#komnenoi

[littlehistorian]

Alexis I Komnenus (1057-1118) was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. After usurping the throne, he was faced with a collapsing empire and constant warfare throughout his reign, Alexios was able to curb the Byzantine decline and begin the military, financial, and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration. His appeals to Western Europe for help against the Seljuk Turks were the catalyst that sparked the First Crusade.

[nanshe-of-nina]

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.

[littlehistorian]

A Byzantine Emperor of the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, A.D. By Herbert Norris.

[nanshe-of-nina]

Women’s History Meme || Femme Fatales (1/5) ↬ The Damsel of Cyprus

The emperor’s daughter whom “he loved more than any other creature” Richard placed in the study of Joan and Berengela “to be cared for and educated in their customs.”

[nanshe-of-nina]

WOMEN’S HISTORY ☦† THEODŌRA KOMNĒNĒ (c. 1145 – after 1185)

Theodōra Komnēnē was a daughter of Sebastokrator Isaakios Komnēnos and his second wife, Eirene Diplosynadēnē. Her father was the third son of Byzantine emperor, Iōannēs II Komnēnos and Árpád-házi Piroska and the older brother of Manouēl I Komnēnos. Eudoxia Komnēnē, the mother of Maria de Montpelhièr, may have been her sister. In 1157, Baudouin III de Jérusalem (son of Foulques V, comte d'Anjou and Mélisende de Jérusalem) sought to arrange a marriage for himself with a Byzantine lady. It took his ambassadors over a year, but it was finally decided that he would wed Theodōra. At the time, she was probably twelve or thirteen and he was twenty-eight. As a wedding present, Baudouin gave her the city of Acre. Though he had previously been something of a womanizer, he changed his ways after his marriage and became a faithful husband. Baudouin died in 1163 of an illness, leaving Theodōra a teenage widow. They had had no children, so the throne passed to Baudouin’s brother, Amaury, who confirmed Theodōra’s ownership of Acre. After divorcing his first wife, Agnès de Courtenay, Amaury married Maria Komnēnē, Theodōra's first cousin once removed. Around 1168, Andrónikos Komnēnos sought refuge at Amaury’s court. He had previously been at Antioche, but was expelled for having an affair with Philippa d’Antioche. He is often called Theodōra’s uncle, though he was actually her second cousin once removed. Despite their familial ties, Theodōra began an affair with the much-older Andrónikos and fled with him to court of Nūr ad-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿImād ad-Dīn Zengī in Damascus. There, Theodōra had two illegitimate children by Andrónikos: a son named Alexios and a daughter named Eirene. At some point, Theodōra and her children were captured and sent to Constantinople where Manouēl kept them as hostages. He was most likely hoping that doing so would get Andrónikos to return. Andrónikos returned to Constantinople in 1180 and pretended to apologize for all his misdeeds before leaving again and not returning until after Manouēl had died and Constantinople was in the grip of a power struggle between Marie d'Antioche, and Maria Porphyrogénnētē. Andrónikos had both of them killed and declared himself the new emperor. Shortly afterwards in 1183, he arranged for Eirene to marry Alexios Komnēnos, the illegitimate son of Manouēl and his mistress, Theodōra Vatatzina. The marriage was short, however: Andrónikos dissolved it in 1184 and ordered that Alexios be blinded. Though she no longer lived with Andrónikos, Theodōra convinced him to pay the ransom of her nephew, Isaakios Doukas Komnēnos, who was being held captive in Armenia. After being freed, Isaakios headed straight for Cyprus, declared himself king and went on a reign of terror. He was only stopped in 1189 after Richard I of England’s fiancée and sister were shipwrecked on Cyprus. The historian Konstantinos Varzos has suggested that Theodōra and Theodōra Vatatzina both had a hand in Andrónikos’ eventual downfall, but there are no records of either of them after the mid-1180s. After Andrónikos’ downfall, Theodōra's son, Alexios, fled to Georgia and became a fixture at the court of Tamar the Great. The Androgenic princely family claimed descent from Alexios, which is plausible, but the lack of records makes it impossible to verify.

[nanshe-of-nina]

WOMEN’S HISTORY †☦ AGNÈS DE FRANCE (1171 – after 1204)

Agnès de France was the youngest child and only daughter of Louis VII de France by his third wife, Adèle de Champagne. Agnès had four half-sisters (Marie, Alais, Marguerite, and Alix), but it is doubtful that she ever met any of them. In 1178, Philippe de Flandre (son of Thierry d’Alsace and Sibylle d’Anjou) visited Constantinople and brought back Imperial ambassadors seeking to arrange the marriage of Agnès to Alexios II Komnēnos, the son and heir apparent of Manouēl I Komnēnos and Marie d'Antioche. They was agreed on and Agnès was sent to Constantinople shortly afterwards. According to Guillaume de Tyr, she married Alexios almost immediately, even though she was only eight at the time and canon law set the minimum marriage age at twelve. After Manouēl's death in 1180, Alexios officially became the new emperor, but in fact, his mother served as regent. Marie entered into a disagreement with her stepdaughter, Maria Komnēnē and Maria's husband, Ranieri del Monferrato. Maria and Ranieri plotted with a group of other Byzantine nobles to oust Marie either set themselves up as young Alexios' regents or make themselves the new rulers outright. The plot was found out and most of the conspirators were arrested, but Maria and Raineri holed up in the Hagia Sophia. Desperate for help, Maria invited her father's cousin, Andrónikos I Komnēnós, back to Constantinople. Though handsome, brave, and eloquent, Andrónikos was also greedy, ambitious, and licentious. Not surprisingly, inviting him back was a giant mistake. Though he swore to the Patriarch Theodisos that he was only going to take over the regency of Alexios and send Marie back to convent, he promptly broke all his promises. Not long after arriving in Constantinople with an arm,y he had Marie put under house arrest in all but name, arranged for Maria and Ranieri to be poisoned by a eunuch, and let the citizens massacre the Latin population, most of whom were Italian merchants. He accused Marie of inviting her brother-in-law, III. Béla, to invade, and forced young Alexios to sign his mother's death warrant and Marie was strangled by the same eunuch who had poisoned Maria and Raineri. Alexios died soon after, officially of natural causes, though he was probably strangled with a bow string on Andrónikos' orders. Not long afterwards, Andrónikos married young Agnès, even though he was around 65 and she was barely 12 (if that) and consummated the marriage right away. Even though it was not uncommon for girls to marry men old enough to be their fathers at the time, this marriage raised eyebrows. Andrónikos was quick to make himself even more hated than the late Marie had. The suspicious deaths of Maria and Alexios were bad enough, but he only added to it ordering the gruesome execution of two former allies, Konstantine Makrodoukas and Andrónikos Doukas, on the grounds that they were somehow responsible for the terror that Isaakios Doukas Komnēnos (father of the Damsel of Cyprus) was unleashing on the Cypriots, even though Andrónikos himself was more responsible than either of them, as he was the one who had let Isaakios out of prison in the first place. In the meantime, he was also being invaded by Guillaume II of Sicily and was unable to do much of anything about it. In September 1185, Isaakios Angelos (a great-grandson of Alexios I Komnēnos) started a rebellion against Andrónikos' rule by encouraging the citizens of Constantinople to riot. Andrónikos promptly fled with Agnès and a mistress known as Maraptike, but they didn't get far before they were discovered. Andrónikos was dragged back to Constantinople where he was tortured to death by its inhabitants for several days. Agnès survived her second husband's gruesome end, probably because of her status as the younger sister of the king of France. Around 1193, she became the mistress of Theodōros Vranas, a Byzantine general. In 1187, Theodōros' father, Alexios, had rebelled against Isaakios Angelos' rule, but had been killed and beheaded by an army led by Corrado del Monferrato, the older brother of the unfortunate Raineri who had married Isaakios' sister, Theodora Angelina. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade ended up conquering Constantinople instead of fighting against the Ayyubids for Jerusalem and Baudouin IX, comte de Flandre (son of Marguerite Ier, comtesse de Flandre and father of Marguerite II, comtesse de Flandre) was elected the Latin Emperor. At Baudouin's insistence, Agnès and Theodōros married and had an unnamed daughter who married Narjot de Toucy.

[nanshe-of-nina]

WOMEN’S HISTORY ☦ MARIA KOMNĒNĒ (March 1152 – July 1182)

Maria Komnēnē (also known as "Maria Porphyrogénnētē") was the daughter and only child of Byzantine Emperor, Manouēl I Komnēnos and his first wife, Bertha von Sulzbach, daughter of Berengar I. von Sulzbach and Adelheid von Wolfratshausen. Her parents had married to build an alliance between the Byzantines and Holy Roman Emperor, Konrad III. von Hohenstaufen, against Roger II de Hauteville, king of Sicily. Bertha was Konrad's sister-in-law, as he was married to her older sister, Gertrud. Her mother died in 1159 and in 1161, Manouēl remarried to Marie d'Antioche, daughter of Raimond de Peiteus and Constance d'Antioche. He and Marie were childless for many years, though, and Manouēl did not expect to have any more children. Instead, he arranged for Maria to marry Árpád-ház Béla, the eldest son and heir of II. Géza magyar király and Euphrosyne of Kiev, who was most likely a great-granddaughter of Harold Godƿinson and Edith Swannesha. He then ordered his court to recognize Béla and Maria as his heirs. His cousin, Andrónikos I Komnēnós refused, though, and was promptly exiled from Constantinople. Much to everyone's surprise, though, Marie gave birth to a son, Alexios II Komnēnos, on 11 September 1169. Manouēl broke off Maria's engagement to Béla and then arranged for Maria to marry Guillaume II of Sicily, the grandson of Roger II. This engagement was also broken at a later point in favor of building an alliance with the Guglielmo V degli Aleramici, marchese del Monferrato by marrying Maria to one of his sons. (Guillaume instead married Joan of England.) Guglielmo had five sons, but Guglielmo Lungaspada, Corrado, and Bonifacio were already married and Federico was a priest, which left only his youngest son, Ranieri, who was only seventeen, ten years Maria's junior. Nonetheless, like his brothers, Ranieri was described as tall, blond, and handsome. He was given the title of Caesar and renamed "Iōannēs." Around the same time, Manouēl also arranged for Alexios to marry Agnès de France, daughter of Louis VII de France and Adèle de Champagne. Manouēl died in September of 1180 and Maria's half-brother, Alexios, became the new emperor with Marie d'Antioche acting as regent. She was regarded as incompetent and accused of favoring Latins like herself. Maria and Ranieri became part of a plot to overthrow Marie and either rule through young Alexios or overthrow him as well and set themselves up as the new Empress and Emperor. When their plot was discovered, they were forced to take refuge in the Hagia Sophia. There, Maria apparently sent word to her father's exiled cousin, Andrónikos I Komnēnós, begging him to come and save her. Unfortunately, her faith was misplaced: Andrónikos did return and overthrow Marie, but he had no intention of saving Maria or Ranieri. Instead, he let the inhabitants massacre the Latin population of the city and Maria and Ranieri died mysteriously shortly after, most likely poisoned. He then accused Marie of a bunch of crimes and had her son sign her death warrant before killing him as well and marrying his widow. Andrónikos’ regime was short-lived: two years later, he was overthrown by his cousin, Isaakios II Angelos, who allowed him to be tortured to death and then torn apart by the inhabitants of Constantinople. Twenty years after Maria and Ranieri’s deaths, Ranieri’s older brother, Bonifacio, became the leader of the Fourth Crusade that ended up sacking Constantinople instead of fighting against the Egyptian Ayyubids to recapture Jerusalem. (He was the only one of the Aleramici brothers left: Guglielmo Lungaspada died of malaria shortly after impregnating Sibylle de Jérusalem and Corrado had been killed by the Ḥashashīn shortly after impregnating Isabelle Ire de Jérusalem.) Bonifacio proclaimed himself king of Thessalonica on account of his late brother’s status, but was later killed by the Bulgarians in 1207.

[nanshe-of-nina]

WOMEN’S HISTORY †☦ MARIE d'ANTIOCHE (1145 – 1182)

Marie d'Antioche was probably the eldest of the children of Raimond de Peiteus, younger son of Guilhèm IX, duc d'Aquitània and Felipa de Tolosa and Constance d’Antioche, daughter and only child of Bohémond II de Hauteville, prince d'Antioche and Alix de Jérusalem. When Constance was around four-years-old, her father died in battle with the Turks and her mother remarried in 1153 to Renaud de Châtillon, the second son of a minor nobleman from Bourgogne. In August of 1159, Bertha von Sulzbach, the first wife of Manouēl I Komnēnos died and his only surviving child was a daughter. He expressed a desire to remarry to a noblewoman from one of the crusader states and Marie was one of the candidates along with Mélisende de Tripoli, daughter of Raymond II de Tripoli and Hodierne de Jérusalem. Mélisende seemed the favored candidate until the Byzantine envoys heard the rumors that Hodierne had been unfaithful to her husband and instead chose Marie as a bride. Mélisende's brother, Raymond III, was insulted at the slighting of his sister and attacked Cyprus, but the marriage of Marie and Manouēl proceeded regardless. For years, their marriage was childless. Expecting to have no further children, Manouēl arranged for his daughter, Maria Porphyrogénnētē, to marry Árpád-ház Béla, the eldest son and heir of II. Géza magyar király and Euphrosyne of Kiev, who was most likely a great-granddaughter of Harold Godƿinson and Edith Swannesha. Much to everyone's surprise, though, on 10 September 1169, Marie gave birth to a son, Alexios II Komnēnos. Maria's engagement to Árpád-ház Béla was broken off and she later married Ranieri degli Aleramici di Monferrato, the brother of Guglielmo Lungaspada (first husband of Sibylle de Jérusalem), Corrado (second husband of Isabelle Ire de Jérusalem), and Alasia. Not long afterwards, Manouēl arranged for young Alexios to marry Agnès de France, daughter of Louis VII de France and Adèle de Champagne. Agnès was around eight at the time and sent for immediately. Despite her young age, the chronicler Willelmus Tyrensis claims that she and Alexios were fully married to each other. Manouēl died in 1180 and Marie was officially a nun, but in reality, she served as regent for the young Alexios. Her closest advisor and rumored lover was another Alexios Komnēnos, who was the uncle of Maria Komnēnē, reine de Jérusalem. She and the elder Alexios were regarded as corrupt and incompetent and were accused of favoring Latins over Greeks. Her most stalwart enemy was her stepdaughter, Maria Porphyrogénnētē, and her husband, Raineri (who, ironically, was a Latin himself), who may have had designs on the throne. In 1182, Maria Porphyrogénnētē made the colossal mistake of inviting Andrónikos I Komnēnós back to Constantinople. A cousin of the late Manouēl, Andrónikos had been exiled to the Crusader States in 1168 for refusing to recognize Maria and her then-betrothed Béla as the heirs. He had spent his time in exile seducing noblewoman there including Philippa d'Antioche (Marie's younger sister) and Theodōra Komnēnē, reine de Jérusalem (the widow of Baudouin III de Jérusalem). It does not seem to have occurred to Maria that her father had exiled Andrónikos for a reason and that reason was about to become abundantly clear. Andrónikos promptly marched on Constantinople, arrested Marie, and let the inhabitants massacre the Latins. Shortly after, Maria Porphyrogénnētē and Raineri were both poisoned by a eunuch, most likely on Andrónikos' orders who saw them as a threat to his new regime. What happened to Marie's advisor, the elder Alexios, is unclear, but it's probably fair to bet that Andrónikos either exiled or killed him. Marie sent word for help to Árpád-ház Béla, now King of Hungary, who was married to her half-sister, Agnès d’Antioche , but he was unable to reach her in time. If anything, this actually hurt her, because Andrónikos promptly accused her of inciting Béla to attack Belgrade and Barancs in what are now Serbia. Andrónikos then forced young Alexios to sign his mother's death warrant, but found himself short on people willing to execute her. His son, also named Manouēl, refused, so she was either strangled or sewed up in a sack and then drowned. Young Alexios died the following year at the age of fourteen, most likely murdered. As for Andrónikos, he tried to cement his rule by marrying Alexios' young widow, Agnès, but he found his empire threatened by Árpád-ház Béla, Guillaume II of Sicily, and Kilij Arslan II and detested by most of his own citizens. His reign ended in 1185 when attempted to have his cousin, Isaakios II Angelos, arrested for treason. Instead, Isaakios seized power and gave Andrónikos to the adoring citizens of Constantinople, who proceeded to cut one of his hands off, tear his hair and teeth out, gouge out his eyes, douse him in boiling water, and then tear him apart.