Bertha of Sulzbach

Bertha von Sulzbach (1110s-August 29, 1159) was the first wife and Empress of Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus.

Family

Bertha was the daughter of Berengar II, Count of Sulzbach (d.3 December 1125) and Adelheid von Wolfratshausen. Her brother was Gebhard III of Sulzbach; her sister was Gertrude von Sulzbach, who married Conrad III of Germany. Berengar II was a son of Gebhard II, Count of Sulzbach and Irmingard of Rott. Gebhard II was a namesake son of Gebhard I, Count of Sulzbach. Gebhard was a son of Herman IV, Duke of Swabia and Adelaide of Susa.

Marriage and children

Emissaries of the Byzantine Emperor John II Comnenus arrived in Germany, seeking an alliance against Roger II of Sicily. To seal the alliance, the emissaries requested that Conrad send a princess of his family to be married to the emperor's son, Manuel. Instead, Conrad selected his sister-in-law, Bertha, and sent her to Greece escorted by Emicho von Leiningen, the Bishop of Würzburg. By the time Bertha arrived at the Imperial court in Constantinople, the emperor John was dead, and his son Manuel was now the reigning emperor. Manuel delayed marrying her for three years, until shortly after Epiphany 1146, at which point she became empress and was renamed "Irene" (Εἰρήνη), a common name for foreign-born princesses. As an introduction for her to the Hellenic culture she was marrying into, John Tzetzes wrote his Allegories on the Iliad. Bertha-Irene was noted for shunning the frivolity of the luxurious Byzantine court; Basil of Ochrid, the archbishop of Thessalonica, praised her for her modesty and piety, and Nicetas Choniates (53sq.) noted that she did not wear face-paint. The patriarch of Constantinople, Cosmas II Atticus, who had been accused of heresy, allegedly cursed Bertha-Irene's womb in 1147 to prevent her bearing a son. She and Manuel had two daughters:

1. Maria Comnena (1152-1182), (not to be confused with the Queen of Jerusalem by that name who was a relative) who married Renier of Montferrat.
2. Anna Comnena (1154-1158)

Bertha-Irene died in 1159. Her husband Manuel was described as "roaring like a lion" in grief at her death, despite his infidelities during her lifetime. He remarried, in 1161, to Maria of Antioch.

Sources

• Otto of Freising, Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa
• Choniates, Nicetas, Historia, ed. J.-L. Van Dieten, 2 vols., Berlin and New York, 1975; trans. as O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates, by H.J. Magoulias, Detroit; Wayne State University Press, 1984.
• Garland, Lynda. Byzantine Empresses, 1999
• Garland, Lynda, & Stone, Andrew, "Bertha-Irene, first wife of Manuel I Comnenus", De Imperatoribus Romanis (external link)