases of trial by combat are limited, suggesting that very many cases were, in fact, settled out of court.

Crusader society is depicted as accurately as possible in all of my novels set in Outremer: 

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[1] John La Monte, Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1100 to 1291 (Cambridge, Mass: Medieval Society of America, 1932) 92.

[2] La Monte, 95.

[3] Peter Edbury, Law and History in the Latin East (Farnham, Surry: Ashgate, 2014) V:287.