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The Haute Cour (English: High Court) was the feudal council of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was sometimes also called the curia generalis, the curia regis, or, rarely, the parlement.
The Haute Cour was a combination of legislative and judicial powers. It had its basis in medieval parliamentarian ideals: a sovereign desired the consent of his subjects in certain matters, such as taxation and obligations to conduct military service.
The court developed gradually during the early 12th century CE, along with the kingdom itself, in the aftermath of the First Crusade. Technically all vassals of the king which were subject to its decisions had the right to sit and vote, but in practice only the more wealthy nobles did so; certain nobles attended regularly and tended to serve as presiding judges when necessary. This developed into a system of higher nobles (direct vassals of the king) and lesser nobles (indirect vassals, who owed service to the higher nobles), with different privileges depending on idiosyncratic circumstances. Anyone who had committed perjury or had broken an oath (whether a higher or lesser noble) forfeited his right to speak and vote. Only four votes (the king and any three vassals) were required to form a quorum.
The court could meet wherever necessary, not solely in Jerusalem. After around 1120 the court also included bishops, and according to tradition new crusaders were entitled to sit and vote; the first time this occurred was the Council of Acre on 24 June 1148 during the Second Crusade, when the fatal decision to attack Damascus was made. Later the masters of the military orders were entitled to sit and vote as well. During the 12th century there was also a smaller group of advisors to the king, but by the end of the century this group had fallen out of use.
The court levied taxes on the inhabitants of the kingdom, and voted on military expeditions. A formal vote for war would mobilize all the vassals of the kingdom. The court was the only judicial body for the nobles of the kingdom, hearing cases of murder, rape, assault, wardship, debt, recovery of slaves, sales and purchases of fiefs and horses, default of service, inheritance, and treason. Punishments included forfeiture of land and exile, or in extreme cases, death. It was possible to escape punishment from the court by challenging all the appointed judges to a trial by combat and defeating them (but this was of course impractical and was never done). The court was also responsible for minting coins.
Most importantly, the court elected the king or his regent, or settled disputes between various claimants. Each new reign began with a meeting of the court, to formally recognize the new king and to swear an oath of homage to him. They also gave advice to the king and developed proper procedures for doing so, but in practise they could disagree with the king and override his wishes. Essentially, the king was only "first among equals" while sitting in the court, although he was recognized as its head (in the king's absence the court was presided over by his seneschal).
There tended to be two factions within the court, a so-called "court party," consisting of the royal family, the patriarch, and their supporters, and the "nobles' party", consisting of the higher nobility and the military orders. Disputes between the two factions were frequent. There was a major dispute during the co-reign of Melisende and her son Baldwin III, when Melisende refused to give up the crown after Baldwin came of age. Baldwin eventually gained the support of the nobility and was recognized as sole king. A second major dispute arose during the regency of Raymond III of Tripoli for the child-king Baldwin V, when the relative newcomer Guy of Lusignan was chosen by the court party over more experienced nobles. This decision would eventually lead to increased conflict with the Muslims and the fall of Jerusalem itself in 1187.
Perhaps the most important piece of legislation passed by the court was Amalric I's Assise sur la ligece . The Assise formally prohibited the illegal confiscation of fiefs and required all of the king's vassals to ally against any lord who did so. Such a lord would not be given a trial, but would instead be stripped of his land or exiled. It also made all nobles direct vassals of the king, eliminating the previous distinction between higher and lesser nobles. This distinction still existed in reality, and although lesser nobles now had an equal voice in the court, the more powerful barons refused to be tried by lesser lords who were not their peers. The higher nobles were still able to judge the less powerful lords themselves. There were about 600 men eligible to vote in the Court according to the Assise.
There was also a Cour des Bourgeois in the kingdom but in the 12th century the two do not seem to have met together. They began to do so in the 13th century when the capital of the kingdom had been moved to Acre, and the leaders of the merchant colonies in the coastal cities were also allowed to sit (but not vote). By this time central authority had eroded so much that the more powerful nobles often had their own courts.
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II opposed the authority of the court while he was staying in Acre during the Fifth Crusade, and it was temporarily abolished from 1232 to 1244. In its place the Commune of Acre was set up, which invoked the Assise against him, although his army was much larger than any force the remnant of the kingdom could muster. The Commune, unlike the Court, included the burgesses. Meanwhile, the Haute Cour of the Kingdom of Cyprus adopted basically the same structure.
Most of our information on the court comes from John of Ibelin's description of it, written in the 1260s. His description was an idealized explanation of the laws and procedures, based on the idea that Godfrey of Bouillon, the first king of Jerusalem, had personally established it and that it had remained unchanged since then (in the 13th century Godfrey was already a legendary figure). This was not the case, although it did develop much more slowly than similar contemporary courts elsewhere in Europe. Unlike France or England, the kingdom was not developing into a centralized parliamentary government – in fact it developed the opposite way, with the king losing more and more power to the barons. The court had essentially fossilized the feudalism of northern France circa 1100; because the kingdom was constantly at war, covered so little land, had so few westerners, and survived in Jerusalem for less than a hundred years, it did not have a chance to develop into a true Parliament.
John of Ibelin's description, while useful, was taken too literally by later historians. In the 19th century, the court was commonly held to be the purest representation of feudalism in all of the Middle Ages, although today this is considered too simplistic. The court was in some ways a fairly typical feudal court, but was adapted to the specific circumstances of the crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Amalric or Amaury I was King of Jerusalem from 1163, and Count of Jaffa and Ascalon before his accession. He was the second son of Melisende and Fulk of Jerusalem, and succeeded his older brother Baldwin III. During his reign, Jerusalem became more closely allied with the Byzantine Empire, and the two states launched an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt. He was the father of three future rulers of Jerusalem, Sibylla, Baldwin IV, and Isabella I.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Crusader 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.
Melisende was Queen of Jerusalem from 1131 to 1153, and regent for her son between 1153 and 1161, while he was on campaign. She was the eldest daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, and the Armenian princess Morphia of Melitene.
Baldwin III was King of Jerusalem from 1143 to 1163. He was the eldest son of Melisende and Fulk of Jerusalem. He became king while still a child, and was at first overshadowed by his mother Melisende, whom he eventually defeated in a civil war. During his reign Jerusalem became more closely allied with the Byzantine Empire, and the Second Crusade tried and failed to conquer Damascus. Baldwin captured the important Egyptian fortress of Ascalon, but also had to deal with the increasing power of Nur ad-Din in Syria. He died childless and was succeeded by his brother Amalric.
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.
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).
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.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of the Crusader states that was 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.
There were six major officers of the kingdom of Jerusalem: the constable, the marshal, the seneschal, the chamberlain, the butler and the chancellor. At certain times there were also bailiffs, viscounts and castellans.
Philip of Milly, also known as Philip of Nablus, was a baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the seventh Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He briefly employed the troubadour Peire Bremon lo Tort in the Holy Land.
The king or queen 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. Most of them were men, but there were also five queens regnant of Jerusalem, either reigning alone suo jure, or as co-rulers of husbands who reigned as kings of Jerusalem jure uxoris.
Balian of Ibelin, also known as Barisan the Younger, was an Italian crusader noble of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. He was lord of Ibelin from 1170 to 1193. As the leader of the defense of the city during the siege of Jerusalem in 1187, he surrendered Jerusalem to Saladin on 2 October 1187.
Hugh II, also called Hugh du Puiset, was a Crusader and the count of Jaffa in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He revolted against King Fulk in 1134.
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 Assizes of Jerusalem are a collection of numerous medieval legal treatises written in Old French containing the law of the crusader kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus. They were compiled in the thirteenth century, and are the largest collection of surviving medieval laws.
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.
Manasses of Hierges was an important crusader and constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was lord of Ramla from 1150 to 1152.
Maria Komnene, Latinized Comnena, was the queen of Jerusalem from 1167 until 1174 as the second wife of King Amalric. She occupied a central position in the Kingdom of Jerusalem for twenty years, earning a reputation for intrigue and ruthlessness.
The Council of Acre met at Palmarea, near Acre, a major city of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, on 24 June 1148. The Haute Cour of Jerusalem met with recently arrived crusaders from Europe, to decide on the best target for the crusade. The Second Crusade had been called after the fall of Edessa to Zengi in 1144. In 1147, armies led by Conrad III of Germany and Louis VII of France began their separate journeys to the east. Conrad arrived at Acre in April 1148, and Louis marched south from Antioch.