Ralph of Saint-Omer
Seneschal of Jerusalem
Raoul of Saint Omer, Raoul of Tiberias or Ralph of Tiberias (died 1220) was briefly a claimant to the Principality of Galilee and twice seneschal of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. His parents were Eschiva of Bures, from whom he inherited his claim, and Walter of Saint Omer. She married Raymond III of Tripoli in 1174.
His elder brother Hugh tried arrange a marriage between Ralph and Queen Isabella I and thereby raise him to the throne, after her husband Henry II of Champagne died. This was rejected by the High Court because of his lack of wealth and instead King Aimery of Cyprus married her. Ralph was exiled after an assassination attempt on Aimery in 1198. At his trial Ralph devised a defence from an interpretation of the assise sur la ligece based on the requirement of a judgment in court for cases concerning lords and their vassals. The innovation was applying the Assise to the king himself. Aimery refused and his vassals withdrew service from him following great words and Ralph went into banishment. In later accounts Ralph was credited with a great achievement.
The public source identifies “Ralph of Saint-Omer” as seneschal of Jerusalem. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ralph, Saint-Omer and Seneschal.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ralph of Saint-Omer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.