That same year, Eschiva took ill from an unknown cause, probably in the aftermath of Hugh’s birth. This led to her becoming a victim of her husband’s otherwise admirable efforts to curb the rampant piracy in the eastern Mediterranean. What befell her is described in considerable detail in the Lyon Continuation of William of Tyre. The account deserves to be quoted in full.

‘[The pirate Canaqui] learned that … the queen and her children had come to stay near the sea in a village named Paradhisi. The queen had been ill, and … had come there to rest and recuperate. As soon as Canaqui knew where she was, he landed with some companions. He was familiar with the lie of the land, and he came at dawn to the village where he surprised the people who were with her, captured the queen and her children, and took them off in his galley.111

‘After he had absconded with the queen, the hue and cry arose in the land and the news came to the king who was greatly angered … The king and queen’s relations and everyone else were very sorrowful at this shameful event that had taken place in the Kingdom of Cyprus … When Leo of the Mountain, who was lord of Armenia, came to hear of the outrage that had befallen King Aimery and his lady, he was deeply saddened because of the love that he had both for King Aimery who was his friend and for Baldwin of Ibelin whose daughter she had been. He immediately sent messengers to Isaac [the backer of Canaqui] to say that if he valued his life, he would have the lady and her children brought to Gorhigos the moment he read this letter. As soon as Isaac heard this order from the lord of Armenia, he accepted that he would have to do as he was told. He sent [the kidnapped lady and her children] to Gorhigos in fitting style, and when Leo heard of their arrival, he went to meet them and, receiving them with appropriate honour, did much to please them.112

‘As soon as the lady had arrived in Gorhigos, he sent messengers to King Aimery telling him not to be angry or troubled for he had freed his wife and children from the power of their enemies. When the king heard this news, he was delighted at the great service and act of kindness [Leo] had done them. He had galleys made ready and went to Armenia, accompanied by his best men. There he was received honourably, and he was overjoyed to find his wife and children safe and sound’.113

Several points are striking in this account. The reference to Baldwin d’Ibelin being a friend of Leo of the Mountain is intriguing, as it suggests that after leaving the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the former lord of Ramla went to Armenia. More significant for Eschiva herself, however, is that there is no hint of sexual abuse or disgrace. On the contrary, much is made of her being greeted with ‘appropriate honour’. Furthermore, Eschiva was clearly welcomed back by Aimery without recriminations or doubts. Was this because the kidnapper was an Orthodox Christian rather than Muslim or because the entire episode was considered political hostage-taking rather than a criminal or military kidnapping?

Even in the absence of sexual abuse, however, the experience of being held hostage by a known pirate must have been traumatic in the extreme for Eschiva, both as a young woman and the mother of two young, possibly nubile, daughters and an infant son. Although Eschiva returned with Aimery to Cyprus, she appears to have never fully recovered from the trauma or the illness that had taken her to Paradhisi in the first place. Although she lived long enough to witness the reconciliation between her husband and Henri de Champagne, who came to Cyprus explicitly for that purpose, she died before she could be crowned. Her husband of more than twenty years was crowned and anointed king of Cyprus in September 1197 without Eschiva at his side. Within weeks, Henri of Champagne fell to his death, and before the end of the year, Aimery had married the widowed Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem.

Eschiva lived in the vortex of Jerusalem politics in the last two decades of the twelfth century. She was an Ibelin by birth and a Lusignan by marriage. She founded a dynasty that would rule Cyprus for more than 300 years. But we do not know if she was politically active. Did she have a say in affairs of state? Did she whisper advice to her husband? Or did she console and support her sister-in-law Sibylla? Did she advise Sibylla not to renounce Guy, no matter how great the pressure from the High Court was? Or did she see what her father and uncle saw in him, that Guy would make a disastrous king and try to talk Sibylla into abandoning him? Unless new sources come to light, we will never know.

Yet it does not take too much imagination to see Eschiva as the bridge that enabled the Ibelins to become the most powerful supporters of the Lusignan dynasty in Cyprus. Historians puzzle over the fact that the Ibelins, who were inveterate opponents of Guy de Lusignan, could quickly become so entrenched in his brother’s Kingdom of Cyprus. Eschiva was likely the key.

Eschiva de Montbéliard, Lady of Beirut (b. ca 1207–1208 – d. after 1250)

The force of Eschiva’s personality rather than her rank or titles earned her a mention in two of the most important and lively chronicles of the thirteenth century, those of Philip de Novare and Jean de Joinville. In both instances, Eschiva acted on her own and in material support of military operations. Yet she was also the heroine of a scandalous love match. Due to her secondary status as a non-royal woman, the historical record has left us with only glimpses of what must have been a forceful and highly intelligent woman.

Eschiva was the daughter of one of the many adventurous younger sons of the French nobility who went to the Holy Land to make his fortune, Walter de Montbéliard. Walter was the second son of Amadeus, Count of Montbéliard, and he took the cross in 1199 but, rather than joining the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, struck out on his own, arriving in the Holy Land sometime after 1201. By 1204, he had already won so much favour with Aimery de Lusignan – at that time king of Cyprus and king consort of Jerusalem – that he was appointed constable of Jerusalem (the same position Aimery had himself once held). At the same time, Aimery gave the hand of his eldest daughter Burgundia to Montbéliard in marriage.

Burgundia of Lusignan was probably already 22 or 23 at the time of her marriage. She had been betrothed briefly to Raymond VI of Toulouse between 1193 and 1196, possibly while still very young and certainly before her father had been crowned. Burgundia may also have been one of the children kidnapped along with her mother by the pirate Canaqui in 1196. If her marriage had recently been dissolved and she had returned to Cyprus, then it would have been considered appropriate for her to help her mother with her younger siblings.

In 1205, Aimery de Lusignan died unexpectedly, leaving the thrones of Cyprus and Jerusalem in the hands of minors. In Jerusalem, Aimery was succeeded by Maria de Montferrat, whose maternal uncle, John d’Ibelin, Lord of Beirut, assumed the regency. In Cyprus, however, the crown fell to Aimery’s only surviving son, Hugh, his last child by Eschiva d’Ibelin. Hugh was only 9 years old at his father’s death, and the High Court of Cyprus chose as regent the husband of Hugh’s heir (his sister Burgundia), Walter de Montbéliard.

Eschiva, Walter and Burgundia’s daughter, was born on the island shortly after her father became regent in 1206 or 1207. While she would have been far too young to notice, her father pursued a highly controversial and aggressive foreign policy that included an expensive expedition to seize the port of what is now Antalya on the southern coast of modern Turkey. In addition, during Montbéliard’s regency, King Hugh’s marriage to Alice de Champagne, the heiress of Jerusalem, was celebrated.

In 1210, Hugh I of Cyprus came of age, and no sooner had he taken control of his kingdom than he accused Montbéliard of massive malfeasance. He demanded Montbéliard return the astronomical sum of 240,000 bezants to the Cypriot treasury. Convinced that the king intended him harm, Walter de Montbéliard fled Cyprus overnight with his wife and his household aboard a Templar ship bound for Tripoli. From there, he made his way to Jerusalem, where his cousin John de Brienne had recently been installed as king consort after marrying Maria de Montferrat. Thus, Eschiva would have experienced a headlong flight from danger at a very tender age.

Just two years later, in 1212, Eschiva’s father died, possibly fighting the Saracens. She was, at most, 6 years old, and again, it is difficult to know how deeply affected she would have been. Her mother was still the heiress to Cyprus and, with her husband dead, appears to have reconciled with her brother, who restored many, if not all, of the properties once held by Montbéliard. In addition, John de Brienne remained protective of his relatives, and in 1220, he named Eschiva’s older brother Odo constable of Jerusalem, the position his father had once held and a lucrative honour. Either Hugh of Cyprus or John de Brienne may have been responsible for arranging a suitable marriage for Eschiva. Sometime between 1220 and 1229, Eschiva was married to Gerard de Montaigu.

Little is known about Gerard beyond the curious fact that he was the nephew of the Master of the Knights Templar, Pedro de Montaigu; the Master of the Knights Hospitaller, Guerin de Montaigu and the nephew of the Archbishop of Nicosia, Eustace de Montaigu. (How three brothers came to hold three such powerful ecclesiastical positions simultaneously is a coincidence unexplained in the source material.) In any case, Gerard died at the Battle of Nicosia on 14 July 1229. He died fighting on the side of the rebel barons led by John d’Ibelin, the Lord of Beirut, against the Holy Roman Emperor’s baillies. Eschiva became a widow at the age of 23, at most, and, more likely, 20 or 21.

Eschiva had no children by Montaigu. However, she was evidently an extremely wealthy widow. Furthermore, while her brother spent his entire career in the Kingdom of Jerusalem serving as constable and briefly as deputy regent, Eschiva’s inheritance and wealth appears to have come exclusively from properties she held in Cyprus.

Heiresses in the Kingdom of Cyprus, surrounded as it was by water, were not required to marry to ensure sufficient fighting men for the feudal army. No one could have forced Eschiva de Montbéliard to remarry after the death of Gerard de Montaigu, but roughly one year after the Battle of Nicosia, she made a love match that scandalised society.

The man she chose to wed was Balian d’Ibelin, the eldest son of the Lord of Beirut. Balian’s appeal to Eschiva is easily imagined. He was roughly her age, or at most a couple years older, but he had already distinguished himself as an audacious knight and effective commander.

His career would have been well known to Eschiva, particularly the fact that in 1228, Balian was one of twenty hostages seized by Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen for the good behaviour of his father. Balian and his younger brother Baldwin were ‘put in pillories, large and exceedingly cruel; there was a cross of iron to which they were bound so that they were able to move neither their arms nor their legs’.114 Although Balian’s father secured his release from this inhumane detention within several weeks, Balian remained a hostage of the emperor (albeit in better conditions) for the length of the emperor’s bogus ‘crusade’.

Yet when the emperor’s baillies set about despoiling Ibelin properties after the emperor’s departure in 1229, Balian was among the small body of troops who accompanied his father to Cyprus to confront the five baillies. He distinguished himself at the battle of Nicosia, rallying dispersed Ibelin troops and leading them back into the thick of the fight after the Lord of Caesarea had been killed and when his father had been unhorsed and was defending himself in a churchyard. That is to say, when the Ibelins were on the brink of a disastrous defeat, Balian turned the battle into a victory. During the siege of St Hilarion that followed, when a sally from the castle overran the Ibelin camp, ‘Sir Balian came … recovered the camp, and, spurring up to the gate of the wall, broke his lance on the iron of the wall gate’.115 At another point, when the later historian and philosopher Novare was badly wounded before the castle, Balian ‘succoured him and rescued him most vigorously’.116 Even taking into account Novare’s bias and affection for his ‘compeer’ Balian, it is clear that Balian had already established his reputation as a bold knight by the time he married Eschiva.

The couple married clandestinely, evidence there was (or they expected) opposition to the match. Since Eschiva’s overlord, King Henry I of Cyprus was a minor, opposition could have come from only one source, the king’s regent and the bridegroom’s father: the Lord of Beirut. On the surface, it appears surprising that the Lord of Beirut would object to the marriage. Balian and Eschiva were equal in rank (she was the granddaughter of a king, and he was the grandson of a queen). Her father had been regent of Cyprus when Beirut had been regent of Jerusalem. Eschiva brought great wealth into the marriage. She was young and healthy, and there was no reason to presume she could not bear children. Most likely, therefore, Beirut’s opposition derived from political considerations. Eschiva’s brother Odo was a partisan of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, while Beirut was the emperor’s most bitter and intransigent opponent.

The fact that the couple went ahead with the marriage suggests this was an affair of the heart for both. The problem with this strategy was that they were related within the prohibited degrees and consequently required a papal dispensation to marry. A powerful baron like Beirut might expect to obtain such a dispensation; two young lovers in their 20s did not have the kind of influence necessary to win over the papal curia.

When their marriage became public, the Archbishop of Nicosia (perhaps not incidentally, the uncle of Eschiva’s first husband) promptly threatened to excommunicate them. Far from intimidating either of them, Balian organised a show of force that drove the archbishop to flee Cyprus altogether. (Notably, Balian’s father was in Palestine at the time and so unable to curb his son’s anger or mediate between the parties.) The offended and outraged archbishop appealed directly to the pope, who obligingly issued a ban of excommunication on both parties, which arrived in the Holy Land in March 1232.

Meanwhile, the emperor’s forces had retaken control of Cyprus while the Ibelins (including Balian) and their knights and troops were on the mainland. The situation immediately became extremely unpleasant.

[The emperor’s men] committed all the abominations and outrages and villainies of which they knew and were capable. They broke into the churches and the Temple and the house of the Hospital and all the religious houses, and they dragged the ladies and the children who clung to the altars and to the priests who chanted Masses…. They put the ladies and children into carts and on donkeys most shamefully and sent them to [Kyrenia] to prison.117

Except for those who had disguised themselves as peasants – and Eschiva. Philip de Novare tells us that Eschiva:

Dressed in the robes of a minor brother … mounted a [castle] called Buffavento. Therein was she received by an old knight named Guinart de Coches, who was there on behalf of the king, and she supplied herself so that she provisioned [Buffavento] with food, of which it had none.118

This underscores that Eschiva had so much wealth she could provision the garrison of a royal castle at her own expense – and that she was exceptionally courageous.

Yet the excommunication hung over her and her husband. Balian’s pious father was so outraged by the excommunication (or perhaps by the disobedience that had led to it) that he publicly refused to allow his heir to command a division of troops in the coming confrontation with the emperor’s knights. An eyewitness to the battle describes the situation as follows:

Sir Balian, his son, had always in this war led the first troop. At this time [Beirut] made [Balian] come before him and demanded that he swear to obey the command of the Holy Church, for he was under sentence of excommunication because of his marriage. [Balian] replied that he could not accede to this request. The noble man [Beirut] … said: ‘Balian, I have more faith in God than in your knighthood, and since you do not wish to grant my request, leave the array for, and it please God, an excommunicated man shall never be a leader of our troop’.119

In response to this speech, Sir Balian,

‘Escaped and went to the first rank where were his brother Sir Hugh and Sir Anceau; he gave them advice and showed them that which he knew to be of advantage, and then he left them and placed himself before them to the side. He had but few men who were with him, for at that time there were only five knights who would speak to him, all the others having sworn to respect the command of Holy Church.’

‘When the advance guard of the first company of [imperial knights] approached the division of my lord of Beirut and the king, Sir Balian spurred through a most evil place, over rocks and stones, and went to attack the others above the middle of the pass. So much he delayed them and did such feats of arms that no one was able to enter or leave this pass … Many times was he pressed by so many lances that no one believed that he would ever be able to escape. Those who were below with the king saw him and knew him well by his arms and each of them cried to my lord of Beirut: “Ah, Sir, let us aid Sir Balian, for we see that he will be killed there above”. [The Lord of Beirut] said to them: “Leave him alone. Our Lord will aid him, and it please Him, and we shall ride straight forward with all speed, for if we should turn aside, we might lose all”.’120

Ultimately, the Ibelins routed the emperor’s men and drove them back to the north coast, and Balian was still alive. The Lord of Beirut appears to have seen his son’s survival against such odds as a sign of God’s grace. He abandoned his attempt to force Balian to set Eschiva aside and again placed Balian in command, this time conducting the siege of Kyrenia, the last Cypriot fortress still in imperial hands. Following the surrender of Kyrenia, Balian was rewarded by the (now adult) king of Cyprus with the position of constable of Cyprus. Interestingly, contemporary sources make no further mention of the excommunication. Historians assume that the pope, a political animal in this age, had seen the wisdom of withdrawing his excommunication and issuing the necessary dispensation for the marriage. After all, the pope himself was engaged in a vicious struggle against Frederick II.

In 1236, John d’Ibelin, the ‘Old Lord of Beirut’ died, and Balian succeeded him. Eschiva moved with him to Beirut as his lady. Indeed, she retained that title until her death and her eldest son John succeeded to the barony at his father’s death.

In the decade following his father’s death, Balian and Eschiva may have divided their time between Beirut and Cyprus because Balian remained constable of Cyprus, although he also took part in the Baron’s Crusade of 1239–1241. In 1241, Balian’s signature headed the list of names petitioning Frederick II to appoint Simon de Montfort, the English Earl of Leicester, baillie of Jerusalem, but the suggestion fell on deaf ears. In 1243, Balian headed the faction that persuaded the barons of Jerusalem to swear homage to Alice de Champagne. He personally led the risky attack on Tyre, which drove the emperor’s representative into exile and ended the imperial presence in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

At the death of Alice de Champagne, Henry I of Cyprus became regent of Jerusalem and named Balian of Beirut his deputy, ruling from Acre. Here, as effective king of Jerusalem, Balian died of unknown causes, aged 40, on 4 September 1247. Eschiva was widowed a second time, although she now had at least one son, John of Beirut II, who had already come of age. Eschiva appears to have left her son in Beirut and returned to Cyprus, as it is here that Jean de Joinville, the seneschal of France crusading with St Louis, encountered her.

Joinville calls her his cousin because she was the first cousin to the then Count of Montbéliard, as he was himself. He also tells us that she outfitted a small ship at her own expense to aid the crusaders in their amphibious assault on the Egyptian coast and put it at his disposal. Joinville transported eight of his horses on her ship and, during the landing before Damietta, used Eschiva’s boat for his landing.121 This is the last we hear of Eschiva.

Like so many mediaeval women, Eschiva emerged as an independent actor only after she was widowed. After Gerard de Montaigu had been killed, she took fate into her own hands by marrying the man of her choice without the approval of her overlord, her brother or her new father-in-law. She defied the Church by refusing to separate from Balian despite the ban of excommunication. Although her ability to first provision a garrison under siege and later outfit a galley for an amphibious military operation were a function of her wealth, it is noteworthy that many other women of equal wealth did not take such an active interest in the defence of the realm. Conspicuous for its absence is any mention of Eschiva’s beauty. Yet it is the episode in which Eschiva disguises herself as a man and crosses twenty miles of enemy-held territory to reach a castle about to be besieged that gives us the best glimpse of Eschiva. Only a woman of extraordinary courage, cleverness and cool nerves would have successfully evaded the notoriously brutal marauding imperial troops. These are the qualities, I believe, that enabled her to capture the heart of the boldest knight of her age, Balian d’Ibelin of Beirut.

Isabella I, Ruling Queen of Jerusalem (b. 1172 – d. 1205, reigned 1192–1205)

Although she was born a princess and ruled Jerusalem for twelve years, Isabella is usually portrayed as a pawn in history books and literature. While Isabella’s life was short, eventful and at times tragic, dismissing her as a puppet does her an injustice. She played a significant role in the history of the Holy Land through her conscious choices as an adult.

Isabella was born in 1172, the daughter of King Amalric of Jerusalem, by his second wife, Maria Comnena, a great-niece of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I. At the time of her birth, her half-brother Baldwin was already 11 years old and suffering from leprosy. There can be little doubt that her sex was a disappointment to her father, who had undoubtedly hoped for a son to replace the stricken Baldwin as his heir. (It was the custom in the Kingdom of Jerusalem for noblemen suffering from leprosy to abdicate their secular titles and join the religious Order of St Lazarus.) Amalric was still young (in his 30s), and his wife Maria was not yet 20, so he undoubtedly hoped a male heir might yet be born in the future.

Just two years later, however, Amalric fell victim to dysentery and died. Isabella’s half-brother Baldwin was recognised as King of Jerusalem and placed under the regency of the Count of Tripoli. Isabella’s mother, a 21-year-old widow, retired from court to her dower lands, the wealthy barony of Nablus, taking her 2-year-old daughter with her. Nablus was known for its scents and soaps and its large, cosmopolitan population of Jews, Orthodox, Latin Christians and Muslims. (The latter were specifically granted the right to engage in the hajj to Mecca.) For Isabella, it must have been an exciting place to live.

When Isabella was 5, her mother chose a new husband, Balian d’Ibelin. He was the younger (landless) brother of the wealthy second Baron of Ibelin, Ramla and Mirabel. The king, who explicitly sanctioned the marriage, was probably responsible for persuading the baron of Ramla to transfer the comparatively insignificant barony of Ibelin to his younger brother to ensure he was a more ‘suitable’ match for the dowager queen of Jerusalem. Balian thus became Isabella’s stepfather – and the first and only father she knew ever.

For the next three years, Isabella lived with her mother and stepfather, spending time (one presumes) at both Nablus and Ibelin. She soon had two new half-siblings, a sister Helvis and a brother John, born to her mother and stepfather. Yet, her idyllic childhood abruptly ended at age 8. The king’s mother, Agnes de Courtenay, convinced her son that his half-sister was a threat to his throne. To ensure that the threat posed by Isabella was neutralised, she was betrothed at the age of eight to another pawn: the underage nobleman Humphrey de Toron. Humphrey was firmly under the control of his widowed mother and her new and notorious husband, Reynald de Châtillon. Thus, Isabella was taken from the only family she had ever known over the furious objections of her mother and stepfather and imprisoned in one of the most exposed castles of the kingdom: Kerak. Furthermore, possibly on orders from Agnes de Courtenay, Châtillon’s lady expressly prohibited the child from visiting her parents for the next three years. In this phase of her life, Isabella was indeed nothing but a pawn.

In late 1183, for reasons lost to history, someone (Châtillon? The king? Agnes de Courtenay?) decided it was time for Isabella and Humphrey to marry. Isabella was only 11 and below the canonical age of consent; she had nothing to say about the matter. Her mother and stepfather were not present and presumably not consulted. Humphrey was, by now, at least 15 and possibly a couple of years older, which may have prompted the marriage as there was the risk that since he could now govern his own affairs, he might choose to break the betrothal; a marriage, on the other hand, could not so easily be reversed. Whatever the reasons, the marriage was planned, and the nobility of Outremer was invited to attend.

The guests had started to gather when Saladin’s armies overran the town of Kerak and laid siege to the castle. Coincidentally, a session of the High Court was taking place in Jerusalem. Because most of Jerusalem’s barons attended the latter, Saladin’s siege trapped the kingdom’s leading ladies but not their husbands in the besieged fortress. Among these were Isabella’s mother, who was seeing her daughter for the first time in three years, Isabella’s half-sister Sibylla (now 23 and married for a second time), and Queen Mother Agnes de Courtenay. Despite the circumstances, the marriage went ahead. Allegedly, Saladin agreed to spare the tower where the nuptials were taking place, even as he continued bombarding the rest of the castle with his siege engines. Before long, food and water rationing came into effect. The sanitary conditions of a castle crowded with townspeople and extra guests must have been unpleasant, but it held for roughly two months before the Army of Jerusalem under Baldwin IV came to its relief. Although no harm came to any of the high-born guests, it was hardly a promising start to Isabella’s marriage.

The next phase of Isabella’s life is poorly recorded. At the time of his betrothal, Humphrey de Toron’s guardian (Châtillon) had agreed to return Humphrey’s important barony of Toron to the crown. In exchange, Humphrey received a ‘money fief ’ (a pension). Consequently, Isabella and Humphrey had no castle or fief in which to live and appear to have lived in town houses in either Acre or Jerusalem. For Isabella, the implications of her husband’s abdication of effective baronial power may not have been evident (she was only 11, after all), and she probably enjoyed being able to visit with her mother, stepfather and four Ibelin half-siblings at last.