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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 179

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PORCAC'OHl. IG« his fleet on his way to Jérusalem, because he Avas denied shelter in its ports, and received other insults from the then Duke Isaac, in his fury he turned the forces which he had arrayed against the Saracens against the island, and subdued and garrisoned it. Not long after he gave it to the Knights Templar, whose injustice provoked the Cypriots to resort to arms, and, thus harassed, the Knights gare it back forthwith to Richard, who sold it on the same conditions to Guy Lnsignan, a Frenchman, who hud been driven from the throne of Jerusalem. They exchanged titles, and thus the Kings of England began to style themselves Kings of Jerusalem, and the House of Lusignan took possession of the kingdom of Cyprus. King'Guy brought with him into the island in the year of onr Lord 1193 many nobles of Jerusalem and France, who had started for the conquest of the Holy Land, nearly all of them being French barons. As oities and lands in the kingdom of Jerusalem were lost tu the Franks, this class of nobles kept increasing. There was a general move to Cyprus, and King Gny and his successors kept granting to the incomers villages, privileges and revenues : and in this way were established in the island the barons, feudatories and other nobles. The line of these Lnsignan kings lasted lip to Pierre II. the Fat, son of King Pierre who took the city of Alexandria. The said Pierre was ousted by the Genoese. For it chanced that at a banquet given by him in the year 1372 the envoys of Venice and Genoa residing at his court quarrelled about precedence, and when the king decided in favour of the \renetians the Genoese were so indignant that they conspired secretly against his person. But the plot was discovered, and the king had all the conspirators thrown from the windows of his palace, and caused all the Genoese in the island, without one exception, to be slain. Wherenpon the Genoese sent against him a great fleet under Pietro Fregoso, brother of Domenico Fregoso their first doge. Pietro started, and after various accidents carried off a prisoner to Genoa Jacques Lusignan, uncle and guardian of King Pierre, and Seneschal of Cyprus, together with his wife who Avas enceinte. He could not take the king, who died shortly after without children. Ambassadors were then sent to Genoa by the Barons of Cyprus to ask for the Seneschal, as being next in succession to the crown. His wife, Civa d'Ibelin, had in prison brought forth a son, who was called Janus after the city of Genoa. The Genoese sent hiin back, and he wae crowned King of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia : but the Genoese still held the city of Famagosta, which they had taken and kept. Jamis, his son, succeeded to the throne, but he was attacked by the forces of Malik-el Ashraf, Sultan of Egypt, and made prisoner. He was ransomed by Giovanni Podooatharo, a Cypriot gentleman who sold all his farms and furniture, but on condition that the king should pay to the Sultan and his successors an annual tribute. Janus left two children, Agnes who married Loin's, Duke of Savoy, and Jean, who inherited at his father's death Iris kingdom and titles. Jean's second wife was Helena Paheologa, daughter of Theodore, Despot of the Morea, brother of John Paheologns, Emperor of Constantinople. She was α clever woman, quick-witted, and Greek at heart, and seeing her husband an effeminate creature, unfit for rnle, administered the island on her own lines, substituting everywhere the Greek for the Latin rite. She had a daughter named Carlotta, and her husband (by a concubine) a son named Jacques, a handsome, graceful and clever lad. Carlotta married first John, son of the King of Portugal, who restored the Latin rite, and was pnt to death by the queen. She then married Lome of Savoy, son of the Louis who married her aunt Agnes. Jacques the bastard was made Archbishop of Cyprns, bnt, after his father's death, for various reasons he shook off his ecolesiastical dignities, and being persecuted by his sieter and cousin fled to the Sultan of Egypt. The latter gave hiin men with whom he returned to Cyprus and

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