Mosul and Skleros
Jean Claude CHUAT
Todd A. Farmerie then
S.F. Rootenberg wrote:
> In "Royal Highness", Sir Iain Moncreiffe mentions a descent of the Great
> Princes of Kiev from the Emirs of Mosul through the Skleroi dynasty of
> Byzantium. How certain is this descent? Jean-Claude Cheynet makes no
> mention thereof in the genealogical tables of his book "Pouvoirs et
> contestations à Byzance 963-1210" (Paris, 1990).
>
> If Moncreiffe is correct then the descent of Mary Monomacha, princess of
> Byzantium, is as follows (based on Cheynet and ES neue Folge):
>
> 1. Mary of Byzantium, +1067; marries 1046: Vsevolod, Great-Prince of Kiev.
> 2. Constantine IX Monomachus, Emperor of Byzantium 1042-54; married:
[break] Even IF the Monomacha (whatever her name was) was daughter of
Constantine, and not just a kinswoman, we certainly cannot say who her
mother was.
> 3. N.N. Skleraina
> 6. Basilos Skleros, married:
> 7. Pulcheria Argyropoulina.
> 12. Romanos Skleros, married (according to Moncreiffe):
> 13. N.N., Princess of Mosul, sister of Uddat ud Dawlah Abu Taglib, Emir of
> Mosul (according to Moncreiffe he may also have been her father).
<SNIP>
According to Vannier, who studied the Argyroi family, the filiation given
above is that of Na Skleraina, Constantine IX's second wife, who died
1032/34 apparently without issue. She was the pair's only child. Vannier
believes that the mother of Anastasia Monomache (who m. Vsevolod 1046/50)
was this Na's first cousin, the Sebaste Maria Skleraina, Constantine's
official mistress, so vividly depicted by Psellos. There is no proof of
this, of course, but he rather definitely dismisses the alternative
filiation.
Anyway, Maria Skleraina was also a gdau. of Romanos Skleros who may have m.
the Princess of Mosul, so that the Mosul filiation remains open, hopeless
though it may seem.
For details, see JF. VANNIER, Familles byzantines. Les Argyroi (IXe-XIIe
siècles). Paris 1975 - page 35, with a discussion of the term 'anepsia'
(here cousin rather than niece) used in contemporary sources to describe
the relationship between Na Skleraina and the Sebaste Maria Skleraina.
==========================================================================
S.F. Rootenberg
Jean Claude CHUAT wrote:
"Even IF the Monomacha (whatever her name was) was daughter of
Constantine, and not just a kinswoman, we certainly cannot say who her
mother was.
According to Vannier, who studied the Argyroi family, the filiation given
[above] is that of Na Skleraina, Constantine IX's second wife, who died
1032/34 apparently without issue. She was the pair's only child. Vannier
believes that the mother of Anastasia Monomache (who m. Vsevolod 1046/50)
was this Na's first cousin, the Sebaste Maria Skleraina, Constantine's
official mistress, so vividly depicted by Psellos. There is no proof of
this, of course, but he rather definitely dismisses the alternative
filiation.
Anyway, Maria Skleraina was also a gdau. of Romanos Skleros who may have m.
the Princess of Mosul, so that the Mosul filiation remains open, hopeless
though it may seem. "
I am most appreciative of Mr. Chuat's critical comments regarding the
Mosul-Skleros descent through the Great Princes of Kiev. It would
consequently seem that Sir Iain Moncreiffe's assertions regarding this link
are not as certain as he suggests in "Royal Highness". During the course of
my own recent research I did however come across another article written by
Rupert Willoughby (in Geneal. Mag. 1991) which seemed to confirm (or at
least repeated) Sir Iain's claims, but without evidence which would incline
me to accept the Mosul descent with complete peace of mind. Khalid Yahya
wrote an article in the same magazine (1993) in which he supposedly
rejected the Mosul descent, but I have not had the opportunity to consult
the article in question and thus cannot judge how convincing it is.
It would ultimately seem that the question regarding the ancestry of
Anastasia (?) Monomacha cannot be definitively resolved. Nonetheless, if
she -on the grounds of a reasonably acceptable hypothesis- was perhaps the
great-granddaughter of Romanos Skleros, who was possibly married to a
Princess of Mosul, then there is also a small chance that she could claim
descent from the Abbasids, and thus affiliation to the prophet Mohammed.
Proof of such an Abbasid descent depends on answering four important
questions. These are:
1. The question whether or not Anastasia (?) Monomacha is the
great-granddaughter of Romanos Skleros.
2. The question whether or not Romanos Skleros was married to a Princess of
Mosul, by whom he had issue.
3. The question whether or not the lady from Mosul was the daughter or the
sister of Abu-Taglib, Emir of Mosul (969-979).
4. The question -if she was indeed the daughter of Abu-Taglib- whether she
was a daughter by his first marriage to a daughter of Abu-l Mansur Bakthiar
'Izzadaula of the Buyid dynasty (and thus a granddaughter of at-Tai, Caliph
of the East, from the house of the Abbasids), or by his second marraige to
his cousin Fulana of Mosul.
It would seem that there is little chance that it would be possible to
answer these questions definitively, and that they will thus remain a topic
for academic debate. Any educated guess-work regarding these questions
would be much appreciated.
I have put two rough chronologies beside each other of the Skleroi and the
Emirs of Mosul in the hope that this will help clarify the difficulty of
answering question 3. Those dates marked with an asterisk are derived from
sources, those with a "?" are approximations. The Mosul dates are those of
the government of that particular Emir.
Skleros Mosul
Abdallah
Emir of Mosul
905-29*
Pantherios Nasr-ed-Daula
Skleros Emir of Mosul
(born ca. 885*) 929-968*
Bardas Skleros Abu Taglib
Anti-Emperor Emir of Mosul
976-989 969-979*
(born ca. 915*)
Romanos Skl. x Na. of Mosul ???
magister
(born 945?)
Basileos Skl.
patrikios
(born 975?)
Na./Maria
wife/mistress
Const. IX (he + 1055*)
(she born 1000?)
+1032/3*