Maria Asenina
- Title
- Princess
Biography
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).
Sources
- “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