Lady Elena Cantacuzino
Briefly mentioned by documents and history books and rarely part of collective memory, the wives, mothers and daughters of Romanian boyars of the past have raised the interest of researchers.
Christine Leșcu, 18.12.2021, 14:00
Briefly mentioned by documents and history books and rarely part of collective memory, the wives, mothers and daughters of Romanian boyars of the past have raised the interest of researchers. Some of them have found that these women had contributed a lot to the political, cultural and religious life of their time. Such an example is Lady Elena Cantacuzino, born in 1611, daughter of the ruler of Wallachia, Radu Serban, mother of ruler Serban Cantacuzino, of scholar Constantin Cantacuzino, of army chief Mihai Cantacuzino and the grandmother of ruler Constantin Brancoveanu. Lady Elena and two of her children went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which was something extraordinary for the 17th century. In Jerusalem, in the area where Jesus was crucified, she donated a golden plate, inscribed with the name of her son, Serban Cantacuzino, which is now part of the heritage of the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. Religion was a very important part of her life, alongside culture and education. One of her sons had studied at the University of Padova and she had an important say in the decision to send him abroad for studies.
Sorin Iftimi, a museographer at the Moldavia National Museum Compound in Iasi tells us more about Lady Elena Cantacuzino: “She was the daughter of Radu Seban Voda, former captain in the army of Michael the Brave, who would become ruler. She was born in Suceava, in 1611, on the first year of her fathers rule. She was raised in exile, at the Imperial Court in Vienna. She returned to the country with her family during the reign of Matei Basarab. She was 17 when she married Constantin Cantacuzino a wise nobleman picked for her by the then ruler. She gave birth to 12 children. Those who survived would become the famous Cantacuzino brothers, who marked the history of Wallachia in the 17th century. We could say Lady Elena herself made history, by giving birth to the artisans of Wallachias history in the 17th century. Serban Voda Cantacuzino, who erected the Cotroceni Palace, the presidential headquarters of today, and under whose patronage the first full version of the Bible in Romanian was printed in 1688, was the best known. In his turn, his brother, Constantin Cantacuzino, was a scholar who studied in Padova and Constantinople.
Lady Elenas trip to Jerusalem, between 1682 and 1684, took place after her husband had been assassinated as part of a plot staged by boyars. The pilgrimage seems to have been a proof of the genuine faith in God of this woman who, although she managed to prove her husbands innocence and obtain the conviction of the ones who plotted against him, when his murderer received the death penalty she succeeded to change this sentence with the obligation for the murderer to become a monk.
Spending a lot of time with her children, she was also the one who managed the family fortune, which was a considerable one. Ruler Serban Cantacuzino had inherited from his mother a large estate made up of around 70 villages in Moldavia, as well as houses. Sorin Iftimi tells us more about it: “It is interesting to see that, even if her son, Serban Cantacuzino, had become ruler, she continued to be the head of the family. She controlled and managed the family fortune and set strict rules on how it was about to be distributed among her children. So her son, who was the ruler, could not do anything but wait for her to pass away in order to be in charge. She died in March 1687 at her home in Bucharest, aged 76. She was buried at the Margineni church near her husband.“
The story also has a post-scriptum concerning especially Serban Cantacuzino, who, after the death of his mother, divided the fortune after his own rules, by forging her will. Recent historical research shows that this thing explains better the conflicts of that time, both in politics and among family members.
