Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/184

 Montbeliard on the coast of Asia Minor, the only result of which was booty. Hugh came of age in law, and was in that year crowned at Nicosia. His reign was short, and was devoted chiefly to the restoration of order and prosperity in Cyprus. He encouraged the study of law, and was so learned in it himself that Lewis of France applied to him for an opinion on legal procedure, which was held as authoritative by the feudal lawyers. From Palestine he seems to have stood aloof, partly perhaps owing to the fact that the death of Queen Mary, who, dying in ia12, left only an infant daughter, might seem to open the succession to his wife, Queen Alice. In law however he joined the expedition against the fortress of Tabor, persuaded by King Andrew of Hungary, who visited Cyprus on purpose to engage his support. The attempt on Tabor was unsuccessful; and Hugh retired to Tripoli, where he died in February, 1218. It thus happened that neither the great Crusade of 1202 nor the expedition against Damietta in ia19 directly touched the fortunes of Cyprus; for the heir of King Hugh was an infant of nine months old; and the Queen Alice, who with the aid of the child's great uncles, the lords Philip and John of Ibelin, was guardian, seems to have avoided too close alliance with the new troops of Crusaders. Cyprus was, however, a regular station for the pilgrim fleets, and as regularly an object of attack whenever the Sultans saw an opportunity of unresisted devastation.

The little interest of the history runs rapidly on to the Crusade of the Emperor Frederick II, which brought about many other critical conjunctures in the history of Christendom. This particular portion of the history is of no small legal as well as historical interest. The kings of Jerusalem being men of action, practising little self-restraint and never taking care of themselves, generally died young, and left the fate of their kingdom in suspense on the life of their young children. Hence constant minorities, and the need of provisions for guardianship, a need which, as yet, had scarcely begun to be felt in the kingdoms of Europe. The practice therefore of the kingdom of Jerusalem in the matter of regency became a stock of legal cases, which, if not cited as occasion arose in