History of Bellapais Abbey
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History of Bellapais Abbey
History of Bellapais Abbey North Cyprus Kyrenia
Gothic architecture is a rarity in Cyprus, and Bellapais Abbey is a superlative example. The design is worthy of its foundation and patronage over a long period by the Lusignan kings. It was founded, in all probability, by Amaury de Lusignan, who succeeded his brother Guy in 1194, and was crowned king of Cyprus in Nicosia three years later. When Jerusalem was lost, King Hugues I granted these lands to displaced Augustinians, who were joined by Norbertine or Premonstratensian canons of the French order founded at Laon in 1120. The entire community adopted this latter rule early in the thirteenth century and donned the white habit which is the origin of references in fifteenth and sixteenth-century documents to the 'White Abbey'. Hugues III (1267-84) and his successors increased the size and wealth of the abbey, and awarded the abbot the privilege of wearing a mitre, also a gilded sword and spurs in knightly fashion when riding abroad. The zenith of the abbey's influence occurred before the arrival of the Genoese in 1373, when the church and monastic buildings were looted. Yet during the subsequent period of government of the island by the Venetians, the position of Abbot of Bellapais was still greatly prized, and on a number of occasions there were rival claimants. But decline had set in before the Turkish occupation of 1571; a delegate of the Venetian Senate concerned in making a report on Cyprus revealed that some of the brethren had as many as three wives, and that the abbey's revenues were being misappropriated for the benefit of their families. The structure of the abbey began to deteriorate and fall from the sixteenth century onwards, though the Turks, who had seized the abbey's property, ermitted the villagers to continue using the church.
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