Plate of the House of Lusignan-Cyprus, with coat of arms at the center. Late 14th century, Egypt or Syria. Louvre Museum.

The Lusignan family originated in Poitou near Lusignan in western France in the early 10th century. By the end of the 11th century, they had risen to become the most prominent petty lords in the region from their castle at Lusignan. In the late 12th century, through marriage and inheritance, a cadet branch of the family came to control the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and of Cyprus, while in the early 13th century, the main branch succeeded in the Counties of La Marche and Angoulême. As Crusader princes in the Latin East, they soon had connections with the Hethumid rulers of the Kingdom of Cilicia, which they inherited through marriage in the mid-14th century. The Armenian and Cypriot branches of the family eventually merged and the dynasty died out after the Ottoman conquest of their Asian kingdoms.

Origins[link]

Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, March: the Château de Lusignan

The Château de Lusignan, near Poitiers, was the principal seat of the Lusignans; it was destroyed during the Wars of Religion, and only its foundations remain in Lusignan. According to legend the earliest castle was built by the folklore water-spirit Melusine. The lords of the castle at Lusignan were counts of La Marche, over which they frequently fought with the counts of Angoulême. Count Hugh le Brun ("Hugh the Swarthy"), like most of the lords of Poitou, backed Arthur of Brittany as the better heir to Richard Lionheart when John Lackland acceded to the throne of England in 1199. Eleanor of Aquitaine traded English claims for their support of John. To secure his position in La Marche, the widowed Hugh arranged a betrothal with the daughter of his next rival of Angoulême, no more than a child; John however married her himself, in August 1200, and deprived Hugh of La Marche and his brother of Eu in Normandy. The aggrieved Lusignans turned to their liege lord, Philip Augustus, King of France. Philip demanded John's presence— a tactical impossibility— and declared John a contumacious vassal. As the Lusignan allies managed to detain both Arthur and Eleanor, John surprised their unprepared forces at the castle of Mirabeau, in July 1202, and took Hugh prisoner with 200 more of Poitou's fighting men. King John's savage treatment of the captives turned the tide against himself, and his French barons began to desert him in droves. Thus the Lusignans' diplomatic rebellion led directly to the loss of half of England's French territory, which was soon incorporated into France by Philip Augustus (The other "half", Aquitaine, was the possession of Eleanor, who was still alive).

Lords of Lusignan[link]

Arms of Lusignan.

• Hugh I (early 10th century)
• Hugh II (died 967)
• Hugh III
• Hugh IV
• Hugh V (died 1060)

Counts of La Marche[link]

Hugh VI inherited by collateral succession the County of La Marche (1091) as descendant of Almodis.

• Hugh VI (died 1110)
• Hugh VII (died 1151)
• Hugh VIII (died 1165)
• Hugh IX (died 1219)

Counts of La Marche and Angoulême[link]

Hugh IX's son, Hugh X, married Isabelle of Angoulême, thus securing Angoulême (1220).

• Hugh X (died 1249)
• Hugh XI (died 1250)
• Hugh XII (died 1270)
• Hugh XIII (died 1303)
• Guy (died 1308)
• Yolande (died 1314)

Yolande sold the fiefs of Lusignan, La Marche, Angoulême, and Fougères to Philip IV of France in 1308. They became a part of the French royal demesne and a common appanage of the crown.

Crusader kings[link]

The Lusignans were among the French nobles who made great careers in the Crusades. An ancestor of the later Lusignan dynasty in the Holy Land, Hugh VI of Lusignan, was killed in the east during the Crusade of 1101. Another Hugh arrived in the 1160s and was captured in a battle with Nur ad-Din Zangi. In the 1170s, Amalric arrived in Jerusalem, having been expelled by Richard Lionheart (at that point, acting Duke of Aquitaine) from his realm, which included the family lands of Lusignan near Poitiers. Amalric married Eschiva, the daughter of Baldwin of Ibelin, and entered court circles. He had also obtained the patronage of Agnes of Courtenay, the divorced mother of King Baldwin IV, who held the county of Jaffa and Ascalon and was married to Reginald of Sidon. He was appointed Agnes's constable in Jaffa, and later constable of the kingdom. Hostile rumours alleged he was Agnes's lover, but this is questionable. It is likely that his promotions were aimed at weaning him away from the political orbit of the Ibelin family, who were associated with Raymond III of Tripoli, Amalric I's cousin and the former bailli or regent. Amalric's younger brother, Guy, arrived at some date before Easter 1180. When he arrived is quite unknown, unless we accept the statement of Ernoul that he arrived at this precise juncture on Amalric's advice. Many modern historians believe that Guy was already well established in Jerusalem by 1180, but there is no contemporary evidence to support this belief. What is certain is that Amalric of Lusignan's success facilitated Guy's social and political advancement.

Older accounts (derived from William of Tyre and Ernoul) claim that Agnes was concerned that her political rivals, headed by Raymond of Tripoli, were determined to exercise more control by forcing Agnes' daughter, the princess Sibylla, to marry someone of their choosing, and that Agnes foiled these plans by advising her son to have Sibylla married to Guy. However, it seems that the King, who was less malleable than earlier historians have portrayed, was considering the international implications: it was vital for Sibylla to marry someone who could rally external help to the kingdom, not someone from the local nobility. With the new King of France, Philip II, a minor, the chief hope of external aid was Baldwin's first cousin Henry II, who owed the Pope a penitential pilgrimage on account of the Thomas Becket affair. Guy was a vassal of Richard of Poitou and Henry II, and as a formerly rebellious vassal, it was in their interests to keep him overseas.

Guy and Sibylla were hastily married at Eastertide 1180, apparently preventing a coup by Raymond's faction to marry her to Amalric of Lusignan's father-in-law, Baldwin of Ibelin. By his marriage Guy also became count of Jaffa and Ascalon and bailli of Jerusalem. He and Sibylla had two daughters, Alice and Maria. Sibylla already had one child, a son from her first marriage to William of Montferrat.

An ambitious man, Guy convinced Baldwin IV to name him regent in early 1182. However, he and Raynald of Châtillon made provocations against Saladin during a two-year period of truce. But it was his military hesitance at the siege of Kerak which disillusioned the king with him. Throughout late 1183 and 1184 Baldwin IV tried to have his sister's marriage to Guy annulled, showing that Baldwin still held his sister with some favour. Baldwin IV had wanted a loyal brother-in-law, and was frustrated in Guy's hard-headedness and disobedience. Sibylla was held up in Ascalon, though perhaps not against her will. Unsuccessful in prying his sister and close heir away from Guy, the king and the Haute Cour altered the succession, placing Baldwin V, Sibylla's son from her first marriage, in precedence over Sibylla, and decreeing a process to choose the monarch afterwards between Sibylla and Isabella (whom Baldwin and the Haute Cour thus recognized as at least equally entitled to succession as Sibylla), though she was not herself excluded from the succession. Guy kept a low profile from 1183 until his wife became queen in 1186.

Guy's term as king is generally seen as a disaster; he was defeated by Saladin at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, and was imprisoned in Damascus as Saladin reconquered almost the entire kingdom. Upon his release, his claim to the kingship was ignored, and when Sibylla died at the Siege of Acre in 1191, he no longer had any legal right to it. Richard, now king of England and a leader of the Third Crusade, supported Guy's claim, but in the aftermath of the crusade Conrad of Montferrat had the support of the majority of nobles. Instead, Richard sold Guy the island of Cyprus, which he had conquered on his way to Acre. Guy thereby became the first Latin lord of Cyprus. Amalric succeeded Guy in Cyprus, and also became King of Jerusalem in 1198. Amalric was responsible for establishing the Roman Catholic Church on Cyprus.

The male line of the Lusignans in the Levant died out in 1267 with Hugh II of Cyprus, Amalric's great-grandson (the male line continued in France until 1308).

Arms of Jerusalem.

First house of Lusignan: kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus[link]

• Guy, King of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1192 then of Cyprus until 1194
• Amalric II, King of Cyprus from 1194 to 1205 and of Jerusalem from 1198
• Hugh I (1205–1218), King of Cyprus only, as his descendants
• Henry I (1218–1253)
• Hugh II (1253–1267)

Second House of Lusignan[link]

Basin attributed to Hugh IV of Cyprus. An inscription in Arabic reads: "Made by the order of Hugh, favoured by God, the one at the vanguard of the elite troops of the Franks, Hugh of the Lusignans". Another inscription in French reads: "Très haut et puissant roi Hugues de Jherusalem et de Chipre que Dieu manteigne." ("Very high and powerful king Hugh of Jerusalem and Cyprus, may God maintain him"). 14th century, Egypt or Syria. Louvre Museum ^[1]

At that point, Hugh of Antioch, whose maternal grandfather had been Hugh I of Cyprus, a male heir of the original Lusignan dynasty, took the name Lusignan, thus founding the second House of Lusignan, and managed to succeed his deceased cousin as King of Cyprus. These "new" Lusignans, who were also descendants of Robert Guiscard, remained in control of Cyprus until 1489; in Jerusalem (or, more accurately, Acre), they ruled from 1268 until the fall of the city in 1291, after an interlude (1228–1268) during which the Hohenstaufen dynasty officially held the kingdom. After 1291 the Lusignans continued to claim the lost Jerusalem, and occasionally attempted to organize crusades to recapture territory on the mainland.

In 1300, the Lusignans, led by Amalric, Prince of Tyre entered into combined military operations with the Mongols under Ghazan to retake the Holy Land:

"That year [1300], a message came to Cyprus from Ghazan, king of the Tatars, saying that he would come during the winter, and that he wished that the Frank join him in Armenia (...) Amalric of Lusignan, Constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, arrived in November (...) and brought with him 300 knights, and as many or more of the Templars and Hospitallers (...) In February a great admiral of the Tatars, named Cotlesser, came to Antioch with 60,000 horsemen, and requested the visit of the king of Armenia, who came with Guy of Ibelin, Count of Jaffa, and John, lord of Giblet. And when they arrived, Cotelesse told them that Ghazan had met great trouble of wind and cold on his way. Cotlesse raided the land from Haleppo to La Chemelle, and returned to his country without doing more".

—Le Templier de Tyre, Chap 620–622^[2]

Second house of Lusignan: kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus[link]

Arms of Cyprus under the Lusignans.

• Hugh III (1267–1284)
• John I (1284–1285)
• Henry II (1285–1324)
  • Amalric (1306–1310), usurper
• Hugh IV (1324–1359)
• Peter I (1359–1369)
• Peter II (1369–1382)
• James I (1382–1398)
• Janus (1398–1432)
• John II (1432–1458)
• Charlotte (1458–1464)
• James II (1464–1473)
• James III (1473–1474)

Kings of Lesser Armenia[link]

Constantin III of Armenia on his throne. "Les chevaliers de Saint-Jean-de-Jerusalem rétablissant la religion en Arménie", 1844 painting by Henri Delaborde.

In the 13th century the Lusignans also intermarried with the royal families of the Principality of Antioch and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The Hethoumids ruled Cilicia until the murder of Leon IV in 1341, when his cousin Guy de Lusignan (who took the name of Constantine II of Armenia) was elected king. The Lusignan dynasty was of French origin, and already had a foothold in the area, the Island of Cyprus. There had always been close relations between the Lusignans of Cyprus and the Armenians. However, when the pro-Latin Lusignans took power, they tried to impose Catholicism and the European way of life. The Armenian leadership largely accepted this, but the peasantry opposed the changes. Eventually, this led way to civil strife.^[3]

In the late 14th century, Cilicia was invaded by the Mameluks. The fall of Sis in April, 1375 put an end to the kingdom; its last King, Leon V, was granted safe passage and died in exile in Paris in 1393 after calling in vain for another Crusade. The title was claimed by his cousin, James I of Cyprus, uniting it with the titles of Cyprus and Jerusalem.^[3] The last fully independent Armenian entity of the Middle Ages was thus decimated after three centuries of sovereignty and bloom.

Lusignan kings of Cilicia (Armenia)[link]

Arms of Cilicia under the Lusignan, showing a triple impalement of the arms of Cilicia under the Hethumids with those of Jerusalem and Lusignan

• Constantine II (1342–1344)
• Constantine III (1344–1362)
• Constantine IV (1362–1373)
• Leo V (1374–1393)

The Armenian kingdom was inherited by the Cypriot Lusignans in 1393.

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

External links[link]

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lusignan". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Guy of Lusignan
Romantic portrait of Guy by François-Edouard Picot, c. 1843. Salles des Croisades, Versailles.
King of Jerusalem (jure uxoris)
Reign	1186–1192
Coronation	1186
Predecessor	Baldwin V
Successor	Isabella I
King of Cyprus
Reign	1192–1194
Successor	Amalric of Lusignan
Consort	Sibylla of Jerusalem
House	House of Lusignan
Father	Hugh VIII of Lusignan
Born	c. 1150 Lusignan, Poitou
Died	18 July 1194 Nicosia, Cyprus

Guy of Lusignan (c. 1150 – 18 July 1194) was a Poitevin knight, son of Hugh VIII of the prominent Lusignan dynasty. He was king of the crusader state of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1192 by right of marriage to Sibylla of Jerusalem, and of Cyprus from 1192 to 1194. Having arrived in the Holy Land in the 1170s, Guy rose to prominence within the royal courts of Baldwin IV before marrying Sybilla in 1180 to prevent a political incident within the kingdom. As Baldwin's health deteriorated, Guy was appointed regent of Jerusalem; upon Sybilla's succession to the throne, Guy was crowned king-consort in 1186. Guy's reign was marked by increased hostilities with the Ayyubids ruled by Saladin, culminating in the disastrous Battle of Hattin in July 1187—during which Guy was captured—and the fall of Jerusalem itself three months later.

Following a year of imprisonment in Damascus, Guy was released by Saladin. After being denied entry to Tyre, one of the last crusader strongholds, by Conrad of Montferrat, Guy besieged Acre in 1189. The siege developed into a rallying point for the Third Crusade, led by Philip Augustus of France and Sibylla's first cousin once-removed, Richard the Lionheart. Guy entered a bitter row with Conrad over the kingship of Jerusalem; despite Richard's support for Guy, Conrad was elected king by the nobility of the kingdom. Conrad was assassinated by the Hashshashin days after the election; Richard's and Guy's involvement in the incident is suspected, but unproven. Nevertheless, Guy was compensated for the dispossession of his crown by being given lordship of Cyprus in 1192, which Richard had annexed from the Byzantine Empire en route to the Levant. Guy ruled the Kingdom of Cyprus until his death in 1194, when he was succeeded by his brother Amalric.

Biography[link]

Political rise[link]

Guy was a son of Lord Hugh VIII of Lusignan, in Poitou, at that time a part of the French duchy of Aquitaine, held by Queen Eleanor of England, her third son Richard, and her husband the English King Henry II.

In 1168 Guy and his brothers ambushed and killed Patrick of Salisbury, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who was returning from a pilgrimage. They were banished from Poitou by their overlord, Richard I, then (acting) Duke of Aquitaine.

Guy went to Jerusalem at some date between 1174 and 1180. In 1174, his older brother Amalric married the daughter of Baldwin of Ibelin and entered court circles. Amalric had also obtained the patronage of King Baldwin IV and of his mother Agnes of Courtenay who held the county of Jaffa and Ascalon and was married to Reginald of Sidon. He was appointed Agnes's Constable in Jaffa, and later Constable of the Kingdom. Later, hostile rumours alleged he was Agnes's lover, but this is questionable. It is likely that his promotions were aimed at weaning him away from the political orbit of the Ibelin family, who were associated with Raymond III of Tripoli, Amalric I's cousin and the former bailli or regent. What is certain is that Amalric of Lusignan's success facilitated Guy's social and political advancement whenever he arrived.

Raymond of Tripoli and his ally Bohemond III of Antioch were preparing to invade the kingdom to force the king to give his older sister Sibylla in marriage to Baldwin of Ibelin, Amalric's father-in-law. Guy and Sibylla were hastily married at Eastertide, in April 1180, to prevent this coup. By his marriage Guy also became Count of Jaffa and Ascalon in April 1180, and bailli (Bailiff) of Jerusalem. He and Sibylla had two daughters, Alix and Maria. Sibylla already had one child, a son from her first marriage to William of Montferrat.

The mid-thirteenth century Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (formerly attributed to Ernoul) claims that Agnes advised her son to marry Sibylla to Guy, and that Amalric had brought Guy to Jerusalem specifically for him to marry Sibylla. However, this is improbable: given the speed with which the marriage was arranged, Guy must have already been in the kingdom when the decision was made. It seems that the King, who was less malleable than earlier historians have portrayed, was considering the international implications: it was vital for Sibylla to marry someone who could rally external help to the kingdom, not someone from the local nobility. With the new King of France, Philip II, a minor, the chief hope of external aid was Baldwin's first cousin Henry II, who owed the Pope a penitential pilgrimage on account of the Thomas Becket affair. Guy was a vassal of Richard of Poitou and Henry II, and as a formerly rebellious vassal, it was in their interests to keep him overseas.

Early in 1182, as his health markedly declined, Baldwin IV named Guy regent. However, he and Raynald of Châtillon made provocations against Saladin during a two-year period of truce. But it was his military hesitance at the siege of Kerak which disillusioned the king with him. Throughout late 1183 and 1184 Baldwin IV tried to have his sister's marriage to Guy annulled, showing that Baldwin still held his sister with some favour. Baldwin IV had wanted a loyal brother-in-law, and was frustrated in Guy's disobedience. Sibylla was in Ascalon with her husband. Unsuccessful in prying his sister and close heir away from Guy, the king and the Haute Cour altered the succession, placing Baldwin V, Sibylla's son from her first marriage, in precedence over Sibylla, and decreeing a process to choose the monarch afterwards between Sibylla and Isabella (whom Baldwin and the Haute Cour thus recognized as at least equally entitled to succession as Sibylla), though she was not herself excluded from the succession. Guy kept a low profile from 1183 until his wife became Queen in 1186.

King of Jerusalem[link]

When Baldwin IV finally succumbed to his leprosy in 1185, Baldwin V became King, but he was a sickly child and died within a year. Guy went with Sibylla to Jerusalem for his stepson's funeral in 1186, along with an armed escort, with which he garrisoned the city. Raymond III, who was jealous to protect his own influence and his new political ally, the dowager queen Maria Comnena, was making arrangements to summon the Haute Cour when Sibylla was crowned queen by Patriarch Eraclius. Raynald of Châtillon gained popular support for Sibylla by affirming that she was "li plus apareissanz et plus dreis heis dou rouame" ("the most evident and rightful heir of the kingdom"). With the clear support of the church Sibylla was undisputed sovereign.

However, before she was crowned she agreed with oppositional court members that she would annul her marriage with Guy to please them, as long as she would be given free choice in her next husband. The leaders of the Haute Cour agreed, and Sibylla was crowned thereafter as queen regnant. Taking her choice as husband, to the astonishment of the rival court faction, she remarried Guy, who became King in August 1186. The Queen removed the crown from her head and handed it to Guy, permitting him to crown himself, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, in September 1186. As Bernard Hamilton writes, "there could be no doubt after the ceremony that Guy only held the crown matrimonial".

Sibylla's half-sister Isabella and her husband Humphrey IV of Toron were Raymond III and the Ibelins' choice for the throne. As Sibylla's parents marriage had been annulled and both she and Baldwin had been legitimized by the church, Isabella was seen by many as the legal heiress. However, Humphrey would not assert his wife's claim, and he disassociated himself from them, swearing fealty instead to Sibylla. Humphrey would become one of Guy's closest allies in the kingdom.

Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem[link]

Saladin and Guy of Lusignan after Hattin.

Immediately the chief concern in the kingdom was checking Saladin's advance. In 1187 Guy, under pressure and surrounded by conflicting advice, attempted to relieve Saladin's siege of Tiberias. Guy's army left the springs of Sepphora, and marched into the desert to give pitched battle. Stationary, it was surrounded and cut off from a supply of water, and on July 4 the army of Jerusalem was completely destroyed at the Battle of Hattin. Guy was one of the very few captives spared by the Saracens after the battle, along with his brother Geoffrey, Raynald, and Humphrey.

The exhausted captives were brought to Saladin's tent, where Guy was given a goblet of water as a sign of Saladin's generosity. When Guy offered the goblet to his fellow captive Raynald, Saladin knocked the goblet away, saying that since Guy did not ask permission to offer Raynald the water, that Saladin was not obliged to show them mercy.^{[citation needed]}

When Saladin accused Raynald of being an oath-breaker, Raynald replied that "kings have always acted thus". Saladin then executed Raynald himself, beheading him with his sword. When Guy was brought in, he fell to his knees at the sight of Raynald's corpse. Saladin bade him to rise, saying, "A king does not kill a king."^[1]

Guy was imprisoned in Damascus, while Sibylla together with Balian of Ibelin remained behind to defend Jerusalem, which was handed over to Saladin on 2 October. Sibylla wrote to Saladin and begged for her husband's release, and Guy was finally granted release in 1188 and allowed to rejoin his wife. Guy and Sibylla sought refuge in Tyre, the only city remaining in Christian hands, thanks to the defence of Conrad of Montferrat (younger brother of Sibylla's first husband).

Guy versus Conrad[link]

15th century illuminated manuscript of the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio: Richard I authorizes Guy of Lusignan to gain Cyprus

Conrad denied sanctuary to Sibylla and Guy, who camped outside the city walls for months. Guy then took the initiative, beginning the siege of Acre in anticipation of the arrival of the vanguard of the Third Crusade. The queen followed him but died during an epidemic in the summer of 1190, along with their young daughters. According to the surviving members of the Haute Cour, with Sibylla's death Guy lost the authority he held as her husband, and the crown passed to Isabella. The Ibelins hastily divorced Isabella from Humphrey, and married her to Conrad, who now claimed the kingship. However, Guy continued to demand recognition as king.

In 1191, Guy left Acre with a small fleet and landed at Limassol to seek support from Richard I of England, whose vassal he had been in Poitou. He swore fealty to King Richard, and attended his wedding to Berengaria of Navarre. He participated in the campaign against Isaac Comnenus of Cyprus. In return for this, when Richard arrived at Acre, he supported Guy against Conrad, who had the support of his kinsmen Philip II of France and Leopold V of Austria.

The conflict continued throughout the siege of Acre, although it did not deter Guy from gallantly saving Conrad's life when he was surrounded by the enemy. A temporary settlement was then reached by which Guy was to remain king in his lifetime, but to be succeeded by Conrad and Isabella or their heirs. However, in April 1192 Richard finally realised that he could not return home without a final resolution to the matter, definitely relinquishing the crown in May 1192. The kingship was put to a vote among the barons of the kingdom: Conrad was elected unanimously, and Guy accepted defeat. Only days later, Conrad was assassinated by Hashshashin, and Isabella married Richard's nephew Henry II of Champagne; when he died in 1197, Isabella married Guy's brother Amalric.

Lord of Cyprus[link]

Meanwhile, Guy was compensated for the loss of his kingdom by purchasing Cyprus from the Templars in 1192, who had themselves purchased it from Richard, who had wrested it from Isaac Comnenus en route to Palestine. Technically Guy was Lord of Cyprus, it not yet being a kingdom, and used the royal title (if at all) as a remnant from Jerusalem, which was not held fully legally. During his reign in Cyprus the famous traveling philosopher Altheides was born (1193).

Death[link]

Guy died in 1194 without surviving issue (his daughters by Sibylla, Alix de Lusignan and Marie de Lusignan both died young of plague at Acre in September or 21 October 1190) and was succeeded by his brother Amalric, who received the royal crown from Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor. Descendants of the Lusignans continued to rule the Kingdom of Cyprus until 1474. Guy was buried at the Church of the Templars in Nicosia.

In fiction and film[link]

Guy appears as main character in a tale of Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio,^[2] where the censure of a Gascon lady converts the King of Cyprus from a churlish to an honourable temper.

Sir Walter Scott, in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802–1803), recounts the legend of Melusina, a supernatural creature

who married Guy de Lusignan, Count of Poitou, under condition that he should never attempt to intrude upon her privacy.... She bore the count many children, and erected for him a magnificent castle by her magical art. Their harmony was uninterrupted until the prying husband broke the conditions of their union, by concealing himself to behold his wife make use of her enchanted bath. Hardly had Melusina discovered the indiscreet intruder, than, transforming herself into a dragon, she departed with a loud yell of lamentation, and was never again visible to mortal eyes; although, even in the days of Brantome, she was supposed to be the protectress of her descendants, and was heard wailing as she sailed upon the blast round the turrets of the castle of Lusignan the night before it was demolished.

Guy has also appeared in a number of historical novels, including Zofia Kossak-Szczucka's Król trędowaty (The Leper King), Graham Shelby's The Knights of Dark Renown, and Cecelia Holland's Jerusalem, generally as a good-looking but weak and foolish young man. Ronald Welch in Knight Crusader and Jean Plaidy (Eleanor Hibbert) in The Heart of the Lion both depict him sympathetically as likable and chivalrous. Both give the misleading impression that he was younger than King Richard: he was at least several years older.

Guy is portrayed as a peace-loving elderly man, goaded into war by Raynald of Châtillon, in Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's 1963 film Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din. Another fictionalised version of him – as an arrogant, scheming villain (and a Templar) – is played by Marton Csokas in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven. The film distorts his relationship with Sibylla, which seems to have been one of mutual loyalty; it also implies that he was her only husband, though this is corrected in the director's cut of the film.

In the historical Knights Templar Trilogy by the Swedish author Jan Guillou, Guy is depicted as a scheming, incompetent, and selfish villain accelerating the loss of the Holy Land to Saladin.

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bernard Hamilton, "Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem", in Medieval Women, edited by Derek Baker. Ecclesiastical History Society, 1978
• Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and his Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Guida Jackson, Women Who Ruled, 1998
• Robert Payne, The Dream and the Tomb, 1984

v t e Monarchs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem Godfrey* · Baldwin I · Baldwin II · Melisende with Fulk and Baldwin III · Amalric I · Baldwin IV · Baldwin V · Sibylla with Guy · Isabella I with Conrad I, Henry I and Amalric II · Mary with John · Isabella II · Conrad II · Conrad III · Hugh I · John II · Henry II * Did not take the title "King"

v t e Monarchs of the Kingdom of Cyprus Guy · Amalric · Hugh I · Henry I · Hugh II · Hugh III · John I · Henry II · Hugh IV · Peter I · Peter II · James I · Janus · John II · Charlotte · Louis · James II · James III · Catherine

Leo V
King of the Armenians
Bust of Leo V
King of Armenia
Reign	1374–1375
Coronation	14 September 1374
Predecessor	Constantine IV
Spouse	Marguerite of Soissons
Issue
Marie de Lusignan
House	House of Lusignan
Father	Jean de Lusignan, Constable of Armenia
Mother	Soldane of Georgia
Born	c. 1342 Cyprus
Died	29 November 1393 Hôtel des Tournelles, Paris
Burial	Saint Denis Basilica
Signature
Religion	Armenian Apostolic Church

Leo V or Levon V (occasionally Leo VI; Armenian: Լեւոն, Levon V; 1342 – 29 November 1393), of the House of Lusignan, was the last Latin king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. He ruled from 1374 to 1375.

Leo was described as "Leon V, King of Armenia" on his own personal seal ("SIGILUM LEONIS QUINTI REGIS ARMENIE"),^[1] and as "Leon de Lusignan the Fifth" in the Middle French inscription on his cenotaph: Leon de Lizingnen quint.^[2]

Early life[link]

Leo was the son of John of Lusignan (Constable and Regent of Armenia) and his wife (or, more probably, mistress) Soldane, daughter of George V of Georgia. Constantine V, in order to wipe out all claimants to the throne, had given orders to kill Leo and his brother Bohemond, but they escaped to Cyprus before the murder could be carried out. He was made a Knight of the Chivalric Order of the Sword in 1360 and Titular Seneschal of Jerusalem on October 17, 1372.

King of Armenia[link]

Leo was elected to the throne on the death of his distant cousin Constantine VI of Armenia in 1373. After a short regency by Mary of Korykos, widow of Constantine, Leo left Famagusta in spite of the ongoing conflict between Cyprus and Genoa. Landing at Korykos, he managed with difficulty to reach Sis, which was already being besieged by the Muslim emir of Aleppo.^[3] Leo and his wife, whom he married at Cyprus in May, 1369, Marguerite of Soissons, daughter of Jean de Soissons and wife, were crowned at Sis on July 26 or September 14, 1374, according to both the Latin and Armenia rites. His right to the throne was challenged by Ashot and Leo's short reign was marked by numerous disputes between the various factions.

After several battles against superior Mamluk forces, he locked himself in the Kapan fortress and eventually surrendered in 1375, thus putting an end to the last Armenian state until the establishment of the short lived Democratic Republic of Armenia (1918–1920) and the Republic of Armenia in 1991.^[1]

The Mameluks took Leo to Cairo with his family, where he was placed under surveillance for several years.^[4] In August 1377, he met with Jean Dardel, a Franciscan who was on his way for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Leon befriended him and employed him as his secretary. Dradel returned to Europe to plead the case of Leon V, and managed to convince King John I of Castile to pay a ransom of precious stones, silks, and birds of prey in 1382.^[4] His wife had died in Cairo, between 1379 and July 4, 1381.

Life in Europe[link]

Leon de Lusignan arrived ill and poor to Medina del Campo. In 1382 or 1383, the King of Castile named Leon Lord of Madrid.^[5] John I granted him for life the town of Madrid, Villa Real and Andújar and a yearly gift of 150,000 maravedis. Leon rebuilt the towers of the Royal Alcázar.

According to Father Mariana, Leon left Castile for France after the death of his protector in 1390. Federico Bravo, however states that he left after two years of ruling, and five years later, the Madrilenians were conceded the revocation of the lordship by John. Leon V apparently went to Paris in June 1384, and received the Saint-Ouen castle and a sizable pension from King Charles VI of France.^[4] He attempted to reconcile the French and the English (as the time fighting the Hundred Years' War) in order to set up a new Crusade^[1] and obtain help to recover his lands, but the meeting he organized in 1386 between Boulogne and Calais were unsuccessful.^[4] Leon continued diplomatic mission to England in 1389 and in 1392.

Death[link]

Original tomb of Leon V, in the Couvent des Célestins, Paris.

Leon V never recovered his throne, and died in Paris on November 29, 1393. His remains were laid to rest in the Couvent des Célestins, near Place de la Bastille in Paris, the second most important burial site for royalty after Saint-Denis. The prestigious convent was located nearby Leon's residence of Hôtel des Tournelles, itself near Hôtel Saint-Pol, the favourite residence of Charles V and Charles VI in the area of Le Marais.

Leon received lavish funerals and had a lavish tomb, located in the choir of the church. However the convent was profanated during the French Revolution.^[1] After the revolution, his tombstone was recovered by Alexandre Lenoir who placed it in his Musée des monuments Français in the Saint-Denis Basilica. In 1815, during the Restoration, a new cenotaph was established for Leon V at the royal Saint Denis Basilica where most representatives of the French monarchy lie.

The effigy on the tomstone, by an anonymous artist, is of a high realism and quality, and it is thought that it was made while Leon was still alive.^[4] Leon V is depicted holding a scepter (now broken) and gloves, symbol of great princes. The tombstone bears the following inscription in French:

"Here lies the right noble and excellent Prince Leon de Lusignan V, Latin king of the kingdom of Armenia, who passed away in Paris on the 29th day of November of the year of Grace 1393. Pray for him."^[6]
("Cy gist tres noble et excellent prince Leon de Lizingnen quint roy latin du royaume d'Armenie qui rendit l'ame a Dieu a Paris le XXIXe jour de novembre l'an de grace M.CCC.IIIIXX.XIII. Priez pour luy") Original 14th century inscription.^[7]

Tomb of Leon V of Armenia, at the Basilique Saint-Denis, France.

He had one legitimate daughter, Marie de Lusignan (ca 1370 – Cairo, before July 4, 1381, who predeceased her mother and father), and two illegitimate sons, Guy de Lusignan or Guido de Armenia (died 1405), a Canon in Autun, Bayeux, Paris and Arras and Captain de la Tour d'Amblay, and Stephan or Etienne de Lusignan, a Knight in Sis.

Upon his death the title of King of Armenia was claimed by Leo's distant cousin James I.

See also[link]

• Armenia-France relations

References[link]

• Boase, T. S. R. (1978). The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. ISBN 0-7073-0145-9. 
• Mutafian, Claude (2001). Le Royaume Arménien de Cilicie. Paris: CNRS Editions. ISBN 2-271-05105-3. 
• Claude Mutafian, Leon V of Lusignan, last king of Armenia [1]
• Pierre-Yves Le Pogram, Tomb of Leon V de Lusignan [2]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Hommage to Leon V of Lusignan, by Claude Mutafian, Pierre Yves Le Pogram

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2012)

Conrad of Montferrat

Conrad of Montferrat (or Conrad I of Jerusalem) (Italian: Corrado del Monferrato; Piedmontese: Conrà ëd Monfrà) (mid-1140s – 28 April 1192) was a northern Italian nobleman, one of the major participants in the Third Crusade. He was the de facto King of Jerusalem, by marriage, from 24 November 1190, but officially elected only in 1192, days before his death. He was also marquis of Montferrat from 1191.^[1]

Early life[link]

Conrad was the second son of Marquis William V of Montferrat, "the Elder", and his wife Judith of Babenberg. He was a first cousin of Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, Louis VII of France and Leopold V of Austria.

Conrad was born in Montferrat, which is now a region of Piedmont, in northwest Italy. The exact place and year are unknown. He is first mentioned in a charter in 1160, when serving at the court of his maternal uncle, Conrad, Bishop of Passau, later Archbishop of Salzburg. (He may have been named after him, or after his mother's half-brother, Conrad III of Germany.)

A handsome man, with great personal courage and intelligence, he was described in the Brevis Historia Occupationis et Amissionis Terræ Sanctæ ("A Short History of the Occupation and Loss of the Holy Land"):

Conrad was vigorous in arms, extremely clever both in natural mental ability and by learning, amiable in character and deed, endowed with all the human virtues, supreme in every council, the fair hope of his own side and a blazing lightning-bolt to the foe, capable of pretence and dissimulation in politics, educated in every language, in respect of which he was regarded by the less articulate to be extremely fluent. In one thing alone was he regarded as blameworthy: that he had seduced another's wife away from her living husband, and made her separate from him, and married her himself.^[2]

(The last sentence alludes to his third marriage to Isabella of Jerusalem in 1190, for which see below.)

He was active in diplomacy from his twenties, and became an effective military commander, campaigning alongside other members of his family in the struggles with the Lombard League. He first married an unidentified lady, possibly a daughter of Count Meinhard I of Görz (It: Gorizia), before 1179, but she was dead by the end of 1186, without leaving any surviving issue.

Byzantine Empire[link]

In 1179, following the family's alliance with Manuel I Comnenos, Conrad led an army against Frederick Barbarossa's forces, then commanded by the imperial Chancellor, Archbishop Christian of Mainz. He defeated them at Camerino in September, taking the Chancellor hostage. (He had previously been a hostage of the Chancellor.) He left the captive in his brother Boniface's care and went to Constantinople to be rewarded by the Emperor,^[3] returning to Italy shortly after Manuel's death in 1180. Now in his mid-thirties, his personality and good looks made a striking impression at the Byzantine court: Niketas Choniates describes him as "of beautiful appearance, comely in life's springtime, exceptional and peerless in manly courage and intelligence, and in the flower of his body's strength".^[4]

In the winter of 1186–1187, Isaac II Angelus offered his sister Theodora, as a bride to Conrad's younger brother Boniface, to renew the Byzantine alliance with Montferrat, but Boniface was married. Conrad, recently widowed, had taken the cross, intending to join his father in the Kingdom of Jerusalem; instead, he accepted Isaac's offer and returned to Constantinople in spring 1187. On his marriage, he was awarded the rank of Caesar. However, almost immediately, he had to help the Emperor defend his throne against a revolt, led by General Alexios Branas. According to Choniates, Conrad inspired the weak Emperor to take the initiative. He fought heroically in the battle in which Branas was killed, without shield or helmet, and wearing a linen cuirass instead of mail. He was slightly wounded in the shoulder, but unhorsed Branas, who was then killed and beheaded by his bodyguards.^[5]

However, feeling that his service had been insufficiently rewarded, wary of Byzantine anti-Latin sentiment (his youngest brother Renier had been murdered in 1182) and of possible vengeance-seeking by Branas's family, Conrad set off for the Kingdom of Jerusalem in July 1187 aboard a Genoese merchant vessel. Some popular modern histories have claimed that he was fleeing vengeance after committing a private murder: this is due to a failure to recognise Branas's name, garbled into "Lyvernas" in the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (sometimes known as The Chronicle of Ernoul), and Roger of Howden's abridgement of his own Gesta regis Henrici Secundi (formerly attributed to Benedict of Peterborough). Roger had initially referred to Conrad "having slain a prominent nobleman in a rebellion" — meaning Branas; in his Chronica, he condensed this to "having committed homicide", omitting the context.

Defence of Tyre[link]

Conrad arrives at Tyre: marginal sketch in late 12C Brevis Historia Regni Hierosolymitani, a continuation of the Annals of Genoa (Bib. Nat. Française)

Conrad evidently intended to join his father, who held the castle of St Elias. He arrived first off Acre, which had recently fallen to Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb), and so sailed north to Tyre, where he found the remnants of the Crusader army. After his victory at the Battle of Hattin over the army of Jerusalem, Saladin was on the march north, and had already captured Acre, Sidon, and Beirut. Raymond III of Tripoli and his stepsons, Reginald of Sidon and several other leading nobles who had escaped the battle had fled to Tyre, but most were anxious to return to their own territories to defend them. Raymond of Tripoli was in failing health, and died soon after he went home.

According to the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, Reginald of Sidon had taken charge in Tyre and was in the process of negotiating its surrender with Saladin. Conrad allegedly threw Saladin's banners into the ditch, and made the Tyrians swear total loyalty to him. His rise to power seems to have been less dramatic in reality. Reginald went to refortify his own castle of Belfort on the Litani River. With the support of the established Italian merchant communities in the city, Conrad re-organised the defence of Tyre, setting up a commune, similar to those he had so often fought against in Italy.

When Saladin's army arrived they found the city well-defended and defiant. As the chronicler Ibn al-Athir wrote of the man the Arabs came to respect and fear as "al-Markis": "He was a devil incarnate in his ability to govern and defend a town, and a man of extraordinary courage". Tyre successfully withstood the siege, and desiring more profitable conquest, Saladin's army moved on south to Caesarea, Arsuf, and Jaffa. Meanwhile, Conrad sent Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre, to the West in a black-sailed ship, bearing appeals for aid. Arabic writers claimed that he also carried propaganda pictures to use in his preaching, including one of the horses of Saladin's army stabled (and urinating) in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and another of a Saracen slapping Christ's face.

In November 1187, Saladin returned for a second siege of Tyre. Conrad was still in command of the city, which was now heavily fortified and filled with Christian refugees from across the north of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This time Saladin opted for a combined ground and naval assault, setting up a blockade of the harbour. In an incident described by the Itinerarium Peregrinorum (which is generally hostile to Conrad), the Old French Continuation and Sicardus of Cremona's second chronicle (now known through quotations by Salimbene di Adam and Alberto Millioli), Saladin presented Conrad's aged father, William V of Montferrat, who had been captured at Hattin, before the walls of the city. He offered to release William and bestow great gifts upon Conrad if he surrendered Tyre. The old man told his son to stand firm, even when the Egyptians threatened to kill him. Conrad declared that William had lived a long life already, and aimed at him with a crossbow himself.^[6] Saladin allegedly said, "This man is an unbeliever and very cruel". But he had succeeded in calling Saladin's bluff: the old Marquis William was released, unharmed, at Tortosa in 1188, and returned to his son.

On December 30, Conrad's forces launched a dawn raid on the weary Egyptian sailors, capturing many of their galleys. The remaining Egyptian ships tried to escape to Beirut, but the Tyrian ships gave chase, and the Egyptians were forced to beach their ships and flee. Saladin then launched an assault on the landward walls, thinking that the defenders were still distracted by the sea battle. However, Conrad led his men in a charge out of the gates and broke the enemy: Hugh of Tiberias distinguished himself in the battle. Saladin was forced to pull back yet again, burning his siege engines and ships to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

Struggle for the crown[link]

The Near East, 1190, at the outset of the Third Crusade

In summer 1188, Saladin released Guy of Lusignan, the husband of Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem, from captivity. A year later, in 1189, Guy, accompanied by his brother Geoffrey, appeared at Tyre and demanded that Conrad hand over the keys to the city to him. Conrad refused this demand, and declared that Guy had forfeited his rights to be king of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin. He said that he was holding the city until the arrival of the kings from Europe. By this, he was invoking the terms of Baldwin IV's will, terms already broken by Guy and Sibylla: in the event of the death of his nephew Baldwin V it had been Baldwin's will that Baldwin V's "most rightful heirs" were to hold the regency until the succession could be settled by the King of England, the King of France, and the Holy Roman Emperor. Conrad would not allow Guy and Sibylla to enter the city, but did allow them to camp outside Tyre's walls with their retainers.

Conrad was persuaded by his cousin once-removed, Louis III, Landgraf of Thuringia, to join Guy in the Siege of Acre in 1189. The siege lasted for over two years. In summer 1190, Conrad travelled north to Antioch to lead another young kinsman, Frederick of Swabia, safely back to Acre with the remnants of his cousin Frederick Barbarossa's imperial army.

When Queen Sibylla and their daughters died of disease later that year, Guy, who had only held the crown matrimonial, no longer had a legal claim to the throne — but refused to step aside. The heiress of Jerusalem was Isabella of Jerusalem, Queen Sibylla's half-sister, who was married to Humphrey IV of Toron, of whom she was fond. However, Conrad had the support of her mother Maria Comnena and stepfather Balian of Ibelin, as well as Reginald of Sidon and other major nobles of Outremer. They obtained an annulment on the grounds that Isabella had been under-age at the time of the marriage and had not been able to give consent. Conrad then married Isabella himself, despite rumours of bigamy because of his marriage to Theodora, who was still alive. (However, Choniates, who usually expresses strong disapproval of marital/sexual irregularities, makes no mention of this. This may imply that a divorce had been effected from the Byzantine side before 1190, by which time it was obvious that Conrad would not be returning.) There were also objections on grounds of canonical 'incest', since Conrad's brother had previously been married to Isabella's half-sister, and Church law regarded this kind of "affinity" as equal to a blood-relationship. However, the Papal Legate, Ubaldo Lanfranchi, Archbishop of Pisa, gave his approval. (Opponents claimed he had been bribed.) The marriage, on 24 November 1190, was conducted by Philip of Dreux, Bishop of Beauvais — son of Conrad's cousin Robert I of Dreux. Conrad was now de jure King of Jerusalem. However, he had been wounded in battle only nine days previously, and returned with his bride to Tyre to recover. He came back to the siege in spring, making an unsuccessful sea-attack against the Tower of Flies at the harbour entrance.

As Guy was a vassal of Richard I of England for his lands in Poitou, Richard supported him in this political struggle, while Conrad was supported by his cousin Leopold V of Austria and cousin once-removed Philip II of France. Conrad acted as chief negotiator in the surrender of Acre, and raised the kings' banners in the city. Afterwards, the parties attempted to come to an agreement. Guy was confirmed as king of Jerusalem, and Conrad was made his heir. Conrad would retain the cities of Tyre, Beirut, and Sidon, and his heirs would inherit Jerusalem on Guy's death. In July 1191 Conrad's kinsman, King Philip, decided to return to France, but before he left he turned over half the treasure plundered from Acre to Conrad, along with all his prominent Muslim hostages. King Richard asked Conrad to hand over the hostages, but Conrad refused as long as he could. After he finally relented (since Richard was now leader of the Crusade), Richard had all the hostages killed. Conrad did not join Richard on campaign to the south, preferring to remain with his wife Isabella in Tyre — believing his life to be in danger. It was probably around this time that Conrad's father died.

During that winter, Conrad opened direct negotiations with Saladin, suspecting that Richard's next move would be to attempt to wrest Tyre from him and restore it to the royal domain for Guy. His primary aim was to be recognised as ruler in the north, while Saladin (who was simultaneously negotiating with Richard for a possible marriage between his brother Al-Adil and Richard's widowed sister Joan, Dowager Queen of Sicily) hoped to separate him from the Crusaders. The situation took a farcical turn when Richard's envoy, Isabella's ex-husband Humphrey of Toron, spotted Conrad's envoy, Reginald of Sidon, out hawking with Al-Adil. There seems to have been no conclusive agreement with Conrad, and Joan refused marriage to a Muslim.

Assassination[link]

In April 1192, the kingship was put to the vote. To Richard's consternation, the barons of the Kingdom of Jerusalem unanimously elected Conrad as King. Richard sold Guy the lordship of Cyprus (where he continued to use a king's title) to compensate him and deter him from returning to Poitou, where his family had long had a reputation for rebelliousness. Richard's nephew Henry II of Champagne brought the news of the election result to Tyre on 24 April, then returned to Acre.

But Conrad was never crowned. Around late morning or noon on 28 April, Isabella, who was pregnant, was late in returning from the hammam to dine with him, so he went to eat at the house of his kinsman and friend, Philip, Bishop of Beauvais. The bishop had already eaten, so Conrad returned home. On his way, he was attacked by two Hashshashin, who stabbed him at least twice in the side and back. His guards killed one of his attackers and captured the other. It is not certain how long Conrad survived. Some sources claimed he died at the scene of the attack, or in a nearby church, within a very short time. Richard's chroniclers claimed that he was taken home, received the last rites, and urged Isabella to give the city over only to Richard or his representative: this death-bed scene is open to doubt. He was buried in Tyre, in the Church of the Hospitallers. "[T]he Frankish marquis, the ruler of Tyre, and the greatest devil of all the Franks, Conrad of Montferrat — God damn him! — was killed," wrote Ibn al-Athir. Certainly, the loss of a potentially formidable king was a blow to the kingdom.

The murder remains unsolved. Under torture, the surviving Hashshashin claimed that Richard was behind the killing, though this is impossible to prove. A less likely suspect was Humphrey IV of Toron, Isabella's first husband. Saladin's involvement has also been alleged, but as Conrad was in the middle of negotiations with him, this also seems unlikely; Saladin himself had no love for the Hashshashin. In 1970, Patrick A. Williams argued a plausible case for Henry of Champagne's guilt, but if so, it is difficult to imagine him taking such a bold step without his uncle Richard's approval.

Later, while returning from the crusade in disguise, Richard was recognised by Meinhard II of Görz, who is described as Conrad's nephew (which suggests the identity of his first wife), and then imprisoned by Conrad's cousin, Leopold V of Austria. Conrad's murder was one of the charges against him. Richard requested that the Hashshashin vindicate him, and in a letter allegedly from their leader, Rashid al-Din Sinan, they appeared to do so. The letter claimed that in 1191, Conrad had captured a Hashshashin ship that had sought refuge in Tyre during a storm. He killed the captain, imprisoned the crew, and stripped the ship of its treasure. When Rashid al-Din Sinan requested that the ship's crew and treasure be returned, he was rebuffed, and so a death sentence was issued for Conrad of Montferrat. However, this letter is believed to have been forged: Sinan was already dead, and apart from this letter and the chronicle entries based upon it, there is no other evidence for the Hashashin being involved in shipping. The timing of the murder, and its consequences — the pregnant Isabella was married off to Henry of Champagne only seven days later, much to the disgust of Muslim commentators — suggest that the chief motive may be sought in Frankish politics.

Family[link]

Conrad's brother Boniface was the leader of the Fourth Crusade and a notable patron of troubadours, as was their sister Azalaïs, Marchioness of Saluzzo. Their youngest brother Renier was a son-in-law of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, and the eldest, William, had been the first husband of Sibylla and father of Baldwin V of Jerusalem. Conrad was also briefly Marquis of Montferrat, following his father's death in 1191. In Montferrat he was succeeded by Boniface, but his own heiress was born posthumously: a daughter Maria of Montferrat, 'La Marquise', who in 1205 became Queen of Jerusalem on Isabella's death, but died young in childbirth. Conrad's ex-wife, Theodora, was still living in the mid-late 1190s, when she was having the monastery of Dalmatios converted into a convent, possibly for her own residence.

Role in fiction, film and art[link]

The Monferrine court was Occitan in its literary culture, and provided patronage to numerous troubadors. Bertran de Born and Peirol mention Conrad in songs composed at the time of the Third Crusade (see external links below). He was seen as a heroic figure, the noble defender of Tyre — the "Marqués valens e pros" ("the valiant and worthy Marquis") as Peirol called him. In Carmina Burana 50: Heu, voce flebili cogor enarrare, he is described as "marchio clarissimus, vere palatinus" ("the most famous Marquis, truly a paladin"). However, subsequently, the long-term prejudice of popular English-language writing towards Richard I and his "Lionheart" myth has adversely affected portrayals of Conrad in English-language fiction and film. Because Richard (and his chroniclers) opposed his claim to the throne, he is generally depicted negatively, even when Richard himself is treated with some scepticism. A rare exception to this is the epic poem Cœur de Lion (1822), by Eleanor Anne Porden, in which he is depicted as a tragic Byronic hero.

An entirely fictionalised, unambiguously wicked version of Conrad appears in Walter Scott's The Talisman, misspelled as 'Conrade of Montserrat' (the novelist apparently misreading 'f' as a long 's' in his sources) and described as a "marmoset" and "popinjay". He is also a villain in Maurice Hewlett's fanciful The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay (1900). He appears briefly, again in a negative light, in Ronald Welch's Knight Crusader (1954): the description owes much to his portrayal in Cecil B. de Mille's The Crusades, mentioned below. The nadir of his fictional appearances is in Graham Shelby's 1970 novel The Kings of Vain Intent. In this, he is thoroughly demonised — depicted as a sinister figure, physically resembling a vampire; in a chapter added by the author to the U.S. edition, he beats and rapes Isabella. These works reflect the later Renaissance and Gothic novel cultural/ethnic stereotype of the 'Machiavellian' Italian: corrupt, scheming, dandified, not averse to poisoning, even (as in Shelby's novel) sexually sadistic. In contrast, the Russian-born French novelist Zoé Oldenbourg gives him a more positive but fleeting cameo-role — proud, strong, and as handsome as Choniates described him — in her 1946 novel Argile et Cendres (Clay and Ashes, published in English as The World Is Not Enough in 1948). He is the hero of Luigi Gabotto's 1968 novel Corrado di Monferrato, which covers his whole career. Another sympathetic portrayal is in Alan Gordon's mystery novel, The Widow of Jerusalem (2003), which investigates his murder.

In film, he has been consistently depicted as a villain, and with scant regard for accuracy. In Cecil B. de Mille's 1935 film The Crusades, he is played by Joseph Schildkraut as a scheming traitor, plotting Richard's death with Prince John in England at a time when he was actually already defending Tyre. The 1954 film King Richard and the Crusaders, loosely based on The Talisman, similarly depicts him as a villain, played by Michael Pate. Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's 1963 film Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din also shows Scott's influence in its hostility towards Conrad (played by Mahmoud El-Meliguy) and Philip, while depicting Richard more favourably.

On television, he was played by Michael Peake in the 1962 British television series Richard the Lionheart, which derived some of its plotlines loosely from Scott's The Talisman. In the more faithful 1980–1981 BBC serialisation of The Talisman, he was played by Richard Morant.

In painting and drawing, Conrad figures in a small contemporary manuscript sketch of his ship sailing to Tyre in the Annals of Genoa, and various illustrations to Scott's The Talisman. There is an imaginary portrait of him, c. 1843, by François-Édouard Picot for the Salles des Croisades at Versailles: it depicts him as a handsome, rather pensive man in his forties, wearing a coronet and fanciful pseudo-mediæval costume. He is shown with dark hair and beard; it is more likely that, like his father and at least two of his brothers, he was blond.

In the game Assassin's Creed, set in 1191 during the height of the Crusades, William V of Montferrat, father of Conrad of Montferrat, is one of nine Templars the main character must assassinate. This is based on the real life death of Conrad, who was assassinated by the real life Hashshashin.

References[link]

• Brand, Charles M. Byzantium Confronts the West, 1968, ISBN 0-7512-0053-0
• Brevis Historia Occupationis et Amissionis Terræ Sanctæ, in Die Chronik des Propstes Burchard von Ursberg, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger & Bernhard von Simson, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica: Scriptores in Usum Scholarum, (Hannover & Leipzig, 1916), pp. 59–64
• Choniates, Niketas, Historia, ed. J.-L. Van Dieten, 2 vols., Berlin and New York, 1975; trans. as O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, by H.J. Magoulias, Detroit; Wayne State University Press, 1984, ISBN 0-8143-1764-2
• Edbury, Peter W. (ed.) The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, 1998, ISBN 1-84014-676-1
• Gabrieli, Francesco. (ed.) Arab Historians of the Crusades, English translation 1969, ISBN 0-520-05224-2
• Gilchrist, M. M. "Character-assassination: Conrad de Montferrat in English-language fiction & popular histories", Bollettino del Marchesato. Circolo Culturale I Marchesi del Monferrato, Alessandria, no. 6 (Nov. 2005), pp.5–13. (external link)
• Haberstumpf, Walter. Dinastie europee nel Mediterraneo orientale. I Monferrato e i Savoia nei secoli XII–XV, 1995 (external link to downloadable text).
• Ilgen, Theodor. Konrad, Markgraf von Montferrat, 1880
• Nicholson, Helen J. (ed.) The Chronicle of the Third Crusade: The Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, 1997, ISBN 0-7546-0581-7
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan. "Corrado di Monferrato", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. XXIX, Rome 1983, pp. 381–387 (external link)
• Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades, 1951–54, vols. 2–3.
• Usseglio, Leopoldo. I Marchesi di Monferrato in Italia ed in Oriente durante i secoli XII e XIII, 1926.
• William of Tyre, French continuation of. Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum (external link to text in mediæval French).
• Williams, Patrick A. "The Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat: Another Suspect?", Traditio, vol. XXVI, 1970.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Bertran de Born (with translation by James H. Donalson), Folheta, vos mi prejatz que eu chan
• Bertran de Born (with translation by James H. Donalson), Ara sai eu de pretz quals l'a plus gran
• Find A Grave: Conrad de Montferrat

v t e Monarchs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem Godfrey* · Baldwin I · Baldwin II · Melisende with Fulk and Baldwin III · Amalric I · Baldwin IV · Baldwin V · Sibylla with Guy · Isabella I with Conrad I, Henry I and Amalric II · Mary with John · Isabella II · Conrad II · Conrad III · Hugh I · John II · Henry II * Did not take the title "King"