Maria Brabant (Empress of the Holy Roman Empire)

Mary was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Brabant Henry I and his wife Matilda of Boulogne .

First marriage

Mary was engaged to King Otton IV in 1198 when he was fighting for the throne with Philip of Swabia . Her father, Duke Henry I, at first supported the Welfs , but then took a neutral position. When in 1204 he sided with the Hohenstaufen , marriage plans seemed unrealizable.

After Philip of Swabia was killed in 1208, Otton IV became the unchallenged Roman king and was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III in 1209. The Duke Henry Brabanski hastened to reconcile with the ruler of the House of Welfes, who soon after his coronation, quarreled with the Pope over the kingdom of Sicily , who was then ruled by Frederick II of the house of Hohenstaufen, the nephew of the late Philip of Swabia. Otton was excommunicated by his former ally, Pope Innocent, and in September 1211 he was elected anti-king. A year later, he defiantly married Beatrice of Swabia , daughter of the late Philip of Swabia and paternal cousin Friedrich.

Only after the death of Beatrice, a few weeks after the wedding, did his engagement to Maria Brabant become significant again. At that time, Otton IV was again drawn into the war against his rival, King Frederick II. If several supporters of the Hohenstaufen initially supported the emperor Otto because of his marriage to Beatrice, most of which by that time had switched to the side of Frederick II. Crowned by Archbishop of Mainz Siegfried II in December 1212, Frederick continued his rebellion continued, and Otton was under constant pressure. He and Maria Brabant married on May 19, 1214 in Maastricht . She was about twenty-four years old, and her husband was thirty-nine.

In the midst of the conflict of Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Mary became the empress of the divided Holy Roman Empire. Her husband’s reign ended when Frederick made an alliance with the French king Philip II and forced Otto to enter the Anglo-French war. On July 27, 1214, the imperial army was finally defeated at the Battle of Bouvin and was forced to retreat. King Philip II sent the captured imperial eagle to Frederick. Otton and his wife were forced to retire to their family estates in Braunschweig .

Second marriage

After the death of her husband, Maria remained a widow for about two years. In July 1220, she married again, with Count of Holland Willem I. Willem died only two years later, on February 4, 1222. He has at least five children left. Genealogy experts believe that all five were born married to his first wife, Adelaide Geldern. However, there is some uncertainty about their dates of birth.

Maria outlived her second husband for thirty-eight years, but did not get married a third time. She founded the Cistercian monastery in Binder, Brabant (part of modern Helmond ). She was buried in St. Peter's Church in Leuven .

• Marek, Miroslav A listing of descendants of Lambert II of Leuven (neopr.) . Genealogy.EU.

• Her profile in the "Our Family History" project by Robert Brian Stewart