John was the bishop of Banias in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1161 until his death in 1170. [1]
John was appointed to succeed Adam of Acre, the first Latin bishop of Banias. [2] In 1164 the Damascene ruler Nur ad-Din Zengi besieged Banias. Neither John nor the lord of Banias, Humphrey II of Toron, were present. The defense was instead commanded by Humphrey's knight, Walter of Quesnoy. On 18 October Banias fell. [3] King Amalric and the master of the Knights Hospitaller, Bertrand of Blancfort, alleged treason. Archbishop William of Tyre names the alleged traitors as Walter of Quesnoy and a priest named Roger, who were supposedly bribed, but William is not convinced by the allegation. [4] John was henceforth unable to reside in his diocese, [5] and became essentially an auxiliary bishop to the archbishop of Tyre, to whom he was also a suffragan. [6] John continued to hold the title of bishop of Banias, [2] and there was hope among the Latins that Banias might be recovered. [3]
In 1169 the patriarch of Jerusalem, Amalric of Nesle, accompanied by the archbishop of Caesarea, Ernesius, and the bishop of Acre, William were sent by King Amalric on a mission to Europe with letters for Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Kings Louis VII of France and Henry II of England, Queen Margaret of Sicily, and Counts Philip I of Flanders, Theobald V of Blois, and Henry I of Champagne. Two days after the prelates set out, however, their ships ran into a severe storm that drove them back to Acre. Because they did not dare set sail again, a new embassy was appointed, led by the archbishop of Tyre, Frederick of la Roche. [7] [8] John accompanied Frederick. [6] [8] The patriarch entrusted John with a letter explaining the sacredness and strategic significance of Banias. John was to take the letter to the king of France. [5]
John died during the mission in Paris in 1170. No titular bishop was appointed to succeed him. [2]
Amalric, formerly known in historiography as Amalric I, was the king of Jerusalem from 1163 until his death. He was, in the opinion of his Muslim adversaries, the bravest and cleverest of the crusader kings.
Aimery of Lusignan, erroneously referred to as Amalric in earlier scholarship, was the first king of Cyprus, reigning from 1196 to his death in 1205. He also reigned as the king of Jerusalem from his marriage to Queen 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.
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.
Raymond III was count of Tripoli from 1152 to 1187. He was a minor when Nizari Assassins murdered his father, Count Raymond II of Tripoli. His cousin, King 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, his cousin King Amalric of Jerusalem administered the county of Tripoli on his behalf.
Isabella I reigned as 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.
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.
Humphrey IV of Toron was a leading baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He inherited the Lordship of Toron from his grandfather, Humphrey II, in 1179. He was also heir to the Lordship of Oultrejourdan through his mother, Stephanie of Milly. In 1180, he renounced Toron on his engagement to Isabella, the half-sister of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. The king, who had suffered from leprosy, allegedly wanted to prevent Humphrey from uniting two large fiefs. Humphrey married Isabella in Kerak Castle in autumn 1183. Saladin, the Ayyubbid sultan of Egypt and Syria, laid siege to Kerak during the wedding, but Baldwin IV and Raymond III of Tripoli relieved the fortress.
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.
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.
Miles of Plancy was a French-born nobleman who rose to high offices in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He arrived in the kingdom during the reign of his kinsman King Amalric, who appointed him seneschal in 1168. Miles accompanied the king on two campaigns in Egypt. In early 1174 the king arranged for Miles to marry a great heiress, Stephanie of Milly, which made Miles lord of Oultrejordain, one of the largest fiefs in the kingdom. Amalric died on 11 July 1174 and was succeeded by his minor son, Baldwin IV. A regent was not immediately appointed to rule in the boy king's name, and so Miles duly assumed the government in his capacity as seneschal. He was of a too imperious temperament to cooperate with other noblemen, however, and soon caused resentment that led to his murder.
Frederick of La Roche was the sixth Latin archbishop of Tyre (1164–1174), chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and the chief diplomat of King Amalric. He was a Lorrainer, from the family of the counts of La Roche.
Gilbert of Assailly was the fifth master of the Knights Hospitaller, serving from 1162 or 1163 to 1170, when he was deposed. As Grand Master, he succeeded Auger de Balben. Nevertheless, most sources list him as the fifth, rather than fourth, master and this biography continues that tradition, with the exception being Delaville Le Roulx' work. He was succeeded by Gastone de Murols. Gilbert encouraged Amalric of Jerusalem in his unsuccessful invasion of Egypt, leaving the Order in debt and causing the reexamination of its military role.
Amalric of Nesle was a Catholic prelate who served as the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem from late 1157 or early 1158 until his death. Amalric focused chiefly on managing church property; he showed very little political initiative and, unlike many contemporary bishops in the crusader states, had no interest in military affairs.
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.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sidon was a bishopric in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tyre was an archbishopric in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
William was the bishop of Acre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from c. 1164 until his death on 29 June 1172. He was sent on several diplomatic missions by King Amalric. He was murdered by an apparently mentally ill retainer while returning from a mission to his native Italy.
Ernesius was the archbishop of Caesarea in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1158 until his death in 1175.
Adam of Acre was the bishop of Banias from 1140 until 1160.
The diocese of Banias was an episcopal see centered on Banias in the region of Syria. It was originally an Eastern Orthodox see. In 1140 Banias was captured by King Fulk of Jerusalem. The same year Adam of Acre became the first Roman Catholic bishop to be installed in Banias. Archaeologist Denys Pringle assumes that a cathedral church was constructed in Banias, but its location has not yet been determined.