Latin patriarch of Jerusalem (1102-1106/1108) and archbishop of Caesarea (1108-1128/1129).
Evremar came from Chocques in Flanders, and, like the first Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Arnulf of Chocques, started his ecclesiastical career as a priest under the tutelage of the prospective bishop of Arras, Lambert of Guines, in the see of Therouanne after 1068. From the Holy Land, Ebremar stayed in touch with his former bishop. According to the chronicler William of Tyre, he reached Palestine together with Robert II, count of Flanders, during the First Crusade (1096-1099).
Largely at the instigation of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem and the papal legate Robert of St. Eusebio, Evremar was chosen to succeed Daibert of Pisa as patriarch in October 1102. He had a reputation for piety and charity, and was considered worthy enough to carry the True Cross when the Jerusalem army fought the Egyptians at the third battle of Ramla in August 1105. He supported the transformation of the Greek Orthodox monastery on Mount Tabor into a Benedictine house (abbey of the Savior) and the foundation of a confraternity in the ruins of the derelict house of Our Lady of Jehosaphat in Jerusalem. Considering these activities, the opinion of Guibert of Nogent that Evremar of Chocques was simple and illiterate can no longer be taken at face value. Because of Evremar’s quarrels with King Baldwin I of Jerusalem concerning the foundation of a see in Bethlehem after spring 1106, the king requested his deposition from Pope Paschal II. The pope’s legate, Gibelin of Arles, eventually ruled Evremar’s election invalid at a church council in Jerusalem in spring 1108. Evremar was transferred to the see of Caesarea (mod. Har Qesari, Israel), where he served as archbishop until his death, which occurred between 25 December 1128 and 31 August 1129.
-Klaus-Peter Kirstein
See also: Caesarea (Maritima); Jerusalem, Latin Patriarchate of
Bibliography
Hamilton, Bernard, The Latin Church in the Crusader States: The Secular Church (London: Variorum, 1980).
Hiestand, Rudolf, “Die papstlichen Legaten auf den
Kreuzzugen und in den Kreuzfahrerstaaten vom Konzil von Clermont (1095) bis zum vierten Kreuzzug,” (Habilitation, University of Kiel, 1972).
Kirstein, Klaus-Peter, Die lateinischen Patriarchen von Jerusalem (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2002).
Murray, Alan V., “‘Mighty against the Enemies of Christ’: The Relic of the True Cross in the Armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem,” in The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. John France and William G. Zajac (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 217-238.
-. The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Dynastic
History, 1099-1125 (Oxford: Prosopographica et Genealogica, 2000).
Slack, Corliss K., “Royal Familiares in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1100-1187,” Viator 22 (1991), 15-67.
World History
