Alice of Antioch

Alice of Antioch (also called Haalis, Halis or Adelicia) (* around 1110 , † after 1137 in Latakia ) was Princess of Antioch through her marriage to Bohemond II of Antioch . She was the second daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Morphia of Melitene .

Since Bohemond I's death in 1112, his principality Antioch was administered by regents for the underage son Bohemond II, who was staying in Italy. After the regent Roger of Salerno fell in the battle of Ager Sanguinis against the Muslims in 1119 , King Baldwin II took over the rule of the principality. In 1126 the now 18-year-old Bohemond II appeared in the Orient to take up his inheritance. Baldwin handed over the principality to him, the government of which had claimed him heavily in recent years. In return, the young prince married Baldwin's daughter Alice.

In 1131 Bohemond was killed in the battle with the Danischmenden and Baldwin returned to Antioch to take the reign again, but Alice claimed the city for herself. She tried to establish an alliance with Zengi , the Seljuk ruler of Mosul and Aleppo by offering to marry one of her daughters to one of his sons. However, Alice's messenger was captured, tortured and executed by Baldwin on the way to Zengi. Alice denied Baldwin entry to Antioch, but some of the Antiochene nobles opened the gates to Baldwin's representatives, Fulko V of Anjou (Alice's brother-in-law) and Joscelin I of Edessa . Alice initially fled to the citadel , but eventually relied on the mercy of her father and became reconciled with him. She was expelled from Antioch, but was allowed to keep Latakia and Jabala for herself, the cities that had been her dowry for her marriage to Bohemond. Baldwin left Antioch under the government of Joscelin, who was to rule in place of Alice and Bohemond's young daughter Constanze .

Baldwin also died in 1131. His eldest daughter, Melisende , and her husband Fulko of Anjou followed him in Jerusalem . Joscelin also died soon and Alice tried again to get control of Antioch and thus prevent her daughter from taking over rule. The Antiochene nobles united with Fulk, Alice with the other two Crusader states, Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin's son, Joscelin II of Edessa . Pons forbade Fulk to pass through the county of Tripoli and therefore Fulk had to reach Antioch by sea. Pons and Joscelin may fear that Fulko was trying to take advantage of Jerusalem's suzerainty over the northern states, although it was also rumored that Alice had simply bribed them. Fulko and Pons fought a battle near Rugia , but in the end they made peace. Fulko restored the reign of Antioch by placing the principality under the control of Rainald Masoier , Lord of Margat .

Around 1135 Alice wanted to take over Antioch again by allying herself with the Byzantine Empire. For this purpose she wanted to marry her daughter Konstanze to the future ruler Manuel I Komnenos . Some of the aristocrats in the principality rejected the connection with Byzantium and secretly planned a marriage of Konstanze with Raimund von Poitiers . The patriarch, Ralf von Domfront , made Alice believe that Raimund would come to marry her himself. However, on his arrival in 1136 he secretly married Raimund to Konstanze, who was only ten years old.

Alice was humiliated and left Antioch, where she never returned. She died in Latakia, the date of her death is unknown. One of her sisters, Hodierna , married Raimund of Tripoli and Ioveta became abbess of the monastery of St. Lazarus in Bethany . Her daughter Konstanze married Rainald von Chatillon after the death of Raimund von Poitiers .

swell

• William of Tire : Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum .

literature

• Thomas Asbridge : Alice of Antioch. A Case Study of Female Power in the Twelfth Century. In: The Experience of Crusading. (Presented to Jonathan Riley-Smith to his Sixty-Fifth Birthday). Volume 2: Peter Edbury, Jonathan Phillips (Eds.): Defining the Crusader Kingdom. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2003, ISBN 0-521-78151-5 , pp. 29-47.