Guy de Lusignan (1150-1194) was the King of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1192, succeeding Baldwin V of Jerusalem and preceding Isabella I of Jerusalem, and King of Cyprus from 1192 to 1194, preceding Aimery of Cyprus.
Biography[]
Guy de Lusignan was born in 1150 to the esteemed House of Lusignan in Poitou, which was ruled by the Kingdom of England as a part of Aquitaine; he was the son of Hugh VIII of Lusignan and Burgondie de Rancon, and the brother of Geoffrey, Raynald, and Humphrey. In 1168, he was banished from Aquitaine by the future King Richard I of England for murdering Earl Patrick of Salisbury, and in 1179 he arrived in the Holy Lands with other French crusaders. Guy's brother, the future King Aimery of Cyprus, became the constable for Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, and Guy was appointed Baldwin's regent in 1182. The king died in 1186, and Guy married Sibylla of Jerusalem, becoming the jure uxoris king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Upon becoming king, Guy faced several threats to his rule, namely the Seljuks to the north in Turkey and the Ayyubid Caliphate to the south in Egypt and Palestine. In 1187, Guy fought the Ayyubid caliph Saladin at the Battle of Hattin, where he was captured and forced to surrender to Saladin. Guy was imprisoned in Damascus for a year, and Jerusalem fell to the Muslims in his absence. He was later released, and he was forced to retreat. Conrad of Jerusalem refused to let him into Tyre, so Guy retreated to Acre, where he was besieged in 1191. However, the Third Crusade army of Guy's former enemy Richard I of England arrived and lifted the siege, taking Jaffa as well. In 1192, Guy had Conrad murdered after Conrad took over as king with the support of the nobility, but Richard gave Guy control of Cyprus (which he had taken from the Byzantine Empire) as his territory. He died in 1194.
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