Isabella of Angoulême

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Isabella of Angoulême, tomb (detail) in the Abbey of Fontevraud

Isabella von Angoulême ( French Isabelle d'Angoulême ; * around 1188; † June 4, 1246 in the Abbey of Fontevrault ) was Countess of Angoulême in her own right from 1202 and from 1200 to 1216 as the second wife of Johann Ohneland's King Wife of England . In 1220 she married Count Hugo X. von Lusignan in her second marriage .

Because of her extraordinary beauty and her historical role, according to contemporary witnesses , she is sometimes called Helena of the Middle Ages . Her life shows some parallels to the mythical figure Helena .

Life

ancestry

Isabella came from the noble family Taillefer in southwest France . She was the only child and the heiress of Count Aymar Taillefer of Angoulême († 1202) and his wife Alix von Courtenay († 1218). Through her mother, she was a great-granddaughter of the French King Louis VI.

Queen of England

Wedding with Johann

At the age of just twelve, Isabella von Angoulême was married to Hugo IX, a good twenty years her senior, in the spring of 1200 . of Lusignan , Count of La Marche, engaged. But the English King John of England , who as Duke of Aquitaine the feudal lord both of Lusignan and the counts of Angoulême was made shortly after his accession his first marriage to Isabel of Gloucester cancel and married himself on August 24, 1200 Angoulême with Isabella of Angoulême. According to some chroniclers, Johann is said to have taken this step out of love at first sight for the 20 years younger girl. The marriage probably took place primarily for political reasons. Isabella's father owned a rich and strategically important county between Bordeaux and Poitiers , both of which belonged to the English king. By marrying Isabella, heiress of Angoulême, Hugo IX would have. von Lusignan, to whom Johann had recently granted the neighboring county of La Marche , acquired a closed territory, which would have jeopardized the position of the Plantagenet kings. To prevent this, Johann claimed Isabella himself. After their wedding, Johann and his young wife traveled to Chinon and on to England, where Isabella was crowned Queen on October 8, 1200 by Archbishop Hubert Walter in Westminster Abbey in London . In May 1201 she accompanied Johann on a trip to Normandy .

Quarrel with France

However, the Lusignan family had meanwhile objected to Isabella's marriage and accused Johann of stealing the bride. Seeking help, she turned to the French King Philip II , who in turn was the liege lord of King John for his French possessions, which also included Aquitaine. Philip II spent his entire reign trying to break the power of the Plantagenets and their Angevin Empire in France. However, during the lifetime of King Richard the Lionheart , Johann's older brother, he was inferior. The lawsuit brought by the Lusignans offered Philip II the opportunity to take legal action against the Plantagenets. First, a compromise was found at a personal meeting between the French and English kings. But now Johann wanted hard against his stubborn vassal Hugo IX. intervene from Lusignan, whereupon this turned again to Philip II. When Johann ignored a summons before the court court summoned by the French king in Paris in the spring of 1202 , he was declared forfeited in a default judgment of all fiefdoms in France. Philip II now had John's French possessions attacked. In this Franco-English war , Johann lost Normandy and a large part of his French possessions by 1204. John's Aquitanian vassals also renounced him and submitted to the French king.

Political importance

As a morning gift, the king promised his wife possessions in Anjou and Poitou , including the lords of Niort , Saintes and six other cities. After the death of John's mother Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1204, he promised Isabella his mother's Wittum , the possessions in Normandy, which was lost shortly thereafter, but also the cities of Exeter , Wilton , Ilchester and Malmesbury , the Honor of Berkhamstead and goods at Waltham in Essex as well which included County Rutland with Rockingham Castle . In fact, these properties remained under his control during Johann's lifetime. The costs of her court were covered by irregular payments from the king, plus the income from the Queen's gold , an allowance that the crown was allowed to raise on fines. Johann Ohneland is said to have spent so much time with his beautiful young wife in the beginning that he neglected state affairs. After 1205, Isabella accompanied Johann, who traveled through his empire without a permanent seat of government, only rarely. From her marriage to Johann she gave birth to five children from 1207, all of whom reached adulthood. Although some contemporary chroniclers report mutual accusations and infidelity between Johann and Isabella, there is no evidence of infidelity on her part. Johann himself had other lovers, and he trusted Isabella until his death. In 1214 she accompanied Johann to Poitou, where the king was able to assert his father-in-law's inheritance. During the Barons' First War in England that followed, she remained in relative safety in the west of England.

Widowhood

After Johann's death in October 1216, Isabella finally got access to her possessions, which she now received as Wittum. For the salvation of her late husband's souls, she made foundations to the monasteries of Malmesbury and St Nicholas in Exeter. Until her death, she continued to hold the title Queen of England and used her royal seal, but apparently she was not involved in the Regency Council that ran the government for her underage son Henry . In addition, she was denied possession of Rockingham and Exeter Castle , which she saw as part of her possessions, as well as the payment of 3,500 marks which the king had promised her. Thereupon she left England in July 1217 without her children and returned to south-west France. There she was able to enforce her rule in her inherited county of Angoulême against the resistance of the administrative officials appointed by her deceased husband in 1214 until 1220.

Countess of Lusignan

Wedding with Hugo X. von Lusignan

Without as required to obtain the consent of the British government, Isabella married in April or May 1220 the oldest son of her former fiance, Hugo X of Lusignan , Count of La Marche, in the meantime with their own eldest daughter from his first marriage, Johanna been, engaged was. For this Johanna became the wife of the Scottish King Alexander II in 1221. Although she suffered from the infidelity of her second husband, Isabella bore him nine children, of which her eldest son was Hugo XI. should follow his father as Count of La Marche and Angoulême in 1249.

War with england

The English Regency Council had had no means of preventing the queen widow's marriage. When Count Hugo demanded not only Niort and Saintes in France, but also the English possessions of their Wittum on behalf of his wife, the English government had to grant him the income from these possessions. Nevertheless, a dispute soon arose over the property. As early as 1221, Isabella's English possessions were briefly occupied and confiscated during the Franco-English War in June 1224, when Count Hugo had allied himself with the French King Louis VIII and thus enabled the French to gain access to the Poitou. It was only after the end of the war in 1226 that Count Hugo reconciled himself with the English government. During the unsuccessful French campaign of Henry III. He saw his mother for the first time in 1230 after more than twelve years.

Dispute with the French royal family

Isabella, who found it difficult to come to terms with her descent in the aristocratic hierarchy from the rank of queen to that of a mere countess, had a deep hatred of the French queen widow Blanka of Castile . Alfons of Poitiers , the younger brother of King Louis IX. , was enfeoffed on June 24, 1241 on a court day in Saumur with the county of Poitou and other territories. In the following July Hugo X. von Lusignan and his wife Alfons had in Poitiers in the presence of Louis IX. to swear fidelity. On this occasion, Isabella felt publicly snubbed by the king and especially the queen widow Blanka. When, therefore, Hugo X. subsequently Louis IX. and Alfons courteously invited Lusignan to his castle , Isabella bitterly reproached her husband for this gesture of submission after the guests had left. On their initiative it should go back that Hugo X. made preparations for a revolt against the French king and for this purpose an alliance with Henry III. of England, which Count Raymond VII of Toulouse and other disaffected magnates of Poitous also joined. In any case, a decisive factor was that the supremacy of the French crown in Poitou was felt to be more oppressive than that formerly exercised by the Plantagenets.

Isabella's grave in Fontevrault

At Christmas 1241, Hugo X. and Isabella traveled to the court of Alfonso von Poitiers, denounced the feudal oath with sharp words and paved their way through Alfonso troops with their soldiers. A few months later the English king crossed over to France and was received by his mother Isabella on May 13, 1242 when he landed in Royan . Meanwhile, Louis IX advanced. approached with his armed forces. A report by the French chronicler Guillaume de Nangis , according to which Isabella is said to have bribed two cooks to poison the French king, can probably be put in this period . After the discovery of their plot, the cooks confessed and were hanged. When Isabella found out that her assassination attempt had failed, she became so angry that she wanted to stab herself first and, after the knife was stolen from her, was seriously angry for a long time.

Break with Heinrich III.

Henry III. of England was defeated by the French on July 21, 1242 in the Battle of Taillebourg and suffered another defeat at Saintes the next day, together with Hugo X of Lusignan . The English king then reproached the allied Count of La Marche for having promised more effective military support, but Hugo X. rejected the accusation, claiming that it was not he but his wife who initiated the anti-French alliance. On July 26th Hugo X went with Isabella and his children to Ludwig IX. and humbly asked for forgiveness, which was granted to him. Also left in the lurch by other allies, Heinrich III. however, returned to England.

Political withdrawal and legacy

The failure of his ambitions led Hugo von Lusignan to divide his possessions among his sons in 1243. Isabella retired to Fontevrault Abbey , which was closely related to her first husband's family. She died there in 1246 at the age of about 58. On her deathbed, she entered the monastery as a nun. She was first buried in the chapter house. Although her relationship with her son Heinrich III. was burdened by her flight from England in 1220 and the betrayal of her husband in 1242, the latter mourned her death. He had chapels built in Malmesbury and Winchester in her memory and made foundations in her favor. At the invitation of the king, several of their children from their second marriage traveled to England in 1247, where their half-brother received them warmly and gave them lands and other gifts. Especially in the 1250s they were notorious as Lusignans among their opponents in England. In 1254 Heinrich III visited Fontevrault, where he personally supervised the reburial of his mother's body in the abbey church. There she was buried again next to the sarcophagi of his ancestors Heinrich II Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine . Her grave portrait, a reclining figure made as a wooden sculpture, can still be viewed in the abbey church today.

ancestors

Vulgrin II of Angoulême
 
 Pontia dela Marche de la Marche
 
 Raymond I of Turenne
 
 Mathilde du Perche
 
 Louis VI. from France
 
 Adelheid by Maurienne
 
 Rainald of Courtenay
 
 Helvis of Donjon
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 William VI. Taillefer from Angoulême
 
 
 
 
 
 Margaret of Turenne
 
 
 
 
 
 Peter I of Courtenay
 
 
 
 
 
 Elisabeth of Courtenay
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Aymar Taillefer from Angoulême
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alix of Courtenay
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Isabella of Angoulême
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

progeny

From Isabella's first marriage to King John of England , she had five children:

  1. ⚭ 1224 William Marshal , Earl of Pembroke ( House Marshal )
  2. ⚭ 1238 Simon de Montfort , Earl of Leicester ( House of Montfort-l'Amaury )

Isabella's second marriage to Hugo X. von Lusignan has the following children:

  1. ⚭ Maurice IV. , Lord of Craon
  2. ⚭ 1251 Geoffrey VI. de Rançon, Lord of Taillebourg , Seneschal of Poitou
  • Marguerite († October 22, 1288)
  1. ⚭ 1243 Raymond VII , count of Toulouse
  2. ⚭ Aimery IX. , Vice Count of Thouars
  3. ⚭ Geoffrey V. de Châteaubriand

literature

Web links

Commons : Isabella von Angoulême  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Nicholas Vincent: Isabella of Angoulême. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 29. 2004, pp. 417-418, here p. 418.
  2. ^ Régine Pernoud : ruler in turbulent times. Blanca of Castile, Queen of France (= dtv. 30359). Translated from the French by Sybille A. Rott-Illfeld. 4th edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-30359-X , p. 25.
  3. ^ Nicholas Vincent: Isabella of Angoulême. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 29. 2004, pp. 417-418, here p. 417.
  4. ^ Karl-Friedrich Krieger : History of England from the beginnings to the 15th century (= History of England. Vol. 1). 2nd, revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-33004-5 , p. 140 ff.
  5. ^ Régine Pernoud: ruler in turbulent times. Blanca of Castile, Queen of France (= dtv. 30359). Translated from the French by Sybille A. Rott-Illfeld. 4th edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-30359-X , pp. 218-226.
predecessor Office Successor
Berengaria of Navarre Queen Consort of England
1200–1216 		Eleanor of Provence
personal data
SURNAME Isabella of Angoulême
SHORT DESCRIPTION Countess of Angoulême and Queen of England
DATE OF BIRTH around 1187
DATE OF DEATH June 4, 1246
PLACE OF DEATH Fontevrault Abbey