Anna Comnena
Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things, and drowns them in the depths of obscurity, no matter if they be quite unworthy of mention, or most noteworthy and important… but the tale of history forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time, and to some extent checks its irresistible flow and, of all things done in it, as many as history has taken over, it secures and binds together, and does not allow them to slip away into the abyss of oblivion.7
So begins the sweeping, lyrical preface to Anna Comnena’s Alexiad, the epic fifteen-volume biography of her father, Emperor Alexius I of Constantinople (ruled 1081–1118).
Anna (1083–c.1153) is the first Western female historian whose work survives and the Alexiad, written in Greek, is the principal near-contemporary Western source for the history of the First Crusade (1095–9), that immense, unwieldy expedition to the Holy Land precipitated by her father’s plea to Pope Urban II for military assistance. The Alexiad begins with an account of the wars against Norman invaders in the 1080s and her father’s rise to power – he is her Odysseus, steering his people through troubled seas. With herself as a bit-part player, Anna goes on to describe the chaotic arrival of the so-called People’s Crusade of 1096, led by Peter the Hermit, which overwhelmed the resources even of Constantinople; the barbarity of those whom she disparagingly calls ‘Latins’; the ferrying of the vast forces of the crusaders across the Bosporus and the locust-like effects of their progress through Asia Minor in 1097. Her father’s righteous distrust of the Norman Count Bohemond, prince of the crusader state of Antioch from 1098, is a centrepiece of her narrative.Anna’s own notorious role in a coup against her brother, her exile and final seclusion, are stories left for others to tell, although she alludes to the
…tale of my woes [which] would not cause a movement in place, nor rouse men to arms and war, but they would move the reader to tears…8
Anna was in her early teens when the crusaders arrived; the magnificent figure of the great warlord Bohemond left a lasting impression on her:
…for he was a marvel for the eyes to behold, and his reputation was terrifying… he was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms.
And in the whole build of the body he was neither too slender nor overweighted with flesh, but perfectly proportioned… His skin all over his body was very white, and in his face the white was tempered with red. His hair was yellowish, but did not hang down to his waist like that of the other barbarians; for the man was not inordinately vain of his hair, but had it cut short to the ears. Whether his beard was reddish, or any other colour I cannot say, for the razor had passed over it very closely and left a surface smoother than chalk… His blue eyes indicated both a high spirit and dignity… A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the horrible… He was so made in mind and body that both courage and passion reared their crests within him and both inclined to war. His wit was manifold and crafty and able to find a way of escape in every emergency. In conversation he was well informed, and the answers he gave were quite irrefutable. This man who was of such a size and such a character was inferior to the Emperor alone in fortune and eloquence and in other gifts of nature.9At birth, Anna had been betrothed to Constantine Doukakis, a future candidate for the imperial throne. She was fostered in his mother’s household and showed early promise as a scholar:
I was not ignorant of letters, for I carried my study of Greek to the highest pitch, and I was also not unpractised in rhetoric; I perused the works of Aristotle and the dialogues of Plato carefully, and enriched my mind… It is not bragging to state what nature and my zeal for learning have given me.10
Her future husband’s prospects were shattered by the birth, in 1087, of her brother, John, who became heir apparent and who inspired in his sister a malevolent hatred. Constantine’s claims to the throne were forfeit. He died shortly afterwards and instead Anna was married to the statesman, historian and military commander Nicephorus Bryennios the Younger (1062–1137).
They raised four children and Anna was an enthusiastic promoter of his interests. After her father’s death in 1118 she seems to have been actively involved in a plot to bring her husband to power by murdering her brother at the funeral. In the aftermath of its dramatic failure her lands were forfeit and she was exiled to the convent of Kecharitomene.Nicephorus died in 1137. Anna now gathered his historical materials and writings and developed them into the Alexiad as we know it: a propagandist apologia for her father’s career but also a masterpiece of scholarship and epic narrative. Its value as a source for the period lies in Anna’s detailed access to the imperial archives and her inside knowledge of a formative period of Middle Eastern history:
…as a rule I was with my father and mother and accompanied them. For it was not my lot to be brought up in the shade and in luxury, but even from my cradle… toils and afflictions and continual misfortunes beset me, some from without and some from within.11
The Alexiad is also unique for Anna’s interest in the fates of women caught up in the vicissitudes of war; of orphans, veterans and the sick. Contemporaries regarded her as an accomplished physician in her own right. Her self-conscious reflections on the writing of history and on her own place in it give modern readers a rare and marvellous balcony view onto an elite intellectual and cultural milieu in a time of great change.
…I mostly keep in a corner and occupy myself with books and God. And I shall not allow even the most insignificant of men to approach me unless they be men from whom I can learn of things which they happen to have heard of from others, or they be my father’s intimate friends. For during these last thirty years… I have neither seen nor spoken to a friend of my father’s… For the powers that be have condemned us to this ridiculous position so that we should not be seen, but be a general object of abhorrence… And what I have added to my history… I have collected from some absolutely unpretentious, simple commentaries, and from a few old men who were soldiers when my father seized the Roman sceptre but have fallen upon evil times and retired from the turmoil of the world to the calm life of monasteries.12
* The mancus, a single gold coin, was worth thirty silver pence.
† See page 74.
‡ The Roman road that ran from London northwest towards the West Midlands.
§ In a BBC Radio 3 essay and in an insightful paper on Islamic women for the Journal of Postcolonial Writing.
# She is represented by a place setting at Judy Chicago’s artwork The Dinner Party, and an asteroid, 615 Roswitha, is named in her honour.