Constance of Hungary explained

Consort:yes
Succession:Queen consort of Bohemia
Birth Place:Hungary
Death Place:Tišnov, Moravia
Place Of Burial:Cloister Porta coeli
Reign:1199–1230
Spouse:Ottokar I of Bohemia
Issue:Wenceslaus I of Bohemia
Anna of Bohemia
Saint Agnes of Bohemia
Royal House:Árpád
Father:Béla III of Hungary
Mother:Agnes of Antioch
Birth Date:c. 1180
Death Date:6 December 1240 (aged c. 60)

Constance of Hungary (in Hungarian, Konstancia; in Czech, Konstancie; c. 1180 – 6 December 1240) was the second Queen consort of Ottokar I of Bohemia.[1]

Family

Constance was a daughter of Béla III of Hungary and his first wife Agnes of Antioch. Her older siblings included Emeric, King of Hungary, Margaret of Hungary and Andrew II of Hungary.

Marriage and children

In 1199, Ottokar I divorced his first wife, Adelaide of Meissen, on grounds of consanguinity. He married Constance later in the same year. Together with Ottokar, she had nine children.

Queen Constance is regularly noted as a co-donator with her husband in various documents of his reign. Her petitions to her husband for various donations are also recorded. She is considered to have sold the city Boleráz to her nephew Béla IV of Hungary. In 1247, Béla conferred said city to the nuns of Trnava. An epistle by which Constance supposedly grants freedom to the cities of Břeclav and Olomouc is considered a false document. The same epistle grants lands in Ostrovany to the monastery of St. Stephen of Hradište. Another epistle has the queen settling "honorable Teutonic men" (viros honestos Theutunicos) in the city of Hodonín and is also considered a forgery.[2] In 1230, Ottokar I died and their son Wenceslaus succeeded him. Constance survived her husband by a decade.

In 1231, Pope Gregory IX set Queen Constance and her dower possessions under the protection of the Holy See. His letter to Constance clarifies said possessions to include the provinces of Břeclav (Brecyzlaviensem), Pribyslavice (Pribizlavensem), Dolni Kunice (Conowizensem), Godens (Godeninensem), Bzenec (Bisenzensem) and Budějovice (Budegewizensem).[3] In 1232, Constance founded Cloister Porta Coeli near Tišnov and retired to it as a nun. She died within the Cloister.

Issue

The Milanese mystic Guglielma (1210s – 24 October 1281) claimed to be a Princess of Bohemia[4] and has therefore been identified as a daughter of Ottokar and Constance with the name Vilemína or Božena, but there is an absence of any corroborating Bohemian documents.

Sources

External links

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Notes and References

  1. Sara Ritchey, Holy Matter: Changing Perceptions of the Material World in Late Medieval Christianity, (Cornell University Press, 2014), 101.
  2. Web site: Women's Biography: Constance of Hungary . 21 August 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161221013139/https://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/woman/85.html . 21 December 2016 . dead .
  3. Web site: 1231 Letter from Gregory IX to Constance of hungary . 21 August 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140903210704/http://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/letter/879.html . 3 September 2014 . dead .
  4. Book: Milano 1300: I processi inquisitoriali contro le devote e i devoti di santa Guglielma . Libri Scheiwiller . 1999 . Marina Benedetti . Milan.