Dating Issues: The defection of Sebastokrator Isaakios Komnenos to the Danishmendid Turks, the death of his brother Andronikos Komnenos, and the death of their mother Empress Irene Doukaina

Recent publications continue to view the year of the death of Empress Irene Doukaina as uncertain, with estimates falling within a ten-year range. Therefore, it is advisable to return to the subject and once again cite the testimonials and data that lead with certainty to the conclusion that the death occurred after 1130 and before 1136, possibly on Feb 19, 1133. The year 1136 as the terminus ante quem of Irene Doukaina's death is irrefutably derived from the Typikon of the Pantokrator Monastery, which explicitly refers to her as deceased. Many know that the Pantokrator Typikon was signed by Emperor John II Komnenos in Oct 1136 of the fifteenth indiction cycle. When the sebastokrator Andronikos, son of Irene and Alexios I Komnenos died, Theodore Prodromos wrote a prose monody for his untimely death and also composed a poem of lament addressed to his mother. A further prose monody about the same personage was written by Michael Italikos. In this poem, Prodromos, after referring to other earlier deaths of beloved relatives that had saddened the empress, stated that she had lost two sons almost simultaneously.