Jan Herbert

Jan is a teacher, historian and writer, specialising in early mediaeval Germany.

Her novel 'Theophanu, Empress of the West' was published by Three Abbeys in 2007.ISBN: 978-09555244-0-0

In the closing decades of the tenth century, the child Theophano Sclerina, princess of Byzantium, survived murderous intrigues in the great palace of Constantinople, only to be sent to Rome at the age of twelve to marry Otto II, seventeen-year-old heir to the equally turbulent Ottonian Empire. In the next eleven years the young couple together faced plots, counter-plots, rebellions, foreign invasions, catastrophic defeats and daring escapes, as well as producing four children. In 983 disaster struck when Otto died suddenly in Rome. A thousand miles away in Germany a rival claimant immediately kidnapped the baby heir, Otto III. Could his mother cross the Alps in time to find and rescue her son? Could she claim his birth-right for him? If she succeeded, what kind of empress-regent would she make? This is the story of the fascinating woman known to her western subjects as the Empress Theophanu.

Theophanu, Empress of the west is available for purchase directly from Jan Herbert. Please email her for details.

She is currently writing an historical novel cum school story for children, also set in Ottonian Germany.