Marriage and Children
A chronicle attributed to Hetoum II of Armenia is included in the collection known as Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. According to a passage recording her birth, Rita was the twin sister of Princess Theophane of Armenia.
The history of George Pachymeres records that Andronikos II Palaiologos began negotiations with Levon while seeking a potential wife for his son and junior co-ruler Michael IX Palaiologos. Levon offered him Rita, and the marriage took place on 16 January 1294. The bride was sixteen years old and the groom seventeen.
Rita assumed the name Maria while at the Byzantine court. They had four children:
- Andronikos III Palaiologos (25 March 1297 – 15 June 1341).
- Manuel Palaiologos, despotes (died 1319).
- Anna Palaiologina (died 1321), who married Thomas I Komnenos Doukas and then Nicholas Orsini.
- Theodora Palaiologina (died after 1330), who married Theodore Svetoslav of Bulgaria and then Michael Asen III of Bulgaria.
Read more about this topic: Rita Of Armenia
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or children:
“That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“Having children can smooth the relationship, too. Mother and daughter are now equals. That is hard to imagine, even harder to accept, for among other things, it means realizing that your own mother felt this way, too—unsure of herself, weak in the knees, terrified about what in the world to do with you. It means accepting that she was tired, inept, sometimes stupid; that she, too, sat in the dark at 2:00 A.M. with a child shrieking across the hall and no clue to the child’s trouble.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)