Irene Angelina

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Irene Angelina
Queen of Sicily and of the Germans
Duchess of Swabia

Irene Angelina with her second husband, Philip of Swabia
Spouse Roger III of Sicily
Philip of Swabia
Issue
Beatrice, Holy Roman Empress
Kunigunde, Queen of Bohemia
Marie, Duchess of Brabant and Lothier
Elisabeth, Queen of Castile and León
Dynasty Angelus (by birth)
House of Hauteville (by marriage)
House of Hohenstaufen (by marriage)
Father Isaac II Angelos
Mother Herina
Born c.1181
Constantinople
Died 1208
Hohenstaufen Castle
Burial Lorch Abbey

Irene Angelina (c.1181–1208) was the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos by his first wife, Herina

Marriage and issue

In 1193 she married Roger III of Sicily, but he died on 24 December 1193. Irene was captured in the German invasion of Sicily on 29 December 1194 and was married on 25 May 1197 to Philip of Swabia. In Germany, she was renamed Maria.

Her father, who had been deposed in 1195, urged her to get Philip's support for his reinstatement; her brother, Alexius, subsequently spent some time at Philip's court during the preparations for the Fourth Crusade. She thus had an early influence on the eventual diversion of the Crusade to Constantinople in 1204.

She was described by Walther von der Vogelweide as "the rose without a thorn, the dove without guile"[citation needed].

Philip and Irene had four daughters:

  • and two sons (called Reinald and Frederick) who died in infancy.

After the murder of her husband on 21 June 1208, Irene - who was pregnant by that time - retired to the Hohenstaufen Castle. There, two months later on 27 August, she gave birth to a daughter (called Beatrice Postuma); but both mother and child died shortly afterwards. She was buried in the family mausoleum in the Staufen proprietary monastery of Lorch Abbey, along with her daughter and sons. Her grave, now destroyed, cannot be reconstructed today.

Irene Angelina
Angelus
Born: c.1181 Died: 1208
Royal titles
Preceded by
Sibylla of Acerra
Queen consort of Sicily
1193
Served alongside: Sibylla of Acerra
Succeeded by
Sibylla of Acerra
Preceded by
Constance of Sicily
Queen consort of Germany
1198–1208
Succeeded by
Beatrice of Swabia
Preceded by
Constance of Hungary
Duchess consort of Swabia
1197–1208
Succeeded by
Constance of Aragon

Sources

  • O city of Byzantium: annals of Niketas Choniates tr. Harry J. Magoulias (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984).

References

    External links

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