Emperor Alexios I Komnenos is blessed by Christ.
Miniature from the parchment manuscript 666, fol. 2r. in the Biblioteca Apostolica, Vatican.
After more than 50 years of ineffective or short-lived rulers, Alexius found the empire "at its last gasp", but his military ability and diplomatic gifts enabled him to retrieve the situation. He drove back the south Italian Normans, headed by Robert Guiscard, who were invading western Greece (in 1081 and 1082). This victory was achieved with Venetian naval help, bought at the cost of granting Venice extensive trading privileges in the Byzantine Empire.
In 1091 he defeated the Pechenegs, Turkic nomads who had been continually surging over the Danube River into the Balkans. Alexius halted the further encroachment of the Seljuq Turks, who had already established the Sultanate of Rum (or Konya) in central Anatolia. He made agreements with Sulayman ibn Qutalmïsh of Konya (in 1081) and subsequently with his son Qïlïch Arslan (in 1093), as well as with other Muslim rulers on Byzantium's eastern border.
|
At home, Alexius' policy of strengthening the central authority and building up professional military and naval forces resulted in increased Byzantine strength in western and southern Anatolia and eastern Mediterranean waters. But he was unable or unwilling to limit the considerable powers of the landed magnates who had threatened the unity of the empire in the past. Indeed, he strengthened their position by further concessions, and he had to reward services, military and otherwise, by granting fiscal rights over specified areas. This method, which was to be increasingly employed by his successors, inevitably weakened central revenues and imperial authority. He repressed heresy and maintained the traditional imperial role of protecting the Eastern Orthodox church, but he did not hesitate to seize ecclesiastical treasure when in financial need. He was subsequently called to account for this by the church.
To later generations Alexius appeared as the ruler who pulled the empire together at a crucial time, thus enabling it to survive until 1204, and in part until 1453, but modern scholars tend to regard him, together with his successors John II and Manuel I, as effecting only stopgap measures. But judgments of Alexius must be tempered by allowing for the extent to which he was handicapped by the inherited internal weaknesses of the Byzantine state and, even more, by the series of crises precipitated by the western European crusaders from 1097 onward. The crusading movement, motivated partly by a desire to recapture the holy city of Jerusalem, partly by the hope of acquiring new territory, increasingly encroached on Byzantine preserves and frustrated Alexius' foreign policy, which was primarily directed toward the reestablishment of imperial authority in Anatolia.
His relations with Muslim powers were disrupted on occasion and former valued Byzantine possessions, such as Antioch, passed into the hands of arrogant Western princelings, who even introduced Latin Christianity in place of Greek. Thus, it was during Alexius' reign that the last phase of the clash between the Latin West and the Greek East was inaugurated. He did regain some control over western Anatolia; he also advanced into the southeast Taurus region, securing much of the fertile coastal plain around Adana and Tarsus, as well as penetrating farther south along the Syrian coast. But neither Alexius nor succeeding Comnenian emperors were able to establish permanent control over the Latin crusader principalities. Nor was the Byzantine Empire immune from further Norman attacks on its western islands and provinces - as in 1107 to 1108, when Alexius successfully repulsed Bohemond I of Antioch's assault on Avlona in western Greece. Continual Latin (particularly Norman) attacks, constant thrusts from Muslim principalities, the rising power of Hungary and the Balkan principalities - all conspired to surround Byzantium with potentially hostile forces. Even Alexius' diplomacy, whatever its apparent success, could not avert the continual erosion that ultimately led to the Ottoman conquest. Alexius I Comnenus. ...... Encyclopædia Britannica
Irene was the wife of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus, known from the description of her in the Alexiad of their daughter Anna Comnena. When Alexius became emperor in April 1081 he reportedly planned to repudiate Irene and wed Mary, who had been married to the former emperors Michael VII Ducas and Nicephorus III Botaneiates. It was probably fortunate for Alexius that his plan was foiled, for his repudiation of his wife would have incurred the enmity of the powerful Ducas family. Irene was crowned on April 11, 1081, seven days after her husband.
In violation of the rights of John, the eldest son of Alexius and Irene, the Empress supported the attempts of her daughter Anna to secure the throne for her second husband, Nicephorus Bryennius. Shortly before his death, the Emperor, aware of the intrigues of his wife and daughter, ordered John to proclaim himself emperor. John had himself crowned in the church of Hagia Sophia and then, with his supporters, occupied the heavily fortified Sacred Palace. Alexius died in August 1118, and Irene, frustrated in her attempts to deprive John of the throne, retired to a monastery that she had previously founded in Constantinople. The Ducas (also spelled Dukas or Doukas) were a Byzantine family that supplied several rulers to the empire. So much prestige was attached to the Ducas name that many later rulers tried to add it to their own.
Anna Comnena (December 1, 1083 - 1153) was a daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus, and is the first female historian. She was her father's favourite and was carefully trained in the study of poetry, science and Greek philosophy. But, though learned and studious, she was intriguing and ambitious, and ready to go to any lengths to gratify her longing for power. Having married an accomplished young nobleman, Nicephorus Bryennius, she united with her mother, Irene, in a vain attempt to prevail upon Alexius I during his last illness to disinherit his son John and give the crown to Anna's husband. Still undeterred, she entered into a conspiracy in 1118 to depose her brother John after his accession; and when her husband refused to join in the enterprise, she exclaimed that "nature had mistaken their sexes, for he ought to have been the woman."
The plot being discovered, Anna forfeited her property and fortune, though, by the clemency of her brother, she escaped with her life. Shortly afterwards, she was dispatched to a convent and employed her leisure in writing the Alexiad--a history in Greek of her father's life and reign (1081-1118), supplementing the historical work of her husband. It is rather a family panegyric than a scientific history, in which the author's affection and vanity stand out. Trifling acts of Alexius are described at length in exaggerated terms, while little notice is taken of important constitutional matters. A determined opponent of the Latin church and an enthusiastic admirer of the Byzantine Empire, Anna Comnena regards the Crusades as a danger both political and religious.
John II Komnenos (September 13, 1087 – April 8, 1143) was Byzantine emperor from 1118 to 1143. Also known as Kaloïoannes ("John the Beautiful"), he was the eldest son of emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina. The second emperor of the Komnenian restoration of the Byzantine Empire, John was a pious and dedicated emperor who was determined to undo the damage his empire had suffered at the battle of Manzikert, half a century earlier.
In the course of his twenty-five year reign, John made alliances with the Holy Roman Empire in the west, decisively defeated the Pechenegs in the Balkans, and personally led numerous campaigns against the Turks in Asia Minor. John's campaigns fundamentally changed the balance of power in the east, forcing the Turks onto the defensive and restoring to the Byzantines many towns, fortresses and cities right across the peninsula. In the southeast, John extended Byzantine control from the Maeander in the west all the way to Cilicia and Tarsus in the east. In an effort to demonstrate the Byzantine emperor's role as the leader of the Christian world, John marched into the Holy Land at the head of the combined forces of Byzantium and the Crusader states; yet despite the great vigour with which he pressed the campaign, John's hopes were disappointed by the treachery of his Crusader allies, who deliberately failed to fight against the Muslim enemy at the crucial moment.
The Latin historian William of Tyre described John as short and unusually ugly, with eyes, hair and complexion so dark he was known as 'the Moor'. Yet despite his physical appearance, John was known as Kaloïoannes, "John the Handsome" or "John the Beautiful". The epithet referred not to his body but to his soul. Both his parents had been unusually pious and John surpassed them. Members of his court were expected to restrict their conversation to serious subjects only. The food served at the emperor's table was very frugal and John lectured courtiers who lived in excessive luxury. Despite his austerity, John was loved. His principles were sincerely held and his integrity great.
John was famed for his piety and his remarkably mild and just reign. He is an exceptional example of a moral ruler, at a time when cruelty was the norm. He never condemned anyone to death or mutilation. Charity was dispensed lavishly. For this reason, he has been called the Byzantine Marcus Aurelius. By the personal purity and piety of his character he effected a notable improvement in the manners of his age. Gifted with great self control and personal courage, John was an excellent strategist and an expert imperator in the field, and through his many campaigns he devoted himself to the preservation of his empire.
In 1119–1121 John defeated the Seljuk Turks, establishing his control over southwestern Anatolia. However, immediately afterwards, in 1122, John quickly transferred his troops to Europe to fight off a Pecheneg invasion into Moesia. These invaders had been auxiliaries of the Prince of Kiev. John surrounded the Pechenegs as they burst into Thrace, tricked them into believing that he would grant them a favourable treaty, and then launched a devastating surprise attack upon their larger camp. The ensuing Battle of Beroia was hard fought, but by the end of the day John's army of 20,000 men had won a crushing victory.
John then launched a punitive raid against the Serbs, many of whom were rounded up and transported to Nicomedia in Asia Minor to serve as military colonists. This was done partly to cow the Serbs into submission (Serbia was, at least nominally, a Byzantine protectorate), and partly to strengthen the Byzantine frontier in the east against the Turks. However, John's marriage to the Hungarian princess Piroska involved him in the dynastic struggles of the Kingdom of Hungary. Giving asylum to a blinded claimant to the Hungarian throne (called Álmos), John aroused the suspicion of the Hungarians, and was faced with an invasion in 1128. The Hungarians attacked Branicevo on the Danube, and penetrated south as far as the outskirts of Philippopolis. After a challenging campaign lasting two years, the emperor managed to defeat the Hungarians and their Serbian allies, and peace was restored.
The emperor then directed his attention to the Levant, where he sought to re-inforce Byzantium's suzerainty over the Crusader States. In 1137 he conquered Tarsus, Adana, and Mopsuestia from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, and in 1138 the country's ruler and most of his family were brought as captives to Constantinople. This opened the route to the Principality of Antioch, where Prince Raymond of Poitiers recognized himself the emperor's vassal in 1137, and John arrived there in triumph in 1138. There followed a joint campaign as John led the armies of Byzantium, Antioch and Edessa against Muslim Syria. Although John fought hard for the Christian cause in the campaign in Syria, his allies Prince Raymond of Antioch and Count Joscelin II of Edessa sat around playing dice instead of helping John to press the siege of Shaizar. These Crusader Princes were suspicious of each other and of John, and neither wanted the other to gain from participating in the campaign, while Raymond also wanted to hold on to Antioch, which he had agreed to hand over to John if the campaign was successful in capturing Aleppo, Shaizar, Homs, and Hama. While the emperor was distracted by his attempts to secure a German alliance against the Normans of Sicily, Joscelin and Raymond conspired to delay the promised handover of Antioch's citadel to the emperor.
John planned a new expedition to the East, including a pilgrimage to Jerusalem on which he planned to take his army with him. However, on Mount Taurus in Cilicia, on April 8, 1143, he was accidentally infected by a poisoned arrow while out hunting. The poison set in, and shortly afterwards he died. John's final action as emperor was to choose his youngest son Manuel Komnenos to be his successor.
John II Komnenos married Princess Piroska of Hungary (renamed Eirene), a daughter of King Ladislaus I of Hungary in 1104; the marriage was intended as compensation for the loss of some territories to King Coloman of Hungary. She played little part in government, devoting herself to piety and their large brood of children. Eirene died on August 13, 1134 and was later venerated as Saint Eirene. John II and Eirene had 8 children:
|
