Christophoros Lakapenos

Christophoros Lakapenos (right) with his father Romanos I on the lapel of a solidus

Christophoros Lakapenos (also Lekapenos , Middle Greek Χριστόφορος Λακαπηνός , * around 900; † August 931 in Constantinople ) was a Byzantine co-emperor from 921 until his death .

Life

Christophoros was the eldest son of the emperor Romanos I. Lakapenos (920-944) and his first, unknown wife. He had four younger half-brothers, the later patriarch Theophylactus , the two co-emperors Stephanos and Constantine, and the later Parakoimomenos Basileios . His younger half-sister Helena Lakapene had been married to Constantine VII since 919 , who was ousted as chief emperor ( basileus ) by his father-in-law the following year . With his wife Sophia , Christophoros had two daughters and the sons Romanos and Michael .

On May 20, 921, Christophoros was crowned co-emperor (Symbasileus) and appears as such on coins together with Romanos I. He was considered his father's favorite son, but initially only took third place behind him and his brother-in-law Constantine VII of the Imperial College. On the occasion of the wedding of his daughter Maria-Irene to the Bulgarian Tsar Peter I on October 8, 927, the Bulgarian delegation at a festive banquet two days later ensured that the newly crowned father-in-law of their Tsar was acclaimed before the actually higher-ranking Constantine VII . Christophoros thus moved up to the second position in the imperial hierarchy and was now considered the presumptive successor to Romanos I as the main emperor. The following year he refused to overthrow his father-in-law Niketas , who was then banished from the palace.

Christophoros Lakapenos died in August 931 at a time when his younger half-brothers and co-emperors Stephanos and Constantine were still children. Constantine VII was then again granted the top of the ranking of co-emperors by Romanos I.

swell

• Al-Masʿūdī , Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa-'l-ischrāf 173
• Konstantin Porphyrogennetos , De Administrando Imperio 13, 161-164; De Thematibus 6, 41-42
• Pseudo-Symeon 727-742
• Johannes Skylitzes , Konstantinos 12; Romanos Lakapenos 7-20
• Symeon Logothetes 136
• Theophanes Continuatus 6: 13-28
• Vita Basilii iun. ( BHG 263) fol. 22r
• John Zonaras 16, 17-19

literature

• Franz Dölger : Regest of the imperial documents of the Eastern Roman Empire from 565-1453. Part 1, half volume 2: Regesten from 867-1025 (= corpus of Greek documents from the Middle Ages and modern times. Row A: Regesten. Dept. 1, Part 1, half volume 2). 2nd edition revised by Andreas E. Müller . CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-51351-4 , No. 595b, 610, 612.
• Alexander P. Kazhdan (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . Oxford University Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-19-504652-8 , p. 442.
• Otto Kresten , Andreas E. Müller : Samtherrschaft, legitimation principle and imperial document title in Byzantium in the first half of the 10th century (= session reports Austrian Academy of Sciences, philosophical-historical class. Volume 630). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-70-012226-8 .
• Ralph-Johannes Lilie , Claudia Ludwig, Thomas Pratsch, Beate Zielke, Harald Bichlmeier, Bettina Krönung, Daniel Föller, Alexander Beihammer , Günter Prinzing : Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period . 2nd department: (867-1025). Volume 1: A ... i ... (# 20001) - Christophoros (# 21278). Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann . Published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. De Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-016666-8 , pp. 765–768 No. 21275.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 2: Baanes-Eznik of Kolb . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2008, ISBN 978-2-503-52377-4 , p. 214.
• Alexander A. Vasiliev : Byzance et les Arabes. Department 2: La dynastie macédonienne (867–959). Volume 2: Extraits des sources arabes (= Corpus Bruxellense historiae Byzantinae. Dept. 2, Vol. 2, ZDB -ID 2197364-7 ). Édition française prepared by Henri Grégoire et Marius Canard, traduits by Marius Canard. Éditions de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves, Brussels 1950, p. 397.