Alexander the Great and his second wife, the Persian noblewoman Stateira

Global royal intermarriage refers to the practice of royal intermarriage done between dynasties of different continents. The practice was - for obvious reasons - seen more between bordering regions, such as Eastern Europe and Western Asia, and more often than not held political purposes. Dynasties and ethnicity are to be considered, not the realm's geographical position (Mongols reigning over modern Russia are still Mongols).

The (perhaps) most known instance of global Royal intermarriage is the one between Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, and his three Persian wives, Roxana, Stateira and Parysatis. During his campaign Alexander was fascinated by the customs of the oriental kingdoms, and these marriages were part of the progress than led to the pillars upon which the Hellenistic Period was based.

The sections below are for the major part divided based on European realms, for semplicity.

Ancient Macedonia

Persia

in 327 BC, during his conquest of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Alexander the Great defeated the resisting Sogdian nobles who took refuge in the Sogdian Rock. There, Alexander fell in love with Roxana, daughter of Oxyartes, a nobleman of Bactria, and married her despite his companions's opposition. Roxana gave birth to a son after Alexander's death, Alexander IV.[1][2]

Other than Roxana, Alexander the Great married two other Persian nobles in 324 BC. After Alexander defeated Darius III at the battle of Issus, he captured his family, including his daughter Stateira. Unlike the other Persian women, Darius's relatives were treated with good manners and they were allowed to keep their social status. In a mass ceremony known as The Susa weddings, Alexander married both Stateira and her cousin Parysatis. With these marriages Alexander cemented his ties to both the branches of the Achaemenid dynasty, but the two women did not give him any children.[3]

Other marriages that happened at the Susa weddings include Selecus I, founder of the Seleucid empire, marrying the Sogdian noble Apama, and Ptolemy I, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, marrying the Persian noble Artakama.[4][5]

Byzantine Empire

Khazaria

In 695 Byzantine emperor Justinian II was deposed and exiled to Crimea. In 703 he escaped and received help by Busir, khagan of Khazaria, who offered him his sister's hand. Justinian accepted and renamed her Theodora, probably after the wife of Justinian I. The couple was given a new home in Phanagoria. Busir, however, was offered a bribe to kill Justinian by the new emperor Tiberius III, and sent two officials to do the deed. Theodora warned her husband, and the two sailed across the Black Sea with other companions, next asking for help to Tervel of Bulgaria. With Tervel's military help, Justinian regained the throne. Justinian and Theodora had one son, co-emperor Tiberius IV.[6][7][8]

Around 732, to solidify an alliance with Khazaria, the future emperor Constantine V married Tzitzak, daughter of khagan Bihar. Tzitzak was later renamed "Irene". The marriage produced Byzantine emperor Leo IV, who was given the epithet "the Khazar" referencing his maternal descent.[7][9]

Armenia and Georgia

Emperor Nikephoros III and his wife Maria of Alania

Due to the closeness of the empire with the two realms, the dynasties of the Byzantine empire intermarried with the dynasties of Armenia and of Georgia for simple diplomatic reasons. Listed here are some of the marriages that occurred over the years:

Mongol khanates

Around 1265, the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII attempted to start diplomatic relationships with the Mongol Ilkhanate. A marriage was combinated between the Ilkhan, Hulagu, and Michael's illegitimate daughter, Maria Palaiologina. Maria left Costantinople in 1265, accompanied by the Patriarch of Antioch, Euthymius. When they arrived in Caesarea they were informed that Hulagu had died, so it was decided for Maria to marry his son, Abaqa. The Mongols looked to Maria as a religious leader, and they called her "Despina Khatun". The marriage produced a daughter, Theodora Ara Qutlugh.[16][17][18][19]

Other than the Ilkhanate, Michael VIII had also tried starting relationships with the Mongol Golden Horde. In 1266, he gave another illegitimate daughter, Epuhrosyne Palaiologina, in marriage to the khan of the golden horde, Nogai. This was done because the latter had invaded Thrace a year earlier. There are no known children resulting from this marriage.[20]

England

Ayyubid Sultanate (failed)

After Richard the Lionheart, during the third crusade, took Jaffa in 1191, he began negotiating with the Ayyubid sultan, Saladin. It was proposed to marry al-Adil, Saladin's brother, to Richard's sister Joan or alternatively to his niece Eleanor. The arrangement however failed for religion-related reasons, and it never went through.[21]

Hungary

Cumania

Around 1238, the king of Hungary Béla IV married his son, future Stephen V, to Elizabeth, the daughter of a Cuman leader who he had invited to settle in the plains along the river Tisza after the end of the Mongol invasion. If this Cuman leader is khan Köten, who invaded Hungary, as some historians declare, then the marriage probably took place to seal the peace between the two rulers. A charter of Béla IV instead refers to Elizabeth's father as "Seyhan". The marriage resulted in 4 daughters and 2 sons, among whom there is Laudislaus IV, who succeeded his father, and who was nicknamed "the Cuman" for his mother's origins.[22][23][24][25]

Russia

Mongol khanates

In 1315, Yury, prince of Moscow, wanting to gain military support to seize the grand principality of Vladimir from his uncle, Mikhail of Tver, went to the Golden Horde. After spending two years there he managed to construct an alliance with the tatar khan Uzbeg, by marrying his sister Konchaka. She converted to orthodoxy and was renamed "Agafiia". During the war to take Vladimir, Konchaka was imprisoned and died before she could give Yury any sons.[26][27]

References

  1. ↑ Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  2. ↑ Bosworth, A. B. (1981). "A Missing Year in the History of Alexander the Great". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 101: 17–39. doi:10.2307/629841. ISSN 0075-4269. JSTOR 629841.
  3. ↑ Carney, Elizabeth Donnelly (2000). Women and Monarchy in Macedonia. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3212-9.
  4. ↑ Ogden, Daniel, ed. (1999-02-01). Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death: The Hellenistic Dynasties. London: The Classical Press of Wales. ISBN 978-0-7156-2930-7.
  5. ↑ "Seleukos Nikator (Routledge Revivals): Constructing a Hellenistic Kingdom". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2023-12-03.
  6. ↑ Ostrogorski, Georgije (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Blackwell.
  7. 1 2 Bury, J. B. (2015-03-05). A History of the Later Roman Empire 2 Volume Set: From Arcadius to Irene (Reissue edizione ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-08319-5.
  8. ↑ Norwich, John Julius (1989-03-18). Byzantium (I): The Early Centuries. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-394-53778-8.
  9. ↑ Dagron, Gilbert (2003-11-24). Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium. Translated by Birrell, Jean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80123-2.
  10. 1 2 3 Garland, Lynda, ed. (2006-09-01). Byzantine Women: Varieties of Experience 800-1200. Aldershot Burlington (Vt.): Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7546-5737-8.
  11. ↑ Sutton, Joseph A. D.; Dayan, Mireille (1988-01-01). Aleppo Chronicles: The Story of the Unique Sephardeem of the Ancient Near East--In Their Own Words. Thayer-Jacoby. ISBN 978-0-9606472-1-7.
  12. ↑ Angold, Michael (1991), "The Latin Empire of Constantinople, 1204–1261: Marriage Strategies", Identities and Allegiances in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204, Routledge, pp. 65–86, doi:10.4324/9781315587738-12, ISBN 978-1-315-58773-8, retrieved 2023-12-02
  13. ↑ Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. Reaktion Books.
  14. ↑ Byzantium And the Crusades : Harris, Jonathan: Amazon.it: Libri. ASIN 1852855010.
  15. 1 2 Panaretos, Michael; Bessarion (2019-02-18). Two Works on Trebizond. Translated by Kennedy, Scott. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-98662-6.
  16. ↑ Runciman, Steven (1987-12-25). A History of the Crusades, Vol. III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-34772-3.
  17. ↑ Richard, Jean (1996). Histoire des croisades. Harvard University. [Paris] : Fayard.
  18. ↑ George, Walter S. (2010-07-06). Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture. FQ Books.
  19. ↑ Shukurov, Rustam (2016-05-19). The Byzantine Turks, 1204-1461: 105. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-30512-0.
  20. ↑ Nicol, Donald M. (1972). Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. London: HarperCollins Distribution Services. ISBN 978-0-246-10559-2.
  21. ↑ Nicolle, David (2005-11-10). The Third Crusade 1191: Richard the Lionheart, Saladin and the struggle for Jerusalem. Christa Hook. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-868-7.
  22. ↑ Berend, Nora (2006-11-02). At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and 'Pagans' in Medieval Hungary, c.1000 – c.1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-02720-5.
  23. ↑ Engel, Pal (2005-05-25). The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary. London New York, NY: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-85043-977-6.
  24. ↑ Tamás, Kőfalvi (1999). "A pécsváradi konvent külső hiteleshelyi tevékenységének főbb jellemzői 1526-ig". Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  25. ↑ Szupernap. "Az Árpád-ház uralkodói · Kristó Gyula – Makk Ferenc · Könyv". Moly (in Hungarian). Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  26. ↑ "Medieval Russia, 980–1584 (2nd ed.)". Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  27. ↑ Halperin, Charles (1987-07-22). Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-20445-5.
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