Alix of Montferrat

Alix of Montferrat (also Alasia, * 1210, † before April 1233 Kyrenia) was a Queen of Cyprus as the first wife of King Henry I of Cyprus. She was a daughter of Margrave William VI. of Montferrat from the family of Aleramiden.

Their marriage was arranged by Emperor Frederick II when he was staying in Cyprus during his crusade in 1228. Alix did not come until 1231 under imperial escort to Cyprus, as her husband, and all the nobles of the island were already in revolt against the rule of the governor of the Emperor ( Lombard war ). She held thus constantly in the wake of the imperial governor Richard Filangieri on, from the after its defeat in the Battle of Agridi it (June 15, 1232) with the Kyrenia castle was spent. The governor defended himself here ten more months against King Henry I and his regents, the old John of Ibelin.

The chronicler Philip of Novara reported that Alix was designated by the followers of the anti-imperial opposition as " Lombard Queen ," because of their stay in the imperial camp. Whether they volunteered was at the Filangieris page or looked unable to move into the camp of her husband, however, is unclear. Alix died during the siege of Kyrenia in the spring of 1233, even before the castle in April Filangieri had to be abandoned. Her body was handed over by the defenders to her husband, whom she had never met. The recognized their joint marriage and thus her royal rank and ordered a funeral procession to Nicosia, where Alix was buried in the Cathedral of St. Sophia.