Maria of Montpellier

Maria of Montpellier (* 1182, † April 1213 in Rome) was a queen of Aragon.

Ethnicity and first marriages

Maria of Montpellier was the daughter of William VIII, Lord of Montpellier, and of Eudocia Comnena, a niece of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I.. According to the marriage contract of Mary's parents should be the first-born child, regardless of gender, after the death of William VIII follow the rule over the city of Montpellier. But Mary's father violated already in 1187 his wife and married Agnes of Castile, which earned him a son, William IX. of Montpellier, and seven other children gave birth. This was Mary's inheritance already, when she was still a little child, put into question.

First, was taken as a husband for Mary King Alfonso II of Aragon in the eye; but this had already been married. She was then in 1192 married to Viscount Raymond Gottfried ( Barral ) from Marseille. But this first marriage of Mary did not last long, because her husband was old and died in the same year. Their 1197 closed second marriage with Count Bernard IV of Comminges was under an unlucky star, because he was still married to one (or two according to other sources ) other living women. Even Mary had to give up her inheritance to Montpellier. Although she gave birth to her second husband, two daughters, Mathilde and Petronilla, but he cast them 1201.

Marriage with King Peter II of Aragon

After the death of William VIII (1202 ) took Mary's illegitimate half-brother of William IX. the rule over Montpellier, but expelled him the urban upper class in 1204 and recognized Mary as the Mistress. They married on June 15, 1204 the politically influential King Peter II of Aragon, in the hope of being able to better defend by this marriage of their right to the government in Montpellier against their illegitimate step-siblings. But immediately after the wedding pledged Peter II the port of Montpellier with the Castle of Lattes and 1205 equal to the whole city. When Mary brought her daughter Sancha in October 1205 to the world, they had to cede all rights to their town to her husband. This engaged his newborn daughter without the consent of his wife with the also standing as a baby son of Count Raymond of Toulouse and Montpellier secured as dowry. After the death of his daughter ( 1206), Peter II wrote to Pope Innocent III. In order to achieve the annulment of his marriage, but did not penetrate away with it. Nevertheless, the Aragonese king did not want to add.

Maria was able to list the procreation of a son, the future James I of Aragon ( born February 2, 1208), reaching with her husband. According to one source, they deceived him at midnight, pretending to be his current lover, lured him by the bed and told him some time after triumphantly, that she was pregnant. In his book, written decades later Libre dels feuts (book of deeds ) reported Jacob himself that his estranged parents would have spent at the request of a noble one night together and begat him there; this was the Lord's will. After his birth, his mother had fired twelve equal, provided with the names of the apostles candles and named him after that which burned the longest.

Although the new-born son was hailed in Montpellier, Peter II continued to urge the divorce and did not want to give up its claims to the city. As during the bloody Albigensian Crusade northern French troops marched against further south, rich and the kingdom of Peter II threatened, he took Mary her son away, engaged him in 1211 to a daughter of Simon IV de Montfort, leader of the crusaders, and sent him this virtually as a hostage. 1212 sought Peter II then, based on a papal decree to seize Montpellier and Maria's half-brother, William IX. return. Because of Mary's popularity, the city government refused to surrender, and it came rebellions, during which destroyed the castle and the goods Catalan merchants were looted. Nevertheless, Maria eventually lost early 1213 the rule over Montpellier.

Then Maria went to Rome and appealed to the Pope, to prevent the cancellation of their marriage. Since the couple for a marriage were not related to each other close, Peter II had to justify his plea of ​​nullity of marriage differently. He claimed that he had had an extramarital relationship with a relative of Mary and therefore did not come as the husband of Mary in question and that she had committed adultery by marrying him because they do not from her second husband Bernhard had divorced IV. The first observation was also rejected by the dominated by male moral context of the medieval church, while the latter argument of Mary's attorneys was invalidated by the fact that her marriage to Bernhard IV was invalid because of its simultaneous marriage with another woman. On January 19, 1213 Innocent III refused. the divorce of Peter II on the grounds that he had no close relationship to Mary to be able to demonstrate and that Bernhard IV before his marriage to Mary is not of his wife, the noble Beatrice, had divorced. In addition, the Pope decreed on 18 April 1213 that the Archbishop of Narbonne had to ensure that the government of Montpellier again must recognize Mary as the rightful ruler and that the area occupied by the illegal pledge of city money should be refunded to her. In order to enforce his claims, the Archbishop should also threaten ecclesiastical penalties. For this case, one can conclude that high-ranking women despite the male-dominated power structures in the Middle Ages quite able to defend their rights in court successfully.

On April 20, 1213 Mary wrote her will in which she used her son Jacob the heir, and soon died. Her husband, Peter II, fell on September 13, 1213 in the fight against Simon IV de Montfort, whom he had entrusted little Jacob. This inherited Montpellier and Aragon and became James I one of the greatest kings of Aragon. He claimed that his mother Mary had the effect after her death miracle: the sick, had the dust scraped from her grave and drank it in water or wine dissolved, would have been healed.

Marriages and descendants

Maria was married three times:

• ∞ 2 1197 Count Bernhard IV of Comminges (separation 1201)

• June 3 ∞ 15 1204 King Peter II of Aragon

Their children were:

• From the second marriage: Mathilde
• Petronilla, ∞ with Count I of Centulle Astarac

• From the third marriage: Sancha (* 1205, † 1206)
• James I of Aragon (* February 2, 1208; † July 27, 1276 )