Background
Eudokia Komnene was sent to Provence by Manuel in 1174 to be betrothed to a son of the royal family of Aragon-Barcelona.
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Eudokia Komnene
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The Annals of the city of Pisa report that the intended bridegroom was to be Alfonso"s younger brother, Raymond Berengar V, count of Provence. The projected marriage aimed at thwarting the influence of the Emperor Barbarossa through an Aragonese and Provençal alliance with Emperor Manuel I of Constantinople. The betrothal with Raymond Berenger was at end in 1179 at latest.
Count Raymond died in 1181, incidentally in Montpellier.
As the troubadour Peire Vidal put it, the young king had preferred a poor Castilian maid to the emperor Manuel"s golden camel. Eudokia was sometimes described by contemporaries, including the troubadours Folquet de Marselha and Guiraut de Bornelh, as an empress (Occitan emperairitz) and was commonly said to be a daughter of the emperor Manuel, which has led to some confusion among modern authors about her family links.
Other sources, such as Guillaume de Puylaurens, correctly identify her as Manuel"s niece. William VIII and Eudokia had one daughter, Maria of Montpellier, born in 1182.
Eudokia was thereafter held at the monastery of Aniane and took the veil as a Benedictine nun.
She died about 1203, shortly before her daughter"s third marriage to King Peter II of Aragon.
