Talk:Constance, Queen of Sicily

Notes related to Sicilian Wikipedia version

Congratulations on an excellent article, I have pretty much relied on it to do a version in Sicilian. I just thought I would mention a couple of things I have added to the Sicilian version. I have mentioned to whom Tancred was born (Roger, Duke of Apulia, the first born of Roger II). I have also mentioned that Joanna was the sister of Richard the Lion Heart. At this stage, the only other thing I am thinking of adding is perhaps a line on Constance's trip north to marry Henry, and the size of her entourage and dowry. Cheers and salutamu - --pippudoz 02:37, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This article doeesn't give the details about Tancred and Joanna here because they're mentioned more directly in the articles about Tancred, etc. I did, however, just now point the article at the specific Tancred of Sicily page.

By all means add something about Constance's entourage. But I think the big gap in the article right now is about the period between her son's birth and her death.

Loren Rosen 06:54, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi Loren - what you have said is fair enough. On the Sicilian wikipedia, the links are all empty pages, so the additional detail probably suits us for where we are at the moment (we only have about 150 articles!). I am happy to have a look at the short period you refer to above, I do have one other book that I can reference that might provide something. However, we are only talking about 4 years, and you have pretty much covered the period from 1197 (Henry's death) to 1198 (Constance's death) - she would have used that whole year putting in place what she did, and thus really laying the groundwork for Frederick's incredible reign. It is already implicit in what you have written that Constance wanted Frederick educated in the tradition of the the Siculu-Norman kings, i.e. Arab-muslim, Greek, Jewish and Latin scholars - and in the end, this is perhaps the greatest gift she bequeathed the world. From memory, the article on Frederick says that he was educated in Rome, but I am fairly certain that is incorrect, he was raised and educated in Palermo - would he have learned Arab and Greek in Rome? Unlikely!! Lastly - I have been having a discussion with a colleague on the familial relationship between Tancred and Constance. You describe him as being her grand-nephew, but Tancred was born of Roger II's eldest son, Roger of Apulia - that makes Tancred a nephew of Constance. The confusion that exists amongst some historians is that William I had another son called Roger of Apulia - but this is a different Roger of Apulia (there are at least 4!). The Norwhich book that you reference provides a good table at the back that makes this clear. Thanks and salutamu. --pippudoz 23:01, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Constance captured in Salerno

The Wikipedia article on Henry VI says that in the southern Italian campaign of 1191, Constance was taken prisoner and handed over to Tancred:

“Henry began his work besieging Naples, but he had to leave the siege after his army had been heavily hit by an epidemic, and the Salernitans had taken his wife prisoner and taken her to Tancred.”

Unfortunately, it rather lets the matter hang there (and conveys a chronological vagueness, perhaps: did Henry depart before, as implied here, or after she was captured?), and I wanted to know how Constance was released. This must have been a major drama in her life, but I was surprised to find no mention of it in the present article. So I scrabbled round the internet and discovered that while Henry was besieging Naples, Salerno surrendered, and Constance moved into the palace there. But when Henry and his troops had to return to Germany to deal with Henry the Lion etc., the people of Salerno changed loyalties again and delivered Constance to her enemy Tancred. Only through the intervention of Pope Celestine III was she released.

I’m sure such an event should be included in this little biography; I’m not enough of a historian to reference it properly. (Peter of Eboli is a likely source, but I can't find his writings online.)

Connected to this, I consider that the article contains an obfuscation (see passage quoted below) by jumping three years without making it clear that Constance and Henry made two interventions in southern Italy – one in 1191, when Henry besieged Naples and Constance was captured, and another in 1194, when Tancred died and Constance was pregnant.

"Constance's father-in-law died in 1190, and the following year Henry and Constance were crowned Emperor and Empress. Henry was already preparing to invade Sicily when Tancred died in 1194. Later that year he moved south, deposed Tancred's young son William III, and had himself crowned instead."

It was all a bit more laborious and eventful than that, for sure.

qp10qp 00:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You are spot on about all of that - I am sure Norwich would cover it - I'll double check when I get home tonight. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 01:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

He does cover it very well, so I have basically fleshed out your summation above - how does it look? ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 12:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

What a fantastically quick and full response! I haven't got Norwich's book, and so I found all this very interesting. In particular, you clarify the sequence of events. I can now improve the Henry VI article with this information, I think.

The only thing I would say is that Salerno is slightly south of Naples, which isn't quite clear to me from your account. I actually visited Sicily, Naples, Salerno, etc. in search of the Normans and Frederick II (who I secretly class as a Norman, anyway), and I remember Salerno being at the southern beginning of the Amalfi coast.

We'll probably meet again, because I'm going to read my way through many of the articles on Sicilian history.

Cheers. Andy. qp10qp 14:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right! Salerno is south of Naples. I'll have to double check that bit, but it does seem that they had secured Salerno before they came to Naples - it could well be that they came down the east coast and secured the area north of Apulia (because Apulia was still loyal to Tancred, afterall he was Tancred of Lecce) before cutting across to Salerno, which at the time was probably the more important mainland city in the kingdom, and then went up to Naples. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 22:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Disregard what I have just said, Norwhich does cover it, I simply must have read it far too quickly first time around! ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 09:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Initially Salerno, then Palermo, then Naples while locked in Castel dell'Ovo. I have found some Italian sources.——Heinrich ⅩⅦ von Bayern (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Initially Castel Terracena of Salerno, then Messina, Palermo, finally Naples while locked in Castel dell'Ovo. I have found some Italian sources.——Heinrich ⅩⅦ von Bayern (talk) 07:29, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Constance, Queen and Regent?

The formula that Constance was Queen and Regent also appears, slightly differently worded, on the Frederick II page, as well as on other sites around the internet. But I can't get my head round that: a regent stands in for, or represents, a monarch, so how can a monarch be a regent at the same time?

The present article begins:

"Constance of Sicily (1154 – November 27, 1198) was the heiress of the Norman kings of Sicily, the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled Sicily by right of his wife, and queen and regent of Sicily, 1197-98, for her infant son Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor."

Well, my guess is that she made Frederick co-monarch, because that was often the way things were done (for example, Tancred did that with Roger). The only way she could have become regent, surely, would have been to abdicate, and there's no sign she did that, which would have been unwise in every way. My reading of events is that the above section should say that she was Queen of Sicily from 1194 (when her rivals Tancred, Roger, and William bit the dust) and not just from 1197, as implied. The Wikipedia page listing Sicilian monarchs certainly has her as reigning from 1194 to 1198, the first three of those years with Henry VI. Between Henry's death in 1197 and Frederick's coronation on 6 May 1198, she would have been sole monarch, I think.

I'm reluctant to make the required major change to the article without a discussion, as I fear I may be missing something.

qp10qp 12:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

In the Middle Ages things are a bit complicated. That women could inherit was an established principal (and, indeed, I believe the first usage of Salic Law to prevent such an inheritance was in France in the early 14th century). But women couldn't necessarily exercise that rule in their own right. So Constance was certainly the heiress to Sicily, but she wasn't necessarily the Queen of Sicily (in her own right). Her inheritance had to be exercised through others, first her husband, and then her son. So, from what I can gather, from 1197-1198, Frederick was King of Sicily, as the male representative of his mother, Constance, the heiress, but because Frederick was a minor, his mother, Constance, acted as regent on his behalf. If that makes any sense. A similar situation is that of Melisende of Jerusalem - it's actually rather unclear if she should be considered a Queen in her own right, with her husband as King consort and then her son reigning with her as co-monarch, or if she was the heiress and queen consort, and then continued to act as regent for her young son after her husband's death. Does that make sense? john k 15:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Cheers. I'm sure that's largely right. My concern is the statement that Constance was queen and regent of Sicily 1197-8. Shouldn't something be added showing that she was queen since 1194, too? It's true that she exercised queenship through her association with first her husband (though you couldn't call an heiress a queen consort, surely) and then her son, but she was Queen regnant, nonetheless. It was a potent title, and I think the locals would have supported her if she fell out with Henry VI; Melisende was supported against Fulke, and the Aquitainian troops followed Eleanor when she split with Louis VII over Edessa.qp10qp 17:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Why not just she was Queen of Sicily, jointly with her husband from 1194-1197, and with her infant son from 1197-1198? (And, yes, it was a serious title, and did give her authority that a mere Queen Consort would not have had. But it also wasn't the same as a queen regnant in the modern world. john k 20:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I've now altered it, more ore less using your formula. The convention with single monarchs is that a new reign begins from the death of the last monarch, but how that applies to co-monarchies I'm not sure. Frederick's reign as King of Sicily is usually dated from 1198, which would make Constance sole monarch from Henry VI's death in 1197 till her son's coronation the following year.

I hope other readers will tweak this till it's perfectly correct. They may wish to restore the information that Constance was a regent as well as a queen. I figured that "regent" has a specialised meaning in this context and that that meaning is covered by the fact of a mother reigning as co-monarch with her infant son.qp10qp 21:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I should stress that I too have always found this area confusing - what John has written above makes a lot of sense to me. Taken to its conclusion, it seems to me that between Henry's death and Frederick's coronation, there is a short period where Constance is officially a regent only - but that does get a bit cumbersome to explain in any detail, and so the description a few paras up seems the way to go. There is no doubt that she would have been viewed as Queen throughout, and the fact that she was able to put so much planning into ensuring Frederick was able to rule in the future (which all proved successful) tells us that she carried a fair bit of authority. It has always amazed me that given papacy's negative view of a merging of the empire and the kingdom that it didn't do anything immediately after the death of both Henry and Constance, with effectively a decade before Frederick came of age. All the more surprising when one considers the state of relations at various times between the papacy and the kingdom since its inception. It must have a lot to do with Constance herself (and a bit of good fortune - which was not to last). ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 01:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Another small query, towards the end of the article it says: "Henry died in 1197, and Constance returned to Sicily." We know that Frederick was born just outside of the Kingdom, but where were they for the first three years of his life? This makes it sound as if she only returned after Henry's death, but I'm not sure if that is correct - isn't it likely that both Constance and Frederick were there in Sicily for the bulk of those three years? I have a vague recollection that Henry was hoping that Constance would be able to placate the local populace because Henry was extremely unpopular. By the same token, there may have been some friction between the two at this stage because she did not approve of his manner in governing Sicily - was she sent out of Sicily during this period? Does anyone know anything more about this period? ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 05:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Pippu, you seem to want to take my earlier logic "to its conclusion." I would advise you that this is where one encounters problems. Medieval inheritance law was confusing and not terribly clear. It is not wise to try to "take it to its conclusion," because medieval people themselves did not do so. There was a lot of playing it by ear and making it up as they went along. Trying to impose modern categories seems like a bad idea, and is more likely to mislead than to enlighten. In terms of returning to Sicily, or what not, I know Henry was certainly in Sicily - he died in Messina, no? john k 11:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

He did die in Messina, but I'm not sure where Constance was. But I'm going to quickly check it out so see if I can find anything to confirm what is written here. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 12:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Mary Taylor Simeti writes in Travels with a Medieval Queen (which I stress is not really intended as an historical study, although it is reasonably referenced): Constance arrived in Palermo in June 1195 to find the treasury ransacked and the coffers empty. and immediately following Henry's death: Constance spent the following months in the role of the sorrowful widow, travelling between Palermo and Messina to arrange a suitably prestigious burial... At a minimum, I think we should accept that she was already in Sicily, and delete the bit about returning to Sicily, unless someone finds a reference to support that. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 12:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where Constance had been, but "Constance returned to Sicily" did strike a jarring note with me when I first read the article because I have to guess where she'd been. Perhaps this was taken from a book where the context was clear. If it can't be established where Constance was, I agree that the phrase should be edited out, for narrative reasons. qp10qp 15:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Rather late in the day to be adding to this thread, but I came across another odd (to me) use of the word regent for Jogaila, who was seventeen when he became grand duke of Lithuania and shared power with his uncle. This rang a Sicilian bell and led me to the article coregency. From that I learned that co-regent is a legitimate term for a co-ruler. Nothing in the present article needs changing; but I'm sure this explains why the word regent was used for Constance who was also queen by blood. I live and learn. qp10qp 16:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Media exposure

This article was on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me. Just letting you know. Abeg92 17:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Date of birth

I put "citation needed" against the date 2 November. She was certainly born in 1154, and it was certainly after her father's death, which took place on 26 February 1154 -- but reliable sources don't seem to know the day or month of her birth. Do we have have a source? Andrew Dalby 20:32, 15 February 2013 (UTC)