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Fall of Kingdom of Cyprus
Mediaeval kingdom
- 1489
- Nicosia
- Middle East
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Mediaeval kingdom
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The Kingdom of Cyprus (French: Royaume de Chypre; Latin: Regnum Cypri) was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader states that existed between 1192 and 1489. Initially ruled as an independent Christian kingdom, it was established by the French House of Lusignan after the Third Crusade. It comprised the island of Cyprus and, on the Anatolia mainland, Antalya between 1361 and 1373, and Corycus between 1361 and 1448.
The island of Cyprus was conquered by Richard I of England in 1191 during the Third Crusade, from Isaac Komnenos, an upstart local governor, Byzantine prince, and self-proclaimed emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Richard I did not intend to conquer the island until his fleet was scattered by a storm en route to the siege of Acre (1189–1191). The three ships were wrecked and sank in sight of the port of Limassol. The shipwrecked survivors were taken prisoner by Komnenos, and when a ship bearing Richard I's sister Joan and bride Berengaria entered the port, Komnenos refused their request to disembark for fresh water. Richard I and the rest of his fleet arrived shortly afterwards. Upon hearing of the imprisonment of his shipwrecked comrades and the insults offered to his bride and sister, Richard I met Komnenos in battle. There were rumours that Komnenos was secretly in agreement with Saladin to protect himself from his enemies, the Angelos family, the ruling family in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.
Control of Cyprus would give Richard I an 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 armoured knights. Komnenos and the remainder of the army escaped to the hills at nightfall, but Richard I and his troops tracked him down and raided his camp before dawn. Komnenos escaped again with a small number of men. The next day, many Cypriot nobles came to Richard I to swear fealty.
Fearing treachery at the hands of the invaders, Komnenos fled after making this pledge to Richard I and escaped to the stronghold of Kantara. Some weeks after Richard I's marriage to Berengaria 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. Meanwhile, Richard I resumed his journey to Acre and, with much needed respite, new funds and reinforcements, set sail for the Holy Land accompanied by the King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan and other high ranking nobles. He left garrisons in the towns and castles of the island before he departed and the island itself was left in charge of Richard of Canville and Robert of Thurnham.
Richard I confiscated the property of 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 Thurnham, 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 Thurnham, who had a relationship with the abbey.
When Richard I of England realised that Cyprus would prove to be a difficult territory to maintain and oversee whilst launching offensives in the Holy Land, he sold it to the Knights Templar for 100,000 bezants, 40,000 of which was to be paid immediately, with the remainder paid in instalments. The severity of their rule in Cyprus quickly incurred the hatred of the native population. On Easter Day in 1192, the Cypriots attempted a massacre of their Templar rulers; however, due to prior knowledge of the attack and a limited number of troops, the Templars had taken refuge in their stronghold at Nicosia. A siege ensued and the Templars, realising their dire circumstances and their besiegers' reluctance to bargain, sallied out into the streets at dawn one morning, taking the Cypriots completely by surprise. The subsequent massacre was merciless and widespread and though Templar rule was restored following the event, the military order was reluctant to continue rule and allegedly begged Richard I to take Cyprus back. Richard I took them up on the offer, and the Templars returned to Syria, only with a few holdings on the island. The small number of Roman Catholics on the island were mainly confined to some coastal cities, such as Famagusta, as well as inland Nicosia, the traditional capital. Roman Catholics kept the reins of power and control, while the Orthodox inhabitants lived in the countryside; this was much the same as the arrangement in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The independent Eastern Orthodox Church of Cyprus, with its own archbishop and subject to no patriarch, was allowed to remain on the island, but the Roman Catholic Church largely displaced it in stature and holding property.
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. Since Guy was a long-time vassal of Richard I, he offered Guy the lordship of the kingdom of Cyprus, allowing 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 Richard I gave him the territory or sold it and it is highly unlikely that Richard I was paid, even if a deal was struck.
In 1194, Guy died without any heirs and so his older brother, Aimery, became King Aimery of Cyprus, a crown and title which was approved in 1196 by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI.
After the death of Aimery of Lusignan, the Kingdom continually passed to a series of young boys who grew up as kings. The House of Ibelin, which had held much power in Jerusalem prior to its fall, acted as regents during these early years. In 1229, one of the Ibelin regents was forced out of power by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who brought the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines to the island. Frederick II's supporters were defeated on Cyprus in 1232 at the Battle of Agridi, although the conflict lasted longer in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Holy Roman Empire. Frederick II's Hohenstaufen descendants continued to rule as kings of Jerusalem until 1268 when Hugh III of Cyprus claimed the title and its territory of Acre for himself upon the death of Conrad III of Jerusalem, thus uniting the two kingdoms. The territory in Palestine was finally lost while Henry II was king in 1291, but the kings of Cyprus continued to claim the title.
Like Jerusalem, Cyprus had an 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 centre 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 Genoese merchants, under the leadership of the Republic of Genoa. Cyprus therefore sided with the Avignon Papacy in the Western Schism, in the hope that the French would be able to drive out the Genoese. The Mameluks then made the kingdom a tributary state in 1426; the remaining monarchs gradually lost almost all independence, until 1489 when the last queen, Catherine Cornaro, was forced to sell the island to Venice.
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 (largely sugar, but also wine, wheat, oil and 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 other settlements, 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 oversized share in the economy.
During this period, new industries also emerged in Cyprus. Cypriot pottery developed particular characteristics, and was exported to the Crusader States until the Fall of Acre in 1291. In the late 13th and early 14th industries, the textile industry developed, with new textile dyeing workshops being set up in Nicosia, and Cypriot samites and camlets having increasing demand in the West and the East. Famagusta became a hub for shipbuilding. These developments prompted the arrival of representatives from Florentine banking houses, such as the Peruzzi and the Bardi family. The growth of the industry as well as the labour-intensive production of sugar and wine resulted in a demand for slaves, and slave markets existed in Nicosia and Famagusta.
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 and 1348 resulted in the loss of one fifth to one third of the population. Repeated outbreaks prevented population recovery into the fifteenth century. In the 14th century it was common for Cypriot nobility to receive their education in Constantinople.
Cyprus during this period had a vibrant court culture, in which popular pastimes were practised in a similar fashion to other European Christian societies. Music, poetry and other arts were enjoyed by both the aristocracy and middle ranks of society, as well as pursuits such as hunting.
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 Nicosia, whilst Italians were concentrated in Famagusta. The losses suffered by the Crusader States in the 1270s and 1280s and the final Fall of Acre in 1291 triggered an influx of Latin immigrants from the Levant, as Italian, Aragonese and Provençal trading cities relocated their merchants to Cyprus. Maronites, Armenians and Syrians were concentrated in the foothills of Pentadaktylos and coastal plains. There was a system of ethnic discrimination and social stratification in place. However, with the majority of the population being Greeks, the Frankish nobility set up a system that would accommodate a certain degree of Greek autonomy, for instance maintaining Greek ecclesiastical courts open to the consultation of "wise and prominent men", thus practically forming secular Greek forms that exercised a form of judicial autonomy. The Greek Cypriot dialect was used as the lingua franca on the island and legal texts were translated into the vernacular, like the Assizes of Jerusalem. This relative autonomy meant that there were no rebellions of ethnic character in the Lusignan period. Whilst Greek historiography has traditionally seen a peasant revolt in 1426–1427 as a nationalistic uprising, this was an unsystematic series of riots of pillaging by segments of the Greek peasant population and Spanish mercenaries following the Mamluk invasion, the capture of King Janus and the political vacuum that ensued.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kingdom of Cyprus”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.