Wilhelm II (Sicily)

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Dedication mosaic of Monreale
From the cloister of Monreale: King Wilhelm hands over the church to the Blessed Mother
Wilhelm's initiation in diploma for Monreale 1180
Miniature from 1196: a doctor performing urination and an astrologer at the bedside of the sick Wilhelm
The King's Renaissance sarcophagus

William II of Sicily (also William the Good , not contemporary; * around 1153 ; † November 18, 1189 in Palermo ) was the Norman King of Sicily from 1166 (self-ruling from 1171) to 1189 . He is buried in its founding Monreale .

Life

The second-born son of Wilhelm I of Sicily continued the lush lifestyle of his father, but was still much more popular than the one in which his beauty, praised by contemporaries, played an essential part. Since he was still a minor when his father died, his mother Margarete led the regency with changing advisers, which was expressed from March 1167 in the initiation of the documents by a special formula una cum matre (together with the mother) . He probably only took over the rule in December 1171, at the age of 18. Wilhelm joined the party of the Pope and the Lombard cities against Emperor Barbarossa . In 1177, however, both concluded the Peace of Venice . After there had been pogroms against Italians in Constantinople in 1182 and Friedrich planned a campaign against the Byzantine Empire , it seems that there has been a rapprochement between king and emperor. The marriage agreement between Wilhelm and Barbarossa for the marriage of Barbarossa's son Heinrich VI. with Wilhelm's aunt Konstanze was a sign of this rapprochement. At the request of the Byzantine pretender Alexios Komnenos , Wilhelm ordered a campaign in Greece in the summer of 1185, based on the once again consolidated alliance with the Western Emperor, during which his troops conquered Dyrrhachion and sacked Thessalonica . On the train to Constantinople the army was defeated on November 7th, 1185 in the battle of Demetritzes . In 1189 Wilhelm made peace with Emperor Isaak II.

Wilhelm's first campaign against Egypt failed and the king died while preparing for the Third Crusade .

Initially engaged to Maria Komnena from the Byzantine imperial family, Wilhelm then married Johanna Plantagenet in 1177 , the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine . Johanna was Richard the Lionheart's sister ; however, the marriage remained childless.

Therefore, Henry VI. Claim to the succession. In Sicily, however, Tankred of Lecce initially prevailed as king, as a majority of the Sicilian nobility were opposed to the German succession and influential palace officials such as Vice Chancellor Matheus stood up for him.

The creation of Monreale

Soon after reaching the age of majority, Wilhelm began to found and equip S. Maria Nuova, which, as a Benedictine monastery, was filled with monks from La Cava . The monastery was directly subordinated to the Holy See and is therefore also recorded in the Liber censuum of the chamberlain Cencius . An elevation to the diocese seems to Alexander III. to have refused, only Lucius III. gave in 1183 to the urging of the king and established an archbishopric in Monreale, to which Syracuse and Catania were subordinated as suffragans. The abbot was also archbishop, the convent of the monastery functioned as the cathedral chapter. The church was apparently also intended as the new burial place of the Hauteville family, because in addition to his father Wilhelm I, his mother Margarete and his brother Heinrich also found their final resting place there. Wilhelm himself was buried in front of the altar after his death; he was not reburied in the sarcophagus until 1575 by Archbishop Ludovico de Torres .

literature

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm II (Sicily)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Friedrich v. Zglinicki : Uroscopy in the fine arts. An art and medical historical study of the urine examination. Ernst Giebeler, Darmstadt 1982, ISBN 3-921956-24-2 , p. 29 f.
  2. ↑ Horst Enzensberger : The "bad" and the "good" Wilhelm: On the church policy of the Norman kings of Sicily after the Treaty of Benevento (1156). In: Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 36, 1980, pp. 385-432, especially pp. 386-396 ( digitized version ).
predecessor Office successor
Wilhelm I. King of Sicily
1166–1189 		Tankred
personal data
SURNAME Wilhelm II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilhelm the Good
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Sicily
DATE OF BIRTH around 1153
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1189
Place of death Palermo