Ancestral Trails 2016 » Anna KOMNENE (1083-1153)

Personal data Anna KOMNENE 

• She was born on December 1, 1083 in Porphyra Chamber, Great Palace of Constantinople, Constantinople, Byzantine Empire.

  Attention: Age at marriage (??-??-1097) below 16 years (14).

• Title: Princess of Byzantium
• (Ancestry) : House of Komnenos.
• She died in the year 1153 in Monastery of Kecharitomene, Constantinople, Byzantine Empire, she was 69 years old.
• A child of ALEXIOS I KOMNENOS and IRENE AUGUSTA DOUKAINA

Household of Anna KOMNENE

She is married to Nikephoros BRYENNIOS.

They got married in the year 1097 at Constantinople, Byzantium, Turkey, she was 13 years old.

Child(ren):

1. Alexios Bryennios KOMNENOS  ± 1102-1167
2. Maria Bryennaina KOMNENE  ± 1107-????
3. Eirene Bryenaina DOUKAINA  ± 1105-????
4. Johannes Bryennios DOUKAS  ± 1103-> 1173

Notes about Anna KOMNENE

Anna Komnene, Latinized as Comnena 1 December 1083 - 1153, was a Greek princess, scholar, physician, hospital administrator, and the daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos of Byzantium and Irene Doukaina. She wrote the Alexiad, an account of her father’s reign, which is unique in that it was written by a princess about her father.

Anna was born in the Porphyra Chamber (the purple chamber) of the imperial palace of Constantinople and was thus a porphyrogenita. She notes her imperial heritage in the Alexiad by stating that she was “born and bred in the purple." She was the eldest of seven children and her younger siblings were (in order of birth) Maria, John II, Andronikos, Isaac, Eudokia, and Theodora.

In the Alexiad Anna emphasizes her affection for her parents in stating her relation to Alexios and Irene. Additionally, Anna demonstrates her close familial ties in describing the scene when her mother, Irene, was pregnant, waiting for two days to give birth so that Alexios could be there. Historian Angeliki Laiou states that Anna presents this “as evidence of the obedience she showed her parents,” and as a demonstration of her familial affection. Anna notes in the Alexiad in her early childhood that she was raised by the former empress, Maria of Alania, who was the mother of Anna’s first fiancé, Constantine Doukas. The fact that Anna was raised by her future mother-in-law was a common custom.

Anna writes at the beginning of the Alexiad about her education, highlighting her experience with literature, Greek language, rhetoric, and sciences. Tutors trained her in subjects that included astronomy, medicine, history, military affairs, geography, and mathematics. Anna was noted for her education by the medieval scholar, Niketas Choniates who wrote that Anna “was ardently devoted to philosophy, the queen of all sciences, and was educated in every field." Anna’s conception of her education is shown in her testament, which credits her parents for allowing her to obtain an education.

As was customary for nobility in the medieval times, Anna was betrothed at infancy. She was to marry Constantine Doukas, the son of Emperor Michael VII and Maria of Alania. Because at the time of the engagement Emperor Alexios I had no sons, young Constantine was proclaimed the co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire. Anna's brother John was born in 1087, and Constantine had to forfeit his imperial claims. He died shortly thereafter.

In 1097, 14-year-old Anna Komnene married an accomplished young nobleman, the Caesar Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger. Nikephoros Bryennios was the son of an aristocratic family that had contested the throne before the accession of Alexios I. Nikephoros was also a renowned statesman, general, and historian. Anna claimed that the marriage was a political union rather than one of love. For the most part, however, it proved to be a successful union for forty years, and produced four children:

Alexios Komnenos, megas doux (c. 1102 - c. 1161/1167)
John Doukas (c. 1103 - after 1173)
Irene Doukaina (c. 1105 - ?)
Maria Bryennaina Komnene (c. 1107 - ?)

Anna proved to be capable not only on an intellectual level but also in practical matters. Her father placed her in charge of a large hospital and orphanage that he built for her to administer in Constantinople. The hospital was said to hold beds for 10,000 patients and orphans. Anna taught medicine at the hospital, as well as at other hospitals and orphanages. She was considered an expert on gout. Anna treated her father during his final illness.

In 1087, Anna’s brother, John II Komnenos, was born. Several years after his birth, in 1092, John was designated emperor. According to Niketas Choniates, Emperor Alexios, Anna’s father, “favored” John and declared him emperor. On the other hand, Anna’s mother, Irene Doukaina, according to Choniates “threw her full influence on the side of [Anna]” and “continually attempted” to persuade the emperor to designate Nikephoros Bryennios, Anna’s husband, as emperor. Around 1112, Alexios fell sick with rheumatism and could not move. He therefore turned the civil government over to his wife, Irene Doukaina, who directed the administration to Anna’s husband, Nikephoros Bryennios. As Emperor Alexios lay dying in his imperial bedchamber, John, according to Choniates, arrived and “secretly” took the emperor’s ring from his father during an embrace “as though in mourning.” In 1118, Alexios I Komnenos died. A clergyman in Hagia Sophia acclaimed John emperor thereafter.

In the end, after her husband’s death, Anna went to a convent of Kecharitomene, which was founded by her mother, where she remained until her death.

In the seclusion of the monastery, Anna dedicated her time to studying philosophy and history. She held esteemed intellectual gatherings, including those dedicated to Aristotelian studies. Anna's intellectual genius and breadth of knowledge is evident in her few works. Among other things, she was conversant with philosophy, literature, grammar, theology, astronomy, and medicine. It can be assumed because of minor errors that she may have quoted Homer and the Bible from memory when writing her most celebrated work, the Alexiad. Her contemporaries, like the metropolitan Bishop of Ephesus, Georgios Tornikes, regarded Anna as a person who had reached "the highest summit of wisdom, both secular and divine."

Being a historian, Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger had been working on an essay that he called "Material For History", which focused on the reign of Alexios I. He died in 1137 before finishing the work. At the age of 55, Anna took it upon herself to finish her husband's work, calling the completed work the Alexiad, the history of her father's life and reign (1081-1118) in Greek. The Alexiad is today the main source of Byzantine political history from the end of the 11th century to the beginning of the 12th century. It totalled 15 volumes when complete.

In the Alexiad, Anna provided insight on political relations and wars between Alexios I and the West. She vividly described weaponry, tactics, and battles. It has been noted that she was writing about events that occurred when she was a child, so these are not eye-witness accounts. Her neutrality is compromised by the fact that she was writing to praise her father and denigrate his successors. Despite her unabashed partiality, her account of the First Crusade is of great value to history because it is the only Hellenic eyewitness account available. She had the opportunity to gather information from key figures in the Byzantine elite; her husband, Nikephorus Bryennios, had fought in the clash with crusade leader Godfrey of Bouillon outside Constantinople on Maundy Thursday 1097; and her uncle, George Palaeologus, was present at Pelekanon in June 1097 when Alexios I discussed future strategy with the crusaders. Thus, the Alexiad allows the events of the First Crusade to be seen from the Byzantine elite's perspective. It conveys the alarm felt at the scale of the western European forces proceeding through the Empire, and the dangers they might have posed to the safety of Constantinople. Anna also identified for the first time, the Vlachs from Balkans with Dacians, in Alexiad (Chapter XIV), describing their places around Haemus mountains: "...on either side of its slopes dwell many very wealthy tribes, the Dacians and the Thracians on the northern side, and on the southern, more Thracians and the Macedonians".

Special suspicion was reserved for crusading leader Bohemond of Taranto, a southern Italian Norman who, under the leadership of his father Robert Guiscard, had invaded Byzantine territory in the Balkans in 1081.

The exact date of Anna Komnene’s death is uncertain. It is inferred from the Alexiad that she was still alive in 1148. Moreover, the Alexiad sheds light on Anna’s emotional turmoil. She wrote that no one could see her, yet many hated her. Thus, she loathed the isolated position in society that exile had forced upon her.
SOURCE: Wikipedia

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Timeline Anna KOMNENE

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