• Née en 1053
  • Décédée en 1118,à l'âge de 65 ans

 Parents

 Union(s) et enfant(s)

 Fratrie

 Notes

Notes individuelles

Maria of Alania[1] (born Martha;[2] Georgianმართა; 1053-1118) was Byzantine empress by marriages to emperors Michael VII Doukas and Nikephoros III Botaneiates.


Her status as empress was considered a significant success for a newly unified Kingdom of Georgia, which would achieve regional influence comparableto that of Byzantium only during the reign of Martha's nephew, King David IV, who refused to carry a Byzantine title. Maria was the only non-Byzantine empress of the eleventh century.


A daughter of the Georgian monarch Bagrat IV, Martha, at the age of 5 years, was sent to Constantinople to further her education at the Byzantine court under the patronage of Empress Theodora in 1056. The latter, however, died later in the year and Martha returned home to Georgia.


In 1065 she married the future emperor Michael, a son of Constantine X Doukas, and became an empress when Michael was enthroned in 1071.


Maria's first marriage was marred by Michael's military failures in Anatolia against the Seljuk Turks, as well as currency devaluation, which caused growing dissatisfaction and culminated in a 1078 coup that ousted Michael and enthroned Nikephoros III Botaneiates. Michael was forced to become a monk at the Stoudios Monastery and Maria went to a Petrion monastery with her son Constantine, but she did not become a Nun, possibly hinting that she had some future plans at the imperial court.


he new emperor Nikephoros' wife died shortly before his accession to the throne and he announced his intention to remarry, which triggered a fierce competition among all the unmarried girls of Constantinople, and even between Maria, her former mother-in-law Eudokia Makrembolitissa, and Eudokia's daughter Zoe. The new emperor was first inclined to marry Eudokia but Maria received a strong support of her Doukas in-laws, who convinced Nikephoros to select her because of her beauty and the benefits of having a foreign-born wife with no domestic relatives who could interfere in Nikephoros' rule.[3] In addition, by this move Nikephoros would pacify the loyalists of the ousted Doukas.[4]


Because Maria's first husband Michael was still alive, even as he was a monk, her marriage to the new emperor was considered adulterous by the Orthodox Church, and one of Maria's prominent supporters John Doukas even had to demote a priest who refused to perform the marriage and replace him with another one who agreed to marry the couple in 1078.[5] As part of the marriage deal, Maria was promised that her son Constantine would be named an heir to the empire but Nikephoros reneged on this promise at a later point. Despite this, during his reign Maria was treated generously and received enormous lands and property, with Nikephoros going as far as to give her brother, George II of Georgia, a title of a Caesar to acknowledge his close ties to the imperial family.


 

  Photos & documents

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 Aperçu de l'arbre

George I of Georgia ca 1000-1027 Mariam of Vaspurakan   
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Bagrat IV of Georgia 1018-1072 Borena of Alania 1027-1072
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Maria of Alania 1053-1118