Guy de Lusignan
is rightly remembered as the king who lost the Kingdom of Jerusalem by his
incompetent leadership in 1186-1187. He has accordingly received considerable
attention in both serious histories of the crusader kingdoms and fictional accounts of the period. But Guy was not the only Lusignan to make his fortune
in the Holy Land. On the contrary, he was following in the footsteps of his
older brother Aimery, and it was Aimery, not the feckless Guy, who founded a
dynasty.
Aimery de
Lusignan was the third son of Poitevan nobleman, Hugh VIII de Lusignan, a
troublesome vassal of the Dukes of Aquitaine. The Lusignans had been lords of
Lusignan since the early 10th century and Counts of La Marche since
1091, but in 1166 they were in revolt against their liege lord (Eleanor of
Aquitaine) and siding with the Capets against the Plantagenets. It was in this
period that the “Lusignan brothers” — some sources say Geoffrey and Guy, the
second and fourth sons of Hugh VIII — attacked and killed the Earl of Salisbury
while he was escorting Eleanor of Aquitaine. Since Salisbury was unarmed,
unarmored and stabbed in the back, it was a notorious act, which according to
some sources forced Guy to flee the continent as persona non grata. Curiously,
Aimery’s name is never linked to the murder of Salisbury, yet it was Aimery who
first went to the Holy Land.
Aimery was
following in the footsteps of generations of young noblemen who sought their
fortune “overseas” — in Outremer, but especially in the tradition of his own family, which had a distinguished crusading
record. Hugh VI had come to the Holy Land in 1101 and died at the Battle of
Ramla a year later. Hugh VII took part
in Louis VII’s Second Crusade, and Aimery’s own father, Hugh VIII, had made a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1163, taken part in the Battle of Harim, been
captured by Nur ad-Din and died in a Muslim prison. In short, Aimery would have
heard a great deal about the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his family and their
retainers long before he ever set out. Very likely, there were also many men in
Outremer who would have remembered his father and grandfather.
Sometime before 1174, Aimery de Lusignan
arrived in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and, like his father before him, promptly
got himself captured by the Saracens. Fortunately for him, King Amalric was
prepared to pay his ransom. This
suggests either that the King felt responsible for the young nobleman – or
perhaps just badly that his father had died in prison. It also suggests that Aimery was an agreeable
enough young man, who had made friends among the knights and barons of Jerusalem.
This assessment
is reinforced by the fact that, despite being a younger (third) son, he soon succeeded
in marrying into one of the most important and influential of the local
baronial families, the Ibelins. This was
not the usual case of a Western adventurer seducing a widow as his bride. His wife Eschiva was probably only a young girl at the time, and the marriage was
arranged by her father. Furthermore,
although at the time of this marriage Eschiva was not yet her father’s
heir, the marriage would have been considered advantageous nevertheless as it
made Aimery brother-in-law to the Baron of Ramla, Ibelin and Mirabel, a
combined barony holding 80-some knights’ fiefs.
By 1180, Aimery
had been named to the immensely powerful and important post of Constable of
Jerusalem, succeeding the important local baron Humphrey II of Toron, who had
died of wounds received at the Battle on the Litani in 1179. This promotion
occurred in the reign of Baldwin IV and according to the Chronicle of Ernoul was attributable to the influence of Agnes de Courtney, the king’s mother, with
whom — again according to Ernoul — Aimery was having an affair. If Aimery was
married to a child, there would have been nothing so unusual about him having
an affair with an older woman, but this was also the year in which his younger
brother Guy arrived in Jerusalem and married Princess Sibylla in great haste.
There are a
number of versions of Guy’s marriage to Sibylla. One of which, incidentally, includes Aimery travelling to France to fetch Guy for the purpose of seducing
Sibylla. This can be dismissed as nonsense simply because at the time of Aimery’s
alleged trip, Sibylla was betrothed to the Duke of Burgundy — not the kind of
man a Lusignan would risk alienating. Alternatively, Baldwin IV married his
sister to the wholly unsuitable Guy to forestall a coup d’etat planned by
Raymond of Tripoli, Bohemond of Antioch and Baldwin d’Ibelin, an equally
implausible thesis, in my opinion, because it imputes treasonous intentions to
three barons who repeatedly risked their lives as vassals of Baldwin IV and had
many other opportunities to conduct a “coup,” if that had been their intentions. The most plausible explanation of Sibylla’s wedding is quite simply
that she fell in love with/was seduced by Guy, and her brother King Baldwin didn’t
have the heart to punish her and her lover. Instead he let them marry despite
the fact that in alienated many of his vassals. With Guy married to the heir to
the throne, however, Aimery’s future appeared secure, and it is most probable
that he was appointed constable due to the influence of his brother rather than that of
Agnes de Courtney — whether he was her lover or not.
Regardless of how
he came to the post, Aimery acquitted himself well as constable. He would have
been the effective commander of the feudal army at the Battle of La Forbelet, because
Baldwin IV was by this time confined to a litter. In short, although the King
was “in command” and making the strategic decisions, it was his Constable,
Aimery de Lusignan, that rode with the royal banner and actually led, rallied,
held, inspired and corralled the royal forces. We know he did this effectively
because the Christians forced the Saracens to withdraw after La Forbelet — and
any failure on Aimery’s part would have been duly noted.
One year later, during
Saladin’s invasion of 1183, when his brother Guy managed to earn the enmity and
contempt of the entire feudal leadership of his future kingdom, Aimery was the
only commander who successfully engaged the Saracens. When Saladin tried to
seize control of the important springs of La Tubanie, Aimery — supported by the
Ibelins — successfully beat-off the attack. It is notable, that the Ibelin
brothers, who were inveterate opponents of Guy de Lusignan, are seen here
cooperating closely with Aimery. Aimery was, Guy or no Guy, still Baldwin
d’Ibelin’s son-in-law and ties of blood and marriage were very strong in
this period.
Unsurprisingly, Aimery is listed as one of his brother’s closest allies and
supporters during Guy and Sibylla’s coup d’etat in 1186. It was in his interest to support their usurpation of the throne and any other
behavior would have been highly abnormal. It does not imply, however, that he
thought highly of his brother or his brother’s leadership. This was simply a
matter of family loyalty and self-interest.
And it took him
to the Horns of Hattin, humiliating defeat and captivity. He was with his brother when King Guy
surrendered, and went with him into Saracen captivity. As the Lusignan brothers
and most of the other barons of Jerusalem moldered in a Saracen prison, the
entire Kingdom of Jerusalem fell city by city and castle by castle to Saladin until
only the city of Tyre and isolated castles still held out. There was now no kingdom
from which to raise a ransom, and Aimery’s wife had also lost her inheritance
to Saladin’s forces.
As 1188 dawned,
Aimery de Lusignan must have expected he would suffer his father’s fate and die
in Saracen captivity. It would have been very hard for him to envisage that one
day he would be a king and found a dynasty that would last roughly 300 years.
(Aimery’s story will be continued in next week.)
Aimery de
Lusignan's life as Guy's brother is a secondary plot in my award-winning Jerusalem
trilogy:
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
