Agent of change: Evpraksia Vsevolodovna between emperor and papacy
Christian Raffensperger
Evpraksia Vsevolodovna was one of the most well-known Rusian (meaning – of the medieval kingdom of Rus’) women in eleventh-century Europe, but her name does not bring much recognition even among twenty-first century scholars. The difference between the two groups is profound when we acknowledge that the goal of medievalists is to understand the medieval European world as it was, or as close as we can come, given the problems with source preservation, bias, etc. Many modern historians of medieval Europe have elided history, leaving out much of Eastern Europe from their narratives, which is one of the reasons for a volume such as this. This exclusion of half of medieval Europe, deliberate or otherwise, includes figures from eastern Europe who play a role in the rest of the medieval world. Evpraksia Vsevolodovna is one of those figures, someone who plays a large role in the medieval world, is present in medieval sources, but is often absent in modern secondary sources.
Evpraksia was the daughter of Vsevolod Iaroslavich (ruler of Kiev and all Rus’ from 1078–1093), and thus the sister of Volodimer Monomakh (son of Vsevolod Iaroslavich and the ruler of Kiev and all Rus’ from 1125 to 1132). She was a very important person, simply by her birth, but even more than that, she is important for historians as she is one of the most well-documented Rusian women of the eleventh century, which, admittedly, is not saying much! Evpraksia is mentioned not just once, but twice in the Povest’ vremennykh let (PVL), the main source for eleventh and early twelfth century internal Rusian affairs, where she is mentioned by name and is recorded both entering a nunnery and at her death where she was buried in the Caves Monastery, the oldest and holiest monastery in Rus’, where she also had her own chapel erected. In comparison with the other women of eleventh century Rus’, she is virtually a rockstar, with these qualifications. However, it is in the Latin sources that Evpraksia is most well-known. She marries twice into the German Empire, and works with the papacy and thus a whole host of Latin sources mention her. She has her own decrees in the German empire, she is in attendance at papal conferences, and she moves around a great deal in medieval Europe. Yet, despite all of this information about her, she is still largely absent from secondary sources on Rus’, the German Empire, or the papacy.
Evpraksia lived an extraordinary life in the eleventh century. Before moving on to her portrait though, some of the historical details of that life need to be described. In 1082, Evpraksia goes to the German empire with a large entourage filled with gold, jewels, and clothes, carried on horses and camels. She was going to marry Henry III “the Long”, the Margrave of the Saxon Nordmark. The marriage was, most likely, a political arrangement negotiated between Henry IV, the German Emperor (emperor from 1084–1106), and Vsevolod Iaroslavich, the Rusian ruler and Evpraksia’s father. The marriage does not last long, however, and there are no children, before Henry III dies in approximately 1088. Evpraksia’s journey is not done, however, as the next year she marries the recently widowed Henry IV himself, making her the German Empress. This is just the beginning of her career in medieval European politics however, as she splits from him in the early 1090s to join the side of the papacy opposing Henry IV in what is known as the Investiture Controversy. As part of that she travels around western medieval Europe making speeches and talking about the travails she went through during her time with Henry IV, culminating in her speaking at the papal council of Piacenza in 1095. After that, mentions of her in Latin sources begin to decrease though she still appears in 1096 and 1097 in the Italian peninsula in particular and afterwards it is noted that she returned to Rus’, via Hungary. The PVL then picks her up for the first time to tell us that she became a nun in 1106, confirmed in Latin documents, and died in 1109.
Notes
- This is what the primary sources tell us, but it is also a gloss of I Kings 10:2 where the queen of Sheba arrives to meet Solomon. My thanks to Inés Garcia de la Puenta for pointing this out to me.
Further Reading
Raffensperger, Christian. “Evpraksia Vsevolodovna between East and West.” Russian History/Histoire Russe 30, no. 1–2 (2003): 23–34.
Raffensperger, Christian. “The Missing Rusian Women: The Case of Evpraksia Vsevolodovna.” In Putting Together the Fragments: Writing Medieval Women’s Lives. Edited by Amy Livingstone and Charlotte Newman Goldy, 69–84. New York: Palgrave, 2012.
Robinson, I. S. Henry IV of Germany, 1056–1106. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, edited and translated by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953.