Agnes of France, renamed Anna (1171 – 1220/after 1240), was Byzantine empress by marriage to Alexios II Komnenos and

Andronikos I Komnenos Andronikos I Komnenos (; – 12 September 1185), Latinized as Andronicus I Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1183 to 1185. A nephew of John II Komnenos (1118–1143), Andronikos rose to fame in the reign of his cousin Manuel I Komne ...

. She was a daughter of

Louis VII of France Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger or the Young () to differentiate him from his father Louis VI, was King of France from 1137 to 1180. His first marriage was to Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and ...

and Adèle of Champagne.

Betrothal and marriage

In early 1178, Philip, Count of Flanders visited

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

on his way back from the

Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...

. The

Byzantine Emperor The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...

Manuel I Komnenos Manuel I Komnenos (; 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180), Latinized as Comnenus, also called Porphyrogenitus (; " born in the purple"), was a Byzantine emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history o ...

, who had already entertained Louis VII in Constantinople at Christmas 1147 during the

Second Crusade The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crus ...

, was perhaps finally convinced by Philip that France would be a desirable ally in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

. Over the winter of 1178-1179 an Imperial embassy accompanying Philip, and led by the Genoese Baldovino Guercio, was sent to the French court to secure a match between Agnes and

Alexios Alexius is the Latinization (literature), Latinized form of the given name Alexios (, polytonic , "defender", cf. Alexander), especially common in the Byzantine Empire. The female form is Alexia (given name), Alexia () and its variants such as Ales ...

, the only son and

heir apparent An heir apparent is a person who is first in the order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. A person who is first in the current order of succession but could be displaced by the birth of a more e ...

of Manuel by his second wife

Maria of Antioch Maria of Antioch (; 1145–1182) was a Byzantine empress by marriage to Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, and regent during the minority of her son porphyrogennetos Alexios II Komnenos from 1180 until 1182. Early life Maria of Antioch wa ...

. This or some similar marriage alliance had been favored by

Pope Alexander III Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 30 August 1181), born Roland (), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 September 1159 until his death in 1181. A native of Siena, Alexander became pope after a Papal election, ...

as early as 1171. It was not uncommon for princesses, when a future marriage had been agreed, to be brought up in their intended husband's family; this, indeed, is why Agnes probably never met her elder sister Alys, who lived in the

Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the late 9th century, when it was unified from various Heptarchy, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland to f ...

from the age of about nine, when her marriage to the future

Richard I of England Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199), known as Richard the Lionheart or Richard Cœur de Lion () because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior, was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ru ...

was agreed on (though this marriage never took place). Agnes took ship in

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

, bound for Constantinople, at Easter 1179. At

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

the flotilla increased from 5 to 19 ships, captained by Baldovino Guercio. On arrival in Constantinople in late summer 1179 Agnes was met by seventy high-ranking ladies and lavish festivities were organized for her. She was greeted with an oration from Eustathios, former Master of the Rhetors and archbishop of

Thessalonica Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area) and the capital city, capital of the geographic reg ...

. She was perhaps now presented with an elaborate volume of welcoming verses by an anonymous author, sometimes called the '' Eisiterion''. According to

William of Tyre William of Tyre (; 29 September 1186) was a Middle Ages, medieval prelate and chronicler. As Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tyre, archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I of Tyr ...

, Agnes was eight on her arrival at Constantinople, while Alexios was thirteen. William got Alexios' age wrong (he was 10) and there is no other source for Agnes' year of birth. If she was in fact eight, she was at least three years too young for marriage, according to most 12th-century views. However, William of Tyre, who was present at the ceremony, seems to describe it as a full wedding (''matrimonii legibus ... copulare''); in this he is followed by some other non-Byzantine sources and by many modern authors. The ceremony took place in the Trullo Hall, in the Great Palace, on 2 March 1180. Agnes was officially renamed Anna. Eustathios of Thessalonica produced a speech to celebrate the occasion, whose title in the manuscript is ''Oration on the Public Celebrations of the Betrothal of the Two Royal Children''. This ceremony came approximately one month after the wedding of Alexios' half-sister Maria Porphyrogenita to Renier of Montferrat, conducted by the

Patriarch of Constantinople The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople () is the archbishop of Constantinople and (first among equals) among the heads of the several autocephalous churches that comprise the Eastern Orthodox Church. The ecumenical patriarch is regarded as ...

, Theodosios.

Empress

On 24 September 1180, Manuel died and

succeeded him as Emperor. He was too young to rule unaided; his mother, Maria of Antioch, exercised more influence in affairs of state than Alexios or Anna. In 1183 Maria of Antioch was displaced by a new power behind the throne,

. Andronikos was a first cousin of Manuel and was known to have harbored imperial ambitions for himself. He is believed to have arranged the deaths by poisoning of Maria Porphyrogenita and her husband Renier; he certainly imprisoned, and soon afterwards executed, Maria of Antioch. Andronikos was crowned co-ruler with Alexios; then, in October of the same year, he had Alexios strangled. Anna was now 12, and the approximately 65-year-old Andronikos married her. Andronikos had previously been married (his first wife's name is unknown). He had had sexual relationships with two nieces (Eudokia Komnene and Theodora Komnene) and with Philippa of Antioch. Philippa was a daughter of

Constance of Antioch Constance of Hauteville (c. 1128–1163) was the ruling Prince of Antioch, princess of Antioch from 1130 to 1163. She was the only child of Bohemond II of Antioch and Alice of Antioch, Alice of Jerusalem. Constance succeeded her father at the age ...

and her first husband and consort Raymond of Poitiers; she was also a sister of

and thus maternal aunt of Alexios. Andronikos had two sons by his first wife; he also had a young son and daughter from his affair with Theodora. His eldest son Manuel already had a son of his own, the future Alexios I of Trebizond. Anna was Empress consort for two years, until the deposition of Andronikos in September 1185. In an attempt to escape the popular uprising that ended his rule, Andronikos fled from Constantinople with Anna and his mistress (known only as ''Maraptike''). They reached Chele, a fortress on the

Bithynia Bithynia (; ) was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Paphlagonia to the northeast a ...

n coast of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

, where they tried to take ship for the

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

. Their ship was prevented from sailing by contrary winds. Andronikos was eventually captured and returned to the capital, where he was tortured and killed on 12 September 1185.

Later life

Anna survived Andronikos' fall and is next heard of in 1193, when she is said by a Western chronicler to have become the lover of Theodore Branas, a military leader who fought on the Empire's northern frontier. They did not at first marry. After the fall of Constantinople in 1204, Agnes derived respect from the Latin barons due to her being a former empress. According to Robert of Clari, Agnes had a bad reputation and could only talk through a translator because she did not know French. At that time she was 30 years old and had spent most of her life in the Byzantine court. Anna and Theodore eventually married, at the urging of the Latin emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople, in summer 1204. Theodore Branas continued to fight for the

Latin Empire The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzantin ...

, and is last heard of in 1219, by which time Agnes has already disappeared from the historical record. They had at least one daughter, who married Narjot de Toucy.Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, ''Chronicle'' 1205 and 1235. Her date of death is sometimes given in modern genealogies as "1220" or "after 1240".

Cultural references

The crusader Robert of Clari, writing only 25 years after the event, is clear about the rich entourage that accompanied Agnes to Constantinople: :then the king arrayed his sister very richly and sent her with the messengers to Constantinople, and many of his people with her ... When they were come, the emperor did very great honor to the damsel and made great rejoicing over her and her people ... In that account the embassy is attributed to Agnes' brother,

Philip II of France Philip II (21 August 1165 – 14 July 1223), also known as Philip Augustus (), was King of France from 1180 to 1223. His predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks (Latin: ''rex Francorum''), but from 1190 onward, Philip became the firs ...

, but in fact it was sent by her father, Louis VII. Agnes is the subject of the historical novel ''Agnes of France'' (1980) by

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

writer Kostas Kyriazis (b. 1920). The novel describes the events of the reigns of Manuel, Alexios and Andronikos through her eyes. She is also part of the cast of the

sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music, or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...

s ''

Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...

'' (1981) and '' Henry of Hainaut'' (1984). All three have been in print in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

since their first edition.

Notes

References

Sources

* Nicetas Choniates, ''Historia'', ed. J.-L. Van Dieten, 2 vols. (Berlin and New York, 1975); trans. as ''O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates'', by H.J. Magoulias (Detroit; Wayne State University Press, 1984). Eustathios of Thessaloniki, a Disembarkation Speech for Agnes-Anna (ed. P. Wirth, Eustathii Thessalonicensis Opera Minora pp. 250–60 and translated with commentary by Andrew F. Stone, Eustathios of Thessaloniki, Secular Orations, pp. 147–65, Eustathios, The Capture of Thessaloniki ed. John R. Melville-Jones, pp. 53 and 188 and Lynda Garland ''Byzantine empresses: women and power in Byzantium, AD 527-1204''. London, Routledge, 1999. *

Bibliography

* * Cartellieri, Alexander. ''Philipp II. August, König von Frankreich''. Vols 1–2. Leipzig: Dyksche Buchhandlung, 1899–1906. * Hilsdale, Cecily J. "Constructing a Byzantine Augusta: A Greek Book for a French Bride" in ''Art Bulletin'' vol. 87 (2005) pp. 458–48
Paywall
* Magdalino, Paul. ''The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos''. 2002. {{Authority control 1171 births 1220 deaths French princesses Komnenos dynasty House of Capet Remarried empresses consort 12th-century Byzantine empresses 13th-century Byzantine women 12th-century French women 12th-century French people 13th-century French women Daughters of kings