Talk:Alice of Champagne

Untitled

I respectfully request this to be renamed as Alice of Champagne, since she was not born Cyprus, but only by marriage.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.78.104.3 (talk • contribs) 14.56, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Uncle Philip

I edited this page yesterday ( I've been trying to tidy up the House of Ibelin page) and added a footnote about Philip of Ibelin (as there wasn't a linked article, I thought I'd leave some information in case anyone wanted to write one). This was reverted, with the edit summary “OR” (and, less helpfully) “–uncles and nieces are related to each other”.
Well, that was kind of my point; if Alice was related through her husband, and Philip was more than one generation away, the whole 'uncle' thing would be more of a courtesy title, wouldn't it? OTOH, have I got the wrong Philip of Ibelin? Is that the reason for the OR tag (which, I'm well aware, is wikispeak for ”keep your ideas to yourself”) Any offers? Moonraker12 (talk) 22:50, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Philip of Ibelin was the uterine half-brother of Alice's mother. Isabella I of Jerusalem and Philip of Ibelin were both children of Maria Komnene. Thus Philip was Alice's (half-)uncle, not an in-law. Surtsicna (talk) 22:57, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Having explained that, it certainly seems like the article would benefit from a proper family tree. Surtsicna (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

@Surtsicna: The penny drops! I hadn't appreciated that she was also related through her grand-mother, or that Philip had his own article. I've added another link here, closer to where he is mentioned, and at the House of Ibelin page; and I've put an explanatory note in Philip's article explaining the relationship, if you care to check. And good work on the family tree! Much handier than the ancestor table that was there before. Regards, Moonraker12 (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Moonraker12. Unfortunately, a lot of users insist on the ancestor table. People are easily convinced that something is good when it's widespread, but evidently the ahnentafel is entirely useless. Alice's relationship to the Ibelins is extremely important, while her descent from an Aénor de Châtellerault is extremely trivial. Surtsicna (talk) 00:23, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Surtsicna, thank you for your excellent work on the article, and also for the family tree. However, I think we could accept the co-existence of family trees and ahnetapfels, because there are many editors who insist on ancestor tables. Borsoka (talk) 05:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I see. But I am curious: do Runciman, Evergates, Treadgold or Dunbabin really mention Aenor de Châtellerault as Alice's ancestor? Or Andronikos Komnenos? Or Fulk IV of Anjou? Surtsicna (talk) 22:42, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

The cited sources contain reference to all individuals mentioned in the charters. They are mentioned either as Alice's ancestors, or the ancestors of Alice's ancestors. Borsoka (talk) 01:38, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Conrad's majority

There is some question of whether Conrad's majority (and therefore also the meeting of the High Court) took place in 1242 or 1243. Logically it would be 1243 since that's when Conrad turned 15, but it's possible that Frederick was trying to cheat the system a little bit, by claiming Conrad was "in his fifteenth year" in 1242. I'll have to confirm the specifics with the sources I have at hand, but I think it might be a good addition to mention this in the article. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:51, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

• Thank you for your comment. Sorry, I do not have more information on the issue. Borsoka (talk) 05:18, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Basically, the problem is that we know the day of the meeting of the High Court, June 5 (according to Marsilio Zorzi), but none of the sources (Zorzi, Philip of Novara, Ernoul) mention the year. Conrad was born in April 1228, so if the meeting took place after he already turned 15, when he was of legal age to inherit the kingdom, then it would have been 1243. But it's possible that Conrad (or, Frederick acting on his behalf) advanced the claim in 1242, after Conrad's 14th birthday, but when he was sort of ambiguously in his fifteenth year. Maybe due to the distance and the time involved in getting messages back and forth, Frederick was trying to communicate with the High Court in the year leading up to Conrad's actual 15th birthday. It also seems that he sent Thomas of Acerra to Jerusalem in 1242 (at least according to Richard of San Germano). Why would he do this in 1242 instead of 1243? Presumably he was trying to send Thomas to meet with the High Court, which was meeting in June 1242.

I suppose this isn't really that relevant for Alice's article. It came up when I was writing about Patriarch Robert - he was stuck in Italy waiting for the new pope to be elected. An election was not imminent in 1242, so Frederick also might have been taking advantage of the sede vacante. If the meeting took place in 1243, the election was already underway (Innocent IV was elected on June 25).

I would say the 1242 date is generally accepted now, but some historians still use 1243. See David Jacoby, “The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the collapse of Hohenstaufen power in the Levant,” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 40 (1986), and Peter W. Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades (Cambridge University Press, 1993). Adam Bishop (talk) 14:39, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

FAC

I was invited by Borsoka to the FAC, but missed the boat. Here are the comments I wrote but never got to post, striking those I or another editor have dealt with:

• The Kingdom of Jerusalem had been established by western European knights in Palestine in the aftermath of the First Crusade in 1100 but it was nearly annihilated by the Egyptian sultan Saladin in 1187–89. The kingdom and two other Crusader states—the Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli—survived in a small strip along the eastern Mediterranean cost due to the Third Crusade, proclaimed by the papacy for their rescue, but the city of Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands. I would reduce this to to single sentence focusing on the really relevant piece of information, that her mother's kingdom had been reduced to a coastal strip at the time of her birth and did not actually encompass Jerusalem. The statement that they were universally acknowledged as queen and king only towards the end of the Third Crusade in April 1192 leaves the reader wondering what was going on before that. Who was king or queen until April 1192? Was the throne regarded as vacant? Or was their a dispute? Since the article is about Alice, the sentence could be dropped.

• Thank you for your suggestion. I deleted the text about the reference to the debates over Isabella and her husband's claim to rule. Otherwise, I did not modify the text because it provides a useful background for the principal features aspects of politics in the Outremer (crusaders states, crusades, papal intervention...). Borsoka (talk)

• Blanche supplied her niece's dowry. How could Blanche supply the county of Jaffa? Had it passed to Theobald?

• Modified.

• Frederick persuaded the dying Pope Honorius to delegate two new judges (the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and the bishop of Acre) to investigate the marriage of Alice and Bohemond, accusing Eustorgius of partiality in the couple's favour. The previously mentioned year is 1225, but this sentence describes events of 1227, so I think we need a date. We also have articles on the two prelates mentioned, Gerold of Lausanne and Jacques de Vitry. They should be linked. See here, but no page number. This is from our own Adam Bishop's new book, Robert of Nantes, Patriarch of Jerusalem (1240–1254).
• Alice and Bohemond's marriage was subsequently annulled. By the pope?

• Modified. Borsoka (talk) 05:16, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

• Duke Peter I of Brittany declared that he wanted to marry Alice, but this was refused on 29 May by Pope Gregory because of consanguinity. This is the first place where the word "consanguinity" appears and it is linked, but the concept has already appeared at least twice, so I think the link should be moved up and probably the word too.

The first two outstanding issues do need to be addressed, I think. Srnec (talk) 20:32, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Google has the epub version but I can't resist mentioning that in the print version it's page 69 (nice) Adam Bishop (talk) 01:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)