In 1284, Andronikos II, a widower by his first marriage with Anna of Hungary, married Yolanda (who was renamed Eirene as Empress). She and Andronikos II were distant cousins, both being descendants of Andronikos Doukas Angelos (ca. 1122–1185). With her, Eirene brought the Montferrat rights to the kingdom of Thessalonica,[1] a dominion that, despite having been conquered half-a-century before Eirene's birth by the Byzantine state of Epirus, was still claimed by its short-lived (1204–1224) Montferrat royal dynasty.
Eirene's stepson, Michael IX Palaiologos was intended to succeed her husband as emperor, but ultimately it was Michael's son Andronikos III Palaiologos, who became the successor instead of Michael. This was largely due to the work Eirene did to ensure some power and property to her own offspring.
Eirene left Constantinople in 1303 and settled in Thessalonica. She set up her own court in the city and controlled her own finances and foreign policy until her death fourteen years later. Nicephorus Gregoras portrayed her as an ambitious and arrogant leader in his historical writings.
According to Nicephorus Gregoras, she died of fever in 1317 in the city of Drama, located in present-day northeastern Greece, where she had a residence. She was initially buried there, possibly in the surviving Church of the Taxiarches, before her daughter Simonis Palaiologina transported her remains to Constantinople.[2]
Italics indicates a consort to a junior co-emperor, underlining indicates a consort to an emperor variously regarded as either legitimate or a usurper, and bold incidates an empress regnant.
