Hugues IX defeating Nur Al-Din in Syria
wall painting in
Templar Chapel, Cressac-Saint-Genis, France
Hugh I, called Venator (Latin for the Hunter), was the first lord of Lusignan. He is mentioned in the Chronicle of Saint-Maixent. It has been hypothesised that he was the huntsman of the count of Poitou or the bishop of Poitiers on the basis of his epithet. He was succeeded by his son, Hugh II (d.967), called Carus. According to the Chronicle of Saint-Maixent, he built the castle at Lusignan. Hugh III, called Albus, who emerges from historical obscurity in the next generation, was probably his son. He confirmed the donation by one of his vassals of the church of Mezeaux to the abbey of Saint-Cyprien and himself granted the abbey the woodland and the public road between Lusignan and Poitiers. He may have been intimate with the comital court of Poitou, for the Duchess Emma, wife of William IV of Aquitaine, imposed a tax on the abbey of Saint-Maixent and gave him the proceeds. His own wife was Arsendis and he was succeeded by his son Hugh Brunus, not the last of that name in the family.
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Hugh IV, called Brunus (Latin for the Brown), was the fourth lord of Lusignan. He was a turbulent baron, who brought his family out of obscurity and on their way to prominence in European and eventually even Middle Eastern affairs. He spent many years in war with the viscounts of Thouars over a fief he claimed was rightfully his. Peace was obtained briefly by Hugh's marriage to Audéarde, the daughter of the Viscount Ralph. As a dowry, Hugh received the castle of Mouzeuil. Hugh already held the castle of Lusignan, built by his grandfather Hugh Carus, and that of Couhé, built by the duke of Aquitaine. When Ralph, died, however, his successor Geoffrey retook Mouzeuil.
Hugh also engaged in a long war with Aimery I, lord of Rancon, who seized Civray, a fief of Bernard I of La Marche. By alliance with Duke William V of Aquitaine, Hugh and Bernard retook Civray and Hugh held it as a fief, though he lost it soon after. Nevertheless, he continued his war with Aimery.
When the viscounty of Châtellerault fell vacant, Hugh asked the duke for it, but was put off with empty promises. Hugh waged war with the duke until the latter granted him the fief of Vivonne, which had once belonged to his uncle Joscelin. William later deprived Hugh of the proceeds of the tax on Saint-Maixent which his mother Emma, wife of William IV of Aquitaine, had granted Hugh's father.
On 6 March 1025, Hugh exchanged lands with the abbey of Saint-Hilaire of Poitiers in order to found a monastery for his soul. The duke obtained two charters from King Robert II confirming this monastic establishment and another at Couhé. Hugh and the Poitevin bishop Isembart then sent letters to Pope John XIX to beg exemption for his monasteries from all authority save that of Nouaillé. Said exemption was granted.
At his monastery of Notre-Dame de Lusignan, a monkish chronicler wrote the Conventum inter Guillelmum ducem Aquitaniae et Hugonem Chiliarchum celebrating Hugh's warmaking. According to the Conventum, Hugh died a year after his final agreement with the duke, probably in 1026 or thereabouts. He left two sons by Audéarde: Hugh, who succeeded him, and Rorgo.
Hugh VI of Lusignan, known as "le diable" participant in the First Crusade in 1101. Despite his piety, Hugh was in constant conflict with the abbey of St. Maixent. On numerous occasions his disputes with the monks grew so violent that the duke of Aquitaine, the bishops of Poitiers and Saintes, and Pope Paschal II were forced to intervene. From these conflicts Hugh was dubbed "le diable", the devil, by the monks of St. Maixent.
In 1086 the Castilian army was destroyed in battle by the Almoravids. Hugh's Catalan half-brother, Berenguer Ramon II, Count of Barcelona was threatened by the Almoravids. Hugh VI undertook an expedition to Spain in 1087 along with another half-brother, Raymond IV of Toulouse, to assist the count of Barcelona. From his marriage to Ildégarde de Thouars, Hugh had a son and successor, Hugh VII of Lusignan.
Hugh (Hugues) I, lord of Lusignan, was a vassal of the counts of Poitiers in the 10th century. Early members of the family participated in the Crusades, but it was Hugh VIII's sons who established the family fortunes.
Hugh VIII's eldest son and successor, Hugh IX the Brown (d. 1219), held the countship of La Marche. In 1200 his fiancée, Isabella of Angoulême, was taken for wife by his feudal lord, King John of England. This outrage caused Hugh to turn to the king of France, Philip II Augustus, forming an alliance that culminated in John's loss of his continental possessions.
John, in an attempt to pacify Hugh, gave his daughter Joan as fiancée to Hugh X (d. 1249), but the marriage never took place. Instead, after John's death, Hugh X married his widow, Isabella, in 1220. Hugh and Isabella fluctuated in their loyalty to John's successor (Isabella's son), Henry III. When Louis IX of France granted Poitou as a countship to his brother Alphonse, Hugh at first supported him. Isabella's anger caused a turnabout and, eventually, brought about a disastrous revolt supported by Henry III. In this revolt Hugh lost his principal strongholds, but Louis IX pardoned the Lusignans, and they swore loyalty again.
Nine children were born to Isabella and Hugh X, five of whom went to England at the invitation of their half brother, Henry III. There they were rewarded with lands, riches, and distinctions at the expense of the English barons, who eventually revolted against Henry and forced the exile of the Lusignan brothers from England in 1258. Hugh XIII (d. 1303) pledged La Marche and Angoulême to Philip IV the Fair of France.
Two other sons of Hugh VIII became kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus. Guy (c. 1129–94), through his marriage to Sibyl, the sister of the leprous Baldwin IV, king of Jerusalem. When Baldwin died in 1185, Sibyl's son by a previous marriage, the six-year-old Baldwin V, inherited the crown but died in 1186. Sibyl then became queen and, announcing her intention to choose the most worthy noble to be her husband and king, divorced Guy, only to choose him again as king and husband.
War broke out with Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria, and, when the city of Tiberiade fell in 1187, Guy resolved to deliver it. His troops were defeated at Hattin (near Tiberiade) by Saladin's superior forces. Guy himself was captured, along with many other nobles, but was released when he ceded the town of Ascalon (Ashkelon), a port in Palestine. Jerusalem fell to Saladin on October 2, 1187.
The fall of Jerusalem provoked a new Crusade from Europe (the Third Crusade, 1189–92). While awaiting this aid, Guy, despite a vow not to war against Saladin, besieged Saint-Jean-d'Acre (now 'Akko, Israel), though unsuccessfully. After Sibyl died in 1190, Guy and Conrad of Montferrat, husband of Sibyl's sister, Isabella, fought over the now empty throne. In 1192 Guy ceded the title to the English king Richard I the Lion-Heart in exchange for sovereignty over the island of Cyprus.
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Guy's brother Amalric had been constable of Palestine before he was summoned by the Franks in Cyprus to become king there after the death of his brother Guy of Lusignan. Amalric planned a close alliance with Henry of Champagne, the uncrowned ruler of Palestine, betrothing his three sons to Henry's three daughters. He also became the vassal of the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI. On Henry of Champagne's accidental death (1197), Amalric, a widower, was induced to marry Henry's widow, Queen Isabella I, because the emperor's German advisers were hoping to get the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem (then only a thin strip of the Palestinian coast) as a fief like Cyprus. Amalric, however, decided to administer Jerusalem separately and to regard himself as merely its regent.
As king of Jerusalem, Amalric was able to make peace with his Muslim neighbours, thanks to the struggle that took place among them after Saladin's death in 1193. Though both sides periodically broke the treaty, it was renewed in September 1204 for six years. On Amalric's death Cyprus was left to his six-year-old son, Hugh, and the kingdom of Jerusalem remained in Isabella's possession.
