Anastasia Irene Maria Monomachos of Byzantium MONOMAHINYA - Parents Identity of Anastasia Irene Maria Monomachos of Byzantium MONOMAHINYA

It seems to me, some curators have a problem with the ancestrors of the skleros family and they don't want to accept a direct line to Ishmael, what is the result by accepting maria or helena pulcheria as the mother of Anastasia Irene Maria Monomachos of Byzantium. This raises the suspicion of hidden racism. I am shocked.

They should take a look on the german wikipedia

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skleros_(Adelsgeschlecht)

Sabine , Ulf and Reidar -- I agree 100 %
Even Real historians have different opinions and can not agree on all of it .
Nephew or cousin often was used for any distant relative even kings adressed each other as cousin or nephew when there was hardly any family connection.
So whom does one choose as a source ?
The one that agrees with your own view off course , plain and simple.

I will NOT accept an accusation of racism from any member. That Is reprehensible and baseless. It any such thing is said again, I will report.

Bring on the citations and do NOT make it personal.

Erica, YOU HAVE BEEN PROVEN WRONG. MedLands is not always right, or have all the answers, this is the naked truth. This obssesion to cut away and claim lack of contemporary sources must be carefully scrutinized from case to case, as in this case, the grandson named after his grandfather, and the archeological findings mentioned by Reida earlier, pointing out to the Sklerios family. This could only be true, if Constantine was the father and Maria Skleraina the mother. Reinstate the lines, do what's right, and get away from the idea that it's thereby a prestige loss, it's instead a win of prestige.

“I’ don’t actually have an opinion, one way or another, so “I” cannot be proven anything.

What I have asked for is what the authorities say on the matter, and for that Information to be uploaded to profiles, and URLs provided for study, so the profiles can be documented.

I’m the only one doing that; I’ve provided links with varying opinions; I don’t have an agenda; I absolutely don’t care how far back the lines extend - but I do notice gaps on the Skleros and Monomachos lines. Fill in known and accepted family. Explain the NN brother / nephew. Notice the translation problems. Explain why there is not a contemporary Russian source. And what does Settipani have to say?

I believe Spiros Monomachos was in the wrong generation - he had been placed as brother of Constantine lX. Yet Psellos had said Constantine was the last male Monomachos, and Medlands places him as a brother of Theodosios Monomachos (their parents not discussed.)

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BYZANTIUM.htm#TheodosiosMonomachos

Please double check.

I am just going to say something. Private User, honestly. All of us know that no one source is right all the time, but we do have to accept and pull from what we can get. That is the key - "what we can get." I am pulling blood from a turnip right now in South Carolina for an impossible connection.

Private User, as I understand, we are 20th cousins through my paternal grandmother. Please understand that Erica Howton is my 11th cousin once removed, also through my paternal grandmother. In the 4 years that I have been working on Geni, I can honestly say that I know of no racism in her curating. She has provided valuable research and skill to dig into a wide range of topics.

I am very narrow in my research interests on Geni and I make no bones about it. I work with a few wonderful curators with interests in the Southeast US and migration from some Northern states before the Revolution to the South. I have some Native lines that I work on and try to maintain with consultation with tribal members of Geni. My whole maternal line is Finnish and I float into that world all the time. But Erica Howton is above reproach in her intentions for this site and has supported my research interests and those of others, even pointing out extensions to other projects or discussions. Many of us would support her. I won't speak for him but, probably, even my friend Private User who will debate with her knows she isn't a racist. His commentary is not that kind of insult - just healthy debate. Yeah. He is a cousin too.

Semantics
Insult seen or preceived when non was intended.
Misunderstanding that you were misunderstood.
Expressing your opinion as a believe.
There is racist , religious and political bias in a lot of sources .Also a certain refusal to accept orher people's point of view or what they just want to say.
It is with group effort , correct and incorrect info that one sifts through that one gets the best result .
No one here is MORE right than anyone else or should threaten orhers.

Dear Cousins, , my statement was probably a bit exaggerated. In no way did I want to accuse someone of you of racism. I am very sorry that my testimony affected so personally emotions. Please take note of this. I am convinced that Erica Howton is very thorough and conscientious in her research. We should respect each other and work together, support each other in order to shed light on the darkness of the past, in order to perhaps unravel one or the other secret. LoL Sabina

Sabine wrote: "...This raises the suspicion of hidden racism..."

I fully agree with this. Racism and of course nationalism and religious fanatism has been a part of history and genealogy since the beginning of time I think.

I didn't see that any one in particular was described as a racist.

But among historians and people on Geni there are clearly people with nationalistic and religious agendas, acting by their own intent or someone else's.

Erica Howton, I could imagine that Psellos' research on Constantine IX Monomachhos is incomplete. It was only with the marriage to Empress Zoe that Constantine IX became a person of public interest. Therefore I think that much of the time before the marriage with Zoe Porphygenita is still hidden and we have to use other sources.

Constantine IX Monomachhos was a "fill out". As was the emperors before him (the ex lovers? relatives of Zoe that were murdered or disposed of.)

Constantines background and family connections, with among other the armenians, were a potential threat to the present real rulers of Byzans.

As I see it, it was important not to have unwanted pretenders stepping in to the role as emperor.

When Konstantin VIII died, Romanos Argyros/Argyropoulus had conveniantly been married to Zoe. He became Romanos III.

Romanos III was disposed of and Zoe married her lover Michael of humble background. Michael IV is probably disposed of, he ends in a monastry.

Michael V Kalafates enters as he had been adopted by Zoe. He sends her in exile in a monastry. On the protests of the pople of Constantinople Zoe is reinstated and Michael V and his uncle were blinded and sent to monastry.

As a solution Constantin Monomachos (a relation) is taken back from the exile where Michael had put him. He became Constantine IX Monomachhos. He had conditions and one of the conditions was that Maria Skleraina would be part of the imperial family. She was declared "Sebaste" aprox. 'under-empress'.
(Constantines mysterious disease may arouse suspicions.

Leon Tornikos, a relative of Constantine and Maria with armenian relations made an uproar that wasquenched.

When Constantine died, Theodora was empress. To fill the gap after her Michael VI Stratiotikos was adopted and became emperor. He was later disposed of and sent to monastry.

Negotiations with the rulers of Constantinople made the powerful Isaak Komemnos became emperor.

Psellos and the patriarch Konstantin Leichudes were now among the power-players and they were among the people to chose the next emperor: Konstantin Dukas.

People in power did not want a monomachian dynasty to rule. They opposed armenian interest. Instead they played forward the influential Komemnos and later the rich and influential Dukas.

From Basileos death 1025 up to the death of Michael IV Bringas 1057 Byzans had 8 rulers. They switched every fourth year.

Reidar Holmsen -thank you ! Wonderful history .

All of us know that no one source is right all the time, but we do have to accept and pull from what we can get. That is the key - "what we can get." --Susanne Floyd Gunter

That too often a problem .
Just saw profile where just the name was what the person wanted ; the parents and everything else just discarded .Selective data from a source can create so many problems .

It is not my meaning to rub my old school history lessons in my fellows faces but as I see it it has a significance.

After the treaty between Kiev and Constantinople there was no stable monomachian/sklerian family imperial group to really get cozy with for Vladimir Monomach. It was a snake pit.

The in-law family didn't really exist, and in Kiev there was full fighting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_emperors

Erica did wonderful work and found a discussion about a seal that had been found. It is posted above and in a document and is a must read. Khazdan is respected researcher. https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000170073194093

The reasoning of Khazdan doesn't really hold.

Greek root: μοναχός (monakos, single solitary, μόνος monos, = alone

Latin:
monachus = monk, (vocative would be monache. i.e. be a monk)
monacha = nun (genitive would be monachae. i.e. the nun's)

Did latin come in different dialects, written differently on seals? Sigillographers would know.

Could we find a picture of the seal somewhere?

And why is it written MO.ACHE? The punctuation would indicate a shortening of a word. If it was to indicate the position of a nun in should and could have been written MONACHA.

Posted before by Erica: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/huri/files/vxii_xiii_1988_198... Khazan writes in Rus'-Byzantine Princely Marriages in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
ALEXANDER KAZHDAN page 424.

True J P Weyers. Worse are the profiles with nothing but names and not even locations, much less dates. But we do what we can and keep digging for what we can find.

Are sources biased? Sure. And I am glad Private User clarified her statements. I imagine that the times in which we live have some of us on edge. We have seen how words to matter.

Thank you! And did you also notice how “the difficulty is that [if she was from Sklerainia] she would not be a carica?” ...

“Thus we do not know who Vsevolod’s spouse was.”

This screenshot might be easier to see

https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000170073194093

But of course the whole context of the article is important.

I was also curious about families of Constantine’s sisters, Helena Komitopulo & Euprepia Monamach especially the exiled latter.

Erica, your mention of Helena reminded me that I've also got a question about the mother connected for the wife of Prince Vsevolod I st Kiev. On Geni she is connected as Helen Skleraina, but this would seem to be the mistress by whom Constantine had the illegitimate daughter who married Prince Vsevolod I st Kiev:

Mistress (1): MARIA [Skleraina], daughter of --- (-[1044], bur Monastery of Mangana[1667]). Zonaras records that, after the death of his second wife, Konstantinos was unable to marry a third time but took as his mistress "consobrina uxoris suæ…adulescentula…et nobili Sclerorum familia orta"[1668]. Psellos records that "the niece of his late wife" became mistress of Konstantinos Monomakhos, the future Emperor Konstantinos IX, after the death of his second wife, being unable to marry her because of the Orthodox church's prohibition of third marriages[1669]. As Psellos, in an earlier passage, records that the second wife of Konstantinos was her parents' only child[1670],

So 'it seems to me' that Helena and this mistress 'Maria' have become confused or else I'm the one who is confused. These are very complicated lines! Anyway, a mistress rather than a wife would account for the 'Greek princess' being referred to as illegitimate.

Medlands does not connect the wife of Prince Vsevolod I st Kiev to anyone, actually. This whole discussion is an exploration of her parentageL

But I think we all feel that she would be from the mistress Maria and not her cousin Helena.

Exactly

Maria Sklerainas parentage is of course a very hot potato. Some people would go to any extremes to hide or erase such roots.

If Maria was the mother it would be desireable to hide or erase her name at any cost.

Labeling the wife to ’greek princess’ or Monomakh would give a golden background without specifying the mother with Arabic heritage.

The covering up could have been done hundreds of years after her death.

For the cunning byzantines it would have been smart to export an illegitimate princess, of say Constantine and Maria to the Kievans. Kiev would recieve a princess of excellent status and probably not understanding everything. The byzans elite would put up a nice show and adding wads of cash.

The first reason for the Byzans was origonally to export Orthodox belief into the slavic areas, the second was to get allies, avoid war and establish lasting relations.

If they sent a princess, they did it, just as they had done earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Porphyrogenita