error. The Cypriot High Court passed over Isabella’s claim, in favour of
Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan. From this point onwards, certainly, in what
would prove to be a protracted contest between the rival houses of
Brienne and Antioch-Lusignan, the latter would always have the edge.
A precedent had been set for ‘overlooking’the Brienne claim, and
effective power on Cyprus, the place that mattered most, was now in
Antioch-Lusignan hands. Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan would hold onto
these advantages and press them with tenacity, over the course of the
coming decade.^124
For its part, the High Court of Jerusalem took rather more time over
the issue, but it eventually accepted Isabella herself as the new regent of
the kingdom. She held the position for only a short time, however, before
she died in 1264. The struggle between the houses of Brienne and
Antioch-Lusignan now broke out in earnest, turning on the question of
who was to succeed her. The obvious candidate was her son, the regent
of Cyprus, but, this time, Hugh of Brienne was prepared to contest the
matter. The upshot was one of the great legal wrangles of its day, made
maddeningly complex by the fact that virtually everyone involved in it
bore the name of‘Hugh’. We are fortunate to have a verbatim record of
the case, and when we read the end of Hugh of Brienne’s initial speech,
for example, we are coming as close as we ever can to eavesdropping on
the actual workings of the kingdom of Jerusalem:
Et pour toutes les raisons que je ai dites, ou pour aucune delles, di je que le
bailliage de ce royaume et que la raison en est moie et non vostre, et que cest
mon droit, et le doi avoir devant vous; si le veull avoir, se les homes de la haute
court de ce royaume conoissent que je avoir le doie, et se conoissent que je avoir
ledoie,jeeuffreafairecequejedoicombaill,faisantlonamoicequelondoit
com a baill.^125
The essence of the debate can be summed up fairly quickly. Hugh of
Brienne claimed that he himself was theplus dreit heir aparant(the nearest
heir actually present in the Latin East), because his branch of the family
was senior to that of his opponent. Despite a large number of precedents,
this was not a particularly strong case in Jerusalemite law. As a result, the
way was open for Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan, who argued that he himself
was the elder of the two claimants in the same degree of relationship to
King Hugh II of Cyprus, and that he himself was the obvious successor to
(^124) For a brief survey of the context, see Edbury,The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades,
12584 – 8.
See Peter Edbury’s superlative article,‘The Disputed Regency of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem, 1264/6 and 1268’,inCamden Miscellany27 (Camden 4th series, vol. xxii)
(London, 1979), 25.
100 In the Pages of Joinville (c. 1237–1267)