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From: (Grant Menzies)
Subject: Re: Andronic Dukas
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 00:24:07 GMT
References: <6391f2da.0105200640.6a6aa441@posting.google.com>


(Janko Pavsic) wrote:

>Psellos give no detail about the wife of Andronic Dukas (brother of
>Michel VII). For Paul Gautier "Monodie indite de Michel Psellos sur
>le Basileus Andronic Doucas" in "Revue des tudes byzantines" XXIV
>1966 p.153-170, fragments from the Psellos' are in fact two different
>odes and the last one do not concern Andronic Dukas (wife who died
>soon after her husband, no mention of children...). Polemis
>(Prosopography of Dukai) do not agree with Gautier. For him, Andronic
>Dukas has no descent.
>
>From other sources (probably hungarian), we know Andronic Dukas m. Ne,
>daughter of Bela I, King of Hungary, and (Richenza ?) of Poland. I
>think Andronic and his hungarian wife were parents of at least one
>daughter but I have no proof at all (just onomatical coincidence).
>
>I need information on the life of Andronic Dukas and his wife.

Janko, what I have on Andronikos comes from Demetrios Polemis' book,
_The Doukai: A Contribution to Byzantine Prosopography_ (University of
London, 1968), which may not be quite current but is rather detailed.
Per Polemis, Andronikos was born ca. 1057 to Emperor Konstantinos X
Doukas and wife Evdokia Makrembolitissa. "Whenever he figures,"
writes the author, "it is mostly in a casual or decorative fashion" -
not a highly memorable personality. He was never crowned by his
father, unlike his two brothers - that was left up to Romanos IV
Diogenes to do.

Andronikos studied under Psellos, who pointed out later that his pupil
showed talent at both sport and philosophy (it should be pointed out
that the rest of the family went in for sport and hunting as well, so
in keeping with his rather passive personality, Andronikos may have
simply been doing as the Romans or, in this case, the Doukai, did).
He does seem to have been bookish, because Psellos composed a treatise
for him on geometry, while Ioannes Italos wrote for him a pair of
philosophical essyas, one of which was what sounds like an interesting
bit on interpreting a passage from Homer re: dreams. Polemis says
"Andronikos married an unknown woman who died very shortly after his
death."

Hope this is of some help.

Grant
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Grant Menzies
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