Philip of Edinburgh, Felipe VI, King of Spain and Philippe, King of the Belgians owe their first names to their common ancestor: Anne of Kyiv. This Queen of the Franks baptized her son Philippe, who was then unknown in Western Europe. This Greek culture first name comes from their countries of origin, Kievan Rus. Anne comes from this cradle of the East Slavs, which today brings together Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians.
To meet him you have to go back almost a thousand years. We are coming under the rule of the early Capetians, a dark time for historians confronted with incomplete archives.
Coming from the ends of the known world
In the middle of the 11th century no major event, no main character stands out. It’s a black hole in France’s history. King Henry I at the head of the kingdom is weak, widowed and childless. With no heir, he has his eye on a princess living on the borders of Europe, in distant and prosperous lands.
Anne, Queen of France | via Wikimedia Commons
This princess, Anna of Kyiv, belonged to one of the most respected families of her time. His father was Grand Duke Yaroslav, head of the powerful Rus’ principality, then the largest state in Europe. These East Slavs have been under the cultural influence of the Byzantines since their most recent Christianization, a proselytizing broadcast from Constantinople. Located at the crossroads of trade routes, the city of Kyiv is about ten times more populated than London or Paris. The land of Rus’ then entered its golden age.
No proven date of birth or even his date of death. no grave
We don’t even know his face.
Anne de Kyiv left her magnificent domes and golden bulbs to traverse Europe to today’s Île-de-France much less refined. For lack of land to transfer, it brings “rich gifts” with it, according to one chronicler. In 1051, at Reims, she became the second wife of Henry I, twenty years her senior.
We do not know why Henry I targeted such a distant princess, but we can surmise that this choice was dictated by the Church’s strictness on family ties. Subsequently, Rome will be much less picky about consanguinity and Louis XIV will be able to marry his first cousin without the slightest veto.
The marriage of King Henry I of France and Anne of Kyiv in Reims. Miniature from a French manuscript referenced below.| Chronicles of Saint-Denis via Wikimedia Commons
To return to Anne, the young woman discovers a kingdom of the Franks where the king is mocked by his own vassals. The state is fragmented by feudalism, the lands covered with forests and the cities are mostly similar to cities. Paris has just recovered from the Viking siege of the last century. Romanesque churches are being built everywhere.
The backdrop is clearer than the new queen’s life, which is almost a blank slate. No proven date of birth or even his date of death. no grave We don’t even know his face. It must be said that the chroniclers did not remain very garrulous: “The king lived happily with her,” writes one of them sparingly. We stay hungry.
Only fragments remain of Anne. Her signature in Cyrillic at the bottom of a certificate and the crosses she drew as seals on documents. On these charters she is referred to as “Queen”, “Mother”, “A”, “Agna”, “Agneta” or most commonly “Anna”. In the absence of ample traces, we wish to summon a novelist to embroider his life.
Widowed and remarried
In this fog, however, some clues suggest that Anne weighed in. And she wasn’t lacking in personality. She has already given her eldest, the heir to the throne, a first name from her culture: it will be the future Philip I. Then the king dies when his son is only 7 years old: his brother-in-law Baudouin V of Flanders takes over the reins of the kingdom . But he shares this power with Anne.
Statue of Anne of Kyiv, Saint-Vincent Abbey, Senlis (Oise). | via Wikimedia Commons
In a way, it opens up the long tradition of the Regent Queens. The education of his son was entrusted to a pedagogus regis, also a Greek term then uncommon in the West to designate the educator. And this woman still has surprises in store for us.
“During the Soviet era, Anne is used for regime propaganda, but she also becomes one of the spearheads of the Ukrainian nationalist revival.”
Philippe Delorme, historian
After the death of her royal husband, the widow is not left alone. She gives up power and goes with a man. And not with anyone. She marries Raoul IV, Count of Valois and Crépy, a baron who is her own son’s vassal. A violent character who is quick to fight and ransom. He does not hesitate to burn Verdun because the bishop refuses to pay him a tribute. Raoul is already married and abandons his wife to marry Anne. This connection between the Dowager Queen and this colorful character caused a huge scandal. Raoul is excommunicated, even the Pope is involved in the affair.
Eventually, Anne sold her property to build the Abbaye Saint-Vincent around Senlis, one of the royal cities among those first itinerant Capetians. This town in the Oise still preserves the memory of Anne. In 2004, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko even inaugurated a statue of her there. It is not known where the queen died. An anonymous and later source confirms that “after the death of Raoul, [Anne] returned to home soil. twenty-five years after leaving.
Did Anna of Kyiv see the golden domes of the Kiev of her childhood again? It seems pretty unlikely. What is certain is that this queen quickly fell almost completely into oblivion. “Evidently Philippe Auguste had no memory of his great-great-grandmother since the end of the 12th century,” writes the historian Philippe Delorme in his biography of Anne of Kyiv.
A millennial friendship
After that, the kingdom of France and the Rus of Kyiv will go in opposite directions. The power of the first will increase while the second will decrease until it collapses. The Slavic principality broke up into rival entities and fell under the onslaught of the Mongols led by Batu, grandson of Genghis Khan. The city of Kyiv is destroyed. Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, born much later, today share the heritage of this Millennium Millennium and this Queen of the Franks.
“During the Soviet era, Anne was used for regime propaganda, but she also became one of the spearheads of the Ukrainian nationalist revival,” recalls Philippe Delorme in his book. Anne of Kyiv, a controversial figure, is also one of the cements of this “Rus” world, now torn by war. This queen also represents the oldest link connecting France with the East Slavs. At a time when we stand alongside Ukraine in its misery, it is good to remember that friendship with Kyiv dates back a thousand years. Thanks to Anne of Kyiv.