correct, since the notion of Catherine’s connection with Cyprus did not
takefirm root until rather later.^118 Lillich is on much stronger ground,
however, when she notes that the stained glass also depicts an apposite
incident in the life of St Nicholas, in which three brothers were betrayed,
murdered and then pickled by a villainous innkeeper. It is pleasing to be
able to record that the saint unpickled them and restored them to life.
The boys are described as orphans in various versions of the tale, and
so this provides a pertinent parallel.^119 By contrast, though, there are a
number of question marks about an image of two kneeling donors,
presenting a doublet-and-rose window. For her part, Lillich has sug-
gested that it represents John’s younger brothers, Aimery and Hugh.
However, it has to be said that this is doubtful, at best.^120
John’s death marks thefirst and only time–certainly, between the
1050s and the 1350s–that a count of Brienne died without leaving a son
(although Walter IV was born posthumously, as we have seen). However,
there was no doubt about the succession in the early 1260s. John’s heir
was Hugh, who became the sole surviving sibling at around the same
time, when the other brother, Aimery, died too.^121 Although the new
count was still quite young, he quickly dispatched an envoy to the West
to ensure that his rights there were acknowledged and respected.^122
However, there were much greater prospects on the cards in the Latin
East. (SeeGenealogy 6.) The little king of Cyprus, Hugh II, was regent
of the kingdom of Jerusalem too, but, since he was a minor, his authority
in both realms was deputized to others. The complexity of the situation
in the kingdom of Jerusalem, fragmenting into its component lordships,
has been neatly summarized by Peter Edbury:‘so, in the late 1250s,
the actual day-to-day government in Acre was under the direction of a
man who had been deputed to rule by the regent for the regent for the
absentee...king.’^123 In 1261, however, the question of who should
exercise both regencies, in the kingdom of Jerusalem and on Cyprus,
was thrown open. If the guiding principle was‘seniority in blood’, then
the new regent, in both, should have been Hugh of Brienne. Neverthe-
less, the young count declined to compete against his aunt Isabella, who
had brought him up, and against her son, Hugh (who was, as his name
suggests, the scion of a cadet branch of the powerful house of Antioch
and Tripoli). In the long run, it has to be said, this was a major tactical
(^118) See L. Calvelli,Cipro et la memoria dell’antico fra medioevo e rinascimento(Venice, 2009),
119157 – 245.
121 Lillich,‘Gifts of the Lords of Brienne’, 181–2.^120 Ibid., 177–80.
123 See‘Catalogue’, no. 193; and de Sassenay,Brienne, 138.^122 Ibid., no. 184.
Edbury,John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 59.
Cyprus and the Holy Land 99