Konrad (Montferrat)

Konrad von Montferrat (* around 1146 ; † April 28, 1192 in Tire ) was Margrave of Montferrat , as Lord of Tire an important personality at the time of the Third Crusade and in 1192 King of Jerusalem for a short time .

family

Konrad's parents were Margrave Wilhelm V of Montferrat ( Aleramiden ) and Judith of Austria ( Babenberger ). He was a cousin of the Roman-German Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossas . Konrad's brother Boniface was the leader of the Fourth Crusade . Her brother Rainer was the son-in-law of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I , and a fourth brother, Wilhelm , the first husband of Queen Sibylle and father of King Baldwin V.

Life

In the autumn of 1186 Conrad moved to the court of the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelus in Constantinople . He took command of the imperial troops there in the spring of 1187 and put down the uprising of Alexios Branas , where he was seriously wounded. Through this act he became one of the few “Latins” among the Greeks to become a real folk hero and was therefore praised by the historian Niketas Choniates, among others . For his services Konrad became the Kaisar collected and betrothed to the emperor's sister, Theodora.

However, it did not stop Konrad in Constantinople after he learned of the capture of his father by Saladin after the battle of Hattin . He immediately traveled to the Levant in Genoese ships , reached Tire on July 14, 1187, and assumed responsibility for the defense of the city that was just besieged by Saladin. He defeated the Ayyubids in a sea battle and successfully survived Saladin's land attack. Saladin then withdrew, and Konrad now controlled the most important port, which was still in the hands of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. Because most of the Kingdom of Jerusalem - including the capital itself - was now under Saladin's control.

After this victory, Conrad no longer recognized the unsuccessful Guido von Lusignan as king of Jerusalem and denied him access to Tire. Guido then began with his remaining loyal followers to besiege the city of Acre , which had previously been conquered by Saladin. But when Guido's wife Sibylle died during the siege of Akon, Guido was no longer entitled to the throne. Conrad, however, married Sibylle's sister Isabella I in 1190 , although he was probably already married to Theodora at that time; this first marriage was presumably entered into as wrongly canonical and therefore invalid. In the meantime troops of the Third Crusade came to the aid of the besiegers in Acre. Since Guido was a vassal of the English King Richard the Lionheart , the latter supported him in his political claims, while Konrad was able to rely on the help of the French King Philip II and the German Duke Leopold V of Austria , as they were enemies with Richard.

After the conquest of Acon, Guido was first confirmed as King of Jerusalem, and Conrad as his heir. But at the beginning of April 1192, under pressure from the barons of Outremer, the Kingdom of Cyprus was transferred to Guido - or rather: he was forced to accept it - while Conrad now received the crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Konrad's rule did not last long. On April 28th, he went to dinner at the home of the Bishop of Beauvais in Tire because of a delay in preparing food at his home; but since the bishop had already eaten, Konrad turned back. On the way home, he was stabbed to death by two assassins . Many suspected Richard of instigating the murder, others Humfried IV of Toron , Isabella's first husband, and others Saladin.

progeny

From his marriage to Isabella I he left a daughter, Maria von Montferrat (* around 1192, † 1212), who became queen of Jerusalem in 1205.

literature

• Theodor Ilgen : Margrave Conrad von Montferrat , Marburg 1880 ( digitized ).
• Werner Goez : Margrave Konrad von Montferrat. In: Werner Goez: Life pictures from the Middle Ages. The time of the Ottonians, Salians and Staufers. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1998, pp. 331–341, 518–519.
• Sascha Grylicki: Conrad von Montferrat. Rise and fall of a crusader ruler, Heidelberg 2018. [1]
• David Jacoby: Conrad of Montferrat. In: Alan V. Murray (Ed.): The Crusades. To Encyclopedia. 4 volumes (paginated throughout). ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara CA u. a. 2006, ISBN 1-576-07862-0 , pp. 273f.
• Jonathan Riley-Smith :  Corrado, marchese di Monferrato. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 29:  Cordier-Corvo. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1983, pp. 381-387.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , p. 227.

Web links

Commons : Konrad von Montferrat  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Corrado di Monferrato at fmg.ac (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
Wilhelm V.	Margrave of Montferrat 1191–1192	Boniface I.
Guido ( de iure uxoris , with Sibylle )	King of Jerusalem (de iure uxoris, with Isabella I ) 1192	Heinrich I. (de iure uxoris, with Isabella I. )