The Lusignan Dynasty of Cyprus

Cyprus was conquered by the Latins between 6 May and 5 June 1191, during the Third Crusade following Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187. When several ships from Richard the Lionheart’s fleet accidentally ran aground on the shores of Cyprus, the local despot, Isaac Komnenos, who had become independent from Constantinople, apparently seized the ships under the Right of Shipwrecks. This led to military intervention by Richard, thus ending several centuries of Greek rule over Cyprus. Richard wanted to continue his expedition to the Holy Land and was unable to provide enough men to hold the island, so he sold it to the Knights Templar for 100,000 bezants, 40,000 of which were paid immediately. To pay the remainder, the Order introduced oppressive fiscal measures, which led to a revolt. Because they were unable to pay his price, Richard took it back and sold it to Guy de Lusignan, the dispossessed king of Jerusalem, in 1192. Guy belonged to a noble family of Poitou, which declared itself the vassal of the Plantagenet family. 

In order to ensure a Latin presence on an island where most of the inhabitants were Greek—apart from a few merchants from Italian trading centres—Guy, lord of Cyprus, settled the island with Franks and Christian Syrians from his former kingdom in Jerusalem. They were joined by crusader knights from the West. The knights were given fiefs that had been taken from the former despot, and the Greek aristocracy and Church. A feudal Latin regime was established.

Guy’s brother, Amalric II, who had been constable of the kingdom of Jerusalem, succeeded him in 1194. In 1195, he received the royal crown from the Holy Roman Emperor and made Cyprus into a kingdom, while Richard, who was imprisoned when he returned from the Crusade, had had to renounce his suzerainty. The king progressively established institutions inspired by those in the kingdom of Jerusalem and the former Byzantine administration.

Roman Catholic edifices were built in the Latin kingdom, which was unprecedented, as they had to coexist with the pre-existing Greek Orthodox churches. The pope created the archbishopric of Nicosia in 1196 and the three suffragan bishoprics of Paphos, Limassol, and Famagusta. The Greek Orthodox Church remained completely independent, with its archbishopric and fourteen suffragan bishoprics. Shortly afterwards, at the beginning of thirteenth century, work commenced on four Latin cathedrals, of which only the Cathedral of St Sophia in Nicosia and Famagusta Cathedral remain. The cathedrals of Paphos and Limassol have completely disappeared. Moreover, monastic and canonical communities were established in Cyprus, such as the Premonstratensian Canons (Bellapais). Together with the sanctuary in the Cathedral of St Sophia in Nicosia, it is the only surviving Gothic church dating back to the first decades of the thirteenth century. The Latin clergy was faced with many organizational difficulties, and there were frequent appeals to the pope for help during this period. The situation hardly favoured the construction of a large number of Latin religious edifices, especially as only a small number of Latins had settled on the island and there was a troubled political climate. More attention was paid to defensive constructions, fortifications, and castles.

Amalric’s successors, Hugh I (reigned 1205–1218), Henry I (reigned 1218–1254), and Hugh II (reigned 1254–1267), succeeded to the throne when they were underage, which led to difficulties in the regency. In particular, Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor and suzerain of the kingdom, attempted to assert his power over CyprusCyprus from the suzerainty of the Empire in 1247. After the emperor’s death in 1250 and the deaths of his heirs, the title of king of Jerusalem was inherited in 1268 by the king of Cyprus, in 1228, which led to a five-year war. His defeat left the island in a state of ruin. Pope Innocent IV, who was an opponent of Frederick II, freed Hugh III (reigned 1267–1284), who united the two crowns, even though sovereignty over the holy city, which was under Mamluk rule, was purely theoretical. The Lusignans had already been heavily involved in the Holy Land. They had lent their support to Western crusades, particularly that of Saint Louis, who had spent the winter of 1248 in Cyprus with his army, before leaving for Damietta with King Henri I and his barons.

In the middle of the thirteenth century, relations between the Latin and Greek Churches became extremely strained. The popes, who argued that it wasn’t canonically possible for two bishops and clergies to coexist in a city, wanted the Cypriot clergy to take oaths of obedience to the papacy. But most of the population was Greek Orthodox. There were local disputes about the religious practices[1]. In 1222 the pontifical legate, Cardinal Pelagio Galvani, imposed a reduction in the number of Greek bishoprics from 14 to 4, established their sees in towns and cities where there were no Latin bishoprics, and removed the Greek archbishopric. The Greek bishops were placed under the control of the Latin bishops. A series of crises ensued, although the pope did become a little less inflexible[2]. However, the Lusignans, who didn’t want to offend their Greek subjects, who were in the majority, implemented pontifical decisions in a very half-hearted way, but without openly opposing them. They favoured a more tolerant and open approach, which became even more conciliatory in the fourteenth century.

After the loss of the last strongholds in the Holy Land and the fall of Acre in 1291, which was conquered by the Mamluks, Cyprus attained a position of influence and importance. Under the reign of Henry II (reigned 1285–1306 and 1310–1324), many refugees settled in Cyprus and the merchants retreated to the island, creating wealth in the city of Famagusta, which was then considered as the new Acre. The king, who had been confronted with difficulties in around 1300, which had led him to introduce a tax that affected all levels of society, provoked opposition from some of the barons, who withdrew their support and installed Amalric as ruler of Cyprus in 1306. Henri II had to flee into exile, but returned after the assassination of Amalric in 1310 and was restored to his throne. He introduced a reform policy that created prosperity on the island. The reign of his successor, Hugh IV (reigned 1324–1359), was marked by the same prosperity, as attested by the trading centres run by merchants from Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Catalonia, Armenia, Syria, and many other places. The king's religious policies granted independence to both communities and gave Greeks and Latins equal protection, particularly after the miracle of the Cross of Tochni in 1340—a Greek relic of the True Cross–which gave the queen her speech back. His successor, Peter I (reigned 1359–1369), attempted to relaunch the crusades and went on a long tour of Europe to mobilize support. He succeeded in organizing a crusade and captured Alexandria from the Mamluks in 1365. Although this victory was celebrated in the West, it was a costly exploit without further gains. The king was praised as the valiant knight par excellence. The end of his reign was, however, marked by an increase in discontentment, and Peter was assassinated by members of his entourage.

The reign of Peter II (reigned 1369–1382) marked the beginning of the island’s decline. After two years on the throne as an underage king, Peter II was crowned king of Cyprus in Nicosia in 1371 and king of Jerusalem in Famagusta in 1372. During the ceremony in Famagusta, a riot broke out between the Venetians and the Genoese, which degenerated into a bloody battle. The dispute arose over who would lead the king’s horse on the right side; traditionally this role was played by the Genoese but the Venetians took it. The Genoese, who considered that they had been deprived of their rights, ravaged the island and took control of the city of FamagustaGenoa as hostages. When Peter II died, for almost a century. Members of the royal family were taken to James I (a brother of Peter I who reigned 1382–1398) returned from Genoa to assume the crown of a ruined kingdom.

The general decline of Cyprus in the fifteenth century was marked by the reign of Janus (reigned 1398–1432), who was born in Genoa, where his father was a captive. The king had to deal with natural disasters, financial difficulties, confrontations with the Genoese and particularly the Mamluks, who ravaged the island in 1426. After the disastrous battle of Khirokitia, the captured king was forced to become the sultan’s viceroy in Cyprus. The difficulties continued under John II (reigned 1432–1458): the ruined kingdom was under threat of invasion from the Mamluk sultans in Egypt and the Ottomans, who ruled Constantinople from 1453. This situation was exacerbated by a dispute over the succession to the throne, as John had a daughter, Charlotte, and an illegitimate son, James. When the king died, Charlotte (reigned 1458–1460), who was married to Louis, Duke of Savoy, was crowned queen. With the help of the Mamluk sultan, her half-brother James usurped the throne. Charlotte returned to the West and ceded her rights to the Dukes of Savoy. The new king, James II (reigned 1460–1473), recaptured Famagusta from the Genoese in 1464 after a long siege, but was also confronted with many difficulties: plots hatched by Charlotte’s followers, shortages, financial difficulties, and so on. Under pressure from Venice, he married Caterina Cornaro in 1471, who was the daughter of a well-known and powerful Venetian family that had possessions on the island. If Caterina had no children, Cyprus would have to be ceded to the Republic of Venice. But, James II, who may have been poisoned, died several months after his marriage. Caterina gave birth to a posthumous son, James III, who died several months later in 1474. Caterina’s reign (reigned 1474–1489) was marked by two difficulties: control exerted by Venice that prevented her from remarrying, and opposition from the Cypriot barons, who feared that the island’s independence was under threat. Venice eventually forced the queen to abdicate in 1489 and governed the island until it was captured by the Turks in 1571.

The Venetian administration was marked by a control of Cyprus, which was under serious threat from the Ottomans. The administration carried out public construction work, particularly the construction of powerful fortifications. It also completed various construction projects on religious edifices (the restoration of St Sophia after the earthquake in 1491, the reconstruction of the Greek cathedral in Nicosia, and the construction of the Ayia Napa Monastery). Despite its efforts to protect the island, the administration was unable to prevent the Ottomans from landing on Cyprus in 1571. The Ottomans didn’t really encounter any resistance until they reached Famagusta, which capitulated in 1571 after a long and heroic siege[3]. The loss of Cyprus led to the constitution of a large coalition of Western powers[4], which took its revenge in the same year in the Battle of Lepanto.

Th. S.

[2] The Bulla Cypria, written by the pope in 1260, established a framework for the relationship between the two churches.

[3] The extent of the inhabitants’ efforts to defend their city can be seen in the engraving of the siege of Famagusta, produced by Gibellino in 1571.

[4] The coalition comprised, amongst others, Venetians, Genoese, the Spanish, and knights from Malta, with support from the pope. The French, who had been allies of the sultan since the reign of Francis I, were not part of the coalition.