Betrothal and Marriage
As was customary for nobility in the medieval times, Anna was betrothed at infancy. She was to marry Constantine Doukas, the son of Emperor Michael VII and Maria of Alania. Because at the time of the engagement Emperor Alexios I had no rightful male heirs to inherit the throne, young Constantine was proclaimed the co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire. However, in 1087 a blood heir, John II, was born, and Constantine had to forfeit his imperial claims. He died shortly thereafter.
In 1097, 14-year-old Anna Komnene married an accomplished young nobleman, the Caesar Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger. Nikephoros Bryennios was the son of an aristocratic family that had contested the throne before the accession of Alexios I. Nikephoros was also a renowned statesman, general, and historian. Anna claimed that the marriage was a political union rather than one of love. For the most part, however, it proved to be a successful union for forty years, and produced four children—Alexios Komnenos, John Doukas, Irene Doukaina, and Maria Bryennaina Komnene.
Read more about this topic: Anna Komnene
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“A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)