Queens of Jerusalem by Katherine Pangonis

Author:Katherine Pangonis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474614108
Publisher: Orion

THEODORA – A NEW QUEEN FOR JERUSALEM AND A BYZANTINE ALLIANCE

Once the Haute Cour had recovered from the shock of Raymond II’s assassination and the conclusion of the civil war, attention was turned to the marriage of the king. Baldwin III was now confirmed in his supremacy in Jerusalem, the influence of his mother had been satisfactorily curtailed, and now it was time for a marriage to be arranged for him so that he could set about producing an heir to secure the succession. Baldwin III himself had been in no rush, as it seems he had plenty of premarital affairs and had his whole life ahead of him to father legitimate children. In 1157 the Council, in debating the matter, decided that the best course of action was to solidify and renew the Frankish alliance with the Emperor of Byzantium. The current incumbent of the imperial office was Emperor Manuel Komnenos, the same man whom Princess Alice of Antioch had flirted with previously as a husband for Princess Constance.

An embassy was dispatched to the court of Constantinople in the hope of securing a Byzantine bride and a sizeable dowry. After many months of negotiations a bride was selected and a marriage contract brokered. The new Queen Consort of Jerusalem would be Manuel’s niece, the ‘illustrious maiden’, twelve-year-old Princess Theodora. She would bring with her a dowry of 100,000 gold hyperpyra (the new Byzantine equivalent of a dinar, bezant or solidus), and 10,000 more to pay for the most magnificent wedding ever hosted in Jerusalem.

William of Tyre was rarely moved by female beauty, but he was moved by Theodora’s. He wrote that she was a ‘maiden of unusual beauty, both of form and feature, whose entire appearance favourably impressed all who saw her.’ The clothes and personal effects she brought with her were splendid too – silken clothes richly embroidered with pearls and gems, as well as tapestries of immeasurable value and precious drinking vessels and the like. William estimated that the combined value of her baggage was close to a further 14,000 gold hyperpyra.

The marriage was an excellent one for King Baldwin, who was look­ing for heirs, a cash injection and beauty. Theodora arrived by ship in Tyre in September 1158, accompanied by an entourage of some of the highest-born Greeks of the Byzantine court and a vast display of its wealth. The party continued to Jerusalem, where her marriage to Baldwin III was solemnised by the Patriarch of Antioch and she was anointed and crowned Queen of Jerusalem.

Her effect on her husband was dramatic. From the day of their marriage he was reported to have given up entirely his previous philandering and to have been utterly devoted to his new wife, loving and cherishing her and becoming completely reformed as both a man and a king.

Despite this adoration, it seems Theodora, perhaps given her youth and carefully guarded upbringing in the court of Constantinople, took next to no part in the governance of the realm. She accepted her role of consort without protest, and Melisende still lived and wielded influence from Nablus.

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