Bertrada of Montfort

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Bertrada von Montfort, detail from a miniature from the 14th century

Bertrada von Montfort ( French Bertrade de Montfort ; * around 1060 ; † end of 1115 or 1116 in the Abbey of Hautes-Bruyères in Saint-Rémy-l'Honoré ) was queen of from 1092 to 1108 through her marriage to Philip I France . Their marriage, which made both her and her husband bigamists , was the source of numerous difficulties in relations between France and the Holy See in Rome and plunged the French kingdom into a deep crisis.

family

Betrada was born around 1060 to Count Simon I of Montfort l'Amaury and his wife Agnes von Évreux.

In 1089 she married Fulko IV. , Count of Anjou , known as the brawler , and became his fifth wife. From this connection came Fulko V. von Anjou , the later king of Jerusalem and father of Gottfried Plantagenet , whereby Bertrada belongs to the ancestors of the Anjou-Plantagenet and thus of the English royal house.

In 1092, although she had been married to Fulko IV for three years, she entered into a second marriage with the French King Philip I. Four children arose from this connection:

  • Philipp (* 1093; † 1123), Count of Mantes, ⚭ Elisabeth of Montlhéry
  • Florus ( French Fleury ) (* 1095, July 1119 attested, † probably 1119 in Normandy), ⚭ around 1110 NN, Dame de Nangis
  • Cäcilia ( French Cécile ) (* 1097; † 1175)
  • Eustachia († 1143)

Life

Bertrada and her second husband Philip I .; Detail from a miniature from the 15th century

Already an orphan in early childhood, Bertrada grew up under the tutelage of her uncle Wilhelm von Évreux ( French Guillaume d'Évreux ). In 1089 she was married to Fulk IV, Count of Anjou. This marriage was not legitimate in the eyes of the Church, as two of Fulko's previous marriages had not been officially annulled.

In 1092, the French King Philip I fell in love with the "sensual, charming and passionate" woman. Shortly before, Philipp had rejected his first wife Bertha von Holland , allegedly because she had become too fat ( Wilhelm von Malmesbury wrote in his Gesta regum Anglorum : … quod illa praepinguis corpulentiae esset, a lecto removit… ). The king's first encounter with Bertrada came about at the time when he and Betrada's husband joined forces against Fulko's brother Gottfried . Although both Bertrada and the king were in the eyes of the Holy See with other partners, the two married in Paris on Pentecost Sunday , May 15, 1092.

How this marriage came about cannot yet be determined with certainty, as the chroniclers have left contradicting records of this event. One version describes the prehistory to the effect that Bertrada - extremely unhappy in her first marriage - turned to the king for help. Another version passed down is that Philip I had Bertrada kidnapped. In his publication Ritter, Frau und Priester, Georges Duby even assumes that this connection was expressly negotiated with Bertrada's first husband. What is certain is that Philip choice was a wise political decision, because by the ailing health of his son and heir, Ludwig was Dynasty receipt by no means assured, and Betrada had put their fertility in her first marriage to the test. In addition, Philip I was able to secure the support of an important family of the Île-de-France on the strongly threatened flank of his kingdom through this connection .

The bishop Ursio von Senlis blessed the bride and groom in the presence of various other high, church dignitaries. However, the also invited Bishop of Chartres , Ivo , stayed away from the ceremony in protest of the obvious bigamy of the two bride and groom. Instead, he turned to the Pope with a file and a complaint . His legate Hugo von Lyon excommunicated the two bigamists on October 16, 1094 at the Council of Autun . Pope Urban II , however, did not confirm this measure, but instead granted the king a postponement in his marital affair until Pentecost of the same year in March 1095. Apparently the negotiations that followed failed, so that the Pope announced the excommunication of the French king at the Synod of Clermont in November 1095. The official reason for this was that Philip and Bertrada were too closely related.

Various other councils brought no permanent change to the papal decision; on the contrary, it was reaffirmed in March 1096. In order to have his excommunication lifted, the king then promised not to have any more contact with Bertrada, so that the papal ban was lifted in July 1096 at the Council of Nîmes. However, since Bertrada and Philip I did not keep this promise, the church was forced to take tougher measures, and so Archbishop Hugo of Lyon even imposed an interdict over all of France in the spring of 1097 . It was repealed on April 24, 1098 or 1099, but the excommunication remained valid until the marriage of the two was finally recognized after the Council of Paris on December 2, 1104. At that meeting, Bertrada and her husband had publicly sworn, barefoot and only in penitential clothes, to see each other only in the presence of honorable witnesses and to refrain from unauthorized traffic in the future. While that vow was not fulfilled either, the Holy See generously overlooked it.

Although William of Malmesbury claimed that the king was ruled by Bertrada, her political influence during her time as queen is considered to be comparatively small in research. However, she played a decisive role in the fact that her half-brother Wilhelm became Bishop of Paris in 1095 . It is also attributed to her advocacy that Stephan von Garlande was appointed Bishop of Beauvais in 1100 . In Anjou she apparently tried to dispute the title of count against the rightful heir of her first husband, Gottfried , and instead of him, declare her own son Fulko to be the heir of the county . Gottfried knew how to prevent this by using guns. When he was killed in a fight against insurgent nobles in May 1106 , it was rumored that Bertrada had been involved in his murder.

After the death of Philip I in July 1108 there were disputes between the legitimate heir from Philip's first marriage, Ludwig VI. , and Bertrada's son Philipp von Mantes , who was supported by his mother. Ordericus Vitalis accuses her in his Historia Ecclesiastica of trying to have her stepson arrested by means of a forged letter during a visit to England around the year 1100. When this failed, she is said to have even tried to poison him. In fact, the relationship between Betrada and Ludwig VI. extremely tense during Philip I's lifetime from around 1097/98. After her son's defeat by the king, Bertrada retired to Fontevrault Abbey near Saumur . She later reconciled with Ludwig VI. and together with him founded the monastery of Notre-Dame-des-Hautes-Bruyères in Saint-Rémy-l'Honoré near Chartres on lands of their Wittum , to which they moved in 1115. She died there at the end of the same year or 1116 and was buried there. The monastery subsequently established itself as the burial place of the Montfort l'Amaury family.

literature

  • Christian Bouyer: Dictionnaire des Reines de France . Perrin, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-262-00789-6 , pp. 140-141.
  • Gerd Hit: The French queens. From Bertrada to Marie Antoinette (8th – 18th centuries). Pustet, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 3-7917-1530-5 , pp. 86-89.
  • Carsten Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 (= historical research . Volume 24). Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08113-5 , pp. 136-159.

Web links

Commons : Bertrada von Montfort  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b C. Bouyer: Dictionnaire des Reines de France , p. 140.
  2. ↑ a b C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , p. 159.
  3. ↑ a b Information on Betrada von Montfort on the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy website , accessed on November 20, 2012.
  4. ^ Information on Philip I on the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy website , accessed on November 20, 2012.
  5. ↑ a b c d Betrada's biography on france-pittoresque.com , accessed on November 20, 2012.
  6. ↑ the information on Floris and his wife comes from: Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln Volume XIV (1991) Plate 146
  7. ↑ C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , p. 149.
  8. ↑ Joachim Ehlers: The French kings of the Middle Ages. From Odo to Charles VIII. 888–1498 . Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-40446-4 , p. 123.
  9. ^ William of Malmesbury: Gesta regum Anglorum ( online ).
  10. ↑ Joachim Ehlers: The Capetians . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [a. a.] 2000, ISBN 3-17-014233-X , p. 86.
  11. ↑ Georges Duby: Knight, Wife and Priest. Marriage in feudal France . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1986, ISBN 3-518-57724-7 , pp. 7-28.
  12. ↑ Joachim Ehlers: The French kings of the Middle Ages. From Odo to Charles VIII. 888–1498 . Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-40446-4 , p. 126.
  13. ↑ C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , pp. 138–139.
  14. ↑ C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , p. 139.
  15. ↑ a b C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , p. 140.
  16. ↑ C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , p. 142.
  17. ↑ a b C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , p. 144.
  18. ↑ a b C. Woll: The queens of high medieval France 987–1237 / 38 , p. 143.
predecessor Office Successor
Bertha of Holland Queen of France
1092–1108 		Adelheid of Savoy
personal data
SURNAME Bertrada of Montfort
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Be de Montfort
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Queen of France
DATE OF BIRTH around 1060
DATE OF DEATH 1115 or 1116
Place of death Hautes-Bruyères Abbey , Saint-Rémy-l'Honoré