ABSTRACT
It is a well known fact that Simon de Montfort the Elder took the cross as a participant in the Fourth Crusade, but that he left the main expedition, which in 1202 had seized the Adriatic port of Zara in defiance of the papal prohibition, and made his own way to the Holy Land. He was accompanied by his younger brother, Guy. Philip de Montfort can be seen as a pivotal figure in a wide-ranging kinship-nexus. He was the first cousin of Simon earl of Leicester — their fathers were brothers — and, as is well known, Simon was the king of England’s brother-in-law and Simon’s wife’s sister was married to the emperor Frederick II. John de Montfort, lord of Tyre and Toron and brother-in-law of King Hugh III of Cyprus and Jerusalem, clearly outclassed all the other nobles of his day in what was by now the rapidly dwindling kingdom of Jerusalem.
