Agnes of France, renamed Anna (1171 – 1220), was Byzantine Empress by marriage to Alexios II Komnenos and Andronikos I Komnenos. She was a daughter of Louis VII of France and Adèle of Champagne. Betrothal and marriage In early 1178, Philip, Count of Flanders visited Constantinople on his way back from the Holy Land. The Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, who had already entertained Louis VII in Constantinople at Christmas 1147 during the Second Crusade, was perhaps finally convinced by Philip that France would be a desirable ally in Western Europe. Over the winter of 1178-1179 an Imperial embassy accompanying Philip, and led by the Genoese Baldovino Guercio, was sent to the French court to secure a match between Agnes and Alexios, the only son and heir apparent of Manuel by his second wife Maria of Antioch. This or some similar marriage alliance had been favored by Pope Alexander III as early as 1171. It was not uncommon for princesses, when a future marriage had been agreed, to be brought up in their intended husband's family; this, indeed, is why Agnes probably never met her elder sister Alys, who lived in the Kingdom of England from the age of about nine, when her marriage to the future Richard I of England was agreed on (though this marriage never took place). Agnes took ship in Montpellier, bound for Constantinople, at Easter 1179. At Genoa the flotilla increased from 5 to 19 ships, captained by Baldovino Guercio. On arrival in Constantinople in late summer 1179 Agnes was met by seventy high-ranking ladies and lavish festivities were organized for her. She was greeted with an oration from Eustathios, former Master of the Rhetors and archbishop of Thessalonica. She was perhaps now presented with an elaborate volume of welcoming verses by an anonymous author, sometimes called the Eisiterion. According to William of Tyre, Agnes was eight on her arrival at Constantinople, while Alexios was thirteen. William got Alexios' age wrong (he was born on 14 September 1169) and there is no other source for Agnes' year of birth. If she was in fact eight, she was at least three years too young for marriage, according to most 12th-century views. However, William of Tyre, who was present at the ceremony, seems to describe it as a full wedding (matrimonii legibus ... copulare); in this he is followed by some other non-Byzantine sources and by