Anna Comnena

Anna Komnene (1083–1153), Latinized as Anna Comnena, was a Byzantine historian and the author of the Alexiad, an account of the reign of her father, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. She was born in the purple at the Great Palace in Constantinople and received an exceptional education in literature, rhetoric, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, and history. After her husband Nikephoros Bryennios died, she retired to the Kecharitomene Monastery, where she wrote the Alexiad in the 1140s–1150s. Her work is the most important primary source for Byzantine history of the late 11th and early 12th centuries and for the First Crusade. She is often considered the first female historian in the Western tradition.