Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/177

 the amount of 300 knights and 300 men-at-arms, with a great number of bourgeois, he enfeoffed with estates of land in Cyprus; so liberal was he that he retained for himself only twenty knights' fees. Possibly the truth was that he was obliged to sell the land of the island to find the money due to the Templars; but the mode in which it was done proves that the feudal idea, on which a few years later the Latin conquests in Romania were apportioned, was full grown. The arrangement however made by Guy had to be altered by Amalric when he reached the dignity of kingship. He threw himself on the mercy of his vassals; they responded liberally, and surrendered to him so many of his brother's grants that at his death a royal revenue of 200,000 byzants was forthcoming. Guy had perhaps made as much as he cared to make of his life interest, but he was, like his patron, careless in the spending of money, whilst unlike Richard's, his opportunities of acquiring it were very limited.

Thus, however, the land system of Cyprus was restored; the 300 knights, 300 men-at-arms, and extensive bourgeoisie, constituted one or two permanent estates of the kingdom. The nobles, who were, no doubt, included in the number of the knights, were the numerous lords who had either fled before Saladin, or were so little hopeful of the event of the Crusades, that they thought it wise to look to Cyprus as a prospective refuge. Hence throughout the middle ages the Cypriot lords retained the titles of their homes in Palestine; and the Palestine titles, when the families of their possessors were extinct, were conferred as a sort of life peerage at the will of the kings. Of the few Frank families that showed any vitality the house of Ibelin was far the most prominent and prolific; the lords of Ibelin and Mirabel, sprung from the house of Puiset, viscounts of Chartres, and closely connected with the counts of Champagne and Blois, had played a conspicuous