Philip of Novara (c. 1200 – c. 1270) was a medieval historian, warrior, musician, diplomat, poet, and lawyer [1] born at Novara, Italy, into a noble house, who spent his entire adult life in the Middle East. He primarily served the Ibelin family, and featured in a number of prominent battles and negotiations involving Jerusalem and Cyprus. He chronicled the War of the Lombards, the dispute between the Ibelin family and Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.
He wrote a lengthy treatise on the feudal law of Jerusalem, which influenced later jurists like John of Ibelin.
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.
Hugh III, also called Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan and the Great, was the king of Cyprus from 1267 and king of Jerusalem from 1268. Born into the family of the princes of Antioch, he effectively ruled as regent for underage kings Hugh II of Cyprus and Conrad III of Jerusalem for several years. Prevailing over the claims of his cousin Hugh of Brienne, he succeeded both young monarchs upon their deaths and appeared poised to be an effective political and military leader.
Alice of Champagne was the queen consort of Cyprus from 1210 to 1218, regent of Cyprus from 1218 to 1232, and regent of Jerusalem from 1243 to 1246. She was the eldest daughter of Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem and Count Henry II of Champagne. In 1210, Alice married her stepbrother King Hugh I of Cyprus, receiving the County of Jaffa as her dowry. After her husband's death in 1218, she assumed the regency for their infant son, King Henry I, but her maternal uncle Philip of Ibelin became the actual head of state administration as bailli (governor).
Hugh I succeeded to the throne of Cyprus on 1 April 1205, underage upon the death of his elderly father Aimery, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem. His mother was Eschiva of Ibelin, heiress of that branch of Ibelins who had held Bethsan and Ramleh.
Henry II was the last crowned King of Jerusalem and also ruled as King of Cyprus. He was of the Lusignan dynasty.
Hugh IV was King of Cyprus from 31 March 1324 to his abdication, on 24 November 1358 and, nominally, King of Jerusalem, as Hugh II, until his death. The son of Guy, Constable of Cyprus, and Eschiva of Ibelin, Hugh succeeded his father as Constable of Cyprus in 1318, and later succeeded to the throne of Cyprus on the death of his uncle Henry II, since Henry II had no sons. He was a member of the House of Poitiers-Lusignan.
The House of Ibelin was a noble family in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. They rose from relatively humble beginnings to become one of the most important families in the kingdom, holding various high offices and with extensive holdings in the Holy Land and Cyprus. The family disappeared after the fall of the Kingdom of Cyprus in the 15th century.
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 his great-nephew 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.
Amalric, Lord of Tyre, also called Amalric of Lusignan or Amaury de Lusignan was a prince and statesman of the House of Lusignan, a younger son of King Hugh III of Cyprus and Isabella of the House of Ibelin. He was given the title of Lord of Tyre in 1291, shortly before the city of Tyre fell to the Mamluks of Egypt. He is often but incorrectly called the Prince of Tyre.
Guy of Ibelin, of the Ibelin family, was count of Jaffa and Ascalon during the latter part of the Crusades. He was the son of John of Ibelin and Maria of Barbaron. He was count in name only. His father, John of Jaffa, had died in 1266, after which the fragile truce with the Muslims collapsed, and Jaffa was captured by Baibars in 1268. John was probably succeeded by Guy's older brother James, who held the title of Count of Jaffa until his death in 1276, at which point the title passed to Guy.
Templar of Tyre is the conventional designation of the anonymous 14th-century historian who compiled the Old French chronicle known as the Deeds of the Cypriots. The Deeds was written between about 1315 and 1320 on Cyprus and presents a history of the Crusader states and the Kingdom of Cyprus from 1132 down to 1309 as well as an account of the trials of the Templars in 1314. It is divisible into three parts and the third, which is the original work of the compiler, is the most important source for the final years of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and one of only two eyewitness accounts of the fall of Acre in 1291.
Henry of Antioch was a nobleman from the Latin East who governed the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1263 until 1264. He was made bailli by his wife, Isabella of Cyprus, who exercised regency on behalf of their nephew King Hugh II of Cyprus. He died in a shipwreck after their son, Hugh III, became king of both Cyprus and Jerusalem.
Isabella of Ibelin (1252–1282) was lady of Beirut from 1264 until her death in 1282, and also held the title of Queen of Cyprus. She was the daughter of John II of Beirut, lord of Beirut, and of Alice de la Roche sur Ognon.
Isabella of Ibelin (1241–1324) was queen of Cyprus and Jerusalem by marriage to Hugh III of Cyprus.
Helvis of Ibelin was a daughter of Balian of Ibelin and his wife, Maria Komnene, who was the dowager Queen of Jerusalem. Helvis was a member of the House of Ibelin. She was Lady of Sidon by her first and second marriage.
Walter III, sometimes called Walter de Brisebarre or Walter Grenier, was the Constable of the Kingdom of Cyprus from 1206 and Lord of Caesarea in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1216. He was the eldest son of Juliana Grenier, Lady of Caesarea, and Guy de Brisebarre. Since he was witnessing royal charters by 1195, he must have been born no later than 1180. In the 1220s he was generally referred to as "the old lord of Caesarea", although probably only in his fifties. He took part in two Crusades and in two civil wars on the side of the House of Ibelin.
Baldwin of Ibelin was a nobleman of the Kingdom of Cyprus. A member of the House of Ibelin, he was a son of Guy, constable of Cyprus, and a brother of Queen Isabella. He was thus the maternal uncle of King Henry II of Cyprus, whom he served as constable of Cyprus.
The Chronicle of Amadi or simply Amadi is an anonymous chronicle written around 1520 in Italian prose with some Venetian traits. Its one of the major sources on the Frankish Kingdom of Cyprus under the Lusignan dynasty (1192-1489). The text details the history of Cyprus starting from the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius and his wars against the Sassanids for the recovery of the Holy Cross in the seventh century to the wedding of King John II with Helena Palaiologina on 3 February 1441, closely following the closing date of the 15th century Greek chronicle of Leontios Machairas. Additionally, it includes a short account of the history of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem from its foundation onwards. The codex contains Italian excerpts and translations of a number of narrative histories from the Latin East. These include William of Tyre’s Eracles, the Annales de Terre Sainte, Philip of Novara’s Estoire et le droit conte de la guerre qui fu entre l’empereur, and the anonymously authored Chronique d’un Templier de Tyr.