Anna Dalassene

1025 – 1102 · Generation XXVII · Regent

Anna (AD 1025 – 1102). Regent. Married John around AD 1042. Mother of Alexios I; effective regent of the empire. Through her mother she belonged to the Dalassenoi, a distinguished military family, and she bore John Komnenos eight children. When John declined the throne in 1059 — against her tearful pleading, by one later account — she became a lasting enemy of the Doukas family. Widowed in 1067, she built alliances through her children’s marriages and backed Romanos IV; after his fall she was tried for corresponding with him and exiled with her sons to Prinkipos in 1072. In the coup of 1081 she was the driving force behind the Komnenoi, sheltering the family in Hagia Sophia and extracting a public oath of safety from Nikephoros III while her sons raised their army. Styled “mother of the emperor” and despoina, she ran the civil and military administration for years, until Alexios grew restive and she withdrew to her monastery of Christ Pantepoptes.

Place in the family

Anna Dalassene was the mother of Alexios I Komnenos.
The archive records 44 of her descendants, across 14 generations.

Partners

Married John Komnenos (1015 – 1067) in 1042 — one child together

Children

Alexios I Komnenos (1057 – 1118)

Life

1025 — Born
1042 — Married John
1102 — Died