Zoe Karbonopsina

Zoe Karbonopsina
Empress consort of the Byzantine Empire
Zoe and her son, emperor Constantine VII. Follis minted during Zoe's regency, 914–919
Reign	9 January 906 – 11 May 912
Died	Sometime after 919
Burial	Monastery of St. Euphemia, Constantinople
Spouse	Leo VI the Wise
Issue	Constantine VII
Dynasty	Macedonian

Zoe Karbonopsina, also Karvounopsina or Carbonopsina, i.e., "with the Coal-Black Eyes" (Greek: Ζωή Καρβωνοψίνα, Zōē Karbōnopsina), was an empress consort and regent of the Byzantine empire. She was the 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 un-canonical 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. Shortly before his death Alexander provoked a war with Bulgaria. She returned on Alexander's death in 913, but Nicholas forced her to enter the convent of St. Euphemia in Constantinople 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.