View source for Blanche d'Artois, Regent of Navarre

Recently on Gen-Medieval, a [[Descent From Antiquity]] was proposed behind Blanche d'Artois (died 1302), Regent of Navarre and wife of Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster and of Leicester.

The descent relies on a few newer connections being recognized.  As Leo van de Pas sources, ES already gives us the ascent from Blanche up to [http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00027070&tree=LEO Isaac II Angelos, Emperor of Byzantium] (d 1204) and his wife Herina or Eirene.  However ES gives no parentage for this Eirene.  Leo notes "Isaac's wife may have been a member of the Palaiologos family."

However a Gen-Medieval posting by Shawn Potter makes this connection definite citing: "Rudolf Hiestand, “Die Erste Ehe Isaaks II
Angelus und Seine Kinder” in Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen
Byzantinistik, 47 [1997]: 199-208.  On January 18-19, 2000, Don Stone
cited this and other articles to support the proposition that the
first wife of Isaac II Angelos was a daughter of Georgios Comnenodukas
Palaiologos, whose wife was a Georgian princess.  He also wrote that
Jean-Claude Cheynet and Jean-Francois Vannier, in Etudes
Prosopographiques, 1986, esp. 156-158, 162-163, show that Andronikos
Palaiologos was called “beloved brother-in-law” of Isaac II Angelos,
Emperor of Byzantium.  See
[http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.genealogy.medieval/browse_thread/thread/d4ba348a038117a7/8a22561a8cd087d4?lnk=gst&q=%2Baspae+%2BPalaiologos# here].
On March 15-24, 2003, Igor Sklar provided additional information
indicating that the mother-in-law of Isaac II Angelos was Aspa of
Ossetia, daughter of David of Ossetia and Rusudan of Georgia, daughter
of David IV, King of Georgia and Rusudan of Armenia, see
[http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.genealogy.medieval/browse_thread/thread/8bb3109e040d86c2/91e8424efaa0f0ee?lnk=gst&q=%2Baspae+%2Bgeorgia# here]"

In that discussion, Don Stone states : "Hiestand's article is of special interest because it explores the
hypothesis that the first wife of Isaac II is a member of the
Palaiologos family, perhaps the daughter of Georgios Palaiologos
Komnenodoukas, megas hetaireiarches (Grand Heteriarque).  This is based
on a reference to Andronikos Palaiologos (probable son of Georgios) as
beloved "gambros" [brother-in-law or son-in-law, though the former is
more likely] of Emp. Isaac II in a document (from 1191, I think) printed
in A. Papadopoulos-
Kerameus's _Analekta ..._, II, Petersburg, 1894, p. 362.  Unfortunately,
the genealogy of the early Palaiologoi is somewhat murky; Lindsay
Brook's "The Byzantine Ancestry of the Prince of Wales," _The
Genealogist_ 2 (1981): 3-51, gives (p. 22) Andronikos as son rather than
brother of Alexios, son of Georgios, and _The Oxford Dictionary of
Byzantium_, 1991, v. 2, p. 1558, gives Andronikos as son-in-law of
Alexios.  (From the latter source we also learn that palaiologos means
"junkman.")  In any case, _The Doukai_ by Demetrios I. Polemis, 1968,
asserts (top of p. 156) that Georgios had a son Alexios by an
unidentified wife.

Georgios Palaiologos's wife might be Aspae, a cousin of the Georgian
princess Kata or Katae; Aspae and Katae are mentioned in a scholion to
the histories of John Tzetzes.  (See, e.g., Paul Gautier, "La Curieuse
Ascendance de Jean Tzetzes," _Revue des Etudes Byzantines_ 28 (1970):
pp. 207, ff., esp. pp. 208-9.  See also A. Kazhdan, "Rus'-Byzantine
Princely Marriages in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries," _Harvard
Ukrainian Studies_ 12/13 (1988/1989): 414-429, esp. p. 423.  And
finally, see Jean-Claude Cheynette and Jean-Francois Vannier, _Etudes
Prosopographiques_, 1986, esp. pp.156-158, 162-163.)  

Katae married (as second wife) Alexios, son of Emp. John II Komnenos.
This is a different princess Kata from the one (probably a generation
earlier), daughter of David IV the Builder (b. 1070, king from
1089-1125, d. 1125), who Rafal Prinke has shown was the wife of the
sebastokrator Isaak Kommnenos and the mother of Emp. Andronikos I
Komnenos.  Cheynette and Vannier, p. 162, say that Alexios married his
first wife Dobrodeja in 1122, that she died in 1131, and that he then
married Katae, who was probably (from chronological considerations) a
daughter of the Georgian king Demetrios I (d. 1156/8), son of David the
Builder.  At court Katae used the first name Eudocia.  On the following
page they say that Aspae was married to a Palaiologos ca. 1135; Hiestand
says (p. 206) the marriage took place ca. 1145.  Cheynette and Vannier
call attention to a letter of Tzetzes addressed to the wife of the Grand
Heteriarque at the time of the march of the Germans against
Constantinople in July-Aug. 1147; they believe that this Grand
Heteriarque is George Paleologus and that his wife (to whom the letter
was addressed) is perhaps Aspae.

There is thus the possibility of a Georgian royal descent for the first
wife of Isaac II Angelos, though it may be hard to confirm or pin down
details.  Rafal: could you inquire of your Georgian correspondent, Prof.
Mariam Lordkipanidze, whether modern Georgian scholarship sheds any
light on Aspae? "
-----
Pierre Aronax [http://groups.google.ca/group/soc.genealogy.medieval/msg/7004924e6577a271 here], points out that the ascent from Aspa is very tentative, hardly more than one theory among many.

==Sources==
*"Proposed DFA through Georgia", by Shawn Potter, 24 Aug 2008 
*[http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00005198&tree=LEO "Blanche d'Artois, Regent of Navarre"] at genealogics