Born: 752, Greece
Died: 9 August 803
Country most active: Turkey
Also known as: Irene Sarantapechaina
This biography, written by Gabby Storey, is shared with permission from Team Queens, an educational history blog run by a collective of historical scholars. All rights reserved; this material may not be republished without the author’s consent.
Irene Sarantapechaina was empress (775-780) of the Eastern Roman Empire through her marriage to Leo IV, regent for their son Constantine (780-790), co-regent (792-797), and later the first empress regnant of the Roman Empire (797-802).
Little is known of Irene’s early life other than her noble descent from the Sarantapechaina family. She was brought to Constantinople in 1768 and married Leo on 17 December. There has been several debates for the reasoning behind this alliance but none are conclusive.
On 14 January 771 Irene gave birth to a son, Constantine VI. In September 775, emperor Constantine V died, and Leo and Irene ascended to the imperial thrones. Leo and Irene differed on their views regarding religious icons.
Leo’s persecution of iconophiles, of which Irene was one, led to marital disharmony. Leo’s death on 8 September 780 led to the accession of Irene as a regent mother, who took more power than was traditionally expected of female regents.
Irene’s early coins with Constantine depicted them as co-rulers, with Irene holding the imperial orb. Irene’s regency was beset with conspiracies and rebellions, as well as military defence. In 787, Irene restored the Eastern church with the papacy and the veneration of icons.
In 790, Constantine began to resist the rule of his mother, which erupted into rebellion, which was to intermittently last until Constantine’s death in 797, after he died from wounds from his eyes being gouged out.
The last years of her reign saw Irene facing the rising challenge of the Carolingian Empire, however relative peace was maintained by the two empires. Irene was deposed by the nobility on 31 October 802, and forced into exile to Lesbos where she died in 803.
She is buried at the Monastery of St Euphrosyne, Constantinople.
Recommended Reading
Dominique Barbe, Irène de Byzance: La femme empereur (Paris: Perrin, 1990)
Judith Herrin, Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)
Lynda Garland, Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527–1204 (London: Routledge, 1999).
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
Irene, the famous Byzantine empress, was born in Anthens about 752, and died on the isle of Lesbos, August 15, 803. She was an orphan and seventeen years of age, when her beauty and genius attracted the attention of Constantine V., who destined her to be the wife of his son and heir, Leo. Their nuptuals were celebrated with royal splendor at Constantinople, in 769.
Obliged by her husband to abandon the worship of images, to which she had been educated, she, however gained his love and confidence, and was appointed in his testament to administrator the government during the minority of their son Constantine VI., Then ten years of age. She immediately manifested her zeal for the restoration of images. For this object she assembled a council at Constantinople in 786, which was interrupted by the garrison of the capital. In the following year she called another council at Nice, in which the veneration of images was declared agreeable to Scripture and reason, and the fathers and councils of the Church. With the iconoclastic controversy is connected the struggle between the mother and the son for supremacy.
As Constantine advanced toward maturity, he was encouraged by his favorites to throw off the maternal yoke, and planned the perpetual banishment of Irene to Sicily. Her vigilance disconcerted the project, and, while the two factions divided the court, the Armenian guards refused to take the oath of fidelity which she exacted to herself alone, and Constantine became lawful emperor. Irene was dismissed to a life of solitude in one of the imperial palaces, but her intrigues led to the formation of successive conspiracies for her restoration.
On the return of Constantine from an expedition against the Arabs in 797, he was dispatched by assassins.
Irene succeeded to the throne, and for five years ruled the empire with prudence and energy. Intercourse was renewed between the Byzantine court and that of Charlemange, and Irene is said to have sent ambassadors to negotiate a marriage between that emperor and herself, and thus to unite the empires of the East and West.
As her golden chariot moved through the streets of Constantinople, the reins of the four white steeds were held by as many patricians marching on foot. Most of these patricians were eunuchs, and by one of them, the great treasurer Nicephorus, she was ensnared to her ruin. He was secretly invested with the purple, and immediately arrested and banished Irene to the Isle of Lesbos. There, deprived of all means of subsistence, she gained a scanty livelihood by spinning, and died of grief within a year. Her protection of image worship has caused her to be enrolled among the saints in the Greek calendar.