Perceval

The House of Luxembourg, the House of Anjou and their descendants the House of Plantagenet and the French House of Lusignan are descended, according to medieval folk legends, from the dragon spirit Melusine. Wolfram von Eschenbach, whose account of the Holy Grail drew upon Chretien de Troyes, claimed to have obtained his information from a certain Kyot de Provence, who would have been Guyot de Provins (d. after 1208), a troubadour and Monk at Cluny. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Guyot de Provins, in his famous La Bible Guiot, named his protectors, who included: Fredrick Barbarossa, Louis VII of France, Henry II of England, Henry the Young King, Richard the Lionheart, Alfonso II of Aragon and Raymond V of Toulouse, all closely associated with the Melusine line.[1] It was indeed these rulers and their families who produced the network of dynastic alliances, the real Camelot as it were, that were behind the emergence of the Grail legends.

Swiss scholar André de Mandach postulated that ‘‘Perceval’’ might be a nickname for a famous count of the Perche, Rotrou III (1099 – 1144). The first head of the family of the Perche known is Geoffrey I (fl. 1031), who associated himself with Count Odo I, Count of Blois, and secured a sphere of influence that would become the county of the Perche. Goeffrey’s son, Rotrou I increased the family’s influence. His son, Geoffrey II married Beatrice of Roucy, a descendant of the Carolingian and Capetian kings of France. Beatrice’s brother Ebbes married the daughter of the famous Norman count Robert Guiscard and her sister Felicia of Roucy married Sancho Ramirez of Aragon (c. 1042 – 1094). Sancho Ramirez’s accession to the crown of Navarre later that year made her the first Aragonese consort to also be Queen consort of Navarre. Sancho Ramirez, who was King of Aragon and King of Pamplona, was the son of Ramiro I (bef. 1007 – 1063), the first king of Aragon. Sancho Ramirez’s mother was Ermesinda of Bigorre, a daughter of Bernard-Roger, Count of Bigorre (c. 962 – c. 1034), founder of the House of Foix. During the reigns of Sancho Ramírez and his son Peter I, the kingdom of Aragon extended its borders to the south, established threatening fortresses on the capital of Zaragoza in El Castellar and Juslibol and took Huesca, which became the new capital.

Felicia gave birth to three sons, Ferdinand, Ramiro II of Aragon, and Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre (1073/1074 – 1134) called “the Battler” or “the Warrior,” successor of his uncle Peter I of Aragon and Pamplona (c. 1068 – 1104). Alfonso I married Urraca, the former widowed wife of Raymond of Burgundy, who died in 1107. Fearing that the rivalries between the nobles of Castile and Leon would be increased if she married any of other suitors, Urraca’s father Alfonso VI decided that she should wed Alfonso the Battler, opening the opportunity for uniting Leon and Castile with Aragon. After his marriage to Urraca, Alfonso I had begun to use the grandiose title Emperor of Spain, formerly employed by his father-in-law, Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile. Alfonso I welcomed the Templars into his kingdom in the 1130s, to support the ongoing Reconquista. In 1131, his will bequeathed the Kingdom of Aragon to the Canons of the Holy Sepulcher, to the Hospitallers and to the Templars. The three orders were unable to claim this legacy in its entirety, but the Templars did gain control of a number of fortresses and various other revenues and privileges.[2]

Ramiro II of Aragon, who married Agnes of Aquitaine, the daughter of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and Philippa, Countess of Toulouse, niece of Raymond IV of Toulouse. Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile had several wives, including Constance of Burgundy, Berta, Isabel (possibly the same as Zaida) and Beatrice, and William IX’s sister Agnes of Aquitaine. Alfonso VI’s marriage with Agatha, daughter of William the Conqueror, was negotiated in 1067, but she died prematurely. Constance of Burgundy and Alfonso VI’s first wife, Agnes of Aquitaine, were cousins in the third degree, both of them descendants of William III, Duke of Aquitaine. The second wife of Robert I, Duke of Burgundy, was Ermengarde, the daughter of Fulk III of Anjou, the son of Geoffrey I of Anjou. Their daughter Hildegarde married Robert I’s cousin, William VIII of Aquitaine (c. 1025 – 1086). Alfonso VI’s wife Beatrice was William VIII’s daughter. Agnes was the sister of William VIII’s son, William IX of Aquitaine. Between 1120 and 1123, William IX of Aquitaine joined forces with the Kingdoms of Castile and Leon. William IX was first married in 1088, at age sixteen, to Ermengarde, daughter of Fulk IV of Anjou.

In 1094, William IX married Philippa, the daughter and heiress of William IV of Toulouse (c. 1040 – 1094) and Emma of Mortain, daughter of Robert, Count of Mortain and a niece of William of Normandy. The counts of Toulouse trace their descent to Guillaume of Gellone, who appointed was Count of Toulouse by Charlemagne at the diet of Worms in 790. In 1088, when William IV departed for the Holy Land, he left his brother, Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, leader of the Princes’ Crusade, to govern in his stead. When William IV died, Raymond IV took power although, after his niece Philippa married William IX, they laid claim to Toulouse and fought, off and on, for years to try to reclaim it from Raymond IV and his children.

From the time of Raymond IV, the counts of Toulouse were powerful lords in southern France. Raymond IV, assumed the formal titles of Marquis of Provence, Duke of Narbonne and Count of Toulouse. Afterward, Raymond IV set sail with the First Crusade. After the conquest of Jerusalem, he set siege to the City of Tripoli, with the help of Baldwin I of Jerusalem. Although he died before the city was taken in 1109, he is considered the first Count of Tripoli. His son, Bertrand, then took the title. He and his successors ruled the Crusader state until 1187, when the Kingdom of Jerusalem was overrun by Saladin.

While Raymond IV was away in the Holy Land, the rule of Toulouse was seized by William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, who claimed the city by right of his wife, Philippa, the daughter of Raymond IV’s brother, Count William IV of Toulouse. By his wife Philippa, William IX had two sons and five daughters, including his eventual successor, William X of Aquitaine (1099 – 1137) of Aquitaine, called the Saint. William IX of Aquitaine’s second son, Raymond of Poitiers (c. 1099 – 1149), eventually became the Prince of Antioch in the Holy Land. His daughter Agnes married firstly Aimery V of Thouars and then Ramiro II of Aragon, the brother of Alfonso I the Battler, reestablishing dynastic ties with that ruling house. Through Ramiro II’s only daughter, Petronila of Aragon, Agnes was ancestor of the later rulers of Aragon.

William IX joined the Crusade of 1101, also known as the Crusade of the Faint-Hearted, led by Stephen, Count of Blois. To finance it, he had to mortgage Toulouse back to Bertrand, the son of Raymond IV. His army included Hugh VI “the Devil,” Lord of Lusignan (c. 1039/1043 – c. 1102), half-brother of Raymond IV, and Berenguer Ramon II, Count of Barcelona (1053/54 – 1097/99), father of the Templar, Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona. William arrived in the Holy Land in 1101 but his entire army was destroyed by the Seljuk Turks at Heraclea. William himself barely escaped, and, according to the English chronicler and Benedictine monk Orderic Vitalis (1075 – c. 1142), he reached Antioch with only six surviving companions.

Plantagenets

Rotrou III married Matilda, the illegitimate daughter of King Henry I of England, the son of William the Conqueror. In 1128, soon after the Council of Troyes, Hugh de Payens, the Templars’ first Grand Master, met with Henry I’s brother-in-law, King David I of Scotland, the son of Malcolm III and Saint Margaret, the daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha of Bulgaria. David’s sister Mary of Scotland was married to Eustace III of Boulogne, brother of Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I. Henry I married David’s sister Matilda. As recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Henry I welcomed Hugues de Payens in Normandy in the late 1120s, and permitted him to visit England and establish a branch of the Templars there. Henry I later ratified the grant to them of their first headquarters in London, at Holborn, the Old Temple.[3]

Rotrou III’s wife Matilda was among several members of the English royal family who died in the wreck of the White Ship off Barfleur in 1120 after the crew had been binge drinking. All but one of approximately 300 people aboard perished, including Henry I’s only legitimate son William Adelin, whose death led to a succession crisis and a period of civil war in England from 1135–53 known as the Anarchy. The White Ship disaster had left Henry I with only one legitimate child, a second daughter named Matilda, whose mother was Matilda of Scotland, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret, the daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha of Bulgaria. Matilda had moved to Germany as a child where she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. On Henry V’s death in 1135, Matilda was recalled to Normandy by her father, who arranged for her to marry Geoffrey of Anjou to form an alliance to protect his southern borders.

Geoffrey V Plantagenet was the son of Ermengarde of Maine and Fulk V of Anjou (c. 1089/92 – 1143). Fulk V, also known as Fulk the Younger, was the Count of Anjou from 1109 to 1129 and the King of Jerusalem from 1131 to his death. Fulk went on crusade in 1119 or 1120, and became attached to the Knights Templar. In 1120, Fulk V went to Jerusalem, and became a close associate of Baldwin II as well as of Hugues de Payens, Grand Master of the Templars.[4] Fulk V planned to neutralize the threat of the rise of Normandy. By marrying his son Geoffrey V Plantagenet to Matilda, he thereby brought about the historical convergence of the Angevins, House of Normandy and the House of Wessex.

Henry I’s nephew Stephen of Blois, who had disembarked due to the excessive drinking before the ship sailed, usurped Matilda as well as his older brothers William, Count of Sully, and Theobald II, Count of Champagne, to become king. After Henry I’s death, Matilda and her husband Geoffrey of Anjou, the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty, launched a long and devastating war against Stephen and his allies for control of the English throne. In 1139, Matilda crossed to England to take the kingdom by force, supported by her half-brother Robert of Gloucester and her uncle King David I of Scotland, while her husband, Geoffrey, focused on conquering Normandy. Matilda returned to Normandy, now in the hands of her husband, in 1148, leaving her eldest son to continue the campaign in England; he eventually succeeded to the throne as Henry II in 1154, forming the Angevin Empire of the Plantagenets.

Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 – 1204), the daughter of William X of Aquitaine, the second son of William IX “the Troubadour” and Philippa of Toulouse, the niece of Raymond IV of Toulouse. Eleanor’s first marriage was to King Louis VII of France (1120 – 1180), son of her guardian, King Louis VI, through whom she bore two daughters, Marie and Alix. As queen of France, Eleanor led armies several times in her life and was a leader of the Second Crusade (1147–1150). The Second Crusade was announced by Pope Eugene III, and was the first of the crusades to be led by European kings, namely Louis VII and Conrad III of Germany (1093 or 1094 – 1152) of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, with help from a number of other European nobles. The crusade, which was a failure but a great victory for the Muslims, would ultimately have a important influence on the fall of Jerusalem and give rise to the Third Crusade at the end of the thirteenth century.

However, as fifteen years of marriage had not produced a male heir, Louis agreed to an annulment. Soon after which Eleanor marrie Henry II and bore him five sons and three daughters, one of whom was Richard the Lion-Hearted, who succeeded his father to the throne of England. However, Henry and Eleanor eventually became estranged. Henry imprisoned her in 1173 for supporting their son Henry’s revolt against him. She was released in 1189, when Henry died and their third son, Richard the Lionheart, ascended the throne. As queen dowager, Eleanor acted as regent while Richard went on the Third Crusade. On his return, Richard was captured and held prisoner. Eleanor lived well into the reign of her youngest son, King John.

Genealogy of Plantagenets

• William the Conqueror

  • Henry I of England + Matilda of Scotland (Malcolm III + Margaret of Wessex, d. of Agatha of Bulgaria)

    • Empress Matilda + Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou

      • Henry II of England + Eleanor of Aquitaine

        • Henry the Young King

        • Richard Lionheart + Berengaria of Navarre (d. of Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile, d. of Alfonso VII of León and Castile)

        • Eleanor + Alfonso VIII of Castile

        • Joan + William II of Sicily (g-s of Roger II of Sicily and Elvira of Castile, d. of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile) and later Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse

        • John, King of England + Isabella of Angoulême

          • Henry III

  • Henry I of England + unknown

    • Robert, Count of Gloucester (commissioned copies of the Historia Regum Brittaniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth which popularized legend of King Arthur) +

  • Henry I of England + Edith

    • Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche + Rotrou III, Count of Perche (“Perceval” of the Grail according to Swiss scholar André de Mandach)

      • Rotrou IV

  • Adela of Normandy + Stephen II, Count of Blois (stepbrother of Hugh of Champagne, founder of the Templars in contact with Rashi)

    • Theobald II of Champagne + Matilda of Carinthia.

      • Theobald V, Count of Blois (involved in blood libel through affair with Jewess Pulcelina of Blois) + Alix of France (d. of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine)

      • Henry I of Champagne + Marie of France (d. of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine)

      • Adela of Champagne + King Louis VII of France

      • Marie of Champagne + Odo II of Burgundy

      • Matilda + Rotrou IV of Perche

    • Stephen, King of England (suppressed blood libel case of William of Norwich) + Matilda I, Countess of Boulogne (d. of Eustace III, b. of Godfrey of Bouillon Baldwin I of Jerusalem)

    • Henry of Blois, Abbot of Glastonbuy, Bishop of Winchester (author of Perlesvaus, and used Geoffrey of Monmouth as a nom de plume to write Historia Regum Britanniae, which was largely responsible for formulating the image of Arthur. The Grail story transferred to Marie of France’s court, which sponsored Chrétien de Troyes, when his nephew Henry I of Champagne visited Glastonbury)

As popular legends surrounding the House of Anjou suggested, they were demonic in origin, so that some historians were led to give them the epithet “The Devil’s Brood.” The chronicler Gerald of Wales (c. 1146 – c. 1223), a close friend of the Welsh poet Walter Map—the original source of the Skull of Sidon legend—is the key contemporary source for these stories, which often borrowed elements of the Melusine story.

Gerald of Wales related a similar story in his De instructione principis of “a certain countess of Anjou” who rarely attended mass and one day flew away, never to be seen again. According to Gerald, Richard the Lionheart was often accustomed to refer to this event “saying that it was no matter of wonder, if coming from such a race, sons should not cease to harass their parents, and brothers to quarrel amongst each other; for he knew that they all had come of the devil, and to the devil they would go.” A similar story was related to Eleanor of Aquitaine in the thirteenth century romance, Richard Coeur-de-lion. Gerald also presents a list of legends about the sins committed by Geoffrey V and Henry II as further evidence of their corrupt origins, which, he says, were not always discouraged by the House of Anjou. Henry II’s sons reportedly defended their frequent infighting by saying “Do not deprive us of our heritage; we cannot help acting like devils.”[5]

Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of the Historia Regum Britanniae which popularized the legend of King Arthur, may have come from the same French-speaking elite of the Welsh border country as Gerald of Wales, Walter Map, and Matilda’s brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester (c. 1090 – 1147), to whom Geoffrey dedicated versions of his History.[6] Robert was Matilda’s half-brother and her chief military supporter during The Anarchy. Robert's father Henry I contracted him in marriage to Mabel FitzHamon, daughter and heir of Robert Fitzhamon, which brought him the substantial honors of Gloucester in England and Glamorgan in Wales, and the honors of Sainte-Scholasse-sur-Sarthe and Évrecy in Normandy, as well as Creully. After the White Ship disaster, and probably because of this marriage, in 1121 or 1122 his father created him Earl of Gloucester.

Investiture Controversy

The father of Raymond of Burgundy was William I, Count of Burgundy, grandson of Otto-William, Count of Burgundy, and Ermentrude de Roucy, the granddaughter of Gerberga of Saxony, the sister of Otto the Great. William I was the son of Reginald I, Count of Burgundy and Alice of Normandy, the daughter of Richard II of Normandy, and aunt of William the Conqueror. Raymond’s brothers included Stephen I, Count of Burgundy, who succeeded to the County of Burgundy in 1097, following the death in the First Crusade of his elder brother, Reginald II. Stephen I participated in the Crusade of 1101, as a commander in the army of Stephen of Blois. Stephen I’s daughter Isabelle married Hugh, Count of Champagne, one of the founding members of the Templars who was in touch with Rashi.

Raymond of Burgundy’s other brother was Pope Callixtus II, who was elected pope at Cluny and become involved in the Investiture Controversy, producing a struggle between popes and Emperors that would continue until northern Italy was lost to the empire entirely, after the wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Guelph is the Italian name for the House of Welf, the older branch of the House of Este, a dynasty whose earliest known members lived in Lombardy in the late ninth and tenth century, sometimes called Welf-Este. The Elder House of Welf, which was closely related to the Carolingian dynasty, consisted of a Burgundian and a Swabian group. The Burgundian branch included Conrad I of Burgundy, whose sister Adelaide of Italy was the wife of Otto the Great. Conrad I married Matilda, the daughter of Louis IV of France. His daughter Gisela of Burgundy was the mother of Emperor Henry II, while his other daughter Bertha of Burgundy was the grandmother of Stephen, Count of Blois, the leader of the First Crusade, and of Hugh of Champagne, a founding member of the Templars. When Conrad I’s son Rudolph III died childless in 1032 without issue, the sovereignty of the kingdom of Burgundy devolved as a fief or legacy to his nephew Emperor Conrad II, who was crowned by Pope XIX, who like his brother Pope Benedict VIII, was a descendant of Marozia, the notorious mistress of Pope Sergius III.

Conrad II’s son, Henry III (1016 – 1056), married Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of the Duke William V of Aquitaine and Agnes of Burgundy, a daughter of Otto-William, Count of Burgundy and Ermentrude de Roucy, the granddaughter of Gerberga of Saxony, the sister of Otto the Great. Agnes’ nephew was William I, Count of Burgundy, whose sons included Stephen I, Count of Burgundy, Raymond of Burgundy and Calixtus II. Hugh the Great, Abbot of Cluny, was the godfather of Agnes and Henry III’s son, Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1050 – 1106), who together with Calixtus II, would become embroiled in the Investiture Controversy, over the ability to choose and invest bishops and abbots of monasteries, and the pope himself.

As the power of the papacy grew during the Middle Ages, popes and emperors came into conflict over church administration. A series of popes in the eleventh and twelfth centuries undercut the power of the Holy Roman Emperor and other European monarchies, and the controversy led to nearly fifty years of civil war in Germany. Many of the papal selections before 1059 were influenced politically and militarily by European powers, often with a king or emperor announcing a choice which would be rubber-stamped by church electors. The Holy Roman Emperors of Ottonian dynasty believed they should have the power to appoint the pope.

Shared Genealogy of Pope Calixtus II and Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor

• Renaud of Roucy + Alberade of Lorraine (d. of Gilbert, Duke of Lorraine)

  • Ermentrude de Roucy (958 - 1005), Countess and Duchess of Burgundy + Alberic II of Mâcon

    • N de Mâcon + Eble de Poitiers, son of William IV of Aquitaine and Emma of Blois

      • Ebles I of Roucy (probably) + Beatrice of Hainaut

        • Alix + Hilduin IV of Montdidier, Count of Ramerupt and Roucy

          • Ebles II of Roucy + Sibylle de Apulia, daughter of Robert Guiscard

          • Margaret de Roucy + Hugh, Count of Clermont

          • Beatrix de Ramerupt + Geoffrey II, Count of Perche

            • Rotrou III

          • Felicia of Roucy + Sancho I, King of Aragon

            • Alfonso I the Battler of Aragon

            • Ramiro II of Aragon + Agnes of Aquitaine (d. of William IX of Aquitaine)

  • Ermentrude de Roucy + Otto-William, Count of Burgundy

    • Reginald I, Count of Burgundy + Alice of Normandy (aunt of William the Conqueror)

      • William I, Count of Burgundy + “Stephanie”

        • Stephen I, Count of Burgundy

          • Isabella + Hugh, Count of Champagne (founder of Templars, s-b of Stephen of Blois, f. of Henry of Blois, Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Winchester and author of Perlesvaus)

          • Reginald III, Count of Burgundy + Agatha of Lorraine

            • Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy + Frederick Barbarossa

              • Henry VI + Constance (d. of Roger II)

                • Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

        • Pope Calixtus II

        • Raymond of Burgundy + Urraca of León and Castile (d. of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile)

        • Sybilla + Odo I, Duke of Burgundy

        • Reginald II, Count of Burgundy

    • Agnes + William V, Duke of Aquitaine

      • William VII, Duke of Aquitaine

      • William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine

        • Agnes + Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile

        • Agnes + Peter I of Aragon

        • William IX of Aquitaine

          • William X of Aquitaine (the first troubadour)

            • Eleanor of Aquitaine

      • Agnes of Burgundy + Emperor Henry III

        • Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (involved in Investiture Controversy with Pope Calixtus II)

          • Agnes of Waiblingen + Frederick I, Duke of Swabia

            • Conrad III, King of Germany

            • Frederick II, Duke of Swabia + Judith of Bavaria

              • Frederick Barbarossa + Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy

                • Henry IV + Constance (d. of Roger II of Sicily and Rethel)

                  • Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Problems with simony became particularly unpopular as Pope Benedict IX was accused of selling the papacy in 1045. Henry III settled the papal schism and named several popes, the last emperor to successfully dominate the selection process. Six-year-old Henry IV became King of the Germans in 1056. In 1059, Pope Nicholas II succeeded in limiting future papal electors to the cardinals in In nomine Domini, instituting standardized papal elections that eventually developed into the procedure of the papal conclave, which would later evolve into the College of Cardinals. The elections of Pope Alexander II and Pope Gregory VII proceeded according to church rules, without the involvement of the Emperor.

In the wake of the Cluniac Reforms, this involvement was increasingly seen as inappropriate by the Papacy.[7] The reform-minded Pope Gregory VII was determined to oppose such practices, which led to the Investiture Controversy with Henry IV. Henry IV repudiated the Pope's interference and persuaded his bishops to excommunicate the Pope. The Pope, in turn, excommunicated the Henry IV, declared him deposed, and dissolved the oaths of loyalty made to him. Henry IV found himself with almost no political support and was forced to make the famous Walk to Canossa in 1077, by which he achieved a lifting of the excommunication at the price of humiliation. The European mainland experienced about fifty years of fighting.

After Henry IV’s death, his second son, Henry V (1081 or 1086 – 1125), and Pope Callixtus II entered into an agreement in 1122, near the German city of Worms, now known as the Concordat of Worms, that effectively ended the Investiture Controversy. It eliminated lay investiture, while allowing secular leaders some room for unofficial but significant influence in the appointment process. The Concordat was confirmed by the First Council of the Lateran in 1123. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire arose with the Investiture Controversy, which began in 1075, and ended with the Concordat of Worms in 1122. The Investiture Controversy was almost entirely due to the efforts of Callixtus II’s close advisor, Cardinal Lamberto, who would succeed him as Honorius II in 1224, and approve the founding of the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1128.[8]

Pope Andreas

After the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130, the college of cardinals was divided over his successor. Unusually, the election was entrusted to eight cardinals, who elected Innocent II (d. 1143). A larger body of cardinals then elected their own pope, Anacletus II (d. 1138), which led to a major schism in the Roman Catholic Church. As II had the support of most Romans, Innocent II was forced to flee to France. North of the Alps, Innocent II gained the crucial support of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable of Cluny, and the Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor (1075 – 1137).

The enemies of Anacletus II attacked him for his Jewish ancestry, and he was accused of robbing the church of much of its wealth, together with Jewish helpers, and of incest.[9] Anacletus II is associated with the Jewish legend of a Jewish pope named Andreas.[10] According to an old Spanish document discovered among some penitential liturgies by Eliezer ben Solomon Ashkenazi (1512 – 1585), published in 1854, Andreas was a Jew who, upon becoming a Christian, created such an impression that eventually became cardinal and eventually pope.[11] According to a traditional account, Andreas was El-hanan, or Elhanan, was the son of Rabbi Simeon the Great, the Makhir-Kalonynus line, and ancestor of Rashi.[12] As a boy, El-hanan was stolen during a Jewish Sabbath by a Christian maidservant at night while he is asleep in his bed. When he wakes up in an unfamiliar room, he is told his parents are dead. He is held prisoner in a monastery where he receives an ecclesiastical education and rises rapidly in the hierarchy, until he becomes pope. As pope, he invites Simeon, noted chess player, to call in the evening for the purpose of playing chess with him. During the game, Simeon is amazed when the pontiff uses a move that Simeon taught only his own son El-hanan. The pope, unable to contain himself any longer, reveals himself and embraces his father.[13]

The legend is sometimes associated with Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 1181), who apparently was well-disposed toward Jews.[14] A nephew of Rabbi Nathan ben Jehiel, who was from one of the most notable Roman families of Jewish scholars, acted as administrator of the property of Pope Alexander III, who showed his support of the Jews at the Lateran Council of 1179, when he defeated plans to impose anti-Jewish laws.

Although many heads of the Catholic Church have been rumored over the ages to be of Jewish descent, it is fairly certain that Anacletus II, born Pietro Pierleoni, a noble Roman family of Jewish origin, who dominated Roman politics for much of the Middle Ages. Baruch, the great-grandfather of Anacletus II, was a Roman moneylender who converted to Christianity and changed his name to Leo de Benedicto, whose baptismal name comes from the fact that he was baptised by Pope Leo IX himself. He married into Roman aristocracy, and it was his grandson, Petrus Leonis, who chose to have his son enter the priesthood. Petrus studied in Paris and was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Cluny, before returning to Rome. Pope Paschal II appointed him a cardinal in 1111 or 1112.[15]

Jolly Roger

William X of Aquitaine and Roger II of Sicily (1095 – 1154) were supporters of Anacletus II who ruled in opposition to Pope Innocent II from 1130 until his death in 1138. Roger II was born in Normandy, and came to southern Italy in 1057, as part of the Norman conquest of Southern Italy, which lasted from lasted from 999 to 1139. Roger II was the son of Roger I (c. 1031 –1101), a Norman nobleman who became the first Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101. Beginning in 1061, he participated in several military expeditions against the Emirate of Sicily, an Islamic kingdom that ruled the island since 831. Sicily had been ruled in succession by the Sunni Aghlabid dynasty in Tunisia and the Shiite Fatimids in Egypt. By 1090, he had conquered the entire island. In 1091, he conquered Malta. The state he created was merged with the Duchy of Apulia in 1127 and became the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130.

Roger II was the son of Roger I of Sicily and his third wife, Adelaide del Vasto, who would become Queen consort of Jerusalem by marriage to Baldwin I of Jerusalem, brother of Godfrey of Bouillon. Roger II married Elvira, the daughter of Alfonso VI and Isabel, who is considered identical to Zaida of Denia, one of his two mistresses and the daughter of Al-Mu’tamid king of the Taifa of Seville.[16] Under the marriage agreement between Roger II and Elvira, if Baldwin I and Adelaide had no children, the heir to the kingdom of Jerusalem would be Roger II. Roger was a Templar from Normandy, who conquered Sicily during the time of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.[17] Roger II of Sicily, was to become the “Jolly Roger” of history, having flown the skull and crossbones on his ships. The Jolly Roger is related to the legend of the Skull of Sidon, which is also related to the Melusina myth, associated with the House of Anjou and Lusignan, and based on the relationship between Baldwin II and Morphia of Armenia.

Genealogy of Roger II of Sicily

• Roger II of Sicily + Elvira of Castile (d. of Alfonso VI of León and Castile + Zaida, Muslim princess)

  • William I of Sicily + Margaret of Navarre (whose counsellor Stephen du Perche, archbishop of Palermo hired Joachim of Fiore)

    • William II of Sicily + Joan Plantagenet (s. of Richard the Lionheart, later married Raymond VI of Toulouse)

• Roger II of Sicily + Beatrice of Rethel (grandniece of Baldwin II of Jerusalem)

  • Constance, Queen of Sicily + Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor (s. of Frederick Barbarossa)

    • Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (whose birth was confirmed by Joachim of Fiore as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Merlin and the Erythraean Sibyl)

Roger II’s famous ceremonial mantle, which bears the date 528 of the Islamic calendar (1133–34), is considered a masterpiece of Fatimid art, and formed part of the imperial regalia of the Holy Roman Empire.  The Mantle, which is an example of the Norman’s multicultural court and a mark of trade in Palermo, is made from red silk imported from the Byzantine Empire and pearls are from the Arabian Gulf. This piece was made in a private royal workshop, dedicated to creating tiraz fabric and other royal garments. Inscribed textiles known as tiraz were highly valued in the early Islamic period and were given as robes of honor to courtiers and ambassadors in the khil'a (“robe of honor”) ceremony, where they served as a symbol of individuals’ loyalty to the caliphate. As the Umayyad caliphate prospered in Spain, the influence of the tiraz spread to the neighboring European countries and into their art and symbolism. The Mantle serves as a prime example as it holds a tiraz band in Kufic script along the bottom, which reads:

Here is what was created in the princely treasury, filled with luck, illustration, majesty, perfection, longanimity, superiority, welcome, prosperity, liberality, shine, pride, beauty, the achievement of desires and hopes, the pleasure of days and nights, without cease or change, with glory, devotion, preservation, protection, chance, salvation, victory and capability, in the capital of Sicily, in the year 528 H.

The popes had long been suspicious of the growth of Norman power in southern Italy, and Pope Honorius II made several failed attempts to oppose Roger II. On the death of Honorius II in 1130, two claimants to the papal throne, Roger II supported Anacletus II against Innocent II. As a reward for his support, Anacletus approved Roger II’s title of “King of Sicily” by papal bull after his accession.[18] This plunged Roger II into a ten-year war. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who championed Innocent’s cause, organized a coalition against Anacletus and his “half-heathen king.” He was joined by joined by Louis VI of France, Henry I of England, and Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor. Louis VI convened a national council of the French bishops at Étampes in 1130, and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was chosen to judge between the rivals for pope. By the end of 1131, the kingdoms of France, England, Germany, Portugal, Castile, and Aragon supported Pope Innocent II, while most of Italy, southern France, and Sicily, with the Latin patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem supported Anacletus II, whose family was still a major banking power in Rome. Saint Bernard set out to convince these other regions to rally behind Innocent II. In 1134, he convinced William X to drop his support to Anacletus and join Innocent and the schism ended.

Innocent II, displeased with Roger II’s alliance with Anacletus, persuaded Lothair III to invade the Normans, promising him the Sicilian crown. In 1136, the united armies of Lothair III and the Byzantine emperor, John II Comnenus (1087 – 1143), overran southern Italy, forcing the Normans into surrender. To avoid the war, Roger II negotiated and offered the province of Apulia as a fief to Lothair. Anacletus died in 1138, and a year later, at the Second Lateran Council, Innocent II excommunicated Roger II. The Normans responded by ambushing papal troops and capturing Innocent II at Galluccio, near Rome. On March 25, 1139, at the Treaty of Mignano, Innocent revoked Roger II’s excommunication in exchange for his own freedom. Roger II was confirmed as the supreme king of Sicily and of his sons from Elvira of Castile, Roger III (1118 – 1148), was confirmed as the duke of Apulia and Alfonso as the prince of Capua. Roger III’s wife was Isabelle, the daughter of Theobald II of Champagne, the son of Stephen, Count of Blois. By his famous consort Emma, however, Roger III had two illegitimate children, including his son and successor, Tancred, King of Sicily (1138 – 1194), whose brief reign marked the end of the Norman rule there.

Guelfs and Guibelines

Matilda of England, the daughter of Henry I and Matilda of Scotland, moved to Germany as a child where she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, after whose death in 1135, she was recalled to Normandy by her father, who arranged for her to marry Geoffrey of Anjou. Henry V death marked the end the Salian dynasty, after which the princes chose not to elect his next of kin, but rather Lothair III, the Duke of Saxony. Both Innocent II and Anacletus II had offered Lothair the imperial crown. As Lothair was occupied with the resistance of the Hohenstaufen, Bernard of Clairvaux who convinced him to favor Innocent II.[20] In 1131, the three met in Liège, where Lothair promised help in the conflict against Anacletus and Roger II of Sicily. Lothair III placed himself under the Pope’s overlordship, ceding to him all Imperial rights under Henry V’s Concordat of Worms.  Innocent II crowned Lothair King of the Romans. Eventually he arrived in Rome, but as Anacletus II controlled St. Peter’s Basilica, Lothair was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in the Lateran Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in 1133.

Genealogy of Hohenstaufen

• Henry the Fowler + Matilda of Ringelheim

  • Henry I, Duke of Bavaria + Judith, Duchess of Bavaria

    • Henry II, Duke of Bavaria + Gisela of Burgundy

      • Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor + Saint Cunigunde of Luxembourg

  • Otto I the Great + Edith of England (d. of Edward the Elder)

    • Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor

      • Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor

    • Liutgard of Saxony + Conrad, Duke of Lorraine

      • Otto I, Duke of Carinthia + Judith of Carinthia

        • Pope Gregory V

        • Conrad I, Duke of Carinthia

        • Henry of Speyer + Adelaide of Metz

          • Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor + Gisela of Swabia

            • Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor + Agnes of Poitou (d. of Duke William V of Aquitaine + Agnes of Burgundy)

              • Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor + Bertha of Savoy

                • Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor + Matilda of England (sister of David I of Scotland, later married Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou)

              • Agnes of Waiblingen + Frederick I of Swabia

                • Conrad III, King of Germany

                • Frederick II, Duke of Swabia + Judith of Bavaria

                  • Frederick Barbarossa + Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy

                    • Henry IV + Constance (d. of Roger II of Sicily + Rethel, grandniece of Baldwin II of Jerusalem)

                      • Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

After Lothair’s election, war broke out in Germany between those who supported the Hohenstaufen, who were allied and related to the old Salian dynasty, and those who were aligned to the Salians and the Pope. The Hohenstaufen dynasty, who ruled from 1138 until 1254, portraying themselves as the successors of ancient Romans and their traditions. As kings of Germany, the Hohenstaufen had a claim to Italy, Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire. Besides Germany, they also ruled the Kingdom of Sicily (1194 – 1268) and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1225 – 1268).

In the northern empire, Lothair finally succeeded and defeated the Hohenstaufen in 1135, thanks to the help of Henry the Proud (c. 1108 – 1139), of the House of Welf, who had been the Duke of Bavaria since the death of his father, Henry the Black (1075 – 1126). The oldest known member of the Swabian group was Welf I, a count in Swabia who was first mentioned in 842. According to legend, Welf I was a son of Conrad, son of Welf III, Duke of Carinthia (c. 1007 – 1055), the ancestor of the Burgundian group. Welf III was the son of Welf II, Count of Swabia (c. 960/70 – 1030), and Imiza of Luxembourg, the daughter of Frederick of Luxembourg, the son of Sigfried, Count of the Ardennes, through whom the House of Luxembourg claim descent from the female dragon-spirit Melusina.

The Elder House of Welf became extinct when Welf III died childless in 1055. The property of the House of Welf was inherited by the elder branch of the House of Este that came to be known as the younger House of Welf, or House of Welf-Este. The first known member of the House of Este was Margrave Adalbert of Mainz, known as the father of Oberto I (d. 975), whose the title of count palatine confirmed by Otto the Great. Oberto I’s grandson, Albert Azzo II, Margrave of Milan (996 – 1097), is considered the founder of Casa d’Este (House of Este), having built a castle at Este, near Padua, and named himself after the location. Albert Azzo II married Kunigunde of Altdorf, sister of Welf III. Albert Azzo II’s son, Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, inherited the property of his maternal uncle Welf III, the last of the Elder Welfs (c. 1007 – 1055), becoming the first member of Welf-Este. Welf married Judith of Flanders, daughter of Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders and Eleanor, daughter of Richard II of Normandy, and fathered Henry the Black.

The House of Billung, to which belonged the mother of Otto the Great, merged into the House of Welf and House of Ascania (also known as House of Anhalt) when Henry the Black’s father-in-law, Magnus, Duke of Saxony (c. 1045 – 1106), died without a male heir. The family’s property was divided between his two daughters by his wife Sophia of Hungary, the daughter of Sophia of Hungary, the daughter of Béla I of Hungary and Richeza of Poland. Henry the Black married Magnus’ daughter Wulfhilde. Their son, Henry the Proud, married Gertrude of Süpplingenburg, the daughter Lothair III. Their son was Henry the Lion (1129/1131 – 1195), who married Matilda of England, the daughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Apart from the lions of the Plantagenet coat of arms, twelfth-century examples of lions used as heraldic charges include the Hohenstaufen and Wittelsbach coats of arms, both derive from Henry the Lion. One of the earliest known examples of armory as it subsequently came to be practiced can be seen on the tomb of Geoffrey Plantagenet. An enamel, probably commissioned by Matilda, depicts Geoffrey carrying a blue shield decorated six golden lions rampant and wearing a blue helmet adorned with another lion. A chronicle dated to c. 1175 states that Geoffrey was given a shield of this description when he was knighted by his father-in-law, Henry I, in 1128.

The earliest evidence of the association of lions with the English crown is a seal bearing two lions passant, used by the future King John during the lifetime of his father, Henry II, the son of Geoffrey Plantagenet. John’s elder brother, Richard the Lionheart (1157 – 1199), who succeeded his father on the throne, is believed to have been the first to have borne the arms of three lions passant-guardant, still the arms of England, having earlier used two lions rampant combatant, which arms may also have belonged to his father. Richard is also credited with having originated the English crest of a lion statant (now statant-guardant); the royal coat of arms of Scotland, attributed to William the Lion (c. 1142 – 1214), the grandson of David I of Scotland, protector of the Templars and son of Malcolm III and Margaret; the coat of arms of Denmark, first used by Canute VI (c. 1163 – 1202); the coat of arms of Flanders, first used by Philip I, Count of Flanders (1143 – 1191), the son of Sibylla of Anjou, the sister of Geoffrey Plantagenet; the coat of arms of Bohemia, first granted to Vladislaus II, Duke and King of Bohemia, who married Gertrude of Babenberg, and then Judith of Thuringia, the daughter of Louis I, Landgrave of Thuringia (d. 1140); the coat of arms of León, an example of canting arms attributed to Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile (1105 – 1157), whose second wife was Vladislaus II and Gertrude’s daughter Richeza of Poland.

When Lothair III died in 1137, the princes again wanting to check royal power, did not elect Lothair’s favored heir, his son-in-law the Salian Henry the Proud (c. 1108 – 1139), of the Welf family, but Conrad III (1093 or 1094 – 1152) of the Hohenstaufen family, leading to over a century of strife between the two houses of the Guibelines and Guelfs, an Italian form of the name of the House of Welf. The grandson of Emperor Henry IV and thus a nephew of Emperor Henry V, Conrad III was the first King of Germany of the Hohenstaufens, a noble dynasty of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia. Conrad III’s father was Frederick I (c. 1050 – 1105), the son of Frederick of Büren (c. 1020 – 1053) and Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg, a niece of Pope Leo IX, who was appointed Duke of Swabia at Hohenstaufen Castle by Henry IV in 1079. Frederick I married Agnes of Waiblingen, Henry IV’s daughter by Bertha of Savoy, and fathered Conrad III. Conrad III’s brother Frederick II, Duke of Swabia (1090 –1147), married Judith of Bavaria, the daughter of Henry the Black and sister of Henry the Proud.

In 1146, Conrad III heard Bernard preach the Second Crusade, and agreed to join Louis VII in a great expedition to the Holy Land. They were defeated by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Dorylaeum on October 25, 1147. Conrad III and his nephew Frederick Barbarossa (1122 –1190), of Hohenstaufen dynasty, and received the cross from the hand of Bernard of Clairvaux.[21] On his deathbed, Conrad III allegedly designated Frederick his successor, rather than his own surviving six-year-old son Frederick IV. Henry the Black’s daughter, Judith of Bavaria, who married Frederick II, Duke of Swabia, was the mother of Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick I was named Barbarossa, which means “red beard” in Italian, by the northern Italian cities which he attempted to rule. Historians consider him among the Holy Roman Empire’s greatest medieval emperors.‘ The term sacrum (“holy,” in the sense of “consecrated”) in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was used beginning in 1157 under Frederick Barbarossa (“Holy Empire”): the term was added to reflect Frederick’s ambition to dominate Italy and the Papacy. The form “Holy Roman Empire” is attested from 1254 onward.[22]

Conrad III had ousted the Welfs from their possessions, but after his death in 1152, Frederick Barbarossa, who succeeded him, made peace with the Welfs, restoring his cousin Henry the Lion to his possessions. When Frederick conducted military campaigns in Italy to expand imperial power there, his supporters became known as Ghibellines. The Guelphs and Ghibellines supported the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of central and northern Italy. The Ghibellines were thus the imperial party, while the Guelphs supported the Pope.

Frederick Barbarossa extended his influence by marrying the niece and heir of Count William IV of Burgundy (1102 – 1156), Beatrice I, the daughter of his brother Reginald III (c. 1087 – 1148). William IV of Burgundy was a younger son of Stephen I, Count of Burgundy, the brother of Callixtus II and Raymond of Burgundy. Beatrice I’s mother was Agatha, daughter of Simon I, Duke of Lorraine (1076 – 1139) a friend of Bernard of Clairvaux. Stephen was succeeded by his eldest son, Reginald III, after whose death William IV took control of the county of Burgundy in the name of Beatrice. William IV, who was recognized as count by Barbarossa by 1152, died in 1156 while on Crusade in the Holy Land, and Frederick took over the county when he married Beatrice.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Philip of Swabia (1177 – 1208), the son of Frederick Barbarossa a Hohenstaufen, and his son-in-law Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1175 – 1218), the son of Henry the Lion, a Welf, were rivals for the imperial throne. Philip was supported by the Ghibellines as a relative of Frederick Barbarossa, while Otto was supported by the Guelphs. Philip’s heir, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, was an enemy of both Otto IV and the Papacy, and during Frederick’s reign, the Guelphs became more strictly associated with the Papacy while the Ghibellines became supporters of the Empire and Frederick in particular.

Alfonso II of Aragon

By her second husband, Leopold III of Austria (1073 – 1136), Agnes of Waiblingen was the mother of Gertrude of Babenberg, whose daughter by Vladislaus II, Richeza of Poland, married Alfonso VII of León and Castile. Alfonso VII was the son of Raymond of Burgundy and Urraca, the daughter of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile and Constance of Burgundy, whose marriage was orchestrated with the Abbey of Cluny. When Alfonso VI died in 1109, his daughter Urraca of Castile succeeded to the united throne of León, Castile and Galicia and desired to assure her son’s prospects. In 1111, Diego Gelmírez, Bishop of Compostela and the count of Traba, crowned and anointed the six-year-old Alfonso King of Galicia in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. By Richeza, Alfonso VII was the father of another daughter named Sancha, who married Alfonso II of Aragon (1157 – 1196), the grandson of Ramiro II and Agnes of Aquitaine, daughter of William IX of Aquitaine, known as the Troubadour, grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Alfonso VII, who called the Emperor (el Emperador), was the first to use the title Emperor of All Spain. He was a patron of poets, including, probably, the troubadour Marcabru, as was William X of Aquitaine. By 1125, he had inherited the formerly Muslim Kingdom of Toledo. In 1126, after the death of his mother, he was crowned in León and immediately began the recovery of the Kingdom of Castile, which was then under the domination of Alfonso I the Battler, who married Alfonso VII’s mother Urraca after she had been married to his father Raymond. By the Peace of Támara of 1127, Afonso I the Battler had recognized Alfonso VII.

In March 1126, Alfonso Jordan (1103 – 1148), the son of Raymond IV of Toulouse, was at the court of Alfonso VII when he acceded to the throne. With the death of Raymond IV of Toulouse, the family’s estates and Toulouse went to Alfonso Jordan, who was born in Tripoli. Alfonso Jordan was Raymond IV’s son by his third wife, Elvira of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VI of León and Castile, and sister of Urraca and Teresa who married Raymond of Burgundy and his cousin Henry of Burgundy respectively. In 1119, Alfonso Jordan invaded and recovered part of Toulouse which had been claimed by William IX of Aquitaine in 1114, and gained full control until 1123. Alfonso next had to fight for his rights in Provence against Count Raymond Berenguer III of Barcelona, achieving peace in 1125. In August 1147, Alfonso Jordan set out on the Second Crusade. He arrived at Acre in 1148, but had made enemies and was not able to participate in the crusade he had joined. He died at Caesarea, and there were accusations of poisoning, usually leveled either against Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Louis, or Melisende, the daughter of Baldwin II and Morphia of Armenia.[23] According to the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, Alfonso Jordan and Suero Vermúdez took the city of León from opposition magnates and handed it over to Alfonso VII, and records that “count Alfonso of Toulouse… was in all things obedient to him [Alfonso VII].”[24]

When Alfonso the Battler died without descendants in 1134, he willed his kingdom to the Templars and Hospitallers.[25] The aristocracy of both kingdoms rejected the bequest. Garcia Ramírez, Count of Monzón was elected in Navarre, while Alfonso I’s brother Ramiro II succeeded in Aragon. Ramiro II was chosen over Alfonso VII of León and Castile. In several skirmishes, Alfonso VII defeated the joint army and subjected Navarre and Aragon. In the end, however, the combined forces of the Navarre and Aragon were too much for his control. At this time, he helped Ramon Berenguer III in his wars to unite the old March of Barcelona. Ramon became a Templar towards the end of his life.[26] Ramiro II then had a daughter, Petronilla, whom he had marry Ramon’s son and Berengaria’s brother, Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona (c. 1114  – 1162), thus unifying Aragon and Barcelona into the Crown of Aragon.

Alfonso VII of Leon’s first wife was Berenguela, daughter of Ramon Berenguer III. Among their children were Ferdinand II of Leon, was the founder of the Order of Santiago. Ferdinand II’s sister Constance married Louis VII of France after he had been married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and was the mother of Margaret, who married Henry the Young King, Eleanor’s son by her first marriage to Henry II. Constance’s brother’s brother, Sancho VI of Navarre, married Sancha of Castile, the daughter of Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile. Their sister, Margaret of Navarre, married William I of Sicily, the fourth son of Roger II of Sicily. Constance’s sister Sancha married Sancho VI of Navarre, the son of García Ramírez of Navarre and Margaret of L’Aigle, daughter of Rotrou III’s sister Juliana and Gilbert, lord of l’Aigle. Sancho VI’s sister Blanche of Navarre married Constance’s brother Sancho III of Castile. Their son, Alfonso VIII of Castile, a patron of the Order of Santiago, married Eleanor, the sister of Richard the Lionheart and Henry the Young King.

Alfonso VII died suddenly in the middle of the war against the Moors in 1157. Richeza then married Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Provence (c. 1135 – 1166), nephew of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona. Around 1166, Richeza was betrothed by her cousin Frederick Barbarossa to a third husband, Raymond V, Count of Toulouse (1134 – 1194), the son of Alfonso Jordan. Before he was engaged to Richeza of Poland, Raymond V of married Constance of France, daughter of King Louis VI of France, who was the widow of Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne. At the same time, Richeza’s daughter from Ramon Berenguer II was engaged to Raymond VI. Raymond V wanted with the engagement to become more closely tied to the Hohenstaufen dynasty and took full control over the County of Provence.

Genealogy of Alfonso II of Aragon, the Troubadour

• William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine + Garsende of Périgord

  • Agnes + Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile

• William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine + Hildegarde of Burgundy (d. of duke Robert I of Burgundy)

  • Agnes (died 1097) + Peter I of Aragon

  • William IX of Aquitaine (the first troubadour) + Philippa (g-d. of Raymond IV of Toulouse)

    • William X, Duke of Aquitaine

      • Eleanor of Aquitaine + Henry II of England

        • Henry the Young King

        • Richard Lionheart + Berengaria of Navarre (d. of Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile)

        • Eleanor + Alfonso VIII of Castile

        • Joan + William II of Sicily (grandson of Roger II of Sicily), and later Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse (leader of the Princes’ Crusade)

        • John, King of England + Isabella of Angoulême

      • Eleanor of Aquitaine + Henry II of England + Louis VII of France

        • Marie of France (sponsor of Grail author Chretien de Troyes) + Henry I, Count of Champagne (nephew of Henry of Blois, Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Winchester and author of the Perlesvaus)

    • Raymond of Poitiers

    • Agnes, Queen of Aragon + Ramiro II of Aragon (s. of Sancho Ramírez + Felicie de Roucy)

      • Petronilla + Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona

        • Alfonso II of Aragon + Sancha of Castile (d. Alfonso VII of Castile + Richeza of Poland.

          • Peter II of Aragon

          • Eleanor + Raymond VI of Toulouse

          • Sancha + Count Raymond VII of Toulouse

        • Alfonso II of Aragon + Adelaide de Burlat (mother of Raymond-Roger Trencavel, called Perceval by Wolfram von Eschenbach)

However, the firm opposition of Alfonso II of Aragon, the son of Ramon and Petronilla, soon cancelled both betrothals, and with the help of the Genoese, he began a war against Raymond V that lasted eight years. Alfonso II was a noted poet of his time and a close friend of King Richard the Lionheart. Called the Chaste or the Troubadour, Alfonso II ruled from 1162 the combined possessions of his parents, resulting in what modern historians call the Crown of Aragon. The political center of the Crown of Aragon was Zaragoza, though the de facto capital and leading cultural, administrative and economic center was Barcelona. After the disappearance of the Caliphate of Córdoba at the beginning of the eleventh century, the Taifa of Zaragoza arose, one of the most important Taifas of Al-Andalus, leaving a great artistic, cultural and philosophical legacy. Alfonso II ascended the united throne of Aragon and Barcelona as Alfonso, in deference to the Aragonese, to honor Alfonso I the Battler.[27]

Alfonso II married Sancha of Castile in In 1174. Their son was Peter II (1174/76 – 1213), King of Aragon and Lord of Montpellier. Their daughter Constance married firstly King Imre of Hungary and secondly Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1194 – 1250), the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa and his consort Beatrix of Burgundy. At the age of three, Frederick II was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade. Alfonso II and Sancha’s other daughter Eleanor was the fourth wife of Raymond VI of Toulouse (1156 – 1222), the son of Raymond V and Constance of France. Raymond VI had earlier been married to Joan Plantagenet, the sister of Richard the Lionheart.

Joachim of Fiore

After the death of his wife, eldest son and two of his nephews in the wreck of the White Ship, Rotrou returned to Spain. Rotrou III’s cousin, Alfonso I the Battler, rewarded him generously in 1128 ‘‘for the service given and being given every day.[28] Rotrou continued his service to Alfonso I until 1134 or 1135. In Spain, Rotrou III established links with García Ramírez, the future King of Navarre, whose mother was Cristina, daughter of El Cid. Though Navarre had been partitioned between Castile and Aragon, with the death of Alfonso the Battler in 1134, the succession of both kingdoms fell into dispute. While the nobility of Aragon favored Alfonso’s younger brother Ramiro II, the nobility of Navarre, the bishops and nobility at Pamplona to decided in favor of a scion of their own dynasty, García Ramírez. The election of García Ramírez restored the independence of the Navarrese kingdom after 58 years of political union with the Kingdom of Aragon. After some initial conflict, García Ramírez would align himself with Alfonso VII of León and Castile, and as his ally take part in the Reconquista.

Before eventually marrying Urraca, an illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VII, García married Marguerite de l’Aigle, daughter of Rotrou III’s sister Juliana and Gilbert, lord of l’Aigle. Marguerite’s son Sancho VI of Navarre married Sancha of Castile, the daughter of Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile. Sancho’s son, Sancho VII married Constance of Toulouse, daughter of Raymond VI of Toulouse and Beatrice of Béziers. Sancho VII’s sister, Berengaria Sánchez married Richard the Lionheart. Her sister Blanche of Navarre, became Countess of Champagne when she married Theobald III, Count of Champagne, the son of Henry I, Count of Champagne and Richard the Lionheart’s half-sister Marie of France. Marguerite’s daughter Blanche married Sancho III of Castile, the son of Alfonso VII of León and Castile and Berengaria of Barcelona. Their son was Alfonso VIII of Castile, who married Richard the Lionheart’s sister, Eleanor of England.

Routrou’s niece Marguerite de l’Aigle had by Ramírez, King of Navarre, a daughter and namesake, Margaret of Navarre, who married William I of Sicily (1154 – 1166), the son of Roger II of Sicily and another Elvira, daughter of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile. Their son, William II of Sicily (1153 – 1189), married Joan Plantagenet before she married Raymond VI of Toulouse. William II was a champion of the papacy and in secret league with the Lombard cities he was able to defy the common enemy, Frederick Barbarossa.

Genealogy of the Counts of Perche and Navarre

• Renaud of Roucy + Alberade of Lorraine (d. of Gilbert, Duke of Lorraine)

  • Ermentrude de Roucy (958 - 1005), Countess and Duchess of Burgundy + Alberic II of Mâcon

    • N de Mâcon + Eble de Poitiers, son of William IV of Aquitaine and Emma of Blois

      • Ebles I of Roucy (probably) + Beatrice of Hainaut

        • Adelaide (Alice) de Roucy + Hilduin IV, Count of Montdidier +

          • Ebles II, Count of Roucy + Sibylle de Apulia (d. of Robert Guiscard, remembered for the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily)

          • Beatrix de Ramerupt + Geoffrey II, Count of Perche

            • Rotrou III, Count of Perche + Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche (an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I of England, and sister-in-law of Geoffrey V of Anjou and Robert Count of Gloucester who had commissioned copies of the Historia Regum Brittaniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth which popularized the legend of King Arther)

              • Philippa, married Elias II, Count of Maine (brother of Geoffrey V of Anjou)

              • Rotrou IV + Matilda (d. of Count Theobald of Blois, and sister of Henry I of Champagne, who married Richard the Lionheart’s sister Marie of France, who sponsored Grail author Chretien de Troyes)

            • Rotrou III + Hawise, daughter of Walter of Salisbury

              • Stephen du Perche, Archbishop of Palermo (hired Joachim of Fiore)

            • Margaret + Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick

              • Rotrou (archbishop of Rouen)

            • Juliana du Perche + Gilbert, Lord of d’Aigle

              • Marguerite de l’Aigle + García Ramírez, King of Navarre (son of Ramiro Sánchez and Cristina, d. of El Cid)

                • Sancho VI of Navarre + Sancha of Castile (d. of Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile)

                  • Sancho VII + Constance of Toulouse (d. of Raymond VI of Toulouse and Beatrice of Béziers)

                  • Berengaria Sánchez + Richard the Lionheart

                  • Blanche of Navarre, Countess of Champagne + Theobald III, Count of Champagne

                • Blanche + Sancho III of Castile (s. of Alfonso VII of León and Castile + Berengaria of Barcelona)

                  • Alfonso VIII of Castile + Eleanor of England (sister of Richard the Lionheart)

                • Margaret of Navarre + William I of Sicily (Roger II of Sicily + Elvira of Castile, d. of Alfonso VI of León and Castile + Zaida, Muslim princess)

                  • William II of Sicily + Joan Plantagenet (s. of Richard the Lionheart, later married Raymond VI of Toulouse)

            • Mathilde + Raymond of Turenne, who was a fellow Crusader in the following of Raymond IV of Toulouse

          • Felicia of Roucy + Sancho I, King of Aragon

            • Alfonso I “the Battler” of Aragon and Navarre + Urraca of Leon and Castile (d. of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile + Constance of Burgundy. Earlier married Raymond of Burgundy)

            • Ramiro II of Aragon + Agnes of Aquitaine (d. William IX, Duke of Aquitaine + Philippa, Countess of Toulouse, niece of Raymond IV of Toulouse, leader of the Princes Crusade)

              • Petronilla of Aragon + Raymond Berengar IV, Count of Barcelona

                • Alfonso II of Aragon + Sancha of Castile (d. of Alfonso VII of Castile + Richeza of Poland)

                  • Peter II of Aragon

                  • Eleanor + Raymond VI of Toulouse.

                  • Sancha + Count Raymond VII of Toulouse

              • Alfonso II of Aragon + Adelaide de Burlat (mother of Raymond-Roger Trencavel, named Perceval by Wolfram von Eschenbach)

  • Ermentrude de Roucy + Otto-William, Count of Burgundy (from whom are descended the Counts of Burgundy and Hohenstaufen)

During the period when she held the regency for her son William II, Margaret of Navarre raised to the chancellorship her cousin Stephen du Perche, a younger and illegitimate son of Rotrou III. As a champion of the papacy and in secret league with the Lombard cities, William II was able to defy the common enemy, Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. Under the Hohenstaufen dynasty, William II’s reign was characterized as a golden age of peace and justice.[29] On some coins he used the Arabic Kufic inscription al-malik Ghulam al-thani, meaning “King William the Second.”[30]

Stephen du Perche, who served as counselor of Margaret of Navarre, hired the services of Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135 – 1202), a heretical Cistercian abbot from Calabria, and a disciple of Bernard of Clairvaux, who would exercise an enormous influence in millennialism. About 1159, not long after the end of the Second Crusade, Joachim went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he underwent a spiritual crisis and conversion in Jerusalem that turned him away from a worldly life and joined the Cistercians. Joachim applied himself entirely to the study of the Bible, to uncover the hidden meanings he thought were concealed, in particular the Book of Revelation. The mystical basis of Joachim’s teaching was his millenarian doctrine of the “Eternal Gospel,” founded on an interpretation of Revelation 14:6. Joachim believed that history, by analogy with the Trinity, was divided into three fundamental epochs. Important was the number of 1260 years, which is usually understood as the “time, times and half a time,” “1,260 days” and “42 months” mentioned in the books of Daniel and Revelation.

According to Joachim, first was the Age of the Father, corresponding to the Old Testament, characterized by obedience of mankind to the Rules of God. Second was the Age of the Son, between the advent of Christ and 1260 AD, represented by the New Testament, when Man became the Son of God. And finally, the Age of the Holy Spirit when mankind was to come in direct contact with God, reaching the total freedom preached by the Christian message. In this new Age the ecclesiastical organization would be replaced, and the Church would be ruled by the Order of the Just, later identified with the Franciscan order.

Joachim’s interpretations were clearly not of a Christian origin, and may stem from the fact that, as pointed out by Robert E. Lerner, Joachim was very likely drawing on rabbinical sources.[31] Lerner also accepts the claims of Joachim’s Jewish ancestry. In the Norman Kingdom where Joachim lived there were many Jews and Arabs who had non-forcibly converted to Christianity.[32] Since Joachim’s family lived in a region of many Jews, and studies have explored the possibility that Joachim had Jewish origins.[33]

In a sermon dating from about 1195 AD, the Cistercian Geoffrey of Auxerre, who had been the secretary of Saint Bernard, branded Joachim’s ideas as “Judaistic.” He claimed Joachim had been born Jewish and was “educated for many years in Judaism,” though his followers made great efforts to keep his origin a secret.[34] As Brett Whalen has pointed out, Joachim’s positive assessment of the role of the Jews in the End Times contrasted with the rise of a persecuting mentality among the Christian ruling elite of the time, who increasingly sought to marginalize and sometimes violently oppress non-Christian or heretical communities. Throughout his writings, Joachim developed the important theme that the Jews would be restored to divine grace and convert to Christianity with the transition to the final era of history, the coming Sabbath age of the Holy Spirit.[35]

In the last year of his reign, when William I signed a peace treaty with the Byzantine emperor, Manuel Comnenius. Joachim departed Palermo for Constantinople as a part of the official delegation. However, Joachim abandoned his mission when several of his associates encountered an outbreak of a disease and died. Joachim then undertook a long pilgrimage to the Holy Land, “where God was told to have spoken with men.” There is a possibility that Joachim’s actions were influenced by an example of a Spanish-Jewish thinker Judah Halevi who, unsatisfied with religious life in Spain, performed a similar pilgrimage to Palestine to experience closeness with God. Halevi was strongly influenced by the writings of Spanish Rabbi Abraham Bar Hiyya whose calculations of prophecy bear similarities with Joachim’s computations.[36]

Scholars recognize a striking similarity between Joachim’s writings and those of the Jewish convert and astronomer Petrus Alphonsi (1062 ­– c. 1110) from Spain.[37] In honor of the saint Peter, and of his royal patron Alfonso I the Batler, he took the name of Petrus Alfonsi (Alfonso’s Peter). By 1116 at the latest he had emigrated to England, where he spent several years there as court physician of Henry I of England, before moving to northern France. John Tolan mentioned in his book Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers that “Alfonsi’s texts were received enthusiastically—he became an auctor, an authority to be quoted. His success was due in large part to his ability to bridge several cultures: a Jew from the [Muslim] world of al-Andalus.”

Alfonsi’s fame derives mainly from a collection of oriental tales, translated from Arabic, some of drew on tales later incorporated into Arabian Nights, including the “Sindibad the Wise” story cycle and “The Tale of Attaf.” Alphonsi most famous works are his Dialogi contra Iudaeos (“Dialogue Against the Jews”) and Disciplina Clericalis (“A Training-school for the Clergy”), in fact a collection of Eastern fables. Dialogi contra Iudaeos took the form of a discussion between Moses and Peter, to show that his adopted religion was compatible with reason and natural philosophy. Petrus initiated the idea that “the Jews no longer followed the Old Law; they follow a new and heretical law, that of the Talmud.” Jewish leaders were blatantly lying and had attempted to cover up the truth. He believed Jewish leaders were blatantly lying and had attempted to cover up the truth of their sin of killing Jesus, in spite of the fact that they knew that he was the Son of God. According to Tolan, the Dialogi contra Iudaeos became one of the most widely read and used anti-Jewish polemical texts of the Middle Ages. A diagram in the Dialogi Contra Iudaeos has three circles connected in a triangle, which were adopted by Joachim. The Dialogi Contra Iudaeos was cited, often verbatim, by later Christian polemicists like Peter of Blois c. 1130 – c. 1211) and used by Peter the Venerable, of the Benedictine abbey of Cluny and a friend of Henry of Blois of Winchester and Glastonbury. The sacred name of the tetragrammaton as IEVE, is split it to produce the names of the three persons: IE, EV and VE, written into his diagram. Joachim’s famous Trinitarian “IEUE” interlaced-circles diagram was influenced by Alphonsi, and in turn led to the use of the Borromean rings as a symbol of the Christian Trinity.[38]

In 1166, when Margaret of Navarre wrote to her relatives in France, particularly Rotrou, the Archbishop of Rouen, the son of Rotrou III and Matilda, to ask for help during the minority of her son, William II, Peter of Blois and his brother Guillaume arrived in Sicily in September of that year, as part of a French party that included Stephen du Perche and Walter of the Mill. Peter became tutor to the young king, guardian of the royal seal and a key adviser to Queen Margaret, while Guillaume was appointed abbot of a monastery near Maletto.[39] In 1169 he became involved in the negotiations between Archbishop Thomas Becket and Pope Alexander III. However, the French group proved unpopular with the Sicilian nobility, and Peter left the island eventually travelling back to France. Around 1173, Peter went to England and entered the service of Henry II, acting as a diplomat in his negotiations with Louis VII of France and the Papacy.

Third Crusade

In 1178, Joachim appealed to William II, who granted the Cistercian monks some lands. In that same year, he became Abbot of the Benedictine Corazzo in Calabria. After four years serving as abbot, Joachim gathered the support of his peers to incorporate the monastery of Corazzo into the Cistercian order. In 1184, Joachim met with Pope Lucius III (c. 1097 – 1185) in the nearby city of Veroli where he presented him with his unfinished book Liber de Concordia. Joachim informed the pope that Jerusalem would eventually fall into the hands of the Muslims, as it did in 1187, and would prove the accuracy of his predictions. In 1186, he went to visit the newly elected pope, Urban III (d. 1187) in Verona, who also approved of his expositions and encouraged him to continue writing. By the end of 1187, when Saladin had taken Acre and Jerusalem, Urban III is said to have collapsed and died upon hearing the news of the outcome of the Battle of Hattin.[40]

The new pope, Gregory VIII (c. 1100/1105 –1187), interpreted the fall of Jerusalem as punishment for the sins of Christians across Europe. In 1187, Gregory VIII called for the Third Crusade, which was led by Frederick I Barbarossa and several of Europe’s most important leaders, including Philip II of France, Richard the Lionheart. In that same year, Frederick had received letters sent to him from the rulers of the Crusader states in the Holy Land urging him to come to their aid. Cardinal Henry of Marcy preached a sermon for the crusade before Frederick and a public assembly in Strasbourg. At Strasbourg, Frederick had imposed a small tax on the Jews of Germany to fund the venture. Frederick also placed the Jews under his protection and forbade anyone to preach against them.[41] As reported by Rabbi and Kabbalist Eleazar ben Judah ben Kalonymus (c. 1176 – 1238), also known as Eleazar of Worms, the last major member of the Ashkenazi Hasidim, when mobs threatened the Jews of Mainz on the eve of the assembly, Frederick sent the imperial marshal to disperse them. Rabbi Eleazar’s brother-in-law, the wealthy Jew Moses ha-Cohen, then met with the Frederick, which resulted in an imperial edict threatening maiming or death for anyone who committed the same to a Jew. Frederick and the rabbi rode through the streets together to assure the Jews of their safety. Frederick successfully prevented a repeat of the massacres that had accompanied the First Crusade and Second Crusade in Germany.[42]

Frederick Barbarossa drowned in Asia Minor in 1190, while leading an army in the Third Crusade, leaving an unstable alliance between the English and the French. Philip II returned to France in 1191, after the crusaders had recaptured the city of Accra from the Muslims. The crusader army, led by Richard I of England, recaptured the port city of Jaffa. Richard left the following year after negotiating a treaty with Saladin.

After Henry II’s death in 1189, Peter of Blois devoted himself to promoting the new crusade and to writing a biography of the crusader Raynald of Châtillon, a firm supporter of Baldwin IV's sister, Sybilla, and her husband, Guy of Lusignan. Sybilla was raised by her great-aunt, the Abbess Ioveta of Bethany, sister of former Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, the daughter of Baldwin II and Morphia of Armenia of the Skull of Sidon legend. He and Baldwin of Forde (c. 1125 – 1190), Archbishop of Canterbury, set out for the Holy Land late in 1189, accompanying Richard the Lionheart as far as Sicily. In April 1188, Baldwin was in Wales on a tour attempting to secure support for the king’s crusade, and was forcing his servants and followers to exercise on foot up and down hills in preparation for the journey to the Holy Land. Peter spent most of the year in Wales, preaching the crusade, accompanied by the chronicler Gerald of Wales.[43]

In the winter of 1190, soon after landing in Sicily, Richard and King Philip II of France met with Joachim and asked him to comment on a passage of the Book of Revelation which speaks about a seven-headed dragon, commonly interpreted as the Antichrist.[44] Joachim revealed that, according to the prophecy of the seven kings in Revelation 17, the effort of the crusaders would be in vain and the Muslims would remain in control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.[45]

In 1188, Joachim had left his refuge in Petralata and went to Rome to visit the newly appointed pope, Clement III (1130 – 1191). Joachim expounded his views on Christian reform and the immanent end of the world. Clement responded favorably, granting Joachim permission to found a new monastic order with the goal of fostering spiritual reform within the Church. Clement also encouraged Joachim to complete his work and to submit it to the Holy See for investigation. In 1192, Joachim and his closest disciples started building a new monastery called San Giovanni di Fiore, in expectation of the new life they expected to “flourish” in the coming millennium.[46]

In 1184, William II released his 30-year-old aunt Constance, also Queen of Sicily and daughter of Roger II, from convent, engaged her to the Frederick Barbarossa’s son, the future Emperor Henry VI (1165 – 1197) to secure the peace, and married her off in 1186. Constance was the daughter of Roger II’s second marriage in 1149 to Sibylla, daughter of Hugh II, Duke of Burgundy, the son of Odo I of Burgundy. In 1193, Joachim’s supporter, Tancred of Lecce, king of the Norman Kingdom, died and the Kingdom of Sicily fell to Emperor Henry VI and his wife Constance. When Joachim met with Henry VI and Constance in Palermo in 1195, Joachim proclaimed that Henry VI’s invasion of the Norman Kingdom was the deed of feroces barbarorum animi. However, Joachim also declared that these events occurred in fulfillment of the prophetic history. Joachim compared Henry VI to the ancient Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel’s prophecy of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the Tyre on the Mediterranean, according to Joachim, foreshadowed the destruction of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. According to Ezekiel 26:7 “For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.”[47]

Frederick II Hohenstaufen

Constance had been confined to Santissimo Salvatore, Palermo as a nun from childhood due to a prediction that “her marriage would destroy Sicily,” according to Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 – 1375) related in his De mulieribus claris (“Concerning Famous Women”). Boccaccio was an Italian writer and poet who together with Dante Alighieri (c. 1265 – 1321) and Petrarch (1304 – 1374) is part of the so-called “Three Crowns” of Italian literature. Dante’s Divine Comedy is widely considered the most important poem of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.[49] Dante’s Divine Comedy is widely considered the most important poem of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.[50] Dante, who like most Florentines of his day was embroiled in the Guelph–Ghibelline conflict, fought in the Battle of Campaldino of 1289, with the Florentine Guelphs against Arezzo Ghibellines. During the period of his exile, Dante corresponded with Dominican theologian Fr. Nicholas Brunacci OP (1240 – 1322) who had been a student of Thomas Aquinas at the Santa Sabina studium in Rome, later at Paris, and of Albert the Great at the Cologne studium.[51] In the Divine Comedy, Dante places both William I and Margaret’s son, William II of Sicily, and Joachim of Fiore in Paradise. It is suggested that Joachim of Fiore’s image of God as three interlaced rings inspired Dante.[52]

Boccaccio was a promoter of Dante’s work and figure and devoted himself to copying codes of the Divine Comedy. Boccaccio’s other most notable works is The Decameron, sometimes nicknamed l’Umana commedia (“the Human comedy), as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dante’s Comedy “Divine.” Boccaccio’s subtitle, Prencipe Galeotto, refers to Galehaut, a fictional king portrayed in the Vulgate Cycle, who was a close friend of Lancelot and an enemy of King Arthur. It was Galehaut’s match-making that resulted in the love affair between Lancelot and Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, In Inferno, Dante compares these fictional lovers with the real-life couple of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta. In Inferno, Dante fictionalizes their relationship, where Francesca and Paolo find mutual passion by reading of Lancelot and Guinevere.

In 1196, Constance summoned Joachim to Palermo to hear her confession in the Palatine Chapel.[53] Frederick Barbarossa had died in 1190, and the following year Henry and Constance were crowned Emperor and Empress. At Henry IV’s death of in 1197, his son Frederick II (1194 – 1250) was hastily brought back to his mother Constance in Palermo, where he was crowned King of Sicily on May 17, 1198, at just three years of age. Frederick II’s birth was also associated with a prophecy of Merlin. According to Andrea Dandolo (1306 –1354), the 54th doge of Venice, writing at some distance but probably recording contemporary gossip, Henry doubted reports of his wife’s pregnancy and was only convinced by consulting Joachim of Fiore, who confirmed that Frederick was his son by interpretation of Merlin’s prophecy and the Erythraean Sibyl.[54]

King Arthur and Merlin are first recorded in Italy in 1191, the hear of Henry V!’s coronation, and the same year that Arthur’s supposed tomb was discovered in Glastonbury, as reported by Gerald of Wales. It was in that year that Godfrey of Viterbo (c. 1120 – c. 1196) completed his Pantheon, which includes Italy’s first Arthurian legend. Godfrey’s work was inspired by the Prophetiæ Merlini (“Prophecies of Merlin”), a Latin work of Geoffrey of Monmouth circulated, from about 1130, and by 1135. The work contains a number of prophecies attributed to Merlin, which Geoffrey claims to have based on older Brittonic traditions some of which may have been oral but now lost. The Prophetiae preceded Geoffrey's larger Historia Regum Britanniæ of circa 1136, and was mostly incorporated in it, in Book VII. The prophecies, however, were influential and widely circulated in their own right.

Millennial expectations had already been inspired by the speculations of Joachim of Fiore, whose influence led to the identification of the emperor as the enemy of the Antichrist. In 1190-01, Richard Lionheart and courtiers met with Joachim of Fiore in Messina, who expounded on his belief that the Antichrist was now fifteen years old and on his way to becoming pope (Gregory IX). In this context, Godfrey’s history focused on Merlin to express the expectation of Arthur’s return. According to Martin B. Shichtman and James P. Carley, while Godfrey might have had his patron Henry IV in mind, his praise is merely a prologue to the celebration of his son Frederick II.[55] When Frederick was born, his birth was greeted as a miracle, and Godfrey, in his Friderici I. Et Heinrici VI, regarded the boy as “stupor mundi,” and “the future Savior foretold of prophets, the time-fulfilling Caesar.” Similarly, his contemporary Peter of Eboli (flourished c. 1196 – 1220) updated Virgil’s fourth eclogue to announce the miraculous birth of the child.

Both Dandolo and Salimbene (1221 – c. 1290), an Italian Franciscan friar and chronicler, recorded that it had been necessary for Henry VI to call upon his “friend,” Joachim of Fiore to lend the appropriate support to support the prophecies of Merlin. Dandolo adds that in 1196, Henry VI was concerned about the legitimacy of his wife’s pregnancy until Joachim assured him the child was his. The prophecy is found in the pseudo-Joachim’s Exposito Abbatis Joachim super Sibilis et Merlino, a gloss on the earlier Dicta Merlini (“Sayings of Merlin”), which deal with the clash between Frederick II and the Pope. In a dialogue recorded in Salimbene’s Chronicle, when Brother Peter accuses Joachite Brother Hugh of relying on the authority of soothsayers and magicians, Hugh responds by claiming that “the words of… the Sibyl and Merlin and Joachim… are not scorned by the Church but received gladly, in so far as they are good, useful, and true words.” Brother Hugh also attests to the truth of Merlin’s prophecies about Frederick II, and provides a precise exegesis of proofs provided in the Dicta.[56]

Frederick was also King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade. Historian Donald Detwiler wrote:

A man of extraordinary culture, energy, and ability – called by a contemporary chronicler stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche the first European, and by many historians the first modern ruler – Frederick established in Sicily and southern Italy something very much like a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy.[57]

Speaking six languages, including Latin, Sicilian, Middle High German, Langues d’oïl, Greek and Arabic, Frederick II was an avid patron of science and the arts. Frequently at war with the papacy, which was surrounded by Frederick’s lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily to the south, he was excommunicated three times and often denounced in pro-papal chronicles of the time and after. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him an Antichrist. According to the Italian Franciscan chronicler Salimbene (1221 – c. 1290), “Of faith in God he had none; he was crafty, wily, avaricious, lustful, malicious, wrathful; and yet a gallant man times, when he would show his kindness or courtesy; full of solace jocund, delightful, fertile in devices.”[58] A Damascene chronicler, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (c. 1185 – 1256), described, “The Emperor was covered with red hair, was bald and myopic. Had he been a slave, he would not have fetched 200 dirhams at market.” Frederick’s eyes were described variously as blue, or “green like those of a serpent.”[59]

Frederick II employed Jews from Sicily, who had immigrated there from the holy land, at his court to translate Greek and Arabic works.[60] His court was host to many astrologers and astronomers, including Michael Scot (1175 – c. 1232) and Guido Bonatti (d. between 1296 and 1300). Bonatti, who was the most celebrated astrologer of the thirteenth century, apparently advised Frederick II on military matters.[61] Scot, who was born somewhere in the border regions of Scotland or northern England, became famous as an astrologer and acquired a reputation as a wizard. From Paris, Scot went to Bologna, Palermo and Toledo where he learned Arabic. Frederick II attracted him to Sicily, where he undertook a translation of Aristotle and the Arabian commentaries from Arabic into Latin. The second version of Fibonacci’s famous book on mathematics, Liber Abaci, was dedicated to Scot in 1227, and it has been suggested that Scot played a part in Fibonacci’s presentation of the Fibonacci sequence.[62] Scot appears in Dante’s Divine Comedy, in the fourth bolgia located in the Eighth Circle of Hell, reserved for sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets who claimed they could see the future when they, in fact, could not. Boccaccio represents him in the same light.

Frederick II’s first wife was Constance of Aragon, was the second child and eldest daughter of the nine children of Alfonso II of Aragon and Sancha of Castile. His second wife was Isabella II of Jerusalem, the only child of Maria of Montferrat, Queen of Jerusalem, and John of Brienne. Maria was the daughter of Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem by her second husband Conrad I, and heiress, on her mother’s death, of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  His third wife was Isabella of England, daughter of John, King of England and his second wife Isabella of Angoulême. John was son of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. After his death his line did not survive, and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end. Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire entered a long period of decline during the Great Interregnum from which it did not completely recover until the reign of Charles V, 250 years later.[63]

[1] Otto Rahn. Crusade Against the Grail (1933)

[2] Napier. A to Z of the Knights Templar.

[3] Napier. Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Wilfred Lewis Warren. King John. Revised Edition (University of California Press, 1978) p. 2.

[6] J. C. Crick. “Monmouth, Geoffrey of (d. 1154/5),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004).

[7] Eleanor Shipley Duckett. Death and Life in the Tenth Century (University of Michigan Press, 1967).

[8] Horace K. Mann. The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, Vol 8 (1925), p. 235.

[9] Ibid.

[10] P. G. Bietenholz & Peter G. Bietenholz. Historia and Fabula: Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Brill Academic Publishers, 1997. p. 106.

[11] H. G. Enelow. “Andreas.” Jewish Encyclopedia.

[12] Joshua Schwartz & Marcel Poorthuis. Saints and role models in Judaism and Christianity (Brill Academic Publishers, 2004). p. 308.

[13] Gertrude Landa. Jewish fairy tales and legends (MacMay, 2009), p. 129.

[14] P. G. Bietenholz & Peter G. Bietenholz. Historia and Fabula: Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History (Brill Academic Publishers, 1997. p. 106.

[15] David B. Green. “This Day in Jewish History / An Anti-pope of Jewish Descent Dies.” Haaretz (January 25, 2013).

[16] Napier. A to Z of the Knights Templar, p. 47.

[17] “Queen Elvira de Leon, of Leon (born Castille), 965 - 1017.” Retrieved from https://www.myheritage.com/names/elvira_castille

[18] David Hatcher Childress. Pirates and the Lost Templar Fleet, (Adventures Unlimied Press, 2003) p. 60.

[19] Marjorie Chibnall. The Normans (Wiley & Sons, 2006), p. 86.

[20] Robert Comyn. History of the Western Empire from its Restoration by Charlemagne to the Accession of Charles V (1851), p. 192.

[21] Jonathan Riley-Smith. The Atlas of the Crusades (New York: Facts on File, 1991), p. 48.

[22] Peter Moraw. “Heiliges Reich,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters (Munich & Zurich: Artemis 1977–1999), vol. 4, columns 2025–2028.

[23] Jean Richard. The Crusades, c.1071-c.1291. Translated by Jean Birrell (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 165.

[24] Simon Barton. The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile (Cambridge University Press. 1997), pp. 126–28.

[25] John France. The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000-1714 (Routledge, 2005)

[26] Helen Nicholson. A Brief History of the Knights Templar (Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2010), p. 102.

[27] Luis Suárez Fernández. Historia de España Antigua y Media (Madrid: Rialp, 1976), p. 599.

[28] Joseph Goering. The Virgin and the Grail, Origins of a Legend (Yale University Press, 2005), p. 152.

[29] Steven Runciman. The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 7.

[30] Lucia Travaini. “Aspects of the Sicilian Norman Copper Coinage in the Twelfth Century.” The Numismatic Chronicle, 151 (1991), p. 167.

[31] Lerner. The Feast of Saint Abraham, p. 27.

[32] Hubert Houben. Roger II of Sicily: Ruler between East and West. Translated by Graham A. Loud and Diane Milburn (Cambridge, UK: University Press, 2002), 109.

[33] Dokcin Zivadinovic. “The Origins And Antecedents Of Joachim Of Fiore’s (1135-1202) Historical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic Interpretation Historical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic Interpretation.” Andrews University (2018).

[34] Ibid., p. 24.

[35] Brett Whalen. “Joachim of Fiore, Apocalyptic Conversion, and the ‘Persecuting Society’.” History Compass 8/7 (2010).

[36] Scholem. Kabbalah, p. 38.

[37] Zivadinovic. “The Origins And Antecedents Of Joachim Of Fiore’s (1135-1202) Historical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic Interpretation Historical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic Interpretation.”

[38] Ibid.

[39] “Borromean rings in Christian iconography.” The Borromean Rings. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120414231546/http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/trinity.html

[40] Charles Herbermann, ed. “Peter de Blois.” Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913).

[41] Hans E. Mayer. The Crusades (Oxford University Press, 1965) (trans. John Gillingham, 1972), p. 139.

[42] John Freed. Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), p. 471.

[43] Ibid., pp. 473–474.

[44] Austin Lane Poole. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087–1216 (Second ed.). (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 296.

[45] Matthias Riedl. A Companion of Joachim of Fiore (Leiden: Brill, 2017). p. 33.

[46] Marjorie Reeves. The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 7, 8.

[47] Zivadinovic. “The Origins And Antecedents Of Joachim Of Fiore's (1135-1202) Historical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic Interpretation Historical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic Interpretation.”

[48] Ibid.

[49] Prue Shaw. Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2014). pp. Introduction.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Eugenio Garin. History of Italian Philosophy: VIBS (Rodopi, 2008), p. 85.

[52] M. Reeves & B. Hirsch-Reich. The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972).

[53] Robert E. Lerner. The Feast of Saint Abraham: Medieval Millenarians and the Jews (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), p. 12.

[54] T. C. Van Cleve. The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen: Immuntator Mundi (Oxford. 1972), pp. 13–16.

[55] Daniel L. Hoffman. “Was Merlin and Guibelline.” In Culture and the King: The Social Implications of the Arthurian Legend, ed. Martin B. Shichtman, James P. Carley (SUNY Press, 1994), p.  114.

[56] Ibid., p.  114–118.

[57] Donald S. Detwiler. Germany: A Short History (Southern Illinois University Press, 1999). p. 43.

[58] Chronicle of Salimbene, as translated and paraphrased by G. Coulton. Retrieved from https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/salimbene1.asp

[59] Sibt ibn al-Jawzi. “Mirat al-Zaman,” cited in Amin Malouf. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. J. Rothschild trans. (Saqi Books, 2006), p. 230.

[60] Vincenzo Salerno. Sicilian Peoples: The Jews of Sicily. Retrieved from http://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art201.htm

[61] Nicholas Campion. The Medieval And Modern Worlds. A History of Western Astrology. II (Continuum Books, 2009).

[62] T.C. Scott & P. Marketos. “On the Origin of the Fibonacci Sequence,” MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews (March 2014).

[63] David Abulafia. Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Penguin Press, 1988).

Volume One

Introduction

1. Babylon

2. Ancient Greece

3. The Hellenistic Age

4. The Book of Revelation

5. Gog and Magog

6. Eastern Mystics

7. Septimania

8. Princes' Crusade

9. The Reconquista

10. Ashkenazi Hasidim

11. The Holy Grail

12. Camelot

13. Perceval

14. The Champagne Fairs

15. Baphomet

16. The Order of Santiago

17. War of the Roses

18. The Age of Discovery

19. Renaissance & Reformation

20. Kings of Jerusalem

21. The Mason Word

22. The Order of the Dragon