Irene of Montferrat

Born in Casale, she was the daughter of William VII, Marquess of Montferrat and his second wife Beatrice of Castile.{{The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits, 1250–1500|pages=48-49}} Her maternal grandparents were King Alfonso X of Castile and his wife Violante of Aragon. Yolande (a variation of Violante) was named after her grandmother.

In 1284, Andronikos II, a widower by his first marriage with Anna of Hungary, married Yolanda (who was renamed Eirene as Empress). She and Andronikos II were distant cousins, both being descendants of Andronikos Doukas Angelos (ca. 1122–1185). With her, Eirene brought the Montferrat rights to the kingdom of Thessalonica, a dominion that, despite having been conquered half-a-century before Eirene's birth by the Byzantine state of Epirus, was still claimed by its short-lived (1204–1224) Montferrat royal dynasty.

It was later proven that the Italian Montferrat had no living male heirs of the Aleramici dynasty, and Eirene's sons were entitled to inherit it upon the 1305 death of Eirene's brother John I, Marquess of Montferrat.

Eirene's stepson, Michael IX Palaiologos was intended to succeed her husband as emperor, but ultimately it was Michael's son Andronikos III Palaiologos, who became the successor instead of Michael. This was largely due to the work Eirene did to ensure some power and property to her own offspring.

Eirene left Constantinople in 1303 and settled in Thessalonica. She set up her own court in the city and controlled her own finances and foreign policy until her death fourteen years later. Nicephorus Gregoras portrayed her as an ambitious and arrogant leader in his historical writings.

A number of documents, issued by her as Augusta or Despoina, witness that she governed her appanage in Thessalonica as Empress in her own right.{{Cite book |last=Nicol |first=Donald M. |author-link=Donald Nicol |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PThFM3RS3h0C&pg=PA57 |page=57|title=The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits, 1250-1500 |date=1996-07-13 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-57623-9 |language=en}}

According to Nicephorus Gregoras, she died of fever in 1317 in the city of Drama, located in present-day northeastern Greece, where she had a residence. She was initially buried there, possibly in the surviving Church of the Taxiarches, before her daughter Simonis Palaiologina transported her remains to Constantinople.[https://byzantine-world.com/city/the-city-of-drama-a-byzantine-stronghold-in-macedonia/ Byzantine World]

• John Palaiologos (c. 1286–1308), despotēs.
• Bartholomaios Palaiologos (born 1289), died young.
• Theodore I, Marquis of Montferrat (1291–1338).
• Simonis Palaiologina (1294–after 1336), who married King Stefan Milutin of Serbia.
• Theodora Palaiologina (born 1295), died young.
• Demetrios Palaiologos (1297–1343), despotēs. Father of Irene Palaiologina.
• Isaakios Palaiologos (born 1299), died young.

{{reflist}}

• {{cite web |last=Marek |first=Miroslav |url=http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/montfer.html#VJ1 |title= A pedigree of the Montferrat family |publisher= Genealogy.EU}}

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{{s-hou|House of Aleramici||{{circa|1274}}||1317}}

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{{s-bef|before=Theodora Palaiologina}}

{{s-ttl|title=Byzantine Empress consort|years=1284–1317

|regent1=Rita of Armenia|years1=1294–1317}}

{{s-aft|after=Rita of Armenia}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Irene of Montferrat}}

Category:1270s births

Category:1317 deaths

Category:People from Casale Monferrato

Category:Palaiologos dynasty

Category:13th-century Byzantine empresses

Category:14th-century Byzantine empresses

Category:Byzantine empresses regnant

Category:13th-century Italian nobility

Category:14th-century Italian nobility

Category:13th-century Italian women

Category:14th-century Italian women

Category:Aleramici

Category:Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism

Category:Burials at Lips Monastery