John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem - Hardcover

Edbury has given us not merely an authoritative and lucid survey of the life of a great Frankish magnate, but a fresh and valuable overview of Latin Styria in the middle decades of the thirteenth century on the eve of its downfall. HISTORY
A valuable critical edition and translation of the `appendices' - which deal with the army, courts, and Church of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem - to 1185-1186 and provides a cogent and nuanced commentary...The book is introduced by a well-documented essay on the Ibelin family and its fortunes...packed with useful and interesting material. CHOICE
The first major comprehensive study of the Ibelins from the twelfth to the mid-thirteenth century...highly readable and important book. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW

John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa and Ascalon (d. 1266), was one of the foremost politicians in the kingdom of Jerusalem in the mid-thirteenth century; his family was prominent in the Latin East, and linked by ties of marriage to the royal dynasties of both Jerusalem and Cyprus. John's career and his ancestors' rise to prominence are the subject of the first half of this book. The second concentrates on John's most lasting achievement, his treatise on the pleading, procedures and customs of the High Court of the kingdom of Jerusalem, which includes descriptions of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the juridical structure and the military capacity of the kingdom; this material provides invaluable insights into the kingdom's institutions, government and resources; it is here re-edited from the best surviving manuscripts and discussed in detail.

Dr PETER W. EDBURY is Reader in Medieval History at the University of Wales, Cardiff.