The Wives of Amalaric I -- Rivals Through History

Bernard Hamilton (“Women in the Crusader States: Queens of Jerusalem 1000 - 1190” published in Medieval Women, ed. Derek Baker, Basel Blackwell, Oxford, 1978), argues that Baldwin IV's mother, Agnes de Courtney, had the “misfortune” to have “bad relations to the press.”  He notes that “all contemporary sources are hostile to her”, but argues that that “her influence was not as baneful as the Ibelins and the Archbishop of Tyre would like posterity to presume.” He then goes on to describe Agnes’ rival, Maria Comnena, as “a ruthless and scheming woman.” Now Bernard Hamilton is a noted historian, but my father taught me to judge a person by his/her deeds — not by what others said about them.

Sybilla of Jerusalem as portrayed in the film "Kingdom of Heaven"

So let us look at the record, not the reputation, of the wives of Amalric I of Jerusalem: Agnes de Courtney and Maria Comnena.

Agnes de Courtney was, according to Malcolm Barber, betrothed to Hugh d’Ibelin, but instead married Prince (later King) Amalric of Jerusalem. Whether she did this voluntarily is not recorded. She might have been seduced or abducted, or she might also have been very happy to give up the comparatively obscure and unimportant Hugh in favor of the heir apparent to the throne.  Whatever her motives at the time of her marriage, when Baldwin III died childless, the High Court of Jerusalem had such strong objections to Agnes that they refused to acknowledge Amalric as King of Jerusalem unless he set Agnes aside.

Why, we do not know. There was the issue of being married within the prohibited degrees on consanguinity, and the issue of the pre-contract with Hugh d’Ibelin, both of which were canonical grounds for divorce.  However, the objections of the High Court are not likely to have been legalistic in view of the fact that the High Court explicitly recognized Amalric’s children by Agnes as legitimate.  This strongly suggests that the High Court was not uneasy about the legality of Amalric’s marriage but about the character of his wife. Perhaps it was simply the fact that she was a powerful woman, or a notoriously grasping one, or perhaps, as the Chronicle of Ernoul suggests, she was seen as insufficiently virtuous for such an elevated position as queen in the Holy City. Such speculation is beside the point; the naked fact is that Agnes was found unsuitable for a crown by the majority of the High Court. That’s a pretty damning sentence even without knowing the reason, and that’s not just a matter of “bad press.”

The City of Jerusalem

Agnes then married (or returned to) her betrothed, Hugh d’Ibelin, and, when he died, married yet a third time. Until the death of King Amalric, she had no contact with her children by him, and even after Amalric’s death, during her son Baldwin’s minority, she appears to have been excluded from the court. Then in 1176, Baldwin IV took the reins of government for himself and invited his mother to his court. Within a few short years, Agnes de Courtney had succeeded in foisting her candidates for Seneschal, Patriarch and Constable upon her young and dying son. These were respectively: 1) her utterly underwhelming brother, Joceyln of Edessa, 2) the controversial figure Heraclius, who may not have been as bad as his rival William of Tyre claims and may not have been Agnes lover as the Chronicle of Ernoul claim, but hardly distinguished himself either, and finally an obscure Frenchmen, also alleged to have been Agnes’ lover, Aimery de Lusignan. Not a terribly impressive record for “wise” appointments – even if Aimery de Lusignan eventually proved to be an able man.

Hamilton next applauds Agnes “cleverness” in marrying both heirs to the throne, her daughter Sibylla and her step-daughter Isabella (Maria Comnena’s daughter), to “men of her choosing.” We are talking here about Guy de Lusignan and Humphrey de Toron respectively. The latter was a man of “learning,” who distinguished himself by cravenly vowing allegiance to the former after Guy seized power in a coup d’etat, and then promptly got himself captured at Hattin. Although Humphrey lived a comparatively long life and held an important barony, he apparently never played a positive role in the history of the kingdom. Not exactly a brilliant match or a wise choice for the future Queen of Jerusalem.

Agnes’ other choice, the man she chose for her own daughter according to Hamilton, was even more disastrous. At best, Guy de Lusignan was freshly come from France, young, inexperienced and utterly ignorant about the situation in the crusader kingdoms.  At worst he was not only ignorant but arrogant and a murderer as well: he allegedly stabbed the unarmed and unarmoured Earl of Salisbury in the back, while the latter was escorting Queen Eleanor of England across her French territories. He certainly alienated his brother-in-law King Baldwin IV within a short space of time, and he never enjoyed the confidence of the barons of Jerusalem. This is not a matter of “hostile sources” just the historical record that tells us the dying king preferred to drag his decaying body around in a litter -- and his barons preferred to follow a leper – than trust Guy de Lusignan with command of the army.

Nor was this mistrust of the baronage in Lusignan misplaced. When Sibylla crowned her husband king and all the barons but Tripoli grudgingly accepted him, he led them to the avoidable disaster at Hattin. In short, Agnes de Courtney’s interference in the affairs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, led directly to the loss of the entire Kingdom.

In contrast, there is only one known instance of Maria Comnena actively intervening in the affairs of the Kingdom. This was when she pressured (or “browbeat” according to Hamilton) her daughter Isabella into assenting to the annulment of her marriage with unimpressive and militarily useless Humphrey de Toron in order to marry the man who had just salvaged the last remaining free city in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from destruction. Hamilton portrays this as an act of unbridled, sinister power-seeking on the part of Maria.  Why Agnes’ five appointments should be “clever” (despite the disastrous consequences) but Maria’s effort to rescue the kingdom from the appalling and patently destructive leadership of King Guy should be seen as “power-hungry”  is baffling. It is certainly not an objective assessment of the behavior of the two women.

True, Isabella appears to have become fond of Humphrey de Toron, but she was the heir to the throne and princesses do not marry where their hearts lead but rather for the sake of the kingdom. To an objective observer, forcing an eight year old girl to marry a total stranger is considerably more manipulative and inhumane then for the a mother of a 17 year old princess to put pressure on her teenage daughter to put the interests of the kingdom ahead of her personal preferences. 

To make matters worse, Hamilton reports – with apparent approval! – that Agnes prevented the child Isabella from visiting her mother, effectively imprisoning her in her castle at Kerak from the age of 8 to the age of 11, a period in which, incidentally, Kerak was besieged by Saladin. In short, Agnes was hardly keeping Isabella “safe” – she may even have been courting her capture and death to ensure there was no rival to her own daughter for the throne.  But as that is speculation, I will leave motives aside and focus on the fact that she keep a little girl imprisoned in an exposed castle, denying her the right to even visit her mother.

In short, Hamilton suggests it is legitimate – indeed clever -- to separate an eight year old from her mother and step-father and expose her to danger, but it is devious and self-serving when the mother of a seventeen year old persuades her to set aside the husband forced on her as a child. That’s a warped view of affairs in my opinion.

The English chroniclers and Hamilton attribute to Maria evil motives and accuse her of “scheming” and deviousness without bringing forth a single example to support these allegations – aside from the above instance of pressuring her daughter into an unwanted divorce. In her one recorded act of “interference” she induced her daughter to marry not some adventurer, who would lose the kingdom, but the only man the barons of Jerusalem were willing to rally around after the disaster of Hattin. Her choice for her daughter was a proven military commander, who had just rescued Tyre from falling to Saladin. So even if her “interference” was as selfish and self-seeking as Hamilton implies, it was considerably wiser than Agnes’ choice of Guy de Lusignan.

A 19th Century depiction of a Byzantine Queen

After this one act, although her daughter was queen of Jerusalem from 1192 to 1205 and Maria herself did not die until 1217, there is not a single instance of her “interfering” in the affairs of the Kingdom again – very odd behavior for Hamilton’s unscrupulous, devious and power-hungry woman.  In short, not a single fact supports the allegations against her.

Even taking into account how historians love revisionism, an objective observer ought to recognize that the contemporary sources favorable to Maria may indeed have had justification -- and those hostile to Agnes de Courtney were probably just as right. It’s time modern historians stopped slandering Maria Comnena just for the sake of re-writing history.

Read more about both Maria and Agnes at: Balian and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Both Agnes de Courtenay and Maria Comnena are characters in my three part biographical novel of Balian d’Ibelin. Read more in:

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First Among Equals: The King of Jerusalem and the High Court

Arguably the most remarkable thing about the Kings of Jerusalem in the first 125 years of the history of the kingdom is that they were elected rather than born. The law of primogeniture did not automatically apply, but rather the High Court of Jerusalem, composed of all the nobility of the realm, formally elected the monarch. This was not just a formality, at least not in the first century of the Kingdom. The High Court could impose conditions on candidates, and also force its candidates for a consort upon female heirs. Without its consent, a king or queen, even if crowned and anointed, was just a usurper.

The tradition started, of course, with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. The First Crusade had never had a single leader and there was considerable (often destructive) rivalry between the leading lords that took the cross. By the time the crusaders reached Jerusalem, Stephan of Blois had abandoned the crusade altogether, Baldwin of Bouillon had struck off on his own and captured Edessa, and Bohemond of Taranto had remained in Antioch to re-establish a Christian state there.  The remaining lords, however, chose Godfrey of Bouillon to rule over Jerusalem.  Godfrey reputedly refused to wear “a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorns” and took the title of “Defender” or “Protector” or possibly just “Ruler” of Jerusalem.

Just one year later, however, he was dead without an heir. The nascent kingdom was in a more precarious state than ever, since the majority of the surviving crusaders felt they had fulfilled their vow and returned home. Those noblemen remaining in the Holy Land again (not without controversy) selected a successor from among themselves, in this case, Godfrey’s brother Baldwin.  Very significantly, he was not the heir entitled by the rules of primogeniture, as he had an elder brother in the West, Eustace. Baldwin did not share his brother’s qualms about calling himself king, and took the title of King Baldwin I. But in 1118 Baldwin I also died without an heir of his body, and the barons of the crusader kingdoms chose for a third time a leader from among their ranks, this time, Baldwin of Bourcq, who thereby became Baldwin II of Jerusalem.

Three such “elections” (with admittedly limited franchise!) set a legal precedent and the Kings of Jerusalem were henceforth always “elected” by the High Court of Jerusalem. The later was initially composed of the leading lords of the realm (which made the election process the equivalent of the English House of Lords electing the Kings of England.) By the mid-12^th century, however, the High Court had been expanded to include the “rear-vassals,” that is men who held a fief from another lord. Thus, in addition to the tenants-in-chief of the king (the barons), the tenants of barons, and their tenants (as long as they were knights) also had a seat on the High Court. Here each man had (at least in theory) an equal voice. As Professor Riley-Smith puts it in his seminal work The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, (Macmillan, 1973), “the voice of the lowliest knight could be raised in the highest court in the land.”

The High Court of Jerusalem had many functions, judicial, legislative and executive. John La Monte writes in Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Medieval Academy of America, 1932): “Its word was law…and the king who endeavored to act without the advice of, or contrary to the decision of, his High Court found himself confronted with a legalized rebellion on the part of his subjects.” In Jerusalem, the elected king remained “first among equals” vis-à-vis his barons and bishops rather than a sovereign.

Which does not mean that the election of kings was an open, democratic affair. As the products of European feudalism with strong ties to the ruling houses of England and France, the members of the High Court favored the blood relatives of the last monarch. Disputes arose primarily over which of several close relatives had the better claim to the throne. These were legal issues (mixed, of course, with practical considerations, personalities and politics.) Nevertheless, the fact remained that the approval of the High Court was a pre-requisite for legitimate rule, and thus every time a king died there was effectively an interregnum (if not outright crisis), while factions positioned themselves and consensus was established.

It also meant that the High Court had the ability to impose conditions on candidates even where there was consensus on who that candidate was. An important example of this is the accession of Amalric after the death of Baldwin III. Amalric was Baldwin’s younger brother. He was a mature man with an overall positive reputation and a track record of fighting effectively (a critical criteria in the ever-beleaguered Kingdom of Jerusalem). However, for whatever reason (and these are highly controversial) the High Court did not like his wife, Agnes de Courtney. The High Court forced Amalric to set her aside, by making this a condition of their consent to his coronation.

Amalric’s daughter Sibylla was also married to someone the High Court detested, Guy de Lusignan. However, unlike her father, she was not willing to set-aside her husband. With the support of only a couple of powerful barons (her uncle of Edessa and the Lord of Oultrejourdan) and the Templar Grand Master (who did not sit in the High Court, but controlled some pretty effective troops), she carried out a coup d’etat in which she was crowned without the consent of the High Court. To add insult to injury, she then crowned her husband king with her own hand because the Patriarch would not do it.

Far from side-lining the High Court, this led to a constitutional crisis that was to last six years. First, the majority of the barons and bishops prepared to crown a (legitimate) rival king and queen: Amalric’s younger daughter, Isabella, and her husband Humphrey de Toron. The plan was foiled by Toron, who apparently in public agreed to it but then in  the dark of night fled the baronial camp to do homage to Sibylla. Without an alternative to Guy, the baronial opposition temporarily collapsed, but that did not make Sibylla and Guy’s coronation any more legal. Notably, the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel was so outraged that he preferred to renounce his entire estate and leave the realm. The Count of Tripoli went even farther and made a separate peace with Saladin.

With the loss of the kingdom in the aftermath of Hattin, the High Court temporarily vanished as well, but its spirit lived on in the actions of the leading barons and bishops. At the death of Sibylla in 1190, Isabella was unquestionably the rightful queen, but after Toron's betrayal four years earlier these men were no longer willing to even consider Toron as king. They effectively forced Isabella to separate from Toron and marry a man they believed better suited to rule. When Richard of England asked for a judgment on who should be king, his own candidate Guy de Lusignan, or Isabella’s (new) husband Conrad de Montferrat, the fighting men of Jerusalem (i.e. the same men who would have made up the High Court had the Kingdom still been intact) voted (allegedly unanimously) for Conrad the Montferrat ― and Richard the Lionheart backed-down, conceded defeat, and recognized Montferrat.

When Montferrat was assassinated a few days later, it was again the barons and bishops of Jerusalem, the de-facto High Court, that selected her next husband, Henri de Champagne. By the time Champagne died five years later, the High Court had been re-constituted, and officially selected Isabella’s last husband, Aimery de Lusignan.

Thereafter, the High Court selected the husband for the next two queens, which is the same thing as saying they selected the next two kings. Unfortunately, in the second instance they chose Friedrich II Hohenstaufen, the Holy Roman Emperor, and he had neither understanding nor respect for an institution like the High Court. He tried to impose his brand of absolutism on Jerusalem, thereby provoking a full-scale rebellion by the barons that led to a humiliating defeat of the imperial faction and a validation of Jerusalem's unique laws -- but that is material for a separate entry.
 
The High Court plays a key role particularly in the last two books of the Jerusalem Trilogy:

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The Short Reign and Tragic End of Henry of Champagne

As the consort of Queen Isabella of Jerusalem from May 1192 until September 1197, Henry of Champagne was recognized by the High Court of Jerusalem and by all his contemporaries, domestic and foreign, as the rightful King of Jerusalem ― yet he preferred to call himself the Count of Champagne to the day he died. We can only speculate on whether that preference sprang from humility or a failure to identify with his adopted kingdom. Certainly, Henry of Champagne came to the throne unexpectedly and with little preparation, and had he lived longer, he might well have come to feel more comfortable in his role as King of Jerusalem. But his life was cut tragically short in an accident at the age of 31.

His reign started auspiciously. His first act as King of Jerusalem appears to have been to persuade his uncle the King of England to remain through the campaign season rather than depart for England at once. As a result, the crusading army was kept together long enough for a second (albeit equally unsuccessful) attempt on Jerusalem. 

Richard of England then set his mind to regaining the coast between Tyre and Tripoli, a clear means of strengthening Henri’s new kingdom, but Saladin’s sudden assault on Jaffa forestalled him. Richard immediately took a handful of knights in a few ships and set off for Jaffa to stiffen the defense long enough for relief to come by land.  

Henri meanwhile mustered the Army of Jerusalem and started down the coast to relieve Jaffa. When the army found its advance blocked just south of Caesarea by Saladin’s forces, however, Henri followed his uncle’s example and took ship with just a few men for Jaffa ― abandoning his army. It was not a particularly regal or strategic thing to do, but Henri appears to have gotten away with it. The relief of Jaffa was eventually successful, and his ignominious behavior at Caesarea was forgotten.

A month later, a truce had been signed with Saladin lasting three years and eight months or until April 1196. Richard Plantagenet was free to return to his besieged inheritance in the West, taking with him not only the bulk of the crusaders but the enormous shadow he had cast over Henri. Henri was at last in a position to show his merit as a king.

Unfortunately, Henry stumbled at once. Almost immediately after Richard’s departure, the Pisans started attacking shipping going to Acre. Whether this was state-piracy or instigated by the still-embittered deposed-King Guy de Lusignan is not clear. In any case, Henri blamed the Pisan Commune in Acre of abetting their countrymen, and when Aimery de Lusignan, the  older brother of Guy, defended the Pisans, Henri saw a Lusignan plot against him. He ordered Aimery de Lusignan arrested for treason. 

This only had the effect of angering Henri’s vassals and the Masters of both the Knights Templar and the Knights of St. John. Aimery de Lusignan, unlike his younger brother Guy, had been in the Holy land for nearly two decades by this point and he enjoyed the respect of his peers. He had been appointed Constable of the Kingdom by Baldwin IV, long before the catastrophe of Hattin.  Furthermore, and most important, the King of Jerusalem did not have the right to arrest the Constable ― only the High Court did.  Henri was forced to back down, but Aimery (not surprisingly) did not want to remain in a Kingdom ruled by a man who had arrested him unjustly. He surrendered the office of Constable and went to join his brother on Cyprus.

Henry’s next known act is considerably more to his credit. Sometime during the truce with Saladin ca. 1195, King Leo of Armenia seized Prince Bohemond of Antioch during a state visit in revenge for a similar incident years earlier. He demanded the surrender of Antioch to Armenia. Prince Bohemond ordered the surrender (to secure his own release), but the citizens of the city led by his own sons and the patriarch refused to follow his orders. Instead they sent to Henry of Champagne to negotiate the release of the Prince of Antioch on more reasonable terms. Henri appears to have carried out this diplomatic mission successfully, arranging that an Armenian princess marry Bohemond’s heir. 

On his return trip, Henri traveled via Cyprus, where Aimery de Lusignan had not only succeeded his brother as lord of the island but persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor to make him a King. Meeting now as equals, the two men were reconciled, and to symbolize their new friendship (and secure the future of their houses) they agreed that Aimery’s three sons should be betrothed to Henri’s three daughters by Isabella of Jerusalem. 

Henri then returned to his own Kingdom as the truce with the Saracens drew to a close.  Saladin had meanwhile died and his brother al-Adil had successfully eliminated Saladin’s eldest and second sons to seize power for himself in Damascus and Cairo. As the truce ended, he took a large force to attack Acre, evidently seeking to bolster his popularity and support by delivering a victory against the Franks. 

Champagne went out to meet al-Adil with a force composed primarily of German crusaders, who had since arrived in the Holy Land in anticipation of the end of the truce, and the knights and barons of Jerusalem. These proved insufficient to defeat the threat, and Champagne had to call up the commons as well, who then managed to thwart the invasion and send al-Adil back across the border. Little is really known about this engagement, but the Lyon Continuation of William of Tyre gives the entire credit for this victory to a local baron, Hugh of Tiberius, with Champagne simply taking advice. While implausible as written, the account may be indicative of a general feeling among the local barons that Champagne was not a terribly effective battle commander, certainly not comparable to his famous uncle Richard the Lionheart.

 

His death, however, may have contributed to this retroactive assessment of him. On September 10, 1197 Henry of Champagne accidentally fell from a window into a courtyard of the royal palace at Acre and broke his neck. There was no question of foul play. One version says he stepped backwards into the window and lost his balance. Another says he leaned out of the window and the railing gave way. Apparently his jester, a dwarf, either tried to stop him and also lost his balance, or flung himself after him in grief. Either way he allegedly landed on top of Champagne, ensuring his injury was fatal. 

Henry of Champagne left behind three young daughters, the eldest of which died young, and the second of which, Alice, became Queen of Cyprus in accordance with the agreement he had made with Aimery de Lusignan. 

He also left behind an ugly law-suit. Since he had never returned from the Holy Land, his brother Theobold laid claim to the County of Champagne and his sons after him, but Henri’s surviving daughters, Alice and Philippa, challenged their cousins claim. They argued that as the daughters of the elder son (Henry) they were the rightful heirs to Champagne. In an effort to negate Alice and Philippa’s (very valid) claim, Theobold’s son attempted to argue that Henry’s marriage to Isabella had been bigamous, thereby making his cousins Alice and Philippa illegitimate. The reasoning was that Isabella’s divorce from her first husband Humphrey de Toron had been bogus and so she was still married to him (since he was still alive) at the time of her marriage to Henry. This claim was spurious and never accepted by the courts, but it colored the chronicles (all written in France).  As a result, this court case has left lasting legacy of distorted historiography, which casts Isabella’s divorce from Toron is a lurid light and makes villains of all who supported it -- from Henry himself to Isabella's  mother, Maria Comnena, and her step-father Balian d'Ibelin.

Henry de Champagne is a significant character in “Envoy of Jerusalem,” where his relationship to Isabella is developed and examined.

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