Hugh Capet, who was descended from Charlemagne, was elected King of the Franks in 987. Although they were still Carolingians, his descendants are known as the Capets, who continued to rule for centuries. Hugh’s son Robert II ruled for 35 years, which consolidated their power. He was the persecutor of Jews and suppressed a heretical movement in Orleans, so he gets nicknamed Robert the Pious.
Robert’s son Henry I was left widowed in 1044. His ambassadors could not find any European bride who wasn’t too closely related to him. They finally looked farther away and saw the rising power of Kyiv (Kiev). Prince Vladimir of Kyiv had married a Byzantine princess, while his son Yaroslav married a Swedish princess.
Yaroslav’s daughter Anne was raised as an Orthodox Christian, probably under the tutelage of priests from Constantinople. But her family had only been Christians for one generation. Both Sweden and Rus were barbaric places compared with Constantinople; they were even barbaric compared with Aachen and Paris. Neither of them actually minted money at that time; they used fragments of silver bars for barter. Swedish kings still preferred their silver to be formed into arm rings, not coins, and Sweden was not yet Christian.
On the other hand, young Anne’s pedigree included the past Emperors of Eastern Rome, and her father was at that time in control of vast areas of frontier forest. Kyiv had rapidly modeled itself after Constantinople’s buildings and customs. Five-course Byzantine dinners, using forks, were typical at Yaroslav’s palace. Greek and Latin scholarship was imported as quickly as possible, too. There was a high contrast between palace life and the Kyivan countryside.
Henry I married Anne in Rheims Cathedral in 1051.
Anne spoke Greek as a native tongue, and she could read Greek, Latin, Slavic, and at least two other languages. She was far better educated than anyone she met in Paris. Her husband, Henry I, was illiterate in spite of his ancestor Charlemagne’s insistence on literacy. He was so impressed with her intelligence and education that he made her an active part of his governing council. Some of his decrees (signed only with a cross, for his name) had an added inscription “with Anne’s consent.”
Anne’s oldest son was given a Greek name, Philip. Subsequent children had European names: Hugh, Robert, and Emma. There’s no record of the name Philip in Europe before Anne’s son, who became Philip I. When Henry I died, Anne of Kyiv became the Queen Regent for her son Philip. There are still some medieval Latin documents containing her name written in Cyrillic characters. This, too, is odd; for it was not until several centuries later that names counted as legal signatures in Europe. If a scribe wrote her name, why not in Latin? It appears that Anne herself chose to authenticate documents with her signature, and that her name in Slavic letters remained her identity.