Corba of Thorigne, Lady of Amboise, daughter of Suplice I, beheaded for no known reason, and daughter-in-law of
Fulk IV le Réchin, Count of Anjou. She inherited one of the three chateaux of
Amboise
Amboise (; ) is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. Today a small market town, it was once home of the French royal court.
Geography
Amboise lies on the banks of the river Loire, east of Tours. It is also about away f ...
.
Fulk arranged for Corba’s marriage to Aimery of Courran. Corba’s husband and her uncle Hugh
participated in the
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ru ...
, but her husband was killed at the
siege of Nicaea
The siege of Nicaea was the first major battle of the First Crusade, taking place from 14 May to 19 June 1097. The city was under the control the Seljuk Turks who opted to surrender to the Byzantines in fear of the crusaders breaking into the ci ...
. Hugh returned wounded but alive.
Widowed, Fulk arranged the marriage of Corba to a very old man, Achard de Saintes. Not happy with the marriage, Corba successfully planned her abduction, and Achard, ailing, died soon afterwards. Fulk then had Corba marry a prominent knight named
Geoffrey Burel Geoffrey, Geoffroy, Geoff, etc., may refer to:
People
* Geoffrey (name), including a list of people with the name
* Geoffroy (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1095–c. 1155), clergyman and one of the m ...
, who became Lord of Amboise.
Geoffrey joined the
army of William IX in the Crusade of 1101, and typical of William’s army, he brought his wife Corba with him. William’s prowess in battle was limited and the Turks quickly put an end to his endeavor. One hundred thousand Christians were captured and assumed killed or sent to slavery, including Geoffrey. Corba was abducted by the Turks and her fate remains unknown.
Sources
* Duby, Georges, ''The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France'', University of Chicago Press, 1983, pgs 246-7 (available o
Google Books
* Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131, Cambridge University Press, London, 1997, pgs. 88, 119, 156.
* Prof. J. S. C. Riley-Smith, Prof, Jonathan Phillips, Dr. Alan V. Murray, Dr. Guy Perry, Dr. Nicholas Morton, A Database of Crusaders to the Holy Land, 1099-1149 (availabl
on-line
* Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The First Crusade and Idea of Crusading, A&C Black, 2003 (available o
Google Books
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Corba of Thorigne
Christians of the First Crusade
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
11th-century slaves
People from the Seljuk Empire
11th-century French women