Irene Asanina

Irene Asanina (Greek: Εἰρήνη Ἀσανίνα; died after 1354), was the empress consort of John VI Kantakouzenos of the Byzantine Empire.

[2] Her maternal grandparents were protostrator Michael Doukas Glabas Tarchaneiotes and his wife Maria Doukaina Komnene Palaiologina Branaina.

Andronikos III died on 15 June 1341 and was succeeded by his eldest son John V Palaiologos, who was only nine-years-old and was placed under the regency of his mother Anna of Savoy.

Both parties were actually taking advantage of the civil war to advance their own political and territorial agendas and John VI even allied himself with Orhan I of the nascent Ottoman Sultanate.

[3] She defended the city from the attacks of King Ivan Alexander the best she could until her husband, with the help of Sultan Umur of Aydın, made his way back to Didymoteicho in the winter of 1343.

Nicol speculates that she followed the rest of her family to the Morea where her younger son Manuel Kantakouzenos was Despot, but may have returned to Constantinople in 1362 or 1363, where she may have been one of the "Empresses" whom the ambassadors from the Empire of Trebizond met there in April 1363.

Although the date of her death is not recorded, Nicol presumes it happened before 1379 when her husband and other members of her family were taken to Galata as hostages by Andronikos IV Palaiologos.

In his History, John records his mother being a kinswoman of Andronikos II Palaiologos, presumably a cousin by one of the siblings of Michael VIII.