The site

Tremytousha,
Tremetousia
Today: Erdemli

The site of Richard the Lion Heart’s victory over Isaac Comnenus; the church of St. Spyridon.

Akdogan (Greek: Lyssi, Lysi) is one of the villages in the Mesarya plain of the Famagusta district and about four km further west along the road, on the other side of Yigitler (Greek: Arsos), is the hamlet of Erdemli (Tremythus, Tremytousha, Tremetousia), the site of Richard the Lion Heart’s victory over Isaac Comnenus (picture). The ruinous church and the buildings on the northern edge are the remains of an 18th century rebuilding of the ancient monastery of St. Spyridon. (This very Cypriot saint, a shepherd, turned local bishop and bulwark of Orthodoxy in the 4th century. He lay buried here for a few centuries before being removed to Constantinople. Since the 15th century he has rested on the island of Corfu, of which he is the patron saint.)

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The Battle of Tremythus (Tremetousia, Tremetousha, Trimethous)

(... 1191 ...)

At daybreak on the following morning, amidst the brilliance of an eastern dawn, the army of the Crusaders began its march into the Messaoria of Cyprus. The dark forms of the men-at-arms in their leathern jerkins, shouldering pikes and battle-axes, were a sombre setting to the knights on horseback, clad in the sinuous chain mail which glittered with every movement of the wearer like the scales of a snake, in the early morning sunshine. The knights and their followers had been cautioned that the district they would pass through would be deserted, and that food wat consequently difficult to procure, every man therefore was provided with a bag of rations and some sort of pilgrims bottle wherein to carry wine sufficient for a day or two.

The path followed by the army after quitting Constantia, and its suburb of Encomi, where the numerous tombs of the ancients constituted a sort of Appian Way leading from the site of ancient Salamis, was for some distance the same road along which the army of King Guy had approached Constantia from Arnathus. But the perfectly flat plain of the Messaoria in the centre of the island admitted of many wandering tracks and more or less practicable roads in summer time. In winter immense morasses and marshes impeded all means of communication, and the deep alluvial mud of the river Pedioes and other streams had, with difficulty, to be avoided.

At the villages of Kouklia and Kalopsyda the road turned off to the north-west and the country became broken up with caflons formed by winter torrents, which had deeply cut their ways into the soft alluvial soil, which afforded cover and protection for an ambuscade where trees and woodland were nowhere to be found. The Messaoria, its vast expanse dotted here and there with mud-built villages, was only covered with low bushes of shinia and clumps of asphodel, wherever an occasional patch of cultivated land had not encroached upon the wilderness.

Already the Crusaders had experienced the fighting tactics of the natives. As they were crossing a very deep river bed, and a large body of them were in the hollow, they were surprised by a flight of arrows striking them in a very unexpected manner from the direction of the streamlet. The enemy was in fact concealed by a bend in the steep sides of the cafion at some distance higher up ; by the time they had recovered from the surprise and disorder occasioned by this attack and had despatched some men-at-arms and crossbowmen to take vengeance on their foes~ the enemy had decamped.

The one or two men wounded in this crafty manner having been attended to by some serving brothers of the hospital, the army continued its march, but with greater precautions. On more than one occasion they found this attempt to harass them repeated by bodies of the enemy who, lurking in the river beds, were able to conceal themselves very effectually, and did not attempt hostilities in the open, or where the roads passed over the higher levels of the plain.

At length the brown mud buildings of a somewhat important village came into view; the Crusaders were informed that this was Tremythus where the Despot had collected his forces, and where he would probably give them battle. Rejoiced at the prospect of a decisive engagement with the enemy, the Crusaders approached the village in as good.order as the nature of the ground permitted. In advance were several knights mounted on their chargers and each surrounded by his " clump of spears"; these were supported by the crossbowmen and other men-at-arms, whilst the rear was brought up by King Richard and a number of knights and lords of high degree. The red cross banner of the King and the pennons of the feudatories gave a certain vivacity to the scene.

As the army was pressing on to the village with enthusiasm, and the terrible battle cry of 11 Dex Aie 11 was occasionally taken up in chorus by the advancing warriors, a skirmish with some of the enemy arbalesters denoted that a battle was imminent, and that the hopes of the Anglo-Normans would not be disappointed. At the same time the presence of the main force of the Despot's army was evidenced by a body of seven hundred stradiotes or cavalry making a charge against the right flank of the Crusaders. In both cases the enemy was successfully drivenoff. More native levies now appeared upon the scene and a considerable battle was taking place. The Despot, who now appeared, was no coward in warfare and displayed astonishing activity in marshalling and encouraging his troops. He even attempted to draw King Richard into a personal combat, but in the traditional Parthian manner he wished to kill the English King with poisoned arrows, which fortunately did not hit their mark, and when Cceur de Lion tried to strike him with his lance he eluded the blow in a very dexterous manner. But soon the issue of the battle was the complete victory of'the Anglo-Norman invaders, and the two Kings Richard and Guy were consulting how their forces should be recalled from a desultory pursuit of their foes.

The Despot had fled before the conclusion of the fighting, to the northern range of hills, where, on a romantic rack, stood the castle of Cantara. This castle, of which the medioeval ruins of a later period than the twelfth century are still wonderfully preserved, was in those days an equally impregnable fortress. But the forces of the Despot were dispersed : his rule had been that of an avaricious tyrant, and he had been an usurper of the worst description ; the more conservative amongst the nativesand the Byzantines were a very conservative race--viewed him with detestation as an upstart of the imperial house who had usurped the position of their Orthodox emperor.

The career of the self-styled " Emperor of Cyprus was at an end. The Auglo-Normans under the English King were in possession of the island, and any resistance, still maintained in the more remote parts, could be overcome without difficulty.

It was the beginning of midsummer, when the villager of the plain gathers the vast cereal wealth of surrounding fields into mountainous stacks, and then sets to work slowly and gradually to thresh out the corn on the open earth floor in a manner truly primitive and patriarchal. The Anglo-Norman strangers noticed with curiosity the abandoned agricultural implements lying on the threshing floors-implements unlike any they were accustomed to in Europe. The aoux7'vouc, or tribula, a curious substitute for the flail in a country where there are no barns, which consists of two very heavy planks of wood framed together forming a kind of sledge, studded underneath with small sharp pieces of flint, to be dragged around the corn heap in a circular way by oxen, mules, and donkeys. When the broken-up straw is cleared away, the corn remains to be winnowed in the evening breeze with wooden shovels and, collected into heaps, becomes the farmers' wealth, and the staple on which the whole community relies for its existence during the year.

In the stir and turmoil of an invasion of Cyprus, not only would all the business of life be suspended, but the villagers not forced to enlist in the army of the Despot would fly to the hills, and the brown mud-walled villages of the Messaoria were comparatively deserted when the Norman Crusaders penetrated into their midst.

After the victory, King Richard and his army are said to have marched to Nicosia (or Ledra as the village was then named. But in the ancient town-lists of Cyprus there is neither the name of Nicosia nor Ledra, and the principal town of the Messaoria is always Trimythos. (Hackett p. 242)). Probably Trimythos having been plundered and partly burnt in the fashion of the times would serve as a resting place for the Normans, and here King Richard seems to have had one of his frequent sicknesses.

In Tremythus stood an ancient church and monastery of St. Spyridon; a venerable looking double-naved building containing the small Byzantine sarcophagus of the famous holy man, whose relies were carried off to Corfu in 1460, and there became a source of much miracle-mongering in a later age. After the battle this venerable building was thronged with the devout Crusaders prostrating themselves before the tomb which now stands empty and neglected beneath the ruins of an ancient eiconostasion within the southern nave.

At the time of the Anglo-Norman occupation the central parts of the island-the great Messaoria plainwas the only portion, in addition to the sea coast, brought under European influence and government. The mountain districts were of too savage and poor a description to admit of much control, they in fact seem to have been considered negligible until almost the English occupation in 1878. In the Bronze Age the centre of population was in the neighbourhood of Kythrea (the Chytroi of the ancients) and along the course of the river Pedims. The Egyptians, Phomicians, Greeks and Romans had formed their colonies on the seashore on different sides of the island, but the Byzantines, influenced by the spread of Christianity incorporated themselves more thoroughly with the aborigines, in the interior, and Tremythus seems to have been the episcopal centre of the Messaoria.

The battle of Tremythus having definitely settled the fate of the island9 the army of occupation established itself in the village as a base of operations and general headquarters, whilst a body of men-at-arms and knights was dispatched to secure the only important castle remaining in the hands of the natives which was situated at Kyrenia.

The small seaport of Kyrenia was of a certain importance in Byzantine times, but its inhabitants were very willing to exchange their allegiance to the Despot for a much more civilised form of government such as the Europeans offered them, they were therefore in readiness to welcome King Guy and his attendant knights when they appeared before the gate of the small town. As the Normans rode down the gorge of Agirda to take possession of this part of the island, the singular resemblance of the scenery to that of the Italian coast near Messina impressed everyone. At the"bottom of the gorge lay the little town of Kyrenia backed in the view by the dark blue sea, whilst far off on the horizon was the long range of the Taurus mountains on the opposite coast closing one of the most beautiful prospects in the world, whilst to east and west stretched the forest clad slopes of the northern hills of Cyprus.

The Despot finding himself abandoned by his subjects, and more especially by the Orthodox clergy, was within a few days obliged to throw himself upon the mercy of King Richard. He came down from the northern hills, and having obtained an audience of the King, approached the royal tent with due expression of humility and resignation. As he entered the royal presence he flung himself on the ground at the feet of the King in the eastern manner of a servant approaching an offended master. The King ordered him to rise through his interpreter, and then directed that he should be seated for an interview.

The Despot's surrender was made on the terms that he should not be subjected to the indignity and misery of being fettered or placed in irons. This the English King conceded together with his life, but as the metal of the bonds with which he could be confined had been specified as iron, and nothing had been said about silver he was obliged to submit to chains of that precious metal with which his movements were impeded and his abject condition as a prisoner was enforced. He was then confided to the charge of Ralph the Chamberlain. (...)

Text sources: internet, Jeffery and from: Rogerson, B., (1994), Cyprus, Cadogan.

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