Zoe Karbonopsina

Who is Zoe Karbonopsina?

Zoe Karbonopsina, also Karvounopsina or Carbonopsina, i.e., "with the Coal-Black Eyes", was fourth wife of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise and the mother of Constantine VII.

Zoe Karbonopsina was a relative of the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor and a niece of the admiral Himerios. Desperate to sire a son, Leo VI married his mistress Zoe on 9 January 906, only after she had given birth to the future Constantine VII at the end of 905. However, this constituted his fourth marriage, and was therefore uncanonical in the eyes of the Eastern Orthodox church, which had already been reluctant to accept his third marriage to Eudokia Baïana, who died in childbirth in 901.

Although the Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos reluctantly baptised Constantine, he forbade the emperor from marrying for the fourth time. Leo VI married Zoe with the assistance of a cooperative priest, Thomas, but Nicholas' continued opposition to the marriage led to his removal from office and replacement by Euthymios in 907. The new patriarch attempted a compromise by defrocking the offending priest but recognizing the marriage.

When Leo died in 912, he was succeeded by his younger brother Alexander, who recalled Nicholas Mystikos and expelled Zoe from the palace. She returned on Alexander's death in 913, but Nicholas forced her to enter a convent after obtaining the promise of the senate and the clergy not to accept her as empress. However, Nicholas' unpopular concessions to the Bulgarians later in the same year weakened his position and in 914 Zoe was able to overthrow Nicholas and replace him as regent. Nicholas was allowed to remain patriarch after reluctantly recognizing her as empress.