Queen Melisende, a woman of unusual wisdom and discretion, fell ill of an incurable disease for which there was no help except death. … For thirty years and more, during the lifetime of her husband as well as afterwards in the reign of her son, Melisende had governed the kingdom with strength surpassing that of most women. Her rule had been wise and judicious.127
Sibylla, Ruling Queen of Jerusalem (b. 1160 – d. 1190, reigned 1186–1190)
Sibylla of Jerusalem was undoubtedly a tragic figure, but not because she was a pawn or a victim. On the contrary, she masterminded a coup d’état by outwitting her supporters as well as her opponents. Yet, Sibylla was the antithesis of a power-hungry woman. Her scheming was not for herself but for her husband. Ultimately, she put her affection for her second husband above the well-being of her kingdom – and doomed her kingdom to humiliation, defeat and almost complete annihilation.
Sibylla was born in 1160, the daughter of Amalric of Jerusalem, the younger brother of King Baldwin III and his wife, Agnes de Courtenay. At the time of her birth, her father was Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, while her mother was landless since the entire County of Edessa had been lost to the Saracens. Shortly after her birth in 1163, King Baldwin III died without issue. The High Court of Jerusalem agreed to recognise Amalric as his heir – on the condition he set aside Agnes de Courtenay. The official grounds for the annulment were that Amalric and Agnes were related within the prohibited degrees of kinship, something the Church had allegedly only discovered after six years of marriage. The real reasons likely lay elsewhere, but it is not possible to know from this distance if it was Agnes’ alleged immorality (as the Chronicle of Ernoul imputes) or fear that the Courtenays would try to muscle themselves into positions of power in Jerusalem (as Malcolm Barber suggests in The Crusader States) or other considerations lost to the historical record. For Sibylla, however, the implications were severe. Her mother was discarded by her father and then banished from court, leaving her and her younger brother Baldwin under their father’s exclusive control.
While her brother remained at court to be raised near their father and learn his future role as king of Jerusalem, Sibylla was sent to the convent at Bethany near Jerusalem to be raised by her father’s aunt, the Abbess Iveta. Henceforth, although she may have seen her father or brother on special occasions, she would have seen almost nothing of her mother, who promptly remarried.
By 1170, it was apparent that her brother Baldwin was suffering from leprosy. This meant he might not live to adulthood and, even if he did, was unlikely to have heirs of his body. Therefore, finding a husband for the 11-year-old Sibylla became a matter of paramount importance to the kingdom. Friedrich, Archbishop of Tyre, was dispatched to the West to find a suitable husband, who when the time came, would be able to rule the kingdom effectively as her consort. A year later, Friedrich of Tyre returned with Stephen of Sancerre of the House of Blois.
Stephen was clearly of sufficient rank; his sister was married to Louis VII of France, and his brothers were married to Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughters by Louis VII. But Stephen unexpectedly refused to marry Sibylla and returned to France, squandering his chance to be king of Jerusalem. It is hard to imagine that anything about a young girl living in a convent could have offended an ambitious nobleman; his decision almost certainly had nothing to do with Sibylla. Perhaps he disliked the climate, food, exceptional power of the High Court of Jerusalem, or the military situation in light of Saladin’s increasing power. Whatever his motives for rejecting the crown, Sibylla was probably offended or hurt by the public rejection.
In 1174, Sibylla’s father died unexpectedly, and her younger brother ascended the throne as Baldwin IV. He was only 13 at the time, and so placed under a regent, Raymond, Count of Tripoli. It now became Tripoli’s duty to find a husband for Sibylla in consultation with the High Court. This time, the High Court selected William, the eldest son of the Marquis de Montferrat. William was first cousin to Louis VII of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I. Furthermore, his family had a long tradition of crusading.
William of Montferrat arrived in the Holy Land escorted by a Genoese fleet in October 1176 and, within six weeks, he had married the then 16-year-old Sibylla. He was invested with the title of Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, the now traditional title for the heir apparent to the throne. The contemporary chronicler and then Chancellor of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, William of Tyre, describes William of Montferrat as follows:
The marquis was a rather tall, good-looking young man with blond hair. He was exceedingly irascible but very generous and of an open disposition and manly courage. He never concealed any purpose but showed frankly just what he thought in his own mind. He was fond of eating and altogether too devoted to drinking, although not to such an extent as to injure his mind. He had been trained in arms from his earliest youth and had the reputation of being experienced in the art of war.128
There is no reason to think that Sibylla was ill-pleased with the High Court’s choice or he with her. He accepted her, and she became pregnant shortly after the marriage. Unfortunately, William de Montferrat became ill within six months, and in June 1177, he died. Sibylla gave birth to a posthumous son in August and named him Baldwin after her brother.
At once, the search for a new husband for Sibylla commenced. Philip II, Count of Flanders, arrived with a large force even before Sibylla gave birth to her son, and as a close kinsman (his mother was Baldwin and Sibylla’s aunt), he felt entitled to choose Sibylla’s next husband. The High Court of Jerusalem disagreed. Worse, the name he put forward was a comparatively obscure Flemish nobleman viewed by the High Court as an insult to the crown of Jerusalem. Furthermore, he wanted to marry this man’s younger brother to Sibylla’s half-sister, thereby binding both princesses to his vassals – a crude means of making himself master of the kingdom without doing the hard work of fighting for it or ruling it. Understandably, the High Court of Jerusalem rejected the suggestions, and the Count of Flanders returned to Europe. Sibylla was still without a new husband.
According to the Chronicles of Ernoul, it was now, after Sibylla had been widowed, that the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel showed an interest in marrying her. While Ernoul is considered a biased and unreliable source, it is evident from other sources that Ramla had designs on Sibylla three years later. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to hypothesize that the High Court’s rejection of Flander’s unsuitable suggestions triggered Ramla’s hopes that a powerful local baron might be favoured over an unknown and unbefitting nobleman from the West.
Meanwhile, Baldwin IV took the step of associating his sister with him in some public acts to reinforce her status as his heir. (His great-grandfather, Baldwin II, had done the same towards the end of his reign to stress that his daughter Melisende would succeed him.) Baldwin IV also wrote to King Louis VII of France (perhaps convinced that the king of England, as represented by Philip of Flanders, did not have the best interests of his kingdom at heart) and begged him to choose a man from among his barons who could take up the burden of ruling the Holy Kingdom (i.e., the Kingdom of Jerusalem). Louis chose Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, a very high-ranking nobleman. He was expected to arrive in the spring of 1180.
In the summer of 1179, Baldwin of Ramla was taken captive at a skirmish on the Litani. For his release, Sultan Saladin demanded the outrageous ransom of 200,000 bezants, a price higher than the ransom demanded for Baldwin II and more than twice the ransom paid for the Count of Tripoli just five years before. Such a sum was far beyond what Ramla’s modest baronies pay; it was quite clearly ‘a king’s ransom’. The demand suggests that Saladin thought (or had intelligence suggesting) that Ramla was destined to be Sibylla’s next husband. Saladin assumed that as the future king of Jerusalem, Ramla could command the resources of the entire kingdom. Even more significantly, the Byzantine Emperor paid a significant portion of Ramla’s ransom. Again, there is hardly any other plausible explanation of such generosity except that the Byzantine Emperor believed Ramla would become the next king of Jerusalem by marrying Sibylla.
This scenario appeared more plausible than ever when, for a second time, Sibylla (and, with her, Jerusalem) was rejected. The Duke of Burgundy’s excuse was that the king of France had died, leaving the kingdom to his young son Philip II. Since the Plantagenets were predatory, Burgundy felt it was his duty (or in his best interests) to remain in France.
Sibylla was approaching 20 years of age and had been a widow for three years. Two noblemen from Europe had jilted her, and one had been rejected on her behalf by the High Court of Jerusalem. Her name was probably associated with the Baron of Ramla, who had set aside his first wife (according to Ernoul) to marry her, but there had been no official announcement of a betrothal. Then, abruptly at Easter 1180, only weeks after Burgundy’s decision could have been made known, she married the landless, fourth son of the French Lord de la March, Guy de Lusignan.
Guy de Lusignan had only recently come to the Holy Land, probably landing in the kingdom around the same time as the news arrived that Burgundy was not coming. At this point in time, Ramla was in Constantinople trying to raise his ransom. According to William of Tyre, shortly before Easter and after the news of Burgundy’s default on his promise, King Baldwin learned that Prince Bohemond of Antioch and the Count of Tripoli had entered the kingdom with an army. According to Tyre, Baldwin became so terrified that they had come to lay claim to his kingdom that he ‘hastened his sister’s marriage’ to a man Tyre patently describes as unworthy (Guy de Lusignan), adding, ‘acting on impulse causes harm to everything’.
While the Archbishop of Tyre, Baldwin’s tutor and now his chancellor, can be counted as an insider, his explanation of Sybilla’s marriage to Guy is illogical. Antioch and Tripoli were Baldwin’s closest relatives on his father’s side. They had been bulwarks of his reign until now. Tripoli had served as his regent and could have deposed him then if he had wanted. Furthermore, Tripoli continued to support him to his death. Baldwin himself chose Tripoli to act as regent for his nephew. Except for Tyre’s speculation, there is no evidence of treason on Tripoli’s part at any time during Baldwin IV’s life. Even Tyre admits that Tripoli and Antioch ‘completed their religious devotions in the normal way’ and returned home without fuss upon learning that Sibylla was already married. That’s hardly the reaction of men unexpectedly thwarted in a coup attempt. In short, Tripoli and Antioch probably came to Jerusalem for Easter and, despite having large entourages with them (as nobles of the period were wont to have), they never posed any threat to the king.
The much-maligned Ernoul offers a far better explanation of what happened. He claims Guy de Lusignan seduced Sibylla, causing Baldwin to threaten to hang the Frenchman for debauching a princess of Jerusalem. Baldwin was dissuaded from this by his mother (the highly influential but self-serving Agnes de Courtenay) and his sister’s tears. He then allowed Sibylla to marry her lover in haste and secrecy. This explanation of events makes perfect sense and appears borne out by Sibylla’s subsequent behaviour.
Sibylla had just been jilted for a second time. She probably felt very sorry for herself and may even have wondered if something was wrong with her. Ramla may have been his choice for her husband rather than hers – or he might have been too far away at a critical moment. Suddenly, a dashing, handsome young nobleman was paying court to her, flattering and making love to her. Sibylla fell for him. Such behaviour is not unusual for a 20-year-old girl.
The evidence that Guy was Sibylla’s choice is provided by her subsequent actions. Within three years, Baldwin IV was desperately trying to find a way to annul his sister’s marriage to Guy, and she was doing everything in her power to prevent it. Had Sibylla been forced into a dynastic marriage by her brother in 1180, she would have willingly accepted a dynastic divorce in 1183–1184. She did not.
Furthermore, by the time her brother and young son by Montferrat were dead, it was obvious that nearly the entire High Court, secular and sacred, mistrusted Guy de Lusignan and did not want to see him crowned king beside her. Bernard Hamilton, in his excellent history of Baldwin’s reign, The Leper King and his Heirs, admits that even sources favourable to Guy de Lusignan acknowledge that Sibylla’s supporters ‘required her to divorce Guy before they would recognise her as queen’.129 Sibylla reportedly agreed to divorce Guy but asked that she be allowed to choose her next husband. Once this concession was made, she then proceeded to select Guy as her next husband. By clinging to Guy as her husband and consort, she alienated not only the barons and bishops already opposed to her but also those who had loyally supported her on the condition she divorce Guy. Again, these are hardly the actions of a woman in a dynastic marriage but very much the actions of a woman deeply in love with her husband.
Typically, it is admirable for a wife to be devoted to her husband, as Church chroniclers quickly pointed out. For a queen, however, clinging to an unpopular man at the price of alienating the men she depended upon to defend her kingdom is neither intelligent nor prudent.
Furthermore, it is rare for a man to provoke so much unanimous opposition and animosity as Guy de Lusignan. Even if we cannot fully fathom it today, there is no reason to think the hostility was baseless. On the contrary, Guy proved all his opponents right when, within a year of usurping the throne, he had lost roughly 17,000 Christian fighting men at an avoidable defeat at the battle of Hattin, with the consequence that nearly the entire kingdom fell to the Saracens within three months. Moreover, as a captive of Saladin, Guy ordered Ascalon to surrender to Saladin when it might well have resisted successfully.
In September of 1187, Sibylla found herself trapped in Jerusalem along with tens of thousands of other refugees as her kingdom crumbled before Saladin’s onslaught. Her husband’s incompetence had ensured that the men who might otherwise have defended the cities and castles had been killed or enslaved.
Sibylla was still the crowned and anointed ruling queen. Yet unlike Beatrice of Edessa, who worked day and night to restore the defences of her endangered cities, unlike Eschiva of Tiberias or Maria Comnena, who took command of the garrisons of the cities they held, and unlike Eschiva de Montbéliard who organised provisions to withstand a siege, Queen Sibylla did nothing. Nothing that is, except beg the destroyer of her kingdom to allow her to join her husband in captivity. In short, she begged to put the ruling queen of Jerusalem in the hands of the kingdom’s worst enemy. This is more than a gesture of love; it is evidence of Sibylla’s stupidity and lack of elementary common sense.
Saladin naturally granted Sibylla’s wish – what better way to ensure that his enemies were entirely in his hands? Meanwhile, the defence of the last remnants of her kingdom fell in Tyre to Conrad de Montferrat, the younger brother of her first husband, and in Jerusalem to Balian d’Ibelin, the second husband of her mother’s hated rival Maria Comnena.
Still, Sibylla’s devotion to Guy was unbroken. After Guy de Lusignan promised Saladin he would never take up arms against Muslims again, the sultan released him. Lusignan immediately broke his word by laying siege to Muslim-held Acre. This siege, militarily dubious from the start, turned into a drawn-out debacle, voraciously consuming Christian lives. Deplorable conditions reigned, including acute hunger and, eventually, disease. Yet Sibylla, the crowned queen of Jerusalem, preferred to be with her beloved husband, Guy, than to act the part of queen. Not only did Sibylla join her husband in the unsanitary siege camp, but she brought her only children and heirs, two small daughters, with her. They all paid the price. Sibylla and her two little girls died of a fever in November 1190. Sibylla was 30 years old.
Queen Sibylla shares the blame with Guy de Lusignan for losing the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. Her stupidity and stubbornness left the kingdom in the hands of an incompetent and despised man. At no time in her life did she show even a flicker of responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of Christians entrusted to her or demonstrate a shred of royal dignity. Had she been a baker’s daughter and a butcher’s wife, her devotion to her husband might have been admirable; as a princess, she was tragic. Yet, at no time was she a mere chattel or pawn. Sibylla’s tragedy is not that she had too little power but that she had too much – and did not know how to use it.
Notes
1. Bernard Hamilton, ‘Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem’, in Medieval Women, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), 143.
2. Sue Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, (London: British Museum Press, 1995), 131.
3. The situation of women in the Mycenaean age and women in Doric societies such as Sparta and Gortyn were markedly better. There is extensive literature on these societies and comparisons of them to classical Athens.
4. An excellent source on women in the mediaeval church is Regine Pernoud, Women in the Days of the Cathedrals (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989); and Medieval Women, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978) contains biographies of female mediaeval religious women and others.
5. Pernoud, Women in the Days of the Cathedrals, 180.
6. Ibid.
7. Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society, (Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 1975), 45.
8. Nabib Amin Faris, ‘Arab Culture in the Twelfth Century’, in The Crusades: The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East, eds. Kenneth M. Setton, Norman Zacour, and Harry Hazard (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985).
9. Mernissi, Beyond the Veil, 48.
