- Irene Angelina
Irene Angelina (1181 – 1208) was the daughter of the
Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos by his first wife Herina.In 1193 she married
Roger III of Sicily , but he died on24 December ,1193 . Irene was captured in the German invasion of Sicily on29 December ,1194 and was married on25 May ,1197 toPhilip 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 toConstantinople in 1204.She was described by
Walther von der Vogelweide as "the rose without a thorn, the dove without guile."Philip and Irene had four daughters:
* Beatrice of Hohenstaufen (1198-1212), married
Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor
* Cunigunde of Hohenstaufen (1200-1248), married KingWenceslaus I, King of Bohemia
*Marie of Hohenstaufen (1201-1235), marriedHenry II, Duke of Brabant
*Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen (1203-1235), married KingFerdinand III of Castile and two other children, both sons (called Reinald and Frederick) who died in infancy.
After the murder of her husband (
21 April 1208 ), Irene -who was pregnant by that time- retired to theBurg Hohenstaufen . There, four months later (27 August 1208 ), she gave birth to a daughter (called Beatrice Postuma); but both mother and child died shortly afterwards. She was buried in the Staufen Mausoleum in the Monastery ofLorch , along with her daughter and sons. Her grave, now destroyed, cannot be reconstructed today.ources
*"O city of Byzantium: annals of Niketas Choniates" tr. Harry J. Magoulias (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984).
External links
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9954165 Irene Angelina] at Find-A-Grave
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