Margaret of Sicily-Aragon
Margaret of Sicily-Aragon (* 1331 in Palermo , † 1377 in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse ) was Princess of Sicily-Aragon from the house of Barcelona and by marriage, Countess Palatine near the Rhine .
Life
Margarete was the youngest daughter of King Frederick II of Sicily-Aragon (1272-1337) and his wife Eleonore , daughter of Charles II of Anjou . Princess Margarete's parents lived in Palermo, which is probably where she was born.
In 1348 Margaret of Sicily-Aragon married the widowed Count Palatine Rudolf II of the Wittelsbach family, who lived in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse.
In 1349 Rudolf II married his daughter Anna von der Pfalz (from his first marriage) to King Charles IV , one of the most important rulers of the late Middle Ages. Anna died in Prague as early as 1353. Count Palatine Rudolf II finally withdrew from government business due to increasing sickness and handed them over to his brother and successor Ruprecht I , who was able to obtain the electorate for the Palatinate in 1356. Rudolf II was nicknamed “the blind man” because he had a severe eye problem and was blind in the last year of his life.
The marriage of Count Palatine Rudolf II and Margaret of Sicily-Aragon remained childless.
Isabel of Portugal (1271–1336), her father's sister, is venerated as a saint. Her mother's brother, Ludwig von Toulouse , is also one of the saints of the Catholic Church.
Death and remembrance
In his will, Count Palatine Rudolf II ordered that the parish church of St. Aegidius in his Neustadt / Weinstrasse residence be converted into a memoria - a place of prayer and memorial - for the Wittelsbach family , and wished to be buried there.
After his death on October 4, 1353, he was buried as requested in front of the altar of the Neustadt parish church of St. Giles.
In 1356, Elector Ruprecht I founded the Liebfrauen Collegiate Stift Neustadt as a memoria for the common family based on the will of his brother Rudolf II . To this end, he had the parish church of St. Aegidius rebuilt and expanded to the east with a magnificent choir. The choir area of this new church, today's Neustadt collegiate church , was built in 1368 according to a pillar inscription.
The altar of the new church now moved a good bit to the east and the place in front of the altar of the old parish church, where Rudolf II had been buried, was now at the transition from the nave to the new choir area. At this point, in 1377, Countess Palatine Margaret of Sicily-Aragon was buried at the side of her husband Rudolf II. She had outlived him by 24 years.
Margaret of Sicily-Aragon received a magnificent, Gothic epitaph. Because of her royal origins, she is depicted with a crown on it. The tombstone is now on the rear, northern wall of the Catholic church area and is one of the sights in Neustadt. Her husband Rudolf II owned a similarly elaborate grave slab, which is only badly damaged and is also in the Catholic part of the church on the rear south wall, opposite that of his wife.
The graves of Count Palatine Rudolf and Count Palatine Margarete of Sicily-Aragon are also located in the rear area of the Catholic church part, roughly in the middle, but half of them are overbuilt by the partition wall built in 1707/1708 between the Protestant nave and the Catholic choir. In 1906 they were opened and covered with modern stone slabs, but not marked on the floor.
Around 1910, city pastor Michael Glaser (1863–1915) had four large statues of the Palatinate rulers Rudolf II and Ruprecht I, who were buried here, as well as the wives Beatrix von Berg and Margarete von Sicily-Aragon who were buried at their side . They were created by the Munich sculptor Hubert Netzer from white Kelheim limestone and are located on the north and south walls of the nave of the Catholic part of the church. The sculptures in the style of historicism are based on old representations; the two statues of women and the figure of Count Palatine Rudolf II are based on the images on their epitaphs in the collegiate church.
literature
- Lukas Grünenwald : Wittelbach monuments and annual memorials in the collegiate church to Neustadt ad H. In: Messages of the Historical Association of the Palatinate. Volume 19, 1895, pp. 129-169.
- Alban Haas : The Aegidien collegiate church in Neustadt an der Haardt. In: Festschrift to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Pfarrcäcilienverein Neustadt an der Haardt. Pfarrcäcilienverein, Neustadt an der Haardt 1933.
Web links
- Website about Margaret of Sicily-Aragon
- Website for the grave slab in the collegiate church, with various photos
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Margaret of Sicily-Aragon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Margaret of the Palatinate |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | 2nd wife of Count Palatine Rudolf II. |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1331 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Palermo |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1377 |
| Place of death | Neustadt an der Weinstrasse |