Anna Komnene or Comnena (Greek: Άννα Κομνηνή, Anna Komnēnē), (December 1 1083 – 1153). Byzantine princess and scholar, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina. She is one of the first known female historians.

Life

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She was her father's favourite and eldest child and was carefully trained in the study of poetry, science and Greek philosophy. But, though learned and studious, she was intriguing and ambitious, and ready to go to any lengths to gratify her longing for power.

At a very early age she was engaged to marry Constantine Doukas, the son of Emperor Michael VII and Maria of Alania, who was proclaimed co-emperor first with his own father, and then with Alexios I. After the birth of Alexios' own son John, the sickly Constantine Doukas lost his imperial position.

Anna was eventually married, in 1097, an accomplished young nobleman, the kaisar (Caesar) Nikephoros Bryennios, who belonged to one of the aristocratic families that had contested the throne before Alexios' accession. She united with her mother, Irene Doukaina, in a vain attempt to prevail upon her father during his last illness to disinherit his son John and give the crown to Anna's husband. Still undeterred, she entered into a conspiracy in 1118 to depose her brother John II Komnenos after his accession; and when her husband refused to join in the enterprise, she exclaimed that "nature had mistaken their sexes, for he ought to have been the woman."

The plot being discovered, Anna forfeited her property and imperial family status, though, by the clemency of her brother, she escaped with her life. She was dispatched to a convent. They'd been married for 40 years,not rounding off, and had four children. Anna employed her leisure in writing the Alexiad--a history in Greek of her father's life and reign (1081–1118), supplementing the historical work of her husband. A determined opponent of the Latin church and an enthusiastic admirer of the Byzantine Empire, Anna Komnene regards the Crusades as a danger both political and religious. Her models are Thucydides, Polybius and Xenophon, and her style exhibits the striving after the Atticism characteristic of the period, with the result that the language is highly artificial. Her chronology is generally sound when recounting events that occurred before her enforced status as a nun, but becomes especially defective afterwards, as she was obviously isolated from her Palace sources. Nevertheless, her history meets the standards of her time and place (Catholic Encyclopedia).

A fictional account of Anna Komnene's life is given in the 1999 novel Anna of Byzantium by Tracy Barrett.

Family

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By the kaisar Nikephoros Bryennios, Anna Komnene had several children, including:

1. Alexios Komnenos, megas doux, c. 1102–c. 1161/1167
2. John Doukas, c. 1103–after 1173
3. Eirene Doukaina, c. 1105–?
4. Maria Bryennaina Komnene, c. 1107–?

References

• The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
• K. Varzos, Ē genealogia tōn Komnēnōn, Thessalonikē, 1984.
• Anna Comnena, The Alexiad, translated by Elizabeth A. Dawes in 1928
• Anna Comnena, The Alexiad, edited and translated by E.R.A. Sewter. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. (This print version uses more idiomatic English and has more extensive notes)
• John France, "Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade", Reading Medieval Studies v.9 (1983)
• Paul Stephenson, "Anna Comnena's Alexiad as a source for the Second Crusade?", Journal of Medieval History v. 29 (2003)
• "Anna Comnena" in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

1083 births | 1153 deaths | Comnenid dynasty | Byzantine historians | Women writers | Medieval women | Greek people

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