Anna Komnene
1083 – 1153 · Generation XXIX · Komnenos
Anna (AD 1083 – 1153). Historian; author of the Alexiad. The eldest child of Alexios I and Irene Doukaina, she was born in the palace’s purple chamber and betrothed as an infant to Constantine Doukas, son of Michael VII; the pair stood next in line until her brother John was made heir in 1092. Her schooling ranged from rhetoric to astronomy, mathematics and medicine, and she later helped the physicians tend her father in his final illness. Around 1097 she married the soldier and historian Nikephoros Bryennios. Niketas Choniates, writing long afterwards, claimed that after 1118 she schemed to put her husband in John’s place and scorned Bryennios when he refused; some modern scholars doubt she was involved at all. She spent her last years in the Kecharitomene convent founded by her mother, where her husband’s unfinished history prompted her own. The result, the Alexiad, is openly partisan toward her father, yet remains a key source for the early Crusades.
Place in the family
- Anna Komnene was a daughter of Alexios I Komnenos.
One of 14 people of Komnenos (1081–1185) in this archive. The house of the Komnenian restoration, ruling through a web of marriages to its own kin.
Line of descent: Manuel Komnenos → John Komnenos → Alexios I Komnenos → Anna Komnene.
Parents
- Alexios I Komnenos (1057 – 1118)
- Irene Doukaina (1066 – 1138)
Siblings
- John II Komnenos (1087 – 1143)
- Isaac Komnenos (1093 – 1152)
- Theodora Komnene (1096 – ?)