Ida of Austria (d. 1101?)
Ida of Austria (d. 1101?)
Margravine of Austria. Possibly died in 1101; married Leopold II, margrave of Austria (r. 1075–1096); children: Leopold III the Pious of Austria, margrave of Austria (r. 1096–1136, who married Agnes of Germany ; he was canonized in 1485).
In February 1101, two armies set out on Crusade. One was comprised largely of Lombards; the other was French, led by Stephen of Blois, Stephen, bishop of Soissons, and Conrad, constable of Europe. They were followed by William II, count of Nevers, with 15,000 men. "There was also a fourth army," writes Zoé Oldenbourg in The Crusades, "an extremely large one, estimated at sixty thousand persons including a great many civilian pilgrims, which was led by William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, by Welf IV, Duke of Bavaria, and by the Margravine Ida of Austria, mother of Duke Leopold of Bavaria." On September 15, 1101, surrounded in a battle with the Turks, the fourth army was nearly all slaughtered. William IX and Welf IV narrowly escaped, but Ida "remained on the field of battle and no one ever knew what became of her. She had been one of the most famous beauties of her time." There is some speculation that she was taken prisoner and "ended her days in the harem of Aqsonqor" and had a son Imad ed-din Zengi, a military hero and atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo.
sources:
Oldenbourg, Zoé. The Crusades. NY: Pantheon, 1966.