nanshe-of-nina:Women’s History Meme || Sibling Relationships (5/5)↬ Mélisende de Jérusalem; Alix, pr
nanshe-of-nina:Women’s History Meme || Sibling Relationships (5/5)↬ Mélisende de Jérusalem; Alix, princesse d’Antioche; Hodierne, comtesse de Tripoli; and Yvette, abbesse de BéthanieMélisende’s role remains unclear, but she must have been involved. Her later history shows that she was no passive consort, but a powerful personality fully conscious of her lineage as the hereditary link with the founding rulers. Guillaume de Tyr’s contrasting treatment of the two sisters, Mélisende and Alix, should not obscure the similarities between them. Mélisende was equally concerned to use her position to make provision for her two younger sisters, Hodierne and Yvette, both of whom had still been children when their father died in 1131. Hodierne’s marriage to Raymond, son of Pons de Tripoli, which took place sometime before 1138, must have been the result of Mélisende’s influence, ensuring that the lines of the rulers in Jerusalem, Antioch and Tripoli would all continue through the daughters of Baudouin II. Mélisende remained a presence in her sister’s life, for when Hodierna quarrelled with Raymond shortly before his assassination in 1152, it was the queen who tried to reconcile them and, having failed, who accompanied the countess on her departure from Tripoli. Yvette, the youngest, had been given as hostage to Timurtash, Il-Ghazi’s son, in August 1124, and ransomed nine months later. This must have been a traumatic experience for a child of four or five. Her mother, Morphia, had died between 1126 and 1128, and at that time Yvette may have been entrusted to the care of the sisters at the convent of St Anne, situated north of the Temple platform near the gate of Jehoshaphat on the eastern side of the city. When she reached an appropriate age, perhaps about 1134, she took vows as a nun there.However, Mélisende had more ambitious plans, made possible after 1134 by the king’s accommodating attitude, for she decided that her sister needed a position in the monastic world more in keeping with her status. As in her relations with Alix and Hodierne, it is difficult to know how far she was motivated by genuine affection. Any political threat that Yvette may have represented as the only sister born while Baudouin was king had been negated when she became a nun. Even so, there is no way of knowing whether she had really wished to become a nun, or whether Mélisende had played a role in inducing her to take vows. — The Crusader States, Malcolm Barber -- source link
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