Raymond of Poitiers (1115–1149)
Born 1115 CE, died 1149 CE.
Raymond of Poitiers (1105 – 29 June 1149) was the prince of Antioch from 1136 until his death. He ruled the Principality of Antioch as the first husband of Princess Constance. He preserved the integrity of the principality, but failed in his attempts to expand it. Raymond was born to Duke William IX of Aquitaine and Countess Philippa of Toulouse. Aquitaine passed to William X, Raymond's older brother, and Raymond moved to the court of King Henry I of England. There he received an offer from King Fulk of Jerusalem and the nobles of Antioch to marry Constance, a child princess, and take up rule over her principality. Despite the respective attempts of her kinsman King Roger II of Sicily and her mother, Princess Alice, to prevent the union, Raymond arrived in the Latin East and married Constance in 1136 with the help of the Latin patriarch of Antioch, Ralph of Domfront. Raymond's priority as prince was to recapture Cilicia, but he was foiled by the arrival of Emperor John II Komnenos, who both captured the region and exacted homage from Raymond. Raymond promised to surrender Antioch in return for a new principality in northern Syria, but was not eager to help John carve it out.
Text from the Wikipedia article Raymond_of_Poitiers, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.