Hugh IV of Cyprus

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Hugh IV
Eschiva of Ibelin, Lady of Beirut
Louvre Museum

Hugh IV (1293/1296 – 10 October 1359) was

House of Poitiers-Lusignan
.

The Kingdom of Cyprus reached the peak of its power and prosperity during the reigns of Hugh IV and Peter I.[1]

Youth

Hugh was the son of

Amalric, who was his heir presumptive.[5] Amalric was found murdered in 1310,[6] paving the way for Henry's restoration.[7]

By the early 1310s, Henry was over forty, unmarried, and unlikely to have children. His last surviving brother,

constable of Cyprus, as Guy had once been.[4] Rather than any of the sons of his brothers Amalric and Guy, the eldest of the king's sisters, Maria, was the presumed heir until her death in 1322.[9] She and Henry were both married into the Aragonese royal family, but neither had children.[10] By the end of his reign Henry probably intended, though there is no concrete evidence, to be succeeded by Hugh.[4] Henry's surviving siblings, Alice and Helvis, however, had a stronger claim in law, as they were more closely related to Henry than Hugh was.[4]

Accession

On 31 March 1324, when King Henry died, a hurried assembly of liege men swore to protect Hugh's rights against any challengers. As Henry's only male relative remaining in the kingdom, Hugh was an obvious candidate to become the new king. Henry was buried on 1 April, and at the meeting of the

king of Cyprus on 15 April at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Nicosia. From Henry he also inherited the claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem,[12] the last piece of which had been lost to Muslims in 1291.[13] Since the city of Tyre (in modern-day Lebanon), where the kings of Jerusalem were traditionally crowned, had also been conquered, Hugh received the crown of Jerusalem in Famagusta, deemed the best alternative by the vassals and the clergy.[4] Hugh thus inaugurated a new custom among the Cypriot kings.[12]

One of Hugh's first acts upon his accession was having the

Ibelins, who had opposed Henry, through arranged marriages.[16]

Dynastic policy

Hugh's first wife was Maria of Ibelin, daughter of

papal dispensation to marry her distant kinswoman Alice of Ibelin, with whom he had at least eight children, of whom five reached adulthood. Having plenty of children enabled Hugh to forge dynastic links with Western European rulers, which his predecessors had little luck achieving.[15]

In January 1330 Hugh had Guy marry

crusade to recover the Holy Land.[17] Hugh hoped that the marriage would strengthen his chances of gaining control over the Holy Land, especially against the claims of the Capetian House of Anjou,[17] who had disputed the Lusignans' claim to the throne of Jerusalem since the 1270s.[18] The outbreak of France's Hundred Years' War with England in 1337 put an end to Louis's hopes to lead a crusade.[17] Guy began taking part in state affairs in the late 1330s and was made constable of Cyprus, but died in 1343.[17]

Through three of his children Hugh reestablished the Cypriot ties to the royal family of Aragon,

Benedict XII both warned Hugh of Aragonese reprisals should Ferdinand be harmed.[17] Benedict simultaneously directed Ferdinand to be more temperate and deferential to his father-in-law. Ferdinand recorded Hugh's slights and threats to him, violence against his household members, and attacks on the Franciscans. At some point after mid-1342, claiming to have been forcibly separated from her, Ferdinand left his wife and their daughter and moved back to Europe.[20]

The second Aragonese match was secured in 1343, when Hugh's 12-year-old son

Peter of Ribagorza, in 1353. Yet Hugh's dynastic matches, however valuable they were to him, proved that he was not equal to the kings of France and Aragon, for his children could not marry into the kings' immediate families.[19]

Personality

Hugh's reign is poorly recorded in historical sources and so he remains a little-known figure. Visitors to his island kingdom thought him pious and just, but his son-in-law portrayed him as a vicious tyrant.[19] This appears to be corroborated by the king's actions in 1349 when his sons Peter and John secretly and against his wishes left Cyprus for a visit to Western Europe. Hugh worked hard and spent a lot to retrieve them, whereupon he had them imprisoned at Kyrenia Castle until the pope intervened.[21]

Succession

After the death of his eldest son, Guy, in 1343, the problem of succession to Hugh IV was looming. The customs of both Cyprus and Jerusalem favored Peter, Hugh's eldest surviving son, but Guy had left a son,

Clement VI expressed his endorsement of the grandson's claim provided that the clause existed, but the text of the contract as published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie does not contain it.[21] Hugh's relationship with his daughter-in-law and grandson was poor. He refused to allow them to leave Cyprus until 1346, two years after the pope asked him to settle Maria's dower and let her go. The payment of Maria's dower remained contentious, and the king apparently ignored the pope's requests to provide an income for her son.[22]

On 24 November 1358, in an effort to pre-empt his grandson's claim, Hugh IV had Peter crowned king of Cyprus. The

coronation of an heir apparent had no precedent in Cyprus, but was common in earlier centuries in France and occurred in Jerusalem too.[21] Hugh IV died on 10 October 1359.[22]

Issue

With Maria of Ibelin:

With Alice:

Three other children of Hugh whose filiation is uncertain:

  • Thomas (d. 15 November 1340), unmarried and without issue
  • Perrot (d. 29 June 1353), unmarried and without issue
  • Margaret, married in 1347/1349 Gautier de Dampierre (-sur-Salon) (d. after 1373), Seneschal of Cyprus.

References

  1. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 38.
  2. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 37.
  3. ^ Edbury 1991, pp. 97–98.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Edbury 1991, p. 141.
  5. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 113.
  6. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 125.
  7. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 126.
  8. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 137.
  9. ^ Edbury 1991, pp. 137–138.
  10. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 139.
  11. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 142.
  12. ^ a b Edbury 1991, p. 108.
  13. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 101.
  14. ^ Edbury 1991, pp. 129–130.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Edbury 1991, p. 143.
  16. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 131.
  17. ^ a b c d e Edbury 1991, p. 144.
  18. ^ Edbury 1991, p. 107.
  19. ^ a b c Edbury 1991, p. 146.
  20. ^ a b c Edbury 1991, p. 145.
  21. ^ a b c Edbury 1991, p. 147.
  22. ^ a b Edbury 1991, p. 148.

Sources

  • Edbury, Peter W. (1991). The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374. Cambridge University Press.
Hugh IV of Cyprus
Born: c. 1295 Died: 10 October 1359
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Henry II
King of Cyprus

1324–1358 		Succeeded by
— TITULAR —
King of Jerusalem
1324–1358
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