Aymar de Lairon (died 1219), also Adeymar, Adémar or Aimerich, was the

lord of Caesarea The Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of the Crusader states that was created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller Manorialism, seigneuries. According to the 13th-century jurist John of Ibelin (jurist), John of Ibelin, the four highest crown va ...

in right of his wife from at least 1193 until her death between 1213 and 1216. During this period he was a prominent figure in the

Kingdom of Jerusalem The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Crusader Kingdom, was one of the Crusader states established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1 ...

. As a widower he became the marshal of the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

until his own death in battle.

Lord of Caesarea

Aymar witnessed a charter of Count

Henry II of Champagne Henry II of Champagne or Henry I of Jerusalem (29 July 1166 – 10 September 1197) was the count of Champagne from 1181 and the king of Jerusalem ''jure uxoris'' from his marriage to Queen Isabella I in 1192 until his death in 1197. Early li ...

, husband of Queen

Isabella I of Jerusalem Isabella I (1172 – 5 April 1205) was the queen of Jerusalem from 1190 to her death in 1205. She was the daughter of King Amalric of Jerusalem and his second wife, the Byzantine princess Maria Comnena. Isabella was a younger half-sister of ...

, in 1193, subscribing as ''Azemarus Cesariensis dominus'' ("Aymar, Caesarean lord").John L. LaMonte, "The Lords of Caesarea in the Period of the Crusades", ''Speculum'' 22, 2 (1947): 153–54. He subscribed a second royal act with the same title the next year (1194). The wife in whose right he held the title,

Juliana Juliana (variants Julianna, Giuliana, Iuliana, Yuliana, etc) is a feminine given name which is the feminine version of the Roman name Julianus. Juliana or Giuliana was the name of a number of early saints, notably Saint Julian the Hospitaller, whi ...

, is not herself recorded as the lady of Caesarea until 1197, when together they confirmed a grant made by her brother, Walter II, on his deathbed. Between 1201 and 1213 he and his wife jointly issued a number of charters. Aymar was a leading baron of the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the reigns of Henry (1192–97), Aimery (1197–1205) and

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

(1210–15). He witnessed royal charters in 1193, 1194, 1200, 1211 and 1212.There is also a highly corrupted charter of Henry dated 1198, cf. LaMonte, "Lords of Caesarea", 153 n. 54. He also witnessed a charter issued the regent John of Ibelin in 1206. In 1208 he was part of the embassy dispatched to France by the '' Haute Cour'' to find a suitable husband for the young queen, Maria. He was present when that husband, John, was crowned at Tyre in 1210. In 1212–13, Juliana and Aymar, "because of poverty" (''compulsi penuria''), took out of a pair of loans from the Hospitallers. In the first loan, houses in Acre and Tyre, as well as the '' casale'' (plural ''casalia'') of Turcarme, were put up as collateral in return for 2,000

bezant In the Middle Ages, the term bezant (, from Latin ) was used in Western Europe to describe several gold coins of the east, all derived ultimately from the Roman . The word itself comes from the Greek Byzantion, the ancient name of Constantinop ...

s. In the second, the ''casalia'' of Capharlet, Samarita and Bubalorum were put up for 1,000 bezants. Juliana never appears in a charter again after the loan of October 1213.

Knight Hospitaller

In February 1216, Aymar first signs a charter not as the lord of Caesarea, but as the marshal of the Hospital. Juliana must have died in the interim, and as she was to be buried in a Hospitaller cemetery as a lay sister, it might be that Aymar had entered the order himself as a brother. He was still their marshal as late as October 1218, when he accompanied King John in the invasion of Egypt in support of the

Fifth Crusade The Fifth Crusade (September 1217 - August 29, 1221) was a campaign in a series of Crusades by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering Egypt, ruled by the powerful Ayyubid sultanate, led by al- ...

. According to the '' Estoire de Eracles'', Aymar and the king led an attack on the Egyptian forces at the Siege of Damietta. According to Oliver of Paderborn, at Damietta thirty-three

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

were either captured or killed alongside the marshal of the Hospital in 1219. The ''Estoire'' records that Aymar had a nephew of the same name when alluding to his death in 1219. With Juliana he also left a son, Roger de Lairon, whose niece Agnes, from ''outremer'' (i.e. overseas, Europe), married Gilles de Beirut, according to the ''

Lignages d'Outremer The ''Lignages d'Outremer'' ("Lineages of Outremer") describe the pedigrees of the most important Crusades, Crusader families. A first version was written in 1270 and is available in two manuscripts of the 14th century. A later version was produce ...

''.

Notes

{{S-end 1219 deaths Lords of Caesarea Knights Hospitaller Year of birth unknown Christians of the Third Crusade Christians of the Fifth Crusade Jure uxoris lords