1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ingeborg

INGEBORG [Ingeburge, Ingelburge, Ingelborg, Isemburge, Dan. Ingibjörg] (c. 1176–1237 or 1238), queen of France, was the daughter of Valdemar I., king of Denmark. She married in 1193 Philip II. Augustus, king of France, but on the day after his marriage the king took a sudden aversion to her, and wished to obtain a separation. During almost twenty years he strained every effort to obtain from the church the declaration of nullity of his marriage. The council of Compiègne acceded to his wish on the 5th of November 1193, but the popes Celestine III. and Innocent III. successively took up the defence of the unfortunate queen. Philip, having married Agnes of Meran in June 1196, was excommunicated, and as he remained obdurate, the kingdom was placed under an interdict. Agnes was finally sent away, but Ingeborg, shut up in the château of Étampes, had to undergo all sorts of privations and vexations. The king attempted to induce her to solicit a divorce herself, or to enter a convent. At last, however (1213), hoping perhaps to justify by his wife’s claims his pretensions to England, Philip was reconciled with Ingeborg, whose life from henceforth was devoted to religion. She survived him more than fourteen years, passing the greater part of the time in the priory of St Jean at Corbeil, which she had founded.

See Robert Davidson, Philip II. August von Frankreich und Ingeborg (Stuttgart, 1888); and E. Michael, “Zur Geschichte der Königin Ingelborg” in the Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie (1890).