Aimery of Limoges | |
---|---|
Latin Patriarch of Antioch | |
Archdiocese | Antioch |
Elected | Legatine council of Antioch 1140 |
In office | 1140/49–1196 |
Predecessor | Ralph of Domfront |
Successor | Ralph II |
Personal details | |
Died | 1196 |
Aimery or Aymery of Limoges (died c. 1196), also Aimericus in Latin, Aimerikos in Greek and Hemri in Armenian, was a Roman Catholic ecclesiarch in Frankish Outremer and the fourth Latin Patriarch of Antioch from c. 1140 until his death. [1] Throughout his lengthy episcopate he was the most powerful figure in the Principality of Antioch after the princes, and often entered into conflict with them. He was also one of the most notable intellectuals to rise in the Latin East. [2]
Aimery was a nobleman of high rank, wealthy and worldly. [3] He was an intellectual with sound knowledge of both Greek and Latin as well as some vernaculars. He may have been the first to translate parts of the Bible into a Romance language, namely Castilian. [4] As a scholar he was well-informed about Greek history. He wrote to Hugh Etherian requesting the commentaries of John Chrysostom on the Pauline epistles, the acts of the Council of Nicaea, and a history of the Byzantine emperors "from the time their emperors split away from the Roman Empire until the present day." [5] He also fulfilled a request of Pope Eugenius III for a Latin translation of Chrysostom's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew by sending an original Greek manuscript to Rome. As bishop Aimery sought to control the hermits who inhabited the Black Mountain, ordering each to have his own spiritual adviser.
Aimery's succession to the patriarchate was disputed. His predecessor, Ralph de Domfront, was not dead, but rather had been deposed by the a legatine council convened by Alberic of Ostia in November 1139 in Antioch. [6] However, Ralph went to Rome and was arguing to Pope Innocent II to be reinstated. [7] Aimery appears to have waited a long time for his consecration after Ralph's dismissal. [8] Until 1149 there is no mention of Aimery as patriarch, probably because Ralph was alive and the legitimacy of either was suspect. After the Battle of Inab in 1149, the victorious Nureddin besieged the city of Antioch, which was stoutly defended by Aimery and the Princess Constance until a relief force led by Baldwin III of Jerusalem arrived and dispersed the Muslims. Ralph probably died in 1149 and Aimery was accepted universally among Catholics.
In 1153 Aimery opposed the secret marriage of Constance to the petty nobleman Raynald of Châtillon. Aimery's subsequent relationship with Raynald was stormy. In 1156 Raynald claimed that the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus had reneged on his promise to pay Raynald a sum of money, and vowed to attack the island of Cyprus in revenge. When Aimery refused to finance this expedition, Raynald had the Patriarch seized, beaten until bloody, stripped naked, covered in honey, and left in the burning sun on top of the citadel to be attacked by insects. [9] When the Patriarch was released, he collapsed in exhaustion and agreed to finance Raynald's expedition against Cyprus. Raynald's forces attacked Cyprus, ravaging the island and pillaging its inhabitants. Aimery meanwhile left Antioch for the city of Jerusalem, where he stayed until Raynald's capture.
In September 1158 Aimery performed the marriage of Theodora Comnena, Manuel's niece, and Baldwin III, because the elected Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Amalric of Nesle, had yet to be consecrated. Aimery returned to Antioch with Baldwin in 1159.
In 1160 Aimery, with many other Palestinian prelates, recognised Alexander III as pope only after a long debate. [10]
In 1160 Raynald was captured by Majd al-Dīn, the governor of Aleppo, and imprisoned. Though Constance claimed the right to rule on her own, Baldwin III installed her son by an earlier husband, Bohemond III, as Prince and appointed Aimery regent. Constance protested this decision at the court of the emperor Manuel in Constantinople, as the Byzantine emperor was nominal overlord of Antioch. [11]
In 1164, Bohemond was captured by Nureddin at the Battle of Harim. Aimery assumed the regency of the principality and immediately sent a letter to Louis VII of France requesting military aid. [12] The rule of the patriarch was brief. Bohemond was freed, for a ransom of 150,000 dinars, in 1165 through the intervention of Manuel and Amalric I of Jerusalem. Upon his release Bohemond visited Manuel and agreed to re-establish a Greek Patriarch in Antioch, Athanasius I. Aimery protested this and imposed an interdict on the city. He remained in exile at his castle of al-Quṣayr (Xusayr) until the death of Athanasius in 1170 in an earthquake that destroyed the cathedral of St. Peter during the liturgy. By 1180 the Byzantine emperor was treating Aimery as the legitimate patriarch, and it is not unlikely that William of Tyre in some negotiations at Antioch and then Constantinople on behalf of Amalric of Jerusalem had reconciled them. [13]
During his exile Aimery was on good terms with the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, Michael the Syrian, whom he met at Jerusalem during Easter 1167. In order to humiliate Athanasius, Aimery arranged with Bohemond III for Michael's ceremonious entry into Antioch and there Aimery welcomed him in the cathedral of Saint Peter. [14] Michael stayed with Aimery until Easter 1169. [15] He also invited the Jacobite to accompany him to the Third Lateran Council in 1179, and Michael obliged him with a treatise against Manichaeism that the Catholics could use against the Cathars, but declined to attend. [16] Aimery was the first Latin prelate to allow the Jacobite Patriarch to appoint a vicar, his brother Athanasius, in Antioch.
In late 1180, Bohemond left his wife Theodora, a niece of the recently deceased Emperor Manuel, and married a woman named Sibylla, "who had the reputation of practicing evil arts" according to William of Tyre. He was excommunicated by Pope Alexander III, and Antioch was placed under an interdict. He imprisoned Aimery and other bishops and looted their churches. Aimery, supported by the nobility of Antioch under their leader, Rainald II Masoir, lord of Margat, held out in al-Quṣayr under siege by Bohemond. Aimery himself took part in the fighting and even instigating rioting against Bohemond's rule. Baldwin IV of Jerusalem intervened by sending Patriarch Eraclius of Jerusalem to Laodicea to negotiate with both parties. Bohemond remained excommunicate so long as he kept Sibylla, and Aimery's church property was returned, but the interdict on Antioch was lifted. [17]
In 1194, Bohemond, his family, and his court were captured at Baghrās by Leo II, Prince of Armenia, and imprisoned on Sis. To gain his freedom, he agreed to surrender Antioch to Leo. Bartholomew Tirel, the marshal of Antioch, and Richard de L'Erminet were sent to surrender the city to the Armenian Heṭoum of Sassoun. Aimery, at the head of the clergy, encouraged the citizens to resist the takeover and the Armenians were forced outside the walls while a commune was established that recognised the authority of Raymond IV of Tripoli until Bohemond's release. [18] The commune then sent for aid to Henry I of Jerusalem.
In 1181, Aimery was met by the Maronite Patriarch and some of his bishops from the Catholic dioceses of Byblos, Botrun, and Tripoli on Mount Lebanon. They formally asked for recommunion with the Catholic Church, from which the Maronites had been separated since the eighth century. [19] Aimery did not live to see reunion, but he did have a part to play in reunion with the Armenian Church in 1195 and he even permitted Nerses of Lampron to preach in his churches. [20]
Aimery of Lusignan, erroneously referred to as Amalric or Amaury in earlier scholarship, was the first King of Cyprus, reigning from 1196 to his death. He also reigned as the King of Jerusalem from his marriage to Isabella I in 1197 to his death. He was a younger son of Hugh VIII of Lusignan, a nobleman in Poitou. After participating in a rebellion against Henry II of England in 1168, he went to the Holy Land and settled in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Latin Kingdom, was a Crusader state that was established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 until the fall of Acre in 1291. Its history is divided into two periods with a brief interruption in its existence, beginning with its collapse after the siege of Jerusalem in 1187 and its restoration after the Third Crusade in 1192.
William of Tyre was a medieval prelate and chronicler. As archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I, the Englishman, a former prior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, who was Archbishop of Tyre from 1127 to 1135. He grew up in Jerusalem at the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been established in 1099 after the First Crusade, and he spent twenty years studying the liberal arts and canon law in the universities of Europe.
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (1161–1185), known as the Leper King, was the king of Jerusalem, from 1174 until his death in 1185. He was admired by his contemporaries and later historians for his willpower and dedication to the Latin Kingdom in the face of debilitating leprosy. Choosing competent advisers, Baldwin ruled a thriving crusader state and succeeded in protecting it from the Muslim ruler Saladin.
Guy of Lusignan was a French Poitevin knight who reigned as the king of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1192 by right of marriage to Sibylla, and King of Cyprus from 1192 to 1194.
Raynald of Châtillon, also known as Reynald, Reginald, or Renaud, was Prince of Antioch—a crusader state in the Middle East—from 1153 to 1160 or 1161, and Lord of Oultrejordain—a large fiefdom in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem—from 1175 until his death, ruling both territories iure uxoris. The second son of a French noble family, he joined the Second Crusade in 1147, and settled in Jerusalem as a mercenary. Six years later, he married Constance, Princess of Antioch, although her subjects regarded the marriage as a mesalliance.
The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities that existed in the Levant from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade, which was proclaimed by the Latin Church in 1095 in order to reclaim the Holy Land after it was lost to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. Situated on the Eastern Mediterranean, the four states were, in order from north to south: the County of Edessa (1098–1150), the Principality of Antioch (1098–1268), the County of Tripoli (1102–1289), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291). The three northern states covered an area in what is now southeastern Turkey, northwestern Syria, and northern Lebanon; and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost and most prominent state, covered an area in what is now Israel, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and western Jordan. The description "Crusader states" can be misleading, as from 1130 onwards, very few people among the Franks were Crusaders. Medieval and modern writers use the term "Outremer" as a synonym, derived from the French word for overseas.
The Principality of Antioch was one of the Crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of modern-day Turkey and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extended around the northeastern edge of the Mediterranean, bordering the County of Tripoli to the south, Edessa to the east, and the Byzantine Empire or the Kingdom of Armenia to the northwest, depending on the date.
Raymond III was count of Tripoli from 1152 to 1187. He was a minor when Nizari Assassins murdered his father, Raymond II of Tripoli. Baldwin III of Jerusalem, who was staying in Tripoli, made Raymond's mother, Hodierna of Jerusalem, regent. Raymond spent the following years at the royal court in Jerusalem. He reached the age of majority in 1155, after which he participated in a series of military campaigns against Nur ad-Din, the Zengid ruler of Damascus. In 1161 he hired pirates to pillage the Byzantine coastline and islands to take vengeance on Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos, who had refused to marry his sister Melisende. He was captured in the Battle of Harim by Nur ad-Din's troops on 10 August 1164, and imprisoned in Aleppo for almost ten years. During his captivity, Amalric I of Jerusalem administered the county of Tripoli on his behalf.
Sibylla was the queen of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1190. She reigned alongside her husband Guy of Lusignan, to whom she was unwaveringly attached despite his unpopularity among the barons of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Isabella I was reigning Queen of Jerusalem from 1190 to her death in 1205. She was the daughter of Amalric I of Jerusalem and his second wife Maria Comnena, a Byzantine princess. Her half-brother, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, engaged her to Humphrey IV of Toron. Her mother's second husband, Balian of Ibelin, and his stepfather, Raynald of Châtillon, were influential members of the two baronial parties. The marriage of Isabella and Humphrey was celebrated in Kerak Castle in autumn 1183. Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, laid siege to the fortress during the wedding, but Baldwin IV forced him to lift the siege.
Constance of Hauteville (1128–1163) was the ruling princess of Antioch from 1130 to 1163. She was the only child of Bohemond II of Antioch and Alice of Jerusalem. Constance succeeded her father at the age of two after he fell in battle, although his cousin Roger II of Sicily laid claim to Antioch. Alice assumed the regency, but the Antiochene noblemen replaced her with her father, Baldwin II of Jerusalem. After he died in 1131, Alice again tried to take control of the government, but the Antiochene barons acknowledged the right of her brother-in-law Fulk of Anjou to rule as regent for Constance.
Bohemond III of Antioch, also known as Bohemond the Child or the Stammerer, was Prince of Antioch from 1163 to 1201. He was the elder son of Constance of Antioch and her first husband, Raymond of Poitiers. Bohemond ascended to the throne after the Antiochene noblemen dethroned his mother with the assistance of the lord of Armenian Cilicia, Thoros II. He fell into captivity in the Battle of Harim in 1164, but the victorious Nur ad-Din, atabeg of Aleppo released him to avoid coming into conflict with the Byzantine Empire. Bohemond went to Constantinople to pay homage to Manuel I Komnenos, who persuaded him to install a Greek Orthodox patriarch in Antioch. The Latin patriarch of Antioch, Aimery of Limoges, placed Antioch under interdict. Bohemond restored Aimery only after the Greek patriarch died during an earthquake in 1170.
Bohemond IV of Antioch, also known as Bohemond the One-Eyed, was Count of Tripoli from 1187 to 1233, and Prince of Antioch from 1201 to 1216 and from 1219 to 1233. He was the younger son of Bohemond III of Antioch. The dying Raymond III of Tripoli offered his county to Bohemond's elder brother, Raymond, but their father sent Bohemond to Tripoli in late 1187. Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, conquered the county, save for the capital and two fortresses, in summer 1188.
The Treaty of Devol was an agreement made in 1108 between Bohemond I of Antioch and Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, in the wake of the First Crusade. It is named after the Byzantine fortress of Devol. Although the treaty was not immediately enforced, it was intended to make the Principality of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire.
Agnes of Courtenay was a Frankish noblewoman who held considerable influence in the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the reign of her son, King Baldwin IV. Though she was never queen, she has been described as the most powerful woman in the kingdom's history after Queen Melisende.
Maria of Antioch was a Byzantine empress by marriage to Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, and regent during the minority of her son porphyrogennetos Alexios II Komnenos from 1180 until 1182.
Theodora Komnene or Comnena was a niece of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, and wife of King Baldwin III of Jerusalem.
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