AGNES OF

See also:

• MERAN

MERAN (d. 1201)  , queen of France, was the daughter of Bertold IV., duke of Meran in Tirol . She is called Marie by some of the chroniclers . In June 1196 she married Philip II., king of France,. who had repudiated Ingeborg of Denmark in 1193 . The pope espoused the cause of Ingeborg; but Philip did not submit until 1200, when, interdict having been added to excommunication, he consented to a separation from Agnes . She died in July of the next year, at the castle of Poissy, and was buried in the church of St Corentin, near Nantes . Her two children by Philip II., Philip, count of Clermont (d . 1234), and Mary, who married Philip, count of Namur, were legitimized by Innocent III. in 1201 on the demand of the king . Little is known of the personality of Agnes, beyond the remarkable influence which she exercised over Philip II . She has been made the heroine of a tragedy by Francois Ponsard, Agnes de Meranie . See the notes of Robert Davidsohn in Philipp . II . August von Frankreich and Ingeborg (Stuttgart, 1888) .

A genealogical

notice is furnished by the Chronicon of the monk Alberic (Aubry) of Trois-Fontaines, (Albericus Trium Fontium) in Pertz, Scriptores, vol. xxiii. pp . 872 f., and by the Genealogia Wettinensis, ibid. p . 229 .