Cyprus
The Lusignan kingdom and Genoese and Venetian rule

History > External political influences > The Lusignan kingdom and Genoese and Venetian rule

Guy, a Frenchman who called himself lord of Cyprus, invited families that had lost their lands in Palestine after the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslims under Saladin to settle in Cyprus and thereby laid the basis for a feudal monarchy that survived to the end of the Middle Ages. His brother and successor, Amalric, obtained the title of king from the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI. The earliest kings of the Lusignan dynasty were involved in the affairs of the small territory still left to the kingdom of Jerusalem, and this commitment drained the resources of Cyprus until the kingdom collapsed in 1291 with the fall of Acre. Over the next hundred years, Cyprus gained a reputation in Europe for having immense riches, especially among its nobles and Famagustan merchants. Famagusta's wealth derived from its position as the last entrepôt for European trade adjacent to the Levant.

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The kings of Cyprus had kept alive the Crusading idea, and the island remained a base for counterattacks against the Muslims. In 1361 the Cypriot king Peter I devoted himself to organizing a Crusade; he captured Adalia (Antalya) on the Cilician coast of Anatolia, and in 1365, after having collected money and mercenaries in western Europe, he seized and sacked Alexandria. He was not able to maintain the conquest, however, and was soon forced to abandon Alexandria. At his son's accession the rivalry between Genoa and Venice over control of Cyprus's valuable trade resulted in Genoa's taking possession of Famagusta and holding on to it for nearly a century, which thus led to a rapid decline in the island's prosperity. In 1426 an expedition from Egypt raided and overran the island, which from then on paid tribute to Cairo. The last Lusignan king, James II, seized the throne with the help of an Egyptian force and in 1464 expelled the Genoese from Famagusta. He married a Venetian noblewoman, Caterina Cornaro, and, on his death (which was followed by that of his posthumous son), she succeeded him as the last monarch of Cyprus. During her reign she was under strong Venetian pressure and was eventually persuaded to cede Cyprus to the Republic of Venice. It remained a Venetian possession for 82 years, until its capture by the Ottomans.