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From: Richard Borthwick< >
Subject: Re: Theophano, wife of Otto II of Germany
Date: 1 Jan 1999 03:33:04 -0800


At 10:55 AM 31/12/98 GMT, you wrote:
>On 30 Dec 1998 17:13:50 -0800, (Jared L Olar) wrote:
>
>>On 30 Dec 1998 16:12:02 -0800 (Becky Pyle) writes:
>>>Who were the parents of Theophana (born 956-8, died 991) who married
>>Otto
>>>II of Germany in 972? Ancestral Roots (7th edition) says her father was
>>Leo
>>>Phokas. But I've just found an article in The Genealogist (Vol. 2, #1 -
>>1981) by Lindsay
>>>L. Brook that says she might be the daughter of Romanus II and his 2nd
>>wife >Theophana (Anastasa) whom he married in 956.
>>>
>>>Was she the mother of Otto's daughter, Matilda of Saxony? Any help will
>>be
>>>appreciated - thank you!
>>
>>The late Sir Anthony Richard Wagner has a relevant endnote in his book
>>_Pedigree and Progress_. In that book Wagner accepted the Romanus II
>>scenario, and Prince Toumanoff gave reasons in favor of it. I join
>>Wagner and Toumanoff here.
>>
>Vasiliev's charts in _History of the Byzantine Empire_ (1952) concur
>on Romanus II.
>
>>I do not have my sources at hand, but as I recall Otto's daughter Matilda
>>married Edzo of Lorraine, and from their daughter numerous descents are
>>traceable. Edzo's wife was indeed the daughter of Theophano.
>>
>>Others here doubtless can fill you in more extensively, especially on the
>>Phocas scenario.
>>
>I would be interested in more on the Phocas supposition. Vasiliev
>shows Theophano's mother Theophano had a second husband, Nicophorus II
>Phocas, who succeeded Romanus II. Might this be a source of
>confusion?
>
>>Jared Olar
>>___________________________________________________________________
>>You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
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>
Nikephoros II would be an unlikely candidate as a father for the western
empress Theophano. His habits were described as monk-like. No Byzantine
source I know of credits him with porphyrogenetic offspring. It is likely,
however, that he was a great-uncle of Theophano. If Gunther Wolf's
arguments are seen as clinching the solution to Theophano's origins, then
she was the daughter of Konstantinos Skleros (brother of the notorious
Bardas) and Sophia Phokaina (who was daughter of Leon Phokas and niece of
Nikephoros II). A Davids has this to say about Wolf's hypothesis:
"There had been much discussion about her [Theophano's] identity until
Gunther Wolf firmly establishedthat she belonged to the family of the
Skleroi through her father Constantine, brother-in-law of John Tzimiskes;
Theophano's grandfather on her mother's side was a brother of the emperor
Nikephoros II Phokas. ..." (pp.107-108)

The one explicit genealogical detail we know about Theophano (and that from
the best primary source!) is that in the imperial marriage diploma of 14
Apr 972 she is described as the emperor John Tzimiskes' "neptis" or niece.
(John's first wife was Maria Skeraina, Theophano's putative paternal aunt.)
Given the prime western requirement that the bride should be a
porphyrogennete, if Th. had been the daughter (porphyrogennete or
otherwise) of an emperor the marriage diploma would have proclaimed the
fact (in addition to any relationship she may have had to the reigning
Byzantine emperor). Whatever one's position on Wolf's hypothesis, one thing
seems clear - Theophano was unlikely to be a daughter of Romanos II or any
other emperor.

I recall that this subject has already received a reasonably extensive
coverage in this group to which I contributed and gave fairly extensive
references. I would suggest a search of the archives. The details of the
recent Davids paper to which I referred above are:
A Davids "Marriage negotiations between Byzantium and the West and the name
of Theophano in Byzantium (eighth to tenth centuries)" in *The Empress
Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the turn of the first millenium* ed.
by A Davids (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1995), pp.99-120.
NOTE: This collection is deliberately not about the genealogy of the
empress but about political and cultural issues. The papers were given at
an international conference at Hernen castle in the Netherlands in 1991 to
mark the millennial anniversary of the empress' death at Nijmegen.

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