Alexios Komnenos (Protosebastus)

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Glare of Protosebastus Alexios Komnenos. Detail from an illuminated manuscript by William of Tire in the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Alexios Komnenos ( medium Greek Ἀλέξιος Κομνηνός * 30th March 1141 in Constantinople Opel , † spring of 1183 ) was a Byzantine aristocrat from the dynasty of Comnenus .

Life

Alexios Komnenos was the youngest of five children of Sebastokrator Andronikos Komnenos and Irene Aineiadissa († 1150/51) and thus a nephew of Emperor Manuel I. He had a brother Johannes and the sisters Maria , Theodora and Eudokia .

Alexios was still a toddler when his father died in the autumn of 1142 during a stay in Attaleia in Pamphylia, presumably of the same febrile illness that had recently succumbed to his uncle, the co-emperor Alexios . He grew up with his siblings at the imperial court in Constantinople . In May 1157 he took part in the Synod convened by Manuel I in the Blachernen Palace , which decided on the condemnation of the elected Patriarch of Antioch , Soterichos Panteugenos , as a heretic . Also in 1166 and 1170 Alexios is mentioned as a synod participant. He received several titles that were reserved for members of the imperial family, such as Sebastos , Protobestiarios and Protostrator ; after the death of his brother John in the battle of Myriokephalon in 1176, Manuel I raised him to Protosebastus .

When Manuel I died on September 24, 1180, Alexios Komnenus, who was said to have had a relationship with the imperial widow Maria of Antioch , took over the affairs of state for the underage heir to the throne Alexios II as regent . He apparently relied heavily on Latin advisers, which led him to made unpopular with the Byzantine aristocracy. It was not long before an opposition gathered around Princess Maria Komnena and her husband, Emperor Johannes (Rainer von Montferrat) in Constantinople, with the aim of murdering Protosebastus .

The plot failed in March 1181, but Mary of Antioch was forced to pardon the conspirators. In her need she called the Hungarian King Béla III. to help, while the opposition called on the general Andronikos Komnenos , who pursued his own ambitions for the throne, to intervene. When it became known that Andronikos was marching from Asia Minor with barbaric auxiliaries on Constantinople, the hatred of the population against the supremacy of the Latins erupted in the form of pogroms against all Catholic residents and especially against the Venetian and Genoese merchants.

In Constantinople, Andronikos I had the young Alexios II crowned emperor on May 16, 1182, took over actual power as regent and immediately devoted himself to eliminating possible rivals. One of the first victims was the Protosebastus Alexios Komnenos, who was thrown into prison and cruelly blinded and emasculated in the spring of 1183 ; he died shortly afterwards of his serious injuries. A little later Andronikos I had the young Alexios II and his mother Maria killed; Maria Komnena had already been poisoned in July 1182.

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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. 189-218 No. 132, digitized version (PDF; 45 MB) .
  • Paul Magdalino: The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143-1180. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-52-152653-1 .
  • Steven Runciman : History of the Crusades, Volume 2: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East 1100-1187. Beck, Munich 1968 (reprint), ISBN 3-40-639960-6 , pp. 348, 728.
  • Alicia Simpson: Niketas Choniates. A Historiographical Study. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-967071-0 (Oxford Studies in Byzantium), p. 86 and passim .

Web links

Remarks

  1. This date of birth results from the information in Prodromos, according to which Alexios was born on an Easter Sunday during the two-year absence of his father and was already able to speak when he returned to Constantinople in the autumn of 1142 dead (or dying). The child must have been conceived in the year the father left, around mid-1140.