Kingdom of Cyprus
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Kingdom of Cyprus Royaume de Chypre ( Latin) )Βασίλειο της Κύπρου (Greek Vasíleio tis Kýprou | |||||||||||||
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1192–1489 | |||||||||||||
Top: Royal banner of
(1350) | |||||||||||||
King | | ||||||||||||
• 1192–1194 | Guy of Lusignan (first)[2] | ||||||||||||
• 1474–1489 | Catherine Cornaro (last) | ||||||||||||
Legislature | Haute Cour | ||||||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages[2] | ||||||||||||
• Established | 1192 | ||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1489 | ||||||||||||
Currency | French denier, gros | ||||||||||||
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Today part of | Cyprus |
History of Cyprus |
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Cyprus portal |
The Kingdom of Cyprus (
History
Medieval Cyprus
After the
The
This period lasted until the year 965, when
Third Crusade
The island of Cyprus was conquered in 1191 by King
Control of the island of Cyprus would give King Richard a extremely valuable strategic base to launch further Crusade operations. The English army engaged the Cypriots on the shores of Limassol with English archers and heavily armored knights. Komnenos and the remainder of the army escaped to the hills during nightfall, but King Richard and his troops tracked the Cypriot ruler down and raided his camp before dawn. Komnenos escaped again with a small number of men. The next day, many Cypriot nobles came to King Richard to swear fealty.[4]
Fearing treachery at the hands of the new invaders, Komnenos fled after making this pledge to King Richard and escaped to the stronghold of Kantara. Some weeks after King Richard's marriage to his bride in Limassol on 12 May 1191, Komnenos attempted an escape by boat to the mainland but he was apprehended at Cape St. Andrea and later imprisoned in the castle of Markappos in Syria, where he died shortly afterwards, still in captivity.
Richard confiscated the property of those Cypriots who had fought against him. He also imposed a 50% capital levy on the island in return for confirming its laws and customs. He also ordered Cypriot men to shave their beards. There was a rebellion led by a relative of Isaac's, but it was crushed by Robert of Thornham, who hanged the leader. Richard rebuked Robert for this execution, since executing a man who claimed to be king was an affront to royal dignity. Some details of the brief English period on Cyprus can be found in the Chronicle of Meaux Abbey, possibly derived from Robert of Thornham, who had a relationship with the abbey.[7]
Knights Templar
When King
Guy and Amalric
In the meantime, the hereditary queen of Jerusalem, Sybilla, had died, and opposition to the rule of her husband, king consort Guy of Lusignan, greatly increased to the point that he was ousted from his claim to the crown of Jerusalem.[4] Since Guy was a long-time vassal of King Richard, the English king looked to strike two birds with one stone; by offering Guy de Lusignan the kingdom of Cyprus, he allowed his friend the opportunity to save face and keep some sort of power in the East whilst simultaneously ridding himself of a troublesome fief. It is unclear whether King Richard gave him the territory or sold it and it is highly unlikely that King Richard was ever paid, even if a deal was struck.[4] In 1194, Guy de Lusignan died without any heirs and so his older brother, Amalric, became King Amalric I of Cyprus, a crown and title which was approved by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.[4]
After the death of Amalric of Lusignan, the Kingdom continually passed to a series of young boys who grew up as king. The
Governance
Like Jerusalem, Cyprus had a Haute Cour (High Court), although it was less powerful than it had been in Jerusalem. The island was richer and more feudal than Jerusalem, so the king had more personal wealth and could afford to ignore the Haute Cour. The most important vassal family was the multi-branch House of Ibelin. However, the king was often in conflict with the Italian merchants, especially because Cyprus had become the center of European trade with Africa and Asia after the fall of Acre in 1291.
The kingdom eventually came to be dominated more and more in the 14th century by the
Economy
The economy of Cyprus remained primarily agrarian during the Lusignan period. Simultaneously, though, the island grew in importance in the trade network connecting Western Europe and the Middle East, serving as an "entrepôt". This led to an increase in demand on Cypriot products (most importantly sugar, but also wine, wheat, oil, carobs) abroad, and the agrarian economy became more export-oriented. This allowed Cyprus to become more prosperous relative to the Byzantine period, fuelling the development of the harbour of Famagusta and the capital Nicosia, enabling the construction of architectural works that survive to this day. Whilst the development of these two eclipsed the other towns, towns such as Limassol, Paphos and Kyrenia did take some part in the changing economic environment. Limassol, in particular, became a port for the export of agricultural products and served as a stopover for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. The relative prosperity encouraged migration to Cyprus from the West (Genoa, Venice, Provence, Catalonia) and the East. The Latin immigrants participated in the economic life as merchants, artisans, shipwrights, ship captains and tavern keepers, and as such had an outsize share in the economy.[10]
During this period, new industries also emerged in Cyprus. Cypriot pottery developed particular characteristics, and was exported to the Crusader States until the
Society and culture
Cypriot society in the Lusignan period was multi-ethnic, with Orthodox Greek Cypriots making up the majority of the population Greeks constituted the majority of the population in the rural areas, where they were either serfs (paroikoi) or free tenants (francomati). The population increased until the middle of the fourteenth century, but the Black Death in 1347-48 resulted in the loss of one fifth to one third of the population. Repeated outbreaks prevented population recovery into the fifteenth century.[11] In the 14th century it was common for Cypriot nobility to get their education in Constantinople.[12]
The Roman Catholic Latins never exceeded a quarter of the island's population and were concentrated in the cities. Frankish knights and aristocracy mostly lived in
List of monarchs of Cyprus
House of Lusignan
- Guy (1192–1194)
- Aimery (1194–1205)
- Hugh I (1205–1218)
- Henry I (1218–1253) (the Fat)
- Hugh II (1253–1267) (Huguet)
- Hugh III(1267–1284) (the Great)
- John I (1284–1285)
- Henry II(1285–1324)
- Amalric of Tyre(1306–1310), regent
- Hugh IV (1324–1358)
- Peter I (1358–1369)
- Peter II (1369–1382) (the Fat)
- James I (1382–1398)
- Janus(1398–1432)
- John II (1432–1458)
- Louis of Savoy)
- James II (1460/1464–1473) (the Bastard)
- James III (1473–1474)
- Catherine Cornaro (1474–1489)
Pretenders of the Kingdom of Cyprus
- Thierry of Flanders, who married the "damsel of Cyprus", heiress of Isaac Komnenos, in the winter of 1202/1203, claimed the kingdom, but Aimery refused to surrender it.[13]
- Eugene Matteo de Armenia (1480's–1523), said by his own progeny to have been an illegitimate son of King James II of Cyprus and if born in the 1480s he was quite a posthumous specimen, alleged to have moved to Sicily then Malta, founder of the family of Baron di Baccari (Tal-Baqqar).
- Charlotte (d. 1487) and Louis (d. 1482), queen and king-consort, continued as pretenders, Charlotte renounced 1482 in favour of:
- Charles I of Savoy(1482–1490), legitimate great-grandson of Janus of Cyprus, son of a first cousin of Charlotte, second cousin of James III, nephew of Louis
- Charles II of Savoy(1490–1496)
- Philibert II of Savoy(d. 1504)
- Janus of Cyprus.
- and several others. The rights diverted de jure, but were claimed by the male line. See further under King Edward IV(who was secretly negotiating a marriage to the Scottish princess Cecilia on Anthony's behalf), as a claimant by purchasing the rights of former Cypriot queens Charlotte and Catarina Cornaro. A convention in Venice of 1476 declared "Anthony Arnite" heir to the combined kingdom of Jerusalem-Cyprus but this came to nought when Anthony died before even his marriage to the sister of James Stewart, King of Scots could be celebrated, and the former Cypriot queens ceded their rights elsewhere: Charlotte to the Italian house of Savoy and Catarina Cornaro to the Most Serene Republic of Venice which asserted its claim to the kingdom as part of the republic, without even a candidate for king.
Titles of the Kings of Cyprus
- King of Cyprus
- King of Jerusalem
- Lord of the Mountains
See also
References
- ^ quartered of Jerusalem, de Lusignan, Armenia and Cyprus, declaring a claim to reign over the former kingdoms of Cilician Armenia and Jerusalem
- ^ ISBN 9781787441736.
- ISBN 9781472441799.
During the period of Frankish rule, Catholicism became the official religion of the island
- ^ a b c d e f g h cypnet.co.uk. "Cyprus under Richard I". cypnet.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2017-04-05. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
- ^ Melissa Snell. "Richard the Lionheart in Cyprus". about.com. Archived from the original on 2012-09-15. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
- ^ Pseudo-Benedict of Peterborough. "How Richard, king of England, seized and conquered Cyprus". cyprusexplorer.globalfolio.net. Archived from the original on 2012-06-02. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
- ^ John Gillingham (1999), Richard I, Yale University Press, p. 152.
- ^ whatson-northcyprus.com. "A Brief History of Cyprus - Byzantine Period (330 - 1191)". whatson-northcyprus.com. Archived from the original on 2020-10-08. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
- ^ "Cyprus Archived 2008-06-22 at the Wayback Machine, Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed May 2007.
- ^ a b Coureas, Nicholas (2005). "Economy". In Nicolaou-Konnari, Angel; Schabel, Chris (eds.). Cyprus: Society and Culture 1191-1374. BRILL. pp. 103–104.
- ^ a b Nicolaou-Konnari, Angel (2005). "Greeks". In Nicolaou-Konnari, Angel; Schabel, Chris (eds.). Cyprus: Society and Culture 1191-1374. BRILL. pp. 103–104.
- ISSN 1464-3561.
- ^ Filip Van Tricht (2011), The Latin Renovatio of Byzantium: The Empire of Constantinople (1204–1228), Brill, pp. 440–442.
Further reading
- Carr, Annemarie (1995). Art in the Court of the Lusignan Kings
- Coureas, Nicholas (2016). Latin Cyprus and its Relations with the Mamluk Sultanate, 1250-1517
- Coureas, Nicholas (2017). The Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus and the Sea 13th-15th Centuries
- Edbury, Peter W. (1991). The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374. Cambridge University.
- Hill, George (1948). A History of Cyprus. Vol. II. The Frankish period 1192–1432. Cambridge University.
- Kyriacou, Chrysovalantis (2018). Orthodox Cyprus under the Latins, 1191–1571: Society, Spirituality, and Identities. Lexington Books.
- Wikidata Q107247875.
- Rogge; Sabine; Grünbart; Michael, eds. (2015). Medieval Cyprus: A Place of Cultural Encounter. Waxmann.
External links
- Media related to Kingdom of Cyprus at Wikimedia Commons