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 616 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES II 
Christian ships to carry the war into the island, but most of them were wrecked
off Limassol. Meanwhile, Edward and Hugh with their inadequate forces could
do little more than raid.44 
 At this inauspicious moment occurred the celebrated dispute in which the
Cypriote knights, whose one desire was to return home, claimed that their
liability for their fiefs was limited to service in the island. The case
was referred to Edward. Hugh maintained that the knights owed service at
the desire and need of the king outside the realm as well as within, that
the barons of Jerusalem had served at Edessa and elsewhere outside the kingdom
of Jerusalem, and that Cyprus was ruled by the same laws as Jerusalem. He
then cited instances, going back to the reign of Aimery, when the Cypriote
knights had served outside Cyprus. James of Ibelin, author of one of the
legal treatises of the Assises, presented the knights' case, arguing that
they were not bound by their oaths to unlimited service at the king's discretion,
nor were they bound to serve outside the realm. In citing instances of former
service Hugh was taking advantage of their former good deeds, for in the
past they had voluntarily served for love of God and of their lord, and never
because of the summons of the king. "And further we show certainly by men
who are still full of life, that the men of the realm of Cyprus have served
more often outside the realm the house of Ibelin than [they have served]
my lord the king or his ancestors; and if the usage of their service subjects
them to service, by such reasoning the Ibelins could demand of them what
my lord the king de mands."45 James chided Hugh for his tactlessness when
he con cluded that the king could have their service "par biau parler, qui
poi coste." Edward seems to have made no decision, but in 1 273 a compromise
was reached, by which the barons agreed that they owed the king service outside
Cyprus for four months a year and that they must serve in person wherever
the king or his son went. 
 Such a debate was hardly likely to encourage Edward or Hugh to aggressive
action against Baybars, and in April 1272 they signed a truce for ten years,
ten months, ten days, and ten hours (renewed in 1283 with Baybars' successor
Kalavun) to cover the plain of Acre and the road to Nazareth. In September
Edward sailed for home, leaving Hugh to continue the struggle to maintain
his authority against the factions, complicated by the arrival in Acre in
1277 of Roger of San Severino with letters from pope John XXI, 
44 On Edward's crusade, see above, chapter XIV, pp. 517-518, and chapter
XVI, pp. 
582—583; on the Mamluks, see below, chapter XXII, p. 749. 
  Document relatif au service militaire, II, 25 (RHC, Lois, II), p. 434;
quoted in LaMonte, Feudal Monarchy, p. 157, note I.