Euphrosyne (Byzantium)

Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina (also Kamatera ; Greek Ευφροσύνη Δούκαινα Καματερίνα ή Καματηρά ), (* around 1155 ; † 1211 ) was a Byzantine empress and wife of Emperor Alexios III.

Life

The daughter of Andronikos Dukas Kamateros , a high Byzantine officer († 1176), and relatives of Emperor Constantine X. and Irene Doukaina , whose two brothers had rebelled against Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in vain , married Alexios Angelos , the older brother , around 1169 of the future Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos . In the usurpation of the throne by her husband on April 8, 1195, she played a decisive role by organizing an aristocratic conspiracy, including through extensive bribery.

Euphrosyne, a strong personality with great political ambitions, exercised the actual rule in Byzantium alongside her weak and pleasure-addicted husband. She herself issued orders and withheld instructions from her husband that she disliked. Like Alexios, she loved luxury and practiced extensive nepotism . When she was accused of adultery with the Minister Vatatzes in 1196, Alexios had him executed, while she herself lost her imperial rank and was banished to the Nematarea monastery on the Black Sea coast . Only six months later, however, after the intervention of her relatives, she was rehabilitated and returned to the court in spring 1197.

After the start of the Fourth Crusade and the overthrow of the emperor in 1203, Euphrosyne, left alone by the fugitive Alexios in Constantinople , was arrested on the orders of her nephew Alexios IV , the now emperor. Under Alexios V , the next usurper and lover of her daughter Eudokia, again at large, after his fall in April 1204, she had to flee together with him and her daughter and came to Mosynopolis , where Alexios III. Had found refuge. However, this blinded Alexios V and handed him over to the crusaders, who executed him. On their further flight across Greece, she and her husband finally fell into the hands of Boniface de Montferrat , who took them prisoner. In 1209/1210 they were ransomed by Michael I Komnenos Dukas . In 1210 or 1211 Euphrosyne died in Arta in the despotate of Epirus .

family

Euphrosyne and Alexios III. had three daughters:

• Eirene Angelina, ∞ (1) Andronikos Kontostephanos; (2) Alexios Palaiologos. She was the grandmother of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos .
• Anna Angelina, ∞ (1) Isaac Komnenos, great-nephew of Manuel I. Komnenos ; (2) Emperor Theodor I. Laskaris .
• Eudokia Angelina, ∞ (1) King Stefan Prvovenčani of Serbia; (2) Emperor Alexios V ; (3) Leon Sguros .

literature

• Lynda Garland: Byzantine Empresses . Routledge, London 1999. ISBN 0-415-14688-7
• Judith Herrin: Women in Purple. Rulers of Medieval Byzantium . Phoenix Press, London 2001. ISBN 1-84212-529-X
• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , p. 749.
• Menelaus Pagoulatos: I Tetarti stafroforia ke ta epakoloutha tis . Georgiadis, Athens 2006. ISBN 960-316-384-8
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , pp. 431-432.

predecessor	Office	Successor
Agnes of France (1171-1240)	Empress of Byzantium April 8, 1195–1196 / 1197–1203	Her daughter Eudokia Doukaina afterwards Latin Empire: Marie von Champagne (Empress)