Sibylla (Old French: Sibyl; c. 1159 – 1190) was the queen of Jerusalem from 1186 until her death in 1190. She reigned alongside her husband Guy of Lusignan, whom she continued to support despite his unpopularity among the barons of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Sibylla was the eldest daughter of King Amalric and the only daughter of his first wife, Agnes of Courtenay. Her father died in 1174, making her heir presumptive to her younger brother, King Baldwin IV; when it became clear that the 13-year-old king had contracted leprosy, the matter of Sibylla's marriage became urgent. The regent, Count Raymond III of Tripoli, arranged for her to marry William Longsword of Montferrat in late 1176, but within a year, William died, leaving her pregnant and in possession of the County of Jaffa and Ascalon.
Shortly after giving birth to a son, Baldwin, Sibylla came to be associated with her brother in public acts, thereby being designated as next in line to the throne. Sibylla's brother arranged her second marriage to Guy of Lusignan in 1180, likely to foil a coup planned by Raymond III of Tripoli and Bohemond III of Antioch. The couple had four daughters, but their marriage deeply divided the nobility. By 1183, King Baldwin had become completely incapacitated by his disease as well as disillusioned with Guy's character and inability to lead. To prevent Guy's accession to the throne, Baldwin had Sibylla's son crowned as co-king and attempted to separate Sibylla from Guy, but the couple refused to show up at court.
Baldwin IV died in 1185, having named Raymond to rule as regent for Baldwin V instead of Sibylla or Guy. The boy king died the next year, and Sibylla moved quickly to claim the throne against Raymond's ambitions. She agreed to her supporters' demand to set Guy aside on the condition that she could choose her next husband, and outwitted them at her coronation in mid-September 1186 by choosing to remarry Guy and crown him herself. Saladin took advantage of the discord in the kingdom to invade in 1187, reducing the Kingdom of Jerusalem to a single city, Tyre. Sibylla visited her husband, who had been taken captive at the decisive Battle of Hattin, and procured from Saladin his release. While Guy was besieging Acre, Sibylla and their daughters died in 1190 of an epidemic outside Acre.
Sibylla was the elder of the two children of the count of Jaffa and Ascalon, Amalric, and his first wife, Agnes of Courtenay. Sibylla was born between 1157, when her parents married, and 1161, when her younger brother, Baldwin, was born. Her paternal uncle was the then-reigning king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, and her paternal grandmother was Queen Melisende, the first female ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The ruling class of the kingdom and other crusader states, called the Franks, were French-speaking Catholics who had arrived in the Levant from Western Europe and remained Western in culture. Sibylla was named after the countess of Flanders, her father's half-sister and her godmother.
When King Baldwin III died in 1163, the High Court forced Amalric to agree to an annulment of his marriage to Agnes to be accepted as the new king. After their marriage was annulled, Amalric succeeded in having Pope Alexander III declare their children declared legitimate. As there was no longer a queen's household in the King's court until his marriage to Maria Komnene in 1167, it was unsuitable for the four-year-old Sibylla. In common with Western practices, Sibylla moved to the Convent of Saint Lazarus near Jerusalem to be educated by the King's aunt, Abbess Ioveta, Queen Melisende's youngest sister; Sibylla's godmother, Countess Sibylla of Flanders, was also there as a nun, having become one in 1159. She consequently had little contact with her mother or brother, who was heir apparent to their father. With his second wife, Maria Komnene, the King had two daughters, of whom only Isabella survived infancy.
A convent was not only the usual place for a noblewoman like Sibylla to receive her education, but the best one; it was not only a learning center for women, but also protected Sibylla from forced marriage or abduction. As a student at the abbey, Sibylla would have learned what was expected of any aristocratic woman at this time. She would have learned about the Christian faith, how to read and write in Old French and Latin, and women's skills such as spinning, embroidery, and singing. She would also learn how to hunt with a hawk, or even how to handle a bow.
King Amalric feared that, like his brother and their father, King Fulk, he too would die young, before his heir reached the age of majority. Having no close male relative who could rule as regent on his son's behalf if the latter ascended as a minor, Amalric authorized the archbishop of Tyre, Frederick de la Roche, in 1169 to find a husband for Sibylla in Western Europe. This candidate had to be an older man of high enough rank and with enough experience in government who was not related to Sibylla within the Church's forbidden degrees. Amalric chose Count Stephen I of Sancerre, the brother-in-law of King Louis VII of France and a relative of the English royal house. Stephen came to Jerusalem in 1171, joined by other important noblemen, including his nephew Hugh III of Burgundy, who was later offered Sibylla's hand in marriage. The chronicler William of Tyre described Stephen as "a man noble in flesh, but not so behavior" Sibylla's brother was suspected of having contracted leprosy, then an incurable disease that would prevent him from marrying and having children, so Amalric therefore saw Sibylla and Stephen as eventual monarchs instead of his son. However, Stephen rejected the match for unknown reasons, returning to his own lands after a few months.
While it is unknown why Stephen backed out of the arrangement "disgracefully and foully", it is possible that he and Amalric could not agree on what power he would hold as Sibylla's husband. As Amalric already had a son, Baldwin, and could have still had a healthy son with his wife Maria at this time, Stephen realized that he was not guaranteed to inherit anything. It is also possible that Stephen, knowing of Agnes and Amalric's annulment, grew to worry about Sibylla's legitimacy.
When King Amalric died of dysentery on 11 July 1174, the High Court met to discuss who should succeed him. Sibylla's 13-year-old brother, Baldwin, would have been the obvious successor had there not been fears of his incipient leprosy. The only serious alternative to him was Sibylla, then aged about 15. Female succession had been grounded in recent law and had precedent, as Sibylla's grandmother Melisende preceded her sons on the throne. However, Sibylla was young, inexperienced, and unmarried. No bachelor in the Latin East was fit to marry her; Count Raymond III of Tripoli and Baldwin of Antioch were too closely related, and a marriage to one of the barons in the kingdom could have caused resentment among the others. A match had to be found abroad, but since that would have taken too long, Baldwin IV was chosen with the expectation that a husband would be found for Sibylla to succeed him if he proved to be affected.
Count Raymond of Tripoli, who was by then also prince of Galilee in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, became regent for the young king on the basis of being the nearest male relative. He allowed Sibylla and Baldwin's mother, Agnes, to return to court, and Agnes had strong attachment to and influence on her children in the following years. Baldwin's condition deteriorated rapidly after his accession, and since it was clear that he had leprosy, it became imperative to arrange a marriage for Sibylla. The groom chosen by Raymond and the High Court was William "Longsword" of Montferrat, son of Marquis William V of Montferrat and cousin of both Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and King Louis VII of France. Additionally, William V took part in the Second Crusade, displaying his family's dedication to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.