Aimery of Limoges | |
|---|---|
| Latin Patriarch of Antioch | |
 Seal or bulla of Aimery, with his bust on the obverse | |
| Archdiocese | Antioch |
| Elected | Legatine council of Antioch 1140 |
| In office | 1140/49–1196 |
| Predecessor | Ralph of Domfront |
| Successor | Ralph II |
| Personal details | |
| Died | 1196 |
Aimery or Aymery of Limoges (died c. 1196), also Aimericus in Latin, Aimerikos in Greek and Hemri in Armenian, was a Roman Catholic ecclesiarch in Frankish Outremer and the fourth Latin Patriarch of Antioch from c. 1140 until his death.[1] Throughout his lengthy episcopate he was the most powerful figure in the Principality of Antioch after the princes, and often entered into conflict with them. He was also one of the most notable intellectuals to rise in the Latin East.[2]
Aimery was a nobleman of high rank, wealthy and worldly.[3] He was an intellectual with sound knowledge of both Greek and Latin as well as some vernaculars. He may have been the first to translate parts of the Bible into a Romance language, namely Castilian.[4] As a scholar he was well-informed about Greek history. He wrote to Hugh Etherian requesting the commentaries of John Chrysostom on the Pauline epistles, the acts of the Council of Nicaea, and a history of the Byzantine emperors "from the time their emperors split away from the Roman Empire until the present day."[5] He also fulfilled a request of Pope Eugenius III for a Latin translation of Chrysostom's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew by sending an original Greek manuscript to Rome. As bishop Aimery sought to control the hermits who inhabited the Black Mountain, ordering each to have his own spiritual adviser.
- ^ His reign may have begun as early as 1139 or as late as c. 1142. Bernard Hamilton, "Ralph of Domfront, Patriarch of Antioch (1135–40)", Nottingham Medieval Studies, 28 (1984), p. 19–20, informs that the first recorded date of his episcopate is April 1143, when he witnessed a charter of Raymond of Poitiers for Venice. Amalric I of Jerusalem was crowned in February 1163 in Aimery's twentieth year as bishop. His death date is equally obscure: Michael the Syrian states 1193, the Continuation of William of Tyre says after 1194, and Les gestes des Chyprois say 1196.
- ^ For Aimery in his intellectual-geographical context, see Rudolf Hiestand, "Un centre intellectuel en Syrie du Nord? Notes sur la personnalité d'Aimery d'Antioche, Albert de Tarse, et Rorgo Frotellus", Moyen Âge, 100 (1994), pp. 8–16.
- ^ According to later Carmelite writers, he was the uncle of Berthold of Calabria and was from Malifaye in France.
- ^ Christopher Tyerman, God's War: A New History of the Crusades (London: Penguin Books, 2006), p. 193. This work, La Fazienda de Ultra Mar, shows "familiarity with the Hebrew Bible and with Jewish exegesis", but is not the work of Aimery according to Michael E. Stone, "A Notice about Patriarch Aimery of Antioch in an Armenian Colophon", Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha and Armenian Studies: Collected Papers, II, (Peeters Publishers, 2006) p. 497 [125].
- ^ Hamilton (1999), p. 11 n48.