#anna dalassene

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Day 2: Message - Hugh de Vermandois to the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos

“Know, Emperor, that I am the King of Kings, the greatest of all beneath the heavens. It is fitting that I should be met on my arrival and received with the pomp and ceremony appropriate to my noble birth” - from Anna Komnene’s Alexiad

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WOMEN’S HISTORY ☦ ANNA DALASSENE (c. 1025/30 – c. 1 November 1100/02)

Anna Dalassene was the daughter of Alexios Charon, a Byzantine official in southern Italy and unknown woman who was a granddaughter of the Byzantine aristocrat, Theophylact Dalassenos. Sometime between 1040 and 1045, Anna married Iōannēs Komnēnos, the son of the late Byzantine general, Manouēl Erōtikos Komnēnos. Anna and Iōannēs had eight children, five sons and three daughters. In 1057, Iōannēs’ brother, Isaakios Komnēnos, led a rebellion against the emperor, Mikhaēl VI Bringas. On the advice of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Mikhaēl abdicated on 31 August 1057 and became a monk and Isaakios became the new emperor. However, Isaakios’ reign was short: he clashed with the Patriarch, Mikhaēl Keroularios, over confiscation of church property. Their quarrel ended with the deposition of Keroularios and Isaakios abdicating and entering a monastery. The imperial crown then passed to Kōnstantinos X Doukas, who was married Eudokia Makrembolitissa, the late Patriarch’s niece. Kōnstantinos’ reign proved inglorious and unpopular: he undid most of Isaakios’ military reforms and went on to lose southern Italy to the Hauteville brothers. Iōannēs and Kōnstantinos both died in 1067, but Anna took care to strengthen her family’s political position by arranging marriages with top political families. With Kōnstantinos’ death, the throne was taken by Rōmanós IV Diogénēs, who had married the widowed Eudokia Makrembolitissa, who Anna politically supported against the Doukai. Unfortunately, Rōmanós was defeated and captured by the Seljuk Turks after the Battle of Manizkert on 19 August 1071. The Caesar Iōannēs Doukas took advantage of the situation to promote his nephew, Mikhaēl VII Doukas, the son of the late Kōnstantinos. After Rōmanós was released from captivity, Iōannēs Doukas ordered that his blinding. Anna remained secretly hostile to the Doukai, but consented to the marriage of her second surviving son, Alexios, to Iōannēs Doukas’ granddaughter, Eirēnē Doukaina. Young Mikhaēl VII proved to be as incompetent as his father, unable to do anything about the Normans, Bulgarians, or Seljuk Turks. In 1078, in response to two rebellions, Mikhaēl abdicated and Nikephoros III Botaneiates became the new emperor and married Maria of Alania, the wife of Botaneiates who had previously been married to Mikhaēl VII. Botaneiates intended to be succeeded by one of his relatives, but Maria wished for the accession of her son by Mikhaēl, Kōnstantinos Doukas and entered into an alliance with Anna; thus Maria agreed to adopt Anna’s son, Alexios, as her her own. In February of 1081, Alexios and his older brother, Isaakios, fled Constantinople to raise an army while Anna took refuge in the Haghia Sophia. Botaneiates suspected a plot, but Anna denied it. On 1 April 1081, Alexios and Isaakios entered Constantinople with an army and forced Botaneiates to abdicate. Alexios thus became emperor and appointed young Kōnstantinos Doukas as his co-emperor. Anna then attempted to convince Alexios to divorce Eirēnē Doukaina and marry Maria of Alania instead, but found herself blocked by the Doukai and the Patriarch, Kosmas. In the end, Eirēnē remained as Alexios’ wife, but Anna exercised far more authority at court than her daughter-in-law did and she and Maria of Alania took on the full responsibility of educating Anna’s first granddaughter and namesake, Anna Porphyrogénnētē Komnēnē. The date of Anna’s retirement from court and the circumstances surrounding it are unclear, though it was after the First Crusade first passed through the city. Either way, it is known that Anna died on 1 November of 1100 or 1102.

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Day 21: Anna Dalassene, mother of Alexios I Komnenos. Anna took charge of managing her family’s future upon the death of her husband, orchestrating marriage alliances and advocating for her sons to attain positions of command in the military. She was instrumental in Alexios’s rise to the throne and administered from Constantinople while he was away on campaign.

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ANNA DALASSENE // NOBLEWOMAN

“She was an important Byzantine noblewoman who played a significant role in the rise to power of the Komnenoi in the eleventh century. She exercised great influence over her son, the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who gave her the title Augusta. She also administered the empire as regent during his many absences from Constantinople on long military campaigns during the early part of his reign. As empress-mother, she exerted more influence and power than the empress-consort, Irene Doukaina, a woman whom she hated because of past intrigues with the Doukai.”

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Anna Dalassene

I can't find any images of her, so you get grumpyface Alexios I again. [Alexios I, 11th century, Vatican Library, Image Source]

Anna Dalassene (1025-c.1100), while never technically Empress, essentially ruled the Byzantine Empire alongside her son, Alexios I Komnenos, for the first 20 years or so of his reign.  She was an ambitious, intelligent woman, and it was through her maneuverings that her family was able to take the throne and hold it.  She governed skillfully while her son was away at war, keeping the Empire running and preventing a total economic crisis.

The daughter of Alexios Charon, Anna took her mother’s family name as it was the more prestigious.  She kept it for the same reason after she married John Komnenos at about the age of 20.  A revolt in 1057 made her brother-in-law Isaac Komnenos Emperor and gave both Anna and John positions of high authority.  Isaac, however, reigned only two years before retiring and Anna, much to her own dismay, was unable to convince John to take the throne.  It went instead to Constantine X Doukas.  Thus began Anna’s hatred of the Doukai family.

After Constantine’s death, Anna threw her support first behind his widow, Eudokia Makrembolitissa, then behind the new Empress, Maria of Alania.  It was this connection, through Anna and Maria’s friendship as well as through Maria’s adoption of Anna’s son Alexios, that allowed Anna and her middle two sons to overthrow Emperor Nikephoros Botaniates in 1081 and put Alexios on the throne.

Now, Anna knew the importance of making alliances and married most of her children into powerful families.  Even so, her dislike of the Doukai (based on her belief that they had taken the throne from her family) was well known.  She even tried to prevent the coronation of Alexios’ wife Irene Doukaina,* but only succeeded in delaying it a week.

She still managed to mostly exclude Irene from power, taking the governance of the Empire on herself while Alexios spent his time away at war.  Alexios trusted her completely and given her skill, he was right to.  It was she who managed to balance the budget and restore the treasury from its empty state, no mean feat.  It was only in the last years of her life that she was persuaded to retire.  Alexios spent far less time away at war and felt it would look bad if he continued to leave the governing of the Empire to his mother.  Given her granddaughter Anna Komnene’s silence about her last years, she may well have been involved in something questionable as well.**  Anna retired to a monastery in the late 1090s and died shortly thereafter.

  *There was some speculation even at the time that she intended to have her son divorce Irene and marry Maria of Alania. **Heresy, perhaps?

Sources/Further Reading: Anna Komnene, Alexiad - Internet History Sourcebooks Project Lydia Garland. "Anna Dalassena, Mother of Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118) - De Imperatoribus Romanis Anna Dalassene - Wikipedia