Eudokia Angelina
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Eudokia Angelina or Eudocia Angelina (Greek: Ευδοκία Αγγελίνα, Serbian: Evdokija), was a daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina.
Eudokia Angelina first married Stefan I Prvovenčani, the second son of Stefan Nemanja, Grand Župan of Raška. The marriage was arranged by her uncle, the emperor Isaac II Angelos, around 1186, while her father was in exile in Syria. In 1195, on her father-in-law's retirement to a monastery, Eudokia's husband became ruler of Raška (and later king of Serbia). According to the story told by the historian Niketas Choniates, at some date after June 1198 Eudokia and Stefan quarrelled, each accusing the other of adultery, and she returned to her father in Constantinople.
At Constantinople Eudokia became the mistress of the future Alexios V Doukas, with whom (and her mother) she fled the city into Thrace on April 12, 1204, as the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade were storming the city. Reaching her deposed father at Mosynopolis, Eudocia was allowed to marry Alexios V, but he was trapped and strangled on the orders of Alexios III shortly afterwards.
Eudokia Angelina married thirdly Leo Sgouros, the independent ruler of Corinth, after he offered asylum to Alexios III and his family in 1204. Blockaded in the citadel of Corinth, Leo Sgouros committed suicide in 1207/1208. Eudokia is thought to have died around 1211.
By her marriage to Stefan Prvovenčani of Serbia she had two daughters, whose names are unknown, and four sons:
- Stefan Radoslav, king of Serbia
- Stefan Vladislav I, king of Serbia
- Stefan Uroš I, king of Serbia
- Predislav (Archbishop Sava II of Serbia)
[edit] Sources
- K. Varzos, Ē genealogia tōn Komnēnōn, Thessalonica, 1984.
- The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
- O city of Byzantium: annals of Niketas Choniates tr. Harry J. Magoulias (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984).
