Constance of Babenberg (; 6 May 1212 – before 5 June 1243), a member of the House of Babenberg, was Margravine of Meissen from 1234 until her death, by her marriage with Margrave Henry the Illustrious.

Life

Constance was a younger daughter of Duke

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and his wife, the

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princess Theodora Angelina, granddaughter of Emperor Alexios III Angelos. In 1225 her elder sister

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married the 14-year-old Henry (VII), King-elect of Germany and eldest son of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II. Upon her father's death in 1230, the Babenberg duchies of

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and

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passed to her brother Frederick the Quarrelsome. JindrichJasny konstancie

On 1 May 1234 Constance married the Wettings margrave Henry the Illustrious. The wedding took place in an open field near Vienna rather than in the newly erected Hofburg residence of the Babenberg's. It is believed that the conversion of the castle had not been completed, or perhaps it was too small. There are three sources for information about the wedding itself. Two of them report that the wedding happened , in other words, in Stadlau. The third source reports that the wedding took place in , a name which has fallen into disuse and was used instead of today's Floridsdorf. The two sources reporting the location as Stadlau also published a list of wedding guests. Present at the wedding were King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia and Prince

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, the Archbishop of Salzburg as well as the bishops of Passau,

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, Freising and Seckau. The secular

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were represented by Margrave Přemysl of Moravia, Duke Albert of Saxony, Duke Carinthia, the Carinthian duke Bernhard von Spanheim, and the Landgrave of

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. This guest list suggests the importance of the Babenberg dukes within the

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. Constance bequeathed a True Cross relic to the

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parish, housed by a chapel which later became known as the Kreuzkirche. Her husband, who had inherited both the Margraviate of Meissen and the March of Lusatia from his father, the late Margrave Theodoric I, participated in a Prussian Crusade of the Teutonic Order soon after their wedding. In 1239 he entered into the Teltow and Magdeburg Wars with the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg. He remained a loyal supporter of Emperor Frederick II, who betrothed his daughter Margaret of Sicily with Henry's and Constance's first-born son Albert. After Constance's death in 1243, Margrave Henry secondly married Agnes of Bohemia, a daughter of King Wenceslaus I. When Constance's brother Duke Frederick was killed in the 1246 Battle of the Leitha River, he claimed the Austrian duchy for himself; nevertheless, it was seized by Emperor Frederick II.

Issue

Henry and Constance had two sons: * Albert II, Margrave of Meissen (1240 – 20 November 1314) * Theodoric of Landsberg (1242 – 8 February 1285). In 1910, a street in Donaustadt (the 22nd district of

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), was named after her: . {{DEFAULTSORT:Constance of Babenberg 1212 births 1243 deaths 13th-century German nobility Austrian duchesses Margravines of Meissen House of Wettin 13th-century German women Burials at Altzella Abbey Daughters of dukes Mothers of German monarchs