Emissaries of the
Byzantine Emperor John II Comnenus arrived in Germany, seeking an alliance against
Roger II of Sicily. To seal the alliance, the emissaries requested that Conrad send a princess of his family to be married to the emperor's son, Manuel. Instead, Conrad selected his sister-in-law, Bertha, and sent her to
Greece escorted by
Emicho von Leiningen, the
Bishop of Würzburg.
By the time Bertha arrived at the Imperial court in
Constantinople, the emperor John was dead, and his son Manuel was now the reigning emperor. Manuel delayed marrying her for three years, until shortly after
Epiphany 1146, at which point she became empress and was renamed "Irene" (Εἰρήνη), a common name for foreign-born princesses. As an introduction for her to the Hellenic culture she was marrying into,
John Tzetzes wrote his
Allegories on the Iliad.
Bertha-Irene was noted for shunning the frivolity of the luxurious Byzantine court;
Basil of Ochrid, the
archbishop of
Thessalonica, praised her for her modesty and piety, and
Nicetas Choniates (53sq.) noted that she did not wear face-paint. The
patriarch of Constantinople, Cosmas II Atticus, who had been accused of heresy, allegedly cursed Bertha-Irene's womb in
1147 to prevent her bearing a son. She and Manuel had two daughters:
#
Maria Comnena (
1152-1182), (not to be confused with the Queen of Jerusalem by that name who was a relative) who married
Renier of Montferrat.
# Anna Comnena (
1154-1158)
Bertha-Irene died in
1159. Her husband Manuel was described as "roaring like a lion" in grief at her death, despite his infidelities during her lifetime. He remarried, in
1161, to
Maria of Antioch.
