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Alberada of Buonalbergo was a duchess of Apulia as the first wife of Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia (1059–1085).[1]

She married Guiscard in 1051 or 1052, when he was still just a robber baron in Calabria. As her dowry, she brought Robert Guiscard 200 knights under command of her nephew Girard of Buonalbergo.[2] She had two children with Guiscard: a daughter, Emma, mother of Tancred, Prince of Galilee, and a son, Prince Bohemond I of Antioch. [1]In 1058, after Pope Nicholas II strengthened existing canon law against consanguinity, Guiscard repudiated Alberada on that basis, in order to make a then-more advantageous marriage to Sichelgaita, the sister of Prince Gisulf II of Salerno.[1][3] This new marriage would hopefully serve to ally the Lombard and Normans; with Alberada and Guiscard's children simply too young to feasibly be married off, Guiscard may have determined to use himself.[4] Nevertheless, the split was amicable and Alberada showed no later ill will.

Grave of Aberada/Alberada, Abbey of Holy Trinity, Venosa.

She was alive at the death of Bohemond in March 1111 and died very old, probably in July 1122 or thereabouts.[3][5][6] She was buried near the Hauteville family mausoleum in the Abbey of Holy Trinity at Venosa. Her tomb is the only one remaining intact today.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c Paul, Nicholas L. (July 2010). "A Warlord's Wisdom: Literacy and Propaganda at the Time of the First Crusade". Speculum. 85 (3): 534–566. doi:10.1017/S0038713410001284. ISSN 0038-7134.
  2. ^ Wolf, Kenneth Baxter (2016-11-11). Making History: The Normans and Their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-1-5128-0901-5.
  3. ^ a b Morton, Nicholas (2021-09-02). "Bohemond of Taranto: Crusader and Conqueror; Warfare in the Norman Mediterranean". Al-Masāq. 33 (3): 358–360. doi:10.1080/09503110.2021.1997321. ISSN 0950-3110.
  4. ^ Ring, Trudy; Watson, Noelle; Schellinger, Paul (2013-11-05). Southern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-25958-8.
  5. ^ Gadolin, A. R. (1982). "Prince Bohemund's Death and Apotheosis in the Church of San Sabino, Canosa Di Puglia". Byzantion. 52: 124–153. ISSN 0378-2506.
  6. ^ a b Vernon, Clare (2023-01-26). From Byzantine to Norman Italy: Mediterranean Art and Architecture in Medieval Bari. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7556-3574-0.

Sources

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