Manuel Komnenos Dukas Angelos

Manuel Komnenos Dukas Angelos († 1241 ) was regent in Thessaloniki and Thessaly from 1230 to 1237 . Without real political power, he claimed in competition with John III. Dukas vatatzes in the Empire of Nicaea for some time the Greek title of emperor.

Life

Manuel Komnenos Dukas Angelos depicted on a billion Aspron trachy (silver-copper coin) minted 1230–1232 in Thessaloniki

Little is known about Manuel's life before he came to power in Thessaloniki. He was a son of the sebastocrator Johannes Dukas . His brothers Michael and Theodor were successively rulers of Epirus , a Greek successor state to the Byzantine Empire , which fell apart as a result of the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204.

In his first marriage Manuel was married to Eufemia, a daughter of the Serbian prince Stefan Nemanjić . The marriage probably remained childless, Eufemia died in 1225. Afterwards Manuel Maria, the daughter of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Assen II, married. This connection brought him the rule of Thessaloniki and Thessaly in 1230. When his brother Theodor attacked Bulgaria in the same year, suffered a crushing defeat against Ivan at Klokotnitsa in March , was captured and blinded, the Tsar installed Manuel as his successor in the remaining areas of the despotate Epirus. Manuel could only take possession of the east, while in the actual Epirus his nephew Michael II prevailed as prince.

Like Theodore before him, Manuel attached himself the imperial insignia and claimed the imperial title, although he acted as a completely dependent vassal of his father-in-law. Only when he wanted to subordinate the Church of Thessaloniki to the Bulgarian Patriarchate, Manuel, with the help of his bishops, offered resistance and in 1233 subordinated the dioceses of his area to the Greek Patriarch in Nikaia.

In 1237 his brother Theodor was released by the tsar. Together with his sons Johannes and Demetrios he returned to Thessaloniki and deposed Manuel. He realized that he no longer had any support at the Bulgarian court, and he disowned his wife Maria, who was returning to Veliko Tarnovo . Manuel turned to Nikaia and sought the support of Emperor John III. In return, he renounced the imperial title. Johannes left him a ship with which Manuel sailed to Thessaly in 1239. He was able to quickly win followers there and raise an army against Theodor and his sons. Theodor and Johannes offered negotiations before serious fighting broke out. It was agreed to divide the rule: Theodore and his descendants kept Thessaloniki and Manuel got Thessaly. There he ruled until his death two years later. Manuel had no descendants, his possessions passed to Michael II of Epirus.

literature

• John VA Fine: The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 , pp. 126-135.
• Michael F. Hendy: Catalog of the Byzantine coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection . Vol. 4: Alexius I to Michael VIII, 1081-1261 , Part 2: The Emperors of Nicaea and Their Contemporaries (1204-1261) . (= Dumbarton Oaks Catalogs ). Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington DC 1999, ISBN 0-88402-233-1 , pp. 566-577.
• Donald M. Nicol : The Despotate of Epiros 1267-1479. A Contribution to the History of Greece in the Middle Ages . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984, ISBN 0-521-13089-1 , pp. 5-6.