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It is (not only) the will of god»: the king-doms of Cyprus and Cilician Armenia... 181

could not be made by other agents. This article has argued that the
general political situation in the East left rulers no alternative but to
form alliances, becoming closer to other local actors and taking sides.
The best possible allies for the two polities under study were the pa-
pacy and the Holy Roman Empire. The element of opportunism in this
choice is evident in the case of Leo, who also dealt with the Byzantines
and, as soon as he identified a better option in the form of the growing
power of the Mongols, became less concerned with the unification of
the churches. As for Aimery, we cannot cite a change of sides, but
when Aimery’s internal and external gains are examined in detail, it is
possible to assert that the establishment of the Latin Church and a
process of drawing closer to the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor
ensured Aimery’s position. Additionally, those who lost lands to the
Muslims in Syria and Palestine were granted lands and privileges in
Cyprus, where it was safer. However, this protection was a demotivat-
ing factor in recovering the Holy Land. Those whose assistance was
expected in recovering the Holy Land were now hesitant to resettle
there, where protecting their interests would require significant levels
of effort and resources. As a matter of fact, the Kingdom of Cyprus in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was relatively the safest region in
the wider area. It is therefore fitting to state that Cyprus was not es-
tablished as a Latin religious colony, but that its religious affiliation
usually served to underpin the kingdom's security.
The wider hypothesis, of ecclesiastical actions with political mo-
tives, gains strength from the fact that while the rulers of Cyprus and
Cilician Armenia benefited from political manoeuvres that involved
spiritual action, the papacy, as the highest authority of the Latin
Church, reluctantly tolerated acts against Catholic teaching (such as
marriages prohibited by consanguinity), as well as political actions
against the interests of the papacy, so as to preserve close relations
between the Crusader kingdoms. It is thus possible to suggest that the
activities of the papacy, although spiritual in nature, had worldly po-
litical elements. In a broader context, it is also possible to assert that
the kingdoms of Cyprus and Cilician Armenia survived longer than
other ephemeral Crusader polities, which may be considered a diplo-
matic achievement, while the success of the papacy was limited: pro-
motion of these kingdoms could make little difference in recovering the
Holy Land, and although the Latin Church of Cyprus survived until
the end of Latin rule, unification of the Latin and Armenian Churches
never reached the level that the papacy wished for and, indeed, even-
tually collapsed.
While the personal religiosity of Aimery and Leo II have not been
the subject of this article, and should not be underestimated, we have

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XIX - Aprile 2022
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)