The main source of her life is the , a monograph about the royal and aristocratic families of the
Crusader states and
Cilician Armenia compiled . She is mentioned in princely charters between 1170 and 1175. Both her parentage and the circumstances of her marriage to Bohemond are unclear. The historian Andrew D. Buck presents her as the heiress of Harenc (now at
Harem, Syria), a strategically important fortress defending the frontiers of the
Principality of Antioch against attacks from the Muslim
emirate of Aleppo. Orgueilleuse became the first wife of
Bohemond III of Antioch in the 1160s, according to Buck. He argues that she must have "come from a family deeply entrenched within Antioch's political history" to be married by the ruling prince. Consequently, he identifies her as a scion of the noble Fresnel family established by the
Norman aristocrat Guy Fresnel who had seized Harenc . Harenc, with Buck's words, "had a turbulent history", as it had been captured and recaptured by Antiochene and Aleppan troops many times before it was definitely lost to Antioch in 1164, although Bohemond would try to reconquer it several times during the 1170s and 1180s. Orgueilleuse gave birth to Bohemond's two sons,
Raymond (in 1169) and the younger
Bohemond (in 1171). Buck assumes that Bohemond's younger half-brother
Baldwin left Antioch to join the
Varangian Guard after their birth, because Bohemond wanted to secure his heir's smooth succession in case of his early death. The medievalist
Malcolm Barber says that Orgueilleuse was last mentioned in February 1175, while an other historian, Guy Perry adds March 1175 as the final date. ==References==