James of Ibelin (French: Jacques d'Ibelin; died in 1276) was count of Jaffa and, titularly, of Ascalon too as well as a noted jurist in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
James was the son of Count John of Jaffa and Ascalon, himself a noted jurist in the crusader kingdom. John had urged King Henry I of Cyprus to send his army to defend the Kingdom of Jerusalem, where John and many Cypriot knights held land, from the Mamluks.[1] The fortress of Ascalon was lost to the Muslim Mamluk Sultanate in 1247.[2] John, who also held valuable estates in the Kingdom of Cyprus, died in 1266.[3] Jaffa was conquered by the Mamluks in 1268.[1]
In 1271, James advocated for the knights of Cyprus in their dispute with King Hugh III,[1] who had ascended the thrones of Cyprus and Jerusalem in 1267 and 1268 respectively.[4] In their deposition to the English prince Edward Longshanks, who acted as arbiter,[1] the knights insisted that they did not owe military service to the king on the mainland.[5] Unlike John decades earlier, James and the knights had no vested interest in fighting on the mainland because most of their possessions there had been lost.[1] James's effort failed, but he demonstrated his family's pride in his speech, saying: "The men of the kingdom of Cyprus have more often served the house of Ibelin outside the kingdom than they have the king or his ancestors."[1] James thus became the first member of the Ibelin family to challenge the power of the Lusignan kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus.[5]
James dictated a law treatise on his deathbed in 1276.[6]
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