ABSTRACT
Agnes was a Courtenay and therefore a member of one of the greatest families in the Frankish East. As part of his reorganisation of the defences of the principality the king appointed Joscelin of Courtenay bailli of the important frontier-fief of Harim. Agnes’s influence is first discernible in the appointment of Archdeacon Heraclius to the archbishopric of Caesarea in the autumn of 1175, for it was commonly believed that he had once been her lover and he was certainly her protege. Agnes of Courtenay herself was granted the lordship of Toron at some time between 1180 and 1185, perhaps in compensation for the loss of her Byzantine pension which must have ceased when the anti-Latin emperor, Andronicus I, came to power in 1182. The titular count of Edessa and his sister had, it seemed to their enemies, become effective rulers of Jerusalem.
