LUPUS OF FERRIÈRES
(Servatus Lupus; ca. 805–862). A leading literary figure of the Carolingian renaissance.
Born into a family with strong ecclesiastical ties, Lupus entered the Benedictine
monastery of Ferrières in the 820s and was appointed abbot in 841 by Charles the Bald.
He studied with Rabanus Maurus at Fulda (ca. 828–36) and soon showed his ability as an
author of Latin prose. He was especially known for his correspondence with many
important political and ecclesiastical figures, among them Charles the Bald, Einhard,
Hincmar of Reims, and Paschasius Radbertus. His letters, collected by his most famous
pupil, Heiric of Auxerre, were widely read and copied. The school under Lupus at
Ferrières was a center of study and copying of Latin texts, including works of classical
antiquity, especially Cicero. Lupus served as an adviser to Charles the Bald, attended
over a dozen ecclesiastical synods, and wrote several saints’ lives and a treatise in
support of the predestinarian views of Gottschalk of Orbais.
E.Ann Matter
[See also: CHARLES II THE BALD; GOTTSCHALK; HINCMAR OF REIMS;
PASCHASIUS RADBERTUS; RABANUS MAURUS]
Lupus of Ferrières. Servati Lupi epistulae, ed. Peter K.Marshall. Leipzig: Teubner, 1984.
Beeson, Charles H. Lupus of Ferrières as Scribe and Text Critic: A Study of His Autograph Copy of
Cicero’s “De oratore.” Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1930.
Gariepy, Robert J. Lupus of Ferrières and the Classics. Darien: Monographic, 1967.
Levinson, W. “Eine Predigt des Lupus von Fierrières.” In Aus rheinischer und fränkischer
Frühzeit. Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1948.
Regenos, Graydon Wendell. The Latinity of the Epistolae of Lupus of Ferrières. Diss. University of
Chicago, 1936.
LUSIGNAN
. The castle of Lusignan, near Poitiers, which was fortified ca. 950, gave its name to a
family whose members were to become kings of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Lesser Armenia
(Cilicia), as well as counts of La Marche and Angoulême. Situated where Poitou,
Saintonge, Angoumois, and the Limousin meet, the Lusignan holdings, although
nominally subject to the counts of Poitiers (later dukes of Aquitaine), offered the family
opportunities to rise to political prominence during the 11th and 12th centuries.
Three sons of Hugues VIII achieved particular importance. In 1180, Gui de Lusignan
married the heiress of the the kingdom of Jerusalem, and he ruled that crusader state from
1185 to 1192 despite losing the capital after the disastrous Battle of Hattim in 1187.
Richard the Lionhearted, during the Third Crusade, compensated Gui for the loss of
Jerusalem by giving him the newly conquered island of Cyprus, to which his brother
Amaury succeeded in 1194. The Lusignans retained Cyprus, but the title of king of
Jerusalem passed to the Hohenstaufen family between 1205 and 1268 following the
marriage of the heiress, Isabelle (Gui’s stepdaughter), to the emperor Frederick II.
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