Irene (Empress)

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Irene , in German seldom Irene of Athens ( Middle Greek Εἰρήνη ἡ Ἀθηναία Iríni i Athinéa ; * 752 in Athens , † 9 August 803 in Lesbos ), was Empress of the Byzantine Empire from 797 to 802.

Life

In 769 Irene became the wife of the first-born emperor's son Leo , who became emperor in 775 as Leo IV. A year after the marriage, she became the mother of a son, who later became Constantine VI . After Leo's death in 780, Constantine became Kindkaiser. Irene took over the reign , which she initially had to assert against the usurpers Nikephoros (780) and Elpidios (781-782).

Irene's reign fell during the Byzantine Iconoclasm in the 8th and 9th centuries. She belonged to the party of icon modules (worshipers of images) and convened the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 , which among other things decided that icons may be honored but not worshiped.

In 787 Irene entered into an alliance with Charlemagne . Plans were forged to marry his daughter Rotrud to Konstantin, but they were not pursued further because Irene had not invited a Frankish delegation to Nicaea . When Irene rose to become the sole ruler in 790, Armenian soldiers rebelled in the Byzantine army under the leadership of the strategist Alexios Musele . Irene was deposed as regent, but rehabilitated in 792 by her son as co-empress. In 797 another rebellion broke out, this time instigated and with their consent by Irene's allies. Constantine was deposed, blinded and later died of the wounds inflicted on him.

This brought Irene to the Byzantine throne and she was the first sole ruler in the empire. On coins and seals she was usually called Basilissa , which referred to the Emperor's wife, or Augusta , but never Basileus . It was "except in edicts for Irene not necessary to maintain the fiction of a male ruler" ( Gerhard Rösch ).

As empress she was not very successful, the army only gave her half-hearted support, and the leading ministers Staurakios and Aëtios quarreled among themselves. Influential court circles tried again in vain to raise their brother-in-law Nikephorus to emperor. Irene cut taxes to gain popularity but ran into financial difficulties as a result.

Other problems arose from her position as empress, with far-reaching consequences: Under Roman law , no woman could lead the high command of the army. Since the emperor held this position ex officio, no woman could legally be emperor. Therefore, according to some sources, Pope Leo III saw . the Roman imperial throne as vacant and was able to crown Charlemagne as Roman emperor in 800. But one can also see this act as merely a renewal of the Western Roman Empire, which just rejected the Eastern Roman Empire for the West. In any case, in 812 Michael I finally granted Charles the imperial title, but explicitly without succession.

According to Theophanes , Karl had intended to marry Irene after his coronation in order to legalize his empire in the East. A marriage did not take place, however, because the powerful eunuch Aëtios hoped to arrange a marriage between Irene and his brother Leon . However, there is nothing to be found in Frankish or Roman sources of Charles' intention to marry. Irene was deposed in 802 and replaced by Finance Minister Nikephoros . This ended the Syrian dynasty . Irene was exiled and died in a monastery on the island of Lesbos in 803 .

literature

  • Ursula Victoria Bosch: Eirene (Irene) . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 1. Munich 1974, pp. 455-457.
  • Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-43093-7 .
  • Ralph-Johannes Lilie , Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, Ilse Rochow, Beate Zielke: Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period . First section: 641–867 . Volume 1: Aaron (# 1) - Georgios (# 2182). Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann . Published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. De Gruyter, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-11-015179-0 , pp. 454-459, no. 1439.
  • Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , pp. 322-325.
  • Paul Speck: Irene, Byzantine Empress (797-802) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 5, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-7608-8905-0 , Sp. 644 f.

Web links

Commons : Irene von Athen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. Irene's title in male form is only documented in one edict. See Gerhard Rösch , Onoma basileias , Vienna 1978, p. 110 f., Quotation p. 111.
predecessor Office successor
Constantine VI Empress of Byzantium
797–802
Nikephorus I.