The Kingdom of Jerusalem, officially known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem, 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 siege 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.
Year 1239 (MCCXXXIX) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
The Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), also known as the Crusade of Frederick II, was a military expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land. It began seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade and involved very little actual fighting. The diplomatic maneuvering of the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, Frederick II, resulted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem regaining some control over Jerusalem for much of the ensuing fifteen years as well as over other areas of the Holy Land.
John of Brienne, also known as John I, was King of Jerusalem from 1210 to 1225 and Latin Emperor of Constantinople from 1229 to 1237. He was the youngest son of Erard II of Brienne, a wealthy nobleman in Champagne. John, originally destined for an ecclesiastical career, became a knight and owned small estates in Champagne around 1200. After the death of his brother, Walter III, he ruled the County of Brienne on behalf of his minor nephew Walter IV.
The Crusader state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller seigneuries. According to the 13th-century jurist John of Ibelin, the four highest crown vassals in the kingdom proper were the count of Jaffa and Ascalon, the prince of Galilee, the lord of Sidon, and the lord of Oultrejordain.
The King of Jerusalem was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Crusader state founded in Jerusalem by the Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade, when the city was conquered in 1099.
Raoul of Mérencourt was the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1214 to 1224., succeeding the assassinated Albert Avogadro.
John of Ibelin, called the Old Lord of Beirut, was a powerful crusader noble in the 13th century, one of the best known representatives of the influential Ibelin family. The son of Balian of Ibelin and the dowager queen Maria Comnena, he had close ties with the nobility of both Cyprus and Jerusalem, since he was the half-brother of Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem. Before he was 20, he was appointed constable of Jerusalem, and a few years later became lord of Beirut. John rebuilt Beirut after Saladin's conquest, and established the grand Ibelin family palace. He served as regent of Jerusalem on behalf of his niece Maria of Montferrat from 1205 to 1210 after her mother, Queen Isabella, died. He was also regent for Isabella's grandson Henry I of Cyprus from 1228 until Henry came of age in 1232. John was known as a principled man, and was seen as the natural leader of the Christian barons in the Holy Land. He resisted the power-seeking of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in Cyprus, and opposed the imperial forces until King Henry came of age.
John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa and Ascalon, was a noted jurist and the author of the longest legal treatise from the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was the son of Philip of Ibelin, bailli of the Kingdom of Cyprus, and Alice of Montbéliard, and was the nephew of John of Ibelin, the "Old Lord of Beirut". To distinguish him from his uncle and other members of the Ibelin family named John, he is sometimes called John of Jaffa.
The Assise sur la ligece is an important piece of legislation passed by the Haute Cour of Jerusalem, the feudal court of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, in an unknown year but probably in the 1170s under Amalric I of Jerusalem.
Reginald Grenier was Count of Sidon and an important noble in the late-12th century Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The War of the Lombards (1228–1243) was a civil war in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Cyprus between the "Lombards", the representatives of the Emperor Frederick II, largely from Lombardy, and the Eastern aristocracy led first by the Ibelins and then by the Montforts. The war was provoked by Frederick's attempt to control the regency for his young son, Conrad II of Jerusalem. Frederick and Conrad represented the Hohenstaufen dynasty.
Richard (Riccardo) Filangieri (c.1195–1254/63) was an Italian nobleman who played an important part in the Sixth Crusade in 1228–9 and in the War of the Lombards from 1229–43, where he was in charge of the forces of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, battling forces on the other side, local barons first led by John of Ibelin, Old Lord of Beirut. During the first half of his career Richard was a Ghibelline, but during the second a Guelph. He was a member of the Filangieri family of Sicily.
Odo of Montbéliard was a leading baron of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the early 13th century. He often held the highest offices in the kingdom including bailli (viceroy) and constable.
John was the Lord of Caesarea from 1229 and an important figure in the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem. He was the only son of Walter III of Caesarea and Marguerite d'Ibelin, daughter of Balian of Ibelin. He was often called "the young lord of Caesarea" throughout his life to distinguish him from his father, who had been called "the old lord of Caesarea".
The Barons' Crusade (1239–1241), also called the Crusade of 1239, was a crusade to the Holy Land that, in territorial terms, was the most successful crusade since the First Crusade. Called by Pope Gregory IX, the Barons' Crusade broadly embodied the highest point of papal endeavor "to make crusading a universal Christian undertaking." Gregory IX called for a crusade in France, England, and Hungary with different degrees of success. Although the crusaders did not achieve any glorious military victories, they used diplomacy to successfully play the two warring factions of the Ayyubid dynasty against one another for even more concessions than Frederick II had gained during the more well-known Sixth Crusade. For a few years, the Barons' Crusade returned the Kingdom of Jerusalem to its largest size since 1187.
Werner of Egisheim was a German Crusader, better known by his French name of Garnier l’Aleman.
The timeline of the Kingdom of Jerusalem presents important events in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem—a Crusader state in modern day Israel and Jordan—in chronological order. The kingdom was established after the First Crusade in 1099. Its first ruler Godfrey of Bouillon did not take the title of king and swore fealty to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Daimbert. Godfrey's brother and successor Baldwin I was crowned the first king of Jerusalem without doing homage to the patriarch in 1100. By 1153, Baldwin I and his successors captured all towns on the Palestinian coast with the support of Pisan, Genoese and Venetian fleets and also took control of the caravan routes between Egypt and Syria. The kings regularly administered other crusader states—the Counties of Edessa and Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch—on behalf of their absent or underage rulers.
Thomas I of Aquino, usually known as Thomas of Aquino, was Count of Acerra from 1220 and a follower of Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, Frederick II. The son of Adenolfo d'Aquino, Thomas came from a noble family from Aquino which included the famous theologian Thomas Aquinas.