Agnes of Merania
Agnes Maria of Andechs- Meranien (c. 1172; † 18 or July 19, 1201 in the castle of Poissy ), called in various French chronicles only Mary, came from the house of the Counts of Andechs and was from 1196 to 1200, the third wife of the French King Philippe -Auguste. Because his second marriage with Ingeborg of Denmark but had not been canceled by the papal curia, Agnes Mary was never recognized by the Pope as the rightful Queen of France.
Family
Agnes Mary came to about 1172, the daughter of the glorious crusade participant and Staufer friend Duke Berthold IV of Andechs- Meranien and his second wife Agnes of Rochlitz to the world. Her father was a direct vassal of the emperor and thus independent of the great duchies in Germany. Her mother was from the House of Wettin. To Agnes Mary siblings included not only Otto, later Duke of Meranien, the Margrave of Istria, a bishop of Bamberg and the Queen of Hungary and the Duchess of Silesia.
She married in 1196 the French King Philippe -Auguste and became his third wife, what the position of the family in the kingdom further increased. After the wedding, Agnes seems to have changed her name to Mary. From the union three children were born:
- Marie ( * 1198, † August 15, 1238 ), Princess of France
- Philip (* 1201, † July 19, 1234 ), Count of Clermont and Boulogne, Matilda of Boulogne ⚭ 1216
- Tristan (* / † 1201)
Life
Agnes Marie married on June 1, 1196 in Compiègne King Philippe -Auguste of France, who had violated his second wife Ingeborg of Denmark. The marriage was never annulled by the Pope what Philippe -Auguste ultimately proved fatal. He was thus canonically married to two women at the same time 1196-1200 and thus lived in bigamy. However, Ingeborg of Denmark did not want to get divorced and tried to enforce its claim to the lawful wife of the French king. Pope Innocent III. supported by the Danish king's daughter in her plan and attacked the new connection of the French king not only because the marriage was not valid from the perspective of the Church, but also because of consanguinity of the pair. Philip's great-grandfather, Margrave Engelbert II of Istria, and the great-grandmother of Agnes, Richardis, had been siblings.
Philippe -Auguste initially did not respond to the Pope's criticism, which is why the situation escalated. A for December 6, 1199 Council convened at the Abbey Saint- Benige in Dijon imposed with effect from January 13, 1200 the interdict on France. In order to effect its repeal, Philippe -Auguste was in August 1200 compromise and finally promised for so long to have no more contact with Agnes -Maria, to have a method that on his second marriage finally settled. But then in the spring of 1201, a judgment in favor Ingeborgs of Denmark was to be expected, the king left the court, before the papal legates were able to announce their decision. To Agnes - Mary's status but this did not change anything. She was - pregnant with her third child - went to Poissy and died in the local castle on the effects of the birth on July 18th or 19th of the year 1201 also the baby did not survive. . Agnes ' body was in the Benedictine monastery of St. Corentin -lès- Mantes buried northwest of Paris. Philippe -Auguste was the name Agnes - Mary and the name of her father in the Book of the Dead of the Abbey of Saint Denis.
Her two surviving children Philip and Marie have been legitimized at the request of the French king by the Pope on November 2, 1201. The fate of Agnes Mary was processed by François Ponsard in his tragedy Agnès de Méranie.