Marie de Champagne (1145–1198)
Marie de Champagne (1145–1198)
Countess of Champagne . Name variations: Marie, countess of Champagne; Marie of Champagne; Mary of Champagne; Mary Capet; Mary of France; possibly, Marie de France. Born in 1145; died in 1198; daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) and Louis VII, king of France (r. 1137–1180); sister of Alice (1150–c. 1197), countess of Blois; married Henry I, count of Champagne, around 1164; children: Henry I, king of Jerusalem (Henry II of Champagne); Theobald III, count of Champagne; Marie of Champagne (c. 1180–1203); Scholastica of Champagne (d. 1219).
Emma de Gatinais (fl. 1150–1170)
Princess of Gwynedd . Daughter of Geoffrey IV, count of Anjou; mother unknown; illegitimate half-sister of Henry II, king of England (r. 1154–1189); married David I, prince of Gwynedd, about 1174; children: two.
Eleanor of Aquitaine 's daughter Marie, who became the countess of Champagne, was a literary patron in her own right, commissioning courtly romances from such poets as Chretien de Troyes. Chretien's works include "Lancelot, or The Knight of the Cart," and other Arthurian romances. Some think that the woman known only as Marie de France , who wrote many popular lais (story-songs), was either Marie of Champagne or Emma de Gatinais , an illegitimate sister of Henry II and thus Eleanor of Aquitaine's sister-in-law.