William III. (Sicily)

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William III. of Sicily (* around 1185; † around 1198 in Alt-Ems ) was the penultimate Norman king of Sicily and came from an illegitimate line of the House of Hauteville . He had to his great-aunt Constance of Sicily , the last legitimate member of the dynasty, and her husband, Emperor Heinrich VI. give way.

Life

Emperor Heinrich VI. lets King Wilhelm III. of Sicily to blind and castrate ( Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes [fol. 169r] by Giovanni Boccaccio , 15th century, Bibliothèque de Genève Ms. fr. 190/2).

He was the son of Tankred of Lecce and Sibylle of Acerra . When his father died in February 1194, Wilhelm was still under the age of majority. So his mother took over the guardianship.

The Roman-German Emperor Heinrich VI. also claimed the Sicilian royal throne due to his marriage to Constance of Sicily . In August 1194, Henry VI marched. entered Naples with an army. Sibylle had to bring Wilhelm and his sisters to safety in the castle of Caltabellotta and, after Heinrich VI. had conquered Palermo in November 1194 , flee there himself, while Heinrich captured the Sicilian crown treasure.

Henry VI. offered Sibylle the county of Lecce and Wilhelm III for the renunciation of the kingdom . the principality of Taranto , which was accepted by Sybille and confirmed by Heinrich in the agreement of Caltabellotta in December 1194.
Sybille attended with William the coronation of Henry as King of Sicily on December 25, 1194 in the Cathedral of Palermo.

The royal family and numerous barons were taken prisoner on December 29, 1194 under the charge of organizing a plot against Heinrich. Wilhelm was demoted, handed over to Konrad von Lützelhardt and taken to the Hohenems Castle of Alt-Ems (today Hohenems in Vorarlberg ). There he is said to have been mistreated ( blinded ). The date of his death is not known from some letters from Pope Celestine III. however, it can be concluded that he probably died in 1198.

literature

  • Francesco Panarelli:  GUGLIELMO III d'Altavilla, re di Sicilia. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 60:  Grosso – Guglielmo da Forlì. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2003.
  • Gregor Clark, Vesna Maric: Sicily . Lonely Planet Travel Guide, 2014, p. 290 .
  • Matteo Camera: Annali delle Due Sicilie: 1 . tape 1 . Naples 1841, p. 82 (Italian, online version in Google Book Search).
  • Domenico Spanò Bolani: Storia di Reggio di Calabria da tempi primitivi sino all'anno di Cristo 1797 . Naples 1857, p. 155 (Italian, online version in Google Book Search).
  • Pietro Giannone: Storia civile del regno di Napoli . tape 3 . Milan 1845, p. 21 (Italian, online version in Google Book Search).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Memorie storico-diplomatiche dell'antica citta e ducato di Amalfi ... Volume 1 . Stabilimento Tipografico Nazionale, Salerno 1876, p. 373 (Italian, online version in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ Domenico Ludovico De Vincentiis: Storia di Taranto (=  Collana di storia ed arte tarantina . Volume 2 ). Mandese, Tarent 1983, p. 143 (Italian, reprint of the 1878 edition, presented by Cosimo Damiano Fonseca).
  3. ^ Luigi Salvatorelli: Storia d'Italia . tape 4 . Mondadori, Milano 1940, p. 391 (Italian).
predecessor Office successor
Tankred and Roger III. King of Sicily
1194 		Konstanze and Heinrich I.
personal data
SURNAME William III.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES William III. of Sicily; Guglielmo III di Sicilia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Naples and Sicily
DATE OF BIRTH around 1185
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: 1198
Place of death Alt-Ems Castle , today Hohenems, Vorarlberg