Marie of Hohenstaufen

Marie of Hohenstaufen (3 April 1201 – 29 March 1235) was the third daughter of Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina.

Family

Also known as Maria of Swabia, Marie of Hohenstaufen was born in Arezzo,Tuscany, Italy on 3 April 1201. Her paternal grandparents were Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor and Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy. On her mother's side, her grandparents were Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos and his first wife Herina.

In 1208, at the age of seven, Marie was left an orphan by the unexpected deaths of her parents. On 21 June, her father was murdered by Otto of Wittelsbach, and two months later her mother died after giving birth to a daughter, who did not live beyond early infancy. Marie had three surviving sisters.

iblings

#Beatrice of Hohenstaufen (1198-1212. Married Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
#Cunigunde of Hohenstaufen (1200-1248.Married King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia.
#Elizabeth of Hohenstaufen (1203-1235.Married King Ferdinand III of Castile.She was his first wife. He married his second wife Jeanne de Dammartin, Countess of Ponthieu before August 1237.

Marriage

Sometime before 22 August 1215, she married Henry II, Duke of Brabant in Brabant (present-day Belgium). Marie was his first wife. They had six children, and through them, Marie is the ancestress of every royal house in Europe:

*Matilda of Brabant (1224 - 29 September, 1288). Married first Robert I of Artois, and secondly Guy III, Count of Saint-Pol.
*Beatrix of Brabant (1225 - 11 November, 1288). Married Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, and secondly William III of Dampierre.
*Marie of Brabant (c. 1226 - 18 January, 1256). Married Louis II, Duke of Bavaria. She was beheaded by her husband on suspicion of infidelity.
*Margaret of Brabant (d. 14 March, 1277). Abbess of Herzogenthal.
*Henry III, Duke of Brabant (c. 1230 - 28 February, 1261). Married Alice of Burgundy (c. 1233-23 October1273, daughter of Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy.
*Philip of Brabant, died young.

Death

Marie of Hohenstaufen died on 29 March 1235 in Leuven, Brabant, five days before her thirty-fourth birthday. In 1240, Henry married his second wife, Sophie of Thuringia, the daughter of Ludwig IV of Thuringia and Elisabeth of Hungary. They had two children: Henry I, Landgrave of Hesse and Elizabeth of Brabant, who married Albert I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

References

ources

#Medieval Lands "Swabia"