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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: INV-JED |
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IRENE , the name of several Byzantine empresses. I. IRENE (752--803), the wife of Leo IV., East
great
worship , a policy which she always had secretly favoured, though compelled to abjure it in her husband's lifetime. Having elected Tarasius, one of her partisans, to the patriarchate (784), she summoned two church councils. The former of these, held in 786 at Constantinople, was frustrated by the opposition of the soldiers. The second, convened at Nicaea in 787, formally revived the adoration of images and reunited the Eastern church with that of Rome. As Constantine approached maturity he began to grow restive under her autocratic sway. An attempt to free himself by force was met and crushed by the empress, who demanded that the oath of fidelity should thenceforward be taken in her name alone. The discontent which this occasioned swelled in 790 into open resistance, and the soldiers, headed by the Armenian guard, formally proclaimed Constantine VI. as the sole ruler. A hollow semblance of friendship was maintained between Constantine and Irene, whose title of empress was confirmed in 792; but the rival factions remained, and Irene, by skilful intrigues with the bishops and courtiers, organized a powerful conspiracy on her own behalf. Constantine could only flee for aid to the provinces, but even there he was surrounded by participants in the plot. Seized by his attendants on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus, the emperor was carried back to the palace at Constantinople; and there, by the orders of his mother, his eyes were stabbed out. An eclipse of the sun and a darkness of seventeen days' duration were attributed by the common superstition to the horror of heaven. Irene reigned in prosperity and splendour for five years. She is said to have endeavoured to negotiate a marriage
scheme was frustrated by Aetius, one of her favourites. A projected alliance between Constantine and Charlemagne's daughter, Rothrude, was in turn broken off by Irene. In 802 the patricians
See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. J. Bury, London, 189.6), vol. v.; G. Finlay, History of Greece
Leipzig
2. IRENE (C., Io66c. 1120), the wife of Alexius I. The best-known fact of her life is the unsuccessful intrigue by which she endeavoured to divert the succession from her son John to Nicephorus Bryennius, the husband of her daughter Anna. Having failed to persuade Alexius, or, upon his death, to carry out a coup d'etat with the help of the palace guards, she retired to a monastery and ended her life in obscurity. 3. IRENE (d. 1161), the first wife of Manuel Comnenus. She was the daughter of the count of Sulzbach, and sister-in-law of the Roman emperor Conrad
marriage
H. v. Kap-Herr, Die abendlandische Politik des Kaisers Manuel (Strassburg, 1881). End of Article: IRENE If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/INV_JED/IRENE.html"> IRENE </a> |
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