Anna Anachoutlou

Anna Anachoutlou
Empress of Trebizond
Reign	17 July 1341 – 4 September 1342
Predecessor	Irene
Successor	John III
Died	September 1342
Dynasty	Komnenos
Father	Alexios II Megas Komnenos
Mother	Djiadjak Jaqeli

Anna Anachoutlou (died 1342) was Empress of Trebizond from July 17, 1341, to September 4, 1342. Anna was the elder daughter of Emperor Alexios II of Trebizond and his Georgian wife, Djiadjak Jaqeli.

Anna's only notable act, before becoming empress, was to endow a small monastery in Jerusalem dedicated to St. Euthymios. This monastery is documented in a single document, the Testament of a monk Gerasimos, dated November 18, 1344. When she first made this endowment is not known, but Anna had taken monastic vows during the reign of Irene Palaiologina.

Trapezuntine aristocrats persuaded her to abandon the cloister and seize the crown; she was proclaimed empress in Lazia and her supporters escorted her to Trebizond. Wherever she went, according to William Miller, the people joined the revolt and when Anna, reinforced by the troops sent by the Georgian king George V, arrived at the walls of Trebizond on July 17, 1341, she was admitted without resistance and acclaimed empress, while Irene was deposed.

Three weeks later three Byzantine galleys arrived at Trebizond with troops under the leaders of the Scholarioi faction, Niketas Scholares and Gregory Meitzomates. With them came Anna's uncle Michael, who was the husband chosen for the now deposed Irene by the regents of her half-brother John V Palaiologos. The Metropolitan Akakios and some of the nobility seemed to accept Michael as the legitimate ruler of Trebizond. Not wishing to be governed by a forceful man of mature years, Anna's supporters, the nobles of the Lazian faction, promptly imprisoned Michael in the palace, while Anna's Lazic troops dispersed the crowd supporting Michael and plundered his ships.

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