Mary of Antioch
Maria of Antioch (* 1145 ; † August 27, 1183 ) was a princess of Antioch and the second wife of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus . As the latter, she carried the title of Empress of Byzantium from 1160 to 1180 under the coronation name Xene . In the years 1180 to 1183 she was the "first Latin woman" regent of the Byzantine Empire for her underage son Alexios II Comnenus († 1183).
origin
Maria was the daughter of Raymond of Poitiers and Constance of Antioch .
On her father's side, she came from the House of Auvergne-Poitou , which as Count of Poitou and Dukes of Aquitaine had been one of the most important fiefs of the kings of France since the 10th century . Your grandfather, Duke Wilhelm IX. of Aquitaine , the first known troubadour , had participated in the 1101 crusade .
Her father was called to the Holy Land by Fulk of Anjou , King of Jerusalem (r. 1131–1144) to rule in an exposed Crusader state - the Principality of Antioch - by marrying Constanze, the ten year old heir to the Principality take over. Through his marriage, Raimund was prince of Antioch from 1136 to 1149 .
Her mother was the heir to Bohemond II († 1130), Prince of Antioch and Taranto from the Norman house of Hauteville , and his wife Alice von Rethel , a daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem .
On her father's side, Maria was a cousin of Eleanor of Aquitaine , who reached the Principality of Antioch on March 19, 1148 with her husband, King Louis VII of France , taking part in the Second Crusade . She will not have paid too much attention to her then three-year-old cousin Mary of Antioch. Her affection for her uncle, Maria's father, Raimund von Poitiers - was to have completely unforeseeable consequences: the final loss of the county of Edessa, her divorce from King Louis VII, the rise of the Plantagenet family through her marriage to Henry II, King of England (r. 1154–1189) and the centuries-old struggle between France and England for their inheritance in south-west France.
Mary was also closely related to the kings of Jerusalem as she was a niece of Baldwin III. and Amalrich I , who ruled from 1144 to 1162 and 1163 to 1174, respectively.
Life
Childhood in Antioch
The childhood of the young princess was not easy. The Principality of Antioch was a crusader state founded in 1099, whose capital of the same name on the Orontes River had been a large city since ancient times and was surrounded by mighty walls with over 400 towers. The new state, however, was threatened from all sides: from the Turkish sultanate of the Rum Seljuks from their rivals, the Turkmen Danischmends - who fell against Prince Bohemond II of Antioch in 1130 - from the Turkmen dynasty of the Zengids - which from 1128 parts of Iraq ( Mosul ) and Syria ( Aleppo and later Damascus ) ruled - and from the Kurdish dynasty of the Ayyubids - who took over the role of the Zengids after 1174. But there were also tensions and conflicts with its Christian neighbors such as the Principality of Lesser Armenia and the Byzantine Empire . On the one hand, because the princes of Antioch saw themselves as sovereign, although they had formally entered into a fiefdom dependency from Byzantium and, on the other hand, because there were permanent religious rivalries between the local Orthodox population and the "Latins", i. i.e., the Roman Catholic Crusaders. The latter felt more connected to the Kingdom of Jerusalem , whose king in Antioch had to take over protective functions again and again.
A year before the birth of Mary of Antioch, the situation became precarious as an important bulwark of the principality, the fiefdom of Edessa , was conquered in 1144 by Zengi , the Atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo. A shock that prompted the Second Crusade, but which did not achieve any significant conquests in the Holy Land.
Maria lost her father in childhood. He had fought several battles against the then main enemy of the Christian states, Nur ad-Din Atabeg of Aleppo - the son of Zengi - but was surprised by him on June 28, 1149 in his field camp on the Inab plain. His army was destroyed in the following battle of Inab and he himself was killed by its Kurdish general Schirkuh , Saladin's uncle .
Maria's mother, Konstanze, was a widow at the age of 22 and again the sole princess of Antioch. Since her eldest son Bohemond III. ("The Stammler") was only five years old, her uncle, King Baldwin III , took over in view of the threatening situation . of Jerusalem , the reign of the principality and urged Constanze to remarry. However, she refused the high-ranking applicants proposed to her and, after some hesitation, decided in 1153 to marry the poor French crusader Rainald von Chatillon . This made him Prince of Antioch - and the stepfather of Princess Maria, then eight years old.
Maria's youth was therefore shaped by her stepfather Rainald von Chatillon, who was drastically different from her father. Rainald was probably one of the most negative representatives of the Crusaders : he was a daring knight, but at the same time greedy, ruthless, violent and devoid of any religious or moral motivation. His behavior contributed significantly to the problems of the Crusader states and ultimately to the loss of large parts of the Holy Land, including Jerusalem, to the Muslims in 1187 .
In Antioch he blackmailed and abused the rich and not exactly morally strict Latin patriarch of Antiochiena Aimerich von Limoges in order to finance an attack on Cyprus, where he captured the governor, Johannes Dukas Komnenos , and plundered the island. Through this attack he provoked his - previously completely ignored - sovereign, Emperor Manuel I of Byzantium , with the fact that the governor was his nephew and brother of Theodora Komnena, who with Heinrich II. Jasomirgott , the first Duke of Austria and half-brother of Roman-German king , Konrad III. was married. Since Emperor Manuel then moved to Antioch with an army, Raimund saw no other option than to submit. In this way he provided the citizens of Antioch - and his stepdaughter Maria - with a spectacular spectacle: In the autumn of 1158, Emperor Manuel I rode into Antioch with a splendid entourage, where Raimund, barefoot and in his shirtless shirt, stood at his feet in front of the assembled onlookers threw. Only after hours of disregard was he granted a pardon under strict conditions.
During a later raid into the Anti-Taurus , Rainald was captured in 1160 by Majd ad-Din, the governor of Nur ad-Din in Aleppo. He spent the next fifteen years in a dungeon in Aleppo as Nur ad-Din stubbornly refused to release such a dangerous man for ransom.
In the absence of Raimund, Maria's mother, Princess Konstanze, again claimed power. However, the population supported Maria's eldest brother, the 15-year-old Bohemond III. This was therefore by King Baldwin III. of Jerusalem, as his guardian, appointed prince, and at the same time the reign was transferred to a bitter opponent of Raimund, namely the patriarch of Antioch, Aimeric of Limoges, who had been mistreated by him. Konstanze protested at the court of Constantinople against this disempowerment, as an encroachment on Byzantine sovereign rights, since Antioch was a Byzantine fief and not one of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Empress of Byzantium
A decisive turning point in Maria's life began at the end of 1159 with the death of Empress Irene ( Bertha von Sulzbach ), the first wife of Emperor Manuel I of Byzantium (ruled 1143–1180). Manuel I wanted to bind the Latin East closer to himself, so in 1160 he sent an embassy to Jerusalem under the direction of his nephew, the "Megas Dux" Johannes Kontostephanos (son of his sister Anna Komnena with Stephanos Kontostephanos), and asked King Baldwin III to to name marriageable princesses from the crusader states for his second marriage. Baldwin named two of his cousins to him: Maria of Antioch and Melisende of Tripoli , daughter of Count Raymond II of Tripoli . Both were famous for their beauty. After some hesitation, the emperor chose Maria. Be it because of Raimund of Tripoli 's striving for power , Melisende' s brother, be it because of rumors about her illegitimate parentage or be it to better control the principality of Antioch, which was a Byzantine fief.
Melisende's brother, Count Raimund III, was furious. He demanded that he be reimbursed for the expense of the trousseau. When this was rejected, he decided to take revenge for this disgrace by converting the twelve galleys built and decorated for his sister's wedding into warships and using them to raid Cyprus. Melisende did not survive this rejection for long, she withered and died soon after 1161. However, she lived on in the romantic poems of the troubadours as a model of the "Princesse lointaine".
Since the choice fell on Mary, a high-ranking imperial embassy arrived in Antioch, led by a cousin of the emperor, the "Megas Dux" Alexios Bryennios Komnenos († after 1156; son of Anna Komnena and the pretender to the throne Nikephoros Bryennios ) and of the Prefect of Constantinople Johannes Kamateros. Not only did she negotiate the marriage contract, but she also confirmed Maria's mother, Constanze, as Princess of Antioch.
Mary, who was described by contemporaries as particularly lovely, began her journey to Constantinople in September 1161 in St. Simeon , the port of Antioch. She was happy in two respects: because as Empress of Byzantium she would take a place on the “highest throne of Christendom”, but also because she could not have guessed what fate would await her there. On December 25, 1161, with all the pomp that Constantinople had to offer, she was married in the church of Hagia Sophia by three patriarchs , Luke Chrysoberges of Constantinople, Sophronios of Alexandria and titular Patriarch Athanasios of Antioch.
The following year, Mary's brother Bohemond III was. of legal age and should therefore take over the government of the principality. His mother, Princess Konstanze, however, was not ready to surrender power, so she asked the Byzantine governor of Cilicia , Konstantin Kalamanos (from the Hungarian royal house of the Arpades ) for support. When this became known, there was a popular uprising, the Bohemond III. 1162 finally secured the rule, while Constanze was sent into exile and died soon afterwards. Emperor Manuel I then invited Mary's younger brother, Baldwin of Antioch and later also her half-siblings Rainald (II.) And Alix von Chatillon to Constantinople, either to enable Mary to live with her siblings or to hold them hostage use.
Mary's homeland, the imperial principality of Antioch, was close to falling into the hands of Muslims in 1164. Only ad-Din besieged the key fortress of Harenc with a large army . Her brother, Prince Bohemond III. rushed to the call for help from his vassal, Reinhold von Saint-Valerie , Lord of Harenc, and caused Nur ad-Din to lift the siege. Encouraged by this, he tried to attack his army with his inadequate troops. However, he was defeated on August 10, 1164 in the Battle of Artah , by Nur ad-Din and together with Count Raimund III. captured by Tripoli and the general of the Byzantine forces, Konstantin Kalamanos, and imprisoned in Aleppo, where he met his stepfather, Rainald of Chatillon, in prison. Antioch was therefore without princes and without defense. However, only ad-Din renounced the conquest, as he preferred a small principality as a neighbor to the Byzantine Empire, which would undoubtedly have tried to recapture Antioch - the home of the empress.
Maria immediately tried to get her brother released. Since the latter could not raise the required high ransom, she persuaded her husband, Emperor Manuel I, to pay it. On this occasion, she was able to see her brother again, as he visited Constantinople after his temporary release to meet her - and to ask his brother-in-law for the ransom. Emperor Manuel's sympathies for the “Latin” world, which seemed to him to be more progressive, were confirmed by Manuel I's marriage with Maria of Antioch, and probably also strengthened, since it too may have contributed to the “westernism” of imperial politics.
It would be obvious, but it cannot be proven, that Maria participated in a remarkable proposal that Emperor Manuel I gave to Pope Alexander III in 1166 . , in view of which disputes with Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa , transmitted: He was ready to make all concessions in the area of religion that would be suitable to overcome the great oriental schism between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church that has existed since 1054 and the Pope also paid a high level of financial support. This provided that the Pope would also transfer the western imperial crown to him. Because this would have restored the long-lost old unity of the Roman Empire. The proposal was shaped by visionary wishful thinking, but entirely unrealistic. Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa was firmly in the saddle and the schism in the church was already far too deep and too emotional to disappear with the stroke of a pen. At the same time, Emperor Manuel I was not popular in the West because of the "faithlessness" of the Greeks during the Crusades, and also because it was believed that he intended to bring Syria and Palestine under his control - and thus under that of the Orthodox Church. In Constantinople, too, he was unpopular because of his obvious sympathies for the “Latin” way of life. The attempt to "annex" the Orthodox Church to Rome would have cost him the throne.
Under the influence of Mary, the connections between Byzantium and the Crusader states were further promoted: Shortly after the capture of her brother, Bohemond III. of Antioch sent her uncle, the new King Amalrich I of Jerusalem (r. 1163-1174) in 1164 an embassy to Emperor Manuel I with the desire to marry an imperial princess and to conclude an alliance to attack Egypt. Since Emperor Manuel I and Maria had no children and the only daughter of Manuel from his first marriage Maria Komnena with the Hungarian Prince Béla III. was betrothed by Hungary , who was considered the Byzantine heir to the throne since 1163 as "Despotes Alexios", only an imperial niece was considered. After two years, the choice finally fell on Maria Komnena (* 1154; † before 1217), a daughter of Johannes Dukas Komnenos , Dux of Cyprus (r. 1155–1176), a nephew of Emperor Manuel. It is noteworthy that Johannes Dukas Komnenos was the Byzantine governor of Cyprus, whom Maria's stepfather Rainald defeated and captured during his attack on Cyprus in 1157 in order to plunder the island. The marriage took place on August 29, 1167 with great pomp in the Cathedral of Tire and led to negotiations for a joint action against Egypt.
Maria had an even more personal interest in the marriage of her brother, Prince Boemund III, in 1175. of Antioch with Theodora Komnena, sister of the wife of King Amalrich I of Jerusalem just mentioned.
The following years until 1175 were good times for Maria. In 1169 she had the longed-for heir to the throne, Alexios II Comnenus . On March 10, 1171, there was a reunion with her uncle, King Amalrich I of Jerusalem, who came to Constantinople with a large entourage - including the Grand Master of the Templar Order , Philip of Milly - and there, among other things, a joint attack on Egypt ( not preserved) signed a treaty granting Byzantium some kind of sovereignty over the Kingdom of Jerusalem. At the same time Manuel managed to keep the expansion of the Seljuks under control and to expand his sphere of influence in Hungary and Italy in the west.
After Nur ad-Din's death in 1175, her stepfather, Rainald von Chatillon, who - meanwhile a widower - shortly afterwards married Stephanie von Milly , daughter of the Grand Master of the Templar Order Philip of Milly and heiress of the important rule Oultrejordain , who thus became Mary's stepmother became.
A drastic setback, however, was the catastrophic battle of Myriokephalon on September 17, 1176, when the huge imperial army was defeated in a bottleneck by the troops of Kilij Arslan II , the Sultan of the Rum Seljuks , and thus lost its ability to stay in Syria forever to intervene and impose his will on Antioch.
Shortly before Manuel I's death, the Latin element was further strengthened, as Maria's son, Alexios II. Komnenos, the heir of the emperor, on March 2, 1180 with the nine-year-old Princess Agnes of France , a daughter of King Ludwig VII. And Adela of Champagne was married, who then took the name Anna.
First Latin ruler of Byzantium
Emperor Manuel I died on September 24, 1180. Since his heir, Emperor Alexios II Komnenos, was only eleven years old, according to tradition, Maria took over the reign as the emperor's mother. She was the first "Latin" ruler of the Byzantine Empire.
Your task was by no means easy: he left behind an incomplete work for Emperor Manuel I. His ambition to become the universal ruler of Christianity had led him to adventures in Hungary and Italy, through which he was able to expand his sphere of influence in the west and partly in the east. However, through the many wars and the granting of ruinous concessions to the western trading powers, he ruined the financial basis of Byzantine power. The heavy defeat in the Battle of Myriokephalon had also irreparably damaged the second mainstay of Byzantine power, the armed forces. In addition, Manuel had alienated large parts of the population due to his one-sided orientation towards the Latin way of life. This was even more true of Mary of Antioch, who was herself Latin and, during her reign, relied on the Latin states for foreign policy and internally on the western merchants from Venice , Pisa and Genoa , who in Byzantium envied them for their privileges and for their arrogance were hated. The countless assaults and massacres committed by the Crusaders in Byzantium were also unforgotten.
As her advisor - and, as many believed, as a lover - Maria chose a nephew of her husband, the Protosebastos Alexios Komnenos , a brother of the above-mentioned Johannes Dukas Komnenos, Dux of Cyprus, who shared her “Latin” sympathies, unreasonable and arrogant and therefore was very unpopular.
Deposition and death
It did not take long before a strong opposition formed in Constantinople, which gathered around Mary's stepdaughter, the “purple-born” Princess Maria Komnena, and her husband, the “Caesar” Rainer von Montferrat . Their conspiracy to murder their favorite failed, but Maria was forced to pardon the conspirators. In her distress, Maria called her husband's son-in-law, King Béla III. of Hungary to help, while the opposition called on a cousin of their husband, Andronikos I Komnenus , an aging but legendary war hero and seducer who had never buried his ambitions for the throne. In August 1182 he marched through Asia Minor with a growing army. As Andronikos approached the Bosporus , the pent-up hatred of the population against the supremacy of the "Latins" was released in the form of pogroms against all Catholic residents and especially against the Italian merchants, with all those who could not escape in time fell victim to massacres.
In Constantinople, Andronikos I was crowned co-emperor next to his youthful nephew Alexios II Komnenos on May 16, 1182, took over actual power and immediately devoted himself to eliminating possible rivals: the empress's favorite and advisor, Alexios Komnenos, was imprisoned thrown and cruelly blinded.
Mary was deposed and sentenced to death by strangling. Her fourteen-year-old son was forced to personally sign the death warrant. On August 27, 1182, she was killed by the Hetaireiarch Konstantinus Tripsychos and her corpse was thrown into the sea.
Andronikos I did not even stop at the leaders of the revolt who had brought him to power: Mary's half-sister, the "purple-born" Princess Maria Komnena and her husband died suddenly in the summer of 1182, presumably poisoned on his behalf. As if that weren't enough, Andronikos had the youthful Emperor Alexios II Komnenus strangled at the end of 1183, married his twelve-year-old widow, Empress Anna (Agnes of France) at the age of sixty, and raised his son from his first marriage, Johannes, to be co-emperor.
Initially at least an able regent, he quickly became a cruel oppressor, so that he was finally arrested by the angry crowd, tortured and torn to pieces by the mob on September 12, 1185.
literature
- Jean-Claude Cheynet: Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (= Publications de la Sorbonne. Series Byzantina Sorbonensia. Vol. 9). Reimpression. Publications de la Sorbonne Center de Recherches d'Histoire et de Civilization Byzantines, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-85944-168-5 , pp. 110–111 No. 150, pp. 114–115 No. 156.
- Steven Runciman: History of the Crusades . 7th edition, dtv-Verlag, Munich 1997.
- Jan – Louis van Dieten (Ed.): Niketas Choniates , Historia . Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 11. Berlin / New York 1975.
- John Julius Norwich: Bisanzio Splendore e Decadenza di un Impero , Arnoldo Mondatori Editore, Milan 2000 (Original title: A Short History of Byzantium , 1997).
Web link
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 657.
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 664.
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 665.
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 669.
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 674.
- ^ John J. Norwich, Bisanzio Splendore e Decadenza di un Impero , p. 316.
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 680.
- ↑ Detlev Schwennike, European Family Tables New Series, Volume II, Plate 176
- ^ John J. Norwich, Bisanzio Splendore e Decadenza di un Impero , p. 316
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 715.
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 728.
- ↑ Detlev Schwennike, European Family Tables Volume II, Plate 177, Verlag Stargardt, Marburg, 1984
- ↑ Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades , p. 730.
| predecessor | Office | Successor |
|---|---|---|
| Bertha von Sulzbach |
Empress of Byzantium 1160–1180 |
Agnes of France |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mary of Antioch |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Xene (name as Empress) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Princess of Antioch, Empress of Byzantium |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1145 |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 27, 1183 |