Irene of Montferrat
Yolande of Montferrat (1274 – 1317 in Constantinople), also known as Violante, then Empress Eirene was the second Empress-Consort of Andronikos II Palaiologos, the ruler of Constantinople and the entire Byzantine empire, and heiress of Margraviate of Montferrat.
Born in Casale, she was daughter of William VII, Marquess of Montferrat and his second wife Beatrice of Castile. Her maternal grandparents were the King Alfonso X of Castile and his wife Violante of Aragon. Yolande (variation of Violante) was named after her grandmother.
In 1284, Andronikos II, a widower, married secondly Yolanda (who was renamed Eirene as Empress). With her, Eirene brought the Montferrat rights to the kingdom of Thessalonica, a dominion already for half a century in hands of Greeks but still claimed by its short-lived (1204-24) Montferrat royal dynasty.
It proved later that the Italian Montferrat also did no longer have male heirs of the Aleramici dynasty, and Eirene's sons were entitled to inherit also it in the next generation upon the 1305 death of Eirene's brother John, Marquess of Montferrat.
The marriage produced the following children:
- John Palaiologos (c. 1286–1308), despotes
- Theodore I, Marquis of Montferrat (1291–1338)
- Demetrios Palaiologos (d. after 1343), despotēs. Father of Irene Palaiologina.
- Simonis Palaiologina (1294–after 1336), who married King Stefan Milutin of Serbia
Eirene's stepson, Michael IX Palaiologos was intended to succeed her husband as emperor (Ultimately, Michael's son Andronikos III Palaiologos became the successor instead of Michael who predeceased his father). Eirene worked to ensure some power and property to her own offspring.
She left Constantinople in 1303 and settled in Thessaloniki. The Augusta set her own court in the city and controlled her own finances and foreign policy until her death, fourteen years later. Nicephorus Gregoras portrayed her as an ambitious and arrogant Empress in his Roman History.
External links
- A pedigree of the Montferrat family
- Listing in "Medieval lands" by Charles Cawley. The project "involves extracting and analysing detailed information from primary sources, including contemporary chronicles, cartularies, necrologies and testaments."