Maria of Bohemia
| Maria of Bohemia | |
|---|---|
|
Margravine of Austria Duchess of Bavaria |
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Portrait in the Babenberg pedigree, Klosterneuburg Monastery
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| Spouse(s) |
Leopold, Duke of Bavaria Herman III, Margrave of Baden |
| Issue | |
| Noble family | Přemyslid dynasty |
| Father | Soběslav I, Duke of Bohemia |
| Mother | Adelaide of Hungary |
| Born | c. 1124 |
| Died | after 1172 |
| Buried | Backnang Abbey |
Maria of Bohemia (c. 1124 – after 1172), a member of the Přemyslid dynasty, was Margravine of Austria and Duchess of Bavaria by her first marriage to Duke Leopold I, as well as Margravine of Baden and Verona by her second marriage to Margrave Herman III.
Maria was the only daughter of Duke Soběslav I of Bohemia and his wife Adelaide of Hungary, a grand-daughter of King Géza I of Hungary. To strenghten the ties between the Bohemian and German nobility, her father married her off to the Babenberg margrave Leopold IV of Austria on 28 September 1138. The bride was in her early teens, and the groom was in his early 30s. The Bohemian-Austrian alliance was confirmed, when Leopold's younger sister Gertrude married Soběslav's nephew, Duke Vladislaus II of Bohemia, two years later.
In 1139, one year after Maria's marriage, the Hohenstaufen king Conrad III of Germany, having deposed the Welf duke Henry the Proud, enfeoffed the Duchy of Bavaria to the Babenberg dynasty, ruling the Margraviate of Austria since 976. Margrave Leopold was Conrad's half-brother by their mother Agnes of Waiblingen; the king may also had helped to arrange the dynastical ties with the Bohemian Přemyslids. Leopold took over the rule in Bavaria, he nevertheless had to face the claims raised by Henry's younger brother Welf VI.
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