Family Tree of the Second Bulgarian Empire
23 reigning rulers across four dynasties — with their consorts, kin and the family's Byzantine branch
The Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) was ruled by four successive dynasties — the Asen, Terter, Smilets and Shishman houses — from the uprising of the brothers Peter and Asen against Byzantium to the fall of Tarnovo to the Ottomans. This family tree charts every tsar and their relatives across those two centuries, together with the Asens in Byzantium: the descendants of Ivan Asen III, who lived on in Constantinople as the noble Asanes family. Switch between the houses with the tabs, expand a branch to follow a line, and select any name for their reign, family ties and the primary sources behind each fact.
Maria Asenina
- Parents
- Siblings
Maria Asenina was the younger of the two daughters of Tsar Ivan Asen III (John III Asen) and Irene Palaiologina, born around 1287–1288.
In 1303 the Catalan Company of Roger de Flor offered its services to Emperor Andronikos II against the Turks in Asia Minor. One of the conditions set by the former Templar was the hand of Maria; the chronicler of the Almogavars, Ramon Muntaner, describes her as "one of the most beautiful and wise maidens in the world." The Catalans arrived in Constantinople in September 1303, and soon Roger de Flor celebrated his wedding to the daughter of the former Bulgarian tsar with great pomp. The marriage sealed the alliance between Byzantium and the Catalan mercenaries.
Maria accompanied her husband to Gallipoli, where a circle of his Asen kinsmen gathered around him. Pregnant, she returned with her mother to Constantinople shortly before the murder of Roger de Flor in the camp of Michael IX at Adrianople (4 April 1305).
- “Мария е по-малката от двете дъщери на Йоан III Асен и Ирина Палеологина … се омъжила за вожда на каталанските наемници Роже дьо Флор.”— Genealogy and Prosopography of the Asen Dynasty 1186–1460, p. 291