Vili.] THE LATIN LORDS IN CYPRUS. 1 89 to the restoration of something like prosperity in the desolate land1. According to the contemporary 'Chronique d'Outremer ' he opened an asylum for the dispossessed Franks of Armenia and Palestine. These, to the amount of 300 knights and 200 men-at-arms, with a great number of bourgeois, he enfeoffed with estates of land in Cyprus; so liberal was he that he retained for himself only twenty knights' fees. Possibly the truth was that he was obliged to sell the land of the island to find the money due to the Templars; but the mode in which it was done proves that the feudal idea, on which a few years later the Latin conquests in Romania were apportioned, was full grown. The arrangement however made by Guy had to be altered by Amalric when he reached the dignity of kingship. He threw himself on the mercy of his vassals ; they responded liberally, and surrendered to him so many of his brother's grants that at his death a royal revenue o'f 200,000 byzants was forthcoming. Guy had perhaps made as much as he cared to make of his life interest, but he was, like his patron, careless in the spending of money, whilst, unlike Richard's, his opportunities of acquiring it were very limited. Thus, however, the land system of Cyprus was restored ; the 300 knights, 200 men-at-arms, and extensive bourgeoisie, constituted one or two permanent estates of the kingdom. The nobles, who were, no doubt, included in the number of the knights, were the numerous lords who either had fled There were five classes of native cultivators in Guy's time :— (1) Parici—πάροικοι—slave cultivators. (2) Lefteri—i\t\Btfoi—freed folk. (3) Albanesi—descendants of Albanian soldiery. (4) Veneziani bianchi—descended from the soldiers of Vital Michaele in'the first Crusade. (5) Perperiarii, enfranchised Paroeci—paying a tax of 15 perperi ; (cited from Bustron by Beugnot, Assizes of Jerusalem, i. 207).