Keratsa Petritsa (, transliteration Keraca Petrica; 1300–1337) was a Bulgarian noblewoman (bolyarka), wife of the sebastokrator Sratsimir and mother of the Bulgarian emperor Ivan Alexander and of the Serbian empress consort Helena. The designation "Keratsa Petritsa" is common in historiography but not attested as such in any contemporary source. For the problems around her names, see note below.
Keratsa Petritsa descended in the female line from the Bulgarian emperor Ivan Asen II.Mladjov 2015: 309 (Table 3). She was the sister of Michael Asen III (called Michael Shishman) and Belaur,Mladjov 2015: 276-277, 292, 309 (Table 3). children of the despotes Shishman of Vidin by an unnamed daughter of sebastokrator Peter and his wife, herself a daughter of Ivan Asen II, variously identified as either Anna/Theodora or Maria.Божилов 1985: 110-113, 119, and Божилов & Гюзелев 2006: 582 assume Anna/Teodora rather than Maria, while Mladjov 2012: 485-490 argues in favor of Maria and against Anna/Theodora. She was also a distant cousin of the Bulgarian emperors Theodore Svetoslav and George Terter II.Божилов 1985: 119; Андреев 2005: 88; Божилов & Гюзелев 2006: 582.
Since the 1250s, the area of Vidin had been effectively autonomous under loose Bulgarian overlordship, and was governed successively by Yakov Svetoslav (died 1276), Shishman (died between 1308 and 1313), and then the future Bulgarian emperor Michael Asen III, all of them receiving the highest court title of despotes. On the childless death of his cousin, the young Bulgarian emperor George Terter II in 1323, Michael Asen, the son of Shishman and brother of Keratsa Petritsa, was elected emperor of Bulgaria by the nobility.Божилов 1985: 120-121.Павлов, Пламен. Търновските царици. В.Т.: ДАР-РХ, 2006.
Keratsa Petritsa is estimated to have been born in c. 1280.Божилов 1985: 137. In c. 1300, she married Sratsimir, who eventually became a despotes like his father-in-law Shishman.Божилов 1985: 137; Атанасов 2009: 79 assumes the awarding of the title to Sratsimir happened in or after 1324, when the despotes Michael Asen, the son of Shishman, became Bulgarian emperor as Michael Asen III, on the supposition that there could be only one despotes at the Bulgarian court at any one time. At some point before 1337, Keratsa Petritsa converted to Roman Catholic Christianity.Божилов 1985: 137; Андреев 2005: 88.Николова 2009 and Младенов 2013: 72-73 doubt that she underwent a complete conversion to Roman Catholicism. In that year, Pope Benedict XII (1334–1342) addressed a letter to his "beloved daughter in Christ, the noblewoman Petrissa, ducissae Carnonen(si)," and sought her assistance in bringing her son, the Bulgarian emperor Ivan Alexander, into the Catholic fold.Дуйчев 1937; Шаранков 2017: 263-264. The Latin term ducissa, "duchess," reflects the Byzantine and Bulgarian title of despoina, which Keratsa Petritsa would have borne as wife of the despotes Sratsimir. More contentious is the interpretation of the toponym Carnonen(si) (in another manuscript Carrionen(si), but arguably Carvonen(si) or Carbonen[si]), which has been identified with either KrănДуйчев 1937; Божилов 1985: 137-138. or Karvuna.Димитрова et al. 1996: 124-125, citing possible miswriting of Carbonen(sis) as Carnonen(sis); Андреев 2005: 89-90, asserting that he found the original manuscript to read Carbonen(sis) during his examination of it in 1986. The relatively recent identification with Karvuna has been accepted by some scholars, who view Sratsimir and Keratsa Petritsa as the rulers of the area prior to Balik and his brothers, with Keratsa Petritsa possibly retaining the territory for a while after her husband's death (in 1330?).Атанасов 2009: 78-83; Младенов 2020: 121-122. A theory that Keratsa Petritsa emigrated to her daughter's court in Serbia is doubtful.Proposed by Божилов 1985: 185, on the assumption that Ivan Dragušin was Keratsa Petritsa's son, this was entertained by Димитрова et al. 1996: 125-127 as indicative of strife between Keratsa Petritsa and Ivan Alexander, but disproved by Матанов 1987, who established that Ivan Dragušin was the son of the despotes Aldimir by an aunt of the Serbian emperor Stefan Dušan; cf. Mladjov 2015: 281.
At some point before her death, Keratsa Petritsa converted from Roman Catholicism back to Eastern Orthodoxy, and retired to a convent under the monastic name Theophana. Her memory is honored in the Bulgarian Orthodox Synodikon (Синодик): Андреев 2005: 88; Николова 2009: 47; Младенов 2013: 73.
Issue Keratsa Petritsa married despot Sratsimir, lord of Krăn or Karbona. They had five known children: Ivan Alexander, despot, lord of Lovech, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria after a coup in 1331. Helena, married the Serbian King Stefan Dušan in 1332. John Komnenos Asen, despot, made ruler of Valona by his brother-in-law Stefan Dušan of Serbia. Shishman Шаранков 2017. This study corrects the long standing earlier assumption that this Shishman was a grandson, the son of a (non-existing) son named Michael, e.g., Божилов 1985: 138, 184, Димитрова et al. 1996: 122; Mladjov 2015: 292, 309-310 (Tables 3 and 4)., lord of Dubilin, named after his grandfather Shishman I. Theodora, lives with his sister Helena at the Serbian royal court. __NOTOC__
Note on the Names "Keratsa Petritsa" (Кераца Петрица) and "Kera Petritsa" (Кера Петрица) are the products of modern historiography and are nowhere attested in such a combination in the primary sources.Божилов 1985: 137. The medieval Bulgarian Synodikon of Boril refers to her as the despoina Keratsa (деспотица Кераца) and as nun Theophana (Өеофана, modern Bulgarian Теофана, Teofana).Божилов 1985: 137. In the letter of Pope Benedict XII, she is called Petrissa, which is rendered in Bulgarian as Petritsa (Петрица, Petrica), ostensibly a diminutive of Petra (Петра, Petra).Дуйчев 1937: 205-210.Божилов 1985: 137. Although some have treated "Keratsa" as a proper name,Димитрова et al. 1996: 122. there is general agreement that "Keratsa" and "Kiratsa" are diminutives of the Greek title kyra ("Lady") and play the role of an honorific attached to, and sometimes substituted for, the proper name.Божилов 1985: 137.Младенов 2020: 121.Mladjov 2012: 489; Mladjov 2015: 269. The Bulgarian historian Andreev has argued that the princess originally bore a double name, of which Keratsa was the first element, before assuming the name Petritsa upon joining the Roman Catholic Church, before changing back to original name on her return to Eastern Orthodoxy, and the final assumption of the monastic name Theophana (Teofana). On the basis of the monastic name and common practice, in which monastic names tended to begin with the same letter or sound as the original secular name, Andreev proposes that the second element of the original name would have been Theodora (Teodora).Андреев 2005: 87-88. Mladjov, on the other hand, considers Keratsa a honorific prefixed to the proper name,Mladjov 2015: 269. Petrica as possibly the Catholic name (in agreement with Andreev), and restores the original proper name on the basis of the monastic name Teofana as probably Tamara rather than Teodora, because she had a daughter named Teodora, and Bulgarian practice at the time avoided giving mother and daughter the same name; while the name Teodora would clash with that of her daughter Teodora, the name Tamara would be reflected, as expected, in the name of her eldest granddaughter Tamara.Mladjov 2012: 487-488; Mladjov 2015: 310 (Table 4).
References
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