Eudokia Angelina

Eudokia Angelina
Died c. 1211
Spouse Stefan the First-Crowned
Alexios V Doukas
Leo Sgouros
House Angelid dynasty
Father Alexios III Angelos
Mother Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina

Eudokia Angelina (or Eudocia Angelina) (Greek: Ευδοκία Αγγελίνα, Serbian: Evdokija Anđel; around 1173–died c. 1211, or later) was the consort of Stefan the First-Crowned of Serbia from 1196 to 1198. She later became the mistress of Alexios V Doukas, the future Emperor. She was a daughter of Alexios III Angelos and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera.

Life

Eudokia first married Stefan, the second son of Stefan Nemanja, Grand Župan of Rascia. The marriage was arranged by her uncle, the emperor Isaac II Angelos, around 1186, while her father was in exile in Syria. In 1195, on her father-in-law's retirement to a monastery, Eudokia's husband became ruler of Rascia. According to the Greek historian Nicetas Choniates, Stefan and Eudocia quarrelled and separated, accusing one another of adultery, after June 1198. In 1200 or 1201, Eudokia was banished from his realm. Eudokia fled on foot with only the clothes on her back, seeking refuge at the court of Vukan, ruler of Zeta, who befriended her and provided for. When she recovered, Eudokia went to Dyrrachium, from where a Byzantine ship returned her to her father in Constantinople. The repudiation of Eudokia shows the decline of Byzantine power and prestige.[1]

In Constantinople Eudokia became the mistress of the future Alexios V Doukas, with whom she (and her mother) fled the city into Thrace on April 12, 1204, as the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade were storming the city. Reaching her deposed father at Mosynopolis, Eudocia was allowed to marry Alexios V, but he was enucleated on the orders of Alexios III shortly afterwards, then captured and sentenced to death by the Crusaders.

Eudokia married thirdly Leo Sgouros, the independent ruler of Corinth, after he offered asylum to Alexios III and his family in 1204. Blockaded in the citadel of Corinth, Leo Sgouros committed suicide in 1207/1208. Eudokia is thought to have died around 1211.

By her marriage to Stefan of Serbia she had two children:[2]

Sources

  • K. Varzos, Ē genealogia tōn Komnēnōn, Thessalonica, 1984.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
  • O city of Byzantium: annals of Niketas Choniates tr. Harry J. Magoulias (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984).
  • Mihailo Laskaris (1926), Byzantine Princesses in Medieval Serbia

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Fine, John Van Antwerp, Jr. (1994). The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. p. 46. ISBN 0-472-08260-4.
  2. ↑ Laskaris, p.24
Eudokia Angelina
 Died: c. 1211
Royal titles
Preceded by
Anastasija
as Grand Princess		 Grand Pincess consort of Serbia
1196–1198		 Succeeded by
Anna Dandolo
as Queen


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