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From: Rafal Prinke <>
Subject: DFA - another possibility?
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 18:56:18 +0100


While searching for information on possible Bagratid link of Maria of Ossetia,
wife of Vsievolod the Great Nest, I managed to make a contact in Georgia
and have my questions passed on to the eminent medievalist Dr. Mariam
Lordkipanidze of Tbilisi University. While she said that there is nothing
in Georgian sources that would confirm the hypothesis that David-Soslan,
husband of queen Tamar the Great, was a relative of Maria of Ossetia and
thus that she was a Bagratid, in a pedigree she drew to illustrate some
of the intermarriages of Bagratids with Western dynasties she identified
the wife of Isaakios Komnenos (usually "unknown") as Kata, a daughter
of king David II the Builder or Restorer (whom she numbers "IV" but that
is irrelevant).

I have also obtained her (rather popular) book _Essays on Georgian
history_ which was published in English translation in Tbilisi 1994
where I find the following relevant piece:

In 1116, after the Seljuks were expelled from Tao, David sent
his daughter, Kata, to Byzantium as the bride of the emperor.
Prior to this, his elder daughter, Tamar, had been given
in marriage to the shah of Shirvan, so that as two celestial,
one would illuminate the East and other he West. [p. 121]

The standard relationships, as given in Paul Theroff's files presumably
following ES (though I have not checked it) are the following:

Alexios Komnenos
b. 1048/57 d. 1118
emp. 1081-1118
_______________________I___________________________________
I I I
Ioannes II K. Isaakios K. Andronikos K.
b. 1087 d. 1143 b. aft. 16.01.1093 b. 1090 d. 1130/31
emp. 1118-1143 d. aft. 1152 sebastokrator
m. 1104/05 m. NN m. Eirene dau. of
Piroska=Eirene I Volodar d. of
of Hungary I Przemysl
I _______I_______________
I I I
Alexios K. Ioannes K. Andronikos I K.
b. 1106 d.1142 Tzelepes b. 1123/24 d. 1185
m. 1) 1122 a Mohammedan emp. 1183-1185
Dobroniega=Eupraxia and scholar m. 1) N Paleologa
of Kiev m. 2) 1183 Agnes of France
m. 2) Kata=Eirene of Alania, I
dau. of David II the Builder I
king of Georgia I
Manuel K.
b. bef. 1152
m. N dau. of David IV
king of Georgia

The late Prince Cyril Toumanoff has these diffs from the above:

1. Kata m. 1116/18 Alexios Bryennius Komenenos, grand duke of Cyprus
2. Isaakios b. aft. 1084, d. aft. 1136, m. 1104 Eirene dau. of Volodar
3. Wives of Andronikos I: 1) c. 1144, N dau. of Demetrios I king of Georgia,
2) 1168 Theodora Komnena, 3) 1184 Agnes of France

This considerable difference in attributing Kata to her Byzantine husband
indicates that sources are not clear. Supposedly various authors tried
to find an Alexios to marry her to, overlooking the fact that she may
have been "sent to Alexios" the emperor who would marry her to his son.

The ES attribution looks wrong on chronological grounds - Alexios's first
marriage was in 1022, so that with Kata would have to be at least a year
later (unless the former date is incorrect).

Toumanoff's attribution also looks wrong because giving her to a minor
aristocrat at the time when Georgia was a major power protecting
the Empire from Turkish and Mongol invasions would be strange.

The marriage of Andronikos I to a daughter of Demetrios I suggested
by Toumanoff but not listed in ES would probably be impossible if
Kata was his mother - but it may have been an interpretation of
a reference that really refered to Isaakios.

The fact that one of Isaakios's sons (shown above for this purpose)
became a Mohammedan might suggest his mother was one, too - but that
is speculation at this point.

If Kata was indeed the wife of Isaakios and mother of Andronikos I,
the DFA is still flawed by the fact that linking his possible daughter
Eirene as mother of Eirene Angelina - as given in Paget and other
publications - is not supported by ES, Toumanoff or Lindsay L. Brook
("The Byzantine ancestry of HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales").
It would, nevertheless, be interesting to sort it out so my questions are:

1. Are there any new publications discussing this issue?
2. What do primary sources actually say about Kata?

Best regards,

Rafal

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