Yolanda, Latin Empress

Yolanda (Yolande de Hainault; 1175 – August 1219), often called Yolanda of Flanders, was Empress of the Latin Empire in Constantinople, first as the wife of Emperor Peter from 1216 to 1217 and thereafter as regent until her death in 1219. Peter was captured and imprisoned before he could reach Constantinople, so Yolanda assumed the duties of governing the Empire. She was ruling Marchioness of Namur from 1212 until 1217.

Biography
Yolanda was the daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Hainault, and Countess Margaret I of Flanders. Two of her brothers, Baldwin I and then Henry, were emperors in Constantinople.

In 1212, Yolanda became Marchioness of Namur after her brother, Marquis Philip I.

After the death of her brother emperor Henry in 1216 there was a brief period without an emperor, before Peter was elected to succeed her brother.

Because of Salic Law, Yolande could not succeed to the throne, and her husband became emperor instead.

On their way there, Peter sent Yolanda ahead to Constantinople, while he fought the Despotate of Epirus, during which he was captured. Because his fate was unknown (although he was probably killed), Yolanda governed Constantinople alone for two years.

She allied with the Bulgarians against the various Byzantine successor states, and was able to make peace with Theodore I Lascaris of the Empire of Nicaea, who married her daughter, Marie.

Her husband died after two years in prison, and she died herself in August 1219.

Legacy
Following Yolanda's death, her second son, Robert of Courtenay, became emperor because her oldest son, Philip, did not want the throne. Robert was still in France at the time.

Yolanda was, in her own right, Marchioness of Namur, which she inherited from her brother, Marquis Philip I, in 1212 and left to her eldest son, Marquis Philip II, when she went to Constantinople in 1216.

Issue
By Peter of Courtenay she had 10 children:
 * Philip (d. 1226), Marquis of Namur, who declined the offer of the crown of the Latin Empire
 * Robert of Courtenay (d. 1228), Latin Emperor
 * Henry (d. 1229), Marquis of Namur
 * Baldwin II of Constantinople (d. 1273)
 * Margaret, Marchioness of Namur, who married first Raoul d'Issoudun and then Henry count of Vianden
 * Elizabeth, who married Walter (Gaucher) count of Bar and then Eudes sire of Montagu
 * Yolanda, who married Andrew II of Hungary
 * Eleanor, who married Philip of Montfort, Lord of Tyre
 * Marie, who married Theodore I Lascaris of the Empire of Nicaea
 * Agnes, who married Geoffrey II Villehardouin, Prince of Achaea