Yolanda of Flanders

Who was Yolanda of Flanders?

Yolanda of Flanders ruled the Latin Empire in Constantinople for her husband Peter II of Courtenay from 1217 to 1219.

She 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. After the death of the latter in 1216 there was a brief period without an emperor, before Peter was elected. Peter sent Yolanda to Constantinople while he fought the Despotate of Epirus, during which he was captured. Because his fate was unknown, Yolanda ruled as regent. 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. However, she soon died, in 1219.

Her second son, Robert of Courtenay, became emperor because her first son did not want the throne. As Robert was still in France at the time, there was technically no emperor until he arrived in 1221.

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