Janus (1375 – 29 June 1432) was King of Cyprus and titular King of Armenian Cilicia and Jerusalem from 1398 to 1432.
Contents
Early life
Janus was born in Genoa, where his father, James I of Cyprus, was a captive. His mother, Helvis of Brunswick-Grubenhagen, named him in honor of the god Janus, the founder of Genoa according to mythological tradition.
When his father was elected king, he negotiated an agreement with the Genoese to release him to go to Cyprus, which he signed on 2 February 1383. Under that agreement, the Genoese were given new commercial privileges. However, the Genoese demanded that his father leave his son Janus in their city as a hostage. James sent a noble to Genoa, John Babin, to act as stepfather to his son. As the Cypriot historian Leontios Makhairas writes, James ordered a special tax which required the Cypriots—both nobles and commoners—to purchase an amount of salt in order to collect the money needed to release his son from Genoese captivity; this was achieved on October 1392, when Janus was 18 years old.