pan-European prestige of Rus´ and created a situation in which Rusian women were the queens of much of Europe, ruling the German Empire, Hungary, Norway, and Poland in the mid-eleventh century. Unfortunately for Yaroslav, the proposition was turned down, and the alliance with the German emperor would not happen in his lifetime. The reasons the marriage was turned down are not recorded and it has been left to historians to hypothesize. It seems likely that Henry was more interested in securing his western frontier than allying with Rus´, and thus arranged a marriage with Agnes of Poitou, the daughter of the duke of Aquitaine. As there was already a considerable struggle between the various territories of France and the German Empire, this was a more immediate necessity thanan alliance with Rus´.

Yaroslav Mudryi (the Wise). Source: Wikimedia Commons

However, Yaroslav’s embassy was noticed in Europe, and in 1049 when Henry I of France was again on the market for a bride, it was remembered. As Andrew Lewis has said, “Henry I married deliberately and well.”[2] His first engagement was to a young daughter of Emperor Conrad II to seal an alliance against Count Odo II of Blois, though she died within a year of the 1033 engagement. Henry continued the alliance by marrying the German princess Mathilda, the niece of Henry III. Mathilda lived long enough to consummate her marriage with Henry (like Conrad II’s daughter she had been underage at the time of the initial engagement). She bore him one daughter, who died in infancy before