John of Ibelin, lord of Beirut (1200/1205-1236), sometimes known as the “Old Lord” of Beirut, was a leading member of the nobility in the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus.
John was born around 1179 as the elder son of Balian of Ibelin and Maria Komnene. no doubt to the influence of his mother and his uterine half-sister, Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem (d. 1205), John had been appointed constable of Jerusalem by 1198. Then, sometime between 1200 and 1205, he was able to exchange this office for the lordship of Beirut, recovered from the Muslims in 1197. On the death of King Aimery in 1205, he acted as regent for the heiress to the throne, Maria of Montferrat (d. 1212), but when in 1210 Maria married John of Brienne, John was evidently excluded from the circle of the new king’s intimates. Nevertheless, he and his brother Philip transferred their activities to Cyprus, where the king, Hugh I, was the son of their first cousin, Eschiva of Ibelin, and his queen, Alice of Champagne, their niece. John was able to build up Beirut as a commercial center. From 1218 he clearly worked closely with Philip, who was now acting as regent in Cyprus on behalf of Queen Alice for the infant Henry I (1218-1254).
In 1228, shortly after Philip’s death, growing political difficulties in Cyprus came to a head with the arrival of Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick, as suzerain of Cyprus, tried to undermine John’s position by demanding that he render account for the regency and surrender Beirut. He then had John’s Cypriot enemies installed as governors in Cyprus. The result was civil war, which broke out immediately after Frederick’s departure in 1229. John succeeded in taking control in the island and then fending off a counterattack led by Frederick’s representative in the East, Richard Filangieri. By 1233 John and his supporters were supreme in Cyprus and controlled the kingdom of Jerusalem, except for Jerusalem itself and Tyre (mod. Sour, Lebanon).
Although his apologist, Philip of Novara, portrays John as whiter than white, it is clear that John used violence and intimidation to maintain his position and that the legality of his maneuvers was frequently in doubt. He died in 1236, bequeathing a dominant position in both Cyprus and the kingdom of Jerusalem to his sons.
-Peter W. Edbury
See also: Jerusalem, (Latin) Kingdom of
Bibliography
Edbury, Peter W., John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1997).
Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174-1277 (London: Macmillan, 1973).
World History
