Child brides as young as 8 (eight)...

The child empress Agnes of France was the spouse of two emperors of Byzantium, the boy emperor Alexius II Comnenus, and subsequently Andronicus I Comnenus, the latter's first cousin once removed. Agnes was born to King Louis VII of France's third wife, Adèle (or Alix) of Blois-Champagne, the daughter of Count Theobald II of Blois, in 1172. This made her the younger sister of the future French king Philip II Augustus. The house of Blois-Champagne was the second most powerful magnate house in France (after the house of Plantagenet). The emperor Manuel I Comnenus was looking for allies in the west, since the Peace of Venice in 1177 had effectively allied the Pope (Alexander III), the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, the other Italian communes and Sicily against him. After discussion with the count of Flanders, Philip of Alsace, who visited Constantinople in early 1178 on his way back from the Holy Land, Manuel sent an embassy, including Philip, to the French court over the winter of 1178-1179 to secure a match between his son Alexius (born in 1169) and the princess Agnes.[[1]] This match may have been opposed by the members of the house of Blois-Champagne, who were pro-German.[[2]]

According to William of Tyre, Agnes was only eight on her arrival at Constantinople, while Alexius was thirteen; in fact Alexius was born on 14 September 1169.[[3]] Child brides, whether Byzantines or foreign princesses, were the norm rather than the exception, especially from the late twelfth century. Irene Ducaena, wife of Alexius I Comnenus, was twelve at her marriage, and empress before she was fifteen; the Byzantine princess Theodora, Manuel's niece, was in her thirteenth year when she married Baldwin III of Jerusalem; and Margaret-Maria of Hungary married Isaac II Angelus at the age of nine. Agnes's age, then, was not unusual, especially as it was customary for young engaged couples in Constantinople to be brought up together in the house of the socially superior partner.[[4]]

We hear little of Agnes during Alexius' reign (24 September 1180 to prior to 24 September 1183). It is highly unlikely that the match was consummated, as it was customary to import imperial brides from overseas at a young age to enable them to become acquainted with Greek and with their future ceremonial duties; certainly it was unusual under normal circumstances for Byzantine girls to marry before the age of twelve. However, shortly before Alexius completed three years as emperor, Manuel's first cousin Andronicus made himself co-emperor and then usurped Alexius's position altogether, putting him out of the way by having him throttled. Nicetas Choniates then, with morbid relish, claims that Andronicus (who was born c. 1118 and was thus about 65 years of age) sexually exploited the eleven-year old princess.[[13]] Despite the fact that his marriage to Anna, some fifty years his junior, may well have been made for political reasons -- and Andronicus had portraits of Mary of Antioch in the capital replaced with ones of himself either alone or accompanied by his child-bride[[14]]-- Choniates makes the most of the opportunity to ridicule Andronicus, his age and the incongruity of the alliance ('the overripe suitor embracing the unripe maiden, the dotard the damsel with pointed breasts, the shriveled and languid old man the rosy-fingered girl dripping with the dew of love').[[15]] According to Eustathius of Thessalonica as well, the match was repugnant to her, as she regretted Alexius' death and loathed Andronicus:[[16]] She was the young daughter of the king of France, and as everybody knew hated the union because she was full of intelligence; and after having experienced a different kind of gentle loving, she loathed the roughness of Andronicus. Sometimes, they say, she would imagine in her dreams that she saw the young Alexius, and would cry out his name, and she alone knew what she suffered.