The year 1166 was relatively quiet, but Amalric sent envoys to the Byzantine Empire seeking an alliance and a Byzantine wife, and throughout the year had to deal with raids by Nur ad-Din, who captured Banias.

In 1168 Amalric and Manuel negotiated an alliance against Egypt, and William of Tyre was among the ambassadors sent to Constantinople to finalize the treaty.

When Baldwin died childless in 1162, a year after his mother Melisende, the kingdom passed to his brother Amalric, who renewed the alliance negotiated by Baldwin.

In 1168 Amalric sought an alliance with Emperor Manuel and invaded Egypt once more.

In 1167, Amalric made a lucrative political alliance with Byzantium by marrying princess Maria Comnena, great-niece to emperor Manuel I Comnenus.

Amalric had also married a Byzantine princess, Maria Komnene, and the imperial alliance remained intact.

He took refuge with King Amalric I of Jerusalem, whose favour he gained, and who invested him with the Lordship of Beirut.

Amalric, who had been given the County of Jaffa as an apanage when he reached the age of majority in 1151, remained loyal to Melisende in Jerusalem, and when Baldwin invaded the south, Amalric was besieged in the Tower of David with his mother.

Agnes soon thereafter married Hugh of Ibelin, to whom she had been engaged before her marriage with Amalric.

In 1167, Nur ad-Din sent Shirkuh back to Egypt and Amalric once again followed him, establishing a camp near Cairo ; Shawar again allied with Amalric and a treaty was signed with the caliph al-Adid himself.

Although Amalric still had a peace treaty with Shawar, Shawar was accused of attempting to ally with Nur ad-Din, and Amalric invaded.

Amalric was among those captured with his brother after the disastrous Battle of Hattin in 1187.

The Egyptian vizier Shawar again requested help from Nur ad-Din, who sent his general Shirkuh, but Shawar quickly turned against him and allied with Amalric.

Nur ad-Din sent Shirkuh back to Egypt in 1166, and Shawar again allied with Amalric, who was defeated at the Battle of al-Babein.

Saladin soon began to assert his independence from Nur ad-Din, and with the death of both Amalric and Nur ad-Din in 1174, he was well-placed to begin exerting control over Nur ad-Din's Syrian possessions as well.

The High Court of Cyprus had elected John of Ibelin as regent, but Henry's mother Alice of Champagne wished to appoint one of her supporters ; Alice and her party, members or supporters of the Lusignan dynasty, sided with Frederick, whose father had crowned Amalric of Lusignan king in 1197.

Shirkuh engaged in a power struggle over Egypt with Shawar and Amalric I of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, in which Shawar requested Amalric's assistance.

Melisende with her younger son Amalric and others sought refuge in the Tower of David.

In 1167 he was appointed archdeacon of the cathedral of Tyre by Frederick de la Roche, archbishop of Tyre, with the support of King Amalric I.

# 1173: The Assassins of Syria enter negotiations with Amalric I, King of Jerusalem, with the aim of converting to Christianity.

After his return to Jerusalem in 1167, Amalric married Maria Comnena, a great-grandniece of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus.

The negotiations had taken two years, mostly because Amalric insisted that Manuel return Antioch to Jerusalem.

That year, Manuel sent a large Byzantine fleet of some 300 ships to assist Amalric, and the town of Damietta was placed under siege.

In 1167 Amalric married Maria Comnena, grand-niece of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, and in 1168 the king sent William to finalize a treaty for a joint Byzantine-crusader campaign against Egypt.

Emperor Manuel, whom William met during his visits to Constantinople, was portrayed more ambivalently, much like King Amalric.

He sent Raynald of Châtillon ( the former prince of Antioch through marriage to Amalric I's cousin Constance of Antioch ) to Constantinople as envoy to Manuel I Comnenus, to obtain Byzantine naval support.

One last invasion of Egypt was launched by Amalric and Manuel, but it was disorganized and came to nothing.

On March 10, 1171 Amalric I left Acre for Constantinople where he made a treaty with the Emperor Manuel I Comnenos ; it seems that they decided that a common action should be taken against Mleh.

King Amalric I of Jerusalem hastened back from his invasion of Egypt to take control of the regency of Antioch ; Bohemond was freed, for a large ransom ( 150, 000 dinars ), in 1165 with the intervention of Amalric and Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, his nominal overlord ; Manuel was also his brother-in-law, as he was married to Bohemond's sister Maria of Antioch.

The Komnenos dynasty was very much involved in crusader affairs, and also intermarried with the reigning families of the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem-Theodora Komnene, niece of Manuel I Komnenos, married Baldwin III of Jerusalem, and Maria, grandniece of Manuel, married Amalric I of Jerusalem.

In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university, and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent III, the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to return to Paris and recant his errors.

These three propositions were further developed by his followers, who maintained that God revealed Himself in a threefold revelation, the first in the Biblical patriarch Abraham, marking the epoch of the Father ; the second in Jesus Christ, who began the epoch of the Son ; and the third in Amalric and his disciples, who inaugurated the era of the Holy Ghost.

According to Hosea Ballou, then Pierre Batiffol ( 1911 ) and George T. Knight ( 1914 ) Amalric was a believer that all people would eventually be saved and this was one of the counts upon which he was declared a heretic by Pope Innocent III.

After an indecisive battle, Amalric retreated to Cairo and Shirkuh marched north to capture Alexandria ; Amalric followed and besieged Shirkuh there, aided by a fleet from Jerusalem.

It was also around this time that William of Tyre was promoted to archdeacon of Tyre, and was recruited by Amalric to write a history of the kingdom.

Later that year however a Byzantine fleet arrived, and in October Amalric launched yet another invasion and besieged Damietta by sea and by land.

Over the next few years the kingdom was threatened not only by Saladin and Nur ad-Din, but also by the Hashshashin ; in one episode, the Knights Templar murdered some Hashshashin envoys, leading to further disputes between Amalric and the Templars.

After being expelled from Poitou by their overlord, Richard the Lion-hearted, for the murder of Patrick of Salisbury, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Amalric arrived in Palestine c. 1174, Guy possibly later.

After Eschiva's death in October 1197 he married Isabella, the daughter of Amalric I of Jerusalem by his second marriage, and became King of Jerusalem in right of his wife and crowned at Acre in January 1198.

Amalric died of dysentery ( allegedly brought on by " a surfeit of white mullet ") or even poisoned at Saint Jean d ' Acre on 1 April 1205, just after his son Amalric and four days before his wife, and was buried at Saint Sophia, Nicosia.

She was supported by, among others, Manasses of Hierges, who essentially governed for her as constable ; her son Amalric, whom she set up as Count of Jaffa ; Philip of Milly ; and the Ibelin family.

Amalric was succeeded by his young son, Baldwin IV, who was discovered at a very young age to be a leper.

Amalric II had already inherited Cyprus from Guy, and had been crowned king by Frederick Barbarossa's son, Emperor Henry VI.