Marie of Champagne (Empress)

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Marie of Champagne (* around 1174 ; † August 29, 1204 in Akkon ) was a Countess of Flanders and Latin Empress of Constantinople from the House of Blois .

She was a daughter of Count Henry I of Champagne and Marie de France , a daughter of King Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine .

She married Count Balduin IX on January 6, 1186 . of Flanders and Hainaut . Two daughters resulted from this marriage:

Fourth crusade

Like her husband, Mary participated in the Fourth Crusade . However, she did not travel in the wake of her husband, but went to Marseilles , where a Flemish fleet under Johann von Nesle was already at anchor. With her she traveled directly to the Holy Land , which she reached in the spring of 1203.

There, in Acre in 1204, Prince Bohemond IV of Antioch surprisingly paid homage as his new liege. Maria and her companions had not yet been informed that her husband had been elected as the new Latin Emperor of the Eastern Empire after the conquest of Constantinople in May 1204. The Prince of Antioch recognized him as his new overlord, which is why he paid homage to the newly crowned Empress Maria, on behalf of her husband. This act of Bohemond, however, was of no great significance for the Latin Empire. It was above all a demonstration of the prince's independence from the Pope, who in previous years had tried to assert his claim to suzerainty over Antioch.

Maria herself died after this episode after a short illness, without ever having entered her empire.

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predecessor Office Successor
Empress of Byzantium Euphrosyne (Byzantium) and her daughter Eudokia Doukaina Latin Empire
May 1204 to August 29, 1204 		Mary of Bulgaria
personal data
SURNAME Marie of Champagne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Countess of Flanders and Latin Empress of Constantinople
DATE OF BIRTH around 1174
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1204
Place of death Acre