Alexios V.

Alexios V.

Alexios V. Dukas Murtzuphlos ( Middle Greek Ἀλέξιος Εʹ Δούκας ὁ Μούρτζουφλος ; * around 1160; † after April 13, 1204 in Constantinople ) was Byzantine emperor from February 5, 1204 to April 13, 1204. His epithet "Murtzuphlos" refers to exceptionally bushy eyebrows. He was married to Eudokia, a daughter of Emperor Alexios III.

His uprising was the result of a revolution in Constantinople against Isaac II and Alexios IV , in which both regents were deposed on January 25, 1204 and initially replaced by Nikolaos Kanabos . After he had Alexios IV strangled and Isaac II died (presumably he was poisoned on his orders), he had Nikolaos Kanabos deposed and imprisoned again after a few days of reign. On February 5, he ascended the throne as Alexios V himself.

Alexios V led the defense of the city , which was besieged by the knights of the Fourth Crusade, with great courage . But when he had to recognize the hopelessness of his situation, he fled to Alexios III on April 12th to ally himself with him against the crusaders. But his father-in-law blinded him and handed him over to his opponents. As the murderer of Alexios IV, who the Crusaders regarded as a legitimate ruler, he was sentenced to death and overthrown from the Theodosius column .

Alexios V was the last Byzantine emperor before the establishment of the Latin Empire , which ruled the city for the next 57 years.

literature

• Ljubomir Maksimović: Alexios V. Dukas Murtzuphlos . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , Sp. 387.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization , Vol. 1: Aaron - Azarethes . Brepols, Turnhout 2007, pp. 160-161. ISBN 978-2-503-52303-3
• Şerban Marin: The Portrait of a ‛Bad Guy '. Alexius Doukas Murtzuphlos in the Venetian Chronicles , in: Études byzantines et post-byzantines 7 (2016) 25–60. ( academia.edu )

predecessor	Office	successor
Nikolaos Kanabos	Emperor of Byzantium 1204	Theodor I.