Balian of Beirut died as regent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and he had been the man to capture the last Imperial bastion, Tyre. Throughout his adult life, he had been an ardent supporter of his father’s struggle for the Rule of Law in
Outremer and took over the leadership of the baronial opposition to
Hohenstaufen rule at his father’s death in 1236.
Yet, he had a
decidedly different temperament and personality from his father and grandfather. What follows is a biography in two parts.
Balian
first enters the historical record on the (unnamed) day of his
knighting. Interestingly, Novare notes that he and his younger brother
Baldwin were knighted jointly, suggesting that either Balian’s knighting
was delayed or his brother’s was moved forward — or both. The knighting of a lord’s eldest son was always celebrated more or less lavishly, and
a lord was often allowed to levy special taxes to help finance the
occasion. Knighting two sons at once was a means of getting the most out
of that expenditure. More significantly, the entire event was held in Cyprus
rather than in Balian’s future lordship of Beirut. At the time of the
knighting (ca. 1224), Beirut’s younger brother Philip was acting regent
of Cyprus for the child king Henry I. The fact that Balian was knighted
on Cyprus suggests that he had served his apprenticeship as a squire
with his uncle in Cyprus. The event was marked by great celebrations lasting several days and including jousting, plays, and other games.
Unfortunately, it was in one such game that Sir Amaury Barlais believed he had been cheated by a certain Sir Toringuel, a charge that eventually led
to attempted murder and exile, and contributed to the tensions that
eventually erupted in civil war. (See: Seeds of Civil War).
While
Balian had no role in this drama aside from being the cause of the
celebration, his father tasked him with escorting Barlais out of the
Kingdom of Cyprus. It was a delicate mission for one so young, and
subsequent events suggest that he may not have handled it all too well.
Then again maybe nothing he could have done would have convinced Barlais
that the Ibelins were not his enemies.
Balian’s
next historical appearance was more fateful. In 1228, when the Holy
Roman Emperor arrived on Cyprus on his way to Syria, he sent avowals of
his great love and respect for his “dear uncle” of Beirut (i.e. uncle of
his deceased Empress Yolanda) and invited him and all his sons to a
banquet. Balian and one of his brothers (sources differ on whether it
was Baldwin or Hugh) were singled out for the greater “honor” of serving
the Emperor at the table, “one with the cup and the other with the
bowl.”[i] As related in The Emperor’s Banquet,
Frederick II used the occasion (when his guests were unarmed and he had
hundreds of armed men surrounding them) to attempt to extort money from
Beirut. When the latter refused to cave-in without a judgment of the
court, Frederick took twenty hostages, including both of Beirut’s sons.
They were to serve as assurances that Beirut would appear before a
court. Again, Balian is here an object rather than an actor.
He
was a victim next. Novare records that Balian and his brother were “put
in pillories, large and exceedingly cruel; there was a cross of iron to
which they were bound so that they were able to move neither their arms
nor their legs….”[ii]
Note: they were hostages for their father’s good behavior; the Emperor
had not so much as accused them of committing a crime — much less proven
that they were guilty of wrong-doing. Furthermore, Balian and his
brother were not released until weeks later. Novare notes that the
Ibelin sons “had endured so long an imprisonment on land and in the
galleys at sea and were so miserable that it was pitiful to behold
them.”[iii]
Despite
this, Novare claims that after his release, Balian joined the Emperor’s
household “willingly and amiably.” This is a little too much “goodness and light” in the opinion of historians. Peter Edbury’s far more logical interpretation is that Balian remained a hostage — albeit under better
conditions.[iv]
That the Emperor considered holding Balian the best means of coercing
his father is clear from Novare’s report which puts the following words
into the Emperor’s mouth: “I well know that Balian is your very heart
and so long as I have him I shall have you.”[v]
Yet again, he was not the only hostage. The Emperor released Baldwin (or Hugh) but insisted that
Beirut’s fourth son John, a youth of no more than 13 or 14, join his
household as a squire. Clearly he was a second hostage, and one can only speculate why Frederick preferred the younger son over the older
hostage Baldwin/Hugh. Surprisingly, John ingratiated himself so well
with the Emperor that he was offered a fief in Italy (Foggia). Balian,
on the other hand, remained an inveterate opponent of the Hohenstaufen —
something wholly understandable after having been tortured for nothing.
Henceforth,
Balian is found at the forefront of the struggle against the Emperor.
He sailed with his father in June 1229 to Cyprus and at the Battle of
Nicosia, after his father had been unhorsed and isolated and his uncle
slain, it was Balian who rallied the knights of Ibelin and led a
decisive charge that put their enemies to flight. (See: Battle of Nicosia).
It
was probably at this juncture, after the defeat of the five imperial
baillies but before the expedition of Riccardo Filangieri in 1231, that
Balian married Eschiva de Montbèliard. Eschiva was the daughter and
heiress of Walter de Montbèliard, the former Regent of Cyprus
(1205-1210), and his wife Burgundia de Lusignan; her maternal
grandparents were Aimery de Lusignan and Eschiva d’Ibelin. She had
married sometime before 1229 Gerard de Montaigu, a nephew of both the
Templar and Hospitaller Masters, Pedro and Guerin de Montaigu
respectively, and also the nephew of the Archbishop of Nicosia, Eustorge
de Montaigu. Gerard had been killed in the Battle of Nicosia (July 14,
1229), fighting on the Ibelin side. The traditional year of mourning
would have ended in July 1230, making the second half of 1230 the most
probably date of the wedding.
Because
Balian and Eschiva were cousins (Balian’s uncle Philip had married
Eschiva’s aunt Alys, the sister of her father) they needed a
dispensation from the pope for their marriage. However, this appears to
have been lacking. Because it was lacking, Edbury states that the
Archbishop of Nicosia excommunicated them and was then “hounded…out of
his province” to take refuge in Acre.[viii] According to other sources, a papal excommunication was issued on March 4, 1231, however, in Cyprus at this
time the year started on March 25, so a date of March 4, 1231 in Cypriot chronicles
corresponds to March 4, 1232 in today's reckoning.*
Most probably, Nicosia (an uncle of Eschiva’s deceased husband and possibly offended by her desire to remarry so soon) threatened an excommunication. Something (probably intimidation from Balian and his friends) induced him to flee to Acre before
he could implement it. At that point, Nicosia may have appealed to the
Papal Legate and Patriarch of Jerusalem, but the latter — owing much to
the Lord of Beirut and being a bitter opponent of Frederick II — did
nothing. So Nicosia appealed over the Patriarch’s head, directly to the pope. The latter then issued the excommunication in March of 1232, the news reaching Outremere only shortly before the Battle of Argidi.
In
any case, we know that in the fall of 1231, the Lord of Beirut
entrusted his heir with holding the key port of Limassol against the
Emperor’s fleet with some 600 knights and roughly 3,800 other fighting men on board. These men under the Imperial Marshal Riccardo Filangiere
had been sent to re-establish imperial rule on Cyprus. Balian was so
successful (despite having few troops at his disposal) that Filangieri
opted not to force a landing at all. Instead, the imperial ships sailed across to Syria, where Filangieri promptly took the city of Beirut — but
not the citadel.
The
citadel of Beirut was well-provisioned with supplies and water, but
Beirut had reduced the garrison to a minimum to concentrate his fighting men on Cyprus. Now it faced a siege with woefully inadequate manpower.
Beirut, who was still on Cyprus, recognized the peril his castle was in and appealed to the King of Cyprus to aid him in recovering his city and
relieving his castle. The King of Cyprus not only agreed but called up
the entire army of Cyprus.
Delayed
by storms and bad weather, however, it was the spring of 1232 before
the Ibelin army reached Beirut. It was rapidly apparent that the Ibelin
forces were too weak to dislodge the Imperialists, so the next best
option was to send men through the Imperial blockade to reinforce the
garrison. Roughly 100 men (knights, sergeants and squires) volunteered
for this dangerous mission, and Balian expected to be entrusted with it.
Instead, Beirut chose his younger brother Johnny — much to Balian’s
outrage. Why? There is no mention of displeasure or excommunication.
Rather, Beirut blandly announced that he had “greater need” for Balian
“without than within.”[ix] In other words, young John was expendable; Balian was not.
Short
term, Beirut wanted his heir to undertake a diplomatic mission to win
the Prince of Antioch to the Ibelin cause. Antioch, however, appears to
have doubted the Ibelin’s chances of success in their rebellion against
the most powerful monarch on earth and preferred not to anger the
Hohenstaufen. Balian found himself isolated and cut off, as Antioch
refused him permission to return to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Balian’s
frustration and determination to rejoin his father can be measured by
the fact that he contracted with the Genoese to bring two ships from
Cyprus to take him off, and when they were disabled by Antioch, he
sought a safe-conduct from the Sultan of Damascus so he might pass
through Saracen territory and from there to Acre to join his father.
As
fate would have it, he did not need to make use of this safe-conduct.
The Lord of Beirut had persuaded the Genoese of Acre to aid him and
obtained so much support from his peers that the Imperial forces feared a
confrontation. They abandoned Beirut and withdrew to Tyre, which was
Imperialist in sentiment. Balian coming south from Antioch was the first
Ibelin to reach Beirut after the siege was lifted. He found the citadel
badly damaged but was greeted with great joy by his younger brother
John and the rest of the garrison. Because he remained in Beirut, he was
not present at the debacle of Casal Imbert, where his brothers Baldwin,
Hugh and Guy, were humiliated and defeated in a surprise night attack.
However,
encouraged by their success at Casal Imbert, the Ibelin’s inveterate,
old opponent Amaury Barlais led Imperial mercenaries back to Cyprus and
seized control of the entire island in the Emperor’s name. According to
Novare, the Imperialist return had been so sudden that:
“most
of the ladies and damsels and children of Cyprus were … not able to go
to [the fortress of St. Hilarion] and so they took refuge in the
churches and houses of religion, and many there were who took refuge and
hid in the mountains and caves. These ladies dressed themselves as
shepherdesses and their children as shepherds’ children, and these women
went to glean the grain which was there and on this they lived, both
themselves and their children, in such great misery that it is pitiful
to relate.”[x]
Notably,
Balian’s wife was not one of those who took refuge in a church or
disguised herself as a shepherdess. Eschiva de Montbèliard, Novare tells
us, “… dressed in the robes of a minor brother and…mounted a castle
called Buffavento…[and] she provisioned it [Buffavento] with food, of
which it had none.”[xi]
Meanwhile, Novare tells us dramatically,
“The
Langobards…committed all the abominations and outrages and villainies
of which they knew and were capable. They broke into the churches and
the Temple and the house of the Hospital and all the religious houses,
and they dragged the ladies and the children who clung to the altars and
to the priests who chanted Masses….They put the ladies and children
into carts and on donkeys most shamefully and sent them to [Kyrenia] to
prison.”[xii]
The
King of Cyprus could not allow these conditions to reign in his kingdom and he hurried back with the Cypriot host. He had come of age on May 3,
during the Battle of Casal Imbert, and he led his army, but he wisely
left the command to the experienced Lord of Beirut.
And
Balian? He joined his father directly from Beirut, as the Cypriot army
sailed up the coast of the Levant from Acre. The Cypriots made landfall
at Famagusta that was strongly garrisoned by Imperial forces. They
therefore landed on an island off the coast connected by a ford at low
tide. They were able to off-load men and horses out of range of the
Imperial forces. During the night small boats were sent into the city by
cover of darkness, causing great confusion among the enemy. Frightened
into thinking they were outnumbered, the Imperial forces set fire to their ships and pulled out. Throughout this operation there is no
mention of Balian, suggesting that he was indeed in “disgrace” at this
time. This would have been consistent with a March 1232 excommunication.
The
King of Cyprus advanced unopposed to his capital. The Imperial forces chose to make a stand across the road from Nicosia to Kyrenia. They
chose a strong position on the flank of the steep mountain range that cuts Nicosia off from the coast. The Imperial forces were drawn up on the slope and had the tactical advantage. All they really had to do was wait, but over-estimating their own strength they threw this advantage away. They charged the Cypriots. And Balian? This is what Novare, who
was present at the battle, has to say:
Sir
Balian, his son, had always in this war led the first troop. At this
time [Beirut] made [Balian] come before him and demanded that he swear
to obey the command of the Holy Church, for he was under sentence of
excommunication because of his marriage. [Balian] replied that he could
not accede to this request. The noble man [Beirut] … said: “Balian, I
have more faith in God than in your knighthood, and since you do not
wish to grant my request, leave the array for, and it please God, an
excommunicated man shall never be a leader of our troop.”[xiii]
Balian disobeyed.
More than that, as Novare tells us:
“…he
escaped and went to the first rank where were his brother Sir Hugh and
Sir Anceau; he gave them advice and showed them that which he knew to be
of advantage, and then he left them and placed himself before them to
the side. He had but few men who were with him, for at that time there
were only five knights who would speak to him, all the others having
sworn to respect the command of Holy Church…
“When
the advance guard of the first company of Langobards approached the division of my lord of Beirut and the king, Sir Balian spurred through a
most evil place, over rocks and stones, and went to attack the others above the middle of the pass. So much he delayed them and did such feats of arms that no one was able to enter or leave this pass…Many times was he pressed by so many lanes that no one believed that he would ever be able to escape. Those who were below with the king saw him and knew him
well by his arms and each of them cried to my lord of Beirut: “Ah, Sir,
let us aid Sir Balian, for we see that he will be killed there above.”
[The Lord of Beirut] said to them: “Leave him alone. Our Lord will aid
him, and it please Him, and we shall ride straight forward with all
speed, for if we should turn aside we might lose all.”[xiv]
The
Cypriot forces were eventually victorious and chased the Imperial troops up and over the mountain to Kyrenia. Here the survivors,
including the leaders of the Imperial faction, took refuge in the
powerful fortress on the shore. Because the Cypriots lacked a fleet,
however, the leaders of the Imperial party were able to sail from
Kyrenia to safety. Barlais, Bethsan, and Gibelet sailed to Italy where
they were received by the Emperor and rewarded with Italian fiefs.
Filangieri sailed for Tyre, where he continued to assert his claim to be
Baillie of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, a strong garrison held the castle of Kyrenia for the Emperor, and the Ibelins were forced to besiege it.
The
siege was bitter with treason on both sides. Sir Anceau de Brei, one of
the Ibelin’s staunchest and most colorful supporters, was wounded in
the thigh by a crossbow and died some six months later of the infection.
The Queen of Cyprus, Alice of Montferrat, who had sided with the
Langobards and put herself in the castle of Kyrenia of her own free
will, died of illness during the siege. At one point, Balian is reported
leading an assault on the city that was fought off after grievous
injuries to the attackers. So, apparently, Balian was back in his
father’s favor, yet it is unclear if the excommunication had been lifted
in the meantime or not.
Kyrenia
fell after roughly a year-long siege, and the Lord of Beirut returned
to Syria, where the Emperor tried to convince him that all would be
forgiven and forgotten if he would just — as a point of honor — first
come into the Emperor’s territory and place himself at the Emperor’s
mercy. Beirut answered by relating a fable of a stag who an aging lion
sweet-talks into coming into his lair. Twice he escapes with serious
wounds, but the third time he is killed. Beirut stoutly declared he
would heartless (more like brainless!) to trust the Emperor after all
the times the Emperor had broken his word and attacked him or his
without cause or due process.
Balian,
however, appears to have remained in Cyprus with King Henry. At all
events, In March 1236 he was named Constable of Cyprus. In October of
the same year, however, his father died. At the age of 29 or at most 30
Balian had become Lord of Beirut.
The first half of Balian's life was characterized by deeds of courage,
military competence and leadership, but also by undeniable impetuosity
and passion. He charged in regardless of risks, and once he gave his heart nothing would induce him to abandon his lady. He does not appear to have inherited his grandfather's gift for negotiation and there is not a trace of his father's caution, calm and reason in the stories told about him. Yet he would need both to step into his father's shoes effectively.
Balian's
story continues in two weeks. Meanwhile, you can learn more about Balian
in my current series describing the war between Frederick II and
the barons of Outremer starting with:
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[i] Novare, Philip. The Wars of Frederick II against the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936) 77.
[ii] Novare, 81
[iii] Novare, 87.
[iv] Edbury, Peter. The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191 – 1374 (Cambridghe: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 59.
[v] Novare, 81.
[vi] Novare, 106.
[vii] Novare, 106.
[viii] Edbury, Peter. John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997) 56
[ix] Novare, p.132.
[x] Novare, 142.
[xi] Novare, 142
[xii] Novare, 143.
[xiii] Novare, 151.
[xiv] Novare,153
*
Peter Edbury demonstrated this peculiarity in the dating of Cypriot
events of the 12th and 13th centuries in his essay: "Redating the death
of Henry I of Cyprus?" Law and History in the Latin East (Farnham Surry:
Ashgate, 2014) 339-348.
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