Alexios III Angelos
Alexios III Angelos | |
---|---|
Greek Orthodox |
Alexios III Angelos (
Early life
Alexios III was the second son of
His younger brother Isaac II was threatened with execution under orders of Andronikos I, their first-cousin once-removed, on 11 September 1185. Isaac made a desperate attack on the imperial agents and soon killed their leader Stephen Hagiochristophorites. He then took refuge in the church of Hagia Sophia and from there appealed to the populace. His actions provoked a riot, which resulted in the deposition of Andronikos I and the proclamation of Isaac as Emperor. Alexios was now closer to the imperial throne than ever before.
Reign
By 1190 Alexios had returned to the court of his younger brother, from whom he received the elevated title of sebastokratōr. In March 1195 while Isaac II was away hunting in Thrace, Alexios was acclaimed as emperor by the troops with the covert support of his wife Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera. Alexios captured Isaac at Stagira in Macedonia, put out his eyes, and thenceforth kept him a close prisoner, despite having previously been redeemed by Alexios from captivity at Antioch and showered with honours.[2]
To compensate for this crime and to solidify his position as emperor, Alexios had to scatter money so lavishly as to empty his treasury, and to allow such licence to the officers of the army as to leave the Empire practically defenceless. These actions inevitably led to the financial ruin of the state. At Christmas 1196, Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI attempted to force Alexios to pay him a tribute of 5,000 pounds (later negotiated down to 1,600 pounds) of gold or face invasion. Alexios gathered the money by plundering imperial tombs at the church of the Holy Apostles and heavily taxing the people through the Alamanikon. Because of Henry's death in September 1197, the gold was never dispatched. The Empress Euphrosyne tried in vain to sustain his credit and his court; Vatatzes, the favourite instrument in her attempts at reform, was assassinated by the emperor's orders.[2]
In the east the Empire was overrun by the
During the first years of Alexios' reign, relations between Byzantium and
Fourth Crusade
Soon, Alexios was threatened by a new and more formidable danger. In 1202, soldiers assembled at
The crusaders, whose objective had been Egypt, were persuaded to set their course for Constantinople, arriving there in June 1203, proclaiming Alexios IV as emperor, and inviting the populace of the capital to depose his uncle. Alexios III took no effective measures to resist, and his attempts to bribe the crusaders failed. His son-in-law, Theodore I Laskaris, who was the only one to attempt anything significant, was defeated at Scutari, and the siege of Constantinople began. Misgovernment by Alexios III had left the Byzantine navy with only 20 worm-eaten hulks by the time the crusaders arrived.[citation needed]
In July, the crusaders, led by the aged
Life in exile
Alexios III attempted to organize resistance to the new regime from
Alexios III attempted to escape Boniface's "protection" in 1205, seeking shelter with
Family
By his marriage to Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera, Alexios had three daughters:
- Eirene Angelina, who married (1) Andronikos Kontostephanos, and (2) Alexios Palaiologos, by whom she was the grandmother of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos.
- Anna Komnene Angelina, who married (1) the sebastokratōr Isaac Komnenos, great-nephew of emperor Manuel I Komnenos, and (2) Theodore I Laskaris, emperor of Nicaea.
- Eudokia Angelina, who married (1) Serbian King Stefan Nemanjić II, then (2) Emperor Alexios V Doukas, and (3) Leo Sgouros, ruler of Corinth.[7]
See also
Notes
- ^ "Verisys". Archived from the original on 7 February 2009. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
- ^ a b c Bury 1911.
- ^ Fine 1994, pp. 29–30.
- ^ Fine 1994, p. 46.
- ^ Ćirković 2004, pp. 34–35.
- ^ Treadgold 1997, p. 717.
- ^ Finley 1932, p. 484.
References
- Michael Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025–1204: A Political History, 2nd ed., (London and New York, 1997)
- public domain: Bury, John Bagnell (1911). "Alexius III". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 577–578. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Brand, Charles M. (1968). Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180–1204. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. OCLC 795121713.
- ISBN 978-1405142915.
- ISBN 0-472-08260-4.
- Finley, John H. Jr. (1932). "Corinth in the Middle Ages". Speculum. 7 (4): 477–499. S2CID 162152937.
- Jonathan Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades, (2nd ed. London and New York, 2014). ISBN 978-1-78093-767-0
- Jonathan Harris, Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium (London and New York, 2007)
- ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
- Savignac, David. "The Medieval Russian Account of the Fourth Crusade – A New Annotated Translation".
- Varzos, Konstantinos (1984). Η Γενεαλογία των Κομνηνών [The Genealogy of the Komnenoi] (PDF) (in Greek). Vol. B. Thessaloniki: OCLC 834784665.
- Plate, William (1867). "Alexios III Angelos". In William Smith (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 130.
- ISBN 0-8047-2630-2.