Today's episode is brought to you by audible.com, and specifically the book, Stratikos,

born in the Borderlands by Gordon Doherty. This is proper Byzantine historical fiction set during

the 11th century. A young man with a tortured past contemplates joining the theme army as the threat

from the Seljuk Turks begins to rise. If you'd like to listen to Stratikos for free, go to audibletrial.com-forward-slash-tv-critic.

Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 224, the coup of Anna Komni-Ni, with Lea Nora Neville.

Today's episode is our transition from Alexius's reign to that of his son John. We're going to talk

about the slightly bumpy succession process, and in particular the alleged coup attempt by Anna Komni-Ni herself.

We are also going to talk about the transition from one generation of historians to the next,

so we'll talk a little about the writers who will guide us from the end of Alexius's reign

all the way to the sack of Constantinople in 1204 AD. You might be surprised to hear that Anna

was involved in an attempted coup, but this is accepted fact in many places you look.

Let's start with her entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. In 1118, with the support of her

mother, she schemed in order to obtain the throne for her husband, but the success of her brother,

John, forced her to retire to an anary. Let's elaborate on that with a few sentences from Anna's

Wikipedia page. Following her father's death in 1118, Anna and her mother attempted to use

her up, John. Her husband refused to cooperate with them, and the use of patient failed,

as a result, John exiled Anna to an anary where she spent the rest of her life.

Various scholars quoted on Wikipedia saying that Anna felt cheated, because she should have

inherited the throne, and that in the Alexiad she was trying to stress her own right to the throne,

and her precedence over her brother, John. I am pleased to say that the editors have gone on to

include the following. In contrast, Leo Nora Neville argues that Anna was probably not involved in

the attempted use of patient. Anna plays a minor role in most of the available medieval sources,

...