Empress Irene

(noun)

A Byzantine empress who ruled from 797–802, during the time of Charlemagne's coronation.

Related Terms

Examples of Empress Irene in the following topics:

  • The Emperor Irene

    • Irene of Athens (c. 752 – 803 AD) was Byzantine empress from 797 to 802.
    • Before that, Irene was empress consort from 775 to 780, and empress dowager and regent from 780 to 797.
    • His eyes were gouged out, and according to most contemporary accounts, he died from his wounds a few days later, leaving Irene to be crowned as first Empress regnant of Constantinople.
    • As Empress, Irene made determined efforts to stamp out iconoclasm everywhere in the Empire including within the ranks of the army.
    • Irene's unprecedented position as an Empress ruling in her own right was emphasized by the coincidental rise of the Carolingian Empire in Western Europe, which rivaled Irene's Byzantium in size and power.

  • The Coronation of 800 CE

    • In so doing, the pope effectively nullified the legitimacy of Empress Irene of Constantinople.
    • In support of Charlemagne's coronation, some argued that the imperial position had actually been vacant, deeming a woman (Irene) unfit to be emperor.
    • Irene is said to have sought a marriage alliance between herself and Charlemagne, but according to Theophanes the Confessor, who alone mentions it, the scheme was frustrated by Aetios, one of her favorite advisors.
    • In normal circumstances the only conceivable answer to that question would have been the Emperor at Constantinople; but the imperial throne was at this moment occupied by Irene.
    • That the Empress was notorious for having blinded and murdered her own son was, in the minds of both Leo and Charles, almost immaterial: it was enough that she was a woman.

  • The Catholic Church

    • Empress Irene, siding with the pope, called for an Ecumenical Council.

  • The Triumphs of Tsarina Elizabeth I

    • After Peter died in 1725, his wife succeeded him as the Empress of Russia but she died only two years later.
    • During the reign of her cousin, Elizabeth was gathering support in the background but after the death of Empress Anna, the regency of Anna Leopoldovna (Empress Anna's niece) for the infant Ivan VI was marked by high taxes and economic problems.
    • The Empress had a longstanding love of theater and had a stage erected in the palace to enjoy the countless performances she sanctioned.
    • The Empress also spent exorbitant sums of money on the grandiose baroque projects of her favorite architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli.
    • The expedited completion of the palace became a matter of honor to the Empress, who regarded the palace as a symbol of national prestige.

  • From German Princess to Russian Tsarina

    • Empress Elizabeth appreciated and liked Sophia, who upon her arrival in Russia in 1744 spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with the Empress, but also with her husband and with the Russian people.
    • He also did not take any interest in parenthood while his aunt, Empress Elizabeth, certainly did.
    • After the death of Empress Elizabeth in 1762, Peter succeeded to the throne as Emperor Peter III and Catherine became empress consort.
    • In one of her letters to Dennis Diderot, she referred to how she saw her responsibility as the empress:
    • Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings.

  • Empress Maria-Theresa

    • By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress.
    • However, her title of Holy Roman Empress meant that she was in fact the wife of the Emperor, Francis I, who secured the title as one of Austria's gains in the same war.
    • The empress actively supported conversion to Roman Catholicism by securing pensions to the converts.
    • The empress was arguably the most anti-Semitic monarch of her time yet, as many of her contemporaries, she supported Jewish commercial and industrial activity.
    • She recruited Gerard van Swieten, who founded the Vienna General Hospital, revamped Austria's educational system, and served as the Empress's personal physician.

  • Marriage to Marie-Antoinette

    • Maria Antonia (1755 – 1793), commonly known as Marie Antoinette, was born in Vienna as the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Empire, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.
    • Following the Seven Years' War and the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, Empress Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, King Louis XV of France.
    • However, Marie Antoinette's mother and the Austrian ambassador to France, comte de Mercy-Argenteau who was sending the Empress secret reports on Marie-Antoinette's behavior, put Marie Antoinette under pressure and she grudgingly agreed to speak to Madame du Barry.
    • Empress Maria Theresa died in 1780 and Marie Antoinette feared that the death of her mother would jeopardize the Franco-Austrian alliance but her brother, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, assured her that he had no intention of breaking the alliance.

  • Iconoclasm in Byzantium

    • After the death of Constantine's son, Leo IV (who ruled from 775 CE–780 CE), his wife Irene took power as regent for her son, Constantine VI (who ruled from 780 CE–97 CE).
    • After Leo IV too died, Irene called another ecumenical council, the Second Council of Nicaea, in 787 CE that reversed the decrees of the previous iconoclast council and restored image worship, marking the end of the First Iconoclasm restored image worship.

  • Peter's Domestic Reforms

    • In 1724, Peter had his second wife, Catherine, crowned as Empress, although he remained Russia's actual ruler.
    • Catherine was the first woman to rule Imperial Russia (as Empress), opening the legal path for a century almost entirely dominated by women, including her daughter Elizabeth and granddaughter-in-law Catherine the Great, all of whom continued Peter the Great's policies in modernizing Russia.
    • Catherine, Peter's second wife, was the first woman to rule Imperial Russia (as Empress), opening the legal path for a century almost entirely dominated by women.

  • Rise of the Tang Dynasty

    • For the next hundred years, several Tang leaders ruled, including a woman, Empress Wu, whose rise to power was achieved through cruel and calculating tactics but made room for the prominent role of women in the imperial court.
    • In 706 the wife of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, Empress Wei, persuaded her husband to staff government offices with his sister and her daughters, and in 709 requested that he grant women the right to bequeath hereditary privileges to their sons (which before was a male right only).
    • Just as Emperor Zhongzong was dominated by Empress Wei, so too was Ruizong dominated by Princess Taiping.