Марија, Сестра Српске Краљице Јелене Mary, the Sister of Queen Helen of Serbia

Abstract

Relatively numerous source data about Mary, the sister of Serbian queen Helen, the wife of King Uroš I, proved to be crucial for resolving the long-elusive issue of Helen’s origins. However, Mary was in her own right an important historical personality, whose family links and life course mirror the complexity of political and religious relations in southeastern Europe in the 13th century. The paper begins by readdressing the issue of Mary’s and Helen’s origins, which has not met with an appropriate response in historiography. Then, following in the path of several studies recently published abroad, it sheds light on Mary’s life course, from her marriage to Anselm of Cayeux, a prominent baron of the Latin Empire, through her stay in the Kingdom of Sicily, France and Serbia, to the data on her offspring.