Convent of Saint Lazarus
The queen installed her sister Ioveta in the convent and lavishly endowed the abbey, making it richer than any other religious community in the kingdom.
It lost much of its estates, including Bethany itself, during the Muslim reconquests of the Latin East, and retreated to the Kingdom of Cyprus, where it faded into obscurity in the 14th century.
The village of Bethany near Jerusalem is where, according to the Gospels, Jesus performed the resurrection of Lazarus, the brother of his friends Mary and Martha.
[1] In 1138, Queen Melisende and King Fulk convinced the Latin patriarch, William of Malines, and canons to cede the church and its estates in return for the lands of Thecoe in southern Judaea.
[1] The queen wished to found an abbey to make her sister Ioveta, the youngest daughter of King Baldwin II, an abbess.
According to the chronicler William of Tyre, Melisende thought it "unseemly that the daughter of a king should be subject to some other mother in the cloister, just like one of the common people".
[5] In his Little Book of the Holy Places a pilgrim named Theoderic, who visited the abbey c. 1170, describes the site as naturally well-defended but also fortified.
[8] Melisende lavishly endowed the abbey with properties, including the city of Jericho, and furnished the building with gold, silver, and jewels.
Mayer considers the existence of two churches evidence for the abbey being a double religious community, housing both monks and nuns.
Hamilton and Jotischky consider it "highly likely" that the sisters of Bethany fled to one of these houses upon receiving news of King Guy's defeat by the Egyptian ruler Saladin at the Battle of Hattin on 15 July 1187.
[13] A significant piece of territory was returned to the kingdom by the Treaty of Jaffa in 1229 but it almost certainly did not include Bethany, which, in any case, was no longer safe for nuns.
This considerable wealth caught the attention of the Knights Hospitaller, who convinced Pope Alexander IV that they were in greater need of these resources.
[13] The pope duly decided in February 1256 to suppress the convent and transfer all its property within the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem to the Knights Hospitaller.
Taking the name Urban IV, he reversed Alexander's decision and ordered the restitution of the property to the convent of Bethany within a fortnight of his enthronement.
