Guy of Ibelin, bishop of Limassol

Who was Guy of Ibelin, bishop of Limassol?

Guy of Ibelin was the dominican bishop of Limassol, Cyprus from 27 April 1357 until his death. He belonged to the noble Cypriot house of Ibelin, closely linked by intermarriage with the kings of Cyprus. His father Balian of Ibelin, Lord of Arsuf, was a direct descendant of the first Balian of Ibelin, an important crusader. His mother, Margaret of Ibelin, continued to hold the title Lady of Arsuf after her husband's death. In the second half of the fourteenth century the fortunes of the house of Ibelin were in decline, as the once-powerful family became extinct. Guy's brother Philip became the last Ibelin to hold the title Lord of Arsuf. He was executed in Genoa in late 1373 for taking part in the assassination of King Peter I of Cyprus in 1369; King James I of Cyprus subsequently bestowed the title on John of Neviles, viscount of Nicosia, in 1389.

Instead of receiving a prebend, the normal path for a younger son of a high aristocratic family to join the church and enjoy the comfortable life of an ecclesiastical nobleman, Guy chose to join the austere dominican order, perhaps in the same monastery in Nicosia where he was later laid to rest. Two years after his elevation to bishop in 1357, he was the presiding bishop at the coronation of Peter I in the cathedral of St Sophia, Nicosia. It appears that he took part in the campaign to capture Alexandria in 1365, before succumbing to illness in his mansion in Nicosia in 1367.