William of Montferrat, Count of Jaffa and Ascalon

Who was William of Montferrat, Count of Jaffa and Ascalon?

William of Montferrat, also called William Longsword, was the Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, the eldest son of William V, Marquess of Montferrat and Judith of Babenberg. He was the older brother of Conrad, Boniface, Azalaïs, and Renier, and a cousin of both Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor and Louis VII of France.

The earliest surviving mention of William's epithet, Longsword, said to refer to his military abilities, and differentiating him from his father, known as "William the Elder", is in the song En abril, quan vei verdeyar, composed in late 1176-early 1177 by the troubadour Peire Bremon lo Tort:

Chanzos, tu.t n'iras outra mar,

e, per Deu, vai a midons dir

qu'en gran dolor et en cossir

me fai la nuoit e.l jorn estar.

di.m a'n Guilhelm Longa-Espia,

bona chanzos, qu'el li.t dia

e que i an per lieis confortar.

It was rendered into Latin as "Longaspata" by William of Tyre in his Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, whence it has been taken up by historians.

Despite his eligibility as the eldest son of one of the greatest magnates in northern Italy, with many royal and imperial connections and the fair good looks of his family, he did not marry until he was well into his thirties. In 1167, his father had tried to arrange marriages for him and Conrad to daughters of Henry II of England or sisters of William I of Scotland - but these failed, the English match probably because of consanguinity, the Scottish match because the princesses were already married.