Isabella I (Jerusalem)

Wedding of Konrad von Montferrat and Isabella I (illustration from the 13th century)

Isabella I of Jerusalem (* 1170 ; † 1205 ), from the house of Château-Landon, was Queen of Jerusalem from 1192. Due to her second marriage to the Marquis Conrad of Montferrat , she was nicknamed la Marquise ("the Margravine"). She was the daughter of King Amalrich I and Maria Komnena , great niece of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I.

In 1183 she married Humfried IV of Toron in Kerak . On the wedding night the castle was attacked by Saladin's army ( siege of Kerak ). Humfried's mother, Stephanie von Milly , then sent a message to Saladin, in which she informed him about the upcoming wedding and reminded him of the common story. The chronicler Ernoul writes:

[Stephanie] sent bread and wine to Saladin, sheep and cattle in celebration of her son's wedding, reminding him that he carried her in his arms when she was a child and he was a slave in her castle. And when Saladin received these presents, he was delighted, thanked those who brought them to him, and asked where the bride and groom were; her tower was shown to him. Saladin then ordered the entire army not to direct the attacks on this tower.

In 1192 Isabella divorced Humfried against her will and married Konrad von Montferrat . Konrad had argued that her (first) marriage was invalid because of her youth; due to his marriage to Isabella, Konrad became the next male relative of the royal family and then the successor in the kingdom. He died soon afterwards under mysterious circumstances, stabbed by the assassins , while Isabella was pregnant with the future Queen Maria of Montferrat and the succession to the throne was not assured. She hid in the city of Tire , which was her largest and most secure city. She received help from Count Henry II of Champagne , a French nobleman who was a nephew of both the King of England and the King of France. His uncle Richard the Lionheart had sent him to Tire as his proxy. It is reported that the people of Tire were so captivated by his youth and attractiveness that they demanded the marriage between him and Isabella, an idea that Isabella supported. Heinrich and Isabella were married while they were pregnant. Imad al-Din al-Isfahani , an Islamic chronicler who attended the wedding, wrote:

Henry of Champagne married the margrave's wife that same night, claiming that he had the first right to the dead man's wife. She was pregnant, which didn't stop him from uniting with her, something even more disgusting than the union of the flesh. I asked one of her courtiers who would have paternity and he said, 'It will be the Queen's child.' You see the self-indulgence of these corrupt unbelievers.

Heinrich died in 1197 after falling from a window. They had two daughters Alice (* 1196) and Philippa von Champagne. During her marriage to Heinrich, it was ruled retrospectively that her marriage to Humfried was indeed not invalid, but the two did not remarry. (Humfried died in 1192.) Instead, Amalrich II of Jerusalem (also Amalrich I of Cyprus), brother of Guido von Lusignan , became her fourth husband. He died in 1205, shortly before his wife. From this marriage she had two daughters, Sibylle and Melisande von Lusignan, and a son.

Her successor was her daughter Maria von Montferrat .

Web links

• Isabella I. at medieval-genealogie.de

predecessor	Office	successor
Guido and Sibylle	Queen of Jerusalem 1192–1205	Maria