Daughter of Joscelin II, count of Edessa, and first wife of King Amalric of Jerusalem.
Agnes married Amalric (then count of Jaffa) around 1157, despite still being married to Hugh of Ibelin, lord of Ramla. When Amalric succeeded to the throne in 1163, opposition among the ruling class obliged him to divorce Agnes before his coronation, although their two children, Baldwin IV and Sibyl, were legitimized. Agnes remarried and withdrew from public life until Baldwin’s accession as king (1174). From that point, as queen mother, she used patronage in a way that aroused enmity and inspired rumors of illicit love affairs. Agnes improved the fortunes of one faction at the court of King Baldwin IV, often by acting against Count Raymond III of Tripoli. In 1179 she influenced the appointment of Aimery of Lusignan as constable,
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Mayer, Hans Eberhard, “Die Legitimitat Balduins IV. von Jerusalem und das Testament der Agnes von Courtenay,” Historisches Jahrbuch 108 (1988), 63-89.
-, “The Beginnings of King Amalric of Jerusalem,” in
The Horns of Hattin, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1992), pp. 121-135.
And then in 1180 she advised her son to choose Guy of Lusignan as Sibyl’s husband, Humphrey IV of Toron as Princess Isabella’s husband, and Eraclius of Caesarea as patriarch of Jerusalem (thus passing over William of Tyre). She died probably in early 1185.
-Deborah Gerish
Bibliography
Hamilton, Bernard, “Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem,” in Medieval Women, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), pp. 61-87.
-. “The Titular Nobility of the Latin East: The Case of
Agnes of Courtenay,” in Crusade and Settlement, ed. Peter W. Edbury (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press,
1985), pp. 197-203.
World History
