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The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily
Ryan Renfro
22 October 2001
When the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI took the hand of Constance of Sicily in marriage in St. Ambrose Cathedral, it was more than just a union between man and wife, for marriage among the nobility in the Middle Ages was just as much a political act as a social one. Although Constance’s nephew, King William II of Sicily, still maintained hope of producing an heir, she was the next in line to the throne should his line fail. As fate would have it, within four years William was dead without offspring and the heir apparent of the western empire would find himself with the strongest claim to the Norman kingdom. Although it is uncertain which side instigated the marriage negotiations – both Hauteville and Hohenstaufen would have had their reasons to do so – what is clear is that the union had enormous effects on both countries involved.[1] For the kingdom of Sicily, the marriage meant its ruler would have to expend resources in other lands: for the Empire, the wedding brought back many of the lands still claimed by the emperor, providing a wealthy and well-organized base at the south of the Italian peninsula which wholly transformed both the character of the empire and Italian politics for more than a half century. Thanks to good political maneuvering and a bit of luck, the marriage of Henry VI with Constance of Sicily was the most important achievement of Frederick Barbarossa’s Italian affairs, an achievement made possible only by the peace of 1177 and the subsequent disintegration of the coalition against him.
In order to come to any sort of understanding of why the marriage took place, one must first get a grasp on the politics of the time in both Sicily and the empire. In the north, Germany was lead by one of its strongest and most vigorous rulers, Frederick Barbarossa. The investiture contest and dynastic quarrelling had left the empire with very little control over the burgeoning Italian city-states. Ascending to the throne in 1152, Frederick quickly settled matters in Germany. He then turned his sights towards regaining the former imperial control of Italy, which he endeavored to establish in a number of Italian expeditions. His attempts to bring the cities of Lombardy under imperial control met with stiff opposition, although he was able to play them off against one another for a number of years. He initially agreed with the papacy to make no peace with the Norman kingdom of Sicily in the Treaty of Constance in 1153. The Normans had long been enemies of the empire since much of their kingdom was once under imperial dominion and was still claimed by the emperors. Frederick incurred the enmity of the papacy when a disagreement over whether or not he held the empire as a fief at Besancon and a disputed papal election left Frederick supporting Victor IV instead of Alexander III. Despite the growing opposition to his actions in Italy, Frederick managed quite well until a plague hit his army before Rome in 1167. This setback for Frederick prompted the city-states to form the Lombard League in opposition to imperial rule. By 1167 Frederick faced a united coalition against him in Italy comprised of the Lombard League, Alexander III, and the kingdom of Sicily.
In 1174 Frederick once again returned to Italy. When negotiations with the Lombards failed, he met them outside Legnano on 29 May 1176. In the course of the battle Frederick was knocked from his horse, at which point the imperial forces fled.[2] Brought back to the bargaining table at Venice in 1177, Frederick agreed to a six year peace with the Lombards and to a fifteen year truce with the Normans, as well as recognizing Alexander III. A final peace with the Lombards came six years later in the Peace of Constance. Although this would immediately appear as a defeat for Frederick since he abandoned many of the regalia rights claimed at Roncaglia 24 years earlier, in actuality it allowed him to take practical advantages in Italy. Having split up the coalition against him by recognizing Alexander and abandoning the regalia, Frederick was often able to play one power against another, as illustrated by the creation of a pact with his longtime enemy Milan against his former supporter, Cremona. In this context a marriage alliance with the Normans of Sicily would have given Frederick an even better standing in Italy, since close relations with powerful southern Italy would give him even more sway and room to maneuver in the northern and central parts of the peninsula.
The political situation in Sicily was much different during this time period. When King Roger II died in 1154, the succession fell to his fourth and only surviving son, William I. Aware that the throne would fall to a weak son, Roger II remarried twice at the end of his life in the attempt to produce another son. Although unsuccessful, Roger did manage to father a daughter, Constance, who was born after his death. William I left two sons when he expired after a short and largely unsuccessful reign in 1166, the older of whom, William, succeeded to the throne under the regency of his mother, Margareta of Navarra. When William II’s brother Henry of Capua died in 1172, Constance became the next in line for the throne.
Attempts had been made around this time to secure the succession by marriage. The Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus had hoped to marry William to his daughter in 1167, but that effort failed, as did negotiations with Henry II of England due to the Becket controversy.[3] When William thought he had finally secured a union with Maria of Byzantium, he found himself waiting at Taranto for several weeks for a bride who was not on her way. Norwich believes this caused a deep-seated resentment in William towards the Byzantines, an antipathy that would lead to later conflict between the two states.[4] William was eventually able to betroth Joan Plantagenet of England in 1176, marrying her in 1177. This union was actually the suggestion of Alexander III who wished to ensure the loyalty of the Sicilian kingdom to his anti-Hohenstaufen stance in Italy as well as to cement the support of Henry II. Conversely, a Hauteville-Hohenstaufen alliance at this or any other time would have been disastrous to the papal position in Italy and thus would have been beneficial to the imperial aims.[5]
Such an alliance had been proposed in the past. Frederick had suggested the marriage of his daughter, Beatrix, to young William II in 1173. Although such a union was undoubtedly tempting, William resisted according to Romuald of Salerno “because of the loyalty to the pope and the curia.”[6] This proposal by Frederick was nothing short of an attempt to tear the Norman kingdom away from its papal and Lombard allies. It was apparently not the only effort he made, either. Van Cleve writes that: “As early as 1174 Barbarossa had contemplated the securing of [southern Italy] to which he believed the Germans had a just claim since the era of Otto the Great. He endeavoured to achieve this through a marriage alliance of his son with the sister of William I.”[7] The sister of William I was actually his half-sister, Constance. Following the death of William II’s younger brother Henry in 1172, Constance had become the heir to the throne. Therefore if Frederick truly did propose a marriage not only to William II but also to his aunt Constance in 1174, then one can assume that it was not only an ally in Italy he was after, but also the acquisition of former imperial territories should William II die childless. This is in line with Haverkamp’s assessment of Hohenstaufen marital policies, which he said existed to bind internal and external families to the Hohenstaufens as well as to expand the hereditary claims of the dynasty.[8] Frederick in fact married children to: Constance of Sicily, Margrave William II of Montferrat, and the daughters of both the Byzantine emperor and the count of Blois-Champagne, to say nothing of the countless other proposals he issued.[9] Thus Frederick was an extremely active proponent of marriage alliances.
Although the sources do not leave a clear picture of who proposed the marriage of Henry VI to Contance, there are a number of theories. The first, based on a contemporary source, is that Pope Lucius III himself proposed the marriage. This theory was introduced by Haller and reiterated by Barraclough on the assumption that Lucius wanted to consummate the peace and that there was no concerns about William producing an heir.[10] This is by far the most unlikely of the theories. Although the elderly Lucius was no Alexander, he did work closely with him and did not show himself to be so foolish concerning other political matters such as the Matildine lands. The succession was on everyone’s mind as it always was in medieval kingdoms and as is evident by the fact that William made his magnates swear fealty to Constance in Apulia in 1184/5 should he die childless. Lucius may have consented in the hopes that peace in Italy would pave the way for his desired crusade.[11] So unpopular was his agreement to a union that threatened to surround the papacy, as well as his other appeasements to Frederick, that upon Lucius’ death the cardinals elected Urban III, the Archbishop of Milan with a strong anti-imperial history. Lucius’ position may have not allowed him to prudently deny the union, but he certainly by no means proposed it.
A second possibility is that Frederick suggested the union. Besides the questionable chronicle suggesting Lucius as the union’s author, Otto of St Blasien is the only other author to discuss the political negotiations for the marriage.[12] The two main reasons urging Frederick to suggest the marriage have already been mentioned: the possibility of the Sicilian succession and the political alienation and encirclement of the pope in Italy. So successful was this that Haverkamp writes: “Against this background it becomes comprehensible that in 1186, after the marriage of Henry VI and Constance, the emperor dropped all consideration for the papacy.”[13] The marriage was a success for the emperor before William’s death due to the freedom and leverage it gave him in Italy. Although the benefit of hindsight has allowed historians to attribute the acquisition of Sicily to Frederick’s brilliance all too easily, it was nevertheless a good political move when it took place and the fact that William II had not produced an heir after several years of trying would not have escaped an experienced marriage negotiator such as Frederick. Furthermore, the timing of the announcement just on the heals of Henry’s accolade in 1184 at the spectacular festival at Mainz is perfect for an emperor seeking to have his newly knighted son and heir married. One thus finds both evidence of and ample cause for Frederick to have initiated the marriage negotiations.
Of course the other possibility is that William II instigated the deal. At first it may seem odd that William would threaten the independence of his kingdom by giving his heir presumptive to the future emperor.[14] Although there is “no contemporary evidence of any anxiety about the future of the kingdom,”[15] many such as Matthew of Ajello are said to have been horrified, a sentiment backed up by the speed with which Tancred was to receive Sicilian support against the German’s bid following William’s death. Just as Fröhlich has William possibly waiting for a Hohenstaufen bride in the 1170s but being prevented by the schism, so could Constance have been saved for a German prince through the schism and the conflict with William’s brother-in-law, Henry the Lion.[16] This would certainly explain why she was kept unmarried for so long.[17] But why would William want to give the emperor his only heir or to cement their peace of 1177? First off, by giving Constance to the imperial heir, he would insure that she would have the power to assert her claim over the Tancred of Lecce, the bastard nephew of William I.[18] Second, and more important, was the support and secure rear it would give William II in his coming war with Byzantium. Emperor Manuel Comnenus died in 1180, leaving an exhausted empire with a succession of weak rulers. William took advantage of this situation, attacking the eastern empire. It was in fact with his troops storming Thessalonica that William handed his aunt over to imperial emissaries at Rieti in August 1185. It is chiefly William’s ambitions in the Mediterranean that would have driven him to instigate the negotiations as Gilbert of Mons and Richard of San Germano imply.[19]
The most elaborate modern supporter of the theory that William began the negotiations is Fröhlich. He states that William would not have done this directly, but through the Archbishop of Palermo, Henry II, and then Henry the Lion.[20] Although it is an interesting theory, there is little evidence or reason to believe that it happened in such a roundabout fashion when a much simpler explanation can suffice. Although it is not necessarily the first move, an embassy such as sent by Frederick in 1184 would have been enough to start negotiations between two powers at peace with one another.
Henry married Constance on 27 January 1186, as recorded by Otto of St Blasien.[21] Although the marriage took place in Milan as a goodwill gesture to their new imperial ally, the Archbishop of Milan did not attend, as he was the new pope who frowned upon the union and was enraged by the crowning of Henry VI with the iron crown of Lombardy immediately afterwards. Arnold of Lübeck records that: “the quarrel between the Emperor and the Pope became open, and great trouble arose in the Church of God.”[22] Saladin’s sack of Jerusalem in 1187 is the only thing that prevented another major conflict with the papacy at this time, such was the power and threatening presence that this union gave the emperor in Italy. This threat was doubled in 1189 when William II died. This alliance also threatened the Byzantines, who renewed their pact with Saladin and supported Tancred in opposition to Henry VI.[23] Although it would take Henry until 1194 with the earlier capture and ransom of Richard the Lionheart and then the death of Tancred to secure Sicily, he was crowned king by Christmas day 1194 in Palermo cathedral.
On 26 December 1194, Constance gave birth to a son, baptized Frederick Roger. His name was symbolic of the amalgamation of the two kingdoms in his person. Raised in Sicily, he was more Sicilian than German. The marriage of Constance of Sicily with Henry VI utterly transformed the political situation in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. It brought Sicilian culture and ideas to Germany, symbolized by the Sicilian coronation mantle still in Vienna today, as well as German ministeriales into Sicily. It would once again bring the emperors into conflict with the Popes, who tried desperately to separate the two powers surrounding them.[24] It stuffed the imperial treasury with the rich income of the southern kingdom, and gave the empire a powerful fleet in the Mediterranean. Henry VI suddenly found himself collecting tribute from vassals as wide as Richard I to the Sultan of Almohades, from Morocco to Tripoli[25] and even demanding money, military support, and territory from the Byzantines – perhaps eventually even the eastern throne itself was in sight![26] The marriage was the ultimate accomplishment in Hohenstaufen marital politics and was more successful than all of Frederick I’s Italian campaigns.
There was, of course, a downside to the union. The geography not only brought them back into conflict with the papacy but also made the Hohenstaufen empire even more geographically impractical than it already was.[27] It over-extended itself, causing the future emperors to make further concessions in Germany. Although Henry VI convinced the princes at the apex of his power to agree to make the empire hereditary, he was willing to let them retain land through female heirs, a further concession to the German nobility has his father had made in Austria some 40 years earlier. Nonetheless, it is impossible to predict just how successful the Hohenstaufens might have been had not Henry VI died of malaria in 1197, and event that has been called “the greatest catastrophe of the German Middle Ages.”[28]
Although the sources allow no positive conclusion about who initiated the marriage, it was either William II or Frederick and certainly not Lucius. Albeit William and his young wife still maintained hopes of reproducing, the marriage was still contracted with the knowledge that it might decide the future Sicilian succession and can thus be attributed, with luck, as a Hohenstaufen success. The full potential of the Hauteville-Hohenstaufen unification will never been known, however, since Henry VI died at a time which would have challenged the abilities of even the greatest of rulers, leaving only his infant son with a mother who denounced his claim to the empire.
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Consequences.” Anglo-Norman Studies XV, ed. Marjorie Chibnall. (Woodbridge, 1992.)
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Bennett. (Oxford, 1973).
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Perspektiven imperialer Süditalienpolitik.” Vorträge und Forschungen: Herausgeben vom Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für mittelalterliche Geschichte, Vol XL. (Thorbecke, 1992).
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[1] “Der genaue Zeitpunkt der staufischen Anfrage und der romannischen Zusage ist nicht überliefert.” Houben, “Barbarossa und die Normannen,” p. 224.
[2] Munz, Frederick Barbarossa, pp. 310-12.
[3] Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily,” p. 102.
[4] Norwich also writes that Manuel’s change of mind was likely due to rival bids by Frederick Barbarossa himself. As shall be seen this conflict with the Greeks is likely what drove William to undertake a later marriage alliance with the western emperor. Norwich, The Kingdom of the Sun 1130-1194, p.305.
[5] Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily,” p. 103.
[6] Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily,” p. 102.
[7] Van Cleve, The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, p. 5.
[8] “The marriage policies which created relationships and which were intended to underpin political relations and create hereditary claims, under the Staufen were not only used to bind individual noble families within the empire closer to the royal family; they now also became a crucial instrument of far-reaching Staufen policies. Haverkamp, Medieval Germany 1056-1273, p. 265.
[9] Haverkamp, Medieval Germany 1056-1273, p. 265.
[10] Barraclough, The Origins of Modern Germany, p. 185. Munz’s idea that the marriage was a “triumph” of Lucius’ policy in that he confirmed the peace in Italy because he knew Frederick was going to be too busy becoming a “feudal monarch” in Germany is even further off the mark. Munz, Frederick Barbarossa, pp. 366-369.
[11]Hampe, Germany under the Salian and Hohenstaufen Emperors, p. 211.
[12] “Emperor Frederick sent envoys to King William I of Sicily, Roger’s son, [Otto is confused on this in that William I, son of Roger, had been dead for 18 years in 1184, and thus it must be William II.] in order to have William’s sister betrothed to his son Henry. Thus he acquired as dowry after the King’s death the kingdom of Sicily… he won back for the Roman empire these territories which had been extorted by Roger from the empire after the death of Emperor Lothair.” Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily,” p. 100.
[13] Haverkamp, Medieval Germany 1056-1273, p. 233.
[14] Joan was reported in Normandy to have had a son named Boamund, born circa 1181 and invested with the duchy of Apulia, but this author believes that since this is mentioned no where else save in one source so far from the kingdom one can assume that it was just rumor. For reference to this see Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily, p.275. Further evidence that Joan did not have a child is found in the writings of Richard of San Germano, one of the best sources for the Norman kingdom at this time, where he laments the barrenness of Joan in his first paragraph. Norwich, The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194, p.324.
[15] Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily, p. 274-275.
[16] Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily: Prelude and Consequences”, pp. 103-104.
[17] This has been the cause of much speculation, giving rise to later rumors about her being so ugly they could not marry her off and also that she joined a convent and had to be forced out, later prompting Dante to place her in Paradisio.
[18] Tancred had already been involved in revolts against William I and was likely no friend of his son, either. William’s fears were justified after his death when Tancred seized control. Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily: Prelude and Consequences”, p. 106.
[19] Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily: Prelude and Consequences”, pp. 107.
[20] Fröhlich, “The Marriage of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily: Prelude and Consequences”, pp. 107. Although Fröhlich does cite evidence of the Archbishop of Palermo suggesting that William II involve Henry II, this might just be because William’s father-in-law was no longer on the best of terms with the emperor due to the exile of Henry the Lion and he doubtlessly would need to confirm with Henry in order not to strain their relationship. Furthermore, it is not even firmly accepted that Henry the Lion attended the great celebration at Mainz in 1184, where Fröhlich suggests that he announced the plan. There is no need to believe the most elaborate theory when a simple explanation will do.
[21] Hofmeister, ed. Ottonis de Sancto Blasio Chronica, p. 39-40.
[22] Norwich, The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194, p. 348.
[23] Haverkamp, Medieval Germany, pp. 234-235.
[24] Even though the Welf challenge lead to the supporting of Frederick II and the Hohenstaufens by Innocent III, he nevertheless insured as best he could that the two kingdoms would be separated.
[25] Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second 1194-1250, p. 9.
[26] Haverkamp, Medieval Germany, p. 237.
[27] The fact that the Alps divided the western empire certainly played a role in the emperors’ loss of power in Italy to begin with. Adding lands in southern Italy, Sicily, and Greece would have doubtlessly been more than a state organized in the manner of the medieval empire could maintain.
[28] Fuhrmann, Germany in the High Middle Ages c 1050-1200, p. 29.