Zoe Carbonopsina

Zoe Carbonopsina (in Greek: Ζωή Καρβωνοψίνα, Zōē Karbōnopsina ), “with the fiery eyes”, was the fourth wife of the Byzantine Empereur Leon VI Wise the.

She was relationship of the chronicler Théophane the Confessor, and the niece of the admiral Himérios. She was the mistress of Leon VI during a certain time, and he married it only when she had given him a son, the future Constantin VII, in 905. It was however its fourth marriage, which was equivalent, for the orthodoxe Church, with the crime of polygamy - Leon had already had evil to make recognize its third marriage with Eudoxie Baïana in 901.

The patriarch Nicolas Mystikos baptized with Constantin reserve, but prohibited firmly with the emperor of remarier for the fourth time. It passed in addition to while secretly celebrating its marriage in the private vault of the palate, in front of a simple priest. The continual opposition of Nicolas was worth to him to be stopped under a fallacious pretext, and it was forced to abdicate in 907. The new patriarch, Euthyme, recognized the marriage.

In 912, Leon died and his/her younger brother Alexandre succeeded to him. He pointed out Nicolas and drove out Zoe of the palate. She returned there after the death of Alexandre, in 913, but Nicolas forced it to enter a convent after having obtained senate and clergy that they would not accept it like empress. However, the unpopular concessions that Nicolas with the Bulgares made the same year weakened its position, and in 914, Zoe could reverse Nicolas and replace it with regency. Nicolas could remain patriarch after having recognized it like empress.

Zoe reigned while being based on the imperial bureaucracy, like on the influential general Leon Phocas, her favorite. The first act of Zoe was to revoke the made concessions with Siméon of Bulgaria, of which recognition of its imperial title and the marriage arranged between his/her daughter and Constantin. This gesture relit the war between Byzance and Bulgaria, which started badly for the first, which were to also deal with military operations in the south of Italy and on their Eastern border. In 915, the troops of Zoe ruined an Arab invasion of Arménie, and peace was signed with the Arabs. It was from now on free to organize an operation of great scale against the Bulgarian ones, which had been inserted deeply in the empire and had taken Andrinople. This countryside showed a bitter failure: alliance with the Petchenègues, which were to attack the Bulgarian ones by north, failed, and Leon Phocas undergoes two defeats cuisantes with Anchialos, then with Katasyrtai, in 917. The offers of alliance to the Serb and the Magyars did not succeed, and the Arabs, encouraged by the weakness of the empire, started again with launching raids. The position of Zoe was hardly improved by a treaty humiliating with the Arabs of Sicily, whose assistance was required to put a term at the revolts in Italy.

In 919, the admiral Romain Lécapène benefitted from the opposition increasing to Zoe and Leon Phocas to seize the power. He Maria his Helene daughter in Constantin VII and, in 920, showing Zoe to have wanted to poison it, returned it in his convent.

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