Alexios Komnenos (Pinkernes)

Alexios Komnenos ( medium Greek Ἀλέξιος Κομνηνός * around 1160 in Constantinople Opel , † 1187 ) was a Byzantine prince of the dynasty of Comnenus , who in 1185 as a pretender to the throne against Emperor Andronikos I. occurred.

Life

Alexios Komnenos was a son of Johannes Dukas Komnenos and thus a great-grandson of Emperor Johannes II. His older sister Maria had been Queen of Jerusalem as the wife of Amalrich I since 1167 .

Alexios grew up in Constantinople in the palace of his great-uncle Manuel I , whose special affection he enjoyed - which fueled rumors that the emperor was in truth his biological father. He carried the title of Sebastos and held the dignity of Pinkernes (imperial cupbearer ) and protostrator ( marshal ) at court .

Before Andronikos I, who had risen to become the sole ruler in Constantinople in 1183 and established a brutal arbitrary regime, Alexios fled to the Normans in Sicily in 1184 , where he pretended to be the murdered Alexios II . Under the pretext of wanting to help the young Komnenen to the Byzantine throne, Wilhelm II sent a large force to Greece in the summer of 1185. In the conquered Thessaloniki , Alexios was proclaimed anti-emperor on August 24th. When the Normans were already about to attack Constantinople with part of their army, Andronicus I was overthrown by Isaac II on September 11th .

The general Alexios Branas decisively defeated the Normans on November 7, 1185 in the Battle of Demetritzes . Alexios Komnenos was captured and blinded ; he died in prison two years later.

swell

• Niketas Choniates 296; 319-322; 360 (ed. Jan-Louis van Dieten, CFHB Vol. 11, 1975)
• Eustathios of Thessalonike 58-63 and passim
• Theodoros Skutariotes 344–345 (ed. Konstantin Sathas , BGMAE vol. 7, 1892, reprint 1972)

literature

• Κωνσταντίνος Βαρζός: Η Γενεαλογία των Κομνηνών (= Βυζαντινά Κείμενα και Μελέται. Τ. 20β , ZDB ID 420491-8 ). Τόμος Β '. Κέντρο Βυζαντινών Ερευνών - ΑΠΘ, Θεσσαλονίκη 1984, pp. 471–473 No. 155 II ( PDF; 45 MB) .
• Charles M. Brand: Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180-1204. Harvard University Press, Cambridge NJ 1968, ISBN 0-81-431764-2 , pp. 160-161, 174-175.
• Jean-Claude Cheynet: Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (= Publications de la Sorbonne. Series Byzantina Sorbonensia. Vol. 9). Reimpression. Publications de la Sorbonne Center de Recherches d'Histoire et de Civilization Byzantines, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-85944-168-5 , pp. 118–119 No. 161 (?), 162.
• Jürgen Hoffmann: Rudiments of territorial states in the Byzantine Empire (1071-1210). Ars Una, Neuried 1974, ISBN 3-89391-396-3 , p. 44.
• Paul Magdalino: The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143-1180. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-52-152653-1 , pp. 197, 225.
• Alicia Simpson: Niketas Choniates. A Historiographical Study. (= Oxford Studies in Byzantium ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-967071-0 , pp. 305-306, 319.
• Paul Stephenson: Byzantium's Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-52-177017-3 , pp. 284-288.

Web links

• Alexios Komnenos on Medieval Lands