John of Ibelin count of Jaffa and Ascalon, was a noted jurist and the author of the longest legal treatise from the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....

. He was the son of Philip of Ibelin, bailli

Bailli

A bailli was the king’s administrative representative during the ancien régime in northern France, where the bailli was responsible for the application of justice and control of the administration and local finances in his baillage...

 of the Kingdom of Cyprus

Kingdom of Cyprus

The Kingdom of Cyprus was a Crusader kingdom on the island of Cyprus in the high and late Middle Ages, between 1192 and 1489. It was ruled by the French House of Lusignan.-History:...

, and Alice of Montbéliard, and was the nephew of John of Ibelin, the "Old Lord of Beirut"

John of Ibelin, the Old Lord of Beirut

John of Ibelin , called the Old Lord of Beirut, was a powerful crusader noble in the 13th century, one of the best known representatives of the influential Ibelin family...

. To distinguish him from his uncle and other members of the Ibelin

Ibelin

Ibelin was a castle in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century , which gave its name to an important family of nobles.-The castle:...

 family named John, he is sometimes called John of Jaffa.

Family and early life

His family was the first branch of Ibelins to have their seat in Cyprus, due to his father's regency there 1218-1227. In 1229 John fled Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 with his family when Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...

 seized the Ibelin territories on the island. They settled temporarily in northern Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, where the family had holdings. He was present at the Battle of Casal Imbert in 1232, when his uncle John of Beirut defeated Riccardo Filangieri, Frederick's lieutenant in the east. Around 1240 he married Maria of Barbaron (d. 1263), the sister of Hethum I of Armenia

Hethum I of Armenia

Hethum I ruled the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from 1226 to 1270. He was the son of Constantine, Lord of Baberon and Partzapert and was the founder of the dynasty which bears his name: the Hetoumids...

 and sister-in-law of King Henry I of Cyprus

Henry I of Cyprus

Henry I of Cyprus, nicknamed the Fat, aka Henry of Lusignan or Henri I le Gros de Lusignan was King of Cyprus from 1218 to 1253. He was the son of Hugh I of Cyprus and Alice of Champagne of Jerusalem. When his father Hugh I died on January 10, 1218, the 8-month-old Henry became king...

. In 1241 he was probably responsible for drafting a compromise between the Ibelins and the emperor, in which Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester

Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester

Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, 1st Earl of Chester , sometimes referred to as Simon V de Montfort to distinguish him from other Simon de Montforts, was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. He led the barons' rebellion against King Henry III of England during the Second Barons' War of 1263-4, and...

 would govern the kingdom. This proposal was never implemented and Simon never came to the Holy Land; the Ibelins continued to quarrel with the representatives of the Hohenstaufen

Hohenstaufen

The House of Hohenstaufen was a dynasty of German kings in the High Middle Ages, lasting from 1138 to 1254. Three of these kings were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1194 the Hohenstaufens also became Kings of Sicily...

s, and in 1242 they captured Tyre from their rivals. John participated in the siege.

Participation in the Crusades

Shortly thereafter, sometime between 1246 and the beginning of the Seventh Crusade

Seventh Crusade

The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. Approximately 800,000 bezants were paid in ransom for King Louis who, along with thousands of his troops, was captured and defeated by the Egyptian army led by the Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah supported by the Bahariyya...

, John became count of Jaffa and Ascalon

Ashkelon

Ashkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...

 and lord of Ramla. Ramla

Ramla

Ramla , is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 AD by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik after the Arab conquest of the region...

 was an old holding of the Ibelins, but Jaffa and Ascalon had belonged to others, most recently to the murdered Walter IV of Brienne

Walter IV of Brienne

Walter IV the Great of Brienne was Count of Brienne 1205–1244. He was the son of Walter III of Brienne and Elvira of Lecce. Around the time of his birth, his father lost his bid for the Sicilian throne and died in prison...

, whose son John of Brienne

John of Brienne

John of Brienne was a French nobleman who became King of Jerusalem by marriage, and ruled the Latin Empire of Constantinople as regent.-Life:...

 (king Henry's nephew) was supplanted by this Ibelin acquisition. This probably occurred when king Henry, John's first cousin, became regent of Jerusalem, and distributed continental lands to his Cypriot barons to create a loyal base there. Jaffa was by now a minor port and Ascalon was captured from the Knights Hospitaller

Knights Hospitaller

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...

 by the Mamluk

Mamluk

A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

s in 1247.

In 1249 John joined the Seventh Crusade and participated in Louis IX of France

Louis IX of France

Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...

's capture of Damietta

Damietta

Damietta , also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile, about north of Cairo.-History:...

. Louis was taken prisoner when Damietta was recaptured, but John seems to have escaped the same fate. Louis was released in 1252 and moved his army to Jaffa. Louis' constable and chronicler Jean de Joinville

Jean de Joinville

Jean de Joinville was one of the great chroniclers of medieval France.Son of Simon de Joinville and Beatrice d'Auxonne, he belonged to a noble family from Champagne. He received an education befitting a young noble at the court of Theobald IV, count of Champagne: reading, writing, and the...

 portrays John very favourably; he describes John's coat-of-arms as "a fine thing to see...or with a cross pateé gules". John was by now an extremely famous lord in the east, corresponding also with Henry III of England

Henry III of England

Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...

 and Pope Innocent IV

Pope Innocent IV

Pope Innocent IV , born Sinibaldo Fieschi, was pope from June 25, 1243 until his death in 1254.-Early life:...

, who had confirmed Henry I's grant to John.

Henry I died in 1253, and Louis IX left for France in 1254, leaving John as bailli of Jerusalem. John made peace with Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

 and used the forces of Jerusalem to attack Ascalon; the Egyptians besieged Jaffa in 1256 in response. John marched out and defeated them, and after this victory he gave up the bailliage to his cousin John of Arsuf.

Meanwhile the Genoese

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 and Venetian

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 trading communities in Acre came into conflict, in the "War of Saint Sabas

War of Saint Sabas

The War of Saint Sabas or San Saba was a conflict between the Mediterranean maritime republics of Genoa and Venice .The war began when the Venetians were evicted from Tyre in 1256 and war grew out of a dispute concerning land in Acre then...

." John supported the Venetians. In order to bring some order back to the kingdom, John and Bohemund VI of Antioch

Bohemund VI of Antioch

Bohemond VI of Antioch , called the Fair , was the Prince of Antioch and Count of Tripoli from 1251 until his death. He ruled while Antioch was caught between the warring empires of the Mongols and the Egyptian Mamluks. In 1268 Antioch was captured by the Mamluks, and he was thenceforth a prince in...

 summoned Dowager Queen Plaisance of Cyprus to take over the regency of the kingdom for the absentee king, Conradin

Conradin

Conrad , called the Younger or the Boy, but usually known by the diminutive Conradin , was the Duke of Swabia , King of Jerusalem , and King of Sicily .-Early childhood:Conradin was born in Wolfstein, Bavaria, to Conrad...

. Nevertheless the Venetians defeated the Genoese in a naval battle in 1258 and the Genoese left Acre. With Plaisance and Hugh in Acre, the Ibelin family began to decline in importance, but around 1263 John began a scandalous affair with Plaisance. His wife Maria, and their children, were believed to have been living apart from him at the time. She was visiting her family in Cilicia in 1256 and 1263, and died after visiting her father, Constantine of Baberon

Constantine of Baberon

Constantine of Baberon was a powerful Armenian noble of the Hetoumids family. He was the son of Vassag, the maternal uncle of king Levon I of Armenia...

, on his own deathbed.

John could do little while Baibars

Baibars

Baibars or Baybars , nicknamed Abu l-Futuh , was a Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. He was one of the commanders of the forces which inflicted a devastating defeat on the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX of France and he led the vanguard of the Egyptian army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, which marked...

, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt

Sultan of Egypt

Sultan of Egypt was the status held by the rulers of Egypt after the establishment of the Ayyubid Dynasty of Saladin in 1174 until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. Though the extent of the Egyptian Sultanate ebbed and flowed, it generally included Sham and Hejaz, with the consequence that the...

, fought with the Mongols

Mongols

Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 in Palestine. Baibars may have reduced Jaffa to vassalage, and certainly used its port to transport food to Egypt. John's truce with Baibars did not last, and he himself died in 1266. By 1268 Baibars had captured Jaffa.

Treatise

From 1264 to 1266, John of Ibelin wrote an extensive legal treatise, now known as the Livre des Assises, the longest such treatise known from the Levant, dealing with the so-called Assizes of Jerusalem

Assizes of Jerusalem

The Assizes of Jerusalem are a collection of numerous medieval legal treatises containing the law of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and Kingdom of Cyprus...

 and the procedure of the Haute Cour

Haute Cour of Jerusalem

The Haute Cour was the feudal council of the kingdom of Jerusalem. It was sometimes also called the curia generalis, the curia regis, or, rarely, the parlement.-Composition of the court:...

It also included details about the ecclesiastical and baronial structure of the Kingdom, as well as the number of knights owed to the crown by each of the kingdom's vassals.

Marriage and children

With Maria of Armenia (sister of Hethum I, King of Armenia and daughter of Constantine of Baberon

Constantine of Baberon

Constantine of Baberon was a powerful Armenian noble of the Hetoumids family. He was the son of Vassag, the maternal uncle of king Levon I of Armenia...

), John had the following children:

• James (c. 1240– July 18, 1276), count of Jaffa and Ascalon 1266, married Marie of Montbéliard c. 1260
• Philip (d. aft. 1263)
• Guy (c. 1250–February 14, 1304), titular count of Jaffa and Ascalon 1276, married his cousin Marie, Lady of Naumachia c. 1290
• John (d. aft. 1263)
• Hethum
• Oshin
• Margaret (c. 1245– aft. 1317), Abbess of Notre Dame de Tyre
  Notre Dame de Tyre
  Notre Dame de Tyre is a 14th century monastery in Nicosia, Cyprus.The existing building is gothic in style and consists of a square nave, with a semi-octagonal apse, cross vaults an arch covering the western part, a bell tower and convent buildings to the north of the church...
  
  , Nicosia
• Isabelle (c. 1250– aft. 1298), married Sempad of Saravantikar c. 1270
• Marie (d. aft. 1298), married firstly Vahran of Hanousse, secondly Gregorios Tardif October 10, 1298