Other Events and Attributes:

• House: Macedonian
• FSID: LRQD-FS2
• Appointments / Titles: Between 913 and 959, Byzantine Empire (Historical); Emperor

Notes:

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Emperor of Constantinople was the son of Leo VI 'the Wise', Emperor of Constantinople.1 He married Helen Lecapenus, daughter of Romanus I Lecapenus, Emperor of Constantinople, in 919.2 He died in 959.1
He held the office of Co-regent of Constantinople in 908.1 He succeeded as the Emperor Constantine VII of Constantinople in 913.1
Child of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Emperor of Constantinople
Romanus II, Emperor of Constantinople+1 d. 15 Mar 963
Citations
[S38] John Morby, Dynasties of the World: a chronological and genealogical handbook (Oxford, Oxfordshire, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1989), page 52. Hereinafter cited as Dynasties of the World.

Wikipedia

Constantine VII Flavius Porphyrogenitus (Byzantine Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Ζ΄ Φλάβιος Πορφυρογέννητος, romanized: Kōnstantinos VII Flāvios Porphyrogennētos; 17/18 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, and the nephew of his predecessor Emperor Alexander.

Most of his reign was dominated by co-regents: from 913 until 919 he was under the regency of his mother, while from 920 until 945 he shared the throne with Romanos Lekapenos, whose daughter Helena he married, and his sons. Constantine VII is best known for the Geoponika (τά γεοπονικά), an important agronomic treatise compiled during his reign, and his four books, De Administrando Imperio (bearing in Greek the heading Πρὸς τὸν ἴδιον υἱὸν Ῥωμανόν),[2] De Ceremoniis (Περὶ τῆς Βασιλείου Τάξεως), De Thematibus (Περὶ θεμάτων Άνατολῆς καὶ Δύσεως), and Vita Basilii (Βίος Βασιλείου).[3][4]

The epithet porphyrogenitus alludes to the Purple chamber of the imperial palace, decorated with porphyry, where legitimate children of reigning emperors were normally born. Constantine was also born in this room, although his mother Zoe had not been married to Leo at that time. Nevertheless, the epithet allowed him to underline his position as the legitimate son, as opposed to all others, who claimed the throne during his lifetime. Sons born to a reigning Emperor held precedence in the Eastern Roman line of succession over elder sons not born "in the purple".

Birth:
Born in the Purple

Constantine married Lekapenos, Princess Eleni on 27 Apr 919 in Istanbul, Turkey. Eleni (daughter of Lecapenus, Emperor Romanos I and Lekapenos, Theodora) was born in 906 in Istanbul, Turkey; died on 24 Sep 961 in Istanbul, Turkey; was buried on 19 Sep 961 in Istanbul, Turkey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• FSID: LBGF-H83
• Occupation: Emperor

Notes:

Romanus II, Emperor of Constantinople was the son of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Emperor of Constantinople.1
He married, firstly, Bertha of Italy, daughter of Hugh d'Arles, King of Italy.2
He married, secondly, Theophano (?) circa 956.2 He died on 15 March 963.1,2

He held the office of Co-regent of Constantinople in 945.1 He succeeded as the Emperor Romanus II of Constantinople in 959.1
Children of Romanus II, Emperor of Constantinople and Theophano (?)
Basil II Bulgaroctonus, Emperor of Constantinople+1 d. 1025
Constantine VIII, Emperor of Constantinople+1 d. 1028
Anna (?)+3
Citations
[S38] John Morby, Dynasties of the World: a chronological and genealogical handbook (Oxford, Oxfordshire, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1989), page 52. Hereinafter cited as Dynasties of the World.
[S130] Wikipedia, online http;//www.wikipedia.org. Hereinafter cited as Wikipedia.

Romanos II was a son of Emperor Constantine VII and Helena Lekapene, the daughter of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos and his wife Theodora.[1] Named after his maternal grandfather, Romanos was married, as a child, to Bertha, the illegitimate daughter of Hugh of Arles, King of Italy to bond an alliance. She had changed her name to Eudokia after their marriage, but died an early death in 949 before producing an heir, thus never becoming a real marriage, and dissolving the alliance.[2] On January 27, 945, Constantine VII succeeded in removing his brothers-in-law, the sons of Romanos I, assuming the throne alone. On April 6, 945, Constantine crowned his son Romanos co-emperor. With Hugh out of power in Italy and dead by 947, Romanos secured the promise from his father that he would be allowed to select his own bride. Romanos chose an innkeeper's daughter named Anastaso, whom he married in 956 and renamed Theophano.

In November 959, Romanos II succeeded his father on the throne amidst rumors that he or his wife had poisoned him.[3] Romanos purged his father's courtiers of his enemies and replaced them with friends. To appease his bespelling wife, he excused his mother, Empress Helena, from court and forced his five sisters into convents. Nevertheless, many of Romanos' appointees were able men, including his chief adviser, the eunuch Joseph Bringas.

The pleasure-loving sovereign could also leave military matters in the adept hands of his generals, in particular the brothers Leo and Nikephoros Phokas. In 960 Nikephoros Phokas was sent with a fleet of 1,000 dromons, 2,000 chelandia, and 308 transports (the entire fleet was manned by 27,000 oarsmen and marines) carrying 50,000 men to recover Crete from the Muslims.[4] After a difficult campaign and nine-month Siege of Chandax, Nikephoros successfully re-established Byzantine control over the entire island in 961. Following a triumph celebrated at Constantinople, Nikephoros was sent to the eastern frontier, where the Emir of Aleppo Sayf al-Dawla was engaged in annual raids into Byzantine Anatolia. Nikephoros liberated Cilicia and even Aleppo in 962, sacking the palace of the Emir and taking possession of 390,000 silver dinars, 2,000 camels, and 1,400 mules. In the meantime Leo Phokas and Marianos Argyros had countered Magyar incursions into the Byzantine Balkans.

Death of Romanos II

After a lengthy hunting expedition Romanos II took ill and died on March 15, 963. Rumor attributed his death to poison administered by his wife Theophano, but there is no evidence of this, and Theophano would have been risking much by exchanging the secure status of a crowned Augusta with the precarious one of a widowed Regent of her very young children. Romanos II's reliance on his wife and on bureaucrats like Joseph Bringas had resulted in a relatively capable administration, but this built up resentment among the nobility, which was associated with the military. In the wake of Romanos' death, his Empress Dowager, now Regent to the two co-emperors, her underage sons, was quick to marry the general Nikephoros Phokas and to acquire another general, John Tzimiskes, as her lover, having them both elevated to the imperial throne in succession. The rights of her sons were safeguarded, however, and eventually, when Tzimiskes died at war, her eldest son Basil II became senior emperor

Romanos married Phocus, Empress of Byzantine Theophano in 956 in Istanbul, Turkey. Theophano (daughter of Phocas, Emperor Nicephoros II) was born in 932 in Byzantine Empire (Historical); died on 15 Jun 991 in Istanbul, Turkey; was buried after 15 Jun 991 in Byzantine Empire (Historical). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• House: House of Macedon, Macedonian dynasty
• FSID: 94BP-X4Z
• Appointments / Titles: 964; Princess of The Byzantine Empire
• Appointments / Titles: 977; Grand Princess of Kievan Rus
• Burial: 1011, Church of the Tithes, Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine

Notes:

Anna Porphyrogenita (Анна Византийская in Russian) (March 13, 963 – 1011) was a Grand Princess consort of Kiev; she was married to Grand Prince Vladimir the Great.[1]
Anna was the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Romanos II and the Empress Theophano. She was also the sister of Emperors Basil II Bulgaroktonos (The Bulgar-Slayer) and Constantine VIII. Anna was a Porphyrogenita, a legitimate daughter born in the special purple chamber of the Byzantine Emperor's Palace. Anna's hand was considered such a prize that Vladimir became Christian just to marry her.[2]
Anna did not wish to marry Vladimir and expressed deep distress on her way to her wedding. Grand Prince Vladimir was impressed by Byzantine religious practices, this factor, along with his marriage to Anna led to his decision to convert to Eastern Christianity. Due to these two factors, Grand Prince Vladimir also began Christianizing his kingdom. By marriage to Grand Prince Vladimir, Anna became Grand Princess of Kiev, but in practice, she was referred to as Queen or Czarina, probably as a sign of her membership of the Imperial Byzantine House. Anna participated actively in the Christianization of Rus: she acted as the religious adviser of Vladimir and founded a few convents and churches herself. It is not known whether she was the biological mother of any of Vladimir's children, although some scholars have pointed to evidence that she and Vladimir may have had as many as three children together

a granddaughter of Otto the Great (possibly Rechlinda Otona (Regel

Birth:
Byzantine Emperor's Palace

Anna married Svyatoslavich, Vladimir I in 977. Vladimir (son of Igorevich, Svyatoslav I and of Lyubech, Malusha Malkovna) was born in 960 in Budyatychi, Volyn', Ukraine; was christened in 988 in Korsun'-Shevchenkivs'kyy, Cherkasy, Ukraine; died on 15 Jul 1015 in Chortitza, Zaporizʹkyy Rayon, Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine; was buried after 15 Jul 1015 in Church of the Tithes, Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• House: Rurikids
• Nickname: The Wise
• FSID: LDMT-HMZ
• Appointments / Titles: Between 978 and 1054, Novgorod, Russia; Prince of Novgorod
• Appointments / Titles: 1019, Kievian Rus' Empire (Historical); Grand Prince
• Life Event: 1025, Novgorod, Russia; Codified Russian Law

Notes:

Yaroslav I, Grand Prince of Rus', known as Yaroslav the Wise or Iaroslav the Wise (Old East Slavic: Ꙗрославъ Володимѣровичъ Мѫдрꙑи; Ukrainian: Ярослав Мудрий; Russian: Ярослав Мудрый, [jɪrɐˈslaf ˈmudrɨj]; Old Norse: Jarizleifr Valdamarsson; Latin: Iaroslaus Sapiens; c. 978 – 20 February 1054) was thrice grand prince of Veliky Novgorod and Kiev, uniting the two principalities for a time under his rule. Yaroslav's baptismal name was George (Yuri) after Saint George (Old East Slavic: Гюрьгi, Gjurĭgì).

A son of Vladimir the Great, the first Christian Prince of Kiev, Yaroslav acted as vice-regent of Novgorod at the time of his father's death in 1015. Subsequently, his eldest surviving brother, Sviatopolk I of Kiev, killed three of his other brothers and seized power in Kiev. Yaroslav, with the active support of the Novgorodians and the help of Varangian mercenaries, defeated Svyatopolk and became the Grand Prince of Kiev in 1019. Under Yaroslav the codification of legal customs and princely enactments began, and this work served as the basis for a law code called the Russkaya Pravda ("Rus Truth [Law]"). During Yaroslav's lengthy reign, Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power.

The early years of Yaroslav's life are mostly unknown. He was one of the numerous sons of Vladimir the Great, presumably his second by Rogneda of Polotsk, although his actual age (as stated in the Primary Chronicle and corroborated by the examination of his skeleton in the 1930s) would place him among the youngest children of Vladimir. It has been suggested that he was a child begotten out of wedlock after Vladimir's divorce from Rogneda and marriage to Anna Porphyrogenita, or even that he was a child of Anna Porphyrogenita herself. Yaroslav figures prominently in the Norse sagas under the name Jarisleif the Lame; his legendary lameness (probably resulting from an arrow wound) was corroborated by the scientists who examined his remains.

In his youth, Yaroslav was sent by his father to rule the northern lands around Rostov but was transferred to Veliky Novgorod, as befitted a senior heir to the throne, in 1010. While living there, he founded the town of Yaroslavl (literally, "Yaroslav's") on the Volga River. His relations with his father were apparently strained, and grew only worse on the news that Vladimir bequeathed the Kyivan throne to his younger son, Boris. In 1014 Yaroslav refused to pay tribute to Kyiv and only Vladimir's death, in July 1015, prevented a war.

During the next four years Yaroslav waged a complicated and bloody war for Kyiv against his half-brother Sviatopolk I of Kyiv, who was supported by his father-in-law, Duke Bolesław I Chrobry (King of Poland from 1025). During the course of this struggle, several other brothers (Boris, Gleb, and Svyatoslav) were brutally murdered. The Primary Chronicle accused Svyatopolk of planning those murders, while the saga Eymundar þáttr hrings is often interpreted as recounting the story of Boris' assassination by the Varangians in the service of Yaroslav. However, the victim's name is given there as Burizaf, which is also a name of Boleslaus I in the Scandinavian sources. It is thus possible that the Saga tells the story of Yaroslav's struggle against Svyatopolk (whose troops were commanded by the Polish duke), and not against Boris.
Yaroslav defeated Svyatopolk in their first battle, in 1016, and Svyatopolk fled to Poland. But Svyatopolk returned in 1018 with Polish troops furnished by his father-in-law, seized Kyiv and pushed Yaroslav back into Novgorod. Yaroslav, at last, prevailed over Svyatopolk, and in 1019 firmly established his rule over Kyiv. One of his first actions as a grand prince was to confer on the loyal Novgorodians (who had helped him to gain the Kyivan throne), numerous freedoms, and privileges. Thus, the foundation of the Novgorod Republic was laid. For their part, the Novgorodians respected Yaroslav more than they did other Kyivan princes; and the princely residence in their city, next to the marketplace (and where the veche often convened) was named Yaroslav's Court after him. It probably was during this period that Yaroslav promulgated the first code of laws in the lands of the East Slavs, the Russkaya Pravda.

Power struggles between siblings
Leaving aside the legitimacy of Yaroslav's claims to the Kievan throne and his postulated guilt in the murder of his brothers, Nestor the Chronicler and later Russian historians often presented him as a model of virtue, styling him "the Wise". A less appealing side of his personality is revealed by his having imprisoned his youngest brother Sudislav for life. Yet another brother, Mstislav of Chernigov, whose distant realm bordered the North Caucasus and the Black Sea, hastened to Kiev and, despite reinforcements led by Yaroslav's brother-in-law King Anund Jacob of Sweden (as Jakun - "blind and dressed in a gold suit"), inflicted a heavy defeat on Yaroslav in 1024. Yaroslav and Mstislav then divided Kievan Rus' between them: the area stretching left from the Dnieper River, with the capital at Chernihiv, was ceded to Mstislav until his death in 1036.

Allies along the Baltic coast
In his foreign policy, Yaroslav relied on a Scandinavian alliance and attempted to weaken the Byzantine influence on Kiev. In 1030, he conquered Cherven Cities from the Poles followed by the construction of Sutiejsk to guard the newly acquired lands. Yaroslav concluded an alliance with Polish King Casimir I the Restorer, sealed by the latter's marriage to Yaroslav's sister, Maria. In another successful military raid the same year, he captured Tartu, Estonia and renamed it Yuryev (named after Yury, Yaroslav's patron saint) and forced the surrounding Ugandi County to pay annual tribute.

Campaign against Byzantium
Yaroslav presented his second direct challenge to Constantinople in 1043, when Rus' flotilla headed by one of his sons appeared near Constantinople and demanded money, threatening to attack the city otherwise. Whatever the reason, the Greeks refused to pay and preferred to fight. The Rus' flotilla defeated the Byzantine fleet but was almost destroyed by a storm and came back to Kyiv empty-handed.

Protecting the inhabitants of the Dnieper from the Pechenegs
To defend his state from the Pechenegs and other nomadic tribes threatening it from the south he constructed a line of forts, composed of Yuriev, Bohuslav, Kaniv, Korsun, and Pereyaslavl. To celebrate his decisive victory over the Pechenegs in 1036 (who thereafter were never a threat to Kiev) he sponsored the construction of the Saint Sophia Cathedral in 1037. That same year there were built monasteries of Saint George and Saint Irene. Some mentioned and other celebrated monuments of his reign such as the Golden Gate of Kiev perished during the Mongol invasion of Rus', but later restored.

Establishment of law
Yaroslav was a notable patron of book culture and learning. In 1051, he had a Slavic monk, Hilarion of Kiev, proclaimed the metropolitan bishop of Kiev, thus challenging the Byzantine tradition of placing Greeks on the episcopal sees. Hilarion's discourse on Yaroslav and his father Vladimir is frequently cited as the first work of Old East Slavic literature.

Family life and posterity
In 1019, Yaroslav married Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of the king of Sweden, and gave Staraya Ladoga to her as a marriage gift.

Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev houses a fresco representing the whole family: Yaroslav, Irene (as Ingegerd was known in Rus), their four daughters and six sons. Yaroslav had at least three of his daughters married to foreign princes who lived in exile at his court:

Elisiv of Kiev to Harald Harðráði (who attained her hand by his military exploits in the Byzantine Empire);
Anastasia of Kiev to the future Andrew I of Hungary;
Anne of Kiev married Henry I of France and was the regent of France during their son's minority (she was Yaroslav the Wise's most beloved daughter);
(possibly) Agatha, wife of Edward the Exile, of the royal family of England, the mother of Edgar the Ætheling and Saint Margaret of Scotland.
Yaroslav had one son from the first marriage (his Christian name being Ilya (?-1020)), and six sons from the second marriage. Apprehending the danger that could ensue from divisions between brothers, he exhorted them to live in peace with each other. The eldest of these, Vladimir of Novgorod, best remembered for building the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod, predeceased his father. Three other sons—Iziaslav I, Sviatoslav II, and Vsevolod I—reigned in Kiev one after another. The youngest children of Yaroslav were Igor Yaroslavich (1036–1060) of Volhynia and Vyacheslav Yaroslavich (1036–1057) of the Principality of Smolensk. About Vyacheslav, there is almost no information. Some documents point out the fact of him having a son, Boris Vyacheslavich, who challenged Vsevolod I sometime in 1077-1078.

Following his death, the body of Yaroslav the Wise was entombed in a white marble sarcophagus within Saint Sophia's Cathedral. In 1936, the sarcophagus was opened and found to contain the skeletal remains of two individuals, one male and one female. The male was determined to be Yaroslav, however, the identity of the female was never established. The sarcophagus was again opened in 1939 and the remains removed for research, not being documented as returned until 1964. Then, in 2009, the sarcophagus was opened and surprisingly found to contain only one skeleton, that of a female. It seems the documents detailing the 1964 reinterment of the remains were falsified to hide the fact that Yaroslav's remains had been lost. Subsequent questioning of individuals involved in the research and reinterment of the remains seems to point to the idea that Yaroslav's remains were purposely hidden prior to the German occupation of Ukraine and then either lost completely or stolen.

Yaroslav married Olafsdotter, Saint Ingrid in 1019 in Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden. Ingrid (daughter of Ericksson, King of Sweden Olaf III and of the Obodrites, Queen Estrid) was born in 1000 in Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden; died in Feb 1050 in Novgorod, Russia; was buried in Feb 1050 in Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kiev, Ukraine. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]