Luminaries Illuminated: Rohesia Anvyn

Rohesia Anven was born in the year 1090, the youngest of four siblings, in France. Her siblings were born in both France & Italy... Richard, her father, is a prominent merchant. A much different profession than her uncles, soldiers in the Norman army, but it provided her father the opportunity to capitalize the family wealth in the wake of her uncle's conquests. Because he had one good strength and where her father lacked in martial combat he made up for it in diplomacy and charisma. Her fondest memories of her father are the trinkets he would bring home from his travels for her and her siblings even from such far away places like Egypt!

Her younger years she moved a lot but it did not take long for her father to build a very successful trade businesses in Venice, Italy where she lived the longest as a child. Eventually her father's business led to ties within the Komnenoi ruled Byzantine courts. It was then that her older sister, Ysabel, would not only have the dowry but also the opportunity to meet and marry a rich and well to-do Greek, Nikolaos. Rohesia, then 13, and her eldest brother Aimery, moved with her sister to her new household in Thessloniki. There they helped with the expansion of her family's business. Aimery along with Nikolaos ran the daily operation of the trade business in Thessaloníki moving goods between the family's business in Italy and France. At this point time takes us to the year 1103 and Thessaloniki is where she currently remains helping her sister with domestic duties and which also afforded her such opportunities to learn to read, write and learn from a variety of scholastic topics.  She spends her spare time copying letters and illuminated works as gifts for friends.

Rohesia's Family (who may appear in future stories):

Father: Richard (b. 1063, France)
Mother: Aveline (b.1066, France)
Brothers: Aimery (b. 1084 in Italy),  Guymar (b. 1087 in France)
Sister: Ysabel (b. 1083 in France)
Brother-in-law: Nikolaos ( Thessaloníki b. 1078, m. 1103)

Uncles: Gunthar (b. 1050, France), Lothar (b. 1052, France)
Aunts: Genevieve (b. 1054, m. 1079 to Gunthar), Jeanne (b. 1068, Aveline's sister)

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Photo: Baron Bardulf