Roger of San Severino
Roger of San Severino was the bailiff of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1277 to 1282. He traveled to Acre, then the kingdom’s capital, with a small force at the request of King Charles I of Anjou (also king of Sicily) to act as regent. Charles had bought the rights to the kingdom from Mary of Antioch, a claimant after Conradin’s death in 1268, in a dispute with Hugh III of Cyprus over who should rule. Roger landed with the backing of the Knights Templar and the Republic of Venice. The existing bailiff, Balian of Ibelin, initially kept him out of the citadel until papers signed by Charles, Mary, and Pope John XXI were shown; the Knights Hospitallers and the Patriarch John of Vercelli did not intervene.
Once in Acre, Roger pressed Charles’s claim and demanded oaths of homage from the barons, who said that any transfer of royal rights needed a decision by the Haute Cour. They asked Hugh of Cyprus to release them from their oaths, but he refused. Roger threatened confiscation if they did not swear, and they eventually did. Bohemond VII of Tripoli recognized him as regent in Acre. Roger governed the remaining Latin East with relative peace and kept the alliance with the Mamluk sultan Qalawun, extending it for another ten years in May 1281 at Charles’s urging. He refused to aid Abaqa, the Mongol il-khan, against the Mamluks at the Second Battle of Homs and even personally congratulated Qalawun on his victory.
In 1281, after the Sicilian Vespers on March 30, Roger was recalled to Italy with his troops, leaving Odo Poilechien as his deputy.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:15 (CET).