Sibylla of Armenia | |
---|---|
Princess of Antioch and Countess of Tripoli | |
Tenure | 1254 - 1275 |
Regent of the County of Tripoli | |
Tenure | 1275 - 1277 |
Died | 1290 Armenia |
Spouse | Bohemond VI of Antioch |
Issue | Bohemond VII of Antioch Lucia, Countess of Tripoli Maria |
House | Hethumids |
Father | Hethum I of Armenia |
Mother | Isabella, Queen of Armenia |
Sibylla of Armenia (died in 1290) was the princess of Antioch and countess of Tripoli by marriage to Bohemond VI from 1254 to 1275, and then regent of the County of Tripoli until their son, Bohemond VII, came of age in 1277. She was closely allied with the bishop of Tortosa, Bartholomew Mansel, which frustrated the scheme to install her as ruler of Tripoli instead of her daughter Lucia after Bohemond VII's death in 1287. During her lifetime, both the principality and the county were lost to the Egyptian Mamluks.
Sibylla was the daughter of Queen Isabella and King Hethoum I of Armenia. [1] In 1254, at the suggestion of the crusader King Louis IX of France, Sibylla was married to Bohemond VI, the prince of Antioch and count of Tripoli. [2] Their children were Bohemond VII, Lucia, and Maria. [1]
The Principality of Antioch fell to the Egyptian Mamluks in 1268. [3]
Sibylla's husband, Bohemond VI, died in 1275, and their son, Bohemond VII, inherited the County of Tripoli. Since Bohemond VII was then a minor, Sibylla assumed government in his name as regent. She was challenged by King Hugh III of Cyprus, who claimed regency as the closest adult in the line of succession. But family custom and popular opinion was on the princess's side. She sent her son to the court of her brother King Leo III of Armenia and appointed the bishop of Tortosa, Bartholomew Mansel, as her bailli. Hugh thus found no support. [4]
Sibylla's husband, Bohemond VI, and Roman mother-in-law, Lucia of Segni, had installed Romans in important government posts, incurring displeasure of the local nobility. [5] The nobility thus supported Sibylla and Bartholomew when they dealt with the Romans through executions and banishments. They failed to remove Paul of Segni, who was Bohemond VI's uncle and bishop of Tripoli, due to his friendship with the Knights Templar. The Templars were thus hostile to Bohemond VII when he returned from Armenia to assume government in 1277. [4]
Bohemond VII died childless on 19 October 1287. [6] His heir was his sister, Sibylla's daughter, Lucia, who lived in Apulia with her husband, Narjot of Toucy, former admiral of Charles I of Anjou. [7] The Angevins had meddled in the affairs of the Crusader states, trying to take over the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Hugh III of Cyprus, and had recently been ejected by Hugh III's son Henry II. [8] Neither the nobility nor the citizens of Tripoli supported Lucia, who was hardly known to them and associated with the Angevins. They offered the county to Sibylla instead. She wrote to the bishop of Tripoli to ask him to be her bailli. The letter was intercepted and Sibylla was told by the nobles that he would not be accepted. Both sides refused to concede. The nobles and the merchants then proclaimed a commune, which was to rule Tripoli instead of counts. Sibylla then retired to her brother's court in Armenia. Her daughter came in 1288 and negotiated acceptance of her comital rights, but the Mamluks conquered Tripoli the next year. [9] Sibylla died in Armenia in 1290. [10]
The Eighth Crusade was the second Crusade launched by Louis IX of France, this one against the Hafsid dynasty in Tunisia in 1270. It is also known as the Crusade of Louis IX Against Tunis or the Second Crusade of Louis. The Crusade did not see any significant fighting as Louis died of dysentery shortly after arriving on the shores of Tunisia. The Treaty of Tunis was negotiated between the Crusaders and the Hafsids. No changes in territory occurred, though there were commercial and some political rights granted to the Christians. The Crusaders withdrew back to Europe soon after.
The Principality of Antioch was one of the Crusader states created during the First Crusade which included parts of modern-day Turkey and Syria. The principality was much smaller than the County of Edessa or the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It extended around the northeastern edge of the Mediterranean, bordering the County of Tripoli to the south, Edessa to the east, and the Byzantine Empire or the Kingdom of Armenia to the northwest, depending on the date.
The County of Tripoli (1102–1289) was one of the Crusader states. It was founded in the Levant in the modern-day region of Tripoli, northern Lebanon and parts of western Syria. When the Frankish Crusaders – mostly southern French forces – captured the region in 1109, Bertrand of Toulouse became the first count of Tripoli as a vassal of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem. From that time, the rule of the county was decided not strictly by inheritance but by factors such as military force, favour and negotiation. In 1289 the County of Tripoli fell to Sultan Qalawun of the Muslim Mamluks of Cairo. The county was absorbed into Mamluk Egypt.
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.
Leo II was the tenth lord of Armenian Cilicia, ruling from 1187 to 1219, and the first king to be crowned, in 1198/9. During his reign, Leo succeeded in establishing Cilician Armenia as a powerful and unified Christian state with a pre-eminence in political affairs. Leo eagerly led his kingdom alongside the armies of the Third Crusade and provided the crusaders with provisions, guides, pack animals and all manner of aid. Under his rule, Armenian power in Cilicia was at its apogee: his kingdom extended from Isauria to the Amanus Mountains.
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.
Bohemond IV of Antioch, also known as Bohemond the One-Eyed, was Count of Tripoli from 1187 to 1233, and Prince of Antioch from 1201 to 1216 and from 1219 to 1233. He was the younger son of Bohemond III of Antioch. The dying Raymond III of Tripoli offered his county to Bohemond's elder brother, Raymond, but their father sent Bohemond to Tripoli in late 1187. Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, conquered the county, save for the capital and two fortresses, in summer 1188.
Bohemond V of Antioch was ruler of the Principality of Antioch, a Crusader state, from 1233 to his death. He was simultaneously Count of Tripoli.
Bohemond VI, also known as the Fair, was the prince of Antioch and count of Tripoli from 1251 until his death. He ruled while Antioch was caught between the warring Mongol Empire and Mamluk Sultanate. He allied with the Mongols against the Muslim Mamluks and his Crusaders fought alongside the Mongols in their battles against the Mamluks. The Mamluks would achieve a historic victory against the Mongols and halt their advance westwards at the Battle of Ain Jalut. In 1268 Antioch was captured by the Mamluks under Baybars, and he was thenceforth a prince in exile. He was succeeded by his son, Bohemond VII.
The count of Tripoli was the ruler of the County of Tripoli, a crusader state from 1102 through to 1289. Of the four major crusader states in the Levant, Tripoli was created last.
Bohemond VII was the count of Tripoli and nominal prince of Antioch from 1275 to his death. The only part left of the Principality of Antioch was the port of Latakia. He spent much of his reign at war with the Templars (1277–1282).
The siege of Antioch occurred in 1268 when the Mamluk Sultanate under Baibars finally succeeded in capturing the city of Antioch. Prior to the siege, the Crusader Principality was oblivious to the loss of the city, as demonstrated when Baibars sent negotiators to the leader of the former Crusader state and mocked his use of "Prince" in the title Prince of Antioch.
The Fall of Tripoli was the capture and destruction of the Crusader state, the County of Tripoli, by the Muslim Mamluks. The battle occurred in 1289 and was an important event in the Crusades, as it marked the capture of one of the few remaining major possessions of the Crusaders. The event is represented in a rare surviving illustration from a now fragmentary manuscript known as the 'Cocharelli Codex', thought to have been created in Genoa in the 1330s. The image shows the countess Lucia, Countess of Tripoli and Bartholomew, Bishop of Tortosa sitting in state in the centre of the fortified city, and Qalawun's assault in 1289, with his army depicted massacring the inhabitants fleeing to boats in the harbour and to the nearby island of St Thomas.
Aimery or Aymery of Limoges, also Aimericus in Latin, Aimerikos in Greek and Hemri in Armenian, was a Roman Catholic ecclesiarch in Frankish Outremer and the fourth Latin Patriarch of Antioch from c. 1140 until his death. Throughout his lengthy episcopate he was the most powerful figure in the Principality of Antioch after the princes, and often entered into conflict with them. He was also one of the most notable intellectuals to rise in the Latin East.
Paul of Segni was an Italian nobleman and Franciscan friar who served as the bishop of Tripoli in the Levant from 1261 until 1285 and as a papal legate to the kingdoms of Germany and Sicily in 1279–1280. He was the most prominent churchman from the east at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274. After 1275, he was involved in a dispute with the bishop of Tortosa that took him to Rome. He spent his last five years in Italy.
Latin Diocese of Tortosa in Syria was a Roman Catholic diocese established in the Syrian city of Tartus after the First Crusade. It had a resident bishop between 1128 and 1291. The cathedral of Tortosa became the site of a Marian shrine.
Lucia of Segni, also called Lucienne, was a 13th-century princess and countess and later regent of the Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli. She was regent on behalf of her minor son in 1252.
The fall of Outremer describes the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the end of the last European Crusade to the Holy Land in 1272 until the final loss in 1302. The kingdom was the center of Outremer—the four Crusader states—formed after the First Crusade in 1099 and reached its peak in 1187. The loss of Jerusalem in that year began the century-long decline. The years 1272–1302 are fraught with many conflicts throughout the Levant as well as the Mediterranean and Western European regions, and many Crusades were proposed to free the Holy Land from Mamluk control. The major players fighting the Muslims included the kings of England and France, the kingdoms of Cyprus and Sicily, the three Military Orders and Mongol Ilkhanate. Traditionally, the end of Western European presence in the Holy Land is identified as their defeat at the Siege of Acre in 1291, but the Christian forces managed to hold on to the small island fortress of Ruad until 1302.
Bartholomew Mansel was the vicar of the diocese of Antioch, regent of Tripoli, and bishop of Tortosa around 1272, a post he held until 1291.
Simon Mansel was a Constable of Antioch.