Agnes of France (1171-1240)

Agnes of France (* 1171 , † probably 1240) was the youngest daughter of Louis VII , King of France , and Adela of Champagne . She was the sister of King Philip II of France and wife of the Byzantine emperors Alexios II Komnenos and Andronikos I Komnenos .

Marriage to Alexios II.

In early 1178, Count Philip I of Flanders visited Constantinople on his return trip from the Holy Land . Emperor Manuel I Komnenus , who had received Louis VII during the Second Crusade in 1147 , was probably convinced during this visit that it was desirable to have France as an ally. In the winter of 1178/79 Philip and an imperial embassy led by the Genoese Baldovino Guercio left for the French court to broker the marriage between Agnes and Alexios II. Komnenos, Manuel's son and heir. Already in 1171 Pope Alexander III. favors this or a similar connection.

A flotilla of five ships set off from Montpellier with Agnes on board at Easter 1179 , and 14 other ships joined in Genoa, again commanded by Baldovino Guercio. On her arrival in Constantinople in the late summer of 1179, Agnes was welcomed with lavish festivities, including a speech by Archbishop Eustathios of Thessalonike and probably also elaborate verses by an anonymous author, which are sometimes referred to as Eisiterion .

William of Tire writes that Agnes was 8 years old when she arrived in Constantinople, Alexios 13 (in fact, Alexios was born on September 10, 1167, so he was 12 years old, there is no other source for Agnes' date of birth). If she was really eight, then according to the twelfth century, she was three years too young to be married. Wilhelm seems to describe the ceremony at which he was present, however, as a full wedding ( matrimonii legibus ... copulare ), in which some non-Byzantine sources and also many modern authors follow him. The celebrations took place on March 2, 1180 in the Trullos Hall in the Great Palace. Agnes was officially renamed Anna . On the occasion of the celebration, Eustathios wrote a speech entitled Speech at the public engagements of the two royal children . The ceremony took place about a month after Alexios' half-sister Maria Komnene married Rainer von Montferrat .

Manuel died on September 24, 1180 and Alexios succeeded him as emperor. Due to his youth, his mother Maria of Antioch exercised significantly more influence on state affairs than Alexios or even Anna. In 1183 Maria was succeeded by Andronikos I Komnenos , a cousin of Manuel, whose ambitions for the throne were known. He is responsible for the deaths of Maria Komnenes (July 1182), Rainer von Montferrats (August 1182) and Maria von Antiochias (1183). Andronikos was made co-emperor, in October he had Alexios strangled.

Marriage to Andronikos I.

Anna was now a 12-year-old widow, albeit not for long, as Andronikos, who was around 65, became her second husband at the end of the year.

Andronikos had already been married once, the name of this wife is unknown. He also had sexual relations with two nieces, Eudokia Komnene and Theodora Komnene, as well as Philippa of Antioch, the daughter of Constanze of Antioch and Raimund of Poitiers , who was an aunt of Alexios II as sister Maria of Antiochas. Andronikos had two sons from his first wife, as well as a daughter and a son from Theodora.

Anna was empress for two years until Andronikos was deposed in September 1185. He fled Constantinople from the popular uprising with Anna and another lover known as Maraptike , but were caught in Chele in Bithynia on the Black Sea , where they wanted to flee by ship to the Crimea but were detained because of bad winds. Andronikos was captured and taken to the capital, where he was publicly killed on September 12, 1185.

Theodoros Branas

Anna survived Andronikos' fall and death and then disappeared from the annals for eight years. It was not until 1193 that a Western European chronicler reported that she was now (23 years old) the lover of Theodoros Branas , a general who fought on the northern border of the empire. They were not married, perhaps because she would have lost her dowry by marrying a commoner.

In the summer of 1204 they finally married under pressure from the Latin Emperor Baldwin I. Theodoros Branas continued to fight for the Latin Empire, the last time he was reported in 1219, Agnes was no longer mentioned at this time and afterwards.

Agnes and Theodoros had at least one daughter, whom Narjot de Toucy († 1241) married.

King Philip II, Anna's brother and King of France from 1180 to 1223, is not reported to have taken care of his sister's fate again after she left for Constantinople.

swell

• Niketas Choniates , Historia , ed. J.-L. Van Dieten, 2 vols. (Berlin and New York, 1975); trans. O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates , by HJ Magoulias (Detroit; Wayne State University Press, 1984).

literature

• Alexander Cartellieri : Philip II August, King of France . Vols 1-2. Leipzig: Dyksche Buchhandlung, 1899–1906.
• Louis de Sommerard: Anne Comnène, Agnès de France - Deux princesses d'orient au XIIe siècle. Paris: Perrin, 1907.
• Paul Magdalino: The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos . 2002.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 1: Aaron - Azarethes . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-52303-3 , pp. 90-91.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Bernardo and Salem Maragone, Annales Pisani pp. 68-9 Gentile.
2. ↑ Letter from Alexander III. to Henry of France , Archbishop of Reims and brother of Louis VII on February 28, 1171 ( Patrologia Latina Volume 200 Column 783).
3. ↑ Annales Pisani ; Ottobono, Annales Genuenses , 1179.
4. ^ W. Regel, Fontes rerum byzantinicarum (St. Petersburg, 1892-1917) p. 84.
5. ↑ Irene Dukaina , wife of Alexios I Komnenos and grandmother of Manuel, was 12 years old when they married in 1078, Theodora Komnena , Manuel's niece and wife of King Baldwin III. of Jerusalem was 13 years old when they married in 1158. Margaret of Hungary, who was about 10 years old when she married Isaac II in 1185, was an exception, as Isaac was not firmly in the saddle in 1185 and urgently needed dynastic support.
6. ^ Wilhelm von Tire, Historia Transmarina 22.4; Roger of Howden , Chronicle , year 1180.
7. ↑ Madrid MS Esc. Size 265 [Y.II.10] fols 368-372 (described in G. de Andrés, Catálogo de los códices griegos de la Real Biblioteca de El Escorial Vol. 2 [Madrid, 1965] pp. 120-131).
8. ↑ Niketas Choniates , Histories p. 347 van Dieten.
9. ↑ Alberich von Trois-Fontaines , Chronicle 1193.
10. ↑ Alberich von Trois-Fontaines, Chronicle 1204. According to the report of the crusader Robert de Clari, they were already married; However, Alberich's information appears more well-founded.
11. ↑ Alberich von Trois-Fontaines, Chronicle 1205 and 1235.

predecessor	Office	Successor
Mary of Antioch	Empress of Byzantium 1180–1185	Euphrosyne