BNF French 343 Quest of the Holy Grail/Tristan of Leonois f. 59
Throughout his life, the “maiden of Cyprus” (born around 1177) was used as a political and diplomatic instrument in conflicts among men.
He was the daughter of Isaac Komnenos, the Emperor of Cyprus. Its proper name has never been registered, although historians suggested that it may have been Beatriz or Mary.
Although the princess was often powerless, the small fragments of evidence we have about her present the lives of a young woman with determination and tenacity to survive and prosper.
In a child, the princess and her brother were used as hostages in a war where his father was involved. Isaac was captured as he fought in Armenia and delivered to Bohemond III custody, the prince of the Greek city of Antioch (who was in what is today Turkey). A rescue of 60 000 gold coins was fixed. After paying half of the ransom, Isaac was released and handed over his children to hostage to BoEMundo’s guard as a guarantee of the remaining redemption payment.
The rescue was then supposedly stolen by pirates. Isaac argued that it was a stratagem invented by Bohemond and refused to pay the ransom. Thus, his children were in custody for two years, until Bohemond, realizing that Isaac would never pay the ransom, freed them. The princess was seven years old at the time of her release. After the brother’s death, It was the only heiress From Isaac.
In 1191, the princess was again taken in captivity following one of her father’s conflicts, this time by Ricardo I from England. Isaac had tried to capture Ricardo’s ship, who was carrying the sister of the king, Joan of Sicily, and his future wife, Berengaria de Navarre. In retaliation, Ricardo surrounded Cyprus.
Isaac eventually escaped Ricardo’s forces. According to twelfth-century English chronicler, Roger de Hoveden, when Ricardo captured the castle where the princess was hidden, she went to meet the king and surrendered. A courageous attitude of a young woman who was only 14 or 15 years old.
Isaac, who loved his daughter very much, although he had previously offered her as a guarantee of rescue, surrendered quickly and was imprisoned. Ricardo put the princess to keep her new wife and sister “to be cared for and polite in her customs.” Although it was treated as a pupil of the two queens, it was actually a captive.
Freedom or control? Princess’s trips
A new chapter began in the princess’s life. With the two queens, he traveled to Acre (in present-day Israel), Rome, Pisa, Genoa, Marseille, Aragon (in the Iberian Peninsula) and put it in the Midwest of France.
Historian Annette Parks suggested that it provided the princess a “strange type of freedom”Traveling further than he had ever done and, quite possibly, intersecting with Queen’s Queen of England, Eleanor of Aquitania. But despite their relative “freedom” when accompanying the two queens, these trips were not made of their own will of the princess and their movements were controlled.
After the capture of Ricardo by the Holy Roman Emperor, the agreement for his liberation included the consent of the princess’s wedding and Eleanor da Brittany (who was also under the custody of Ricardo) with the sons of Leopoldo V of Austria.
The two women began traveling together to Austria in 1193, but eventually turned back in the middle of the trip, as Leopoldo’s death ended the deal. The princess will then have accompanied Joana from Sicily in her second marriage to Raimundo VI of Toulouse in 1196.
With Ricardo’s death in 1199, the princess was finally released and contracted two advantageous marriages. First, with Raimundo VI, the same man who had been married to Joana from Sicily until his death, also in 1199. Secondly, with Thierry of Flanders, after the cancellation of his first marriage. Raymond had repudiated the princess in favor of a strongest marriage alliance With Leonor, daughter of Afonso II of Aragon.
It is during this second marriage that the princess appears briefly again in historical records.
Em 1204, Thierry tried to recover the Cyprus through the rights of your wife. At this point, Cyprus’ political circumstances had changed and a new king had been installed. The attempt by Thierry and the Princess was fruitless and the two were forced to flee, definitely disappearing from the historical records.
The Cyprus maiden had almost no control over her life. But the record shows cases where their own strength and tenacity were able to shine. From facing King Ricardo in surrender, to forming advantageous weddings when he had no networks of his own, she sailed for the circumstances that captivity brought him and found ways to survive and Keep your elite woman status.
As a young girl without decision -making power over much of her life, Cyprus maiden is a memory of how medieval women continued to find ways to overcome the limitations imposed on them.
