clearly sited on the island. It was led not so much by the young king of
Cyprus, Henry I, but by the regent, John of Ibelin, who had once served
in a similar capacity in the kingdom of Jerusalem. In these difficult and
dangerous circumstances, John of Ibelin could well have perceived the
advantages of ‘burying the hatchet’with his and the Lusignans’old
enemy, the house of Brienne–and especially now that John of Brienne
was definitely off the scene for good, making a new career for himself in
Latin Constantinople. If the Cypriot ruling coterie could be certain of
one thing about John of Brienne’s nephew, Walter IV, then it was the fact
that Walter was inveterately hostile to Frederick II. Indeed, Walter even
possessed a claim to the kingdom of Sicily itself, which he and John of
Brienne had tried to conquer only a couple of years earlier. Furthermore,
an alliance with Walter could open the way to a much better relationship
with the remnants of the‘Brienne party’in the kingdom of Jerusalem,
and this included a number of key moderates, such as Odo of Montbé-
liard and Balian of Sidon.^74 Finally, all of this was a way of pushing
towards arapprochementwith the Briennes’old friend, Pope Gregory IX.
The latter, for the moment, was‘on his best behaviour’, in an uneasy
accord with the Emperor Frederick.^75
It is believable, then, that when Walter headed out to the East in the
early 1230s, he did so in response to a tempting offer. In short, Walter
was promised the hand of the king’s eldest sister, Mary, in return for his
assistance in the struggle against the Hohenstaufen. This marriage would
have the effect of making Walter the heir presumptive to the crown of
Cyprus. It is worth recalling, however, that King Henry was only just
coming of age in 1232, and hence it could be supposed that, in due
course, he would leave children of his own. Although most of Walter’s
preparations for departure remain shrouded in mystery, it is clear that he
smoothed his path into the Latin East through a series of donations to
religious communities. Whilst it is his relationship with the Teutonic
Knights that has attracted the most attention, it is surely safe to observe
that if Walter was close to any of the Military Orders, then it was to the
Hospital.^76
(^74) The context is neatly summarized in P. W. Edbury,The Kingdom of Cyprus and the
Crusades, 1191– 1374 (Cambridge, 1991), 51–65. Much the same ground is revisited in
hisJohn of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem(Woodbridge, 1997), 39–50.
(^75) This phrase is taken from Abulafia,Frederick II, 201.
(^76) See, for example, Joinville,‘Life’, section 530; Matthew Paris,Chronica Majora, ed.
H. Luard, 7 vols. (London, 1872–83), iv, 141; K. Polejowski,‘Les comtes de Brienne et
l’ordre teutonique (xiiie–xive siècle)’,La vie en Champagne, new ser. 32 (2002), 4–8; and
his‘The Counts of Brienne and the Military Orders in the Thirteenth Century’, 285–95.
90 In the Pages of Joinville (c. 1237–1267)