Almodis de la Marche

Almodis de la Marche ( 1020 – 16 October 1071) was a French noble. She was famed for her marriage career, in particularly for her third marriage to Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, with whom she committed double bigamy in 1053, for which the Pope had them excommunicated. Life Almodis was the daughter of Count Bernard I of Marche and wife Amélie. She married Hugh V of Lusignan around 1038 and they had two sons and one daughter. Almodis and Hugh of Lusignan divorced due to consanguinity. She later, with Hugh's assistance, married Count Pons of Toulouse in 1040. Almodis was still Pons' wife in April 1053, when she was abducted by Count Ramon Berenguer I of Barcelona. He kidnapped her from Narbonne with the aid of a fleet sent north by his ally, the Muslim emir of Tortosa. They married immediately (despite the fact both of her previous husbands were still alive) and they appear with their twin sons in a charter the next year. Pope Victor II excommunicated Almodis and Ramon for this illegal marriage until 1056. Almodis maintained contact with her former husbands and many children, and in 1066/1067 she traveled to Toulouse for her daughter's wedding. A few years before, in 1060, Hugh V of Lusignan had revolted against his lord, Duke William VIII of Aquitaine, in support of Almodis' son William IV of Toulouse. Her sons supported one another in military campaigns; Hugh VI of Lusignan, Raymond IV of Toulouse, and Berenguer Ramon II of Barcelona all took the Cross. Her third husband Ramon was married to her niece, Isabela Trencavel, the daughter of Rangearde de la Marche. Their son, Peter Raymundi, was Ramon's original heir. Peter Raymundi resented Almodis' influence and was concerned she was trying to replace him with her own two sons, his consanguineous nephews, both who had claims through their father, Count La Marche. He murdered her in October 1071. William of Malmesbury reflected that she was, "sad, [of] unbridled lewdness".