Anna Diogenissa
M.Sjostrom
the parentage of Anna, wife of Urosh I, grand zhupan of Rascia ?
how well is that parentage attested in near-contemporary material:
1) I gather that in conjunction of her marriage, it would been mentioned she was niece of the then ruling Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Komnenos.
I do not know whether that mention is contemporary, or a later one.
This actually might have been the clearest info about Anna's roots.
2) my impression is that the name 'Diogenissa' was not mentioned of her in contemporary material. Or any explicit reference to the 'Diogenes' name.
was it?
3) her husband Urosh I seems to have been an adolescent, about 14 years old, when taken hostage in c1094 by the Byzantine.
He was nephew (and one of future heirs) of grand zhupan Vukan I
who on one hand was in position of a vassal of the Byzantine empire, and on the other hand, whose relation to the Byzantine was pretty strained from time to time - including also revolts or such
4) any child of Konstantinos Diogenes needs to be born in c1075 at latest
because Konstantinos got killed in 1074.
5) as such, Anna's marriage would fit pretty well to usual Byzantine politics. And if Anna was a daughter of Konstantinos Diogenes, her genealogical position was relatively suitable for such a thing.
My general impression is that in those epochs, not-lineal kinswomen of reigning emperors were married to 'foreign' places for political reasons. Such as, nieces and so.
wjhonson
Charles Cawley says here
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BYZANTIUM%2010571204.htm#AnnaDiogeneMUrosSerbia
Quote
[ANNA Diogene. Her possible parentage and marriage are shown in
Europäische Stammtafeln[517], but the primary source on which this is
based has not yet been identified. m UROŠ Grand Župan of Serbia,
nephew of VUKAN Župan of Raška, son of --- ([1080]-after 1130).]
[517] ES III 181.
EndQuote
The Alexeiad does states that Urosh was a hostage to the Emperor
probably around 1094/5 so it seems at least possible that the Emperor
would have married a daughter to him in order to ensure some kind of
peace.
Will
M.Sjostrom
the Cawley collection has no real bearing in this, just because he simply says that he has not (yet) identified the near-contemporary source which gives rise to this identification at all.
so, I encourage people to look at where in near-contemporary sources anything is said about the marriage of the said Urosh
- was the bride a niece of the emperor ?
- anything explicit about Diogenes descent ?
- anything to identify which sibling (or so) of the emperor would then possibly been the parent via whom this Anna were 'niece'
SOMETHING in the material anyway seems to tell that the bride was: Anna
and, is is possible in light of near-c evidence that the wife actually would have been someone just from serbia itself?
M.Sjostrom
Kelsey Williams wrote that
thinks it is 'fairly well-established' that Anna is a niece to emperor Alexios I
and is the mother of the Zupan Urosh's children.
Anna 'can hardly' have been the daughter of Isakios Komnenos, sebastokrator (living 1107) and Eirene of Georgia (a possibility raised in several posts in the archives), as they had a daughter named Anna who married Ioannes Doukas.
----
I see this is again probably one of those cases where the current emperor gave away one of his 'nieces' yo marriage.....