Life
Maria was the daughter of self-proclaimed Emperor Simeon Uroš, the half-brother of Emperor Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (Nemanjić dynasty), and Thomais Orsini. Her maternal grandfather was John Orsini of Epirus. In 1366, Maria married Thomas Preljubović, who was appointed governor of Epirus in Ioannina by her father. Popular with her subjects, she was apparently mistreated by her husband and connived in his murder on December 23, 1384.
The population of Ioannina acclaimed Maria as ruler. She used the title of basilissa, female form of basileus. She summoned her brother John Uroš Doukas Palaiologos (now monk under the name Joasaph) to advise her in the affairs of state. John Uroš suggested that Maria marry Esau de' Buondelmonti, one of the Latin noblemen captured by Thomas in 1379. There is an allegation, that Maria was already enamored of the captive before the murder of her husband, and that this affair had resulted in the assassination of Thomas.
Maria married Esau in February 1385, and survived for a further decade, dying on December 28, 1394. The Chronicle of Ioannina, so hostile towards Thomas, describes Maria in very flattering terms; the Byzantine historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles suggest that she was an unfaithful wife of questionable morality. Both accounts may be biased. Maria does not appear to have had surviving children from either marriage.
Read more about this topic: Maria Angelina Doukaina Palaiologina
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top—or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things.... Life is one crisis after another.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“At this moment, who would not remain persuaded that these women were virtuous? Are they not the flower of the country? Are they all not fresh, ravishing, intoxicating with beauty, youth, life and love? To believe in their virtue is a kind of social religion; because they are the world’s ornament and the glory of France.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“No person can be considered as possessing a good education without religion. A good education is that which prepares us for our future sphere of action and makes us contented with that situation in life in which God, in his infinite mercy, has seen fit to place us, to be perfectly resigned to our lot in life, whatever it may be.”
—Ann Plato (1820–?)