Maria Komnene, Queen consort of Jerusalem
Encyclopedia
Maria Komnene or Comnena (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

: Μαρία Κομνηνή, Maria Komnēnē), (c. 1154 – 1208/1217), was the second wife of King Amalric I of Jerusalem
Amalric I of Jerusalem
Amalric I of Jerusalem was King of Jerusalem 1163–1174, and Count of Jaffa and Ascalon before his accession. Amalric was the second son of Melisende of Jerusalem and Fulk of Jerusalem...

 and mother of Queen Isabella of Jerusalem
Isabella of Jerusalem
Isabella I was Queen regnant of Jerusalem from 1190/1192 until her death. By her four marriages, she was successively Lady of Toron, Marchioness of Montferrat, Countess of Champagne and Queen of Cyprus....

. She was the daughter of John Komnenos, sometime Byzantine dux in Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, and Maria Taronitissa, a descendant of the ancient Armenian kings. Her sister Theodora
Theodora Komnene (Antioch)
Theodora Komnene was a niece of Manuel I Komnenos, Byzantine emperor, a possible daughter of John Komnenos and of Maria Taronitissa, and the second wife of Bohemond III, prince of Antioch.She was the mother of :* Constance...

 married Prince Bohemund III of Antioch
Bohemund III of Antioch
Bohemond III of Antioch , also known as the Stammerer or the Stutterer, was Prince of Antioch from 1163 to his death. He was a son of Constance of Antioch by her first husband Raymond of Poitiers...

, and her brother Alexios was briefly, in 1185, a pretender to the throne of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

.
After the annulment of his first marriage to Agnes of Courtenay
Agnes of Courtenay
Agnes of Courtenay was the daughter of Joscelin II of Courtenay by his wife Beatrice , and the mother of king Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and queen Sibylla of Jerusalem.-Dynasty:...

, Amalric was anxious to forge an alliance with Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 and asked the emperor Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos
Manuel I Komnenos was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean....

 for a bride from the imperial family. Maria was the emperor's grandniece and he bestowed upon her a rich dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...

. The marriage of Amalric and Maria was celebrated with much fanfare at Tyre, on 29 August 1167.

Maria bore him a daughter, Isabella, in 1172, and a stillborn child in 1173. On his deathbed, in 1174, Amalric left Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...

 to Maria, who became dowager queen upon his death.

In 1177, Maria married Balian of Ibelin
Balian of Ibelin
Balian of Ibelin was an important noble in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century.-Early life:Balian was the youngest son of Barisan of Ibelin, and brother of Hugh and Baldwin. His father, a knight in the County of Jaffa, had been rewarded with the lordship of Ibelin after the...

, who commanded the defense of Jerusalem against Saladin
Saladin
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...

 in 1187. She bore him at least four children:
  • Helvis of Ibelin
    Helvis of Ibelin
    Helvis of Ibelin was a daughter of Balian of Ibelin and his wife, Maria Komnene, who was the dowager Queen of Jerusalem. Helvis was a member of the House of Ibelin. She was Lady of Sidon by her first and second marriage....

    , who married (1) Reginald of Sidon
    Reginald of Sidon
    Reginald Grenier was Lord of Sidon and an important noble in the late-12th century Kingdom of Jerusalem.-Rise to fame:...

     (widower of Agnes of Courtenay
    Agnes of Courtenay
    Agnes of Courtenay was the daughter of Joscelin II of Courtenay by his wife Beatrice , and the mother of king Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and queen Sibylla of Jerusalem.-Dynasty:...

    ), and (2) Guy of Montfort
    Guy de Montfort, Lord of Sidon
    Guy de Montfort was the younger son of Simon III de Montfort and Amicia, sister of Robert FitzPernel, Earl of Leicester.-Crusade:...

  • John of Ibelin
    John of Ibelin, the Old Lord of Beirut
    John of Ibelin , called the Old Lord of Beirut, was a powerful crusader noble in the 13th century, one of the best known representatives of the influential Ibelin family...

    , Lord of Beirut
    Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
    The Crusader state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller seigneuries.-Introduction:According to the 13th century jurist John of Ibelin the four highest barons in the kingdom proper were:* the Count of Jaffa and Ascalon...

     and constable of Jerusalem
    Officers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
    There were six major officers of the kingdom of Jerusalem: the constable, the marshal, the seneschal, the chamberlain , the butler and the chancellor...

    , who married Helvis of Nephin, then Melisende of Arsur
  • Margaret, who married (1) Hugh of Tiberias (stepson of Raymond III of Tripoli
    Raymond III of Tripoli
    Raymond III of Tripoli was Count of Tripoli from 1152 to 1187 and Prince of Galilee and Tiberias in right of his wife Eschiva.-Early life:...

    ), and (2) Walter of Caesarea
  • Philip of Ibelin, bailli (regent) of Cyprus, who married Alice of Montbéliard.


Maria and Balian supported Conrad of Montferrat
Conrad of Montferrat
Conrad of Montferrat was a northern Italian nobleman, one of the major participants in the Third Crusade. He was the de facto King of Jerusalem, by marriage, from 24 November 1190, but officially elected only in 1192, days before his death...

 (uncle of the late King Baldwin V
Baldwin V of Jerusalem
Baldwin V of Jerusalem was the son of Sibylla of Jerusalem and her first husband, William of Montferrat...

) in his struggle for the crown against Guy of Lusignan
Guy of Lusignan
Guy of Lusignan was a Poitevin knight, son of Hugh VIII of the prominent Lusignan dynasty. He was king of the crusader state of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1192 by right of marriage to Sibylla of Jerusalem, and of Cyprus from 1192 to 1194...

. They arranged for Maria's daughter by Amalric, Isabella, to have her first marriage annulled so that she could marry Conrad, giving him a stronger claim to the throne. In this, Maria and Balian gained the enmity of Richard I of England
Richard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...

 and his chroniclers. The anonymous author of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi wrote of them:
Steeped in Greek filth from the cradle, she had a husband whose morals matched her own: he was cruel, she was godless; he was fickle, she was pliable; he was faithless, she was fraudulent.


As the grandmother of Alice of Champagne
Alice of Champagne
Alice of Champagne was the daughter of Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem and her third husband Henry II, Count of Champagne. Alice and her sister Philippa spent part of their life fighting for their father's homeland of Champagne, over another branch of their family...

 (Isabella's daughter by her third husband, Henry II of Champagne
Henry II of Champagne
Henry II of Champagne was count of Champagne from 1181 to 1197, and King of Jerusalem from 1192 to 1197, although he never used the title of king.- Early Life and Family :...

), Maria conducted the marriage negotiations with Cyprus in 1208 – Alice was to marry Hugh I of Cyprus
Hugh I of Cyprus
Hugh I of Cyprus succeeded to the throne of Cyprus on April 1, 1205 underage upon the death of his elderly father Amalric of Lusignan, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem...

. Blanche of Navarre
Blanca of Navarre (daughter of Sancho VI)
Blanche of Navarre was Countess-consort of Champagne, then Regent of Champagne, and finally also regent of her native kingdom of Navarre.-Family:...

, Regent and Countess of Champagne, widow of Alice's paternal uncle, provided the dowry for Alice. This is the last time Maria is mentioned, and she was certainly dead by 1217.

Sources

  • Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, edited by M. L. de Mas Latrie. La Société de l'Histoire de France, 1871.
  • La Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184-1192), edited by Margaret Ruth Morgan. L'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
    Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
    The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.-History:...

    , 1982.
  • Ambroise
    Ambroise
    Ambroise was a Norman poet and chronicler of the Third Crusade, author of a work called L'Estoire de la guerre sainte, which describes in rhyming Old French verse the adventures of Richard Coeur de Lion as a crusader...

    , The History of the Holy War, translated by Marianne Ailes. Boydell Press, 2003.
  • Chronicle of the Third Crusade, a Translation of Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, translated by Helen J. Nicholson. Ashgate, 1997.
  • Peter W. Edbury, The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation. Ashgate, 1996.
  • Edbury, Peter W. John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1997
  • Payne, Robert. The Dream and the Tomb, 1984
  • Steven Runciman
    Steven Runciman
    The Hon. Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman CH — known as Steven Runciman — was a British historian known for his work on the Middle Ages...

    , A History of the Crusades, vols. II-III. Cambridge University Press
    Cambridge University Press
    Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...

    , 1952-55.

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