“For even the greatest of deeds, if not haply preserved in written words and handed down to remembrance, become extinguished in the obscurity of silence”

-Preface, The Alexiad

Anna Komnene is one of the first female historians and one of the most valuable primary sources of the Middle Ages. Her written account of her father’s reign, The Alexiad, is our only source of the First Crusade from a Byzantine perspective. This is invaluable to historians even to the present day. In the Byzantine Empire, the role of historian was not typically a title a woman would hold. Byzantine culture was very much a patriarchal society. The ideal woman was to be virtuous, demure, patient, compassionate, and silent. In fact, the ideal state for women in their society was to be in complete seclusion. Naturally, the only women able to achieve this “perfect state” at the time were wealthy and upper-class women. They could afford to remain in seclusion. Yet, unsurprising, women did get involved in the public sphere, but to keep their womanly reputation intact they had to be more creative about the way they went about it. Anna Komnene proved that in her famous history she was an authoritative source and excellent writer, but also acting in the way a noble woman should in society.

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