Conrad of Montferrat

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Conrad I
William V, Marquess of Montferrat
MotherJudith of Babenberg
ReligionRoman Catholicism

Conrad of Montferrat (

King of Jerusalem (as Conrad I) by virtue of his marriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem from 24 November 1190, but officially elected only in 1192, days before his death. He was also the eighth Marquess of Montferrat from 1191.[1]

Early life

Conrad was the second son of

Leopold V of Austria
.

Conrad was born in

Archbishop of Salzburg. (He may have been named after him, or after his mother's half-brother, Conrad III of Germany
.)

A handsome man, with great personal courage and intelligence, he was described in the Brevis Historia Occupationis et Amissionis Terræ Sanctæ ("A Short History of the Occupation and Loss of the Holy Land"):

Conrad was vigorous in arms, extremely clever both in natural mental ability and by learning, amiable in character and deed, endowed with all the human virtues, supreme in every council, the fair hope of his own side and a blazing lightning-bolt to the foe, capable of pretence and dissimulation in politics, educated in every language, in respect of which he was regarded by the less articulate to be extremely fluent. In one thing alone was he regarded as blameworthy: that he had seduced another's wife away from her living husband, and made her separate from him, and married her himself.[3]

(The last sentence refers to his third marriage to Isabella of Jerusalem in 1190, for which see below.)

He was active in diplomacy from his twenties, and became an effective military commander, campaigning alongside other members of his family in the struggles with the Lombard League. He first married an unidentified lady before 1179, but she was dead by the end of 1186, without leaving any surviving issue.

Byzantine Empire

In 1179, following the family's alliance with

Niketas Choniates describes him as "of beautiful appearance, comely in life's springtime, exceptional and peerless in manly courage and intelligence, and in the flower of his body's strength".[5]

In the winter of 1186–1187,

Boniface, to renew the Byzantine alliance with Montferrat, but Boniface was married. Conrad, recently widowed, had taken the cross, intending to join his father in the Kingdom of Jerusalem; instead, he accepted Isaac's offer and returned to Constantinople in spring 1187. On his marriage, he was awarded the rank of Caesar. However, almost immediately, he had to help the Emperor defend his throne against a revolt, led by General Alexios Branas. According to Choniates, Conrad inspired the weak Emperor to take the initiative. He fought without shield or helmet and wore a linen cuirass instead of mail in the battle in which Branas was killed. He was slightly wounded in the shoulder, but unhorsed Branas, who was then killed and beheaded by his bodyguards.[6]

However, feeling that his service had been insufficiently rewarded, wary of Byzantine anti-Latin sentiment (his youngest brother

Benedict of Peterborough
). Roger had initially referred to Conrad "having slain a prominent nobleman in a rebellion"—meaning Branas; in his Chronica, he condensed this to "having committed homicide", omitting the context.

Defense of Tyre

Conrad arrives at Tyre: marginal sketch in late 12C Brevis Historia Regni Hierosolymitani, a continuation of the Annals of Genoa (Bib. Nat. Française)

Conrad evidently intended to join his father, who held the castle of St Elias. He arrived first off

Raymond III of Tripoli and his stepsons, Reginald of Sidon
and several other leading nobles who had escaped the battle had fled to Tyre, but most were anxious to return to their own territories to defend them. Raymond of Tripoli was in failing health, and died soon after he went home.

According to the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, Reginald of Sidon had taken charge in Tyre and was in the process of negotiating its surrender with Saladin. Conrad allegedly threw Saladin's banners into the ditch, and made the Tyrians swear total loyalty to him. His rise to power seems to have been less dramatic in reality. Reginald went to refortify his own castle of Belfort on the Litani River. With the support of the established Italian merchant communities in the city, Conrad re-organised the defence of Tyre, setting up a commune, similar to those he had so often fought against in Italy.

When Saladin's army arrived they found the city well-defended and defiant. As the chronicler

Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre, to the West in a black-sailed ship, bearing appeals for aid. Arabic writers claimed that he also carried propaganda pictures to use in his preaching, including one of the horses of Saladin's army stabled (and urinating) in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
, and another of a Saracen slapping Christ's face.

In November 1187, Saladin returned for a second

William V of Montferrat, who had been captured at Hattin, before the walls of the city. He offered to release William and bestow great gifts upon Conrad if he surrendered Tyre. The old man told his son to stand firm, even when the Egyptians threatened to kill him. Conrad declared that William had lived a long life already, and aimed at him with a crossbow himself.[8] Saladin allegedly said, "This man is an unbeliever and very cruel". But he had succeeded in calling Saladin's bluff: the old Marquis William was released, unharmed, at Tortosa
in 1188, and returned to his son.

On 30 December, Conrad's forces launched a dawn raid on the weary Egyptian sailors, capturing many of their galleys. The remaining Egyptian ships tried to escape to Beirut, but the Tyrian ships gave chase, and the Egyptians were forced to beach their ships and flee. Saladin then launched an assault on the landward walls, thinking that the defenders were still distracted by the sea battle. However, Conrad led his men in a charge out of the gates and broke the enemy: Hugh of Tiberias distinguished himself in the battle. Saladin was forced to pull back yet again, burning his siege engines and ships to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

Struggle for the crown

The Near East, 1190, at the outset of the Third Crusade

In summer 1188, Saladin released king

Frederick I
. Conrad would not allow Guy and Sibylla to enter the city, but did allow them to camp outside Tyre's walls with their retainers.

Conrad was persuaded by his cousin once-removed, Louis III, Landgrave of Thuringia, to join Guy in the Siege of Acre in 1189. The siege lasted for over two years. In summer 1190, Conrad travelled north to Antioch to lead another young kinsman, Frederick of Swabia, safely back to Acre with the remnants of his cousin Frederick Barbarossa's imperial army.

Marriage of Conrad of Montferrat and Isabelle of Jerusalem

When Queen Sibylla and their daughters died of disease later that year, King Guy no longer had a legal claim to the throne—but refused to step aside. The heiress of Jerusalem was Queen Sibylla's half-sister

King of Jerusalem
. However, he had been wounded in battle only nine days previously, and returned with his bride to Tyre to recover. He came back to the siege in spring, making an unsuccessful sea-attack against the Tower of Flies at the harbour entrance.

As Guy was a vassal of

Tyre, Beirut, and Sidon
, and his heirs would inherit Jerusalem on Guy's death. In July 1191 Conrad's kinsman, King Philip, decided to return to France, but before he left he turned over half the treasure plundered from Acre to Conrad, along with all his prominent Muslim hostages. King Richard asked Conrad to hand over the hostages, but Conrad refused as long as he could. After he finally relented (since Richard was now leader of the Crusade), Richard had all the hostages killed. Conrad did not join Richard on campaign to the south, preferring to remain with his wife Isabella in Tyre—believing his life to be in danger. It was probably around this time that Conrad's father died.

During that winter, Conrad opened direct negotiations with Saladin, suspecting that Richard's next move would be to attempt to wrest Tyre from him and restore it to the royal domain for Guy. His primary aim was to be recognised as ruler in the north, while Saladin (who was simultaneously negotiating with Richard for a possible marriage between his brother Al-Adil and Richard's widowed sister Joan, Dowager Queen of Sicily) hoped to separate him from the Crusaders. The situation took a farcical turn when Richard's envoy, Isabella's ex-husband Humphrey of Toron, spotted Conrad's envoy, Reginald of Sidon, out hawking with Al-Adil. There seems to have been no conclusive agreement with Conrad, and Joan refused marriage to a Muslim.

Assassination

In April 1192, the kingship was put to the vote. To Richard's consternation, the barons of the Kingdom of Jerusalem unanimously elected Conrad as King. Richard sold Guy the lordship of

Henry II of Champagne
brought the news of the election result to Tyre on 24 April and returned to Acre.

However, Conrad was never crowned. Around late morning or noon on 28 April, Isabella, who was pregnant, was late in returning from the

Assassins, who stabbed him at least twice in the side and back. His guards killed one of his attackers and captured the other. It is not certain how long Conrad survived. Some sources claimed he died at the scene of the attack or in a nearby church, within a very short time. Richard's chroniclers claimed that he was taken home, received the last rites, and urged Isabella to give the city over only to Richard or his representative, but that deathbed scene is open to doubt. He was buried in Tyre, in the Church of the Hospitallers. "[T]he Frankish marquis, the ruler of Tyre, and the greatest devil of all the Franks, Conrad of Montferrat—God damn him!—was killed," wrote Ibn al-Athir. Certainly, the loss of a potentially formidable king was a blow to the kingdom.[9]

The murder remains unsolved. Under torture, the surviving Assassin claimed that Richard was behind the killing, but that is impossible to prove. A less likely suspect was

Henry of Champagne
's guilt, but if so, it is difficult to imagine him taking such a bold step without his uncle Richard's approval.

Later, while returning from the crusade in disguise, King Richard was first recognized by

Rashid al-Din Sinan, they appeared to do so. The letter claimed that in 1191, Conrad had captured an Assassin ship that had sought refuge in Tyre during a storm. He killed the captain, imprisoned the crew, and stripped the ship of its treasure. When Rashid al-Din Sinan requested for the ship's crew and treasure to be returned, he was rebuffed and so a death sentence was issued for Conrad of Montferrat. However, the letter is believed to have been forged.[10]
Sinan was already dead, and apart from that letter and the chronicle entries based upon it, there is no other evidence for the Assassins being involved in shipping. The timing of the murder and its consequences (the pregnant Isabella was married off to Henry of Champagne only seven days later, much to the disgust of Muslim commentators) suggest that the chief motive may be sought in Frankish politics.

Family

Conrad's brother

William, had been the first husband of Sibylla and father of Baldwin V of Jerusalem. Conrad was also briefly Marquis of Montferrat, following his father's death in 1191. In Montferrat he was succeeded by Boniface, but his own heiress was born posthumously: a daughter Maria of Montferrat
, 'La Marquise', who in 1205 became Queen of Jerusalem on Isabella's death, but died young in childbirth. Conrad's ex-wife, Theodora, was still living in the mid-late 1190s, when she was having the monastery of Dalmatios converted into a convent, possibly for her own residence.

Role in fiction, film and art

Imaginary portrait of Conrad, c. 1843, by François-Édouard Picot for the Salles des Croisades at Versailles

The Monferrine court was Occitan in its literary culture, and provided patronage to numerous troubadours. Bertran de Born and Peirol mention Conrad in songs composed at the time of the Third Crusade (see external links below). He was seen as a heroic figure, the noble defender of Tyre—the "Marqués valens e pros" ("the valiant and worthy Marquis") as Peirol called him. In Carmina Burana 50: Heu, voce flebili cogor enarrare, he is described as "marchio clarissimus, vere palatinus" ("the most famous Marquis, truly a paladin"). However, subsequently, the long-term prejudice of popular English-language writing towards Richard I and his "Lionheart" myth has adversely affected portrayals of Conrad in English-language fiction and film. Because Richard (and his chroniclers) opposed his claim to the throne, he is generally depicted negatively, even when Richard himself is treated with some scepticism. A rare exception to this is the epic poem Cœur de Lion (1822), by Eleanor Anne Porden, in which he is depicted as a tragic Byronic hero.

An entirely fictionalised, unambiguously wicked version of Conrad appears in

Machiavellian' Italian: corrupt, scheming, dandified, not averse to poisoning, even (as in Shelby's novel) sexually sadistic. In contrast, the Russian-born French novelist Zoé Oldenbourg gives him a more positive but fleeting cameo-role— proud, strong, and as handsome as Choniates described him—in her 1946 novel Argile et Cendres (Clay and Ashes, published in English as The World Is Not Enough in 1948). He is the hero of Luigi Gabotto's 1968 novel Corrado di Monferrato, which covers his whole career. Another sympathetic portrayal is in Alan Gordon
's mystery novel, The Widow of Jerusalem (2003), which investigates his murder.

In film, he has been consistently depicted as a villain, and with scant regard for accuracy. In

Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din
also shows Scott's influence in its hostility towards Conrad (played by Mahmoud El-Meliguy) and Philip, while depicting Richard more favourably.

On television, he was played by Michael Peake in the 1962 British television series Richard the Lionheart, which derived some of its plotlines loosely from Scott's The Talisman. In the more faithful 1980–1981 BBC serialisation of The Talisman, he was played by Richard Morant.

In painting and drawing, Conrad figures in a small contemporary manuscript sketch of his ship sailing to Tyre in the Annals of Genoa, and various illustrations to Scott's The Talisman. There is an imaginary portrait of him, c. 1843, by François-Édouard Picot for the Salles des Croisades at Versailles: it depicts him as a handsome, rather pensive man in his forties, wearing a coronet and fanciful pseudo-medieval costume. He is shown with dark hair and beard; it is more likely that, like his father and at least two of his brothers, he was blond.

In the 2007 video game

Templars targets the main character must assassinate. This is based on the real historical death of Conrad, who was murdered by the Order of Assassins
.

Sources

References

  1. ^ Setton, Kenneth M., Wolff, Robert Lee; Hazard, Harry W., eds. (1969). A History of the Crusades, Volume II: The Later Crusades, 1189–1311 (Second ed.). Madison, Milwaukee, and London: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 66–116, passim
  2. ^ Freed 2016, p. xiv.
  3. ^ In Die Chronik des Propstes Burchard von Ursberg, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger & Bernhard von Simson, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica: Scriptores in Usum Scholarum, (Hannover & Leipzig, 1916), p. 64
  4. ^ Roger of Howden, Chronicle year 1179; Choniates, ed. van Dieten, Historia, vol. 1, p. 201, and ed. Magoulias, O City of Byzantium, p. 114.
  5. ^ Choniates, loc. cit.
  6. ^ Choniates, ed. van Dieten, Historia, vol. 1, pp. 386–87, and ed. Magoulias, O City of Byzantium, pp. 212–13.
  7. ^ Malcolm Barber, The Two Cities: Medieval Europe 1050–1320, 2nd edition, (Routledge, 2004), 125.
  8. ^ The Last Merovingian
  9. ^ Richards, D. S., Editor (2007). The Annals of the Saljuq Turks: Selections from al-Kamil fi’l-Tarikh ibn al-Athir, 1146–1193. Routledge Publishing. pp. 396–97.
  10. OCLC 846946318.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )

External links
Conrad of Montferrat
Born: mid 1140s Died: 1192 28 April
Regnal titles
Preceded by
William V
Marquis of Montferrat

1191–1192 		Succeeded by
Boniface I
Preceded by King of Jerusalem
1192
with Isabella I 		Succeeded byas sole ruler
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conrad_of_Montferrat&oldid=1218134454"