Eschiva of Ibelin (died 1196)

Eschiva of Ibelin (French : Eschive; died c. 1197) was a Latin noblewoman of the House of Ibelin from the Kingdom of Jerusalem. She was the first wife of Aimery of Lusignan, who was crowned the first king of Cyprus in 1197. The 13th-century source narrating her abduction by a pirate refers to her as queen. She may have died before her husband was crowned.

Family

Eschiva belonged to the House of Ibelin, one of the oldest and most powerful noble families in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. According to the Lignages d'Outremer , Eschiva's parents were Baldwin of Ibelin, lord of Ramla, and his first wife, Richilda, sister of Adam, lord of Bethsan. ^{[1] [2] [3]} The historian Wipertus Hugo Rudt de Collenberg has challenged this parentage as chronologically improbable. ^[4] Eschiva was the elder of Baldwin's daughters; because Baldwin's son, Thomas, is last mentioned as living in 1187 and apparently died childless, the right to Ramla passed to Eschiva. Ramla, however, had been lost to the Ayyubid sultan Saladin after the Battle of Hattin in 1187. ^[5]

By 1176, Eschiva had married Aimery of Lusignan, a newcomer from Europe. ^[6] The marriage was arranged by the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV. ^[7] At the time Aimery served as the king's chamberlain. Aimery's marriage with Eschiva secured his rise, and he was later promoted to the office of constable. ^[8] Eschiva and Aimery had six children: Burgundia, Alice (who died young), Helvis, John, Guy, and Hugh. ^{[9] [10] [11]} In 1194 Aimery succeeded his brother Guy as lord of Cyprus. In September 1197 he was crowned the first king of Cyprus, ^[12] although he may have started using the title already in early 1196. ^[13] Eschiva is frequently named queen of Cyprus. ^{[14] [14] [15] [16] [17]} According to the historian Hans E. Mayer, she died as lady of Cyprus before Aimery was crowned. ^[18]

Abduction and death

After her rescue from the pirate Canaqui, Eschiva awaited her husband at the Corycus fortress.

A Cypriot Greek rebel named Canaqui evaded Aimery’s attempt to arrest him and took refuge in Antioch, using it as a base for destructive raids along the eastern coast of Cyprus. During one such raid in the mid-1190s, ^[19] According to the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, Canaqui happened upon "the queen and her children" at a seaside village called Paradhisi (just north of Salamis), where Eschiva had gone to recuperate from an illness, and seized them. Eschiva and her children were carried off to Antioch as hostages. The lord of Armenian Cilicia, Leo I, demanded that their captor turn them over safely to him, citing his friendship with Aimery and Eschiva's deceased father. Leo placed them in the fortress of Corycus, from where Aimery soon retrieved them. ^{[20] [21]} After securing tje release of Eschiva and her children, Leo entered into friendly relations with her husband and family. ^[17]

Eschiva died in the mid-1190s, shortly before Aimery's remarriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem, which took place in 1197. ^{[22] [19]} Eschiva's death thus enabled Aimery to become king of Jerusalem as well. ^[23] Eschiva was the ancestress of the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus. ^[24]

References

Citations

1. Runciman 1952, Appendix III.
2. Edbury 1997, p. 9.
3. Donnachie 2021, pp. 184, 193.
4. Collenberg 1983, p. 464.
5. Edbury 1983, p. 120.
6. Edbury 1997, pp. 9, 30–31.
7. de Vasselot de Régné 2017, p. 104.
8. Smith 1973, p. 153. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSmith1973 (help)
9. Edbury 1991, p. 30.
10. Donnachie 2021, p. 193.
11. The Colbert-Fontainebleu Continuation, p. 205
12. Edbury 1997, p. 26.
13. Edbury 1994, p. 31. sfn error: no target: CITEREFEdbury1994 (help)
14. Runciman 1952, p. 511.
15. Mayer 2024, Index. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMayer2024 (help)
16. Richard 1979, p. 491.
17. Morgan 1973, pp. 113–114.
18. Mayer 1978, p. 26.
19. Edbury 1997, p. 31.
20. Ghazarian 2018, p. 144. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGhazarian2018 (help)
21. The Old French Continuation, pp. 127-128.
22. Edbury 1991, p. 40.
23. Donnachie 2021, pp. 185–186.
24. Edbury 1997, p. 16.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• "The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, 1184-97". The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation. Translated by Edbury, Peter W. Routledge. 2017 [First published in 1998]. ISBN   978-1-351-89242-1 . Retrieved 24 August 2025.
• Edbury, Peter; Gaggero, Massimiliano, eds. (10 July 2023). The Chronique d’Ernoul and the Colbert-Fontainebleau Continuation of William of Tyre (in French). Vol. 2. BRILL. ISBN   978-90-04-54759-9 . Retrieved 24 August 2025.

Secondary sources

• Collenberg, Wipertus-Hugo Rudt de (1983). Familles de l'Orient latin, XIIe-XIVe siècles (in French). Variorum Reprints. ISBN   978-0-86078-124-0.
• Donnachie, Stephen (27 May 2021). "The predicaments of Aimery de Lusignan". Settlement and Crusade in the Thirteenth Century. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780429203886-15. ISBN   978-0-429-20388-6.
• Edbury, Peter W. (1983). "John of Ibelin's Title to the County of Jaffa and Ascalon". The English Historical Review. 98 (386). Oxford University Press: 115–133. ISSN   0013-8266. JSTOR   570166 . Retrieved 31 August 2025.
• Edbury, Peter W. (1991). The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-45837-5 . Retrieved 24 August 2025.
• Edbury, Peter W. (1997). John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem . Boydell Press. ISBN   0851157033.
• Mayer, Hans Eberhard (1978). "Ibelin versus Ibelin: The Struggle for the Regency of Jerusalem 1253-1258". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 122 (1). American Philosophical Society: 25–57. ISSN   0003-049X. JSTOR   986261 . Retrieved 1 September 2025.
• Morgan, Margaret Ruth (1973). The Chronicle of Ernoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-821851-7 . Retrieved 31 August 2025.
• Richard, Jean (1979). The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. North-Holland Publishing Company. ISBN   978-0-444-85262-5 . Retrieved 1 September 2025.
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan (1 January 1973). Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174-1277. Springer. ISBN   978-1-349-15498-2 . Retrieved 28 August 2025.
• Runciman, Steven (1952). A History of the Crusades. Vol. 2: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100–1187. Cambridge University Press. OCLC   1035592581.
• de Vasselot de Régné, Clément (31 December 2017). "A Crusader Lineage from Spain to the Throne of Jerusalem: The Lusignans". Crusades. 16 (1): 95–114. doi:10.1080/28327861.2017.12220192. ISSN   1476-5276 . Retrieved 31 August 2025.