English Preface

Anna Komnene was born on 2 December 1083, the eldest child of Alexios I Komnenos and Eirene Doukaina. But, though the best known of Komnenian women, she was not particularly unusual for her time. Literate and ambitious, she had many earlier models in the women of her own family and other Byzantine aristocratic houses. It is with the Komnenoi that we see the emergence of the powerful matriarch, who combined total domination over her family members with the desire for intrigue and political power. Indeed, the Komnenian dynasty owed its powerful status to their womenfolk, related both by blood and by marriage.