St. Hilarion Castle

The castle is named, not after St. Hilarion the Great, the founder of monasticism in Palestine who died near Paphos about A.D. 371, but after a later saint, of whom little is known. He is counted among the three hundred saints who according to local tradition, sought refuge in Cyprus when the Arabs overran the Holly Land. His relics were preserved in the castle and “kept right workshipfully” according to an English visitor in the 14th century. It may be presumed that he retired to this hill-top to live the life of a hermit and that as the hermitage of St. Neophytos near Paphos, a monastery was established to shelter those who should follow his example, as well pilgrims to his tomb.
 
The Queen’s window,
St. Hilarion Castle
The original castle, to which the monastery gave place formed part of the Byzantine defense of the Island, which included castles of Kyrenia, Buffavento and Kantara also.
The date of its construction is not recorded, but probably it was in the late 11th century. Alternatively, the building of the castle may have formed part of the measures taken by the Emperor Alexis I for the greater security of the Island, following a serious revolt in 1092.
The earliest references to the castle are found in the contemporary accounts of Richard Lionheart’s campaign in the Island in 1191. After Richard’s victory at Tremethousha, where Isaac Comnenus was captured, St. Hilarion and the island remained to be reduced. When Richard fell ill at Nicosia he assigned this task to Guy de Lusignan. Kyrenia, after a brief attack, was surrendered together with family and treasures. St. Hilarion was next invested but resisted vigorously until Isaac ordered its surrender; whereupon Isaac’s daughter was placed in the castle to prevent her being recaptured by his supporters. At this time the castle was known as Didymus (the Twins), from the twin crests which crown the mountain peak on which it is built, a name which the Franks corrupted to Dieudamour (Dieu d’Amour).
The castle was probably strengthened in the early years of the Lusignan kingdom. It was organized for defense in 1228, when the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II, on his way to Palestine, landed at Limassol and demanded the regency of Cyprus during theminority of the young King Henry I, on the ground that the Lusignan had received their crown form the Emperor’s father Henry VI in 1197. After abortive parleys, John d’lbelin, who held the regency in succession to his brother Philip, whom the High Court of Cyprus had appointed, defied the Emperor and retired to St. Hilarion. lbelin had already provisioned the castle and had sent the women and children of his supporters there for safety. However a truce was ultimately arranged during which lbelin joined the Emperor’s crusading expedition. On his return to Cyprus the next year (1299), lbelin found Frederick’s supporters in control of the Island. He engaged and defeated them near Nicosia, whence they retired to St. Hilarion, which they surrendered after a nine-month siege. The roles were again reversed in 1232, when the King and lbelin were absent in Syria. A force of Frederick’s Longbard troops overran the Island; the King’s sister and supporters took refuge at St. Hilarion; which the Imperialists invested. Capitulation was narrowly averted by the return of young King Henry from Syria. His army fell on the besieging forces and routed them at Agirdha where the road from Nicosia enters the Kyrenia pass, a success which was followed by their capitulation at Kyrenia and put an end to Frederick’s claims to Cyprus.
Untouched by warfare for the next 140 years, the castle, improved and embellished, seems to have become a summer residence for the Lusignan royal family. In 1373, while the Genoese invaders ravaged the Island, on the pretext of avenging the death of a few compatriot during an incident at the coronation of Peter II, John Price of Antioch, Regent and uncle of the young King, took refuge in the castle. He had with him his faithful guard of Bulgarian mercenaries, who made effective sallies against the Genoese besieging Kyrenia Castle. When the King and his mother Queen Eleanor had made peace with the Genoese, ceding them Famagusta, the Queen sought to avenge herself against the Prince for his part in the assassination of her husband, his brother King Peter I. Persuaded by the Queen that his Bulgarians were plotting to kill him, the Prince summoned them one by to the top of the castle and had them thrown into the abyss below. A few days later, defenseless, he went down to Nicosia, never to return. After the occupation of the Island by the Venetians in 1489, the new administration ordered the dismantling of this and other castles to save the cost of their garrisons.
 
 
 The castle is named after St. Hilarion, a hermit monk who fled from persecution in the Holy Land and lived and died in a cave on the mountain. Later in the 10th century the Byzantines built a church and monastery here.

Along with Kantara and Buffavento, St. Hilarion Castle was originally built as a watch tower to give warning of approaching Arab pirates who launched a continuous series of raids on Cyprus and the coasts of Anatolia from the 7th to the 10th centuries.

A monastery and a church were built here in the 10th century. The first references to the castle are found in the 1191 records. For some time it was of strategic importance, but later it became the summer resort of the Lusignan nobility.
 

Especially after the invention of firearms and the increasing importance of defending the coastline it lost its functionality and importance like the Kantara and the Buffavento castles. The castle has three parts. The parapets for the defence of the main entrance were fortified by the Byzantines in the 11th century. The lower section of the castle was being used for the soldiers and the horses. The middle section contained the royal palace, the kitchen, the church and a big cistern. At the entrance to the castle in the upper section there is a Lusignan Gate. There is a courtyard in the middle. The nobility used to live in the Eastern section, the kitchen and the other rooms for daily use were in the western section. The panoramic view through the Queen’s window (a window carved in the Gothic style) on the second floor of the royal apartments is superb. The Prince John Tower is at the top.
When the Venetians captured Cyprus in 1489, they relied on Kyrenia, Nicosia and Famagusta for the defence of the island and St. Hilarion was neglected and fell into oblivion.

 
    
  Map of the St Hilarion Castle