ABSTRACT
Every modern scholar who has had occasion to mention the death of King Henry I of Cyprus has dated it to the year 1253. There survive several annalistic sources, all of which are agreed on this point. Four texts, the Estoire de Eracles, MS B of the Annales de Terre Sainte, the Spanish Anales de Tierra Santa, and Marino Sanudo give simply the year,1 but the late medieval Italian compilation known as the Chronique d’Amadi and following it, the sixteenth-century author, Florio Bustron, specify the date as 18 January. It is therefore particularly unfortunate that, due to a substantial lacuna covering the years 1249–57, the Gestes des Chiprois does not record Henry’s death. According to Amadi, the king and the archbishop had quarrelled; Hugh placed the kingdom under an interdict, and then, on Henry’s death returned from overseas and lifted it.
