From 1130, the Italian island of Sicily was a kingdom. What most don’t know, it was a county before it became a kingdom. The island was conquered by the Normans in 1071, and Roger de Hauteville, a minor Norman noble became Count Roger I of Sicily. He married three times, and it was his third [read more]
The Kingdom of Jerusalem came into existence due to crusaders. Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095 to assist the Byzantine Empire against the invasions of the Seljuk Turks. The ultimate goal was to control the Holy Land. After successfully laying siege to Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey of Bouillon, who had been [read more]
Maria of Montferrat was born in the summer of 1192 as the daughter of Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem and her first husband, Conrad of Montferrat. She never knew her father as he died before she was born. Maria had six half-siblings from her mother’s two subsequent marriages. Of those six half-siblings, four sisters survived, [read more]
Sibylla was born circa 1160 as the daughter of Agnes of Courtenay and Amalric I of Jerusalem. She was raised by her great-aunt Ivota of Bethany, who was the sister of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem. By 1174 she was the subject of marriage negotiations. Sibylla had two siblings, a younger brother Baldwin who was sickly [read more]
Melisende was born in 1105 in Edessa (modern-day Turkey) to the future Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Morphia of Melitene. Her father was elected King of Jerusalem in 1118. Baldwin and Morphia had four daughters, of whom Melisende was the eldest. Though Baldwin had been encouraged to set aside Morphia to make a better political [read more]
The future Isabella I of Jerusalem was born circa 1172 from her father Almaric of Jerusalem’s second marriage to Maria Kommene, a grandniece of the Byzantine emperor. She had two half-siblings from her father’s first marriage, Baldwin and Sibylla. She was just two years old when her father died, and he was succeeded by his [read more]
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