Eudokia Angelina

Eudokia Angelina (or Eudocia Angelina) (Greek: Ευδοκία Αγγελίνα, Serbian: Evdokija Anđel; died c. 1211, or later) was the queen consort of Stephen II Nemanjić of Serbia from 1196 to 1198. She later became the mistress of Alexios V Doukas, the future Emperor. She was a daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina.

Life

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 she (and her mother) 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 and three sons:

• King Stefan Radoslav
• King Stefan Vladislav I
• Archbishop Predislav (Sava II of Serbia)
• Countess Komnena Nemanjić of Kruja

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).