Byzantine

Byzantine Cyprus opens with three centuries of an ambiguous status. After the Arab raids of the 7th century the island sits on the frontier of two powers, and around 688 the emperor Justinian II and the caliph Abd al-Malik agree on something without precedent: Cyprus is declared neutral and its taxes are split evenly between Constantinople and Damascus. The arrangement holds, with interruptions, for nearly three hundred years — one of the rarest cases of shared sovereignty in medieval history.

In 965 Nikephoros Phokas returns the island to the empire for good.

Churches and wall paintings

It is now that the island acquires the look people think of as Cypriot. At Larnaca, under the emperor Leo VI, the Church of Saint Lazarus is raised over the tomb of Lazarus. The 11th century brings Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis near Kakopetria, 1105 brings Panagia Asinou, and in 1192 Panagia tou Araka is painted. This is Komnenian painting at its height, and it survived in mountain villages that neither conquerors nor rebuilding ever reached.

Monasteries and castles

Around 1100, under Alexios I Komnenos, Kykkos is founded; in 1159 the hermit Neophytos begins cutting his cell into the cliff above Paphos, the future Agios Neophytos Monastery; in 1187 Machairas appears.

Against Arab landings a chain of watch castles goes up along the Kyrenia range: Saint Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara. From their summits the whole north coast is visible, and fire signals passed from one to the next.

How it ended

In 1184 the governor Isaac Komnenos declares himself independent emperor of Cyprus. Seven years later ships of the Third Crusade are wrecked on the coast and Isaac treats the survivors badly — among them the English king’s betrothed. Richard the Lionheart lands, takes the island in a month, marries Berengaria of Navarre at Limassol and sells Cyprus to the Templars. They cannot hold it against revolt and sell it on to Guy de Lusignan.

The age of the Lusignans begins.