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.
Then in 1186, the boy King Baldwin V, who had succeeded the ‘Leper’ King Baldwin IV, died without a direct heir. The barons of Jerusalem had earlier sworn to seek the advice of the kings of England and France, the Holy Roman Emperor and the pope regarding a successor, but the Western rulers were far away. Furthermore, Isabella’s half-sister, the mother of Baldwin V and sister of Baldwin IV, felt she ought to succeed to the throne. While most acknowledged she had a legitimate claim, the majority of barons and bishops abhorred her husband, Guy de Lusignan, and resisted crowning her. Sibylla consequently organised a coup. Without the consent of the High Court of Jerusalem but with the help of the Templars and Reynald de Châtillon, she contrived to have herself crowned and anointed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. After she was anointed, she crowned Guy as her consort over the opposition of the patriarch, who refused to crown him.
Most of the barons and bishops were not in Jerusalem to witness Sibylla’s usurpation of the throne; they were meeting in Nablus to discuss options. The news that Sibylla had seized the throne and crowned her detested husband pushed them to act. It was agreed that Isabella, the other surviving child of King Amalric, should be crowned in Bethlehem as the legitimate queen. Isabella offered an ideal alternative to the usurpers because, as the child of Amalric’s second marriage, she was not tainted with illegitimacy. Furthermore, she had been born after he was crowned and anointed, an essential point in mediaeval inheritance law. Her husband would, naturally, become king consort at her side.
The barons had not reckoned with Humphrey de Toron. Either from fear or simply because he remained abjectly loyal to his stepfather, Châtillon, Humphrey slipped away during the night to go to Jerusalem where he did homage to Sibylla and Guy. Without an alternative rallying point, the baronial resistance to Sibylla and Guy’s coup d’état collapsed.
While these facts are recorded in history, how Isabella felt is not. Did Isabella side with her husband – and the man who had imprisoned her for three years? Or did she side with her mother and stepfather, who both vehemently opposed Sibylla and sought to put her on the throne? Did 14-year-old Isabella want to be queen? We have no way of knowing. Yet just because the historical record is silent, we should not assume she did not care. Like most barons, including her stepfather, Isabella accepted what Humphrey had done and made peace with Sibylla and Guy, but she may nevertheless have resented what happened intensely. It might well have created marital tensions.
Less than a year after usurping the crown, Guy de Lusignan led the army of Jerusalem to an unnecessary and devastating defeat. Not only was the battle lost, but thousands of fighting men were slaughtered, and the bulk of the remainder were enslaved. Most of the barons of Jerusalem were taken captive; among them was Isabella’s husband, Humphrey.
Saladin offered to release Humphrey in exchange for the surrender of the critically important Frankish border fortresses of Transjordan (which Humphrey had inherited after Saladin personally decapitated Reynald de Châtillon). According to some (romanticised) versions, Humphrey arrived home, only to have the garrisons refuse to obey his orders, at which point he voluntarily (or at his mother’s urgings) returned to Saracen captivity. It is more probable that Humphrey’s release was contingent on Kerak and Montreal being handed over to Saladin first. Since this never occurred, there was no chivalrous return to the dungeon from freedom. Both castles, however, were eventually reduced by siege, and, at that point, Saladin agreed to release Humphrey as he served no useful purpose in prison.
Humphrey and Isabella were reunited in early 1189 after roughly eighteen months of separation. Isabella’s location between the catastrophe of Hattin and her reunion with Humphrey is unrecorded. Most probably, she was with her mother and stepfather since her stepfather was one of only three barons to have fought his way off the field of Hattin. With King Guy and most of the High Court in captivity, Ibelin was unquestionably one of the most important men in the entire kingdom (Arab chronicles from the period refer to him as ‘like a king’). Furthermore, he commanded the respect of those fighting men who escaped capture with him. It would, therefore, have been logical for Isabella to seek his protection in this period.
Ibelin was in Tyre, the only city in the kingdom that did not fall or surrender to Saladin in the wake of Hattin. Also in Tyre at this time was Conrad de Montferrat, the brother of Queen Sibylla’s first husband. Conrad was a man of high birth and good connections. More importantly, he had taken command of the defence of Tyre at a critical moment and enjoyed the support of the people, both residents and refugees. If Isabella were in Tyre, she and Conrad would have met and probably known each other well.
When Humphrey returned from captivity, however, he joined not the men who had successfully defended what was left of the kingdom but the architect of the disaster, Guy de Lusignan. Thus, when Guy de Lusignan foolishly decided to besiege Saracen-held Acre, Humphrey went with him. Isabella accompanied him to Acre, but we cannot know if she did so willingly.
A siege camp is not a pleasant place for anyone, much less a high-born lady, which begs the question: why would Isabella choose to expose herself to the filth, privations, confinement and mortal hazards of a siege? Was it love for her husband? The passionate desire not to be separated from him again after eighteen months of forced separation caused by his captivity? Or did she go at the insistence of her half-sister Sibylla, who was also at the siege with her two infant daughters and commanded the attendance of her little sister? Did Humphrey insist on Isabella coming with him because he was jealous of a budding friendship between his wife and Conrad de Montferrat? Any of these motives are plausible, but we will never know the truth.
The only thing that is certain is that Isabella was still there in November of 1190 when her half-sister Sibylla and her two nieces died of fever. In the eyes of the High Court, which had favoured her since the constitutional crisis of 1186, Isabella was the heir presumptive to the crown and, as such, the preferred candidate for the next ruler of Jerusalem.
In the middle of a November night, Isabella was dragged from the tent and bed she shared with Humphrey and taken into the custody of the leading prelates of the Church present at the siege of Acre. Among these were the Papal Legate, the Archbishop of Pisa; Philip, the Bishop of Beauvais; and Baldwin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, along with two other unnamed bishops. She was informed that an ecclesiastic inquiry would be conducted on the validity of her marriage to Humphrey de Toron.
At this point, Isabella had been living under the same roof as Humphrey for fourteen years and had been married to him for eleven. Although she had no children and the marriage had possibly never been consummated, she nevertheless viewed herself as legally married. All accounts agree that she objected to being taken from Humphrey and resisted the efforts to annul her marriage because she loved him.
All accounts also agree that during the proceedings, Isabella’s attitude changed. Clerics in the service of the English king and bitterly hostile to her second husband attribute her change of heart to the misogynous thesis that ‘a girl can easily be taught to do what is morally wrong’ and that ‘a woman’s opinion changes very easily’.122 More neutral contemporary accounts attribute her change of heart to her mother’s influence.
[Maria Comnena] remonstrated … that she [Isabella] could not become the lady of the kingdom unless she left Humphrey. [The queen mother] reminded [her daughter] of the evil deed that [Humphrey] had done, for when the count of Tripoli and the other barons who were at Nablus wanted to crown him king and her queen, he had fled to Jerusalem and, begging forgiveness, had done homage to Queen Sibylla … So long as Isabella was his wife she could have neither honour nor her father’s kingdom, Moreover … when she [Isabella] married she was still under age and for that reason the validity of her marriage could be challenged.123
The dowager queen’s arguments are enlightening. The Constitution of Jerusalem required a reigning queen to have a consort, and Isabella was married to a man who had betrayed the High Court of Jerusalem in 1186. The High Court of Jerusalem was unprepared to do homage to the man who had betrayed them.
Unstated because it was obvious to all involved in this incident: the Kingdom of Jerusalem had been reduced to the single city of Tyre following the disastrous Battle of Hattin, and the desperate bid to recapture the city of Acre had bogged down into a war of attrition with the besiegers surrounded by the army of Saladin. Jerusalem needed a legitimate queen and a king capable of leading the fight to recover the lost kingdom. Isabella’s husband, Humphrey de Toron, was patently not that man. Thus, regardless of Isabella’s impeccable claim to the throne, the High Court (which consisted of the barons and bishops of the kingdom) was not prepared to recognise her as queen unless and until she set aside Humphrey de Toron and took another husband more suitable to the High Court.
The High Court, it will be remembered, had taken the same stance with both her father and elder sister, compelling her father to set aside his first wife Agnes de Courtenay and demanding that her sister divorce Guy de Lusignan. Her father apparently willingly complied with the demands of the High Court, while Sibylla agreed to divorce Guy only on the condition that she be allowed to choose her next husband. However, after she had been crowned and anointed queen, she had blithely announced that she chose none other than Guy de Lusignan as her new husband. In short, she reneged on her promise to put him aside. This incident was very much on the minds of the barons when they faced a similar situation in 1190. They were determined not to repeat their mistake of four years earlier. Isabella had to be legally separated from Humphrey before the High Court would acknowledge her as queen.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, upheld the sanctity of marriage. Isabella’s marriage to Humphrey could not simply be invalidated. There had to be a reason for annulling it, and this, too, is stated explicitly in the argument put forth by her mother: she had not yet attained the legal age of consent at the time of her marriage. This objective fact was both indisputable and not subject to Isabella’s whim. Whether she liked it or not, she was not legally married in the eyes of the Church. Five prelates, including a papal legate, ruled her marriage to Humphrey invalid.
Most accounts of Isabella’s divorce in history and literature latch onto the fact that she initially resisted the divorce ‘out of love for Humphrey’ and that her mother ‘remonstrated with’ (i.e., bullied) her as evidence that Isabella was again only a pawn in the hands of the powerful people around her. They ignore the fact that Isabella changed her testimony, admitting she had not consented to the marriage with Humphrey. Then, once the marriage to Humphrey was dissolved, she married Conrad Marquis of Montferrat within a week. In short, she did not follow her sister’s example of remarrying her first husband. This is an important point. Although her marriage to Humphrey as a child was not valid because she had been below the canonical age of consent, she could have married Humphrey as a consenting adult in 1190 had she wanted to. That she did not says one thing: Isabella preferred to wear the (at that point almost worthless) crown of Jerusalem over marriage to the man she reputedly loved.
