Isabeau of Bavaria - Lineage and Marriage

Lineage and Marriage

Born in Munich, she was baptized Elisabeth at the Church of Our Lady. Her parents were Duke Stephen III of Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Taddea Visconti, whom he married for 100,000 ducat dowry. She belonged to the ancient and well-established Merovingian Wittelsbach family, descended from Charlemagne. Her great-grandfather was Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor. Bavaria at the time was the most powerful of the German states and the Wittelsbachs the wealthiest of the Bavarian families.

In 1383, Isabeau's uncle, Duke Frederick of Bavaria, suggested her as a potential wife to King Charles VI; the match was again proposed in Cambrai in April 1385, at the occasion of John the Fearless and Margaret of Burgundy's marriages to Margaret and William of Bavaria respectively. The double wedding was a lavish affair with festivities; Charles, then 17, rode in the tourneys. Tuchman writes that he was attractive, physically fit, enjoyed jousting and hunting, and was ready to be married.

Philip the Bold, Charles VI's uncle, saw the marriage as a means to create an alliance with the Holy Roman Empire against the English. A condition for the marriage was that the prospective bride be examined in the nude, which her father refused to allow. He was, however, convinced by his brother, so he sent Isabeau to France on the pretext of going on pilgrimage to Amiens with her uncle, with the condition that she was unaware of the reason for the visit. According to Jean Froissart, she was 13 or 14 when the match was proposed, and perhaps about 16 at the time of the marriage in 1385, suggesting a birth date of around 1370.

Before meeting Charles, Isabeau went to Hainaut for about a month, where she was taught the etiquette of the French court, and then she traveled to Amiens where she was presented to Charles on 13 July 1385. Isabeau did not speak French and may not have reflected the idealized beauty of the period, inheriting perhaps her mother's Italian looks, but the young king approved of her greatly and the couple were married three days later. Froissart wrote about the royal wedding in his Chronicles, joking about the lascivious guests at the feast and the "hot young couple".

Charles seemingly loved his wife, lavishing her with gifts. For their first New Year in 1386 he gave her a red velvet palfrey saddle, trimmed with copper and an interwined K and E; he continued to give her gifts of rings, tableware and clothing.