Adelheid

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37092

married I Albert 1263. I (son of I Otto and Matilda of Brandenburg) was born 1236; died 1279. [Group Sheet]

1. II Albert was born Abt 1268; died 22 Sep 1318.
2. Henry was born 1267; died 1322.
3. William was born 1270; died 1292.
4. Otto died 1346.
5. Matilda (Unknown) died 11 Dec 1310.
6. Lothar died 1335.
7. Conrad died 1303.

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37148

Notes:

Boniface II (July 1202 - 12 June 1253), called the Giant, was the Margrave of Montferrat from 1225 until his death. He received the titularity of the Kingdom of Thessalonica in 1239.

Boniface was the eldest but only son of the three children of William VI and his second wife, Berta di Clavesana. He was appointed to succeed his father in 1225 when William led a group of crusaders to Frankish Greece. In Spring 1226, he took full command of Montferrat.
Boniface contracted an alliance with his cousin Manfred III of Saluzzo by which if one died without heirs the other would inherit his domains. This served to avert a civil war in which the intervention of the Emperor Frederick II, who was not on good terms with Boniface, could have been expected. Boniface had failed to repay the heavy debts to the German crown which his father had incurred. In 1226, threatened by imperial disfavour, he allied with the Lombard League against the Emperor. Despite the eventual mediation of Pope Honorius III, the two men were ever distrustful of one another.

Towards 1228, Boniface negotiated a marital alliance with the House of Savoy. He proposed to marry Margaret, daughter of Amadeus IV of Savoy, but her grandfather Thomas I refused to grant the marriage while she was still very young. The two were wed in December 1235 at Chivasso, his capital, and Margaret became the mother of the future William VII. Amadeus appears to have concluded an agreement with Boniface whereby the latter would succeed to his Alpine Piedmontese lands if the Savoyard died without heirs. However, the alliance with Savoy broke down and the agreement was never realised.

However, Boniface's main sights were set not on the Piedmont but on nearby Alessandria: from 1227, when he strengthened an alliance with Asti, he continued until his death to fight the Alessandrini. On the side of Alessandria rallied the League and Milan. In 1230, after having lost many fortified places, Boniface was roundly defeated and forced to recognise the power and rights of the League. When he tried again to bring Alessandria into submission, with allies from Saluzzo and Savoy, the Milanese army attacked Chivasso. The protracted siege lasted four months, with Boniface's attempts to repulse the besiegers failing each time. Chivasso capitulated 5 September 1231 and was not returned to Boniface for another year, after the margrave had admitted his own defeat and come to terms.

After a subsequent rupture in his relations with Saluzzo and Savoy, he was prevented for a while from seeing his wife, who had gone on a trip to Piedmont. It was then that Boniface decided to switch loyalties and turned to the imperial camp. He escorted the Emperor on his Italian journeys and, in 1239, Frederick invested him with Thessalonica, which had originally been conquered by his grandfather in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. Boniface I had left it to his second son Demetrius, who ceded his rights to the Emperor in 1230. This situation of amicability with the Empire did not persist, however. In 1243, he was bought over to the Guelph party. In 1245, when Frederick visited Turin, Boniface met him and requested his pardon. He was received back into the imperial fold. At this time of constant warfare with his relatives, news arrived of the death of Manfred of Saluzzo. Following the dead margrave's will, Boniface was afforded custody and guardianship of the young heir Thomas and his sister Alasia.

The continuing political manoeuvring of Boniface was a response to the growing power of Amadeus of Savoy and, above all, the imperial decision to create a satellite state in Piedmont, carved from territory of Savoy, Saluzzo, and, above all, Montferrat. The death of Frederick in 1250 brought a brief respite and calm to Boniface's politics. Thenceforward distracted by the fight for the southern Piedmont, Boniface dedicated more energy to internal affairs than to warmaking. At Rome, Frederick's successor, Conrad IV, invested him with some adjacent land, particularly the city of Casale Monferrato. On 4 May 1253, Conrad invested him with Casale and on 12 May he was dead at Moncalvo, only a few hours after dictating his testament. His son William succeeded him.

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37149

Notes:

Boniface I's eldest son, and his only son by his first wife, Helena del Bosco, William stood originally to inherit all his father's possessions. He participated in diverse campaigns with his father, including the Battle of Montiglio, in which the men of Asti were defeated in 1191. Between 1193 and 1199, he appeared in many of his father's public acts. On 12 June 1199, he was put in charge of Acqui Terme with twenty knights to combat the Alessandrini, and, on 27 October, he was present near Saluggia for the signing of a pact with the commune of Vercelli.

War with Asti:

Boniface I joined the Fourth Crusade as a Christian leader in 1203. In accordance with promises made to Asti and Alessandria, he officially abdicated the marquisate to William before he left. Immediately, William turned towards Asti, then protected by Milan. The Astigiani had a history of rebellion and were growing in power. In August, with his father beside him, he formed an alliance with Alba and Alessandria, another rebellious commune, against Asti. His allies proved of little worth as he had to make many concessions to them and was still defeated in the field. In April 1206, he opened negotiations with Asti. The peace treaty was embarrassing for Montferrat, but it was accepted by all three allies. William promised to get his father's ratification, but his father died on Crusade unaware of any peace back home.
[edit]War against the Ghibellines

Traditionally, the Aleramici adhered to the Ghibelline faction, which supported the Hohenstaufen and their Italian schemes. William, however, lent his support to Otto of Brunswick, the Guelph claimant to the imperial title. Though William expected to see the power of an emperor levelled against his foes, the only aid he received from Otto was directed against small local potentates which posed little real threat. The only great success of the alliance was the sack of Cuneo.
[edit]Relationship with Frederick II

At the Diet of Lodi, William abandoned Otto finally in favour of Frederick II, the Hohenstaufen claimant. On 15 July 1212, he was in Genoa with the other Ghibelline lords to receive Frederick. William led the young emperor from the city to the road which led to Germany. In 1215, William participated in the Second Lateran Council, there arguing the cause of Frederick against Otto. He travelled many subsequent times into Germany to speak to Frederick and during these absences, his enemies plotted against him. In their attempts to seize his lands, however, they were largely unsuccessful.

During his times in Italy, William remained at war with Asti and Alessandria, but without result.

Claims in Greece:

During the exhausting years battling rebels and Guelphs, William resolved to travel to Greece to defend the conquests of his father, which had been formed into the Kingdom of Thessalonica. To this end he was urged by the churchmen of his realm and also by the troubadour Elias Carel. When he finally decided to take the cross, aware of the insignificance of his contribution to the total effort, he decided to head by way of Egypt, at the suggestion of Pope Honorius III. But the arrival of his half-brother Demetrius, fleeing the onslaught of the Greeks and the conspiracy of the Lombards, led by their kinsman Oberto II of Biandrate, who desired to make William king as his father's successor, convinced him to go to Greece.

Several times he prepared to head out, but each time was detained by the threats of his enemies in Piedmont or by economic restraints which compelled him to mortgage his marquisate to Frederick II. Finally, he cowed some cities into giving him aid in men. Nevertheless, he was present at Capua, Ferentino, and Sora with Frederick II in February 1223. Delayed again and again, he drank a toast at Brindisi to his setting off in 1225, but he fell ill at the last minute. His fleet remained in port until Spring 1226, when, under urging from Honorius, it finally cast off. The delays had been fatal and William himself died at Almyros on 17 September. The rest of his army was hit by a dysentery epidemic and melted away.