A Guy for Sibylla

After the death of William of Montferrat, Sibylla of Jerusalem needed a new husband. The kingdom of Jerusalem was in a difficult position. Her brother, King Baldwin IV, was suffering from leprosy and wanted to be able to turn the kingdom over to a man who could lead the armies, so he wanted to get his sister married.

The High Court wanted Duke Hugh III of Burgundy, but he turned down the offer. Baldwin gave the King of France the authority to choose an alternate to Hugh, but since Sibylla already had a son who was in the line of succession through her, who would want to be king and see someone else's son inherit the throne?

According to contemporary chronicler William of Tyre, during the Holy Week of 1180, both Count Raymond III of Tripoli and Prince Bohemond III of Antioch marched to Jerusalem to force Baldwin to have Sibylla marry Baldwin of Ibelin and then give up his power immediately to his sister and new brother-in-law.

The Ibelin family had recently risen to prominence. Hugh of Ibelin (Baldwin's eldest brother), had become the third husband of Agnes of Courtenay, and Sibylla's mother. Sibylla's father, Amalric, after being annulled from Agnes of Courtenay, had married Maria Comnena. After Amalric's death, Maria Comnena had married Balian, the Lord of Ibelin and Baldwin's younger brother. The Ibelin family had become intertwined with the royal family of Jerusalem, then why not have a trifecta and have Sibylla marry an Ibelin?

Well, Bohemond and Raymond were foiled. Baldwin either knew of their plan and did not approve, or out of desperation he hatched his own plan.

A Poitevin knight, Guy of Lusignan, had recently come to Jerusalem. Guy was not the noblest of knights, having been exiled from Poitou because he and his brothers tried to kidnap Eleanor of Aquitaine for ransom. (This was a dumb idea.)

Another contemporary chronicler, Ernoul, records that Sibylla wrote to Baldwin of Ibelin to tell him that she would persuade her brother to let them be married on one condition. The condition was that Baldwin of Ibelin had to get himself out of captivity: he was currently held for ransom by Saladin, by whom he and Templar master Odo of Saint Amand had been captured in 1179. Ernoul, a squire of Balian of Ibelin, was probably saying this to make the Ibelins look better. Modern historians doubt Ernoul's account.

On the other hand, it is said that Saladin learned of the plan to force Sibylla to marry Baldwin and make him king, and Saladin raised the ransom from a knight's to a king's ransom, making it prohibitively expensive to get him released. (He was ransomed later by Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenos.)

So Sibylla married Guy of Lusignan. Tomorrow we'll see how they handled the kingdom.

A Diversion About a Marriage

(I said we would get back to Amalric, but I've discovered a side story that I would rather not put off.)

King of Jerusalem Amalric I did not want to give up on his dream of bringing Egypt under Christian control, but he could not persuade the king of France to work with him. He needed to find powerful allies, and he chose to create one through marriage. In 1165, he sent envoys, including his royal butler Odo of Saint-Amand and Archbishop Ernesius of Caesarea, to Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenos to find a bride in the imperial family.

Amalric had been married to Agnes of Courtenay, but when he was ready to succeed his brother Baldwin III as king he was told he would have to get rid of her. In 1167 he married Maria Comnena, the grand-niece of the emperor. Her cousin Theodora (pictured, with attendants) had been Queen of Jerusalem as the wife of Amalric's older brother and predecessor, Baldwin III.

What happened to Theodora?

Theodora became the Kingdom of Jerusalem's first dowager queen upon Baldwin's death. She retired to Acre. Why Acre? Emperor Manuel made it part of the marriage contract, that Theodora be given Acre as her dower (a provision made by a husband to his intended wife). Theodora came to Jerusalem with over 100,000 gold coins and goods worth thousands more, so this seemed like a good deal to all. 

Life in Acre may have been fine for her, but for the young woman, it was quite boring. She was born c.1145, so with Baldwin's death in 1162 she was still very young and, in situations like this, she might have been used to make a marriage that would connect some other powerful ally to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This was not to be the case, however. 

She was not allowed to remarry without Amalric's permission, which he was not about to give. Acre was in her possession, and if she remarried and had children they would stand to inherit Acre. Amalric wanted her childless so that Acre would revert to possession by the king.

Although the Kingdom of Jerusalem was ruled by Franks, the majority of the Christian population was Greek Orthodox, like Theodora. She would not have been completely "out of her element" among strangers, but life would have been dull. Into this situation came Andronikos Comnenos, a first cousin of Emperor Manuel. According to William of Tyre, Andronikos behaved more muris in pera, "like a mouse in a wallet."

What that means, and what it meant to the kingdom and for Theodora, I'll explain tomorrow.