Manuel Komnenos (son of Andronikos I)
Manuel Komnenos | |
---|---|
Komnenoi | |
Father | Andronikos I Komnenos |
Mother | Unknown |
Manuel Komnenos (
Nevertheless, Manuel opposed his father's policy of persecuting the aristocracy, and refused to sanction or supervise the execution of Maria of Antioch. As a result, when Andronikos crowned himself emperor in 1183, Manuel was bypassed in the succession, and his younger brother
Origin and early life
Manuel Komnenos was born in 1145, the firstborn son of the future
At a young age, Manuel received the high court title of sebastos from his uncle, Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180).[9] The Emperor was of an age with Manuel's father, and the two had grown up together. Manuel I cherished this friendship and would always be partial to Andronikos,[10] even though the latter, like his own father, was a highly ambitious man who coveted the throne.[11] His ambition, plotting with foreign powers, rumours of attempting to assassinate Manuel I, and above all his scandalous affair with his niece Eudokia (a daughter of the sebastokrator Andronikos) brought Manuel's father into trouble, and in 1155, he was imprisoned by the Emperor in the dungeons of the Great Palace of Constantinople.[12] Manuel is first mentioned in the sources in 1164, when he helped his father escape his imprisonment. Andronikos fled to Galicia, but soon the Emperor pardoned him and allowed him to return to Constantinople.[13][9][14]
Under Manuel I Komnenos
Some modern scholars also identify Manuel with the namesake who was entrusted in c. 1165 with a diplomatic mission to the Russian princes
In 1166, Manuel's mother died, and he had her buried in the Monastery of Angourion.
Under the regency of Maria of Antioch
According to Varzos, it was probably after the death of Emperor Manuel I in 1180,
Manuel and his brother were among the nobility who sided with Manuel I's daughter, the
Under Andronikos I
Released, Manuel and his brother, and Andronikos' partisans, took over the palace and managed the government in his name.
Following the execution of the Empress-dowager, Andronikos assumed the imperial title in September, and within a month had eliminated the young Alexios II. Along with the patriarch
Blinding and subsequent fate
During the popular uprising that brought Isaac II Angelos (r. 1185–1195, 1203–1204) to power on 11–12 September 1185, Andronikos for a time held the Great Palace against the urban mob. Left with a handful of companions, he realized that resistance was doomed, and tried to negotiate, offering to step down in favour of Manuel, rather than the co-emperor John, but the mob angrily refused, cursing both Andronikos and Manuel.[46][47] Soon after, the mob broke into the palace precinct, and Andronikos, taking only his wife and mistress along, fled the city by ship. He was captured, mutilated, publicly humiliated and executed a few days later.[48][49] Manuel too was arrested and blinded, even though, according to Choniates, "he in no way assented to his father's crimes and that this was well known" both to the common people and Isaac II.[50] As Varzos writes, the most likely reason for this measure was not only in satisfying the mob's demand for vengeance on Andronikos and his sons, but also in Andronikos' desperate offer to hand over the crown to Manuel, which marked him as a potential rival to Isaac II.[51] The same fate befell Manuel's brother, the co-emperor John.[52]
Manuel's subsequent fate, or the date of his death, are unknown.
Based on a much-faded inscription in a tower in the city walls of Trebizond, the Russian Byzantinist Fyodor Uspensky suggested that perhaps the tower housed the tomb of Manuel, whose body (and that of Andronikos I) may have been brought to the city by his sons.[58]
Footnotes
- megas hetaireiarches George Palaiologos, and glosses the Turkish name Kir Luga assigned to him in an anonymous Turkish history as "Palaiologos".[5] The Greek scholar Konstantinos Varzos and the French scholars Jean-Claude Cheynet and Jean-François Vannier, however, reject this as George Palaiologos was dead by 1167/70, long before the events that the sebastos George is associated with by Choniates.[6][7] Cheynet and Vannier suggest in turn that Luga might be glossed as "Doukas" instead.[6]
References
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 511.
- ^ Vasiliev 1936, pp. 5–6, 8.
- ^ Toumanoff 1940, pp. 299–312.
- ^ a b Varzos 1984a, pp. 501–503 (esp. note 58).
- ^ Kuršankis 1977, pp. 242–243.
- ^ a b Cheynet & Vannier 1986, pp. 182–183 (esp. note 4).
- ^ Varzos 1984a, pp. 502–503 (note 59).
- ^ Varzos 1984a, p. 238.
- ^ a b Varzos 1984b, p. 512.
- ^ Varzos 1984a, p. 500.
- ^ Varzos 1984a, pp. 493, 498.
- ^ Varzos 1984a, pp. 503–510.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 73–75.
- ^ Varzos 1984a, pp. 512–516.
- ^ Vasiliev 1936, p. 7 (esp. note 3).
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 512–513.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 513.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 513–514.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 514.
- ^ a b Varzos 1984b, p. 515.
- ^ Vasiliev 1936, pp. 5, 8.
- ^ Toumanoff 1940, p. 309 (note 1.
- ^ Brand 1968, p. 28.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 516–517.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 515–517 (note 24) with extensive discussion of the previous literature on the possible identity of Manuel's wife.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 515 (esp. note 23).
- ^ Choniates 1984, p. 131.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 517–518.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 137–139.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 139–140.
- ^ a b Varzos 1984b, p. 518.
- ^ Choniates 1984, p. 142.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 143–144.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 518–519.
- ^ Brand 1968, p. 74.
- ^ Choniates 1984, p. 149.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 519.
- ^ Brand 1968, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 519–520.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, pp. 518, 520.
- ^ a b Varzos 1984b, p. 520.
- ^ Brand 1968, pp. 67–68.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 184–187.
- ^ a b Varzos 1984b, p. 524.
- ^ a b Brand 1968, p. 69.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 188–190.
- ^ Brand 1968, pp. 71–72.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 190–193.
- ^ Brand 1968, pp. 72–73.
- ^ Choniates 1984, p. 198.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 525.
- ^ Choniates 1984, pp. 197–198.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 528.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 526.
- ^ a b ODB, "Alexios I Komnenos" (C. M. Brand), pp. 63–64; "David Komnenos" (C. M. Brand), pp. 589–590.
- ^ Varzos 1984b, p. 527.
- ^ ODB, "Grand Komnenos" (C. M. Brand, A. Kazhdan, A. Cutler), pp. 866–867.
- ^ Vasiliev 1936, pp. 8–9.
Sources
- Brand, Charles M. (1968). Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180–1204. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. OCLC 795121713.
- Cheynet, Jean-Claude; Vannier, Jean-François (1986). Études Prosopographiques [Prosopographic Studies] (in French). Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. OCLC 575241198.
- ISBN 0-8143-1764-2.
- ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
- Kuršankis, Michel (1977). "L'Empire de Trébizonde et la Géorgie" [The Empire of Trebizond and Georgia]. Revue des études byzantines (in French). 35 (1). OCLC 4794708241.
- S2CID 162584594.
- Varzos, Konstantinos (1984). Η Γενεαλογία των Κομνηνών [The Genealogy of the Komnenoi] (PDF) (in Greek). Vol. A. Thessaloniki: OCLC 834784634.
- Varzos, Konstantinos (1984). Η Γενεαλογία των Κομνηνών [The Genealogy of the Komnenoi] (PDF) (in Greek). Vol. B. Thessaloniki: OCLC 834784665.
- S2CID 162791512.