Conrad of Montferrat

Conrad of Montferrat
13th-century depiction of Conrad's marriage to Isabella
King of Jerusalem (jure uxoris)
Reign	1190–1192
Predecessor	Guy of Lusignan
Successor	Isabella I
Co-Sovereign	Isabella I
Marquis of Montferrat
Reign	1191–1192
Predecessor	William V
Successor	Boniface I
Born	Unknown Montferrat
Died	28 April 1192 Acre
Consort	first wife Theodora Angelina Isabella I of Jerusalem
Issue	Maria of Montferrat
House	Aleramici
Father	William V, Marquess of Montferrat
Mother	Judith of Babenberg
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Conrad of Montferrat (Italian: Corrado del Monferrato; Piedmontese: Conrà ëd Monfrà) (died 28 April 1192) was a north Italian nobleman, one of the major participants in the Third Crusade. He was the de facto King of Jerusalem (as Conrad I) by marriage from 24 November 1190, but officially elected only in 1192, days before his death. He was also marquis of Montferrat from 1191.

Conrad was the second son of Marquis William V of Montferrat, "the Elder", and his wife Judith of Babenberg. He was a first cousin of Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, as well as Louis VII of France and Leopold V of Austria.

Conrad was born in Montferrat, which is now a region of Piedmont, in northwest Italy. The exact place and year are unknown. He is first mentioned in a charter in 1160, when serving at the court of his maternal uncle, Conrad, Bishop of Passau, later Archbishop of Salzburg. (He may have been named after him, or after his mother's half-brother, Conrad III of Germany.)

A handsome man, with great personal courage and intelligence, he was described in the Brevis Historia Occupationis et Amissionis Terræ Sanctæ ("A Short History of the Occupation and Loss of the Holy Land"):

Conrad was vigorous in arms, extremely clever both in natural mental ability and by learning, amiable in character and deed, endowed with all the human virtues, supreme in every council, the fair hope of his own side and a blazing lightning-bolt to the foe, capable of pretence and dissimulation in politics, educated in every language, in respect of which he was regarded by the less articulate to be extremely fluent. In one thing alone was he regarded as blameworthy: that he had seduced another's wife away from her living husband, and made her separate from him, and married her himself.